King of Witches

The long explanation/author's note: I literally found out about this challenge this afternoon from the works that popped up on AO3, but I didn't exactly have time to come up with something new for the prompt...so I had to go with something I'd already been thinking of.

I wasn't going to tell more than one person about this until I had more to show for it, but this is from an AU verse I've been working on, a fusion of Sonic characters with Code Lyoko's plot/world. I've been chipping away at the equivalent of the prequel episode for a month, but don't want to start posting it until it's done for fear of abandoning it.

If you don't know anything about Code Lyoko, this is still mostly readable as a human/high school AU, just with a couple lines that won't make sense. (If you do know about Code Lyoko, this is at the equivalent of early Season 1, and there's a bit of information about what's going on, but the person filling Aelita's role isn't spoiled here.)

During the flashback, Sonic was 13, Tails was 11, and the kids hassling him were 12-13.

---

26 January, 2004 (Linearly) 3 months, 2 weeks, 3 days since first attack

Boys' dormitory, Kadic Collège et Lycée, Boulogne-Billancourt, France

"…So by monitoring the memory usage on the supercomputer, this program should be able to alert me when a foreign connection—"

"Eggman?"

"—Eggman, tries to get access to Lyoko. Hopefully, that'll avoid you guys getting ambushed by like a hundred monsters at once."

Tails had pushed his rolling chair out from under his desk to accommodate him pacing and gesturing at something incomprehensible on his computer screen. Sonic, of course, had immediately stolen the chair and sat on it the wrong way, arms wrapped around the back cushion. Amy had taken the bed, while Knuckles stayed standing near the door like a particularly intimidating statue.

"Then, I should be able to kick him out," Tails continued, turning his back to them to type something on his keyboard. "If he sticks around long enough to figure out how to turn towers on himself, none of us are ever gonna get any rest."

Sonic shuddered. "Eugh, don't even manifest that in the world."

"That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid doing."

"Tails?" Knuckles pushed himself off from his position leaning on the wall, raising a hand as if he were in class. "Can I ask a question?"

"Yes, Knuckles?"

"It isn't about the program, it's just…I've been wondering for a long time and I gotta ask."

All eyes turned to Knuckles as he rubbed his forehead, taking a deep breath.

"…Why is there a big patch on your butt?"

For a moment, everybody looked confused. Sonic was the first to catch on. "Oh! Tail!"

Knuckles' brows furrowed. "Yes, I'm asking Tails?"

"No, no, the tail!" Sonic gestured wildly at Tails. "On your jacket."

Tails' eyes flashed with understanding, even as he stiffened slightly. He turned in place, glancing over his shoulder—and indeed, on the very back-bottom of his everpresent, oversized orange jacket, there's a discolored darker patch in a neat circle.

"You know," Amy mused, "I've been wondering about that too, but I wasn't sure if it'd be rude to ask."

"O-oh, no, it isn't rude, I just…" Tails trailed off.

"You don't have to answer," Knuckles said quickly, holding out a placating hand. "It was just bugging me, that's all."

"No, you should know! It…kinda has to do with how Sonic and I met, actually."

"Is that so?" Amy raised an eyebrow, gaze falling on Sonic in the office chair.

Sonic laughed nervously. "Yeah…kinda. Basically, Tails' jacket used to have a big fox tail on it. I've still got it in my wardrobe."

"Really?"

"Mhm, I can show you guys later if it's cool with him." Sonic gnawed on his lower lip for a moment, peering at the awkwardly-shifting Tails out of the corner of an eye. "…You want me to tell them the story, or nah?"

Tails met Sonic's eyes for only a moment, before crossing his arms tight and staring at the floor as if his own carpet had suddenly become interesting. "No, you can tell them. Like I said, they should know."

Sonic sat up a little straighter. "If you're sure?"

"I'm sure." Tails gathered up the courage to look at Amy and Knuckles directly. "I can tell you guys wanna know."

"Nah, it's fine either way," Amy said dismissively.

"…I kind of wanna know," muttered Knuckles.

Amy scrunched her nose and threw one of Tails' pillows at him. Knuckles didn't flinch.

Tails managed a tiny smile, as Sonic walked the chair over towards his desk without standing up and clumsily spun it around with his feet until he was facing the others, still hanging over the chair back.

"All right," Sonic said, "but just know it's not a super nice story…as you can probably tell by the fact that that tail is in my wardrobe and not still on his jacket."

Amy winced, but both her and Knuckles nodded.

"It worked out in the end, though!" Tails quickly added. "I don't know where I'd be if it never happened, honestly."

"Still, I should've been faster." Sonic sighed, chin dipping for a moment before he set his jaw. "Okay, it went like this. It was only a couple months into both our first semesters…"

---

December, 2002 10 months before first attack

Sonic had learned from a young age that you could sneak in a lot of places just by looking confident enough. It'd served him well most of his life, and it was how he'd managed to stay at Kadic a whole three months without anyone noticing he shouldn't be there. Teachers just hadn't thought to ask the principal about him yet, so nobody knew he didn't have papers.

He wasn't planning on staying too long, of course. Get a bit of the fancy boarding school experience, try French food, maybe learn a couple of useful things, and then skedaddle in the night before things got messy, same as always. It was at least nice that this 'adventure' was one of the ones where he got a space to call his own, and the area was admittedly gorgeous, with a lot of great running trails.

That day after classes, he'd been returning to his room to change into something he could more safely get sweaty out on his daily run. He'd just climbed the stairs when he faintly heard some kind of commotion somewhere else in the boys' dormitory hallway.

Voices talking. A thud. A laugh.

"—solve that, genius."

Sonic's eyes narrowed. The voice didn't sound particularly nice—the laugh even less so.

He rolled up the sleeves of his blue track jacket and started jogging down the hall, straining to make out what the voices were saying as the altercation continued.

"What are you even doing here?" It was a new voice—the first sounded feminine, this sounded masculine. "Shouldn't you be at some genius school for genius freaks?"

"Or a brain damaged school for brain damaged freaks," the original voice sneered.

"Oh, yeah, then you can find some other dumbass dressed up like a skunk or something."

"I-I'm a fox!"

That was a new voice, smaller, younger. Sonic could suddenly hear his heartbeat rushing in his ears—too young. He picked up his pace.

"Did I say you could talk?"

There was another thud, a yelp.

"Haha, no, look, he's serious, he's even got a little tail! Wonder if this thing comes off…"

"Quit pulling!" the victim squeaked. "This is mine! I bought it with my own money!"

"Hey, hey, you still have that thing from your dad?" The tormentor seemed to be ignoring him.

"Ooh, great idea!"

Sonic rounded the corner into another wing of the dorm, and that's where he caught sight of them.

Two kids he vaguely recognized from the grade below him; always together, either siblings or partners in crime, it was hard to tell. The girl was sitting on the back of what looked like a much smaller boy (Sonic initially mistook him for being too young to even be at Kadic, though he'd later find out the kid had just passed his eleventh birthday), shoving his head into the corner. Behind them, in one hand, the boy held up a felted fox tail sewn into the back of the kid's bright orange jacket.

In the other hand, at the base of the tail, he held a Swiss Army knife he definitely wasn't allowed to have on campus.

It happened in an instant—one swipe, and the tail came off in his hand. He grinned nastily as he stepped back, and with one last shove the girl got off the kid's back, snickering to herself.

"Whoops!" the boy said as the kid rolled himself over. He dangled the fox tail in front of him. "Looks like it wasn't real."

The kid's eyes widened behind his thick glasses, suddenly watery. He reached up desperately, but the boy pulled the tail away before he could reach it, the two tormentors laughing at the sport.

"Maybe you shouldn't have made me look stupid in math class, huh?!" the girl snapped.

"Holy shit, how much did the little idiot even pay for this?" the boy asked incredulously (using a word far more severe than idiot).

Sonic's blood boiled.

"Hey!"

The older two both turned to stare at him, while the kid curled himself into the fetal position, screwing his eyes shut as if not being able to see what was happening would make it go away.

The boy flicked the tail in his hand with a scoff. "Back off, Blue Hair, we're busy."

"I can see that." Sonic smiled, too bright, too cheerful, too wide as he stepped forward. "Did you know that doesn't belong to you?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Sonic caught the kid cracking one eye open and staring at him as if he'd grown a second head. Thankfully, the other two didn't notice. "Who cares? Don't tell me you're gonna snitch?"

Sonic somehow beamed even wider. "Nope!~"

Before either of them could even think to react, Sonic lurched forward and punched the one holding the tail cleanly in the gut.

The boy wheezed all the air out of his lungs in one long rush and crumpled onto the floor, Sonic snatching the tail out of his grasp on the way down. The girl stared at Sonic in a mix of horror and confusion, before her face twisted into a snarl and she ran for Sonic.

It was painfully telegraphed. Sonic sidestepped just enough to trip her, and she went skidding at least a foot down the hallway on her stomach.

Once he was confident that the two of them were down, Sonic hurried to the side of the kid, kneeling next to him and reaching out a hand. "Hey, you all right?"

"I—yeah—you—?"

The boy was quick to catch his breath, pushing himself up on his hands and glaring daggers into the side of Sonic's head. "You--you hit me!" he blurted out, stunned. "I'm telling!"

"Sure, go ahead," Sonic replied without looking back. "Then I'll tell them you destroyed another student's property. That he paid for. With his own money." He held up the tail to prove his point. "And also about that knife you're carrying around."

"Dirty snitch!" the guy snaps, but Sonic soon heard his footsteps stomping back towards the stairs, the girl eventually following after him.

Silence fell, thick and tense. The kid took Sonic's hand, slowly pulling himself into a sitting position before jerking the hood of his jacket over his head. Sonic noticed it had two little fox ears sticking out of the top.

"Why did you do that?" the kid asked, bewildered.

"Because they were being jerks."

"They could've hurt you."

Sonic waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, people like that don't expect anybody to fight back. Get real spooked if you do."

The kid laughed, mirthlessly. "I wouldn't know."

Sonic frowned. He held the loose tail back out to the kid, who took it and hugged it to his chest like a life vest. "This been going on a while?"

"On and off. I skipped a grade. People are mad about it."

Sonic grimaced. "That'd do it. They hate a smart guy with a cool jacket."

The kid shifted uncomfortably in place, lips pressed into a despondent line. "You don't have to lie, you know."

"I'm not lying, it's cool! That tail looks awesome. And the fox ears?"

"I—like foxes," the kid replied hesitantly, ducking his head.

"Where'd you get something like that, anyway?"

The kid curled into himself a little more, but managed to maintain eye contact, if only slightly. "…I got this for myself for my birthday. From somebody I know on the internet. It's handmade."

"Handmade? Now I wish I'd punched him harder." The kid's eyes widened, and Sonic laughed. "Kidding! …Mostly. Don't worry, it was just enough to wind him and hopefully teach him a lesson, he'll be fine."

"I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You and me both, buddy. Some people just won't listen to anything else." Sonic sighed. "What's your name?"

The kid stared at the floor. "Miles. Miles Prower."

"Call me Sonic."

"Is that your real name?" Miles looked skeptical.

Sonic held up his hands. "You got me, but it's what I like to be called. My real name makes me sound like some kind of hotel bellboy."

Miles laughed again, weak but genuine this time. "Um, well, I guess I have something like that, too…people online call me Tails."

"Can I call you that, too? Pretty sick nickname."

"I-I guess so." Miles looked a little unsure. Sonic tried to give him an encouraging smile.

"Alright, then, Tails! You let me know if those guys bother you again, yeah?" Sonic stood up, stretching his arms over his head. "I was gonna go on a run before it gets dark, but I can walk you back to your room first if you want."

Tails nodded, and again took Sonic's hand to stand up. He really was short, the top of his fluffy blond hair only reaching Sonic's shoulder, and he had a baby face to boot. The big square glasses looked a little goofy, but it was in a cute way. He just looked like he must be smart.

The two walked in silence until Tails pointed out his room—right next to the one Sonic had moved himself into, leaving him surprised he hadn't seen the kid before. Sonic bid him farewell and turned to enter his own room, when—

"Wait!"

A hand grabbed Sonic's wrist. He turned to see Tails staring up at him, furtive.

"What is it?"

"You—said you were going on a run, right?"

"Yeah, every day, in the woods outside campus."

"Can I…" He pulled his hand away, stuffing it in his jacket pocket. "…Can I go with you?"

Sonic raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty fast. You sure you can keep up?"

Tails stood up straighter, face suddenly a mask of determination. "I'll do my best!"

Sonic was surprised by the sudden spark of light in those bright blue eyes, the same eyes that had been so close to tears earlier. But it wasn't a bad kind of surprise. He nodded, slow and appreciative, as a grin spread across his face.

"All right. You put that tail away somewhere safe, and we'll see what you can do."

---

"Well?" Amy asked, "Did he keep up?"

Sonic grinned. "You should know by now this little guy's fast when he wants to be."

"Mostly when my life is in danger," Tails muttered, getting a laugh out of the others, though not one without empathy. "But…yeah, that's pretty much it. We started talking after that, and I let him keep the tail."

"As a token of our friendship," Sonic finished, sitting up straighter and solemnly thumping a fist over his heart. "Which I will treasure for all of my days.

Tails rolled his eyes, poking Sonic's ear. "I started wearing my hair like this afterwards," he said, turning his head to show off his two little ponytails, and not missing a beat avoiding Sonic's hand triyng to bat at him like a cat. "One tail got cut off, so I got two 'tails' in its place."

"Like the hydra," Knuckles said with an approving nod.

"Did those kids ever bother you again?" asked Amy.

Tails shook his head. "Nope. Pretty sure Vector wound up confiscating that knife later that year, too."

"And!" Sonic raised a finger. "Tails here got his sneaky little paws into the school system and set me up as a real student. Probably the only reason I'm still here."

Knuckles blinked. "He can do that?"

"I told you, I was gonna do that for her once we get her materialized."

"I didn't know that was even a thing you could do."

"There's a lot of things you don't know I can do, Knuckles." Tails smirks, crossing his arms.

Amy gave Sonic an accusatory glance. "Did you teach him that look?"