EXE TALES 2

Chaos of my own Creation

Tails immediately woke up screaming. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he spoke to himself.

"Just... Just a nightmare." He affirmed. He was in his own lab, but he immediately wondered why he was on the floor and not in his bed. It took only a few more seconds of thinking for him to remember why.

He had pulled an all nighter working on his experiments. He didn't even go to bed due to how tired he was, he just fell asleep on the cold ground below him.

Tails meekly stood up, still feeling extremely tired, as well as cold due to the fact all he had to insulate himself throughout the night was the fur on his back and his own two tails. He immediately went to go start his day.

The first thing he did was enter his bathroom, who knew what could be in his fur from sleeping on the floor all night?

Once he entered the shower, Tails made sure to scrub his whole body thoroughly to remove any possible things that got caught in his fur, such as traces of dirt or dust.

Whilst he was showering, the prodigy tried to remember what he was working on the night before. It took him a few minutes, however, he was able to remember what he was trying to study.

Negative Chaos Energy.

Or, more specifically:

What could negative chaos energy be used for, barring mass destruction?

Negative chaos energy was still relatively unexplored in studies of the Chaos Emeralds. He was familiar with its possibilities: He witnessed things like Perfect Chaos, the goliath that destroyed Station Square, as well as hearing about the unfortunate Intercontinental Train Disaster, where someone in possession of a Chaos Emerald had accidentally caused an implosion through a wave of their own sorrow, killing several people, including the famous commander of G.U.N., Abraham Tower.

Tails had witnessed negative chaos energy be the cause of, well, chaos, but he was wondering if it had any use for a good cause. Could it be harvested for good? Certainly there was a bit of yang in ying.

He could make it work.

Tails' train of thought had made him spend his time idly in the shower, just sitting down and thinking to himself how he could make things work out. He spent a few more minutes just sitting down, wondering about how he could use negative chaos energy once he harvested it.

When he finally got back up to get out of the shower, Tails dried himself up with his own two tails, using them to blow his fur. He stopped to look at himself in the mirror for a second, staring at his own reflection.

The reflection, as always, stared back at him, following his every move. Tails spent a few more seconds looking at himself, flattening bits of his fur that he could see sticking up. He felt reassured looking at himself, knowing that this was indeed him, the one and only him.

Upon leaving, feeling much more awake and like a brand new fox, his next course of action was to make himself something to eat. After looking around, he eventually decided to make himself cereal.

After pouring himself a bowl, he sat down at his table and began to eat, still wondering about negative chaos energy.

He was thinking, but had trouble coming up with a use for it. Nethertheless, he still wanted to experiment with it, as he was sure that there was a use, he just hadn't found one yet.

After finishing his breakfast, Tails got up again, this time to enter the main testing area of his laboratory home. He grabbed his Miles Electronic, just to make sure of things. It was then he got a glimpse of what the time was.

"Wait- 3:20 PM?!" Tails was shocked to realize this. "How much time did I spend working last night?"

Tails shook his head, the surprise quickly wore off on him. He walked over to the red Chaos Emerald laying down on a counter.

The fox immediately got to work on his experiments. He placed the Chaos Emerald in his test capsule in order to extract the near-limitless energy it contained. He knew he had to be careful however, he didn't want the Chaos Emerald to become overly unstable and teleport away, or have something even worse happen.

The fox adjusted some of the controls, making sure to set the extraction rate high enough to destabilize the Chaos Emerald and turn the energy negative, but low enough to not cause an incident. In order to extract negative energy, he did need some instability upon the Chaos Emerald, but it needed to be carefully managed, switching between a high extraction rate and a lower one.

But of course, an unexpected guest invited himself around to take his attention off of this experiment.

Tails heard knocking at the door, followed by the voice of his role model, a certain blue hedgehog.

"Hey, Tails! You awake now?" Sonic asked.

Tails was excited to see Sonic again. He knew that talking with Sonic would likely take up a fair amount of time, but he didn't want to stop his extraction completely, so he made sure to set the extraction rate of chaos energy to a very low setting before he went out to speak with him.

However, on his way out, Tails made a fatal mistake.

One of his tails had accidentally brushed against the dial, upping the extraction rate once again. This went entirely unnoticed by Tails, who was just happy to see his best friend.

Once he got to the door of his workshop, he greeted his best friend.

"Hi Sonic!" Tails greeted him. Sonic just smiled.

"Finally, you're awake!" Sonic replied. "You weren't responding when I came down here earlier, around the time you normally wake up."

Tails nervously chuckled, scratching the back of his head. "Oh, haha... I was up last night researching chaos energy." He told Sonic.

Sonic snickered alongside him, throwing his arm around his little buddy's shoulder.

"Chaos energy, huh?" He asked. "Seems cool, but I don't think I can help ya here. I've just kinda winged it with 'em, and it always worked."

Tails smiled at Sonic. "Don't worry, Sonic! I can handle it by myself, I've used Chaos Emeralds as fuel before."

The hedgehog let go of his little fox pal, smiling right back at him.

"Well, alright, just wanted to see if you were up!" He told the young fox. "See ya, I got some fans waitin' for me who want my autograph!"

Sonic then immediately sped off, nearly catching Tails off-guard. Even after following him around for a while, Tails was still often surprised by Sonic's sheer speed, despite that being his entire thing.

Tails went back into his place, ready to continue his experiments. Unfortunately, as he was walking back, he heard an alarm go off, startling him.

After hearing the alarm, he near-instantly rushed into the room where he was extracting energy from the Chaos Emerald. It was flashing red, with the alarm he had set up still blaring. Tails didn't know why, as he had swore he lowered the extraction rate before he went to talk with Sonic. However, once he double-checked his control panel, he saw that he had left it on high by accident. His heart sank, with brief anger turned in towards himself for not double-checking it on his way out.

Hastily, he grabbed the control knob in order to turn the extraction rate back down, but his hand recoiled as soon as he felt how hot the panel had gotten. It then dawned upon him that could do nothing but run in this scenario, as that panel held most of his restabilizing tools.

However, he didn't have a lot of time to run, because as soon as he left the room, an explosion went off. Immediately, Tails fell down onto the floor, holding his hands over his ears. The sound of the explosion was very loud, and after it subsided, he still heard ringing. Tails' ears twitched involuntarily as he laid down, clutching onto them.

A few minutes passed, and Tails stood back up, holding his head in his hands. His ears were still ringing, though it had subsided from how it initially was. The little fox crept ever so slowly towards his lab, wanting to assess whatever damage had been caused.

He peeked into the room, and was surprised by what he saw.

The capsule holding the Chaos Emerald had exploded, but thankfully, the surrounding equipment was relatively unharmed. The Chaos Emerald he was studying had disappeared in the explosion, meaning that once he fixed things up, he would have to find another one of the Chaos Emeralds.

Still, the explosion itself wasn't completely without its effects on the surrounding material. The first and more obvious result of the explosion was glass being all over the floor and stuck in some other machinery. Nothing seemed to be damaged by the glass, which was a relief.

The second and much stranger result was a mysterious black substance dripping from the capsule onto the floor nearby. Tails had never seen a Chaos Emerald produce this, it was entirely brand new to him. Because of this, he was cautious around it, as he wasn't sure what it may do to his body. Instinctively, he rushed towards a nearby cabinet containing protective gear -- a gas mask and a different set of gloves much more suited for experimentation. Tails put them both on, strapping the gas mask to his face and swapping his gloves out for the other pair.

Tails turned back to the strange substance, still dripping from the broken capsule. He was fascinated with it, but still unsure about what to do. The only thing he could do is test its reaction, what it'd do if something touched it.

He thought about what he could use, and it didn't take him long to decide to use a sausage. He had plenty of them for making chili dogs whenever Sonic came around, and them being meat would show what could happen if he touched the strange substance with his own hands.

The fox walked out of the lab and into his kitchen, taking a sausage from the fridge, though he realized that he didn't have as many as he previously thought, as that was the only one left.

"Huh... Must've used more than I thought." Tails said. "Oh well, I'll get more tomorrow!"

After that, Tails grabbed a pair of tongs to hold the sausage with, just to be extra safe and keep his hands further away from that weird sludge.

"I hope this works..." Tails muttered to himself.

Upon re-entering his experimentation area, he noticed a slight change in the substance. It had gone from an extremely dark black to a lighter, yet still dark gray. What could be the cause of this? Does it change the longer it's around? Will it gain saturation?

Brushing the change in color aside, Tails grabbed the sausage with his tongs and squatted down, slowly inching it towards the substance. His body tensed up as the sausage got closer, he was ready to run in case it reacted to the meat badly. The sausage connected with the substance, and...

Nothing happened.

Tails was relieved at this sight, nothing dangerous seemed to come of this interaction, though he just wanted to be sure. He held the sausage in for a few more seconds, and then pulled it out of the strange goop.

It was then he saw what happened to it. The sausage had some sort of substance on it, though Tails was unsure if it was the same, as it was an off-white color compared to the blob on the floor's gray. Could it be one thing inside another? He also noted that the substance on the sausage didn't seem to be eating away at it like it was before, meaning that the process is either slowed or stopped if it's not surrounded by enough of the strange substance.

The fox decided to let whatever this was eat the rest of the sausage, dropping it into the unknown liquid. He ran over to the nearby sink, washing the strange material off of his tongs before putting them down. Tails wanted to know more about whatever this was, and so took to scanning it to find out if anyone else had discovered it.

He walked over to where he put down his Miles Electronic and picked it up once again. Luckily, it wasn't damaged by any flying glass, so it still worked. Tails made his way back to the leaking substance, and tried to scan it with his tablet, seeing if anything would come up.

But ultimately, the Miles Electronic could not recognise what it was. It could recognise a few things, such as it being composed mostly of chaos energy, and how it was safe to breathe in, but it didn't match any known substances. The closest thing the Miles Electronic could describe it as having an appearance similar to tar.

Tails was a bit concerned, but also excited. He had just discovered something new! What could it be used for? Who knows, but he'd be able to make a giant mark in history with this, as being the first to discover something is always an achievement. However, a lot more research would have to be done on it before he could properly celebrate. The first things first: Taking a picture.

Lining up his Miles Electronic, he was ready to snap a photo of it, and in a flash, it was on his screen. Tails opened the image, which had the default filename of Image-12.png.

Tails then ran into a roadblock: What would he call this strange material? It didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things -- someone else could name or even rename it -- but he wanted to come up with a name for it by himself, as he did with most things he created.

It took a minute, but he eventually came up with a name for it. Changing the filename, it now read:

"Null.png".

He had chosen the name null due to the substance's lack of, or "null" color, shifting between black and gray, and seeming to have a bit of white in it too. He also removed his gas mask and put it on a counter near him, knowing that it was now safe to do so.

Tails looked up from his Miles Electronic, staring at the null.

The null stared back.

The fox jumped back in fear from this, gasping at the sight. The blob on the floor was staring right at him with several unblinking eyes. His heart was racing, but this was mostly from the initial shock. It quickly returned to beating at its normal rate as the surprise wore off, though one question entered Tails' mind.

Was it alive?

As Tails stared the pile of null down, it continued to stare at him. Tails put his Miles Electronic aside and paced from side to side, never taking his eyes off of it. The null's eyes followed his every movement, never blinking or looking off at anything else, just following his every movement.

A minute passed, both parties were still staring at each other.

Then two.

Then three.

Four minutes passed.

Five.

Time marched on as both of them stared each other down. Tails was only a fox and still had to blink, so it wasn't continuously staring, but the null would never take its eyes off of the fox in front of it. Not for a second.

Another five minutes passed.

Nothing.

The null kept staring, it didn't do anything but stare, not even change its color tone from dark to light as it was doing before. Tails refused to leave, choosing to face it down to see whatever it would do next, though the question did enter his mind.

Why?

Why was it staring? Why won't it do anything else? What does it plan to do?

The very next second, answers would begin to reveal themselves.

After several minutes of staring, the null finally began to change. It closed in on itself, shutting all of its eyes in the process. Even after it moved, a trail of null would still be wherever it was before. It seemed to be very messy, leaving its trail wherever it stood.

The null increased its length vertically, standing as tall as Tails himself, and began to take shape. It wasn't very clear, it was practically a vague image of a mobian, a silhouette containing basic features like its hands, feet, body and head. It had no defining features that pointed towards any animal, and it didn't even have the many eyes that it possessed before, now lacking anything to see with.

Tails was a bit anxious watching whatever he had just discovered transform, did he just create another life? What will it do?

What can it do?

His mind frantically began processing the situation, thinking of all the possibilities that could arise. Perhaps it could be friendly, perhaps it could be evil. It could be animalistic, it could be calculating. It could be dumb, it could be intelligent. There was one thing Tails was 100% sure on.

This thing could seriously hurt somebody, considering that it's made of negative chaos energy.

Still, he didn't want to try and antagonize it while it was forming, much less kill it. He wanted to know what it would do.

The null figure began to give itself defining features. Its muzzle grew cheek fluff not unlike Tails' own, albeit still pitch black. It gained two unconnected eyes, white with black sclera. It grew the ears of a fox, as well as some chest fluff. Its hands morphed, matching Tails' gloves, as well as its feet changing to match Tails' shoes. It briefly turned around to look at its rear end, in which it formed two tails, again, like Tails. Finally, the creature grew a small head tuft to completely match Tails, at least in his overall body style.

Tails was unnerved by this, he was staring down a darker reflection of himself. Why did it do this? Does it want to be him? Does it want to replace him?

The null figure spent a few more seconds staring him down before suddenly shifting in its colors. It tried to mimic Tails' colors, but it ended up appearing as practically a grayscale version of him. The parts of his body that were originally white were perfectly copied, such as his muzzle and chest, but a lot of things couldn't be replicated. Its fur, which had tried to turn yellow, was a very light gray. It couldn't give itself his blue eyes, and the red on its shoes were near-black. The entity looked at its own arm, and then back at Tails. It had certainly noticed it didn't work.

Even if it could've fully transformed into a replica of him, the fact that it was constantly melting would be a dead giveaway it wasn't the real Tails, and so, the creature changed its appearance once more, this time back to a darker form of itself. Its previously gray "fur" turned pitch black, the muzzle and chest turned to a dark gray, as with its gloves and parts of its shoes. Its eyes also inverted, changing from black on white to white on black. The pupils also constricted, turning them into tiny, white pupils. The anomaly stared right at Tails, who stood in shock.

Tails was at a loss for words, how do you respond to something like this? What move do you make?

Before he could make a move, the creature tilted its head and began to speak.

"Who are you?" It asked him. Its mouth, or rather, lack of one, stayed completely shut.

It's voice was weird. It sounded nothing like Tails himself, it was much more feminine, though that was the less confusing part. The thing that made it really weird is how it sounded a bit "crunchy", as if it were speaking through something else.

Tails took a moment to respond, not being sure of what this thing would do. "I'm, uh, Miles Prower, but most people call me Tails."

The look-alike in front of him moved its head straight back up, looking Tails right in the eyes. It could sense one emotion from his eyes alone.

Unease.

"Well, Miles Prower..." It said, approaching him. He instinctively rolled backwards, not wanting whatever this was to be closer to him. He didn't trust it.

"...Thank you for feeding me."

Tails was taken aback by this. He had to make sure what he was hearing was correct.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Tails asked. "My hearing's a bit bad today, I think that explosive earlier damaged my ears."

Whatever the thing in front of him was, it seemed a bit unhappy with having to repeat itself.

"Thank you for feeding me."

After confirmation on what he had just heard, his worries rested. Maybe this thing wasn't so bad after all.

Right?

The copy once again approached Tails. This time, Tails didn't move back as far back, though he still wanted to keep a bit of distance between himself and his own creation. It spoke to its creator once more, with a subtle growling coming from its stomach, subtle enough that Tails didn't notice with his impaired hearing from the earlier explosion.

"But I'm still hungry." It told him. Its already small pupils became even smaller. Tails was a bit surprised, but didn't think it was going to do anything to him because of it thanking him just prior.

Oh how wrong he was.

Suddenly, the creature grabbed Tails' left arm. He was caught off-guard by this and tried to pull it back, but in spite of being a liquid-like substance, its grip on his arm was tight.

In the struggle, the monster moved Tails' hand towards where its mouth would be if it had one, absorbing his hand through the null on its face. In turn, it let go of Tails' arm, now holding his hand completely within the null that made up its head. Tails panicked, as he felt his hand practically burning, but couldn't pull it away. At most, he could move his hand across its face, though it seemed like it could never get out of its face. Tails needed something, anything to free his hand.

He looked over to the nearby counter, seeing the gas mask he was using earlier. With his free hand, he picked it up and bashed the monster's head with it. The force of the strike ended up splitting its head, with null flying out everywhere, as well as freeing his left arm, which he pulled back.

Tails looked at what was left of his hand, which was practically nothing. Only slight traces of flesh and bone around his wrist were left, and that which remained was covered in null, only exacerbating the pain. Tails screamed upon seeing what had happened to his hand, and looked back at the thing that had just eaten it.

Despite having its head split open, the creature stood before him as if nothing had ever happened, arms to its side, eyes still staring. There was nothing inside its head except for Tails' phalanges and metacarpals; his finger bones, which it let fall out of its head for it did not desire bone, only flesh and bodily substances. The injury to its head proved to phase it neither mentally nor physically, as it swiftly reformed its head out of its null. Tails, not wanting to lose more than he already had, ran as fast as he could out of his lab.

The null creature attempted to give chase, but it quickly found out it was much slower than he was. Realizing then that it most likely couldn't catch up, it decided to let him run. It could find more meat elsewhere.

Tails held onto his wrist as he was running to try and minimalize his bleeding, as much as it stung. His eyes were teary, his teeth were clenched, he wanted to find someone that could help. He couldn't just wait with the thing in his home, he needed someone else.

He ran up the street, looking for a home that he knew the owner of. After a minute, he found one which belonged to someone who he had helped out before. He dashed to it before knocking frantically on the door.

"Hey!" Tails shouted, with urgency in his voice. "I need help, please..."

The man inside the house opened the door. It was an elderly human male who Tails had previously done work for, fixing his television.

"Oh, Tails!" The gentleman remarked, being surprised to see the fox kit at his door once again. "What do you need?" He asked before adjusting his glasses to better see the little mobian vulpes in front of him.

"I... I accidentally did something VERY bad, and it's left me seriously hurt." He told the man, nearly tripping between his own words. He sniffled, trying to stop himself from breaking down and sobbing right then and there. "Can you call a doctor for me? It's serious, I think I might die..."

The old man was startled to hear this, and responded near-instantly. "Oh, of course!" He told him, trying to comfort him by patting his back. "Whatever hurt you, I'll keep you safe from it."

He led Tails inside. The old man only then noticed what he meant by "seriously hurt", as he noticed the boy was holding onto where his left hand would be, as well as his blood dripping onto the floor as a result of that injury.

Once in the guest bedroom, Tails laid down on one of the two beds, still holding onto his wrist. The old man reached into the bedside cabinet next to the boy and pulled out his first-aid kit. "Alright, let's fix you up while help arrives..."

Tails felt too weak to continue, the blood loss was getting to his head. He didn't respond to the man's act of kindness through words, only by turning his head towards him and smiling. The old man put on his gloves from the first-aid kit and grabbed his bandages from the same kit. He then proceeded to wrap them around what was left of Tails' left hand before securing them with cloth, and finally, taping it all in place.

"There you go, Tails!" He said. "That should keep you from bleeding out until the ambulance gets here."

The old man pulled the blanket on which the fox was laying on from under him before pulling it back up, tucking him into the bed.

"You'll be okay, I promise." He told the young fox before leaving the room to call an ambulance.

Back at the lab, the darkened copy of Tails was wandering around, leaving its null wherever it went. It tried to look for more food, but ultimately couldn't find any more of what it would only eat; meats.

It searched and searched across every room that it saw, leaving wherever it went as a complete mess not only because of its null trail, but also because of its search making it open things, break things, whatever it took to check every last nook and cranny for food.

When it returned back into the experimentation room, where it was first created, it looked around once again, ready to give up and search elsewhere, before seeing something that the fox had discarded while it was still just a blob.

It gazed upon the Miles Electronic, which had its screen still on and focused on one thing: an image of the creature's pure blob form.

Staring at the screen, its attention was particularly drawn to what it was called:

"Null.png".

The monster looked at it and tried to process what this meant for it, before finally interpreting it one way.

"Null... That's what I am." It said, accepting that name for its own substance.

"PNG... That's..."

"Who I am."

Now that the monster had a name for itself, PNG decided that this would be an optimal time to leave. It couldn't find any more food, and it had practically all it needed to know about itself: Its creator, its name, and its desire.

PNG's eyes quickly darted across the room for any opening in order to leave, but it then noticed a red stain on the floor in one of the few spots it didn't leave its null. It had been so distracted on finding food in the immediate area that it had previously failed to realize it could just hunt down its creator, who was bleeding as he fled.

Coming closer to the floor to get a clear smell of the stain, it was able to identify that there was more blood that it had covered with its null. PNG stood back up, ready to follow the trail through smell, now that it knew what odor that blood gave off.

The null creature left the house, following the trail of blood. However, it was distracted by the chirping of a nearby bird. Turning its head towards the origin of the chirping, it spotted a flicky. A green one, to be precise.

It was standing just outside of the woodlands, on top of a destroyed robot's shell. The bird didn't seem to fully understand what it was, as it was constantly turning its head and adjusting where it was standing, seemingly trying to figure out the mystery behind this foreign object. PNG didn't understand what it was, either, but was unconcerned, being more focused on the bird on top of the shell. It wasn't the same size as the prey it was chasing previously, but it still looked delicious in its eyes. The bird's bulky frame for its size made it look captivating, and so, PNG went after it.

The melting fox pounced before the flicky could even react to its presence. In the blink of an eye, the flicky was entirely inside PNG's stomach, being dissolved in a matter of seconds. PNG then put its hand into its own body, only to pull out the bones of the bird. Having no use for them, it dropped the null-covered remains of the flicky it had just eaten back onto the robot shell on which it previously stood.

PNG turned towards the woodland, hearing the cries of more animals. It knew that in there, it could find much more sustenance than if it limited itself to chasing things its own size.

And so, the monster wandered into the forest, ready to eat whatever it could.

Tails was still laying down in the bed that the old man had tucked him into, waiting patiently for more help to arrive. He occasionally glanced back over to the nub on his left arm, where his hand used to be. He could still feel it as if it were there, but the sensation was just that - a sensation. He could replace his missing hand with a prosthetic at a later date, sure, but this was permanent damage.

The kit then looked at his other hand, which was still there. The glove on his right hand was soaked in his own blood from covering his injury, but he was grateful to still have it.

Shooting another glance towards his missing left hand, he clenched his remaining hand into a fist, with tears beginning to form once again. His left hand was missing, but not without reason - a reason that made him feel awful.

He had caused this to himself.

His curiosity had led to him experimenting with something highly dangerous, and even after taking a few precautions, it still wasn't enough to save him fully.

What's worse is that he failed to control the beast he created, and now, it could possibly be roaming free. Thousands upon thousands of people could be in danger because of his actions, perhaps the whole world. He didn't know what this monster was capable of beyond what he witnessed, and the fact it was made of negative chaos energy left him fearing what it may do.

People could die because of this.

And it's all his fault.