The Federally Mandated 'Word From The Author': Okay, so I lied about Knuckles being in this chapter. I THOUGHT Knuckles owuld be in this chapter, but since so many people berated me for the length of the last chapter, (here's looking at you, Frozen Nitrogen) and since this one was dangerously close to that same engorged length, I opted to put the Knuckles scene off for one more chapter. But don't worry, I can't get out of it this time, because it's at the beginning of the chapter. As for this chapter, this is the one where Sonic really starts to run the risk of completely breaking down. My concern when writing this was how do I portray a tragedy-ridden teenage hero and still have the smart-alecky, wise-cracking "I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiting," Sonic of the SatAM come through. I hope I succeeded at that, but I suppose it will be up to the reviewers to decide. That having been said, I'll never know if you don't review. But I digress. Reader, enjoy.
Chapter Ten: The Choices We Made
"Hey, Bunnie, I think she's coming around."
"Oh, thank mah stars, Rotor. Sally? can ya here me, girl?"
"Perhaps wee should not be, 'ow you say, pushing ze princess so hardly. She has, eef you will recall, been through ze ringer."
Sally heard the voices from light years away, air vibrations slicing their way through a murky muck of nothingness. And with them, there were sights. Peculiar, hazy shapes that swerved and swayed drunkenly at the outskirts of her vision, which itself seemed an interminable sea of formless, indistinct color. She tried to shake her head to clear it, but that only made it worse, tossing her addled brains about on the waves of that sea. She would have stood up, but she seemed suddenly conscious of the planet's spin, and it was spinning to quickly for her to maintain balance. She groaned.
"Ze princess, she est trying to speak!"
"Naw, really Tony?"
"Pardon moi, mademoiselle. But my name ees Antoinne. An, twan."
Antoinne, Sally thought. Why does that name sound familiar? And the voices seem like I've heard them somewhere too. If I could just see… Her eyes, she realized, were open only into slits. Her eyelids seemed to carry with them the weight of small planets, but she forced herself to lift them. For her efforts, a tsunami of garish light flooded her vision, making her wince and slam them shut. "Someone," she muttered. "Turn… turn out… damned… light."
Amused laughter greeted her petition. "Bunnie, draw the curtains a little, would you?"
The light began to fade, and Sally tried opening her eyes again. This time, the planet's spin appeared to have slowed to a more manageable speed. The shapes she beheld, no longer nondescript splashes of color, began to take shapes. A walrus, a coyote wearing an ornate uniform jacket, and a half-mechanical rabbit. Knothole. The word seemed to emanate from her innermost self, like someone inside her head holding up a cue card. It jogged her memory, a memory from a time ages ago, when there had been more to the universe than the dreamless haze of comatose sleep. A time when she and her small group of friends (these friends, she realized) carried on a desperate war against something called Robotnik.
Robotnik…? Robotropolis… the mission…
…The mission?! A floodgate in her mind opened up, and her memory spilled over her like a bucket of cold water, restoring her to consciousness with a gasping breath. "The mission," she demanded of the nearest person, who happened to be Bunnie. "Did we…?"
"Relax," Bunnie ordered. "Yes, we got the Ancient Ones, Sal."
Something about the lack of reassurance in an answer that should have put her at ease made Sally eye Bunnie suspiciously as she tried again to sit up. She managed to lift herself onto her elbows and decided that would have to do. "Then it was a success?"
None of them answered, but the trio exchanged an ill-becoming glance. "Well," Bunnie broke the silence embarrassedly, "technically, yeah."
Now what's that supposed to mean? "Technically how, Bunnie?"
Finally, Rotor gave her a marginally more direct answer. "You did what you went there to do, Sally, but… well, no one's been really willing to call it a success."
Sally frowned. "What do you mean by-"
"It's Tails, Sally-girl," Bunnie blurted.
The weights Sally had recently managed to lift from her eyelids made their way to the pit of her stomach. "What's Tails? What about him?"
Uncomfortable glances went around the room again as the three seemed to play a game of mental hot potato with the task of breaking the news to their leader.
Humility coming from Sonic would be easier to find than straight answers from these three. "Somebody talk to me," Sally ordered, the stern edge beginning to return to her voice as concern for the young fox who called her 'aunt' began to rise to the surface.
"He, uh…" Rotor stammered, rubbing the back of his wrinkled head with one great flipper-like claw. "He never… I mean, Sonic went after him, but when he got back…" he sighed. There was simply no gentle way to break news like this, and he decided it would be better not to try. "He was captured, Sally."
Sally stared back, absorbing the news. Captured? There could only be one possible response. They had to mount a rescue mission. But something in their eyes seemed to suggest they had given up on that possibility already, and a sickening possibility occurred to her. Lying back down, she asked of no one in particular, "how long?"
"About three days," Bunnie answered sadly.
Three days. The words reverberated through Sally's head like funeral bells. "And I take it we've been powerless to launch a rescue attempt." At that, the three Freedom Fighters who were gathered around Sally exchanged a peculiar look. One of… Relief? "Anyone care to let me in on the big secret?"
It was Rotor who finally spoke. "Sally, don't freak out, but… well, we've got four visitors in Knothole."
The urging that began Rotor's sentence proved impossible to Sally's already addled nerves. "What? Outsiders, here?"
"Calm down, calm down, Sally-Girl," Bunnie insisted, placing her hands on Sally's shoulders to sedate her. "They're Ancient Ones. We're sure of it."
"But you said four," Sally was practically shouting now. "What about the other two?"
"Eet ees as Mademoiselle Bunnie 'as been saying," Antoinne explained. "Zey are Ancient Ones. We are sure of eet."
Sally's breath stopped short as she slowly turned to look at the faces of each of the three, searching for any traces of deception, or even doubt. "But.. we only rescued two from Robotropolis."
"Tell ya the truth, Sal, it's more like the other two rescued us from Robotropolis," Bunnie corrected. "You recollect the last minutes before you went out?"
Silence.
"N… no, I don't. I kind of remember a… a light, and then, good gods…" Sally placed a hand against her suddenly throbbing head. "What happened, Bunnie?"
Bunnie sighed before answering. "Well, Sally, let me start from the beginning."
Two Days Earlier
Sometimes when a person runs, they're running away from something.
Sometimes, they're running toward something.
And sometimes, they're running after something.
At the present moment, Sonic wasn't sure which one he was doing. He couldn't run away from his responsibility (there it was: that ugly word) to Tails, or to Sally, or to the Freedom Fighters, so he decided against option one. But he didn't have a destination other than "somewhere other than here," and even that was less a matter of goal than a necessity of facilitating the act of running, so he wasn't really running toward anything either. And he wasn't running after anything, because there was no possible way his present course (or lack thereof) could bring him into confrontation with the hideous facts he wished he could change, so running after anything was out.
I guess sometimes it just feels better to run, Sonic told himself. Because speed is one thing that's always right. It's always the way it's supposed to be. And 'cause I never fail at it. He gritted his teeth and ran a little harder as that thought enterred his brain. Did I fail? Was there anything I could have done? When he thought about it, there wasn't. Tails had known the dangers, and he'd been able to take care of himself in Robotropolis before, when it had been just him and Sonic. Yeah, but I was there to keep an eye on him that time. This time I wasn't. So that was it. He HAD failed. He had failed by leaving Tails with Bunnie and Sally while he ran off to satisfy his need for a rematch with his metallic nemesis. It
So it was his own fault.
No, that's not right. If I hadn't drawn Metal off of them, then Sally and Bunnie'd both be Ro-Town road-pizza now. Besides, I shouldn't be the only one of the Freedom Fighters who knows how to look out for their buddies. We're a team. At least that's what Sally's always saying. He ran a little bit harder still as he realized it. He'd trusted Sally and Bunnie to watch out for Tails. Tails had done it for them, hadn't he? They'd let down a fellow Freedom Fighter and left him behind.
So it was Sally and Bunnie's fault.
No, that's not right either. 'Cause like I said, Tails should have been able to look after himself. He way past kicked bot when we raided Ro-Town on our own. Whatever happened in there, he should've seen it coming. He knew how to watch his back. He just got careless.
So it was Tails' own fault.
But that can't be right. If that's true, then was it Uncle Chuck's fault he got roboticized eleven years ago? Was it Catski's fault he got left behind? Was it everyone in the city's own fault that they let Robotnik take over in the first place?!
Tearing himself apart with rage, and unable to find a suitable target for it, Sonic vented in the only way he knew how. He ran harder still. He ran until even his trained legs screamed in pain from the exertion. Ignoring them, he ran on. His lungs burned from lack of oxygen as the air whizzed past his nostrils too quickly to be drawn in, but he ignored his lungs and ran on. He ran until his heart began to hammer his ribs with the force of a SWATbot factory's pistons as it struggled to pump his thinly oxygenated blood to his overtaxed legs.
His legs were growing numb now. Not even he could keep this up for much longer. But he had to keep running. He had to, because that was all he could do. The situation was out of his control. In fact, he was beginning to see it had never been in his control. Finally, with a defeated scream that exhausted the last of his lungs' faltering oxygen supply, he slowed to a stop.
Sonic the Hedgehog couldn't run any longer.
He attempted to double over and catch his breath, but the motion turned into a fall, leaving him prone amid the dusty sand of the Great Eastern Plains beyond Never Lake. He was exposed, visible to the prying eyes of any robot that happened to be patrolling the area, but there was nothing he could do about that for the moment. His muscles refused to move.
Sonic wasn't sure how long he lay there, or whether he'd even been conscious for it, before he became aware of the beeping of his communicator. Weakly, he laughed, wincing from the effort it took to do so. There was something absurd about the counterplay between the device's beeping and the cawing of the carrion birds beginning to circle over his head amid the otherwise silent plainscape. Cautiously, as though testing a new limb, he reached into his backpack and withdrew the communicator. "Sonic here. Wazzup?"
"Hey. Um… Sonic, it's Bunnie." The voice over the communicator was Bunnie's but Sonic couldn't help but notice the usual friskiness in her voice was gone. He guessed he already knew the reason.
Lifting the communicator to his mouth, Sonic answered. "Yeah, Bunnie. Whatcha got?"
"Ah don't mean ta bother you, Sugah-hog, but… um, well, I think you oughta come back to Knothole, kinda in a hurry."
The irony of being told to hurry up at the one time in history when he didn't feel the "need for speed" was not lost on the blue hedgehog, and he laughed another weak laugh as he hoisted himself up onto his hands and knees. "What's the scoop, Bunnie?"
"Nuh-uh, Sugah. Not on an open line," was the immediate reply. "But it's big, Sonic. Not real sure if it's good or bad yet, but it's about Tails, and… well, you gotta hear this straight from the source."
Sonic sighed as he pressed the "talk" button again. "Got it, Bunnie. Be there in… in a flash." Letting himself fall back to the sand for another moment, Sonic clipped the communicator device back into place in his backpack and rested for a minute. Tails and uncle Chuck were both captured, Sally was out cold, and Knothole had been in such a chaotic uproar when he returned with Orana and Solyurus that he hadn't even been able to see her before he left. His guilt at leaving her in that condition grated him a little, but he had to get away from the village at the time. There was just no other way to cope with the outcome. In truth, he didn't even know how much, if anything, anyone in the village knew about the outcome of the mission, and he didn't want to go back and have to face that. In truth, all he wanted was rest: he wanted to lie down and never have to worry about missions or Freedom Fighting or whether he would be strong enough or fast enough again. He wanted it all to just go away.
Well, doesn't matter, he reminded himself. All that matters is right now I gotta get up and run back to Knothole, 'cause with Sally out, someone's gonna have to lead the rescue mission. In the end, that was all there was to it. His friends, his cause, and his home needed him. His own wants would have to wait. "Long as a voice inside me says 'go' I will always keep on runnin,'" he murmured to himself, quoting a song written in his honor that had become popular in Station Square. "Guess a voice inside the ol' backpack is close enough, and that voice is sayin' go. So…"
Climbing to his feet and dusting himself off, Sonic ran.
Dr. Robotnik watched the array of surveillance screens with an anticipation that was rapidly giving way to irritation. Where is he? The time I gave him is nearly gone. "Time check," he barked to one of the tekbots operating Master Control.
"Fifty-seven minutes and thirty-two seconds have elapsed, Doctor Robotnik," reported the droid.
Speaking into his radio, Robotnik snapped, "all surveillance posts, report by numbers."
"Sector 001, negative contact."
"Sector 002, negative contact."
"Sector 003, negative contact."
On the litany went, each sector in the Command Quarter reporting that their intended quarry had not been sighted.
"Your little mind game failed, Julian," Charles jeered, defying the SWATbot laser rifles that were trained on his position. "Sonic's too good to fall for that. He knows how important the Ancient Ones are. Besides that, he knows you weren't planning to release either of us."
Tails watched the tensing of Robotnik's jaw with growing apprehension. As it stood, their fate was likely sealed. But Tails had seen that tension mark Robotnik's features before. Once aboard the Death Egg as it lifted off from Angel Island, and once in Station Square, brought on by he loss of a missile. And on both occasions a change had come over Robotnik: a change called "Eggman." That change worried him, because while Robotnik would doubtlessly kill Charles, and either kill or roboticize Tails, Robotnik was a man of efficiency and calculations. Such a man could be predicted. He would act in his own cold best interests. But Eggman, on the other hand… Tails shuddered. From what he'd seen, he did not think it outside the realm of possibility for Eggman to empty his city of security forces and set them about torching the Great Forest if he went into a rage, and never mind the imminent damage to his precious city. "Don't get him worked up, Uncle Chuck," Tails warned quietly.
"Out of the mouths of babes, Sir Charles," Robotnik said flatly, his eyes never turning in the direction of his captives.
"Or what?" Charles announced defiantly. "You'll kill us? Or roboticize Tails? What do you think you can do that you aren't already planning to do?"
A cluster of pulleys where a muscle had once been in Robotnik's jaw began to work furiously, and the air was filled with the sound of metal grinding against metal as Robotink ground his teeth.
"Aww, too bad. Looks like you'll have to find a new power source for your precious little Time Portal now. Or did you think the whole world didn't already know what the A.I. Project was?" Charles continued. "And on top of it all, Snively's hiding out on Flying Battery, and Metal Sonic's dragging his busted chassis up to maintenance where he'll stay for a solid week at least. And who knows what's going on with your Angel Island Launch Base?" Charles tsk tsked mockingly. "And just when it looked like you were about to bring the war to an end too. Doctor Eggman sat on a wall. Doctor Eggman had a great fall."
"Fifty-nine minutes have elapsed, Doctor Robotnik," a tekbot chimed in.
"All of his SWATbots and roboticized men couldn't put the empire together again," Charles continued mocking, ignoring the doctor's now clenched and shaking fist.
"Were I in your position, Charles," Robotnik hissed, barely able to speak now through his gritted teeth, "I would be worrying about who's going to put you and your nephew's protégé together again!"
"Face it, Julian," Charles shouted louder still. "As hostages, we were your trump card. You played us, and you still lost. And now, Sonic and the Freedom Fighters have two gods among their ranks! How long do you think your empire will stand when the Ancient Ones learn that you've captured two of their own, and your enemies rescued them?"
A tekbot turned away from its console to face Doctor Robotnik. "Sir, the allotted time has transpired. All sectors report negative contact with the target or either subject."
Every inch of his metallic body quivering with bloodlust, Robotnik stood up from his chair in the center of the room. "Well then, we will simply have to begin the afternoon's festivities without our guest of honor." Turning his hellish eyes toward his captives, he pointed a condemning finger at Tails. "Sir Charles, the last sight you see with the eyes I gave you will be Tails succumbing to the machine you built."
As the young fox swallowed a lump that he was determined not to have in his throat during his final moments, Charles bravado faltered. "It won't do you any good," he declared, grasping onto whatever remnants of defiance he could muster.
"True," Robotnik confessed. "True. But I can think of no greater torment for you. Captain?"
The SWATbot nearest Tails turned toward its master. "Your orders, my lord?"
"Put the fox into the roboticizer. Once the cycle is complete, neutralize the defective."
The SWATbot captain saluted, and turned to Tails. With no ceremony at all, it clutched the teenage fox by his wrist binders, hauled him into the air, and carried him to a seat resembling an ancient executioner's electric chair in a far corner of the Master Control room. As he fastened the cub's arms and head to the chair, a glass tube lowered into place around the chair from the ceiling. "Subject is secure, sir," the Captain reported.
"Begin roboticization sequence," Robotnik ordered absently, all traces of his former fury replaced by sadistic glee at the sight of his enemy's apprentice inside the roboticizer. "Enjoy the show, Sir Charles. It's the least I can do, since I owe the device's construction to you after all."
Charles made a knowingly futile attempt to lunge at Robotnik, only to have the hold on his arms tightened by the SWATbots who restrained him. "You'll answer for this, Julian!" He screamed, unable to look at Tails' now tear-streaked face as the fox's courage finally failed him. "I swear, if there's justice anywhere in this misbegotten universe, there'll be a whole new circle of Hell set aside just for you, and you'll answer for this! Damn you! All the gods that ever lived, Damn You, Robotnik!"
In that same instant, as though the gods of all the races in the macrocosm heard Charles' summons and answered, the roboticizer came to life with a fiery glow. A surge of intense light, as if to illuminate all the Cosmos, emanated from inside the tube as the roboticizer's nanite-carrier beam struck Tails' forehead. Acting on reflexes developed as organics, Robotnik and Charles both shielded their eyes unnecessarily.
"In the name of-" Robotnik choked back a curse. "Report!"
"A massive feedback wave has overloaded the nanite replicator, sir," a tekbot chirped in the nearest approximation to panic its vocabulator would allow. "Source unknown. The properties are similar to the feedback of a Power Ring within the roboticizer unit. Subject's robotization factor, zero percent."
"Scan for Power Rings and other Chaos Control devices inside the unit," Robotnik snapped. "I won't have this moment ruined by a pre-pubescent pest's damnable luck in smuggling a-"
"No Chaos Control devices detected," The tekbot interrupted. "Source of feedback wave identified as the subject."
"Impossible!" Robotnik bellowed, pushing the tekbot aside as he ran to its control station to check its findings. He was not prepared for what he found. "If these readings are correct, then…" He raised his eyes toward the roboticizer, now radiating the light of ten thousand suns. "Sir Charles, my friend, it appears I'll be able to power the A.I. Project after all." His grim determination returning, Robotnik began to issue orders again. "Cease roboticization and prepare the Ketsunae containment unit immediately. Communications, contact Flying Battery, and alert them to prepare for departure to Angel Island. Inform Snively he will command EC2 in Metal Sonic's stead, as I will conduct the repairs on the commander along the way."
"What of Priority-two, Doctor Robotnik?" Asked the SWATbot captain as the tekbots busily set about carrying out Robotnik's orders.
Eyes narrowed into glaring red lines, Robotnik turned swiveled his head toward Charles. "Scrap it," Robotnik ordered. "And throw its hulk into the Great Forest for the hedgehog to find, but not before I've attached a message to it."
"It will be done, my Lord Doctor," the SWATbot answered. As soon as it said this, the SWATbot signaled its comrades to ready their weapons. At once, with firing-squad precision, seven SWATbots pointed their laser rifles at Sir Charles and fired.
In the meeting hut of Knothole village, a peculiar assembly was gathered. At the head of the Oak table stood Merlin Prower, with Isaac, Solyurus and Orana seated in a single line down one side of table. Next to Orana sat Viceroy Drake of Station Square, visibly intimidated by the presence of the Elder who had left him with a task ten years earlier (one which he had failed). Bunnie sat across from Drake, leaving the seats across from the Ketsunae children empty, whether by design or accident. Finally, at the end of the table opposite Merlin, Sonic sat, uncharacteristically subdued. Antoinne, desiring no part of the meeting, had managed to escape it by volunteering to watch over Sally, who had been moved to a spare hut and was under close observation until she regained consciousness. Rotor too, in a show of unusual thirst for battle, had volunteered to lead a patrol near the outskirts of Robotropolis with the stated intent of "preventing a retaliatory strike by Robotnik." Bunnie, for her part, held to the belief that Rotor's decision had been made out of a desire to exact some form of vengeance on Robotnik for Tails' capture (news which had, by now, spread throughout the village), coupled with the Freedom Fighters' inability to launch an appropriate rescue mission on such short notice, monitor their princess's condition, and see to the needs of both the Ketsunae and Human refugees.
And Sonic, leveling his eyes directly at Merlin, made no secret of not believing what he was being told. "Are you trying to tell me," he spoke slowly (no small feat for him, Bunnie noted), "that the kid who followed me around like I walked on water for the last eight years is an Ancient One?"
Viceroy Drake added his own question to Sonic's. "And that there was a third disguised Ancient One in my city, beyond the two I was told about?"
The silence that followed these two questions served only to give them time to simmer in the minds of those who asked them before Merlin finally answered flatly, "yes." And then, "to both questions."
"But why was this kept secret?" Drake cried.
"And why should I believe the likes of you?" Sonic shouted over him. "I don't even know for sure that YOU'RE an Ancient One, let alone Tails' uncle. And if you are Tails uncle, then how come you've never been around, huh? You know who's been raising Tails for nearly a decade? Sally. That's who. Sally, and me." He paused, giving Merlin time to absorb his accusations before standing up, knocking his chair over as he did and throwing a stinging pointed finger at Merlin. "Come to think of it, if you're Tails' uncle and an Ancient One, then why didn't you do something to stop Tails from getting caught?"
"My race doesn't like to interfere with the affairs of younger races," Merlin responded immediately.
"Oh yeah? You didn't seem to mind interfering when you hid children in Station Square and told the Viceroy it was his job to protect them. I'll bet you even-" he caught his breath in a gasp as a new realization came over him. When he resumed speaking, it was in a voice smothered in even thicker anger than before. "That's what you did with Tails, wasn't it?"
"Sugah-hog, that one's not fair," Bunnie tried to intervene, to no avail.
"Sally didn't find him abandoned like she's said all these years," Sonic continued unabated. "No, you dropped him into her lap… dropped your baby nephew into a six-year-old girl's lap, and told her she was responsible for him, didn't you?"
"Mister Sonic," Viceroy Drake matched Bunnie's attempt to calm him, with the same result.
"And I'll bet you did it knowing that six-year-old girl was already trying to be a leader to a bunch of kids that were trying to fight the war their parents lost!" Sonic, by now, was shouting loudly enough that villagers were beginning to peak out from their own huts to see what was going on at the meeting hut. With this final accusation, he paused, teeth clenched in an unmasked loathing he normally reserved for Robotnik.
Merlin made no denials. His shoulders had drooped noticeably over the course of Sonic's berating speech, and the three children beside him had noticed. Orana and Solyurus merely shifted their eyes between each other and the floor, guilty embarrassed to witness such a heated argument between their rescuer and their mentor. Isaac, by contrast, gazed at Sonic through narrowed eyes, restrained from lashing out only by Merlin's earlier orders to speak only after he himself had finished saying everything he had come to say. When Merlin finally spoke, his voice bordered on the very condescending air for which he had often criticized Isaac. "If you think you have said anything I have not long agonized about on my own, then let me disillusion you."
"Agonized?" Sonic spat. "Oh, I feel mondo-beyondo-better now. You agonized over it. You may have totally let down the children you say it was your job to protect, and you may have left kids to raise your nephew, but you agonized over it, so everything's cool, right?"
"I apologize for burdening you with Miles then," Merlin answered.
Sonic's glare hardened. "Burden? Dude, Tails's never been a burden. In fact, havin' him around has been, well, it's been way, way past any kind of cool I've ever known. But that's props to Tails, not to you. And y'know, the more I think about it, the more like it seems you got real nerve showin' your face here."
At that, Isaac could remain silent no longer. "That's enough!" He shouted, leaping from his seat. "A little gratitude would be appreciated. If it hadn't been for Elder Prower, your princess wouldn't have left Robotropolis alive."
"If it hadn't been for Elder Prower, we wouldn't have had to go to Robotropolis in the first place!"
"You can't blame the Elder for your inability to protect your supposed friends, hedgehog!"
At Isaac's last, the room seemed drawn up in the collective gasp of its occupants. Sonic and Isaac looked at each other with venomous eyes, both mirroring the undiluted loathing on the other's face.
"Isaac, that will do," Merlin spoke crisply, in a tone that made clear he would have more to say to Isaac on the subject later, and little of it was likely to be favorable.
Isaac 's gaze relented slightly. "Forgive me Elder. It's just that-"
"That, will, do, Isaac."
As Isaac reclaimed his seat, Merlin returned his eyes to Sonic, taking the teenager's hateful look full-on. "Do you think me a failure, Sir Sonic?"
Sonic answered nothing, but the unchanging killer's eyes said 'yes.'
"To this I make no denials," Merlin admitted calmly. "But not for the reasons you think. Yes, I left my nephew with a band of child-refugees, and yes, I left three other children in the care of the Station Square Viceroy. What you fail to realize is that I had no choice."
"Oh yeah? Why should I believe that?"
"He's telling the truth, Sonic," Drake spoke up, causing Sonic and Bunnie to turn their eyes in the Human's direction. "I'll leave it up to the Elder to decide how much he's willing to say about the reason, but he's telling the truth. I can vouch for that."
For the first time since standing up, Sonic's teeth unclenched… slightly. "And how exactly did an Ancient One not have a choice?" He asked in a measuredly less combative tone.
Merlin appeared to contemplate his answer for a long time before speaking. "The children were hidden to protect them from… from a certain danger." Merlin closed his eyes, recalling that day, millennia ago, in the Emerald Palace with his friend Pendragon Ambrosius: the day the traveler Link Ambrosius first told him, albeit tangentially of the survivor of the Chae-Dan war. And that's where I failed. Everything that's come since… Dragmire, Cyrus, Solaur, I suppose Robotnik too in the final analysis, it's all been the result of that. And what is the Vanguard War but my attempt to manipulate mortals into cleaning up the mess I left? But this wasn't the time or the place for that kind of thinking. "They had to be hidden from one who wanted to see our race's power used for his own ends." One who, for all intents and purposes, succeeded.
Sonic snorted. "Oh, man, don't try to tell me you were hiding them from Robotnik?"
Isaac seemed about to answer, Bunnie noted. But Merlin placed a hand on the youth's shoulder, and Isaac remained silent. There's a whole lot they're not telling us, she made a mental note to speak to Sonic about the matter later.
"No," Merlin shook his head. "Not Robotnik. The Guardian of Angel Island can tell you more. Suffice it to say for now that as my nephew, Miles was in the greatest danger of all."
"Yeah, well, speaking of Miles in danger," the heat was starting to return to Sonic's voice, "since your Ancient One hocus-pocus didn't seem to be be up to the job of bustin' Tails out of Ro-town, what are we doin' about getting' him back before he gets roboticized?"
Isaac scoffed, rolling his eyes. "For the fastest thing alive, he's certainly a slow one."
Sonic turned to face Isaac. "Hey. Y'know what? I'm just about through listening to the air pollution coming outta that hole in your face, dude."
"Do you say so?" Isaac asked in mock interest. "And what, praytell, would you do about it, good sir?"
"THAT IS ENOUGH!" Merlin's voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, filling the room with a sound like a self-contained, articulate thunderstorm. The villager's outside, the ones who had found such fascination in the argument between Merlin and Sonic only moments before, now took cover in their huts. Sonic and Isaac both, rebuffed by the display from the head of the table, took their seats with what the defeated, indignant pseudo-defiance that passes for humility in adolescent males, giving Merlin carte-blanche to speak further. "Isaac's point, Sonic," Merlin continued, forcing his temper to subside, "is that Miles is in no more danger of roboticization than Orana and Solyurus were. The danger is not to him, in other words, but to the rest of the planet. For, if you'll recall the reasons for your valiant rescue of the twins in the first place…" He let Sonic fill in the gaps.
"Aw, man. The A.I. Wormhole thing." Sonic said after a pause.
"An' lil ol' sugah-fox is the battery," Bunnie moaned.
Merlin nodded.
"Okay, so Tails isn't gonna get roboticized. He's gonna be used to power one o' Robotnik's doomsday weapons," Sonic said. "And this changes our next move how, exactly? Either way, it's time we take the game to Ro-Town and bust him out!"
"Not without Princess Sally," Merlin spoke with a surety that none but Isaac had ever seen.
Sonic made a motion with his fist as though knocking on an invisible door in front of him. "Uh, hello? Sal's not exactly in any shape for a mission right now, in case you didn't notice."
"Then you must wait until she's recovered. Period," Merlin answered plainly.
"As Antoinne would say, excuse-am you?" Sonic fired back. "As far as the hedgehog is concerned, 'wait' is a four-letter word. I can lead the team. We'll have Tails back before Sally wakes up." Sonic knew as he said it that there was something very wrong with his statement, but he refused to believe that part of his mind.
Judging by the looks on their faces, however, Merlin and the Ancient Ones already knew what that thought was that had forced itself unwillingly on his consciousness. Bunnie, having apparently already reached a similar conclusion, merely closed her eyes and looked away. It seemed there was no avoiding it. For reasons Sonic would only later understand, the simple truth was made plain in that moment. Rescue or not, Tails wasn't coming back. At least, not to Knothole.
"No," Sonic gave what he thought was to be his final word on the subject. "No, you guys don't get it. I'm bringin' Tails back."
"You couldn't if you tried," Merlin replied knowingly. "But more importantly, you know Miles-"
"Tails!" Sonic shouted. "He doesn't go by 'Miles.' Not even Sal calls him that."
"Nonetheless, it is his name," Merlin remained calm, refusing to rise to another argument with Sonic. "And after he is rescued from Angel Island he will go with us."
"Angel Island?" Bunnie demanded.
"Even now, Robotnik makes preparations to transport him there."
"So what are we still standin' around here talkin' for?" Sonic shouted in desparation.
"You're waiting until Sally recovers, because she must accompany you," was Merlin's reply, still in that maddeningly calm way.
"And what if we don't feel like waiting?" Sonic stepped out from behind the table and approached Merlin.
"You must. Not because I said so, or because you cannot do this without her, but because you simply must," Merlin said, his eyes taking on a momentary sadness. "It is the law of things, just as water must run downhill. And you know this too."
"And just how do I know?" Sonic demanded, arms folded across his chest.
Yet even as he said it, Sonic's resolve was broken by a nagging voice in that same dark corner of his mind, that corner that had only occasionally spoken to him. And that voice said he's right.
For a sharp instant, Merlin's face contained an air of sympathy, of regret. Then it was gone, replaced by the pragmatic non-emotion that Sonic found so grating. "When you go," he said, dropping both pretense and preamble as he spoke to Sonic of things the others present could not possibly understand, "you will have to fight. You and those close to you. There will be others, to be sure, but that will come later. When the time comes, only remember my words now. Robotnik is the thumb."
The corner-of-the-mind voice screamed at Sonic, a shrieking, panicky animalistic non-word that spoke only of a primal need to get away, and Sonic felt an image come irrationally to mind: the red pallor of the lesser sun at dusk. Though it's meaning was lost on him, the image would not respond to his sensible mind's demands to leave. It remained. And with it, there was a word, a word Sonic had heard in half-remembered dreams through the years, usually after falling asleep watching the setting of the red sun. The word was 'Vanguard.'
"Robotnik is the thumb," Merlin repeated. "Will you remember?"
"What the Hell does it even mean?" Sonic asked, though he expected no answer. Still, the panicing shriek echoed throughout his mind. Last chance, it seemed to say. You can still back out now, but for the love of the gods, this is your last chance!
"I can't tell you yet," Merlin confirmed. "I can only ask you the question that you, and you alone must answer: will you go?"
"To help Tails?"
Merlin shook his head. "Tails is no issue. If you say no, then we'll take him from Robotnik. If you say, yes, it's you who has to do it. I ask you again. Will you go?"
Just tell him no! Just run away! Tails will be better off with his own kind, out of Robotnik's reach! Tell him no! there's still time! "Yeah. I'll go."
"Will you remember?"
"Robotnik is the thumb, whatever that means," Sonic sighed. "Yeah, I'll go. But let's get one thing straight."
"Yes?"
"Don't you dare think for a Station Square minute that I've forgiven you, Merlin."
Merlin looked away and snorted a brief chuckle, but it was a humorless laugh, a laugh to cover a weary sigh. "That's okay. You'll have plenty else to forgive me for before it's through."
Present Day
Merlin Prower.
The Ageless Visitor.
The wandering hermit who served occasionally as the wizard in the Court of Acorn.
And the nine-tailed fox who entrusted Sally with the care of the loveliest burden she had ever borne: the child that was nephew and son and little brother all rolled into one for Sally.
That's why I felt like I should have known him when he brought us to Knothole, Sally organized her thoughts after Bunnie and Rotor paused in their tale. But an Ancient One? "So, what you're telling me is that Merlin Prower is here?" Sally rubbed her eyes wearily, eager for the spots that covered everything in sight to go away.
"Yep," Bunnie answered. "They're all four still here."
"And where's Sonic?"
Bunnie shuffled her feet uncomfortably. "He's been spendin' his time goin' through Tails' hut,you know…" She didn't finish.
Packing his things, the way you do for the departed. Sally took a deep breath and tried to sit up on her own again. This time, it worked. "How's he holding up," she asked.
Again, the 'who gets to give her the bad news' look passed between Rotor and Bunnie.
Sally groaned. "For the gods sakes, now what?"
"Tell ya the truth, Sal,' he's not holdin' up so great," Bunnie answered.
Sally nodded her understanding. "Well, I can hardly blame him." Tears for Tails started to exceed her eyes' ability to contain them. Stop that she chided herself. He's not dead. In fact, we ought to be shouting for joy about him. He's going to be a long way outside Robotnik's reach once he's with the Ancient Ones.
"Actually, mon preencess," Antoinne interrupted, "Zere is more to it zen zees."
Sally rose to her feet tentatively, as though unsure whether the floor would be there to greet her, and tensed. "More?"
Again, Rotor decided the best way was the direct way. "The way we found out what went on in Robotropolis when the hour ran down," he began, reminding sally of a question she'd intended to ask during that part of the tale, "is because the Good Doctor told us. With all of his usual compassionate manner of course."
Before Sally could ask, Bunnie took the thread of the conversation and ran, while she still had the resolve to do so. "It's Chuck, Sally-girl. Rotor found his body… or, what was left of it, when he went on his patrol."
"Sally's hand flew to her mouth to stifle a sob. "Are… are you sure?"
Rotor spoke more easily this time, deciding it wouldn't do to be too crass about a statement like this. "It was his head, Sal. That's all. There was a video file attached to it, and it had all of what we told you on the recording."
Sally filed her shock and disgust away, as she so often had to when faced with tragedy, to be dealt with later. "Then he wanted us to know."
"There was a note with it, Sal," Rotor pressed on. "And… well, when Sonic read the note…" the sentence hung in the air, leaving sally to imagine a thousand grotesque possibilities of the turmoil wrought on Sonic's already-battered emotions.
"What did it say?"
Rotor's response was to reach into the equipment pouch on his belt and produce a folded up scrap of white printer paper. It was soaked with hydraulic fluid and battery acid, the chemicals which ran through the tubes analogous to veins in Workerbots. This he handed to Sally, who unfolded it and read the brief message written there, in the clear, defined, ordered glyphs of Robotnik's own handwriting.
I made the choice for you, hedgehog. I hope you agree with it. No doubt I'll see you on Angel island.
-Kindest Personal Regards,
I. J. Robotnik, PhD.
Sally swallowed back what might have either been a sob or a wracking attempt to vomit as she read the note. Once, twice, three times. "Twisted son-of-a-bitch," she hissed. For an interminable second, there was silence, which was broken when she looked up at them, her eyes blazing with a fire the trio had come to recognize, though they had never seen it burn so hotly before. "Rotor, get the Tornado and the Freedom Stormer ready."
Rotor gave a dip of his head that was somewhere between a nod of agreement and a bow of compliance. "Destination, Princess?" The question was a formality.
"It seems that choice has been made for us," Sally answered. "Angel Island."
