Disclaimer - Sega, Archie and DiC own the bodies. I'm just playing with the souls.
A/N – Based on something started in 'Five Things That Never Happened to Bunnie Rabbot', though you don't have to have read that to understand this. I'd all but forgotten about this fic until Orin reminded me during a meme on LiveJournal. Picked it up again in an effort to make her feel better about crappy phonelines and her heinous shoulder injury. Feel the love, babs.
Very severely AU.
A Twist of Fate
© Scribbler, October 2005.
Bunnie stood by her window and looked out to the horizon. Branches reached like arthritic fingers in the dying sun, and a thin rime of frost had already begun to form everywhere.
She felt Knuckles coming up behind her, his movement stirring the air ever so slightly. His footfalls were soft as the beat of a butterfly's wing, despite his boots, and his scent rose about her like fog. His was a distinctive aroma – musk and turned earth and that disgusting acorn coffee nobody else liked.
"Hey."
He didn't answer. He'd been quiet ever since he and Dulcy got back from the Seeing Pool. Bunnie hadn't asked, and he hadn't volunteered any information, but she knew he'd been successful. He'd seen the person he might have been, had he lived his life differently. And it had added new wrinkles to his brow.
They stood in silence until he asked, "Have you eaten anything?"
"I think there's an oat farl hangin' around here someplace." She gestured at her desk, which overflowed with charts, diagrams and other bits of paper.
"If it's hanging around here, then you haven't eaten it."
She shrugged. "Guess I got distracted. I'll find it before it goes green. Probably." There was no apology in her voice.
Knuckles grunted and pressed something into her hand. She looked down. It was a wedge of cheese and some bread with butter on.
"Not quite a royal banquet, but - " He finished with a flaccid gesture.
"It was sweet of you, all the same." She pecked him on the cheek. He received it, then all but pushed her into a chair and watched her eat.
"You haven't been taking care of yourself lately," he admonished.
Again, she showed no remorse for her actions. The cheese was rubbery, but the bread was fresh enough to still be soft in the middle. It smelled of flour and crushed sunflower seeds, and reminded her of when she was four and snuck down to the castle kitchens to steal enough cinnamon rolls until both she and Knuckles felt quite sick. Their fathers had thought the resulting tummy-aches punishment enough, and let them moan and groan their way to the childish promise that they would never, ever, ever eat cakes again.
The memory made her pause. She turned the cheese over in her hands, then put it down and rubbed her fingers over both sets of her own knuckles. Her fur was coarser than it used to be – a result of hard labour and unrefined soap. She was getting bald patches on her right thumb and index finger where her pen pressed in. Even with Nicole, she still wrote too much. There were reams of spidery scrawl scattered about her hut that evidenced it. She found things stayed in her brain more when she could picture them in her own handwriting instead of computerised digits.
"Do you reckon he'll come?" she asked suddenly.
She didn't look up to see, but she felt Knuckles raise an eyebrow. "Sonic? I don't know."
"He knows how much we need him."
"I know how thick his head is, too."
She shot him a warning look. "If he does come, you give him less of that lip, or he'll run right back to that island of his."
Knuckles let a breath out through his nose. "I still don't see why we can't handle this on our own - "
"It's too risky. With his help, we might just stand a chance of breakin' the back of this empire. Without it… there's still a chance, but it'd be a lot slimmer." Her hands balled into fists on her thighs. "And that ain't a risk I'm willin' to take."
He didn't need her to spell out what she was thinking. She thought about it so much, it was difficult for him not to guess and be right every time. And besides, he'd been there when they pulled the body free, when they ran from the complex, when the smog gave way to sunlight that ruffled fur and bounced off smooth, hard metal…
It wasn't Knuckles's way to kneel beside her, or put an arm around her shoulders, or even pat her on the head. His claws were his greatest weapons, but a childhood with them had made him jumpy about physical contact in case he accidentally hurt someone. If anything, since his father set up the power rings for him – a contingency plan finished right before Locke himself was roboticised – Knuckles had only got worse.
It made things interesting when a rescue involved carrying someone from a scene.
"Sally was in here earlier."
He shifted his feet slightly, as if wanting to touch her, comfort her, do all the things he'd never let himself do. But he stayed where he was.
"She's been cuttin' her hair again. Barely covers her ears anymore. She says it's better she don't have nuthin' obscurin' her vision on such a big mission."
"Rotor said she's much better at using her leg implants now." It was the closest thing he got to reassurance. And it wasn't enough.
"I know." It was the closest Bunnie got to thanking him for the attempt. And it wasn't enough, either. "He tightened the bolts in her arm this afternoon. After this is all over, he's maybe going to be puttin' some extension implants in below her elbow, too. She says… she says she asked him if it were possible. She asked him." Bunnie closed her eyes and breathed like one of those meditation techniques Sally had showed her. It was supposed to help calm her down, but she might as well have been trying to turn invisible, for all the effect it had.
"Sally knows what she's doing."
"Does she?"
"It isn't wise to start with this tonight."
"You… no, you're right. You're right." Bunnie sighed and got to her feet.
The cheese was left uneaten, but Knuckles didn't say anything about it.
The undercurrent of guilt was still present in her mind, but she packed it away and shelved it to peruse another time. It sat alongside a host of other, similar memories: times she'd been too young, too slow, too inexperienced, too weak to help, and the consequences of each.
And there would be another time to think about them. There always was. And there would be until the day they found a long-term treatment for roboticisation – with or without deposing Robotnik first.
Knuckles stayed at her shoulder as she rummaged through her paperwork and exhumed Nicole. He pointed to her under a graph of West Continent Robian to Mobian ratios.
"What would I do without you around to drag me back to Mobius?" Bunnie asked, not of the computer.
"I'm here to serve, my princess," Knuckles replied softly.
The sky was scarlet, and the haze of smoke rolling over the Robotropolis was thick and acrid and suffocating. It felt too heavy to ever be cleared away. The scent of it hung in the air, infusing everything down to the cracked metal casing of discarded SWATbot parts and the few remaining stones of the castle. Some of those lingering stones had crumbled. So had some of the sky – or so it felt.
The roots of Bunnie's fur fizzed. She kept wanting to scratch the back of her neck. "How much longer?"
"Patience, Princess," Blaze breathed. She'd never taken to calling Bunnie by her first name. It had been faintly irritating at first, highlighting Bunnie's supposed status where there was no need for it, but gradually she had accepted that it was just the shaman's way.
The air was redolent of energy-rifle discharge. Bunnie had been nearly roasted by them enough to recognise the scent of lightly ionised oxygen. Knowing the other Freedom Fighters were out there made her paws and feet itch with inactivity.
She started when Blaze laid a paw on hers. No words were exchanged, but the meaning was clear: Be calm. They'll be all right.
How do you know? Bunnie wanted to ask. How do you know this operation won't be the last in all the senses I don't want it to be?
She remembered the strange look in Knuckles's eyes before they set off – a mix of gung-ho, apprehension and grief. Bunnie had tried to talk to him, but he'd just held her hand and then climbed into Dulcy's pouch without a word.
It would've been easier if he acted more like Sonic. The more Sonic talked, the uneasier he was. With Knuckles being naturally reticent, it was virtually impossible for anyone who didn't know him to tell what he was feeling.
The sound of blasters brought her back to the present. Blaze's shoulders were rigid, her eyes fixed on the corner where several SWATbots were now coming into view. Ahead of them ran a small figure, legs pistoning to maintain her lead.
C'mon, Sally, Bunnie willed, not daring to say it aloud. You can do it.
Sally banked a hard left and scrambled over a heap of garbage identical to hundreds, maybe even thousands more spread throughout the city. Whatever upgrades Robotnik had convinced himself he'd done to Mobotropolis, efficient refuse management wasn't one of them. The SWATbots made to follow her. If machines could act surprised, then these were astounded when a large purple walrus and a small coyote in royal guard uniform accompanied their quarry in leaping on them and tearing their heads and arms (with blasters still attached) off. Rotor and Antoine used mechanical secateurs to cut through the thick wiring in their necks, but Sally just used her roboticised left hand to rip and tear.
"Hot dog!" Bunnie whispered, letting out a relieved breath. The improved SWATbots had been her most major worry about this whole mission. Larger, faster and sturdier than their predecessors, seeing her people overcome them brought a shine to her eyes. She looked to Blaze. "Now?"
"Now, Princess."
Bunnie vaulted the top of the garbage heap they were crouched behind and bolted for the doors of the citadel – once Castle Rabbot. Nicole in her hand, she punched in the relevant code their breakers had distinguished and resisted the urge to cheer as the control box slid open. Nicole slotted, beeped, and released the door-locks. Immediately, all around the base of the citadel the ornate double doors began peeling back.
Somewhere out there, Bunnie knew, Knuckles and Sonic were enacting their twin-pronged attack on the citadel's extensive mechanized defences. Just as Sally, Rotor and Antoine had drawn off and eliminated the guards, so too were they giving her the chance to get into the heart of Robotnik's stronghold. Tails, Mina and the Wolf Pack were also heading inside, while Dulcy and Rouge led an air strike on the tower artillery.
This was a make or break operation. They were using everything, everyone and every piece of knowledge, skill and data they had. Bunnie had strategised meticulously, played their resources to the hilt, planned and planned and planned again. If this didn't work, they had nothing left. Whatever happened, the conflict between Knothole and Robotropolis ended tonight.
Blaze was at her side, waving her staff and muttering. An intricate lattice of coloured lights sprang before them on the floor, chittering and leading away into the darkness. "The spirits guide us," she murmured. "The dead show us the way to vengeance."
"Not vengeance," Bunnie replied, running down the path the lights mapped out. "Freedom." Then to herself she muttered, "Knuckles, you'd better make it through this, y'dumb lummox. If you turn up as one of them itty bitty lights, I'm'a plait your darn spines!"
Say what you would about Robotnik, but the guy had a strong grip.
"Hraa!" Green fire blossomed from Blaze's outstretched palms. It flowed over Robotnik, setting his cloak alight and making the ends of his moustache smoulder.
His response was to tighten his grip around Bunnie's throat.
I'm gonna die, she thought. It wasn't a wild thought, just an observation made by the back of her brain. This was it. She'd successfully uploaded the supervirus before Robotnik burst in and caught them. The Robotropolis matrix was finished. It would take months to scrape anything back together, and judging by the reports coming in before communication was cut off, and the scenes of destruction she'd passed trying to escape, Robotropolis didn't have months. The citadel, the heart of everything Robotnik had built, was falling.
Blaze's eyes flared, but for all her magick she couldn't break the hold of Robotnik's roboticised hand. His other arm hung useless, bones smashed beyond repair, but her magick found its roots in nature and the organic. Metal was its enemy. "Princess!" she cried, helpless.
"Hrrk!" Not the best response, but it was all Bunnie could manage. Dark spots crowded the edges of her vision. Her lungs were on fire and there was an iron ring crushing her skull; tightening, tightening, forever tightening.
It hurt. She'd read about what it was like to die of strangulation, but nobody ever mentioned the basic fact that it hurt so much. She almost wished Robotnik would just snap her neck and be done with it. Not that she wanted to die, but the part of her brain that concocted battle tactics acknowledged that there was little chance she wasn't going to. There were no Freedom Fighters anywhere near here – certainly none near enough to reach her in time. Mina could, maybe, but the last she'd seen of Mina was as the young mongoose was carried off, unconscious, over Lupe's shoulder. Robotnik was defeated. Mobotropolis's freedom would be Bunnie's legacy.
"You can't beat me," she heard Robotnik say. His voice sounded echoey, like he had rolled up a piece of card and was using it like a microphone. "You can damage my city, you can crush my body, but I won't go away, Princess. I'll never go away. Your people won't kill me. Your laws won't allow it. I'll just sit in a cell somewhere, rotting. Perhaps for years. Decades, even. Security will be tough – I would expect no less from your good little soldiers. But they'll eventually grow lazy. Everyone always does. Someday they'll stop worrying about me, and then I'll come back. And I'll make them wish I'd roboticised them while they had the chance to submit to me!"
"Get away from her!"
Thick buzzing filled Bunnie's head. At first she thought it was the blood pounding in her ears. Then the pressure around her throat abated and she dropped to the cold, hard floor. Her utility belt clattered loudly as it struck the metal. Robotnik's hand was still around her neck, but she was too weak to even scrabble at it, instead just lying there like a helpless newborn kit.
Someone scooped her up. A voice seeped into her ears, limp as they were. She couldn't even tilt them to identify who was talking. Then gentle fingers cupped her cheek. She felt she'd know that touch until the end of time.
"Knuckles…"
"I'm here," he said simply.
Bunnie cracked her eyes open. Robotnik's severed metal gauntlet lay near the door, near the unconscious bulk Sonic stood atop. He was grinning, but it was an expression that hung rigidly from his cheekbones, and there was a nasty burn across his chest.
Knuckles wore no expression, but his eyes radiated relief.
Quietly, throat still full of red-hot needles and unmindful of how royalty was supposed to act, Bunnie began to weep.
"I'm not … entirely sure how this is meant to go."
"You ain't the only one."
"Ain't?"
"Long time since my last elocution lesson, sugar. Cut me some slack, hey?"
They were stood in what had been the House of Rabbot throne room, once upon a time. The only thing reminiscent of that purpose now was a large metal chair, somewhat like a throne, but wide enough to accommodate Robotnik's enormous girth. It stared at them from the centre of a control array, accusing, waiting for a master that would now never return.
"It's so different," Bunnie murmured, touching one of the cables that streamed from the ceiling. She hadn't even the faintest inkling what it was for.
Knuckles returned the chair's glare and kicked a lifeless conduit on the floor. There was no fear of repercussions, since they had cut power to the entire of Mobotropolis – something they never would have been able to accomplish without the help of Sonic and his emeralds.
"Knuckles?" Bunnie turned to where he had his palms pressed flat against a huge keyboard, forehead resting against an equally huge monitor. Everything seemed dead and damp, choked with lingering sweat and the exhalations of a madman. The only light came from a torch they'd each brought with them.
Knuckles lifted his head and looked at own reflection in the glass. "Just taking a moment." He turned to look at her, eyes perhaps a little overbright. "We did it. We really did it. It's over."
Bunnie thought of the legion of suddenly masterless Robians, the acres of corrupted city, not to mention the far-reaching implications deposing Robotnik would have. His empire was more sprawling than any of them had first thought, and there was no guarantee his generals would cease to operate just because he had.
"No," she said softly. "It's just beginnin'."
"Bunnie?"
"Yes?"
"Can you hold back on the happy act? Okay? Just this once?"
She blinked. Then she smiled – weakly, but it was still a smile. "Give me sumthin' to keep me goin', an' I'll think about it."
In seconds Knuckles had crossed the room, rolled her into his arms and pressed a kiss to her lips. It was quick and hot and fervent, full of all the elation and the apprehension he wasn't able to put into words. When he pulled away her mouth felt as bruised as her neck.
"Deal."
FINIS.