Chapter 3

(Recovery)

So the days passed in knothole, and, for once, it was rather uneventful. The green hedgehog's injuries were tended to, and he had been resting and recovering ever since he got there. Antoine eventually told the truth about what happened at the watchtower. It wasn't clear what hurt him more, when sally chewed him out a bit for being irresponsible, or the fact that he wasn't a hero like he thought he was. Sonic was still his way past cool self, and paid no mind to their recovering visitor since the day he brought him back to Knothole. Sally, being the caring type, continually checked in on their visitor however, using Nicole every so often to preform her own medical checks. Sonic never seemed to be around when Sally would go into the visitor's room, in fact he preferred that she not talk about it when she was around him. Maybe he was a bit jealous, of course he wouldn't ever admit that.

The freedom fighters attempted to gather information about their mysterious visitor, but came up with nothing. They did manage to recover his sword, and his small pack of supplies however, but nothing inside it game them any clues. Some were getting a bit paranoid, especially Antoine. "What if he iz a spy? He may be being, 'ow you zay, a bee on ze wall for Robotnik."

"That's fly on the wall Ant" Sonic would say.

So it would go on like this day after day. Every so often Sally would check, every so often Antoine would complain, and every so often Sonic would conveniently run off into the great forest to avoid everyone. It went on this way for about a week, until one day in the middle of the night the peace was broken.

The green hedgehog stirred in his sleep, and started to mumble, "Come on sweety, I just wanna buy you one drink... Oh come on, just one drink... It wont hurt anybody... Hey Hey Hey easy there. GAAH!!!" he woke up with a start rubbing his cheek. "Oh come on you didn't have to slap me...huh??? Where the heck am I???" He got out of the bed he was in and looked around his room. "Not exactly the Floating Island Resort Hotel" he said "but not too shabby." He stopped for a minute to think to himself "Now lets see, the last thing I remember was some guy picking up a rock and yelling something about a ghost bush. Ok that doesn't help me. Let's see, equipment check." he reached behind his back "no sword" he reached near his waist "no supplies" he reached near his forehead "no headband??? damn thieves. Well where there are supplies there's a supply room, maybe I can find my stuff there..." He paused a second "Why am I talking to myself??" and with that he went to the door and slowly crept out of the room.

Luckily it was night, and pretty much everybody was asleep. "Lets see, a supply room would most likely be where the food it, and that means it may be by a cafeteria....no that's not right, it would probably be where they store weapons, by a strategy, no wait, oh screw it" he thought to himself. He searched through the halls, opening doors quietly till he found what he was looking for. "Jackpot" he whispered to himself entering the storage room. "There's enough food and supplies to last a lifetime."

He looked across the room where they stored what looked like weapons to him, unfortunately it looked like a walrus had fallen asleep over some metal hunk of junk in the middle of the room, and that was right in the way of where he was trying to get. "DAMN...oops..I mean dammit" he almost got himself busted big time. "Ok Hiro very quietly, you can do this" he said self affirming himself. He slowly inched over the snoring walrus, bumping into him a couple times and stirring him, but continuing on. He saw wedged in a pile of junk was his stuff, his sword, headband, and supplies. Unfortunately he couldn't get any farther without knocking the walrus clear over. Ever resourceful, he took, a nearby pipe and attempted to nudge his stuff over inch by inch toward him. Unfortunately he didn't see his sword proping up a bunch of tools, which then, of course came down with a large resounding CRASH. He froze in his tracks as the walrus stirred and snored. He thought he was definitely caught this time, but miraculously the walrus didn't wake up. He smiles and picked up his sword, headband, and supplies, sheathing his sword and putting on his headband. "YES" he yelled obviously not thinking.

"W..wha???" the walrus said as he stirred and opened his eyes.

"Ok, I know what this looks like but....LOOK OVER THERE"

The walrus luckily looked, allowing him to zip out the door, unfortunately he didn't know that the walrus already had tripped the alarm. Of course quickest to the scene was Sonic, running down the hall with amazing speed. The green hedgehog, Hiro, saw him coming and tried the first thing that came to mind, stabbing his sword into the wall. "LOW BRIDGE" he said as he lifted himself up and delivered a hard kick to Sonic's face, and at sonic's speed, a kick HURTS, stalling him for quite a while. "Hah, gets em every time" he said as he dislodged his sword and dropped to the ground. "AAAAAAGH" he yelled as he felt an incredible pain in his foot, unfortunately sonic wasn't the only one hurt, and he immediately dropped to one knee. "I gotta get out of here before he wakes up" he said, as he dragged himself to his feet. Unfortunately he couldn't move faster than a limp currently so he didn't get very far. He had nearly gotten to the door at the end of the hall before sonic woke up, got a rope from the supply room and wrapped it around him repeatedly, taking the sword from his hand.

"It's you" Sonic said when he got a good look at the "intruder's" face.

"It's me" Hiro said in a mocking tone. "Yeah, nice observation. Now if you'll just untie me I can just be on my way." he said making a walking motion with his fingers.

"Yeah right slow mo, your coming with me" sonic said grabbing the ropes.

"And what do you plan to...YAAAAAAAAH" Hiro said as Sonic sped off waking up anyone who was still sleeping and calling them to the meeting room. When everyone was there, he placed a thoroughly dizzy Hiro in the middle of the room. "No need to thank me people, just doin my job" Sonic said, obviously welcoming any praise for capturing Hiro.

"Oui" Antoine said through a yawn "firzt zings firzt, what iz your name mister phantom bush"

"YOU, you're the one who fell on me, and threw a rock at me. You're the genius of this group aren't you" Hiro said obviously angry.

Antoine just growled under his breath, he never did have a knack for comebacks.

Sally looked at the scene, thinking to herself. She didn't think that all this was necessary, but it was a risk if she untied him. "Here let me try Antoine"

Hiro turned his head to look at Sally, and instantly fell for her. Of course he instantly falls for any pretty girl that comes his way. It's his one flaw, at least in his opinion. "You can try anything with me sweetheart." he said smiling.

"'Ow dare you talk to ze princess like zat" Antoine yelled angrily.

"A princess eh'. Well excuse me princess if I don't kneel or bow, as you can see I am rather tied up at the moment."

Sally raised an eyebrow at Hiro "Well, if you could just tell us your name"

"Call me Hiro"

"Well mister Hiro..."

"No" he said cutting her off "just Hiro, no mister. I would appreciate it if you don't patronize me with titles that you don't believe yourself. I also like lakeside strolls, moonlight nights, and perhaps a candlelight dinner or two. Now enough about me lets talk about you."

Sally didn't exactly know what to say. Sonic was speechless for once in his life. Sally thought for a minute, through her confused, and partly disgusted looks said "Can you tell us what you were doing around the watchtower a week ago"

Hiro was obviously getting annoyed "what do you mean, I go where I want, I do what I want, I eat, sleep and drink where I want..." he looked around "well usually, and I was just taking care of some...business when someone" he said shooting a look to Antoine "knocked me unconscious..." there was short pause before Hiro spoke again "Now I would love to sit here all night and answer all of your questions, but currently I have several strands of rope digging into my flesh, which I think would equal about 50 rope burns and WILL YOU PLEASE UNTIE ME!!!"

Everyone just stood there, not exactly knowing what to say.

"Yes, just stand there, that's exactly what I said." Hiro said with a sigh in his voice, and he sat there, for a painfully long time, while the freedom fighters discussed between themselves what to do with their peculiar visitor.

"Mah stars if he aint the rudest thang" Bunnie said to the other members of the small freedom fighter huddle. "A bit cute though"

"WHAT" Antoine, Sonic, and Sally said in unison.

"...Ahm jus sayin---nevermind" Bunnie didn't have much else to say.

"What a stupid name...Hiro...someone's full of himself" Sonic said.

"Unlike zomeone we know" Antoine muttered to himself finally thinking up a good comeback.

"Were supposed to be figuring out what to do with him, not discussing his character" Sally said, obviously detached from the discussion thus far. "Not only has he seen the inside of Knothole, but he probably knows how to get here if he got to the watchtower"

"Ahm not so sure. Didn't Antoine knock him on tha head as soon as he got there" Bunnie said.

Antoine sneered just a bit before saying "I zay we lock 'im up and throw away ze key"

"Thas jus a bit much" Bunnie said, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"Well we can not be letting him be leaving can we?" Antoine said "If he doez know in fact 'ow to be getting 'ere. Zen we are, 'ow you zay, in big trouble"

"Antoine is right" Sally said "Since we don't know what he knows about us, it would be foolish to let him go now"

"Zee, I am right" Antoine said, proud of himself once again.

"So what do you think we should do Sal" Sonic said, since he wasn't the greatest strategic mind in all of Mobius.

"..." Sally was silent in thought, this was quite a dilemma for the freedom fighters and a lot was riding on this decision. The future of all the freedom fighters, perhaps Mobius itself might depend on this one simple decision that she herself has to...

"IM STILL HERE YOU KNOW" Hiro yelled interrupting Sally's train of thought.

Sally sighed and looked toward the other members of the freedom fighters "the I can think of is to do what Antoine suggested. Lock him up."

"Yez and throw away ze key.." Antoine said enthusiastically since he was right for once

"No...No just watch him closely." Sally said. "Maybe... Maybe we can think of an alternative when we know more." Sally sighed realizing what she was telling them to do "Lock him up" she said frowning.

"Hey, YOU CANT DO THIS...ah screw it, go ahead" Hiro said realizing that they wont exactly listen to him if he said differently. So he just sighed and enjoyed the ride to his nice cell.