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Author's Notes:

Tails of the Old Republic is a crossover between the Sonic the Hedgehog universe and the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video game.

Sonic and all related IP belongs to SEGA/ Sonic Team
SW: KotOR and all related IP belongs to Lucas Arts/ Bioware Corp
No copyright or trademark infringement intended.

Series rated "Web-14" for violence, mild language, and suggestive themes.

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Lower City Taris — Gang Warfare

To be safe, Carth and Tails took positions on either side of the elevator door. Tails invisibly channeled Chaos energy into his namesakes, and Carth Onasi gripped his blaster pistol. The wide metallic door slid open, and the duo peered around the edges. The corridor into the Lower City was grimy and dimly lit, and old crates and cargo cylinders littered the floor. Some of the lights flickered, and the air coming out of the ventilation system had an odd odor to it. The walls were marred by old blaster fire, but neither the Human nor the Mobian detected any hostiles.


Tails offered to take point, and Carth followed a few meters behind at a wide diagonal (the boy's tails alone extended two and a half meters behind him). The fox crouched slightly as he walked, his eyes and ears darting back and forth, scanning for potential threats. Tails was nervous, but he kept it hidden. His traditional defenses provided only limited protection against these particle blaster weapons, and facing one opponent was harrowing enough.


After a hundred meters, the corridor came to a "T". Tails heard footsteps approaching, and motioned to Carth that they needed to find cover. Carth found a crate to duck behind, and Tails pressed himself beside a rusty barrel. The intersecting corridor lit up with blaster fire as two opposing gangs fought for control of this sector. Three Rodians and a Human faced against four members of another humanoid species Tails couldn't recognize. They had dark, highly wrinkled skin and small, glassy obsidian eyes. The blaster-wielders were neutralized, and melee weapons were brought into the battle.


"You Beks are nothing but bantha fodder. We Vulkars will dominate you all!" shouted one of the wrinkle-skinned aliens.


"We'll show you who's strongest!" replied one of the Rodians. Unfortunately for him, he was subsequently stabbed through the chest with a vibrosword.


In under a minute, the three remaining "Vulkars" slew the rest of the "Beks". Tails angrily hissed at such a pointless waste of life, and his twin tails involuntarily lashed against an adjacent barrel, knocking it over. Realizing he had just revealed his and Carth's position, the fox silently cursed his stupidity.


"More outsiders!" exclaimed the lead Vulkar.


The three aliens charged, and Carth and Tails abandoned their hiding places. Tails was mad, and the fox ran straight for the lead Vulkar. Even as the alien swung down with his vibrosword, the fox tackled him in the gut like a fuzzy orange bullet. Tails' momentum knocked him back, and the Vulkar folded in half. They crashed to the floor and tumbled once, with the fox seated on the Vulkar's chest, and Tails started pummeling his face.


Carth found himself on the defensive as the other two Vulkars rushed him. He shot dead the one in front, but the second one tried to stab him with an electrified dagger. Carth dodged and clubbed him on the side of the head with his pistol grip, but before he could aim again and fire, the Vulkar recovered and knocked away Carth's blaster. The alien tackled him and pinned him against the floor, and the Human struggled against his attacker as the Vulkar tried pressing his blade into Carth's neck. Carth suddenly wrenched him sideways and kicked him in the face, then hurriedly retrieved his blaster pistol.


The Vulkar again recovered fast, and he flung himself toward his target, blade in hand, ready for the killing stroke. But Carth was already waiting; he deflected the swing, and as the Vulkar's arm slid over his own, Carth pressed the muzzle of his blaster into the Vulkar's chest and squeezed the trigger. Soot, sparks, and a faint yellow mist sprayed out his backside.


Meanwhile, the Vulkar getting his face rearranged by Tails' fists had grabbed the fox's neck and tried throttling him. The boy restrained the sudden impulse to impale him with a sharpened tail, and instead responded by wrapping his tails around the Vulkar's arms. Tails pried the Vulkar's hands off him, then jumped off the Vulkar. The Mobian landed sprawled on all fours with his torso barely an inch off the floor, and gripping the floor as well as he could, Tails flung the alien gang member into the ceiling. He landed in a heap, and Tails took position for round two. The Vulkar recovered from his beating, and whipped out a backup blaster pistol.


Tails' eyes momentarily bugged out, and the boy twisted to his left as two shots flashed. Dropping to the floor again, Tails compressed his legs like steel springs, bolted into the air toward the Vulkar, and curled into a spinning ball. The Vulkar fired on him again, striking his target, but the furry ballistic missile kept coming. At the last moment, Tails sprung out his arms and legs, and mashed both boots into the Vulkar's face. Tails' momentum carried them into the wall.


Tails jumped off him, and the Vulkar crumpled to the floor. Tails scanned the area: the battle was over.


"Damn, you're athletic," Carth commented as he holstered his weapon.


"Fighting killer robots for most your life can do that to you. Of course, certain biological changes have helped in the past couple years," replied the Mobian. "I'll have to introduce you to Sonic one day; he totally outclasses me in the whole 'speed' department."


"Are you all right? I thought I saw you get shot..."


Tails stretched out one of his tails in front of him and held it in his arms. A fist-sized burnt patch marred his tail.


"Well, my tail is stinging like crazy, and I lost some skin, but I think it'll be OK.


Carth snorted and scratched his head. "When you said you could use your tails as 'defensive barriers' I didn't think they could block blasters!"


"Not very well," Tails replied. "These blaster bolts are still disrupting my Chaos control. My tails can't absorb the whole shot."


Tails gently released his tail, and it returned to its position beside its partner behind him. The adolescent fox eyed the yellow-colored blood on his knuckles, and he looked back at the Vulkar he had bludgeoned into unconsciousness. His eyes then darted to the seven lifeless bodies that now littered the corridor: three dead Rodians, one dead Human, and now three dead Vulkars. Tails started to tremble, and he gritted his teeth. He tried to keep his eyes from watering. Emotions of anger and sorrow tore at his heart.


"Seven people," Tails whispered aloud. "In the span of two minutes, seven people lost their lives. Over what?! An idiotic territorial dispute! None of these people had to die!"


Carth sighed, and he placed his hand on Tails' shoulder. "Come on, we need to move on," he said.


Tails' gaze fell to the floor, and he replied, "I know. I'm sorry I revealed our position earlier, but when I see a fellow sapient hurting someone, it makes my blood boil. I've spent basically my entire life fighting to protect lives of the people I care about, and witnessing people hurt each other for no reason tends to make me go a little crazy. Its like a personal insult to everything I hold dear."


"Tails," Carth said, "I don't know what fantasy universe you think you come from, but in this galaxy, not everybody plays nice with each other. I need you to man up, because right now, Darth Malak and the Sith are out there butchering people by the billions, and I can't have you emoting every time someone dies. Now come on, we still need to find Bastila. Let's go."


It upset Tails that Carth seemed to be completely missing the point, but he bit down any verbal comebacks. It would serve no purpose to explain here, and the two of them were still in potential danger. The Mobian vulpimorph could understand Carth's position, though; the Human was a soldier and officer with certain expectations for military protocol and professionalism, and Tails... wasn't.


Tails had never been a member of the Mobian Army; he wouldn't even be able to join until he was sixteen, not that he ever wanted to. While Sally could certainly be strict, the Freedom Fighters were by comparison a much more relaxed group, despite the incredible hazards of their jobs. Besides, Sonic and Tails tended to write their own rules, anyway.


Which only further puzzled the fox as to why he joined up with an alien interstellar military. Blasted amnesia.


Tails opted to be point man again, though Carth's guess was as good as his as to which corridor they should take. They picked a direction and hoped they would find something useful.


The Lower City proved to be a veritable maze of corridors. Tails activated a program in his headset that recorded their path and basically filled in a map as they went. As they traveled, Tails became more and more unsettled with the overall lifelessness of the place. Being walled in by innumerable tons of concrete and steel, Tails felt cramped and uncharacteristically claustrophobic. Carth and Tails encountered various people along the miles of sunless corridors, but everyone seemed uninterested in them.


The two finally came to an area that was slightly cleaner and better lit. Tails was hungry and his feet were sore, and his headset's internal clock mentioned it was three in the afternoon, not that anybody could tell without a timekeeping device. They came to a door that read "Javyar's Cantina", and Carth suggested they could take a short rest there. An armored Rodian bouncer eyed them severely as they approached the metallic sliding door.


"Don't cause any problems inside Javyar's Cantina," it said. "You will leave all problems and attitudes at the door!"