Two-Tailed Genius
Maple squealed with joy as they flew down the hill on the reddish-orange bicycle, the tires leaving tracks in the almost overgrown grass, barely keeping their balance as they reached the end of the hill, their upper half being thrown forward slightly, completely faceplanting into the bicycle's handlebars with a grunt.
"Oof." They groaned as they sat unmoving for a moment, the bicycle- alongside Maple- falling to it's side, lying on the ground.
Tangle came running down the hill swiftly after them, completely unaware of the wolf's current state until Tangle reached the bottom of the hill, immediately spotting Maple and rushing over.
"Hey, you okay?" Tangle asked, moving Maple off the bike.
"No. No, not really." The wolf spoke through gritted teeth, placing their hand on their forehead as they wiped away a drop of blood, moving their hand infront of their face as their expression almost immediately changed from slightly irritated to mildly mortified.
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" Shouted Maple, a faint whistle sound coming from her tooth gap, completely shocked as she leaped off the floor, standing up next to both Tangle and the bike.
"WHY AM I FREAKING BLEEDING!? I DIDN'T HIT MY HEAD THAT HARD!"
"Broken metal- looks like it's from a badnik, and you scraped your head against it...that's gotta hurt." Tangle said as she searched the area where Maple fell, accidentally stepping on a sharp, yet surprisingly non-rusted, piece of metal.
Maple stared at Tangle, scrunching up her face and looking generally unhappy, throwing her arms in the air and waving them around, going to speak but ultimately having no words to say other than swears.
"I've got a cut- or scar, I guess- like that too, though!" Tangle continued, trying to bring some levity to the already not-so-serious situation, pushing the front part of her mullet back slightly to reveal 2 large scars across the upper part of her forehead.
Maple's attention was immediately dragged away from her 'wound', and brought to the story of Tangle's scars.
Her eyes lit up as she stopped scrunching her face, interested in how her mother got those scars.
"Woah...That's sick!" The wolf yelled, jumping on the spot excitedly.
"How'd you get those scars- do you think my cut will turn into a scar!? That'd be so fucking cool!"
Tangle smiled, laughing for a moment before placing her foot on a nearby rock and striking a heroic pose, beginning to retell the story of her scars.
"So, there I was- defending Spiral hill from hordes of badniks- when Sonic appeared! It was my first time meeting him, and he, alongside Blaze- who, you haven't met yet, actually, but she's a magical fire princess from another dimension, which is pretty freaking awesome, right?- Yeah, anyway, I was fighting alongside them, taking down badnik by badnik, and sooner than later, the three of us had destroyed the horde, saving Spiral hill!"
Maple, still excited but slightly confused, asked,
"AWESOME! Blaze sounds so cool, when do I get to meet her!? But- wait-"
"You never mentioned any scars in that story?...", Tangle simply shrugging and getting off the rock, saying,
"I guess I don't remember."
Just as Tangle said that, a light thud was heard against the ground, Whisper walking towards them with her wispon.
"Really now?" Whisper said, laughing slightly.
"You've got no recollection of the time you launched yourself off your bike for a 'cool stunt' and hit your head?"
"C'mon, it wasn't THAT bad," Tangle replied, interrupted soon after,
"...you tried it again a day after the cut healed."
"HUH- Who told you that!?" Tangle said, laughing.
Whisper chuckled and ruffled Maple's hair,
"Maple's grandmas."
"Woah, so we both got into a bike accident! Mom, that's even fucking cooler!" Maple shouted, before Whisper took a small band-aid from her cloak pockets, placing it over Maple's cut.
"Pff. I guess so, yeah!" Tangle replied, picking up Maple's bike and walking towards a small, orange workshop off in the distance.
"Anyway- we should probably get going. You're gonna love Tails- he's a genius! Helped out me and Whisper capture alot of bad guys back in the day, AND he used to work with Sonic!"
Maple jumped into the air for a moment, throwing their arms upwards in joy,
"AWESOME!...." they yelled, before immediately lowering their arms,
"....who's Sonic?, a puzzled expression appearing on their face as they raised a single eyebrow.
Tangle briefly laughed for a moment, before replying,
"Oh my god- yeah, we never told you much about him, did we?"
"Well, he's sorta, like-"
Tangle went to explain, but then paused for a moment, thinking.
"A renowned hero, I guess?..."
"Yeah, that sounds about right. He's a hero, and saved this place countless times. Really friendly, you're gonna love meeting him!" The lemur then moved to continue walking over to Tails' workshop, but Maple moved infront of her, stopping her and asking a question-
"Wait, so, does this guy have powers or something? I'm. Still kinda confused here."
Tangle was stumped- she didn't know quite what to say. Sonic did have powers, yes, but nobody knew exactly how he got them.
"Ehhh, you'll have to meet him. He's got powers, though! He's super fast." Tangle said, shrugging before walking past Maple, gesturing for her to follow-
"C'mon, he might be at Tails' lab."
Maple lowered her eyebrow, Whisper also beginning to walk ahead.
"Sur- Hey, wait for me!" Maple cried out as she ran after Tangle and Whisper, trying to catch up with them-
as Maple ran across the grass, they eventually arrived at Tails' workshop, soon finding themselves standing infront of the building.
The young wolf stopped in her tracks, almost tripping over as she quickly stopped running, staring at the workshop in awe.
"Woah...it's so cool!!" She spoke, running up to the door-
Which quickly flew open, Maple jumping back slightly in surprise-
"Holy fucking shit!" She exclaimed happily.
"This place looks awesome!"
Maple charged into the workshop, her eyes scanning the room as she looked at all the tools, weapons, and gadgets that were scattered throughout it-
Workbenches filled the place, alongside a variety of tools and a large airplane- the Tornado, to be specific.
Just as Tangle and Whisper entered the workshop, Tails came running in from another room-
Sweat was dripping from his forehead, and he was clearly in a hurry- he was wearing a white labcoat with 2 pockets, a pair of brown goggles with red lenses, and a pair of red steel toed boots. His fur was scruffy and spiky, if not somewhat overgrown, the blue of his eyes had turned brighter and he had dark circles underneath his eyes from sleepless nights spent working on inventions, his tails were definitely overgrown, almost being the same height as him and incredibly fluffy, his ears were covered in notches and his fur was littered with scars, sharp, long claws grew on his hands and he had a lanky, tall stature, and some parts of his fur had changed to a darker, more brown-ish hue.
Tails awkwardly waved as he ran, yelling over to the trio,
"Hi Whisper! Hi Tangle! Hi Mapl-"
He was cut off, though,
because just as Tails was running through the workshop, a peculiar, somewhat arrogant hybrid of a bird and hedgehog with a yellow beak, sage fur, and sharp, pointy quills that were tipped with teal, alongside a pair of ugly bright green crocs adorned with charms of hoverboards and light grey, slightly worn gloves, ran up behind him, covered in bruises- it was like Jet Jr had always just left a fight, the way they were always atleast somewhat injured. Jet Jr lacked any fur patterns, save for the end of their quills, but had a group of white feathers on their chest, which were hidden by the light red, mildly oversized t-shirt they wore, also wearing a pair of old, slightly damaged jeans that were likely a hand-me-down from Jet. Jet Jr was 16, but still slightly shorter than Maple.
"What- How did you get behind me!?!" Tails exclaimed in a mixture of shock and confusion as he turned back towards the bird-hedgehog hybrid, who was carrying a wrench that they had spray-painted green and wrote in crooked handwriting 'Babylon Rogues' on, holding the wrench proudly.
"I've been practicing my heists-"
Jet Jr went to speak, but stopped briefly as they noticed Maple, yelling,
"MAPLE! You're here too!?" excitedly, running over to her.
Friends with Maple, Jet Jr and Maple would kill for eachother- which, would be reassuring if they weren't beating eachother bloody whenever they got the opportunity. If Sonic had a nickel for everytime Jet Jr came home with a bloody nose after fighting with Maple, he'd have too many nickels to count. Despite their fights, though, the two were great friends.
Maple also charged over towards Jet, punching them lightly on the arm.
"JET! Dude, it's great to see you!" Maple shouted, giving Jet Jr a high-five.
"Good to see you too, Maple-"
"Check out this wrench I stole! Painted it green and everything." Jet Jr said proudly, raising the wrench in the air-
"Woah, cool!" Maple replied happily, just as Tails snatched the wrench out of Jet Jr's hand-
"Finally." Tails said, sighing in relief as he placed the wrench in his coat pocket.
For the last hour or so, Tails had been trying to get the wrench from Jet Jr- it seemed Jet, or, more likely, Jet and the Rogues, had taught them how to cause just as much chaos as one of the Babylon Rogues.
"So, you're Maple, right?" Asked Tails, kneeling down slightly to reach Maple's height.
"Yep! And you're....Tails? Right?" Maple replied, giving Tails a thumbs up and smiling.
Tails chuckled,
"Yeah- you can probably guess why." waving his tails slightly.
Maple stared at him in complete confusion, utterly puzzled.
No, infact, she could not guess why. Was it supposed to be obvious? It certainly didn't seem so.
"....No I can't? Yeah, dude- I really can't."
"Oh." Tails exclaimed, slightly surprised-
"Well, I've got two tails."
He pointed at his tails.
"It's kinda a nickname that just...stuck. My real name's Miles, but everyone calls me Tails."
"Huh- neat. My name's Maple, 'cuz of this maple leaf." Maple replied, shrugging.
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The day passed quicker than anyone could've expected, over at Tails' workshop- Maple and Jet Jr caused some chaos, Whisper made some repairs to her wispon with some help from Tangle, and Tails desperately tried to fix the chaos, alongside Tangle and Whisper. Jet Jr had went home, and Maple, alongside her parents, went back to the caravan-
By the time they got there, it was late at night- the stars were shining in the sky, and the moon had risen. Unfortunately, just as they entered the caravan, Whisper remembered something-
A trinket. Nothing extremely valuable, or important, but it had sentimental value. It was a gift from one of the old Diamond Cutters- something Whisper swore never to lose, and she had left it at the workshop. So, hesitantly, Whisper went back to Tails' workshop with Tangle alongside her, locking the caravan door and leaving Maple there for half an hour or so whilst they picked up the trinket.
Whisper wasn't comfortable with the decision, but didn't want to leave the trinket behind. She was incredibly worried for Maple- but Tangle was constantly reassuring her that Maple would be fine.
The two just wished that was the truth,
as they returned to the caravan,
Whisper fell to the floor, furious as tears fell from her face.
Tangle stared at the caravan in horror, shocked but trying to think of what to do-
Because, the caravan was nothing how they left it.
The door was locked.
The windows were shattered.
And there was blood everywhere.
Maple had gone missing, or been killed. Tangle & Whisper hoped it was the former.