Chapter 1: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
Tails was running. Running as fast as he could. "All the lessons
with Sonic
must be paying off," he thought, but he still wished he could go
faster.
KRAKOW!!! A green shimmering bolt flew past him, barely missing his
face.
"Better you stop and let it come quickly, Chosen One, or you shall die
a slow
and painful death," Dimitri's evil-plagued voice came from behind
him.
"Why is Dimitri chasing me?" Tails wondered, "Ya would have
thought he would
go after Knuckles," it didn't matter right now. Right now he had
to get as
much distance between himself and Dimitri as he could. But Tails
didn't see
the tree he was heading straight for. WHAM! He ran full speed into it
and
fell back onto the ground, unconscious.
Tails awoke, not having any idea of what time it was, against what he
presumed was the same tree he had ran into. "Whoa, what happened?"
Tails
felt pressure on the top of his head and also some warm liquid on the
side of
his face. He put his hand against his cheek and brought it back to see
blood
on the tips of his fingers. "Oh no, I've got to get some help"
he thought.
Tails looked up and was startled at what he saw. Two overlanders, one
sitting on the ground with his hand on top of Tail's head, and the
other
leaning against a nearby tree, polishing what looked too much like a
pistol.
Tails scurried back on all fours, "OH MY GOSH! GETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAY!"
"Calm down Tails, or I can't heal your injury properly," Tails
stopped.
"How...how do you know my name?"
"I know a lot about you that you would have thought I wouldn't. Your
real
name, for instance, is Miles Prower, your best friend is Sonic the
Hedgehog,
you live in Knothole Village..."
"How do you know all that?"
"Well, to put it in simple terms, I'm psychic."
"What?!"
"Psychic, ya know, telepathic, I can read minds, move objects with
sheer mind
power, that kind of stuff,"
Tails studied him for a moment. the psychic overlander had brown hair
and
brown eyes and Tails estimated that he was about five foot two. The
other
gun-wielding human sported jet black hair and tanned skin, but he was
too far
away to tell his eye color. His height, however, was unmistakably
tall. At
what Tails guessed, he was almost six feet, towering above his
companion and
almost everyone he knew.
"Oh, wow..." Tails also noticed that the psychic overlander hovered
about an
inch above the ground. "That why you float too?"
"Uh huh. Oh, I almost forgot, my name's Chris, and my friend here is
Justin." Justin let out a friendly smile and turned back to polishing
his
pistol. When he was satisfied enough, he opened the top, put in a
small
cartridge, and slipped it into his holster. "He's a sharpshooter,
collects
guns for a hobby," Chris said. They waited for another minute, then
Chris
spoke again. "Almost done...there," Chris said as he took his hand off
of
Tail's head. Tails felt the top of his own head with his hand and
was
astounded to find that there was no trace of a scar, bump, or bruise.
But
then he noticed an area of blood on Chris's arm.
"Ouch, what happened there?" Tail's questioned.
"Just before that Dimitri guy teleported away, that staff sent
out a
green bolt that glazed my arm, I almost forgot about it. I'm just
grateful
that it didn't fully hit me," he then closed his eyes, deep in
concentration, and miraculously, the wound healed up and disappeared in
several seconds.
"Wow, you really have a lot of power don't you? Say where are you
from?
Justin finally said something, "Were from the planet Earth,"
"Hey, I remember that planet! We went there to recover the Master
Emerald,"
Tails looked at Chris's wrists were there were weird mechanisms, one
on each
wrist, "but I've got one more question for you, what are those
things on
your wrist?" Tails pointed to the strange-looking devices.
"Oh these? They're psionic blades. I can focus my power on them and
produce," one of the devices made a crackling sound, and then a
sky-blue-
colored blade of energy shot out of it and extended a yard from the
device,
"this energy beam," Chris retracted the blade.
"Whoa...that's pretty cool!" Tails exclaimed.
"Yeah, but if I use 'em too much, it drains my energy. And you
don‘t want
to see what happens when I'm forced to use them,"
"Thanks again for saving me you two,"
"No problem, Tails," Justin said. "Come on, lets go back to the
village."
All three walked into the forest.
* * *
"Where the heck is Tails?" Sonic asked to no one in particular. "He
should
have been back over an hour ago."
"Sonic!" Sonic recognized it as Tails's voice. He ran out of his hut
and saw
Tails stepping out of the Great Forest.
"Tails! Where the heck have you been? You should have been back a
long time
ago!"
"Chill Sonic, I'll explain everything later, but right now look who
I've
found. Sonic was startled as two overlanders came out of the woods.
"And who just might you two be?" Sonic asked.
"I'm Chris, and my friend here..."
"Justin's the name,"
"Where did you meet these two, Tails?"
"When I was out in the forest, for some reason, that evil guy who's
Knuckles
ancestor started chasing me. I wasn't looking where I was going and
ran into
a tree, falling unconscious. Then Chris and Justin here had seen that
I was
in danger, so they saved me."
"Well, I never thought I would say this to an overlander, but thanks."
"No problemo."
"What's all the commotion out here?" Sally came out of one of the
huts.
"Wha...? Overlanders?"
"Sal, these two are Chris and Justin, they saved Tails when he was
bein'
chased by Enerjak, that freak who's Knux ancestor." After several
more
introductions, Tails went to explain what had happened to him out in
the
Great Forest to Sonic, while accommodations were set up for Chris and
Justin.
Sonic asked, "From the description of the staff you gave me, it looks
as if
it was the one that Mammoth Mogul had before we pounded into oblivion."
When
Sonic stated that, Rotor looked as if he was puzzled by something.
"Hey,
what is it?"
"Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just thinking about the staff and how it quite
possibly
might belong to Mogul." Rotor responded.
* * * * *
"You know, we do have camping equipment, but if your sure we can use
these
huts..."
"Don't worry, we have plenty of storage area and houses for others.
There
are two extra huts over in this part of the village," Rotor said as he
led
the overlanders to an area of Knothole. "Here they are, make
yourselves
comfortable. Also, dinner will be served in about twenty minutes in
the
center of town."
"K. Tell Sal we said thanks for the hospitality," said Justin as Rotor
walked off to the dining area.
Chris walked into his hut, threw is backpack onto the bed, an
opened it
up. Inside was a flashlight, a Clive Cussler novel, some camping gear,
an
old issue of "Popular Science", a water bottle, a laptop, and a
pencil with a
notepad. He took out the flashlight and the novel and set them on a
nearby
stand, and set the gear on the floor. Chris then took out the fork and
spoon
from the gear and floated out of the hut. At the same time, Justin
came out
of the hut adjacent to his, also with a spoon and fork. Chris also
noticed
that he wasn't wearing his holster, which was rare.
"You aren't wearing your gun."
"Yeah, I know, I didn't want to scare anybody that's all."
"I don't think it's going to scare anyone too much,"
"Oh, right. And people who float an inch above the ground are not
going to
scare people?"
"I guess your right," Chris landed, "I'm just not used to walking
too much."
"Yeah. You really think there gonna accept us? I mean, it doesn't
seen like
they're very fond of 'overlanders', as they call humans."
"We just gotta give 'em some time. I'm sure eventually we won't
seem so
weird to them."
* * *
"What's with those overlanders? They seem kind of strange," Sonic
said as he
and Tails walked the path to the main hall.
"Hey, its not every day you see an overlander who collects antique guns
for a
hobby or one who has psychic powers," Tails responded.
"Psychic powers?"
"Yeah, Chris has psychic powers, didn't you notice he floats instead
of
walks?"
"No, I really didn't,"
"I'm sure once we get to know them they actually will be pretty
nice,"
"Why did you say that Justin collects antique guns?"
"The one in his holster was one of those old bullet-shooting guns,"
"Wow, those are old, seeing as we use lasers now. Maybe we should get
to
know them during dinner," Sonic suggested as the two of them reached
the
dining hall.