Chapter 1: What the Heck is That?
Author's Note: In all of my stories, Tails is 4 and ½ years old like he is in AOSTH unless otherwise noted. In this story, we follow Tails through his everyday adventures. I don't own anything from Sega. I wish I did, because then I wouldn't have to write this darn disclaimer. Give me reviews, I like to know where I can improve! Flames are not welcome, I WILL REPORT YOU TO THE STAFF! Do not make me do this, I have gotten one person's account frozen because he/she was flaming one of my friends on a once-per-chapter basis.
Chapter 1: What the heck is that?
"Holy Diver, you've been down too long in the Midnight Sea. Oh what's becomin' of me…"
Tails was having trouble sleeping. That was understandable considering the kind of day he'd had. They'd been at a concert all day long, listening to Sonic's band doing the songs of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and other bands like Dio, whose #1 hit Tails had stuck in his head right now.
"Like the tiger, you can see his stripes but you know he's clean. Oh what's becomin' of me…"
He continued to sing it out loud, knowing that the best way to get rid of a song stuck in your head is to sing it out loud a few times until it goes away. Of course he had to sing it quietly, since everybody else was sleeping. It was kind of windy outside, so he had a difficult time hearing himself.
"I gotta get away… Holy Diver…"
All of a sudden, there was a sound downstairs like nothing Tails had ever heard.
Cooooooooooooooooo Coo-coo-coo Coooooooooooooooooooo!
"What the heck is that?" The little kit asked himself as he sat up in his racecar bed.
The sound repeated several times every few seconds. Tails had never heard anything like it. It almost sounded like a cross between a cat purring and a soft female voice. Tails' imagination started to run away with him.
"Maybe 'Buttnik's trying to kill us with Woman-Cat crossbreeds! Oh, that's right. We cemented him into a cell to die. It could be Blaze tryin' to play a trick on me, Yeah that must be it!"
But then Tails remembered how nice Blaze is to him.
"Nah, Blaze is too nice to do that. She even gave me some candy today!"
Tails licked his lips just thinking about that king-sized Twix bar. As far as he was concerned, Twix bars were the best candies on Mobius. In fact, it wouldn't surprise Tails at all if he were to find out that God himself made each candy bar. (A/N: Yes, before you ask, I do like Twix bars. They're my favorite candies!)
"Maybe her boyfriend Big got lost again and walked into the wrong house."
This seemed plausible until he remembered that Big had bought a map to prevent that from happening anymore.
"I've just gotta go down there an' see what it is."
So Tails went over to his toy box to grab some essentials. First he put on an orange life vest (Since he had no armor, this was the best he could do) then he popped his football helmet on his head to protect his brain from serious injury. Finally, he grabbed an umbrella as kind of a shield and a toy sword as a weapon. Now he was all ready to face the danger.
"That thing'd better watch out! I'm well-armed, I'm fast, I'm mean, and I can do this!"
When he said that last thing, he stabbed at a nearby stuffed animal with the toy sword and went creeping down the stairs.
It was dark in their three-story Japanese style home. The wind howled outside, rattling leaves against the walls, making branches clatter like bones, and making the wind chimes twinkle and ring in an eerily beautiful way. Nighttime was just a little scary to Tails, being that he was a little kid. But he wasn't gonna let all the scary sounds and shadows scare him back up to bed.
"You can't scare me, you stupid wind! I know you're just movin' air!" he whispered.
Down the stairs he skulked, skulking like only foxes know how. If there were any rabbits or chickens nearby and if Tails were a wild fox, they'd never know what hit them. He crept silently across the living room.
"That sound's comin' from somewhere near the computer room."
He started to continue, but stopped when he noticed a light in the living room, which was right in the path to the computer room. Tails gasped.
"Oh my gosh! What if that thing I heard is radioactive? It might give us all cancer!"
Peeking around the corner, his suspicions were alleviated when he caught sight of the TV, which had been left on. Sonic had apparently fallen asleep while watching 'South Park', a TV show Sonic said Tails couldn't watch until he turned sixteen like him.
"I better not wake him up. He gets cranky when he gets woke up at night."
So Tails dropped to the floor and crawled Army-style across the living room so he wouldn't draw Sonic's subconscious attention by making a shadow between him and the TV.
With the TV/Hedgehog obstacle cleared, Tails tiptoed to the center of the computer room. He stood in the center of the room, craning his neck to the side, and cupping a hand next to his ear to hear the recurring sound better.
Coo-Coo-Coo Coooooooooooooooooooooooo Coo-Coo-Coo"That sound's comin' from our basement!" Tails exclaimed.
This was the ultimate test. Tails had always been afraid of that basement. One time, the door got stuck and he had to scream for two hours before anyone heard him. (Sonic had said he was only down there for five minutes, but Tails knew how grownups and teens have incorrect concepts of time.) There was also the time that spider fell on his head and made him run into the washing machine trying to find help, he was so scared.
"I gotta go down there! If I don't, this thing could get out an' kill us all!"
He took a little time to get his courage fired up, then marched as bravely as he could to the basement. (A/N: The mental image of Tails in a football helmet and lifejacket with his ragtag weaponry, marching like a soldier is just so cute, I think I'm gonna take a second to go hug my AOSTH Tails plushie right now:). Takes second to hug said plushie) He was just right outside the door, when one of his tails struck a table, causing a stack of badly-placed books with a cupful of pencils on top to fall to the floor .
"Oh, poo."
From the next room came the sound of a spiny, male, blue insectivore that stood at three feet, three inches and weighed seventy-two pounds waking up and getting off an overstuffed davenport-style sofa in a lovely shade of blackish-blue.
"What the h-"
Tails heard Sonic use a naughty word that Sally had once washed Tails' mouth out with soap for saying in front of Sally's mother. Sonic came walking into the computer room. His eyes were all bleary, he looked like he was still halfway in dreamland, and his pajamas were all twisted up like he'd been rolling around a lot in his sleep.
"Tails what the heck are you doing?"
"I'm… I heard a noise downstairs an' I'm gonna go see what it is. I was gonna kill it with my sword if it was dangerous." Tails whipped his toy katana around like he was Zorro.
Sonic stifled a laugh.
"Okay, hold on there, Zorro. Just be quiet for a second so I can hear it."
They both got really quiet.
Cooooooooooooooooooooooo Cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Coo-Coo"Hmmmmmm…" Sonic scratched his chin. "Let's go down there. I don't think it's dangerous, but it might be in trouble."
Tails felt a little better about going into the basement now that Sonic was going with him. As they were going down the stairs, Sonic grabbed a flashlight that was sitting by the basement doorway. He clicked it on and shined it in the steps in front of them.
"Watch your step, Tails. Sally got badly hurt once when she fell down just those last ten steps at the bottom. Snapped her ankle like a twig."
Tails shuddered. He'd had a broken finger once, and that hurt bad enough! He didn't even want to think about how bad a broken ankle would feel.
Coo-Coo-Coo Cooooooooooooooooooooooo Coo-Coo-Coo"That sound's comin' from the window up there." Sonic whispered. "Stay here, I'm going over there."
Tails stood there fidgeting with his fingers as Sonic made his way over to the window. There was a long period of silence punctuated with coos until the sound of footsteps began again and became closer. Within less than a minute, Sonic emerged from the darkness, carrying a little lump of grey in his hands.
"Here's that sound you heard, Tails." Sonic grinned.
In his hands, the hedgehog held a pigeon. It let out a few more confused coos.
"It's just a bird!" Tails laughed.
"Come on! We'll let him loose on the porch. He can stay under the awning intil the weather gets better."
So they went to the porch, released the bird, and went on back into the house. Sonic took Tails back up to his room, and tucked him into his little red racecar bed. He said goodnight, and after he was gone Tails snuggled into his puffy down-filled pillow.
"I'm so glad it wasn't a mutant cat lady." Tails said as he drifted off into deep contented sleep.
End of chapter 1.