Chapter 10 – "Retreat"
"Ngh." Knuckles tried to suppress a twitch as Dr. Quack pulled the last stitch taut on the echidna's lacerated shoulder.
"I told you when I started that I have painkillers," the duck said with some exasperation.
"I'm fine."
"Suit yourself." The doctor set his tools aside next to a pan of gravel the medical aide had already picked out of Knuckles' scraped back, then took out bandaging and began to wrap the echidna's forearms and bind his damaged shoulder. "Now, make sure to take it easy on your ribs for a while. They took a lot of damage. Ice them whenever you can—you do have ice on Angel Island, right?" Knuckles nodded. "Good. Wrap them if you need to but make sure you're breathing deeply no matter what or you could get pneumonia. I'd recommend avoiding any real strenuous activity."
"Hn."
Dr. Quack gave Knuckles a measuring, disapproving frown, but there was little the duck could do to make sure the echidna actually took it easy. Unfortunately.
Sally watched from the doorway as Dr. Quack finished up with his grouchy patient. She and Bunnie had waited at the rendezvous point for Knuckles, and were relieved when he'd finally limped into view. The pair had helped the Guardian back to Knothole, Sally supporting most of his weight while Bunnie carried both of their sacks. The echidna had enormous reserves of strength and yet had still nearly collapsed unconscious by the time they reached the hidden village, and protested only feebly when Sally unceremoniously escorted him to the medical hut. Even now, the princess could just barely make out the signs of exhaustion in the set of his shoulders, the lack of energy in his glares.
Dr. Quack finally walked out of the exam room, grumbling about stubborn patients, and glanced briefly at Sally as the medical aide went to clean up the exam items. "This is why I don't like treating heroes," he muttered, and headed for his office.
Sally glanced back into the room to find Knuckles standing right next to her, bandaged arms folded across his chest, his face its usual closed mask.
"How are you feeling?" the princess asked tentatively.
Knuckles shrugged, his wince almost unnoticeable. "I'm fine," he repeated.
He didn't look fine, as far as Sally could see. In fact, he looked like he'd wrestled with a meat grinder and lost. But she knew he wouldn't listen to her any more than he did the doctor, so she accepted his word for it, much as she always did with Sonic after he'd come out the worse for wear on a mission.
Thinking about Sonic reminded Sally of how close they'd come to getting him back, how the power ring had failed all too soon, and of Knuckles' quiet apologies for the state he'd left her friend in. She swallowed a lump in her throat. Was it all hopeless?
Knuckles walked past her, out of the medical hut and through the village. Sally blinked and followed after him, concerned. He was heading out of the village.
Sally ran forward and grabbed his good shoulder. "Knuckles, where are you going?"
"Home," came the curt reply, as the Guardian shook off the princess's hand.
"But...back to Angel Island?" She stopped, staring as the battered echidna kept walking.
He only nodded, without even looking back.
"What about Sonic?"
Knuckles glanced over his shoulder briefly. "He nearly killed me, Princess."
"But..."
The echidna ignored her and disappeared into the forest, leaving Sally standing at the village's edge, staring after him in shock, hope draining out of her.
Eventually, she walked back through the village in a daze, trying to sort out her jumbled thoughts and come up with a plan. That was her burden, her role among the Freedom Fighters. Someone had to make the plans. She couldn't indulge in indecision. But now, without Knuckles' help, how could they hope to rescue Sonic?
Her feet brought her to Rotor's workshop. She could hear voices inside, Rotor and Uncle Chuck discussing the schematics for the Mobianizer, Tails asking about parts and giving input. The sounds of drilling, hammering, and sparks from welding drifted through the open windows.
Sally sat on the porch and composed herself. Out with the emotional teenager, in with the calm, collected leader. Hiding her sunken spirits behind a mask of confidence. Like always.
The door opened behind her and she glanced up to see Tails bringing out a bin of scraps for the junk heap Rotor kept behind his shop. He started in surprise when he saw her. "Oh, Aunt Sally! I thought you were at Dr. Quack's hut with Knuckles."
Sally offered the fox kit a wan smile. "I was. How is progress?"
Tails shrugged. "The parts you guys brought back last night are really helping, but it's still going to take a while to fit everything together right. And we don't know how we're going to power it yet. Uncle Chuck says it's going to take more than our water wheel can provide."
"I'm sure you three will think of something." Sally ruffled Tails' hair. "You're the smartest people I know."
Tails blushed underneath his fur. "Gee, thanks Aunt Sally." He ducked his head and trotted off to the junk heap with his burden.
Uncle Chuck came to the door. "Something wrong, Sally?"
Sally sighed and stood, dusting herself off. "Knuckles left. We're on our own."
Sonic floated once more in the featureless void, bound up by the phantom threads that held him immobile. But it was different this time. He was more aware. He remembered himself. Being shocked back into consciousness, feeling the pulse of a power ring through his body even for just a few moments, seemed to have reinforced his sense of identity so much that the darkness couldn't drown it again. Nor was it completely able to disconnect him from his senses this time.
He stared off into the void, seeing as though through a haze as Robotnik's 'bots came to the alley to collect his body where it lay broken and unresponsive on the ground. The fight had been a blur to Sonic, still fighting the darkness at the time and trying desperately but in vain to regain control, to take back his limbs, to call off the attack. Flashes of harsh fluorescent light and the red of Knuckles' quills, the cloud of dust as Sonic's metallic body crushed the echidna to the earth, and the sparks and debris as Knuckles returned the favor, but little more than that. Sonic hoped the Guardian was still alive and well, and feared he wasn't.
He watched as the 'bots hefted him onto a floating platform like a stretcher sans wheels, strapping the mangled wreck of his body down to keep it from shifting in transit. The view became monotonous, the dark silhouettes of buildings drifting by beneath the smoggy, ash-filled sky. Occasional searchlights, occasional flashes of coldly bright street lamps, the occasional glimpse of one of the simple, egg-shaped drones that escorted the hovering gurney to one of Robotnik's many robotics facilities.
The entourage passed underneath the steel frame of a massive door and onto a wide, bustling factory floor, and Sonic suppressed the urge to get up and smash everything to pieces. He couldn't move anyway. His awareness may have returned, but his body still was not his.
His robotic escort pulled the gurney into a narrow hallway and then into a smaller lab, then transferred Sonic's mangled chassis to what appeared to be an operating table. Repair machinery moved in, clicking and whirring, spindly hinged appendages bearing saws and drills and the like hovering over the hedgehog's body. A nearby screen flickered to life, and Sonic growled involuntarily—though the sound echoed in his head and never escaped his mechanical mouth—when Robotnik's scowling visage appeared on the monitor.
"Status report, Snively," the gravelly voice growled.
"All systems down, Sir," a wheezy voice came from the side. Robotnik's cowardly lackey walked into view, holding a data pad and stylus and scrutinizing Sonic. He prodded the hedgehog's metallic body with the stylus momentarily. "Extensive damage to the external structure, and internal servos overloaded. Power core severely depleted as well, Sir. The hedgehog will take a lot of work to repair. Maybe we should dispose—"
"Repair it, Snively."
"But Sir—"
"Repair it, Snively."
"Y-yes Sir..."
Machinery spun into a macabre, mechanical ballet, tapping and pressing, hammering and twisting at Sonic's body as it began to undo the damage Knuckles' final strike had caused. Phantom spears of pain rippled down the thought threads within the void trapping Sonic's mind, echoes of wounds he would have felt had his body been flesh and bone rather than steel and chrome.
"What about the power core replacement, Sir?" he heard Snively wheeze from somewhere above his head.
"The damage to SA-3 has provided us with a most...unique opportunity. Clear the worker-bots from the factory and bring in the Emeralds."
Sonic felt faint pressure as the machinery around him forced his bent quills and dented chest paneling back into shape, as wires were tugged back into position and gears and motors replaced. Distantly, Snively gave the orders for the worker-bots to leave.
Then, even from within the void of his mental prison, Sonic felt the first corrupted pulse of Chaos energy. The tainted Emeralds.
Snively stepped into view again, holding a small steel box. One of the spindly arms patching up Sonic's chassis opened up a chest compartment on the robotic body, and Snively removed the lid to the box he held. Gems within glowed with a sickly light, slightly off and flickering erratically. At Robotnik's growled command, the short Overlander tipped up the box and poured its contents into the hedgehog's fuel reservoir.
The cloying, sickening miasma of the warped Chaos energy immediately filled the void, smothering Sonic. Powerful nausea threatened to overwhelm him, and his connection to his senses, to the sights and sounds outside his body, began to flicker violently like a broken surveillance screen. He saw little more than disjointed images as the machinery continued its repair work, heard only the faintest of snatches of Robotnik's voice as the mad doctor issued new orders—something about the Great Forest—but a very real headache drowned out the rest and choked Sonic into submission.
Author's Notes: Doing pretty good for update schedules so far. We'll see how long I manage to maintain this. Eheh...
Do you know how weird it is writing about Sonic with a robot body? Especially when the machines are putting him back together.