It began the following day.
Tails was sitting in his cage, as usual, gazing at his watch and listening to Robotnik and Snively gloat over how much of the forest they had destroyed, and how they must be nearing Knothole. Tails tried to block them out, but today he could not do it. He was losing his grip, his self-control. Something had to happen soon or he was going to--
"Send the cheetah robot out today," said Robotnik. "We'll see how many of them it can kill."
Tails hit the cage door, snarling and barking, clawing at the bars. He struck the door over and over, trying to break it off its hinges.
Robotnik and Snively stared in stunned silence for a moment. Tails had been a docile captive, and it was a shock to see him go berserk like this. "Time to put him down, I guess," said Snively.
Robotnik thumbed his mustache, watching Tails's furious attempts to break out. "No. Let's put him on a transport headed out to the woods. When his friends 'save' him, he'll probably attack them, too. Won't that be a shock?"
Snively stared at his uncle. "Send him back?"
Robotnik shrugged. "The cheetah will be out there. If they do rescue him, and he doesn't attack them, then the cheetah will finish them off." He grinned. "It might add a little excitement to our day." He pressed a button on the console to summon some SWAT-bots. Tails attacked the bars the whole time he was being lifted and moved out of the fortress, out of the city, and on to a transport.
***
Sally was sitting in a tree that had escaped cutting on the edge of a cleared acre. She watched through binoculars as a long train of hover transports approached, each bearing four of the saw-tanks. There were so many, she realized, heart sinking. Today they would strike the bog, and who knows what would happen. If only she had bigger weapons!
As she watched the gang approach, she saw something else coasting along beside them. She focused her binoculars on it. It was the robot cheetah who had been the cause of Sonic's demise. Her fingers tightened on the binoculars. If she had a grenade or something...
Sally watched from her perch as the cheetah zipped up and down the line of the transports with mind-boggling speed. It was like watching Sonic run. It was patrolling, and she had no doubt that it had come to seek out and kill Freedom Fighters. She would have to see that it was destroyed.
The transports were rolling into their current work area and Sally was preparing to climb out of the tree when a strange sound reached her ears. She grabbed her binoculars again. It sounded like a fox barking--a strange, raspy sound that sounded more like a bird than a fox. It was impossible, but was Tails there somewhere? Yes, yes, there was that blasted cage they kept him in, but what had they done to him? She could see glints of fur moving through the holes in the sides, and she glimpsed him clawing at the door like a mad thing.
Oh no. She lowered her binoculars. They must have driven him crazy with torture, then sent him back. She had heard of Robotnik doing that to other Freedom Fighter bands whom he wished to demoralize. It was even worse than robotization.
But how to get him out without attracting the cheetah-robot's attention? Oh, how she wished Sonic were here!
***
The doctor had made Sonic stay in Petra one more night, but Sonic was strung up and snappish, and had constant visions of Sally lying dead, or Tails robotized, or Knothole gutted and destroyed. His body had healed itself extremely quickly owing to the herbal infusions and his own high metabolism, but he was still weak, and the thought of running his usual speeds of six hundred miles an hour made his head pound. But he could still spindash. He tried it in the privacy of his cave. With a running start, he could curl into a ball of whirling spines that ought to damage a robot, even if it didn't destroy it outright.
The next morning, as Tails was being sent home and Sally was plotting a way to rescue him, Sonic was pulling on his shoes and wrestling his bandaged arms into slings. Thank goodness he didn't use his arms to spindash! But the casts were heavy, and he worried they might slow him down.
Amy stood by and watched, wringing her hands. "Do you have to leave, Sonic?"
"Yes," he said. Ever since his vision and mobility had returned, he had grown more and more annoyed with Amy. She wanted to baby him and play nurse, and he was certain she had a crush on him. All he wanted to do was smash up the robots that were endangering his home.
Ranith entered, looking grave. "Sonic, you plan on entering combat immediately, right?"
"Yep." Sonic straightened, trying to ignore a twinge of pain in his back, and made sure his arms were supported in their casts.
Ranith watched him. "You're not well, Sonic. If you go out there today, you might damage your back irreparably."
"I'll risk it," said Sonic. "I may have a chance to rest, who knows? Sally might have planted land mines or something."
Ranith made a steeple of his fingers and examined them. "If you hurt yourself, send for me and Skratcher."
"You got it," said Sonic, whose mind was on a run through the canyon and the forest beyond. "Can I go now?"
"Yes," said the doctor with a sigh. He and Amy watched as Sonic jogged outside and vanished up the canyon without looking back.
"Will he come back?" Amy asked, tears standing in her eyes.
"I hope not," said Ranith. "Because if he does, it'll be for more treatment, and chances are neither me nor Skratcher will be able to treat him successfully."
"Well, I hope he comes back," said Amy, sniffing. "I like him."
***
Sally's rescue plan of Tails was dangerous, but they lacked the numbers to plan anything safer. Sally would play decoy and lead the cheetah off, sticking to the trees where it could not move quickly. Bunnie Rabbot would sneak in behind and open the cage, for with her robotized arm and legs, it was less likely that Tails would hurt her. Bunnie was to tie him up if he proved violent, and get him to cover as soon as possible. It hurt Sally to issue these instructions, but there was no other way. Maybe there was still hope for the fox, once he was away from torment.
Sally waited until the saw-tanks had been unloaded, and the transport with Tails was standing alone and empty. She drew a deep breath and walked out into the open.
The cheetah was circling the transport with Tails, following its instructions to guard him until other targets appeared. It saw Sally immediately. Its engine screamed, and it shot toward her like a two hundred-pound bullet.
Sally dove into the trees as the cheetah crashed into the woods, gouging chunks out of trees and smashing the brush. She ran, trying to keep it in sight. She knew she could lose it in the woods, because it operated on eye contact, but she wanted to keep its attention. The longer she held it, the more time Bunnie would have to help Tails.
The cheetah deployed its feet and stood for a moment, head swinging as it looked for her. She rattled the brush in front of her. "Here! Here! Over here!"
It whirled and sprang toward her, and Sally dodged and escaped between two close-growing trees with the cheetah almost within clawing distance. The robot stuck between two trees, and it took it a few seconds to dislodge itself. Sally used this time to put some distance between her and it, and look for other close-growing trees where she could hide.
***
As soon as the cheetah went after Sally, Bunnie sprinted out of hiding from the other direction and leaped up on the flat bed of the transport. Tails's cage was lashed down with bungee cords, and there was no movement inside the cage. She looked at the ropes in her hands and hoped she wouldn't have to use them.
Bunnie stooped and looked in the door of the cage. "Tails? You in there?"
He struck the cage door, jaws open and fingers curled into claws. Bunnie jumped back and stared. This wasn't the young fox she had read bedtime stories to. "Tails, it's just me, Bunnie!"
He didn't care, or perhaps he couldn't hear her. Well, there was nothing for it but to use the ropes, which now looked small and flimsy. She unwound one and laid it on the top of the transport. She was aware of how visible they were up there, but she was afraid Tails might escape when she opened the door, and they didn't need that.
She braced herself, held out her metal arm, and opened the door.
Tails exploded out like an orange whirlwind, and she caught him around the neck with her metal arm. He bit her, his teeth clinking on the metal, making horrible snarling sounds. His claws slashed her torso and scrabbled against her robot legs. If she weren't robotized, he would have made mincemeat of her.
She threw him down on the bed of the truck, grabbed his flailing arms and lashed them together with rope. He fought her, snarling and frothing as if he had always been a wild beast. When his arms were tied she had a moment to breathe, for he now rolled two and fro, biting at the ropes and kicking his feet. She didn't want to tie his feet because they needed to run, but he could still bite...
She took a short length of rope, seized his muzzle and tied it shut, even as he snapped at her hands, ears pinned flat and eyes like blue fire. His pupils were contracted into tiny dots, and it was only his two lashing tails that assured her that she had once known him.
The screech of a jet engine. Bunnie looked up to see the cheetah streaking toward them. She gasped, grabbed Tails by the scruff of his neck and dove off the opposite side of the transport. Half-dragging the fox, she made it into the trees an instant before the robot reached her, and she heard it smash into the brush and small trees, its engine sputtering.
***
Sally had gone too far from the cheetah, and panicked when the cheetah's engine sounded, not behind her, but out in the open and moving away from her. It must have seen Bunnie! She pelted back toward the parked transports, arm raised to shield her face from low-hanging branches.
The cheetah was nowhere in sight, but she could hear it on the far side of the transport train, crashing through the brush. She ran toward it, yelling, "Hey! Over here! Over here!"
She realized what she had done when she reached the transports. She was fifty feet from the sheltering trees, and what was more, the cheetah had lost its targets. It emerged from the trees, head swinging to and fro as it scanned for more victims.
"You are dead," a small, taunting voice in her head informed her.
The robot spotted her as she ducked behind the transport and it blasted toward her. It flew over the top of the transport and dove at her, but she rolled underneath the truck and the cheetah struck the truck with an echoing clang.
Sally crawled out on the other side and dashed toward the woods twenty feet away, but the cheetah rocketed after her.
She dropped flat and it roared over her, scrabbling with its legs to turn around. Sally jumped up and reached the trees, jumped behind one, and heard the satisfying crunch of metal hitting wood. But the trees were thin here, and there was nowhere to hide. She ran on, and the robot followed her, using its legs instead of its jet engine.
***
Bunnie was winded and terrified, dragging the growling Tails and listening for sounds of pursuit. The fox was still trying to attack her, and she was beginning to wonder if he had been infected with rabies before he had been released to them. Here she was scratched and bleeding. But there was no time to worry about that now. Tails's ropes were working loose.
She stopped to re-tie them and knelt behind the cover of a hedge, trying to hold down the fox and tighten the ropes with her other hand.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Bunnie shrieked and spun around to see Sonic standing behind her. His arms were in casts and he had the pale, wasted look of someone who has been ill, but his eyes were bright with fury. "Why the heck is he tied up?"
"Sonic!" Bunnie gasped, clutching her chest. "You ... you're alive?"
"Very much so and ticked off into the bargain," snapped Sonic. "What have you done to Tails?"
"He's ... he's mad," Bunnie panted. "Had to tie him. Look what he's done." She lifted her arms and displayed the scratches seeping red across her brown fur.
"No way," said Sonic, stepping forward. "Tails?"
Before Bunnie could stop him, Sonic yanked the ropes off the fox's mouth. The fox lunged forward and sank his teeth into the cast on Sonic's right arm. Sonic fell back, and Bunnie grabbed Tails and held him down. Tails laid there and barked, his lips curled back from white teeth. Up close it was a horrible sound.
"Did Robotnik do something?" asked Sonic, staring spellbound at his sidekick.
"Torture, we think," said Bunnie, struggling to muzzle the fox again. "He's out of his mind--Tails! Stop it! Hold still!"
To her surprise, the fox stopped barking and lay still, panting. Bunnie hesitated to tie his mouth shut. "He remembers his name," she muttered. "Maybe he'll be all right..."
"Where's Sally? What's going on?" asked Sonic, looking around the woods.
"She's off distracting that cheetah-bot," said Bunnie, sneaking looks at Sonic, trying to convince herself that he was alive. "Sugar-hog, where have you BEEN?"
But Sonic was already gone, racing through the woods toward the new clearing.
***
Sally was tiring. A terrible stitch was developing in her side, and her breath tore at her lungs. She could not run much longer, and yet that cheetah kept coming, the claws on its front feet extended. Could it sense she was slowing up? It seemed that it was playing with her, stalking her among the trees.
If she could only get away from it! She had lost it so easily before--but now she couldn't get out of its sight long enough for it to lose its target.
Stumbling in exhaustion, she left the trees and stopped, aghast. She had reached another swath through the forest and there were saw-tanks everywhere, busily working. The cheetah was coming up behind her, and she was trapped.
Faced with two dangers, she chose the lesser one and ran toward the nearest saw-tank with the idea to put it between herself and the cheetah. But she lacked the strength to run, and she heard the shriek of its engine before she had run ten feet. "You're dead now, poor idiot," said that small, smug voice in her head.
The robot's claws struck her with such force she was flung into the air and went tumbling, spinning, and landed in mud with a splash. She lay there, stunned and knowing she was hurt, but unable to feel pain. Somewhere she could hear the screech of the cheetah's engines as it tracked her to finish her off.
"Sally!" a familiar voice gasped. She saw a pair of red sneakers in the mud in front of her. The figure bent over her, but she was too near unconsciousness to recognize it. "He hurt you," she heard her rescuer breathe. Then he screamed, "Buttnik'll PAY for this!"
***
Sonic sprang from Sally's side and dashed for the cheetah, which was blasting straight toward him. Reckless with rage, Sonic ran to meet it head-on. He leaped and curled into a razor-edged spindash.
Sonic and the cheetah collided, and Sonic's spines sliced through the robot's hull like a knife through butter. It exploded, parts flying in all directions, and Sonic tumbled to a halt amid flying debris. He had wanted to do that ever since he had laid eyes on the thing. But his fury had not yet been vented. There were still hundreds of robots cutting down trees--his trees, he thought--and hauling them to Robotropolis. It was an unforgivable sin, and his vengeance began immediately.
***
Sally came to with horrible searing pain along her right leg and side. She sat up and found she was covered in mud. The robot had clawed her, and blood was oozing through the coating of mud on her fur. Grunting with pain, she crawled onto firm ground and sat there, looking around.
Every saw-tank in the area was collapsed with a hole torn through its middle. Bits of metal and machinery littered the ground. She looked around at the carnage, trying to figure out what had happened. It looked ... it looked like Sonic had been there. But that was impossible. Sonic was dead. "You know he's not," the small, smug voice in her head told her. "You never believed he was dead. He's come back and done his job."
She hauled herself to her feet and limped up the trail the machines had made, past more destroyed saw-tanks and hover transports, stepping around bits of rubbish on the ground. It certainly looked like Sonic's work. No one else punched a hole through a machine's vitals the way he did. Her hopes rising, she hurried on, trying to ignore the pain in her leg and side.
She walked all the way back to the first clearing where Tails's cage had been. The machines there had been destroyed, too, and were still smoking. He had just done this. "Sonic?" she called.
She found him lying on the ground on the far side of the path, eyes closed. "Sonic!" she cried, running to him. "You're alive!" She burst into tears, knelt beside him, and threw her arms around him.
"Don't ... touch me," he whispered. "Sal, don't try to move me. I hurt my back again."
Sally withdrew, although it was difficult, for she wanted to touch him and hold him and reassure herself that he had really come back. "Your back?" she said through her tears. "What's the matter with it?"
"They told me not to fight," Sonic whispered through clenched teeth. "I did it anyway. Send somebody to get Ranith at the village down the canyon."
Sally connected the dots at once. So that was why they hadn't found Sonic after the accident! A village in the canyon she didn't know about! "Okay Sonic," she said, getting up and wiping her eyes, leaving muddy streaks across her face. She took two steps and stumbled, pain lancing through her wounds.
"Sal, you're bleeding," Sonic murmured. "Dang, I hate Buttnik!"
Sally laughed to hear the familiar insult, and it gave her strength to stand up and keep moving. "I'll be right back," she promised him, and limped toward Knothole. Antoine could go up the canyon, and she and Rotor could rig up a stretcher for Sonic.
Tails was sitting in his cage, as usual, gazing at his watch and listening to Robotnik and Snively gloat over how much of the forest they had destroyed, and how they must be nearing Knothole. Tails tried to block them out, but today he could not do it. He was losing his grip, his self-control. Something had to happen soon or he was going to--
"Send the cheetah robot out today," said Robotnik. "We'll see how many of them it can kill."
Tails hit the cage door, snarling and barking, clawing at the bars. He struck the door over and over, trying to break it off its hinges.
Robotnik and Snively stared in stunned silence for a moment. Tails had been a docile captive, and it was a shock to see him go berserk like this. "Time to put him down, I guess," said Snively.
Robotnik thumbed his mustache, watching Tails's furious attempts to break out. "No. Let's put him on a transport headed out to the woods. When his friends 'save' him, he'll probably attack them, too. Won't that be a shock?"
Snively stared at his uncle. "Send him back?"
Robotnik shrugged. "The cheetah will be out there. If they do rescue him, and he doesn't attack them, then the cheetah will finish them off." He grinned. "It might add a little excitement to our day." He pressed a button on the console to summon some SWAT-bots. Tails attacked the bars the whole time he was being lifted and moved out of the fortress, out of the city, and on to a transport.
***
Sally was sitting in a tree that had escaped cutting on the edge of a cleared acre. She watched through binoculars as a long train of hover transports approached, each bearing four of the saw-tanks. There were so many, she realized, heart sinking. Today they would strike the bog, and who knows what would happen. If only she had bigger weapons!
As she watched the gang approach, she saw something else coasting along beside them. She focused her binoculars on it. It was the robot cheetah who had been the cause of Sonic's demise. Her fingers tightened on the binoculars. If she had a grenade or something...
Sally watched from her perch as the cheetah zipped up and down the line of the transports with mind-boggling speed. It was like watching Sonic run. It was patrolling, and she had no doubt that it had come to seek out and kill Freedom Fighters. She would have to see that it was destroyed.
The transports were rolling into their current work area and Sally was preparing to climb out of the tree when a strange sound reached her ears. She grabbed her binoculars again. It sounded like a fox barking--a strange, raspy sound that sounded more like a bird than a fox. It was impossible, but was Tails there somewhere? Yes, yes, there was that blasted cage they kept him in, but what had they done to him? She could see glints of fur moving through the holes in the sides, and she glimpsed him clawing at the door like a mad thing.
Oh no. She lowered her binoculars. They must have driven him crazy with torture, then sent him back. She had heard of Robotnik doing that to other Freedom Fighter bands whom he wished to demoralize. It was even worse than robotization.
But how to get him out without attracting the cheetah-robot's attention? Oh, how she wished Sonic were here!
***
The doctor had made Sonic stay in Petra one more night, but Sonic was strung up and snappish, and had constant visions of Sally lying dead, or Tails robotized, or Knothole gutted and destroyed. His body had healed itself extremely quickly owing to the herbal infusions and his own high metabolism, but he was still weak, and the thought of running his usual speeds of six hundred miles an hour made his head pound. But he could still spindash. He tried it in the privacy of his cave. With a running start, he could curl into a ball of whirling spines that ought to damage a robot, even if it didn't destroy it outright.
The next morning, as Tails was being sent home and Sally was plotting a way to rescue him, Sonic was pulling on his shoes and wrestling his bandaged arms into slings. Thank goodness he didn't use his arms to spindash! But the casts were heavy, and he worried they might slow him down.
Amy stood by and watched, wringing her hands. "Do you have to leave, Sonic?"
"Yes," he said. Ever since his vision and mobility had returned, he had grown more and more annoyed with Amy. She wanted to baby him and play nurse, and he was certain she had a crush on him. All he wanted to do was smash up the robots that were endangering his home.
Ranith entered, looking grave. "Sonic, you plan on entering combat immediately, right?"
"Yep." Sonic straightened, trying to ignore a twinge of pain in his back, and made sure his arms were supported in their casts.
Ranith watched him. "You're not well, Sonic. If you go out there today, you might damage your back irreparably."
"I'll risk it," said Sonic. "I may have a chance to rest, who knows? Sally might have planted land mines or something."
Ranith made a steeple of his fingers and examined them. "If you hurt yourself, send for me and Skratcher."
"You got it," said Sonic, whose mind was on a run through the canyon and the forest beyond. "Can I go now?"
"Yes," said the doctor with a sigh. He and Amy watched as Sonic jogged outside and vanished up the canyon without looking back.
"Will he come back?" Amy asked, tears standing in her eyes.
"I hope not," said Ranith. "Because if he does, it'll be for more treatment, and chances are neither me nor Skratcher will be able to treat him successfully."
"Well, I hope he comes back," said Amy, sniffing. "I like him."
***
Sally's rescue plan of Tails was dangerous, but they lacked the numbers to plan anything safer. Sally would play decoy and lead the cheetah off, sticking to the trees where it could not move quickly. Bunnie Rabbot would sneak in behind and open the cage, for with her robotized arm and legs, it was less likely that Tails would hurt her. Bunnie was to tie him up if he proved violent, and get him to cover as soon as possible. It hurt Sally to issue these instructions, but there was no other way. Maybe there was still hope for the fox, once he was away from torment.
Sally waited until the saw-tanks had been unloaded, and the transport with Tails was standing alone and empty. She drew a deep breath and walked out into the open.
The cheetah was circling the transport with Tails, following its instructions to guard him until other targets appeared. It saw Sally immediately. Its engine screamed, and it shot toward her like a two hundred-pound bullet.
Sally dove into the trees as the cheetah crashed into the woods, gouging chunks out of trees and smashing the brush. She ran, trying to keep it in sight. She knew she could lose it in the woods, because it operated on eye contact, but she wanted to keep its attention. The longer she held it, the more time Bunnie would have to help Tails.
The cheetah deployed its feet and stood for a moment, head swinging as it looked for her. She rattled the brush in front of her. "Here! Here! Over here!"
It whirled and sprang toward her, and Sally dodged and escaped between two close-growing trees with the cheetah almost within clawing distance. The robot stuck between two trees, and it took it a few seconds to dislodge itself. Sally used this time to put some distance between her and it, and look for other close-growing trees where she could hide.
***
As soon as the cheetah went after Sally, Bunnie sprinted out of hiding from the other direction and leaped up on the flat bed of the transport. Tails's cage was lashed down with bungee cords, and there was no movement inside the cage. She looked at the ropes in her hands and hoped she wouldn't have to use them.
Bunnie stooped and looked in the door of the cage. "Tails? You in there?"
He struck the cage door, jaws open and fingers curled into claws. Bunnie jumped back and stared. This wasn't the young fox she had read bedtime stories to. "Tails, it's just me, Bunnie!"
He didn't care, or perhaps he couldn't hear her. Well, there was nothing for it but to use the ropes, which now looked small and flimsy. She unwound one and laid it on the top of the transport. She was aware of how visible they were up there, but she was afraid Tails might escape when she opened the door, and they didn't need that.
She braced herself, held out her metal arm, and opened the door.
Tails exploded out like an orange whirlwind, and she caught him around the neck with her metal arm. He bit her, his teeth clinking on the metal, making horrible snarling sounds. His claws slashed her torso and scrabbled against her robot legs. If she weren't robotized, he would have made mincemeat of her.
She threw him down on the bed of the truck, grabbed his flailing arms and lashed them together with rope. He fought her, snarling and frothing as if he had always been a wild beast. When his arms were tied she had a moment to breathe, for he now rolled two and fro, biting at the ropes and kicking his feet. She didn't want to tie his feet because they needed to run, but he could still bite...
She took a short length of rope, seized his muzzle and tied it shut, even as he snapped at her hands, ears pinned flat and eyes like blue fire. His pupils were contracted into tiny dots, and it was only his two lashing tails that assured her that she had once known him.
The screech of a jet engine. Bunnie looked up to see the cheetah streaking toward them. She gasped, grabbed Tails by the scruff of his neck and dove off the opposite side of the transport. Half-dragging the fox, she made it into the trees an instant before the robot reached her, and she heard it smash into the brush and small trees, its engine sputtering.
***
Sally had gone too far from the cheetah, and panicked when the cheetah's engine sounded, not behind her, but out in the open and moving away from her. It must have seen Bunnie! She pelted back toward the parked transports, arm raised to shield her face from low-hanging branches.
The cheetah was nowhere in sight, but she could hear it on the far side of the transport train, crashing through the brush. She ran toward it, yelling, "Hey! Over here! Over here!"
She realized what she had done when she reached the transports. She was fifty feet from the sheltering trees, and what was more, the cheetah had lost its targets. It emerged from the trees, head swinging to and fro as it scanned for more victims.
"You are dead," a small, taunting voice in her head informed her.
The robot spotted her as she ducked behind the transport and it blasted toward her. It flew over the top of the transport and dove at her, but she rolled underneath the truck and the cheetah struck the truck with an echoing clang.
Sally crawled out on the other side and dashed toward the woods twenty feet away, but the cheetah rocketed after her.
She dropped flat and it roared over her, scrabbling with its legs to turn around. Sally jumped up and reached the trees, jumped behind one, and heard the satisfying crunch of metal hitting wood. But the trees were thin here, and there was nowhere to hide. She ran on, and the robot followed her, using its legs instead of its jet engine.
***
Bunnie was winded and terrified, dragging the growling Tails and listening for sounds of pursuit. The fox was still trying to attack her, and she was beginning to wonder if he had been infected with rabies before he had been released to them. Here she was scratched and bleeding. But there was no time to worry about that now. Tails's ropes were working loose.
She stopped to re-tie them and knelt behind the cover of a hedge, trying to hold down the fox and tighten the ropes with her other hand.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Bunnie shrieked and spun around to see Sonic standing behind her. His arms were in casts and he had the pale, wasted look of someone who has been ill, but his eyes were bright with fury. "Why the heck is he tied up?"
"Sonic!" Bunnie gasped, clutching her chest. "You ... you're alive?"
"Very much so and ticked off into the bargain," snapped Sonic. "What have you done to Tails?"
"He's ... he's mad," Bunnie panted. "Had to tie him. Look what he's done." She lifted her arms and displayed the scratches seeping red across her brown fur.
"No way," said Sonic, stepping forward. "Tails?"
Before Bunnie could stop him, Sonic yanked the ropes off the fox's mouth. The fox lunged forward and sank his teeth into the cast on Sonic's right arm. Sonic fell back, and Bunnie grabbed Tails and held him down. Tails laid there and barked, his lips curled back from white teeth. Up close it was a horrible sound.
"Did Robotnik do something?" asked Sonic, staring spellbound at his sidekick.
"Torture, we think," said Bunnie, struggling to muzzle the fox again. "He's out of his mind--Tails! Stop it! Hold still!"
To her surprise, the fox stopped barking and lay still, panting. Bunnie hesitated to tie his mouth shut. "He remembers his name," she muttered. "Maybe he'll be all right..."
"Where's Sally? What's going on?" asked Sonic, looking around the woods.
"She's off distracting that cheetah-bot," said Bunnie, sneaking looks at Sonic, trying to convince herself that he was alive. "Sugar-hog, where have you BEEN?"
But Sonic was already gone, racing through the woods toward the new clearing.
***
Sally was tiring. A terrible stitch was developing in her side, and her breath tore at her lungs. She could not run much longer, and yet that cheetah kept coming, the claws on its front feet extended. Could it sense she was slowing up? It seemed that it was playing with her, stalking her among the trees.
If she could only get away from it! She had lost it so easily before--but now she couldn't get out of its sight long enough for it to lose its target.
Stumbling in exhaustion, she left the trees and stopped, aghast. She had reached another swath through the forest and there were saw-tanks everywhere, busily working. The cheetah was coming up behind her, and she was trapped.
Faced with two dangers, she chose the lesser one and ran toward the nearest saw-tank with the idea to put it between herself and the cheetah. But she lacked the strength to run, and she heard the shriek of its engine before she had run ten feet. "You're dead now, poor idiot," said that small, smug voice in her head.
The robot's claws struck her with such force she was flung into the air and went tumbling, spinning, and landed in mud with a splash. She lay there, stunned and knowing she was hurt, but unable to feel pain. Somewhere she could hear the screech of the cheetah's engines as it tracked her to finish her off.
"Sally!" a familiar voice gasped. She saw a pair of red sneakers in the mud in front of her. The figure bent over her, but she was too near unconsciousness to recognize it. "He hurt you," she heard her rescuer breathe. Then he screamed, "Buttnik'll PAY for this!"
***
Sonic sprang from Sally's side and dashed for the cheetah, which was blasting straight toward him. Reckless with rage, Sonic ran to meet it head-on. He leaped and curled into a razor-edged spindash.
Sonic and the cheetah collided, and Sonic's spines sliced through the robot's hull like a knife through butter. It exploded, parts flying in all directions, and Sonic tumbled to a halt amid flying debris. He had wanted to do that ever since he had laid eyes on the thing. But his fury had not yet been vented. There were still hundreds of robots cutting down trees--his trees, he thought--and hauling them to Robotropolis. It was an unforgivable sin, and his vengeance began immediately.
***
Sally came to with horrible searing pain along her right leg and side. She sat up and found she was covered in mud. The robot had clawed her, and blood was oozing through the coating of mud on her fur. Grunting with pain, she crawled onto firm ground and sat there, looking around.
Every saw-tank in the area was collapsed with a hole torn through its middle. Bits of metal and machinery littered the ground. She looked around at the carnage, trying to figure out what had happened. It looked ... it looked like Sonic had been there. But that was impossible. Sonic was dead. "You know he's not," the small, smug voice in her head told her. "You never believed he was dead. He's come back and done his job."
She hauled herself to her feet and limped up the trail the machines had made, past more destroyed saw-tanks and hover transports, stepping around bits of rubbish on the ground. It certainly looked like Sonic's work. No one else punched a hole through a machine's vitals the way he did. Her hopes rising, she hurried on, trying to ignore the pain in her leg and side.
She walked all the way back to the first clearing where Tails's cage had been. The machines there had been destroyed, too, and were still smoking. He had just done this. "Sonic?" she called.
She found him lying on the ground on the far side of the path, eyes closed. "Sonic!" she cried, running to him. "You're alive!" She burst into tears, knelt beside him, and threw her arms around him.
"Don't ... touch me," he whispered. "Sal, don't try to move me. I hurt my back again."
Sally withdrew, although it was difficult, for she wanted to touch him and hold him and reassure herself that he had really come back. "Your back?" she said through her tears. "What's the matter with it?"
"They told me not to fight," Sonic whispered through clenched teeth. "I did it anyway. Send somebody to get Ranith at the village down the canyon."
Sally connected the dots at once. So that was why they hadn't found Sonic after the accident! A village in the canyon she didn't know about! "Okay Sonic," she said, getting up and wiping her eyes, leaving muddy streaks across her face. She took two steps and stumbled, pain lancing through her wounds.
"Sal, you're bleeding," Sonic murmured. "Dang, I hate Buttnik!"
Sally laughed to hear the familiar insult, and it gave her strength to stand up and keep moving. "I'll be right back," she promised him, and limped toward Knothole. Antoine could go up the canyon, and she and Rotor could rig up a stretcher for Sonic.