Tales from the Phantom

It Doesn't Matter... or does it?

Tangle rushed into the small house on Angel Island with excitement, holding a piece of paper.
"Hey! Sonic, Tails! I know you're here!" She shouted, and Tails appeared around the corner of the door that led to the workshop, and it was clear to Tangle that he was working on something again.

"Where's Sonic?" The lemur asked with enough energy to power the Tornado itself.
"Chaos knows where he is." Tails answered as Tangle handed him the paper.

"There's a summer fair tomorrow. Gonna have games, shows, and a concert. Wanted to let you and Sonic know, especially because of the concert. Anyone can join, and have you ever heard Sonic play the guitar? It's amazing!" Tangle shouted, taking breaths in between, almost like she'd run all the way up there.

Unknown to them, Sonic was standing at the door, listening to the entire conversation. "I don't know, Tangle."

Tails jumped a mile, "Agh! Oh Great Gaia, Sonic! You gotta stop doing that!"
"Ahhh..  why not?" Tangle empathized her disappointment, looking at Sonic with puppy eyes. "I was looking forward to it. But you'll still come to the fair though, right?"

"I don't know, Tangle," Sonic started to back up towards the stairs.
"Aww, come on! They have food stands, cute animals, and the rubber duck racing, fun chao races, and even that game where you throw water balloons at that one poor unfortunate guy. You know what, I wonder if he gets paid for it?"

"No, he doesn't," Sonic simply said, walking up the spiral staircase and onto the balcony.
Tails noticed his brother's weird behavior. "Sonic? Care to tell us what's wrong?"
"Wrong? Nothing's... um...  wrong!" Sonic laughed nervously, "why would anything be wrong?" Tails raised an eyebrow at him, causing him to sigh, "You know what, It Doesn't Matter. I'll come. You know what, Tangle. Sign me up!"
"Yes!" Tangle exclaimed, rushing out the door, Sonic going into his room.
"Hmm... something's up..." Tails thought to himself out loud.

That next day, Tangle showed up at the door, this time with Whisper, asking where Sonic was.
"Hang on, we'll be a second." Tails had been ready for a good few hours, yet Sonic hadn't even come out of his room.
Knocking on the door, he asked if he was still in there.
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, yes. Very convincing. Can I come in?"
"No! I'm... ugh... getting changed!"
"Sonic Wachowski! You don't even wear clothes!" Tails then slowly opened the door, and to his surprise, Sonic was nowhere to be seen. "Sonic? Where. The actual frick. Are you?"

He heard a sigh from under the bed and checked under it. Sonic was under there, green eyes glaring out like a bed monster. "Go away," he threw a pair of socks at Tails, missing by a mile, Tails holding back laughter.
"You're gonna end up in The Backrooms at this rate,"
"I don't care,"
"What are you hiding under the bed like a gremlin for anyways?"
"I... um... ugh... I don't feel well?" He lied. He was such a terrible liar.
"No, you're not. You would never just admit that. Come on, what's up?" Tails stood up, eyeing something on the bedside cabinet. It was a music sheet, the song being labeled It Doesn't Matter.

"Did you write this?" Tails asked, and he heard a quiet 'yeah' from under the bed. "Sonic, this is amazing! I didn't even know that you wrote songs.."
"I was bullied, Tails."
"Haha... What?"
Tails then peered back under the bed, and Sonic crawled out, sitting on the bed, Tails joining him.
"The last time I went to that fair, I was a little kid." Sonic began, "I was always bullied as a kid because I could never control my powers. And I couldn't talk, so I couldn't defend myself. The whole school made me stand at the water balloon toss and threw the balloons at me. There was nothing I could do to defend myself."
There was silence between the two.

"Go on then, laugh. I know what you're thinking," Sonic finally finished.
"Why would I do that? I know how that feels. I just... never thought that you'd experienced that as well. Is that why you don't want to go?"
Sonic nodded, "Yeah. Because it would ruin my whole reputation as a hero, if people found out I was that scared as a kid,"
"Well, that was a while ago. I doubt they'll even remember you." Tails said, and Sonic nodded again. "Come on then, we can't keep Tangle waiting,"

"Vector, can I put a bet on one of the chaos?" Charmy asked at the fair.
"I don't see why not!" Vector exclaimed, Espio slapping his forehead.
"Vector, you can't let him do that, he's a kid!"
"Mother, can I play on the hook-a-duck?" Cream asked politely, Vanilla nodding.
"Of course, sweetie." She then brought out two reels of ten tickets. "These are for you, and then one for Charmy. No go have fun. And stay close together!"
She then watched the two young kids scamper off, excited to get started when she noticed two familiar faces walking close to them.

"Hey! Let's go on the water balloon toss!" Tangle excitedly announced, pointing in the direction where the poor unfortunate person was drenched head to toe.
Before Sonic could protest, Tangle grabbed his and Whisper's hands and ran over, lining up for the toss, giving Sonic the chance to sneak away.
But in his hurry, he wasn't looking where he was going, bumping into someone.
"Ain't no way! If it isn't Sonic." Looking up, Sonic saw who the three was.
"Aw naw. I'm out of here,"
"Hey, where are you going so fast?" Another one of them, a Möbian coyote, stepped in front of him, chuckling, "Get it? Because you're fast."
The other two, both humans, grabbed an arm each, lifting the hero off his feet.
"Come on now guys. We're all grown up now, more or less. I'm sure we can talk this through." Ignoring him, the coyote looked him straight in the eye, causing Sonic to gulp.

"And after all this time. You're still short!" He said before bursting into fits of laughter, the two joining him, Sonic nervously chuckling.
"So, you're not going to do anything?"
"What? No! We've grown since then. We realized how wrong our actions were, and changed for the better. We're just looking forward to your performance tonight bruh. We saw your name on the list and couldn't believe it. We just wanted to wish you luck," One of the humans said, letting him go free.

"Ok... well... in that case... I better go, don't want to miss my cue," Sonic explained quickly getting out of there Chaos what was that all about? Nonetheless, he was glad that they had put their bullying days behind them.

I'm not going to get into the details of how the concert went, because I'm simply running out of time, but it went well.
Very well. Everyone loved it.

Climbing off the stage, Sonic was immediately greeted by Tails, Tangle, and Whisper.
"Hey, you did great," Tails smiled.
"Spotify when?" Tangle asked with her usual happy voice.

The four then continued to enjoy themselves far into the night.