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Description
note: I don't hate Fiona, and don't construe this as bashing. In fact, I rather like the fact that they've turned her into a villain. It makes for interesting storytelling, and frankly, she's more complex a character now than she used to be. I just roll with stuff and take it to extremes, cause its fun.

This is one of the many new scenes from my "Cycle of Ages: A Chosen One" rewrite. In fact, pretty much everything after chapter 2 is like all new stuff (meaning more work for me, yeaaa). This scene was partly inspired by my old TailsvsFiona one-shot comic here, which has proven to be fairly popular.
Fiona is using her new comic style.

This is a comic adaptation of part of Chapter 3, scene 13.
The story itself can be seen on my website archive, or on my FFN page. [link]

page 2 [link]
page 3 [link]
.
.
.

-----
Here's the narrative up to this point:
-----

The bloody bullet hit the metal tray with a loud ‘ting!’ that filled the room. The flattened mushroom head of it cause it to roll back and forth in a lazy circle, bumping it into another of its kin. Yet another, third bullet also rested in the bloody tray.

“Source alive, Tails…”

“Come on, you’d think you’d been shot instead of me,” Tails grumbled from where he sat, at the edge of a medical bed. Mina was with him, dressing the wound on his arm.

“Why can’t you or Sonic be more careful?” she asked, knowing full well the answer. “What do you think Sally will say when she finds out you were shot, three times, today?”

“That’ll depend on the information I wring out of our prisoners, won’t it?”

Mina just shook her head.

“Anyway,” Tails quickly changed the topic. He liked Mina, he did, but she had been developing something of a worry-wart streak. She just couldn’t get it into her head that even the best of them got hurt sometimes in their line of work. It was the reason she had put aside her dream of becoming a singer and instead trained to help care for the wounded. Field doctors and nurses were more urgently needed than pop idols. Her own run in with a stray bullet had only reinforced that lesson.

“Did you bring it?” he asked.

“I …did,” she admitted, reaching over to a nearby sink, next to which lay a small metal box. “But… BUT… I’d like to remind you that the additive use of chaos energy to augment healing has had a detrimental…”

“I know about the studies, Mina,” Tails cut her off. “I co-authored half of them. Please. I need to get back to 100% as soon as possible. For the city.”

“That old excuse…” she turned around, handing him the box. “For the City. For Knothole. For the Kingdom.”

He scoffed, but not in an unfriendly way. “You make me sound like a broken record or something.”

“Tails. No one doubts your commitment…”

“I should hope not. I’ve given everything I have to this fight…” he frowned at the thought. What memories did he have that didn’t involve the endless war with Robotnick or his underlings? Only the ones where his enemy was Naugus, or Mogul. Opening the metal case, he reached in and retrieved a single power ring.

Focusing on it, it instantly vanished, absorbed into his system.

“Aaah!” He could feel the energy at work, knitting flesh together and filling him with power. It was just a shame they had such a limited supply of Power Rings now. Even among Chaos Adepts, few could metabolize chaos energy from Rings.

With enough chaos energy running through one’s body, even the most terrible wounds could stabilize and heal. It had been a real life saver on more than a few missions, especially during the Death Egg incidents. Flexing his arms, he could feel the pain of his wounds diminish, though the blood staining his bandages was a reminder of his mortality, regardless of how much energy he stole to empower himself.

Then the euphoria wore off, combined with the thoughts of what was to come.

Seeing his expression, Mina sighed and sat down on another chair as she carefully removed her latex gloves. “So. Where are you going now?”

“Interrogation,” Tails replied. She knew full well where he was headed next. It was why he had brought her to Knothole Emergency Management Center, instead of flying over to see her at the hospital proper. Why he always insisted on having her check on him when he was hurt, he wasn’t sure. He’d had some recent intellectual and academic disagreements with Dr. Quack for some time since his return to Station Square, but it was probably no more complex than the fact that he felt comfortable around Mina. She was in Sonic’s inner circle of friends, and he trusted her.

Not just with a surgical knife; he trusted her as someone to talk to.

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“It’s… Fiona.”

She nodded, but said nothing.

“You know, I really thought…” he winced. “After Scourge, after all that… that she would have learned. Maybe it was too much to hope she had changed her ways.”

Mina gave him a sympathetic look, and he shared the basics of what had happened. It still hurt to think about Jet and the Rogues escaping, but it hurt just as much to think of Fiona, lying at the bottom of a lake. The more he thought about it, the more he talked about it, the more convinced he was that it had been a mistake to save her. But in that moment, he hadn’t been thinking things through rationally.

“Do you still… have feelings for her?” Mina finally asked.

“I never even knew her, Mina. Not the real her…” He couldn’t tell her about the android Fiona he had fallen in love with, those years ago. His techy background and return from Station Square had already led many to brand him as dangerously pro-Synthetic.

“I guess I’ve always cared for this image of her, this ideal I have in my head and can’t get out,” he cut off his rambling. “I think you know exactly how I feel.”

“Love at first sight is hard to get over.” Mina nodded ruefully; she still loved Sonic from afar, Tails knew. Her situation was like Amy’s, except Mina had never let it consume and define her life. Maybe that was another reason why he enjoyed her company in times like this. It helped him with his own perspective.

“I’m going to break her,” he finally said.

Mina reached out, laying a compassionate hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. People will understand…”

“They’ll understand that I put my own feelings before the good of the city. Before the good of the people!” Tails patted her hand, but brushed it off. “I have to do this. I have to be there when we make her talk. Her, and the other two.”

By the expression on her face, he could guess what she wanted to say.

You shouldn’t have to do this.

And she could probably tell what he left unsaid:

Because of who I am, I have to.

Hopping off the table and throwing on a shirt to cover the bruises on his chest and arms, Tails gave his favorite nurse a polite nod. It was time to get his hands dirty. He wasn’t Sonic, and he sure as Hell wasn’t Sally. No one gave half a rat’s shit what he did. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that the two of them were gone. The King’s Mercy was just an oxymoron these days, and Tails wasn’t feeling particularly merciful himself at the moment.

As he stalked down the corridors, heading towards holding, he felt a tingle in the back of his mind. It was like someone winding the string of a guitar too bit too tightly. Tails tried to push it out, and it was gone… for a few seconds. Concerned, he focused on letting it in, and suddenly…

>Tails<

“Tempest?” Tails paused, and ducked into a nearby bathroom. Was that voice coming from his mind?! “Tempest?”

>It is< the voice continued >Listen carefully, boy<

>How are you doing this?< Tails thought.

>ractice< Tempest answered. >I’ll explain it all in more detail in due time. Now listen. I won’t be getting back today. I trust you’ve kept your honor since this morning<

>You can’t see my eyes< Tails thought back. >How can you know what I have or have not done?<

>I trust you, boy< the disembodied voice continued.

Tails almost laughed. Almost. >Actually, an emergency came up. Something I just couldn’t let go. Work related<

Tempest paused. >I see. Well, it couldn’t be helped, I suppose<

Tails growled silently. >What’s keeping you anyway? You and Sally are late. You two aren’t…?<

>Extenuating circumstances. Your Princess is nearby, safe and sound<

>Tempest… this telepathy… I’ve seen something similar before, but how are you doing it? I need to know<

>Ah< Tempest started to fade. >Well, I had planned to teach you more later. The essence of it is that you need an emotional bond with another being. The link is made through that shared experience<

>Tempest?< Tails thought, but got no response. He must be gone already. But at least he’d gotten some information out of it. ‘Shared experience’ was it? Tails clutched a fist, his body still charged with Chaos Energy.

‘How far are you willing to go?’ a voice asked. Perhaps it was his conscience.

‘Quiet you!’ he scolded it. ‘You got me into this mess in the first place!’

‘Wait. What? Me? I’m innocent!’

‘That’s what they all say.’

‘Come now. Really… are you actually going to try this? Think about who you’re emulating.’

‘Remember who I’ve been emulating half my life. It isn’t just Sonic. It’s that fat bastard, too. So what if I take a page out of that black freak’s playbook and get creative with Chaos Control?’

His mind was decided long before he actually entered the oversight room adjacent to where Fiona was being held. She was tough; there was no doubt about that. Already awake and alert and even on her feet, bandages and all, the villainous vixen was currently sitting defiantly in a chair, verbally abusing the interrogator sent to start the preliminary work. She was uncooperative as usual; this wasn’t her first time being interrogated, and she knew the ropes as well as anyone.

She had been a Freedom Fighter for a while, after all.

Tails took a moment to look her over, before ordering the room cleared. There were the usual protests, but despite his youth, Tails was a senior ranking Freedom Fighter, a personal cavalier of the King himself, and a high ranking military officer. He also happened to be the one Mobian who had brought in their suspects today, since the others had evaded the attack helicopters. Damn them. He switched off the cameras and microphones, and headed through the door into the interrogation room itself.

“Out,” he ordered. The weasel running the op bit back a complaint, nodded, and left, leaving the two foxes alone.

“Tails,” Fiona said with a smile. “I never thanked you for saving me.”

“And you never will.” He knew.

“Aaa! You noticed!” Her smile widened as she laughed. She had a beautiful voice, too.

“I’ve heard you want immunity in exchange for telling us what we want to know,” he skipped the banter and got right to business.

“Signed by the King and confirmed by my lawyer. Who I haven’t gotten to rap with yet, by the way,” she crossed her legs and assumed an impatient pose. “You might want to get working on that.”

He nodded slowly in apparent agreement, walking around behind her, before abruptly grabbing the back of her chair and throwing it to the floor. Fiona fell back with it, yelping as the back of her head hit the floor. Holding her head, she cursed and glared up at him.

“What the Hell!?”

Tails cocked his head. “You think I saved you because I still care about you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You do.”

Description
note: I don't hate Fiona, and don't construe this as bashing. In fact, I rather like the fact that they've turned her into a villain. It makes for interesting storytelling, and frankly, she's more complex a character now than she used to be. I just roll with stuff and take it to extremes, cause its fun.

This is one of the many new scenes from my "Cycle of Ages: A Chosen One" rewrite. In fact, pretty much everything after chapter 2 is like all new stuff (meaning more work for me, yeaaa). This scene was partly inspired by my old TailsvsFiona one-shot comic here, which has proven to be fairly popular.
Fiona is using her new comic style.

This is a comic adaptation of part of Chapter 3, scene 13.
The story itself can be seen on my website archive, or on my FFN page. [link]

page 2 [link]
page 3 [link]
.
.
.

-----
Here's the narrative up to this point:
-----

The bloody bullet hit the metal tray with a loud ‘ting!’ that filled the room. The flattened mushroom head of it cause it to roll back and forth in a lazy circle, bumping it into another of its kin. Yet another, third bullet also rested in the bloody tray.

“Source alive, Tails…”

“Come on, you’d think you’d been shot instead of me,” Tails grumbled from where he sat, at the edge of a medical bed. Mina was with him, dressing the wound on his arm.

“Why can’t you or Sonic be more careful?” she asked, knowing full well the answer. “What do you think Sally will say when she finds out you were shot, three times, today?”

“That’ll depend on the information I wring out of our prisoners, won’t it?”

Mina just shook her head.

“Anyway,” Tails quickly changed the topic. He liked Mina, he did, but she had been developing something of a worry-wart streak. She just couldn’t get it into her head that even the best of them got hurt sometimes in their line of work. It was the reason she had put aside her dream of becoming a singer and instead trained to help care for the wounded. Field doctors and nurses were more urgently needed than pop idols. Her own run in with a stray bullet had only reinforced that lesson.

“Did you bring it?” he asked.

“I …did,” she admitted, reaching over to a nearby sink, next to which lay a small metal box. “But… BUT… I’d like to remind you that the additive use of chaos energy to augment healing has had a detrimental…”

“I know about the studies, Mina,” Tails cut her off. “I co-authored half of them. Please. I need to get back to 100% as soon as possible. For the city.”

“That old excuse…” she turned around, handing him the box. “For the City. For Knothole. For the Kingdom.”

He scoffed, but not in an unfriendly way. “You make me sound like a broken record or something.”

“Tails. No one doubts your commitment…”

“I should hope not. I’ve given everything I have to this fight…” he frowned at the thought. What memories did he have that didn’t involve the endless war with Robotnick or his underlings? Only the ones where his enemy was Naugus, or Mogul. Opening the metal case, he reached in and retrieved a single power ring.

Focusing on it, it instantly vanished, absorbed into his system.

“Aaah!” He could feel the energy at work, knitting flesh together and filling him with power. It was just a shame they had such a limited supply of Power Rings now. Even among Chaos Adepts, few could metabolize chaos energy from Rings.

With enough chaos energy running through one’s body, even the most terrible wounds could stabilize and heal. It had been a real life saver on more than a few missions, especially during the Death Egg incidents. Flexing his arms, he could feel the pain of his wounds diminish, though the blood staining his bandages was a reminder of his mortality, regardless of how much energy he stole to empower himself.

Then the euphoria wore off, combined with the thoughts of what was to come.

Seeing his expression, Mina sighed and sat down on another chair as she carefully removed her latex gloves. “So. Where are you going now?”

“Interrogation,” Tails replied. She knew full well where he was headed next. It was why he had brought her to Knothole Emergency Management Center, instead of flying over to see her at the hospital proper. Why he always insisted on having her check on him when he was hurt, he wasn’t sure. He’d had some recent intellectual and academic disagreements with Dr. Quack for some time since his return to Station Square, but it was probably no more complex than the fact that he felt comfortable around Mina. She was in Sonic’s inner circle of friends, and he trusted her.

Not just with a surgical knife; he trusted her as someone to talk to.

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“It’s… Fiona.”

She nodded, but said nothing.

“You know, I really thought…” he winced. “After Scourge, after all that… that she would have learned. Maybe it was too much to hope she had changed her ways.”

Mina gave him a sympathetic look, and he shared the basics of what had happened. It still hurt to think about Jet and the Rogues escaping, but it hurt just as much to think of Fiona, lying at the bottom of a lake. The more he thought about it, the more he talked about it, the more convinced he was that it had been a mistake to save her. But in that moment, he hadn’t been thinking things through rationally.

“Do you still… have feelings for her?” Mina finally asked.

“I never even knew her, Mina. Not the real her…” He couldn’t tell her about the android Fiona he had fallen in love with, those years ago. His techy background and return from Station Square had already led many to brand him as dangerously pro-Synthetic.

“I guess I’ve always cared for this image of her, this ideal I have in my head and can’t get out,” he cut off his rambling. “I think you know exactly how I feel.”

“Love at first sight is hard to get over.” Mina nodded ruefully; she still loved Sonic from afar, Tails knew. Her situation was like Amy’s, except Mina had never let it consume and define her life. Maybe that was another reason why he enjoyed her company in times like this. It helped him with his own perspective.

“I’m going to break her,” he finally said.

Mina reached out, laying a compassionate hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. People will understand…”

“They’ll understand that I put my own feelings before the good of the city. Before the good of the people!” Tails patted her hand, but brushed it off. “I have to do this. I have to be there when we make her talk. Her, and the other two.”

By the expression on her face, he could guess what she wanted to say.

You shouldn’t have to do this.

And she could probably tell what he left unsaid:

Because of who I am, I have to.

Hopping off the table and throwing on a shirt to cover the bruises on his chest and arms, Tails gave his favorite nurse a polite nod. It was time to get his hands dirty. He wasn’t Sonic, and he sure as Hell wasn’t Sally. No one gave half a rat’s shit what he did. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that the two of them were gone. The King’s Mercy was just an oxymoron these days, and Tails wasn’t feeling particularly merciful himself at the moment.

As he stalked down the corridors, heading towards holding, he felt a tingle in the back of his mind. It was like someone winding the string of a guitar too bit too tightly. Tails tried to push it out, and it was gone… for a few seconds. Concerned, he focused on letting it in, and suddenly…

>Tails<

“Tempest?” Tails paused, and ducked into a nearby bathroom. Was that voice coming from his mind?! “Tempest?”

>It is< the voice continued >Listen carefully, boy<

>How are you doing this?< Tails thought.

>ractice< Tempest answered. >I’ll explain it all in more detail in due time. Now listen. I won’t be getting back today. I trust you’ve kept your honor since this morning<

>You can’t see my eyes< Tails thought back. >How can you know what I have or have not done?<

>I trust you, boy< the disembodied voice continued.

Tails almost laughed. Almost. >Actually, an emergency came up. Something I just couldn’t let go. Work related<

Tempest paused. >I see. Well, it couldn’t be helped, I suppose<

Tails growled silently. >What’s keeping you anyway? You and Sally are late. You two aren’t…?<

>Extenuating circumstances. Your Princess is nearby, safe and sound<

>Tempest… this telepathy… I’ve seen something similar before, but how are you doing it? I need to know<

>Ah< Tempest started to fade. >Well, I had planned to teach you more later. The essence of it is that you need an emotional bond with another being. The link is made through that shared experience<

>Tempest?< Tails thought, but got no response. He must be gone already. But at least he’d gotten some information out of it. ‘Shared experience’ was it? Tails clutched a fist, his body still charged with Chaos Energy.

‘How far are you willing to go?’ a voice asked. Perhaps it was his conscience.

‘Quiet you!’ he scolded it. ‘You got me into this mess in the first place!’

‘Wait. What? Me? I’m innocent!’

‘That’s what they all say.’

‘Come now. Really… are you actually going to try this? Think about who you’re emulating.’

‘Remember who I’ve been emulating half my life. It isn’t just Sonic. It’s that fat bastard, too. So what if I take a page out of that black freak’s playbook and get creative with Chaos Control?’

His mind was decided long before he actually entered the oversight room adjacent to where Fiona was being held. She was tough; there was no doubt about that. Already awake and alert and even on her feet, bandages and all, the villainous vixen was currently sitting defiantly in a chair, verbally abusing the interrogator sent to start the preliminary work. She was uncooperative as usual; this wasn’t her first time being interrogated, and she knew the ropes as well as anyone.

She had been a Freedom Fighter for a while, after all.

Tails took a moment to look her over, before ordering the room cleared. There were the usual protests, but despite his youth, Tails was a senior ranking Freedom Fighter, a personal cavalier of the King himself, and a high ranking military officer. He also happened to be the one Mobian who had brought in their suspects today, since the others had evaded the attack helicopters. Damn them. He switched off the cameras and microphones, and headed through the door into the interrogation room itself.

“Out,” he ordered. The weasel running the op bit back a complaint, nodded, and left, leaving the two foxes alone.

“Tails,” Fiona said with a smile. “I never thanked you for saving me.”

“And you never will.” He knew.

“Aaa! You noticed!” Her smile widened as she laughed. She had a beautiful voice, too.

“I’ve heard you want immunity in exchange for telling us what we want to know,” he skipped the banter and got right to business.

“Signed by the King and confirmed by my lawyer. Who I haven’t gotten to rap with yet, by the way,” she crossed her legs and assumed an impatient pose. “You might want to get working on that.”

He nodded slowly in apparent agreement, walking around behind her, before abruptly grabbing the back of her chair and throwing it to the floor. Fiona fell back with it, yelping as the back of her head hit the floor. Holding her head, she cursed and glared up at him.

“What the Hell!?”

Tails cocked his head. “You think I saved you because I still care about you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You do.”