The Road to Lost Withiel
Brian Bloomfield
Chapter One
Tails could still remember the cool streams flowing through the Great Forest during his childhood, stocked full of fish. Anytime of year, you could go down to the streams outside of Knothole and drop your hook in. Within five minutes you had a fish. Tails sighed and crouched against the oak he was standing by. The wind was blowing fiercely, and Tails felt his entire body being pelted by rain.
"It certainly isn't like that anymore. Now there isn't even fishing to relieve the boredom of guard duty." Tails thought grimly, shaking his fur of excess water. He pushed his body closer to the tree, trying to get out of the rain, to no avail.
"At least it isn't acid rain." A voice rose from the darkness surrounding Tails. Tails grabbed his night vision goggles and shoved them on his face. He still needed them, only though it was only a few minutes after dark. A grin formed on his face when he saw who it was and he slipped the goggles off.
The stranger slinked out of the darkness and mashed their body against Tails', shoving them both back into the oak. Their lips met in the darkness and grabbed hungrily at one another. After a few minutes the stranger backed off enough for Tails to get his breath.
"Who told you I was on duty tonight?" Tails stared at the shadow where the girl hid. She stepped forward partially and shrugged. Her red dress waved lightly in the breeze.
"I overheard Sonic and Sally talking. Apparently you got called tonight because Antoine is sick and they didn't want him in the rain."
Tails nodded. "I see." He smiled at the pink hedgehog in front of him. "So what are you here for, to relieve me?"
Amy walked slowly towards him and gave him a heated look that would have melted diamonds. "You could say that." Before Tails could react, Amy started kissing him again. Before he knew it, lying on the wooden walkway that surrounded the oak. Amy kept kissing him, but Tails balked away suddenly.
In response to her questioning look, Tails asked. "Isn't this dereliction of duty?"
Amy slid down on Tails and straddled his leg. She leaned forward and whispered breathlessly into his ear. "Tails, right now your duty is to me."
At that moment, Tails stopped arguing because he realized that Amy wasn't wearing anything under her dress.
-----
Sonic sat on a chair in front of his desk, his foot tapping in rhythm to the music playing lightly in the background. Rotor had just given him new data and he wanted to update his notes for his briefing tomorrow. He started reading what he had so far.
"Even though the city of Robotropolis is completely uninhabited by any life form, Robotnik's last creation, the nanobots, still lurk. Although Robotnik is ten years dead this December, his legacy still prevents us from taking anything from the city, because of the fear of another nanoplague. Goddess knows that we're already hurting badly enough from the first time."
He felt warm arms close around his neck. "Hello tiger." Sally purred into his ears. Sonic grinned.
"Hi there." Sonic kissed Sally on the cheek, and turned back to his notes. "Here to help me with my headache?
Sally chuckled. "Not really. I actually came to steal you away for a few hours. I've got a bottle of Bordeaux chilling at my hut, and I found some movies in my closet."
Sonic sighed. He ordinarily would never turn down an offer for an evening with Sally, but he had too much work to do. "Sorry Sal, but I have the briefing at noon tomorrow, and I have to be ready. Rotor thinks he finally found a way to shut off the nanobots. There's a lot of stuff in that city we need, even if we can never life there again." Immediately after he finished his sentence, Sonic regretted the last part he spoke. "Good going hedgehog." Sonic thought to himself. "Sally doesn't need another reminder that we'll never live in Mobotropolis again."
Sally pretended to be unfazed, and here response was cool. "Well, radiation doesn't last forever. Just the next 150 years." She tried to smile, but Sonic could see the jagged glass and barbed wire of hurt that was concealed beneath.
"Tell ya what, Sal. Let me cook you dinner before we relax to a movie, and you'll have a deal.
Sally's heart leapt, but she maintained her composure. "It better not be chili dogs again, Sonic Hedgehog." Sonic chuckled and closed his notepad.
"Don't worry, I have something better in mind."
Arm in arm, they exited Sonic's hut and headed for Sally's.
-----
Antoine parried another blow and bounced backwards on the heals of his feat to avoid another swing. Bunnie backed off a little to allow Antoine to reset himself. She did the same, sliding into her stance easily. She paused a moment, tightening the black belt around the waist of her gi. Antoine had a similar belt around his gi, but his was green, signifying the top class of student. Bunnie, having earned a black belt in Tai Kun, was now considered a sensei, or teacher and was now allowed to take students under her wing. Antoine was the first.
"Antoine, remember, if you think about attacking or blocking and the move you will do, it will already be to late. Be like the wind, swift and light, while also being like the water, fluid but strong. Now, let's go through the falcon.
Antoine sighed. Ever since Dr. Quack had stopped giving martial arts lessons, Antoine had advanced quickly under Bunnie's tutelage. There was only one problem. "I'm in love with teacher." Antoine thought while readying himself for the falcon. The falcon was a series of moves designed to overwhelm your opponent and a series of blocks designed to tire your opponent so that -
Bunnie lunged at Antoine out of her stance without warning. She widened her stance a little dropping her center of gravity, and swinging at Antoine with the right fist at the same moment. Antoine didn't even have time to block and the fist connected full force, knocking him out of the pavilion and out into the rain. He landed in a puddle of water and mud with a big splash. Water and filth went everywhere, and his gi was covered in it all. Bunnie's mouth dropped in shock.
"Antoine, are you ok?" She jumped into the mud and slid to a stop beside Antoine. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head. She reached into the pouch of her gi and brought out a smelling salt. She snapped it beneath his nose and waited. After a few seconds he lunged forward and started coughing and spasming.
"Damn, that stuff smells nasty!" Antoine sat up and shook his head to clear away the spiders. He looked a Bunnie and smiled lightly. "I think I've had enough for today, sensei."
Bunnie agreed. "Go ahead and hit the showers Antoine." Bunnie looked down to her own gi. "I think I might need to hit the showers, too." They both shared a laugh and stood up together. Bunnie and Antoine worked swiftly to put the picnic tables back in the center of the pavilion, which served as Knothole's dojo. After turning off the lights, they headed away from the pavilion and the ring pond, heading towards the northwest sector of the village, where the showers were.
-----
Rotor watched inside the sealed glass container as billions of tiny silver specks flew around and bounced against each other. Three magnetic fields and a small nuclear device protected the outside world from the nanites in addition to the glass barrier. The nanites inside the enclosure were the only remaining samples of the nanites that caused the pandemic ten years before. Rotor personally thought it was overkill, especially since the nanites were programed to not eat glass. He sat back and yawned, tired from a hard days work, exhausted from the last ten years trying to do nothing but survive.
"One last check on the frequency." Rotor reached across his work bench to a tape player and hit record. "This is nanite test number 6059-K. Test number 6059-A confirmed our assumptions that the nanites have a susceptibility to certain frequency of sound. Before our spy network was shut down, bits of information suggested that Robotnik placed an emergency override on the nanites, but Snively changed the encode frequency on the final design before Robotnik killed him for the charge of Treason. This explains why Robotnik wasn't able to save himself. The entire world would have been doomed had the nanites not mysteriously gathered back in Robotropolis and went dormant. Anyone who goes into the city unprotected still can get the nanosickness, but it's been years since the symptoms last showed up according to Knothole records. If successful, then for the first time tomorrow we will be able to enter our city again."
Rotor walked over to a control panel sitting on another workbench. It was connected to a giant megaphone which Rotor pointed at the nanites. "Setting controls to 1067.575 Megahertz at one cycle skips and arming device." Rotor turned the frequency gain control and flipped a few switches. At the top of the control panel was a flashing light marked "Push to Commit". Rotor pushed the button, and a high pitch electronic whine began to fill the room. Rotor reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of ear plugs. As soon as he put them in, the loudspeaker emitted a series of pulses of loud sound, all on the same frequency. Even with the ear plugs in, Rotor's ears still hurt.
The machine began to power down, but Rotor didn't pay any attention. He was staring at the nanites. He picked up the phone and called Sally's hut. After a moment, she answered.
"Yes Rotor, what is it?"
"It's the nanite colony ma'am. I just fried them all...they're all dead. We're go for tomorrow."
-----
Sally softly placed the phone back on the table. A smile grew on her face and she turned to face Sonic, who was sitting beside her on the couch. "Rotor's sure now. We're go for tomorrow."
Sonic frowned and stood up, crossing the room to the bar on the other side. He poured himself a drink and sat back down. "How can he be so sure? Those samples are from 10 years ago, and I've never seen one of Robotnik's creations go down so easy." Sonic drank his scotch and sat the glass gently on the coffee table. "And the way that they all disappeared back into that damn city...something is definitely not right." Sonic finished softly. "Any thoughts Sal?"
Sally rubbed her right arm haphazardly and stared off into the distance. Finally, she spoke. "Sonic, I know that we've always come up on the short end of the stick when we were dealing with Robotnik, but he's dead! We actually have the advantage here! And we should seize it."
Sonic cleared his throat nervously. 'Here I was expecting to have a nice quiet evening with Sally, and I have to end it like this. Well, if I lied I would no longer be useful as an advisor.'
Sonic stood. "Sally, it may have been ten years, as far as I'm concerned it could have been 100. I will never forget, until the day I lay down and die, what evil that man was capable of, the trickery he pulled over everyone, or his twisted genius on placing malice into mechanical devices." Sonic stood up and looked at Sally. She noticed a cold, hard look in Sonic's eyes that was not there a moment ago. "If you are willing to jump from the skillet into the fire, then I'll be the first to follow Princess. Good night."
All Sally could do was stand there and wonder as Sonic walked out the door.