Breaking Masquerade of Heroes

Chapter 14 ~ A Magician Named... Surge?

"Ah, who are you...?" She asked as Tails stared at her. Navia looked over and noticed Tails.

Navia laughed, "Hey there Tails! Glad to see you decided to stop by! We're just talking about some residency so we're hoping that you can help with that."

"Residency? To live here...?" Tails asked as he got up and walked over. The person nodded. Tails looked over and saw the person smiling down at him. Tails chuckled nervously as he decided to talk to Navia alone. The two went behind and Navia was confused. "Who is that?"

"She said her name was Surge... and she said she wanted to just look for a place to live here," Navia explained. Tails put his hand near his mouth thinking it over. Surge reminded him of Magnus.

Tails sighed, "Are you sure she... isn't one of Magnus' followers?"

"HUH!? MAGNUS' FOLLOWER-" Tails covered her mouth as he looked over. Surge was looking through her spellbook. Tails looked away as Navia kept staring at Surge. "Now that you mention it, she does look kinda like Magnus..."

Tails explained, "This could be dangerous! We need to do a background check. Sorry it's just that ever since that war, we've been so paranoid of anyone who shares any remote resemblance to Magnus. Surge nearly looks like him which makes my fear even greater."

"Mhm, don't worry I'll figure out a solution to this. I know for a fact we're going to do something about this..." Navia explained. Tails kept staring at her and looked away. He glanced at Surge, doing some completely normal things. But all they could do was run around feeling paranoid all the time. Tails shook his head as he walked out to the front. Navia watched him as Tails called out to Surge.

Tails explained, "Hey there! You said your name was..."

"Surge, Surge Amiya," She introduced. Tails nodded as he started grabbing the files.

Tails described, "Okay if you're going to want to live here we're going to have to do a background check on you. After all, that is something we do to all citizens as Hero Town is a rather special place considering you're going to be living in a vicinity of trouble with heroes."

"The heroes live here?!"

"Why... are you surprised...?" Tails asked nervously. Surge laughed but Tails just felt super uncomfortable with her. It was probably because of all the paranoia. Tails looked over at Navia as she just lowered her hat a bit. Tails had no idea of what to do. He stared down at himself as he started getting more and more nervous.

Surge asked, "Is there something wrong?"

"Nothing..." Tails replied. He stared down at himself thinking it was a bad idea to think about what was happening. But then again, things were oddly calm for a while. "Do you have the... documents about you with you? Just so we can review some stuff."

Surge explained, "I didn't know that was going to happen so... I left them back home. Sorry..."

"I thought you should've known to bring the legal documents...?" Tails asked. Then Surge laughed. She pulled down her hat and out came the documents. "Wha- What the?!"

"I just had them handy!" Surge giggled. Tails had no idea how to feel. Neither did Navia, both of them were just in disbelief over what they witnessed. Tails put his head on the table and let out his hand. Surge handed Tails the documents as Tails started looking over them. Navia walked over to check them over with Surge. "Sorry that startled you, but I am a magician!"

Navia giggled slightly, "I think we could've connected the dots already with the way you look..."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah..." Both of them mumbled. Surge stared at them with confusion as Tails just didn't like the vibe of what was going on. However, Navia was more than happy to do everything. Tails was getting ready to leave when Surge stopped him.

Surge asked, "Oh! Are you one of the heroes?"

"Yes...?"

"That's so COOL! Can I have your autograph!?" Surge begged. Tails shook his head as he waved goodbye to Navia. Navia waved goodbye to him as Tails sped out. Tails was just so conflicted on how to feel. He wanted to pay Navia a visit but now this was happening. Tails kept running down the street. The citizens are cheerful as always. Tails got the mansion and soon went in. Shuichi was still investigating the issue which means Tails needed to figure out something else to do. Tails went downstairs to see what all the other team members were doing.

Most of them were just enjoying themselves doing their own thing. Nothing much was going on. But maybe he could bring up Surge to one of the members. Sonic was doing his own thing, maybe he could bring it up to him. Tails started approaching him but he stopped. Hesitating on moving forward, there was something he couldn't describe but something felt weird. Tails shook his head as he went back upstairs. Deciding to just go to his room and sit and watch Shuichi.

"You're back early..."

"Not much was going on so I just came over to see what was going on, did you find anything?" Tails asked.

Shuichi said, "I'm almost done investigating but as of right now I haven't found anything suspicious. But the fingerprints aren't processed yet. I just started on it so we're going to take a bit."

"Oh... Oh! Wait, there's fingerprints?!"

"Yes, so that means it had to be touched by someone," Shuichi explained. He invited Tails to his room where he had all the equipment in there. He started working on processing the fingerprints as Tails watched. Fascinated by all the detective work that was happening.

Tails asked, "How do you just manage to do this...?"

"There is a lot that needs to be done. It's mostly from my training from before the game and afterward. Doing this takes a lot of patience but I say it's worth it in the end," Shuichi described. He continued viewing over the fingerprints under his tool. He had a lab coat on and goggles. Completely different from his normal detective look.

Tails sighed, "Your job must be hard."

"It... It was at first. Scared of the truth and all, but after so much I've gotten used to it. Everything was worth it in the end!" Shuichi laughed. Tails laughed with him as well. They just started chatting about a lot of things. But Shuichi was still focused on trying to scan the fingerprints. Tails kept thinking about what had caused the change but maybe this was going to provide some answers.

Tails questioned, "Do fingerprints take this long all the time?"

"Oh, usually they take a while so don't suspect we're getting answers now. We're going to get them most likely- Huh?" Shuichi asked. Tails looked at him in confusion as he took a better look at the fingerprints. Suddenly, right as he was speaking there were... answers. "This is strange. It finished processing this quickly. Usually these take days to process."

Tails begged, "Hurry! I need to know what the heck is the reason my alarm and Kirby's didn't go off!" Shuichi nodded as he looked over the fingerprints. His eyes widened in shock after realizing who they belonged to. "Shuichi...?"

"Tails... we may have a bigger mystery than the one we did before."

"WHAT?!"