The Nine-Tailed Fox: World In Ruins

Prologue

Greetings, prospective readers! Welcome to this, one of the most experimental stories I've written in a while. So, I was watching Sonic Prime clips on Youtube, and one of the commenters mentioned something about how Nine's backstory was similar to something called "Where Was My Hero?" Curious, I decided to do a little digging, and I found out that "Where Was My Hero?" was a Sonic fan comic uploaded to Youtube by MercyBhk (the original video is sadly no longer avalible) that is actually pretty tragic. After watching a dub of said comic, I had a curious thought cross my mind: what if Tails Nine ended up in the "Where Was My Hero?" AU after the events of the comic? And this, the concept of this fanfic was born!

Personally, I can see this either going very right, or going horribly, horribly, horribly wrong. But, eh, nothing worth doing was ever done risk free.

Something I should mention is that, in this AU, Miles has also killed Dr. Eggman Nega and, in a legitimate bid to destroy the world, managed to merge the Mobius and Sol Dimensions, with only a last-ditch effort from Blaze using the Jeweled Scepter and the Power of the Stars stopping the dimensions from collapsing, much to Miles' fury. In short, in this AU, the Mobius and Sol Dimensions are now one, which allows me to get up to all kinds of no good with the residents of Sol and Mobius.

Anywho, I've gone on long enough. Let us start the game!

Prologue

It has been said, time and time again, that time flows like a river. All it takes is a simple stone to break the flow and cause it to branch out into an ever-winding and criss-crossing web, with some branches of the stream crossing into other streams, while other streams remain firmly fixed on their current course.

The story of the fastest thing alive, Sonic the Hedgehog, and his younger brother from another mother, the twin-tailed fox boy genius Miles "Tails" Prower, is one that everyone knows like the back of their hand. Tails was bullied and emotionally abused by the entirety of his hometown, who treated him as nothing more than a disgusting freak and nerdy loser, only to find his salvation in the form of Sonic the Hedgehog, who had been passing through the area in pursuit of his sworn enemy, Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, becoming not only the sidekick of the time-honored hero, but a beloved friend and younger brother to Sonic and his steadily increasing circle of friends and allies, finally acquiring the happiness that the fox boy had longed for for most of his life.

But, as I've said before, all it takes to part the flow of time is but a simple stone, and one such stone was the catalyst for the story that I am about to tell you.

In another timeline, on the day that Miles Prower was meant to have met Sonic the Hedgehog, the fox boy instead tripped over a rock, causing him to not only receive a bloodied nose, but miss Sonic as he stopped nearby to regain his bearings in pursuit of Dr. Eggman. As a result, the poor fox boy remained trapped in the vicious cycle of bullying and emotional abuse at the hands of his entire hometown for two long, excruciating years, during which Miles' mental state continued to deteriorate, resulting in a drastically increased number of sleepless nights and increasingly desperate attempts to try to fit in with the villagers, among which was shaving his twin tails to the point of nearly being bald.

One day, Miles decided to leave his village behind in the hopes of finding somewhere that he could truly belong. But, before he departed, Miles came across a small bird, injured and on the brink of death. Taking pity on the bird, Miles decided to adopt it and nurse it back to health. For a time, Miles was happy. He finally had a friend.

Then, one day, this peace was completely shattered forever.

Miles and his pet bird were heading out into the woods to test a new machine Miles had created, only to be discovered by the bullies whose only purpose in life seemed to be to torment Miles and smash his creations. However, despite Miles best efforts to try to stop them, the bullies still tried to smash Miles' new machine, only for the fox boy's pet bird to get in the way, resulting in the creature's death, shattering Miles' psyche. Miles then proceeded to murder the two bullies, before putting his entire village and everyone in it to the torch.

As he left the burning village and its screaming inhabitants behind, Miles vowed that he would show the world just how special he really was.

A few days later, Miles came across Sonic and Dr. Eggman fighting one another. Seeing an opportunity to demonstrate how special he was, Miles sought to help Sonic and become a hero by killing Dr. Eggman. Unfortunately, Sonic was not happy in the slightest with what Miles had done, and the young fox boy was sent to prison for his crimes. However, prison could never hold a genius like Miles Prower, and after his escape, Miles vowed to destroy what he saw as this unfair planet.

For eight long years, even the great Sonic the Hedgehog was powerless as the insane fox and his highly advanced battle android forces swept across the planet, razing entire cities to the ground, destroying families, murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent people indiscriminately, even going so far as to merge Mobius and the Sol Dimension together, all of these atrocities effectively cementing Miles Prower as an even more dangerous and lethal villain than Dr. Eggman ever was. Sonic lost his right eye in a fight with Miles, who had augmented his own body with cybernetic enhancements that placed him in a class far above even the likes of Sonic and his friends, some of whom lost a great deal more than an eye in the two-tailed fox's mad quest for global destruction. It almost seemed as though Miles and his forces were all but invincible.

Until the day came where it seemed like Miles would finally succeed in his quest to destroy Mobius, prompting Sonic to try to stop Miles in one last fight, during which Miles stopped just short of killing the blue hedgehog, while Sonic impaled Miles through the heart. As it turned out, Miles having built a doomsday device was nothing more than a ruse to bring Sonic to him so that the blue blur could finally put the insane fox out of his misery.

While the world celebrated the death of Miles Prower and showered Sonic in undying gratitude and other tokens of thanks, Sonic had a very different opinion on Miles' death, seeing it instead as his greatest failure, believing that if he had been there for Miles when he had been drowning in his suffering, the horrible atrocities that had transpired through out the last eight years at Miles' hand would never have happened, and Miles would not only have been his sidekick, but a member of his family.

Six months have passed since the death of Miles Prower, and the world has struggled to rebuild from the wreckage that the fox had left in his wake. However, a new darkness now looms on the horizon, and Sonic and what remains of his circle of friends and allies won't be able to stop it on their own. Simply put, the world needs a new hero to help contend with this new threat.

And as they say, heroes come from the most unexpected places... and in this case, wearing the most unexpected of faces...

And thus concludes the Prologue! I know, that wasn't really much to work with, but I do hope the stage has been sufficiently set for the story that lies ahead.

Now, if you guys were interested in what you saw here, then be sure to vote, comment, and join me next time as we truly kick this story off with Nine's arrival. See you then! Oh, and Merry Christmas!