It was still several hours before dawn when the boat reached the island they all called home. Rather than bother trying to dock it, they sailed toward an empty stretch of sand. Mighty jumped out as soon as the water was shallow enough to stand in and dragged the boat to a spot on the beach high above the tide line, an impossible task for most but one that barely affected his breathing. The village was dark and quiet when they approached. A few lines of gleaming rings spun in place in front of and between the houses, silently reflecting moonlight. Unfortunately, it wasn't the quiet of peaceful slumber that greeted them, but rather the quiet of empty stillness. Sonic glanced at Mighty and Ray and could tell that they realized it too. Closer inspection revealed scorch marks from errant laser bolts all over the buildings and the ground around them, but no bodies. Sonic was unsure whether that was a good thing. On the one hand, it meant that the robots had come here to capture, not kill. On the other hand, it meant Robotnik had something else planned for them. Whatever it was, he wouldn't get the chance, Sonic swore, and he'd pay if a single person were hurt.
"Come on, let's go look inside," Sonic said.
"Why?" Mighty asked.
"In case they left anyone," Sonic replied.
Mighty nodded. It was inky black inside the houses, even with the moon bathing the village in a pale silver glow. They had to fumble around in the impenetrable blackness of the first house until Ray managed to find and light an oil lamp. Things were overturned and there were more scorch marks on the inside walls, but for the most part it looked like it had been the scene of a minor scuffle rather than a concerted attempt at destruction, as though the robots had completely ignored the structure once the occupants had been removed. The next several houses were much the same, although some were virtually untouched. They were on the verge of abandoning the search when an arm snaked out of the shadowy doorway of one of the unchecked houses and dragged Ray inside as he passed by, extinguishing his lamp in the process.
"Ray!" Mighty yelled, charging for the doorway into which his friend had disappeared. Sonic was twice as far away, but he was past Mighty in the blink of an eye.
"Whoa, steady on lads!" said a voice from the shadows, causing Sonic to stop short and Mighty to nearly crash into him.
"Matt? Is that you?" Sonic asked warily, peering into the murky darkness.
"Aye, now get in here and be quiet before you get us all captured or killed!"
Sonic stepped cautiously into the house, straining his eyes to see. As they adjusted to the darkness he was able to make out the outlines of Ray and the rabbit the voice from the shadows belonged to. Mighty followed behind even more suspiciously.
"Ray?" he asked. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, oh yeah," Ray responded. "I was just startled and I dropped the lamp, that's all. Sorry."
"Keep your voices down," Matt cautioned them in a whisper. "I'm sorry about that, but the way you all were traipsing around you'll bring the badniks down on our heads."
"Badniks?" Sonic asked.
"The robots. Robotnik sent his machines after us. We should have known he was no good."
"Yeah, we got that," Mighty said. "But what are you doing here?"
"General Prower sent me to grab some supplies from the village. Foodstuffs, mostly. And I could ask the same question of you. How did you lot get here? I thought you were stuck in that tyrant's fortress."
"We were," Sonic said. "We broke out and stole a boat."
"You stole a boat?" Matt whistled approvingly in response. "We could have used another boat in the evacuation, and we'll need it to get the rest off."
"Evacuation? The rest?" Sonic asked. "And you said General Prower sent you. So he didn't get everybody? What happened to the rest?"
"When the badniks attacked, they got maybe a score of people before we managed to get ourselves out of bed and in fighting order. General Prower led the defense and ordered everyone who couldn't fight to evacuate. We held the bots off, distracted them, while the women and children and elders got into the boats. We kept it up until they were clear, and continued to hold the line as long as we could. When it was clear this was a fight we couldn't win, the badniks had stunned and captured too many of ours, we broke ranks and scattered into the jungle. We met up in our fallback position in the caves. Prower's having us lie low and wait for stragglers, rest and organize for the moment, but we plan to attack the prison base and free as many people as we can. Then we'll drive the bastard off our islands and send somebody to let our families know it's safe to come back. If we can't do that, we'll get as many more off the islands as we can. For now, at least, most of our families are safely on the way to Acorn."
"Acorn?" Mighty asked incredulously. "But that's so far away!"
"I know how you feel, lad, my family is on those boats too. But it's the only way. Sending them to another one of the islands wouldn't be safe, and we can't expect them to float out on the water for days waiting for us. If we can't retake the islands they'd have to go there anyway, and what if we all get killed and can't get a message to them to tell them to leave?"
"Yeah, that makes sense," Sonic said. "But there's no way I'm letting Robuttnik keep our islands. Tell us what General Prower wants us to grab and let's take it to him."
"We can't. The entrance to the caves is flooded at high tide, we won't be able to get in until dawn."
"So what?" Sonic asked. "That's not the only entrance. There's at least two that I know of in the ruins."
"We can't use those. There are too many badniks crawling around that area. They've seen a few of us disappear around there, and they seem to realize we're penned up in a hidey-hole."
"That's no problem," Sonic said. "We wrecked a bunch of bots on our way out already. If any of them spot us we'll just trash 'em."
"Look, I know you boys are special, but these things are dangerous. I don't think they're the same ones you broke earlier."
"Step outside and we'll show you," Sonic said, grinning like he had a good joke to tell. "Mighty, if you would?" He asked, gesturing across the threshold with an odd flourish.
"Um, okay," Mighty said, unsure of exactly what Sonic was planning but not looking forward to whatever it was,and stepped past. Sonic and Ray followed him out. Matt lingered in the doorway, saying, "What are you doing? It's too dangerous to be outside, a patrol could come by any second!"
"Relax, just trust us and watch this," Sonic said. "Mighty, if you'd be so kind as to destroy that tree?" He gestured dramatically in the direction of an impressive palm tree in the middle of the village. Sonic had a flair for showmanship, or for showing off, some might say, and he delighted in any opportunity to be the center of attention, although this time he had decided to be the stage master rather than the performer for some reason, perhaps giving Mighty the limelight in a misplaced act of generosity. Mighty simply walked over and shattered the trunk with a single unembellished strike, in a small act of protest against Sonic's posturing. The tree fell with a thunderous crash. That was still good enough for Sonic, who grinned from ear to ear as he watched Matt's reaction.
"Oh," said Matt weakly from the doorway. "That, uh, I guess that changes things."
"Told you," Sonic said. "Now, what do you want us to bring?"
To his credit, Matt regained his composure quickly. "Anything that looks useful. Like I said, I'm mostly just supposed to grab any perishable foods, but kerosene, matches, anything that burns would be good too. It gets dark in the caves. We'll need to find extra backpacks to carry stuff, since I only brought three."
"Wait," Mighty said. "Three backpacks for just you? Wouldn't it make more sense to send three people?"
"We did," Matt replied. "Johnny and Rob are in the forest. Since we weren't planning to go back until after sunrise it made more sense to just send one person at a time into the village and have the other two hide. If I got found and captured they could still get away. Matter of fact, I should probably go let them know that all that noise earlier was just you boys and not me getting seen by a patrol."
"I d-don't think that's a good idea right now," Ray said,
"What? Why?" Matt asked.
"Because they're not the only ones who heard it," Ray said, pointing toward a line of glowing red eyes advancing down the street.
"Oh no," Matt moaned. "They've seen us!"
"Good!" Sonic said, racing towards the inbound robots. "Saves me the trouble of having to find them!"
"Sonic!" Mighty said as the blue blur shot past him, reaching out as though to drag Sonic back by the scruff of the neck. "Wait!" he added feebly, dropping his arm. He knew how difficult it was to dissuade Sonic once he had chosen a course of action.
"Well," he said ruefully, "if Johnnyl and Rob thought you'd run into trouble before, they'll know it now. I'd better go help him before he bites off more than he can chew."
Meanwhile, Sonic had already downed two of the robos, and the rest had opened fire.
"You guys are pretty boring company," he said, vaulting over a salvo of laser fire and pounding in the head of another robo. "Where's the challenge?" The robots responded with more laser fire.
"See," Sonic said, zigzagging between the blasts and crumpling another bot, "that's exactly what I mean. You try to shoot me, I dodge, and then I break you."
Then Mighty was in the fray, tossing bots left and right. The patrol had consisted of twenty or so robots. In less than a minute it was nothing but scrap metal.
"Too easy!" Sonic crowed. "Piece of cake!"
"Still," Mighty chided him, "I wish you wouldn't go jumping into fights like that. We could have just run."
"Pshaw, and skip the fun?"
"One of these days you're going to get us in serious trouble."
"I can… what's that noise?" Sonic asked.
"I dunno" Mighty replied, raising his voice to be heard over the rumbling that filled the air. "It sounds like an engine!"
Sonic saw it first. "Holy… what is that thing?" he asked as he spotted the massive vehicle bearing down on them. It barreled forward on a huge pair of treads, the metal tower on top standing taller than the short, one story houses of the village and gleaming silver in the moonlight. An enormous wrecking ball hung by a thick chain from a long, counterweighted arm covered in triangle bracing. It gunned the engine and accelerated at them with a feral roar. Sonic and Mighty dove out of the way and the machine thundered past them, crashing toward the houses, and straight at Ray, who stood rooted to the spot, trembling in terror. Sonic was beside the machine in a flash, and then in front of it, scooping up the petrified squirrel and carrying him clear of the thing's treads before he even had a chance to scream. Sonic moved so quickly that Ray didn't realize he'd been snatched out of harm's way until he opened his eyes several seconds later to see why he wasn't a squirrel pancake, by which point Sonic had already reached the tree line.
"Get into the trees and hide," Sonic commanded him, "I don't want you getting run over. I'll be back." And like magic, he was gone.
Meanwhile, the crane's rush had carried it into the middle of the houses, crushing one of them. The vehicle wasn't built for speed or maneuverability, and bereft of the momentum that had carried it over and through the first house, it could not easily free itself from the structures that encircled it, lacking the necessary acceleration to reach any kind of speed in the tiny area. Instead, the arm on top of the treads swung out and brought the wrecking ball around to crash through one of the houses.
Matt came sctumbling out of the house where he had been hiding as the wrecking ball tore its roof off, but between the machine, the rubble it had created and the wrecking ball whistling through the air he had nowhere to run. Mighty charged to the rescue, only to be lifted off his feet and thrown several yards through the air as the wrecking ball caught him in the side. A palm tree arrested his flight, although it snapped under the impact. Even as Mighty fell to the ground, stunned, Sonic sped towards Matt, who was frantically trying to avoid being smashed by the wrecking ball. Unlike Mighty, he had no chance to survive being clobbered and flung through the air. Matt dodged, throwing himself flat as the wrecking ball passed overhead, and Sonic curled into a ball as the sweep of its arc carried it directly into his path. He rolled along the ground, still moving at incredible speed, and the ball whizzed harmlessly, if narrowly, over his quills. Matt scrambled to his feet and made a break for the relative safety of the road, but the wrecking ball swung back in his direction, threatening to pulverize him. Sonic jumped and curled, slamming into the wrecking ball, using his own momentum to redirect its motion even as it flung him backward against the wall, winding him. Matt stopped and started to head back for Sonic, but Mighty had regained his feet, and as he ran toward Sonic he grabbed Matt and threw him in the opposite direction, towards the road and away from the machine.
Mighty reached Sonic just in time to prevent the ball from crushing him, slamming it sideways with his fist so that it hit the next house over instead of the one Sonic was leaning against.
"Grab some rings," He told Sonic, "they helped me get back up after the wrecking ball-" he stopped to swat it away as they dodged its return path, "Hit me. There are a bunch over there," he finished, pointing to a gap between two of the unsmashed houses. Sonic nodded, and went to grab them. Having regained his wind with the rings he vaulted up onto the treads, looking for the section that housed the controls as Mighty avoided another strike from the ball. Most of Robotnik's robots had a head of some kind, and smashing those invariably disabled the robot. This thing didn't have a head, but it did appear to have some kind of locked booth. He couldn't see what was inside, but it seemed like a good target. He drew back an arm and punched the glass. Although he was far from weak, Sonic was no Mighty, and the window did not give. A few cracks spiderwebbed out from where his knuckles hit the glass, but the most significant result was the painful throbbing in his fist.
While Sonic bounced around the machine, looking for an opening, Mighty went for the wrecking ball. As it swung toward him again, he dug in his heels and tried to grab it, with only partial success. There were no edges to grip, and the ball was moving too quickly. His fingers slipped off after a second of searching vainly for purchase and he was thrown sprawling in the dirt. On top of the machine, Sonic was having no more luck. He tried to spindash the door, but there wasn't enough room, and it was difficult to get a position that would allow him to strike it from the ground, especially since it kept moving. Mighty's second attempt at the wrecking ball was more successful. He managed to slow the ball, still on an erratic course from his last grab at it, enough to deliver a crushing punch that sent it crashing into the side of the vehicle, narrowly missing Sonic.
As the machine swayed drunkenly, Mighty followed up on his advantage. He leapt on top of the wrecking ball, grabbed the chain that attached it to the crane, and gave a mighty wrench. The arm bent, metal shrieking in protest, and then the chain snapped, and the ball came free. Mighty swung it, half crushing the treads on the right side.
"Mighty!" Sonic shouted as the machine shook beneath his feet and nearly tossed him off. "Quit fooling around and help me get this door open!"
Mighty threw the wrecking ball aside and climbed up onto the now immobilized treads beside Sonic. He ripped the door off its hinges with one hand and reached inside the cab to confront the robot inside, which promptly exploded with enough force to knock Mighty to the ground.
"RAAGH!" Mighty snarled, as his frayed temper snapped entirely. He grabbed the ruined treads and flipped the machine over, tossing Sonic off entirely. The blue hedgehog landed neatly on his feet as the titanic hunk of metal landed with an earthshaking crash.
"Whoa, easy there man," Sonic said, as the rage abated from Mighty's eyes and his heavy breathing subsided.
"Aah…" Mighty said, wincing and rubbing his shoulder as they walked out of the ring of ruined houses and back towards the street. "I think I pulled a muscle."
"Yeah," Sonic agreed, "looks like it. You're limping too. C'mon, we'd better get Ray and start packing before another one of those things shows up and wrecks even more houses."
"That was… something else… lads," Matt said, meeting them on the path. "What happened to you boys?"
"What do you mean?" Sonic asked. "We got in a fight with a giant wrecking machine, what do you think happened to us?"
"No," Matt replied, "I mean what did Robotnik do to you two? I've never seen anything like that!"
"Oh, I dunno," Sonic said, unconcernedly. "But it's pretty cool, huh?" He dashed off and returned with Ray before Matt and Mighty had time to do more than exchange glances. "I can run faster than the speed of sound now," he announced grandly as he deposited Ray on the ground.
"I, uh, how fast is that?" Matt asked.
"Uh, one thousand something kilometers per hour…" Sonic said. "I don't remember exactly, but it's really fast, and I'm faster!"
"That's…quite impressive," Matt said. "It looks like you were telling the truth when you said you could handle the badniks. Still, I'd rather not stand around here waiting for more of them to show up, so let's grab what we can and go."
Filling the backpacks was slow work. First they had to dig them out from the rubble, then they were limited by having only the flashlight that Matt had brought, since the oil lamp had been smashed, until they could find more. Fully eight houses had been destroyed, and several more damaged, which meant both fewer houses to check and more work to move between them. All in all, it took not quite half an hour, but it felt like several. Finally though, they were all loaded up with a full backpack.
They were just preparing to leave when Mighty spotted a pair of dark shapes moving in their direction, outside of the ring of light his lantern emitted. He was about to call out, but the shapes beat him to it.
"Mighty?" one of them asked, and he realized it was Johnny and Rob, as Matt confirmed a moment later.
"Rob? Johnny?"
"Matt?" was the uncertain response.
"What are you doing?"
"We heard a lot of noise, and we came to see what happened," one of them replied, but Mighty couldn't be sure which one.
"I told you to stay hidden, especially if you heard something!"
"Well, we waited until it was quiet again. What happened to all the houses, and what are Sonic and Mighty doing here?" Rob asked as Sonic joined Matt and Mighty in the circle of light. At least, Mighty was pretty sure it was Rob.
"Long story. The short of it is, one of Robotnik's badniks, a giant monster one, attacked and destroyed several of the houses before Sonic and Mighty stopped it."
"What?"
"Yeah," Sonic added. "We ran into a little trouble,"
"You call that a little trouble?"
"Sounds about right," Sonic said.