"Tails, you don't have to go, sweetie," Sally pleaded helplessly.
The brown fox, on the other hand, continued to pack his backpack relentlessly.
"I'll be fine, Aunt Sally," he said calmly. "It's better than sitting around here watching everyone die, anyway."
"We don't even know if this so-called vaccine Wade gave us is any good though, Honey; it could be some elaborate ploy that Robotnik or, hell, even someone more sinister that we've never heard of came up with in an effort to get to Bunnie or, worse, the entire village. Have you even stopped to consider that?"
Tails zipped up his bag and slid into it. He turned to face Sally who, feigning utter exhaustion, was still trying desperately to keep the boy at home where she thought he was safe.
"I'm not going because I want to," he said, looking down at the wooden floor of his hut. "But because I have to."
Sally shook her head.
"You don't have to do anything," she cried. "We need you—I need you—here."
Tails looked up fiercely.
"To do what?" he barked. "All you adults have ever done is push me into the corner or have me watch after the younger ones. I don't contribute anything at all to these people and that's wrong. You need to stay here and take care of Antoine, Sonic, all the others that are sick. I need to do this… please…!"
Sally started sobbing uncontrollably as Tails lowered his gaze once more, this time in shame.
"I, I'm sorry—", he began to say.
"No," Sally interrupted. "Don't say it."
She stood up and turned her back to him, crossing her arms.
Between heavy sniffles, gasps, and crying, she uttered, "Go on, go out there and get yourself killed. That's what your parents would've wanted."
Tails looked up at Sally. She didn't turn around. He couldn't understand why she had become so hateful all of a sudden. He had never seen the princess like this to say the least. Whatever her reasoning, though, maybe she was right? Tails shook his head and silently walked by her, not even bothering to look back at her as he made his way to the entrance of the village. After Tails was out of sight, Sally sat down on the edge of his bed and cried harder, pounding her forehead with her fists. She picked up the books on his nightstand that she would read to him and threw them across the hut in a fit of rage. They shattered the boy's mirror on his dresser before collapsing to the floor with soft thuds. Not satisfied with the release, Sally kicked over his nightstand, destroying his lamp and breaking apart the furniture that once held it up.
Out of wind, the princess fell face first into the fox's bed and buried her face into the sheets, weeping loudly. Her promise to protect the citizens of Knothole Village was being ripped apart left and right; here, the only child of one of her father's most respected warriors whose wife was also a council member in the kingdom's parliament. Sally wanted the roof to cave in and have the four walls of the small hut collapse on top of her, hopefully killing her and putting an end to this madness.
"You sure this'll work?" Rotor asked, examining the components that Wade handed over.
"Not really," Wade said flatly. "But it's the only thing we've got going for us. Unlike traditional land signals, this one will transmit its signal into an old orbiting piece-of-shit relic left over from our ancestors. Well, I take that back: my ancestors—yours were on a beach eating fish and doing stupid animal tricks."
Rotor rolled his eyes.
Wade took a deep breath and continued, "Anyway, this signal is encrypted so only those with this specific hardware will be able to pick it up. So you know what this means?"
"What?" Rotor asked.
"DON'T FUCK IT UP, GENIUS."
"Alright, geez."
Wade helped Rotor assemble the satellite antenna and placed it onto the roof of the laboratory hut. Running a wire into the makeshift receiver inside, Rotor took the microphone.
"Tails? Can you hear me?" he asked.
Tails' voice crackled over the radio: "Yeah, I read you."
"I read you, too, sugar," Bunnie's voice followed. "We ready?"
Wade inserted his earpiece. The microphone on the headset was configured to pick up the vibrations in the user's voice eliminating the need for a full frontal boom mike. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. He turned to Rotor once more and said, "There are certain spots where we may not be able to get signal. Whatever you do, do not go to analog or other terrestrial methods. Understood?"
The walrus gave a firm nod before the soldier walked out. As he walked back towards the entrance of Knothole Village, Wade recalled his constant battle to stop children from fighting a man's war: too many lives have already been claimed that could've been saved. Many women, children, elderly, and disabled from all races had fallen to the bloodshed over the decades. He sighed, knowing it wasn't his place to tell these creatures how to live their lives. However, Wade wasn't about to stick his neck out too far for them, and he didn't want the same in return. He had his reasons and they were good enough to enforce strict boundaries.
Bunnie had changed from her normal pink leotard into a simple black short-sleeved midriff. Her robotic arm and legs were well polished and oiled, primed for battle. Tails was next to her with his bag slung over his left shoulder. Wade approached, cigarette lit and parked between his cracked lips, unzipping his bag.
"I've got some things for you two before we head out," he said.
Wade tossed a pair of night vision goggles to the rabbit and fox. He slipped off his rifle and handed it to Tails.
Looking down at the young boy, Wade said sternly, "You're going to need this one."
Tails took the gun, looked at it in disbelief, then looked back up.
"W-why?" he asked sheepishly.
Ignoring him, Wade then turned to Bunnie. Kneeling down onto one knee, he lifted up his pants leg, revealing a semiautomatic handgun. The stainless steel barrel was scratched and the wooden grips' luster lost, but the initials "WJH" remained strong and clear on the slide. He removed the gun from its holster and handed it to Bunnie.
"Remember this?" he said.
Bunnie swallowed hard and took the gun. She nodded silently.
"You were the best shot I had ever seen, more so than Thom with his rifle," Wade said, motioning towards Tails. "Here, here's a shoulder holster you can use."
He pulled out a brown leather shoulder holster and helped Bunnie slip into it. After snapping the back suspenders into place, Bunnie slid the gun into its holster and some spare clips into the ammo sleeves provided by Wade.
"You better take a good look at this place," Wade said deeply. "This may be the last time you ever set foot in here. Just remember: if we fail, they die. Got it? Let's move."
As they started to walk away from the village, Tails stopped and took one last look at the only home he ever knew. It was nightfall again, roughly twenty-four hours since he was once sitting on his favorite log by the lake when Sonic came to see him and became afflicted with the virus. Fast forward a whole day and here he was carrying a high-powered rifle on a mission that could end up with him being the only one to make it back, if at all. Given all that had happened, he considered whether he was thinking straight. No, Tails thought; I can't fall victim to that sort of reasoning. This was a matter of being driven by instinct, his primal instinct to stay alive. Sally wasn't getting anywhere with the limited resources she had and nobody else was in the shape to help.
"Goodbye everyone… goodbye Aunt Sally," he whispered.
As he started to turn to follow the others, Tails could've swore he saw Sally out of the corner of his eye standing in the center of the village watching them leave, crying. He pressed on, however, knowing that if he turned around to face her now, he would never leave.