Chapter One
A salvo of luminous bullets flew ahead of Kaolin's sleek, triangular jet as she squeezed the firing triggers with vigor, bloodstream coursing with adrenaline, heart pulsing fast. Her hapless target, a Shaulandic fighter pilot, was panicking as he tried in futility to eject as his craft was ripped apart by her bullets, but it exploded in a bright burst of flaming debris before he had the chance. Kaolin said a quick prayer for the slain enemy pilot as she zoomed over the falling remains, then picked another Shaulandic aircraft out of the remaining dozen as her next target.
Ten months had passed since the devastating nuclear exchange between the United Federation and Shauland. Shauland and its allies invaded the war-torn United Federation shortly thereafter with massive land, air, and sea forces, but they were met with more resistance than they had expected. The war was long and grueling, with each side taking many losses.
The Freedom Fighters were assisting in another large air battle within United Federation airspace. They, along with UniFed, GUN, and United Cyborg Hegemony pilots had just launched a bombing campaign on a trio of sizeable enemy bases when a large Shaulandic sky carrier came to assist, spewing its eight-dozen fighters to destroy the five-dozen people responsible. In addition to avoiding hostile aircraft, they had to dodge anti-air flak rounds from the colossal eighteen-hundred-feet-long ship.
Kaolin chased another aircraft and blew it out of the sky soon after, but the intensity of the situation grew when a more persistent fighter began to pursue her, guns blazing. She performed the standard evasion maneuvers, but those were quickly proven ineffective. When she executed more complex maneuvers, her pursuer not only kept up, he started using guided missiles, making the fight even more perilous. She knew he wasn't an ordinary pilot, but was unaware that he had already shot down five other allies. The ash-gray fox narrowly dodged each missile before Oryn came to her aid. He arrowed his sleek customized aircraft in behind them from a higher altitude and sent a missile screaming toward his new target. It hammered the port engine thruster and carved out a large flaming hole which quickly led to the other engine bursting into flames and exploding. The fuel tanks ignited shortly thereafter, and the once-formidable Shaulandic pilot met his end as a shower of blazing debris strewn across the battlefield.
The teal cyborg fox saluted Kaolin as he flew by, and she nodded her head in approval and thanks.
Only three Shauland fighter jets remained, and each were shot down in due time, one by one. With no direct air-to-air defense, and its anti-fighter cannons having proven to be largely ineffective, the massive sky carrier began to tilt to the right as it turned tail in an attempt to flee back to its docking station outside of the country. The allies promptly swarmed the carrier, blasting its anti-air cannons apart and unleashing the remainder of their ordnance upon its hull. The huge ship slowly began to lose altitude as its gravitational repulsor drives were damaged beyond function, and the remaining crew started to evacuate in escape pods. This commenced the next objective in the allies' plans: capturing the ship's captain. It didn't take long for their scanners to verify the captain's escape pod, and after his escorts were shot down, his pod was disabled and captured. In the meantime, the carrier broke apart against a hillside and exploded as each reactor was sequentially breached.
Following the victory, the allies flew back to their main base of operations just outside of a large city called Fort Dallas, which had sustained heavy artillery and bombing damage during the first weeks of the war, but escaped nuclear destruction. They had lost a fifth of their airmen during the battle, but the victory was significant. They had not only destroyed three large bases, which had been a major hindrance for them up until then, but they had also taken down ninety-six enemy craft, shot down a carrier, and captured its captain. Carrier captains normally contained valuable logistics and coding information. The difficult part was extracting the info, but the rough interrogation techniques generally proved effective.
Upon exiting their jets, Tails and Kaolin embraced one another and kissed tenderly. Both of the nineteen-year-old vulpine pilots were still shaking from the sheer adrenaline of the ordeal, and walking was more of a controlled stumble. As always, they were thankful to be in each other's loving arms yet again.
"Lin, your piloting is getting better. I saw you shoot some of them down very quickly." Tails ran his fingers through her frazzled hair and smiled.
Kaolin gave a halfhearted chuckle. "Yeah, well one of them almost got me. Oryn saved both of my tails. Seems their pilots are learning," She stared into her husband's eyes and kissed him again. "We are all getting better, though. Our enemies will soon realize that they don't have an unlimited amount of good pilots."
"And soon, they won't even have a leg to stand on...though I probably shouldn't be talking about that," quipped the mechanically-legged Oryn as he interrupted in a rude yet friendly manner. "Little cyborg joke there. Anyways, good job you two. Great to see we still have worthy pilots out there. I'm off to grab a soda." With that, he walked off and complemented some of the other pilots before heading to a large refrigerator.
The vulpine couple stood there for a few moments, slightly befuddled, but they grinned and made their way into the lounge area. As they walked, Tails looked over at his wife with a smirk. "That was a little awkward, but it's good to have someone with his spirit within our ranks."
Kaolin nodded. "He's good at keeping spirits high. That's definitely a must for our guys."
Later that evening, over one hundred members from various factions enjoyed a sizeable party in a large, abandoned warehouse near the base. Security concerns warranted five mobile rapid-fire auto-chaingun emplacements being situated around the building, which was quite vulnerable to small artillery fire and explosives. There were many scouts patrolling the area as well, and the scanning equipment was on high alert. Most of the attendees were in the center of the cavernous room, dancing amongst the darting strobe lights and floor-level smoke to heavy hardcore rave tunes being spun by the DJ at the front. Others chose to sit at the numerous tables scattered about and attempted to talk over the strident, pulsing music.
The Freedom Fighters and a few United Cyborg Hegemony operatives, including Oryn and Jack, were all sitting at a large fold-out table, enjoying laughs and sharing stories over a round of drinks. The table was situated at one of the room's corners, lessening the overall vocally-muffling effect of the music.
Oryn, Jack, Rotor, and Sonic were in roaring laughter after an amusing past occurrence was brought up, pertaining to playing mind games with a confused Shauland soldier which led to the destruction of an entire enemy unit. The others at the table were also laughing, but without verve of that magnitude. Kaolin was the least-boisterous in the group, plodding around in the vast expanse of her mind once more. Her reticence, fixed gaze, and general lack of facial expressions caught Tails' attention, but before he could say anything, she got up and walked off, much to the perplexity of the rest of the gang.
She slipped out to an enclosed, but still open-air, area to think. The fox quietly sat upon a bench and stared impassively into the deep blue sky at the emerging stars, more of which presented themselves as the Sun sank further below the painted horizon. Her two tails twitched slightly as she began a recollection of the dreams she had shortly before the world war, as well as ones she'd dreamt afterwards. She generally had a very tumultuous dream preceding an attack or some other large and troubling event. Sometimes the dreams would be vague, other times they'd be fairly specific. It became reliable enough to where some of her warnings actually prevented a bad situation from becoming worse.
As her train of thought migrated to other subjects, Tails walked up and sat next to her on the bench. He clasped his hands on his lap and twiddled his thumbs while bobbing his tails up and down in correlation with the movements. "How's everything holding up, 'Lin?" The question came in a soft, careful tone.
A chill came about the air as she failed to respond. She simply continued to stare blankly at the crepuscular sky.
"Or would you rather have some peace?"
She jumped slightly when she finally realized he was there and gave a response with a sheepish smile. "Oh, no, you're fine. I was just...gathering thoughts while spacing-out."
"It's those dreams again, isn't it?"
She shifted her gaze back toward the sky and sighed softly. "Partially, but...I just want this war to end. I want to be able to take a stroll without worrying about bombings or snipers or assassins."
Various assassination attempts had been made on each of the Freedom Fighters since the war began. Of the more major attempts, Sonic, Antoine and Bunnie narrowly escaped a sabotaged ship that took the lives of three others; Sally had been left partially paralyzed for a brief amount of time from poisoned food; Rotor was almost killed when a convoy he was in was hit by an air strike resulting from a friendly bomber's hacked systems; Amy suffered a broken leg from a club-wielding robot; Tails came close to being mauled by a pack of trained animals; and Kaolin acquired a mild concussion from her humvee running over a landmine placed under one of the tires where it was parked.
Tails nodded and joined her in gazing upon the twinkling dots of stellar light. "As do I, which brings me to my next subject. We managed to extract a considerable amount of information from the captain of that carrier we toasted. We got names, base locations, coding, all sorts of valuable goodies. We'll be planning a strike tomorrow."
"Good." Kaolin grinned almost unnoticeably. "The more progress we make, the faster we can liberate our country and hasten our efforts to rebuild our forces. Then it's just one or two steps away from fully defeating Shauland and its allies."
A smile crept upon Tails' face. "And then we can get back to our lives, and...start that family we'd planned." He quickly pointed out a bright meteor streaking across the sky, furthering their enjoyment of the evening.
Kaolin smiled as well, and the two placed an arm across the other's shoulders, head leaning against head and tails intertwining.
The next day found the Freedom Fighters in a meeting room with other faction officials. Reports had come in from other countries; some were optimistic, and some were grim. Kaolin was struggling to pay attention because of mental distress. She'd had another chaotic dream.
"We are getting mixed messages," proclaimed the avian leader of one of the groups. "Both good news and bad news. Of the latter, we have received word that a Mercia Defense Coalition base in its corresponding country has been hit with a tactical nuke which wiped out most of the people there."
The news incited whispers, shocked expressions, and whistles amongst the people there.
"As well, a base in the allied nation of Vasyugan has been overrun by numerous units of a new type of shape-shifting drone. We have been advised to keep an eye out for any drones that look even slightly out of the ordinary. These things are very fast and very deadly."
"Do they know of any possible weaknesses?" The question arose from a turtle from the UCH who was hastily taking notes.
"As far as intel goes, they can be destroyed if hit by a rocket just right, but their armor shifts positions very regularly. They can morph into aerial vehicles, wheeled vehicles, stationary gun platforms, bipedal units, boats and submersibles. Now, moving on to the next part of the main subject—the positive news—overall tactics and operations are becoming more effective, and enemy forces are slowly being pushed back all over the globe. Very slowly, but surely."
The higher-ups in each group began muttering amongst themselves on how to prepare for the new threat. The meeting ended a few minutes later, and the groups dispersed to their respective bases of operations or sections of the complex. The Freedom Fighters held a short follow-up meeting to discuss more in-depth planning, and everyone took a break afterwards.
Tails and Kaolin used that time to head to the infirmary segment of the base in order to visit Tails' parents, Amadeus Prower and his ailing wife, Rosemary Prower. Kaolin knew how Tails felt about the ordeal, and she sympathized. His mother was very sick with a life-threatening, but non-contagious, illness, and every time they visited, he would get bleary-eyed and try in vain to hide his sadness. A cure was being developed, but they weren't sure how long she would last. Even as she and Tails walked, she could see his countenance slowly decline.
Upon arrival to the main area, the doctor opened the door to the room, and the two were greeted by his father with a whisper. "Ohhh hello Tails, Kaolin! Good to see you again. Eh, we need to be fairly quiet because your mother's aslee-..."
He was cut off when his wife spoke up. "Oh, hush ya silly. I'm awake. Come in! Always glad to have visitors! It really brightens my day!"
Her broken voice and frail appearance nearly drove Tails over the edge of despondency, but he held it in as best he could. "Hey mom! How are you feeling?"
She noticed his eyelid twitching slightly and immediately knew he was troubled by her declining condition. "I'm feeling decent today...and don't worry, they're working on a cure. I hear it's almost ready. Now, come over here and give me a hug. You too, Kaolin."
They both received a big warm hug after walking to her bedside, and Tails experienced a peculiar mix of happiness and nearly debilitating grief.
"So, have the battles been very rough?"
"Not terribly. 'Lin and I take down the baddies pretty effectively. It can get tense, but we manage." He briefly glanced at a tube in his mother's arm.
Rosemary smiled approvingly. "Good to hear. I'm very proud of both of you."
Those words pushed Tails even further down the path of sadness which made him blurt his next sentence. "Well, I guess we'll be heading out. We have stuff to do. I love you, mom." The final three words were broken.
His mother smiled again. "I love you too, sweetie, and you, Kaolin. You both make me very proud. And don't you worry, I'll get over this little roadblock in due time. I truly believe that."
That was all Tails could stand, and he speed-walked out through the door after smiling once more. Kaolin sensed imminent emotional collapse from her other half and gave a hasty reply. "I do too, Mrs. Prower. I'll see you two later."
She went into the hallway to find her husband standing in the middle of the path, staring down the lit white passage. His eyes were big and filled with tears, and his lower lip was quivering. All she managed to say was his name before he uttered a quick "I'll be fine" in a broken tone and started to walk off. He didn't get far before he stumbled over into a wall and began weeping with his head on his forearm.
She rushed to his side and placed her arm over his shoulders, lightly moving her hand over his upper arm in consolation. "It's going to be fine, Tails. You know they're working on the cure. She's going to get better. Be confident!"
"I just hate seeing her like that, 'Lin. Every time we visit, she looks worse. Conventional medicine doesn't work and reliable herbal remedies don't work either. The cure needs to be developed faster. I don't want to lose her." He closed his eyes tightly and fought off more tears, but without much success.
"Don't give up, hon. Don't lose faith. They'll get it done in time."
Tails opened his eyes, wiped away the tears and nodded in agreement. It was then that the alarms began to sound, and a second later, Tails and Kaolin were blown to the floor by an explosion.
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Author's notes: Keep an eye out for Chapter Two, coming soon! Please review!
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Canon Sonic characters and places © Sonic Team, Sega
Kaolin, story, other original characters, countries and organizations, etc © NuclearCookout