Sonic and Tails entered Rotor's workshop. As usual, Bunnie and Rotor were there. Around Bunnie there was a growing supply of flowers, cards, and other small tokens.

            Bunnie had spent most of her time in Rotor's workshop since she'd been shot. This was for two reasons. First, it helped Rotor to be able to compare the ruined leg to the undamaged one. He'd studied them before Bunnie's injury and found them to be close to identical, so he was using Bunnie as a guide.

            Second, Bunnie wasn't overly enthusiastic about going around outside without a leg. She preferred to stay in Rotor's company.

            Oddly enough, a good portion of Bunnie's room had migrated to Rotor's workshop. One of the worktables had transformed into a bed, complete with pillows and sheets.

            As Sonic and Tails came in, Rotor was talking to Bunnie. "I don't know. Doing this just freaks me out sometimes. I mean, if I can convince myself it's just a robot's limb I can do it. But after working on you for all these years, I can't really work on your limbs without thinking they're you… it scares me sometimes."

            "Rotor, hon, I think you're doin' fine."

            "If I were near done," Rotor said glumly, "I'd appreciate that compliment more."

            "'Cause you'd know it was true?"

            "Something like that."

            Sonic looked towards Bunnie's corner as he entered. She was curled up beneath her blanket, her back to the wall. Her one leg propped up the blanket and kept most of Bunnie's body hidden from view. Only her eyes, ears, and part of her head were really visible.

            She smiled to Sonic and Tails. "Hi, y'all."

            Sonic saw how desperately she was trying to be cheerful. Even as she hid herself, she pretended that she was feeling fine.

            "Yo, Bunnie. Hey Rote, how's it comin'?"

            "Not much better," Rotor said. "My earlier estimate's the same."

            "Aunt Bunnie!" said Tails, jumping onto Bunnie's bed.

            "Woah, sugar-Tails," she said. "You're hoppin' like a spooked toad an' Ah can't catch ya well!"

            "Aunt Bunnie, we brought you a present!" he said.

            Bunnie smiled. "Ah guess you can't have enough flowers until they start comin' out yer ears!"

            "Nuh-uh, not that kind of present," he said. "Sonic, get it!"

            "Gotcha, big guy!" Sonic zipped out of the room and reappeared in a flash, holding something behind his back. He wore a smile.

            "You like surprises, Bunnie?"

            "C'mon, sugar-hog, just give it up!"

            "I think she does like surprises," said Tails to Sonic. "Otherwise she wouldn't be going so crazy to see it."

            "I think you nailed it, lil' bro."

            "If you two aren't gonna show me nothin', Ah say you need to leave!"

            "She's threatening us, Sonic!"

            "I'm shakin', Tails!"

            "Guys," said Rotor, "just show her."

            "Spoilsport!" said Sonic. "Hey, Bunnie, nothin's wrong with your paws—catch!"

            Bunnie caught the object Sonic threw at her—and only then realized what it actually was.

            "A Swatbot leg?"

            "Of course!" said Rotor. "The components of a Swatbot's leg—the actuators and servomotors—are of very similar design as the ones in the Roboticised leg of a Mobian. After all, the Roboticiser and the Swatbot designs are of the same technological generation: both were designed near the end of the Great War. And it only makes sense that the legs of a robot would mimic the natural motions of the organic muscles in our bodies."

            "Rotor, honey, what-all does that mean?"

            "It means that you're holding most of the components I can use to rebuild your leg."

            "Well don't just stand there!" she said, tossing the leg to Rotor. "Get to work!"

            "Yes, ma'am!"

            Bunnie pulled Tails to her. "Come here, you! Where'd you get that?"

            "Sonic and I went to Robotropolis. There was a Swatbot standing around, so we mugged him!"

            "Tails took it down, then we snatched its leg and high-tailed it outta there," Sonic said.

            The truth, of course, was far less glamorous—they'd just found a Swatbot corpse lying derelict in the junk heaps. They took its leg and left, and on the way home they'd come up with the story.

            "Oh, Tails, hold still!" She planted a kiss on his cheek. "Goin' to Robotropolis just for me… good for you! Sugar hog, you come here, too!"

            "I'll have to pass on the kiss, Bunnie," he said.

            "Fine then, Ah'll give your kiss to Rotor. Rotor, hon, you come here instead!"

            "Umm… you told me to work on the leg!" said Rotor hastily.

            "Ah guess Ah did. C'mere anyway!"

            Sonic excused himself from the room. He was joined in a second by Tails. When Sonic looked at him, though, he was still blushing from Bunnie's kiss.

            Sonic wondered about it for a few moments. "Tails?"

            "Sonic… I feel weird."

            "About what?" Sonic asked, not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer. If Tails was attaching any meaning to the kiss beyond Bunnie's gratitude, it meant he was growing up far faster than Sonic was comfortable with.

            "Why didn't you accept Bunnie's kiss?"

            Sonic relaxed. "Bunnie's all right, I just didn't want her to kiss me, that's all. It's my choice, anyway."

            "Then why should I always accept her kisses?"

            Skewer. Sonic was thrown for a mental loop. Tails was getting way too good at this. "'Cause it'll make her feel better."

            "But kissing you doesn't make her feel better?"

            "Not in the same way." Tails was driving hard. At what?

            "So there's a difference between her kissing you and her kissing me?"

            "Course there is."

            "Why?"

            "Well, for one thing, there's…" Sonic trailed off.

            "Sally?" Tails finished.

            "Yeah," said Sonic, who quickly followed, "But there's more than that."

            "Like what?"

            "Tails, cool as you are, ya gotta remember you're still ten. It's easier for everyone to think you're still a kit. We don't want you to grow up too fast."

            "But I thought that making me a Freedom Fighter meant I needed to grow up. If I'm a real Freedom Fighter, shouldn't I be treated like one?"

            "Yeah, but we don't wanna admit it. It makes it harder for everyone. You're still ten," Sonic repeated, uncomfortable. "And you still call her Aunt Bunnie, right?"

            Sonic had scored a point at last. Tails fell silent, pondering. And Sonic was left to wonder if he really meant what he'd said.

            Sally had called Sonic and Tails into her hut. She'd needed some help planning this next mission.

            Sonic was always lame when he tried to plan these things ahead. He usually just didn't understand how much time and effort something might take. In Sally's experience, he also struggled with the concept of going somewhere in order to go somewhere else; each layer she abstracted a plan, the harder it got for him. He just couldn't keep his focus on it long enough.

            He had no problems in the execution of such plans, and if a problem could be solved in one or two steps he could be downright brilliant at times, but he couldn't plan ahead. He'd come, however, because he'd been with Tails when Sally'd called him. Sally had only tried this a few times with Tails and was unsure of how well he'd do.

            Now, an hour later, all the planning was complete—but Sally was dismayed. Tails didn't have Sonic's problem—he had a different one.

            "Alright, then do you two understand what you're going to do?"

            "No problem, Sal!"

            "Got it, Aunt Sally."

            "Good. Be sure to get whatever sleep you need to be ready tonight." And get out of here so I can think clearly without being mean to you.

            They got her hint. "See ya tonight!" said Sonic as he left, Tails in tow.

            Sally slumped back. Tails' flaw was predictable. He had a gross overestimation of what Sonic was capable of.

            But there was a more worrying flaw. He also grossly overestimated the number of Swatbots and their effectiveness at stopping "ordinary"—non-Sonic—Freedom Fighters. This turned all of his plans into giant games of the lone hedgehog versus entire armies of lethal Swatbots. Dramatic, yes, but utterly useless as far as Sally was concerned. Those dramas didn't help Sally with any part of the planning because they were so far removed from reality.

            Perhaps, thought Sally… perhaps Tails is more frightened than I expected. His patterns suggest that he's deathly afraid of Swatbots.

            Well, so were we… we still are. But we know that we can take down a few if we have to, and we can do it quietly and quickly. Even as we train Tails how to do it, he loses his confidence to do it.

            For that matter… "Nicole, is this plan more cautious than previous plans?"

            "Define the parameters of cautious, please."

            Of course. You can't go to a computer for a value judgment. Nicole knew what caution was, as a word, but struggled to understand how much holding back constituted caution.

            "Forget it, Nicole. Display some previous plans of mine… the past few before Bunnie was hurt."

            She nodded as she watched them. She'd been getting more cautious, yes, that was definite. All of her operations had, with the exception of the strike at the mainframe. Yet even that had required almost a week to set up and execute and included two diversions and four teams of Freedom Fighters. She hadn't taken many chances there, either.

            She paused for a moment. Had she really been overly cautious? After all, Bunnie had gotten shot; putting her in a position to get shot hadn't seemed particularly cautious. But when she reviewed what Bunnie would have done on that mission, it occurred to her that Bunnie's presence itself was unneeded. As Sonic and Sally had proved, the mission didn't need Bunnie to be there at all. She'd been there to make things easier, and had just gotten unlucky. Bad luck was a risk all of the Freedom Fighters ran; there was no way to avoid the risk, short of not going to Robotropolis. She was never going to concede to that risk.

            Now that she could see the pattern, she chastised herself. What was the point of blowing up those Stealth Bots, anyway? Stealth Bots rarely did anything significant these days. Did she hit them just because they were convenient?

            There! That was when she'd started getting cautious. She checked the date. Of course. The day she'd started training Tails. Just as he was scared of Swatbots, she was scared of him encountering Swatbots. Even though his first mission had only been recent, Sally's thinking had changed before then.

            I can't ask Nicole's judgment for this question, either. It was too complex. Obviously everyone had lost confidence. She had, Tails had, the entire village of Knothole had. Failed missions were nothing new, but rarely did the Freedom Fighters fail two in a row, and two on consecutive days was very bad indeed.

            Although crashing the mainframe had given a brief surge of confidence, it was apparent to her now that there was an underlying uncertainty. The very anxiety that had caused her to recruit Tails in the first place was manifest in these plans before her. Anxiety was contagious. It had started with her, at the top; it had spread through all of Knothole by now.

            The problem wasn't that I was pushing too hard. I wasn't pushing hard enough!

            Strangely, Sally felt better. Now that she could see the problem, she could fix it. Well, then, how to restore everyone's confidence? Some short, safe raids? A raid and a break? A festival of some kind? An inspirational speech? (Sally laughed at the last one; as if she could give an inspirational speech!)

            Or was it…?

            Sally dug out another plan. Yes. That was it.

            What better way to restore confidence than to do the impossible?

            Sonic knocked on Sally's door. "Come in," she said.

            Sonic opened it and saw that she was lying on top of her bed. "My bad, Sal, I'll get outta here."

            "No, come in, Sonic. I wasn't asleep."

            "Then why the bed?"

            "I just needed a rest, that's all."

            "So what's up?"

            "What do you mean, Sonic?"

            "You know what I mean. Everyone's talkin' about it. You canceled tonight's raid! Why'dja do that? Two bad missions, we can't give up after that! We gotta get a good one in!"

            "I know. That's why I canceled tonight's raid. I came up with a better plan. I want everyone to be really rested for this one."

            "Must be a doozy," said Sonic, wary.

            Sally got up from her bed and flashed him a predator's smile. "I'll show you," she said.

            Tails cautiously knocked on the door of the workshop. "Come on in!" shouted Rotor.

            Bunnie was no longer lying on her table; she was as close to the project as she could manage. She'd slid down the table almost to the point that she was in range to grab the leg and reconnect it.

            "Bunnie, you're in my light again."

            "Sorry, sugar, Ah'm just all ready to see mah leg on again."

            "And I told you it'll be more than a week. I can't work that fast! Especially if someone won't get out of my light!"

            Bunnie finally backed off some—a meter, no more. A last she noticed Tails. "Oh, hi darlin'. What're you here for?"

            "I wanted to talk to you," said Tails.

            "Well, Ah can see you're unsure 'bout somethin'. C'mon, sit up here with me."

            "That's just it," said Tails. "I… I'm not sure if I wanna be a kit anymore."

            "That's nonsense," said Bunnie firmly.

            Fury built up within Tails. "Aren't you even going to listen to me?"

            "Of course, sugar. But Ah think Ah know what you're gonna say."

            Tails took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. "You see… well… I'm a Freedom Fighter, right? A real one. It feels weird to still call everyone 'Aunt', and it's weird to be a kit."

            "Peer pressure?" wondered Rotor.

            "Nah, noone his age," responded Bunnie.

            "You don't have to be someone's age to be his peer," Rotor pointed out, "which I think is what Tails is trying to get at."

            "Yes!" said Tails, relieved. "I mean, you don't go around kissing Sonic or Rosie, do you Bunnie? But you kiss me."

            Now Rotor laughed. "Tails, getting kissed by Bunnie isn't something you're gonna get sympathy for. Jealousy, maybe, but not sympathy."

            "That was nice!" said Bunnie.

            "It's like you said earlier," said Tails, "if I'm a Freedom Fighter, it must mean I'm not a kit anymore. So I… I don't think I wanna be treated like one anymore."

            "Tails, honey, Ah knew you were gonna say that, an' you know what? Sometimes, it don't matter what you want. You are a kit, like it or not."

            "But that doesn't mean I have to be treated like one. I'm a Freedom Fighter, too."

            "Sugar, you can be a Freedom Fighter an' a kit at the same time. Nothin' wrong with that. Bein' a Freedom Fighter'll make you old, but you don't have to be old to be a Freedom Fighter."

            Tails shook his head, bewildered. "But… but… all this time, Sally and Sonic and everyone always said I'd be a Freedom Fighter when I was older!"

            "We said that so you'd be old before you were one," said Rotor. "We didn't want you to be a young Freedom Fighter, but that didn't mean you couldn't be one, like you are now."

            "An anyways," said Bunnie, "Ah wanna keep treatin' you like you are. You're a kit, an' Ah wanna keep you as one."

            "Why?" said Tails, a bite in his voice. "Is it like Sonic said, so it's easier for you to imagine me not being a Freedom Fighter? So it's easier on you?"

            "'Cause I don't want you to grow up too fast. You're gonna be an adult a long time, but you're only a kit a few years. It'd be easier on you if y'all weren't a Freedom Fighter. But you are, an' like Ah said, that makes you old quick. No need to rush things, sugar."

            Tails walked to the worktable. He hopped up and sat next to Bunnie. She planted a peck on his cheek.

            That wasn't so bad, he thought.

            I can live with that.

TO BE CONTINUED…