Author's Note: For those who read my profile page, you know that I've planned on doing a supplemental anthology of one-shots portraying the sacrifices made by the last generation of each of the games in the Vanguard Arc for thesake of their children. Since I've been working on Sonic the Hedgehog works lately, it seemed like this was the logical place to start. So, here it is. Here's an account of Robotnik's coup without the benefit of Sonic and Sally's future selves helping the children escape. A brief line of the dialogue does, admittedly, come straight out of the "Blast to the Past" episode of the SatAM, but I think it's short enough to be forgivable. Warning: One part is particularly graphic. Secondary warning: Don't read this if you cry easily.
Chapter One: Escape to Knothole
Little child, dry your cryin' eyes.
How can I explain the fear you feel inside?
'Cause you were born into this evil world
Where men's killin' men, and no one knows just why.
What have we begun?
Just look what we have done!
All that we destroyed you must build again.
When the children cry, let 'em know we tried,
'Cause when the children sing, then the new world begins.
-White Lion
In the books, it always happened at night, and usually on a dark and stormy one. In books, there was something about the presence of daylight that kept all the evils of the world confined to their lairs. It was as if the gods kept watch by the light of the sun over their blissful creation, only allowing the fiends to prowl under cover of night, when all the world was safely behind their locked doors and under their covers. Perhaps this was why Sir Charles Hedgehog had difficulty convincing himself that what was happening truly was happening, even as the floor rolled beneath his feet from the concussions of rebel artillery exploding against the palace walls. This is some kind of drill, he tried to convince himself. Julian is running some kind of drill to see if the city would be ready for an attack.
Again the floor quaked, more violently this time, and one of the shells being used in Julian's "drill" exploded outside the arboretum. Trees were ripped up by the roots by the force of the blast, and the window of the second floor hallway where Charles was standing shattered, raining transparent plasteel over the hallway. Charles himself was thrown to the floor by the blast, and only by virtue of this was he saved from the razor shards of the window. "Get moving, old man," he chided, forcing himself to get up and go into action. "This is no damn drill. The War Ministry is taking over!"
"Help me!" A woman screamed from somewhere indeterminable. "Somebody help me!" The scream was accompanied by the sound of approaching footsteps. The screaming woman appeared at the end of the hallway then. She was a wolf, her facial fur half-soaked with blood and matted to her skin. In her arms she carried a bundle of some kind, wrapped in blue cloth, and the bundle was crying. Despite her condition, Charles recognized her. Her name was Adrianna, head of the palace housekeeping staff. The bundle in her arms was her newborn daughter, Mariel. As soon as she saw Charles, she ran toward him. "Sir Charles!" she cried. "Milord, help me!" Charles started to approach her to see if there was a way to help her, but there was soon no need. A group of three peacebots, Mobitropolis's black-armored security units, came through the door closely behind her.
"It's all right Adrianna," Charles called, trying to calm her as she neared him. "It's alright. We'll get you to safety." Charles looked over Adrianna's shoulder at the peacebots. Already they were making their way toward the distressed mother. And more quickly than I'm used to seeing them move, Charles thought. Maybe they're programmed get that way during a crisis. "See?" Charles motioned toward the peacebots, drawing Adrianna's attention to them. "The droids will get you to safety." He turned to address the lead droid. "Sergeant, see that this woman gets-"
"NO!" Adrianna shrieked, and Charles noticed that she was now looking directly at the peacebots… and trying frantically to distance herself from them. "Oh gods, no! Sir Charles, help me! They're trying to…" She never finished. Instead, she turned and fled, still screaming, down the hall as the peacebots continued to follow. Several of their number, it seemed, broke off to move in Charles' direction.
And something in the way they moved suddenly seemed sinister to Charles. Without realizing why, he turned away from the peacebots and fled in Adrianna's direction. A single glance over his shoulder told him that the peacebots were in pursuit. Pursuit… they're coming after us, not trying to help us. What the Hell is going on here? He had been running for almost ten seconds when the very foundations of the planet seemed to shake, and the outside wall crumbled down upon the hallway, showering Charles and Adrianna with debris. Charles flinched as massive chunks of masonry hit the stone floor all around him, throwing up waves of stonework that left stinging wounds on his chest and face. It was nothing short of miraculous that one of the larger pieces didn't crush him altogether. But miracles, it seemed, were in short supply that day.
Through the cacophony around him, Charles heard Adrianna shriek. Peering through the dust in the direction of that chilling sound he beheld a new detachment of Peacebots emerging from the Hover Unit that caused the cave-in during its entrance into the second floor hallway. Adrianna lay mere meters away from them, and one leg was obscured by the remains of what had been a support beam only moments before, and a slowly expanding red stain crept across the dust-covered floor from under the monolith as Adrianna struggled to free herself from it. Mariel lay on the other side of the hallway from her, her swaddling cloth now blown into the winds. The cub was crying harder than before, and with good reason. Before Charles' eyes, and as Adrianna pleaded in a voice less like a sentient being than it was like an animal being gutted alive, one of the peacebots stood over the cub, scooped her up by one leg grasped in a cold, unfeeling metal hand, and held her in
front of the red line of optical sensors that served as its eyes. It seemed to assess the cub for a moment.
"Irrelevant subject: unfit for roboticization," the droid said in a flat, monotonous voice. Without another moment's hesitation, the robot swung the cub like a hammer against the stone wall. There was a spray of red, and a sound like a melon bursting open as the cub's crying ceased, permanently. Charles heard Adrianna's scream beginning to come from two different places, and realized a moment later that the second voice was his own, screaming along with her at the savage display. Adrianna, however, did not have to mourn her child's passing for long. As the one peacebot completed its grisly work with the cub, another two advanced on the spot where Adrianna lay.
"Go ahead," Adrianna hissed. "Go ahead and kill me, you metal-hearted sons of bitches."
The peacebots gave no reply. They only stared at her, just as their counterpart had stared at Mariel before snuffing her life out.
"What the Hell are you waiting for," Adrianna screamed. "Kill me! Go on! Do it!"
As Charles watched, helpless, one of the two peacebots swiveled its head toward the stone that lay over Adrianna's shattered leg. "Corporal," it spoke in the same monotone. "Use your cutting torch to amputate its leg. It can be fitted for a replacement once it is roboticized."
"Yes, Lieutenant," the other peacebot answered. With a nonchalant efficiency that belied the gruesome nature of its order, the corporal produced from its wrist an instrument that emitted a blue flame. Adrianna shrieked from a new pain as the machine bent down and applied the cutting flame to her thigh, just above where her leg disappeared beneath the stone. Charles felt himself beginning to be sick as the robot clutched Adrianna by the throat and lifted her over its shoulder, allowing him a clear view of the burning mass of flesh where her leg had been nightmarishly cauterized. As Adrianna clutched hopelessly at the peacebot's wrist in a futile attempt to free herself, the peacebot returned to the Hover Unit. Charles' last sight of Adrianna was seeing her placed into a glass and metal tube of some kind before the Hover Unit's hatch closed and it sped away.
Charles doubled over, nauseated by the display, and vomited. He would likely have remained in that condition for hours if the sound of metallic feet behind him had not forced another dose of adrenaline into his body. The other group of peacebots, the ones he and Adrianna fled from at the entrance to the hall, were approaching from behind, and the trio that slaughtered Adrianna and her cub advanced on him from the front. In all, a total of six of the maddened cybernetic sentinels converged on him, leaving no visible means of escape.
"Surrender, mammal," the peacebot lieutenant ordered. "It is pointless to resist."
Looking around, Charles realized it was so. Standing there, stoically determined to endure whatever end fate had chosen for him, he began to wonder what that might be. Would he be deemed "unfit," as Adrianna's infant had been? Or would he be taken for "roboticization." It occurred to him to wonder if the peacebots were talking about the roboticizer he himself had invented, the nanite-driven chamber that turned living flesh into more efficient machinery. It didn't seem possible. The roboticizer had proven defective, and its subjects' minds left blank. Still, it seemed no less likely than the other events of the day.
Then, as the closest peacebot reached out its steel hand (which was still covered in Mariel's blood), there was a sound like a gust of cyclonic wind. The peacebots all six froze, considering this new data for a split second. It was a split second too long.
"You leave my uncle alone," came a child's high-pitched shout as a blue blur blitzed through the scene, crashing into the lieutenant and sending him sprawling, in pieces, across the hallway. The blur then came to a stop, revealing itself to be Sonic, Charles' five-year-old nephew. The boy's fists were clenched in fury as he glared at the dismantled peacebot.
The other five droids reacted quickly, drawing laser pistols from hatches inside their chests and pointing them at the distracted hedgehog child. With the image of Adrianna's daughter being smashed open still fresh in his mind, Charles flung himself onto the nearest peacebot, attempting to use its arm as leverage to throw it. Alas, even adrenaline and the fury of protecting one's kin could not enable a man Charles' age to overcome a state-of-the-art security droid in brute strength. But he did provide enough of a distraction for the peacebots to reconsider their target. Furthermore, he got Sonic's attention. "Go!" He shouted at Sonic. "Get clear!"
"No way," Sonic replied, dashing to his uncle's side with blinding speed. "I won't leave you, Uncle Chuck!" With that assurance, he grabbed onto Charles' arm with both of his own hands and began to run.
And running, as his name suggested, was something Sonic did quite well. Pulling his uncle along less by strength than by simply dragging him in the wake of his passage, he zipped away and left his peacebot pursuers literally in the dust. Blazing down the labyrinthine corridors of Mobitropolis' citadel, passing by hordes of panicking refugees and frantic guards, many of whom had apparently decided to abandon their posts (for all the good it'll do them, Charles thought). Finally an idea occurred to Charles.
"Sonic, slow down for a minute."
Obediently, Sonic slowed to a stop, and for the first time Charles glimpsed traces of fear in the child's eyes. Of course, Charles was not surprised. Watching one's home being besieged by an army of machines was trying enough for him, and he was an adult. "Sonic," he whispered once they slowed to a stop, "get us to the children's playroom."
"You want to play at a time like this?" Sonic asked incredulously.
"I know what I'm doing, Sonic," Charles assured him. "Walk, don't run, to the playroom where you and the other kids used to spend afternoons.
"But Uncle Ch-"
"Just trust me, m'boy. We have to get there, and quickly."
Sonic hesitated. But in the end, he was brought up to respect and obey his elders, especially relatives. "Okay, Unc," Sonic said nervously. "We'll go."
"Good. Move quickly," Charles urged. Then, realizing the danger of that statement when talking to Sonic he added "but not too quickly. Let me keep up. We need to stick together."
The trek to the playroom went without incident. Whoever was controlling the peacebots (Quit kidding yourself, Chuck, ol' boy. You know damn well who's controlling them) had apparently not finished with his primary targets, so the palace's Family Center was still intact, but Charles had no illusions that it would stay this way. He'd fought in the Great War, and he knew a takeover when he saw one. Fortunately, Mobitropolis was equipped with a failsafe in case the city fell into enemy hands. There was a tunnel, a tunnel no more than a handful of key personnel knew about, leading to a secret fallback position hidden deep in the Great Forest, called Knothole Village. And if it had ever seemed necessary to put the secret of the tunnel to use, now seemed to be the time.
"Uncle Chuck," Sonic said in a voice that indicated barely concealed sobs. "I'm scared."
"I'm scared too, Sonny," Charles admitted. "But we'll be okay."
"I don't mean for us, Unc," Sonic insisted. "I mean the others."
Charles' ears perked up. "Others? The other children?"
Sonic nodded. "Bunnie and Rotor and Antoinne and… and Sally. And some others too. We were all in class with Rosie when the shaking started. She started to try and take us somewhere she said would be safe, but… but I got lost, and I don't know where they are. Are they gonna be okay, Uncle Chuck?"
If they're with Rosie, we'll know the answer when we get where we're going. "I'm sure they will, Sonic. In fact, Rosie was probably leading you to the same place we're going."
"But why are we going to the playroom, Uncle Chuck?"
Charles deliberated momentarily about how much to tell the youth. In the end, he decided secrecy would soon be a moot point. "There's a secret exit tunnel, Sonic. It leads to a hiding place where we can wait for things to calm down."
It never ceased to amaze Charles how the very young could accept on simple faith anything they heard from people they trusted. Sonic made no denials, showed no incredulity. He simply nodded, pressed on and said "then let's go."
As the two came nearer to the playroom, Charles became aware that they were not alone. Sounds were coming from the room. Muffled, agonized sounds, sobs and groans. Something, it seemed, was out of place. "Wait here," he told Sonic, holding up a hand to emphasize the command as he inched along the wall toward the playroom door. Slowly, with an agonizing effort to hold even his breath for fear the sound of his respiration might draw the attention of some horrid mechanized monstrosity, he drew near to the entrance. Finally, when he stood at the very doorway, he drew a deep breath to steel himself against whatever terrors awaited him through the door. He swung his head around into the doorway to see what there was to see.
What there was to see was Rosie, the elderly vole who worked as the palace's head nanny, along with a room full of frightened, trembling cubs. Charles recognized Princess Sally Acorn, daughter of the King, among them. A stout Walrus named Rotor Bering, son of Charles' own apprentice was also there, along with a rabbit and a coyote whom he recognized as the children of General Shardik and Guard-Captain Depardieu respectively. The others Charles didn't recognize at first glance, and there was no time for a second.
"Rosie," Charles whispered, earning a collective frightened gasp from the children, as well as the aging nanny.
"Sir Charles," Rosie exclaimed. "Thank the gods you're alright. Have you seen-"
"He's right here," Charles interrupted. "Sonic, come in, quickly." As Sonic rushed in to join his friends, Charles turned his attention back to Rosie. "We need to get the children to-"
"Knothole, I know," Rosie finished for him. "But there's a problem." By way of an explanation she gestured to a pile of rubble behind her, and Charles cursed himself for managing not to notice it before. The entire north wall was hidden from view by the avalanche of rock. "The exit tunnel's buried somewhere under all that."
"We have a problem alright," Charles admitted. "Okay, Knothole's out. We'll have to find another way."
"But there is no other way!" Rosie squeaked. "Have you seen what's out there?"
"Up close and personal," Charles said darkly. "But we can't dig through all that rock. I heard you trying halfway down the hall."
"I can do it," Sonic said casually.
"Which means we have to-" Charles continued on for half a sentence before Sonic's words registered. "You can do what?"
"I can get through all that," Sonic clarified.
"Sonic," the princess spoke up for the first time, "this is no time to show off."
"For real," Sonic insisted. "I can do it. Everyone grab hold of something."
Charles had his doubts. From her expression, Rosie did too. Still, an unfamiliar voice in the back of Charles' mind told him that the boy might be able to do as he claimed. Besides, if he fails we're no worse off. "Okay, Sonic," he said urgently. "You have one chance and one chance only to… to do whatever it is you're going to do."
"That's all I need," Sonic answered, flashing a proud grin at Sally and Bunnie.
Sally rolled her eyes dramatically, but she did as Sonic asked the group. Soon each of the children, along with Rosie and Charles, were clinging to whatever they could find for stability, none of them quite sure what Sonic meant by 'hold on to something.'
"Everyone ready?" Sonic asked.
"We're ready," Rosie answered. "Hurry, child. There's not much time."
"Hurry is my middle name," Sonic shot back.
As someone in Sally's general direction murmured "I thought it was Theodore," Sonic began to spin around in place. At first, nothing seemed to be accomplished (save for making him dizzy, Rosie surmised). Then, as the group watched, a strange thing happened. Sonic began to spin faster.
And faster.
And faster.
Soon, the young hedgehog was nothing more than a blue tornado in miniature. Moments later, a forceful wind began to blow from him in every direction, forcing the children and two adults to tighten their grips on whatever they had found to hold on to. This continued for several seconds, with the wind constantly increasing in speed, until the entire assembly felt that they would surely lose their grip. Finally, the tornado that was Sonic moved toward the rubble pile with agonizing slowness. And where he passed, the rubble was blown aside, forming a path to the north wall. And leaving rubble pieces no bigger than gravel tossed haphazardly about the room. As soon as the wall was completely visible, Sonic's spinning slowed, and then stopped altogether.
One by one, the children and adults let go of their respective perches (save for the coyote cub, Antoinne, who had to be pried away by Rosie) and marveled at Sonic's work.
"I don't believe it," Rotor whispered in awe.
"Well mah stars!" Bunnie Shardik echoed the sentiments.
"Sacre bleu cheese!" Antoinne squeaked.
"There'll be no living with him after this," Sally groaned.
"Alright, alright children," Rosie was the first to regain her focus. "We have to move quickly. Sir Charles, I'll need your help."
Charles nodded, and he and Rosie both approached the wall. For several seconds they poked about, counting bricks and pressing important ones inward and aside. Finally, there was the groaning sound of stone being moved, and a portion of the wall receded and slid aside, revealing a tunnel from which no light emerged. The too-sweet smell of aged soil poured forth from the tunnel, and the very air was wet. Rosie wasted no time to marvel. "Quickly children," she motioned them into the tunnel. On command, nearly thirty children, ages five to seven years, made their way into the tunnel in complete silence with no pushing or shoving. Rosie and Charles, however, barely noticed the oddity of their behavior. They merely stared at each other over the heads of the children. There was a decision left to make, and neither of them looked forward to it. "Shall we draw straws, Sir Charles?"
Charles was silent for a long time. Finally, he shook his head and sighed. "No need. You go with them."
"But sir-"
"No, Rosie. No buts. These children are going to need their nanny, now more than ever."
Silence followed, silence in which the children began to perceive that something was not as they had been led to believe. In the end, Rosie nodded, hugged Sir Charles, and gave him a quick kiss on his mustached cheek. "If I were ten years younger, Charles…" she said admiringly.
"I thought you were ten years younger," Charles jested, trying valiantly to break the tension.
Rosie smiled at the joke, but tears began to fill her eyes. "Godspeed, Charles," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. And with that, she backed into the tunnel.
"Uncle Chuck," Sonic re-emerged from the tunnel. "Hurry up. We need to get moving."
"Let's move along, dearie," Rosie urged him.
Sonic, seeing his uncle stand fast at the tunnel entrance as the party moved to go, was having no part of it. "Uncle Chuck, come on! You have to go with us!"
"Sonic, dearie," Rosie pleaded.
He'll have to know, Charles decided. He has a right to know, as much as I'd like to shield him from it. "I can't go with you, Sonic."
The tears filling Rosie's eyes slowly made their way down her cheeks as a pall of silence fell over the group.
"W… what?" Sonic choked.
"Sonic," Charles explained, "the tunnel has to stay a secret, or they'll find you. That means someone has to stay behind to collapse the entrance once you've had enough of a head start."
"But you'll come find us then, right?" Sonic asked, eyes wide.
A sob escaped from Rosie, and Charles face fell. "Yes, Sonic. I'll find you then," he said, but there was no conviction in his voice.
"You're lying!" Sonic screamed. "You won't! You won't 'cause you can't! You're going to stay here and… and the peacebots'll get you and… and…" his voice was swallowed up by wracking sobs.
Time was of the extreme essence, and Charles knew it. But at the same time, he couldn't leave the boy like this. With haste, he moved toward Sonic, and Sonic ran to him. He put his arms around his young nephew, the closest thing to a son he had ever had, or would ever have. For a moment, neither of the two said anything. "Sonic, I know this has to be hard for you," Charles assured him. "Gods, I can't imagine going through this at your age. But you have to be strong now, okay?"
"But I can't," Sonic said, still crying. "I'm not big and strong like you. You have to come with us, Uncle Chuck. You just have to."
"You're wrong, Sonic," Charles whispered, barely able to speak through his own tears. "You're stronger than I could ever be. If it weren't for you we wouldn't have even found the tunnel. Now you've got to be strong for your friends, Sonic. You're going to a new home, one that's not like Mobitropolis. It'll be dangerous, and you might be there for a long, long time. Don't forget Mobitropolis, Sonic. Don't ever forget it. But whatever you do,
"don't, ever, come, back. Do you understand me, Sonic? Our kind won't be welcome here anymore." Charles was silent for a moment, his mind boiling over with things he wanted to tell his nephew but would never have the chance. In the end, it was Sonic who found the most important thing left unsaid.
"I love you, uncle Chuck."
It took Charles several seconds before he could answer, but he finally managed to croak the words "I love you too, Sonic. Like a son." For a fleeting moment he embraced the child, wanting to protect him from the evils of the world up to the last second that he could. Then, he let go, and Sonic followed suit. Charles smiled as the boy wiped his eyes. When Sonic looked at his uncle's face, Charles saw a brave resolve there that made him burst with pride.
"I'll be strong like you said, Unc," Sonic assured him. And with that, he turned and ran down the tunnel to join the other children, with Rosie close behind. Five minutes of running full-speed later, the party heard an explosion behind them and felt a concussion rumble through the tunnel.
Knothole Village, the village from which they would one day reshape their world, lay before them.
Behind them there was now nothing at all.