Besieged Homeland

by RedFox

Though many years have passed since Robotnik's defeat, not all is well on Mobius as a group of young friends find themselves caught up in a desperate attempt to prevent a powerful force from overrunning that which two of them call home.

4. Tails

Chapter Three: Tails

Thirst.

There was one good thing about it—it made you forget hunger.

Tails curled himself up into a ball and lay on the cold metallic floor against one of the shelves that lined the walls of the hold. His throat was in agony; his mouth felt as if he had just polished off a couple dozen saltine crackers in a row, parched and sticky. He longed to swallow, but each time he tried it brought only a fresh paroxysm of intense pain. His eyes burned for lack of moisture. He knew that he was suffering from extreme dehydration, and if this lasted much longer, he could suffer serious damage.

Hallucinations danced in front of him… most holding to an aquatic theme. He saw lakes, rivers, and waterfalls spontaneously appear from the darkness to tantalize him with their flowing elixir. Just to move was a challenge; even in the worst of circumstances, Tails knew exactly how and why his muscles were failing. Water being the body's transport system, a deficiency of the vital liquid would result in an inability for the essential nutrients and energy to reach where they needed to be. On a similar note, Tails had never been a particularly stocky kit, and had little fat to speak of. Without food to burn, his body would soon resort to eating away at its own muscles to produce the necessary energy for normal functions. Recalling all of this helped him to concentrate on things besides the toll that their confinement was taking on him.

Tails was far from the only one experiencing such horrors. Sabrina, Adeline, and Alexander had been reduced to similar pathetic states, slumped on the floor, exhausted but unable to sleep. Randall's cyborg state was once again serving him well, as his robotic appendages required only half the energy needed to power organic limbs. Thus, he was faring slightly better than the others, and acting as a measure of comfort, especially to Adeline. He was with her now, being the big brother that he should, helping his little sister through this terrifying tribulation.

At first they had talked, talked of aimless matters merely to pass the time. Soon this became nearly impossible as their voices dwindled to mere croaks, then, for the most part, vanished. Time itself had no meaning, as they had not even a speck of light to hold on to. All they had was an almost negligible sensation of rocking to let them know they were still alive. It was plenty to drive a man mad; Tails wondered if such had already happened. Then he decided that if he was sane enough to ponder if he was mad, he hadn't passed that threshold yet.

Probably.

There was another issue as well; that being that all living things, by no means excluding Mobians, produce wastes. The unrelenting caliginosity afforded them all the privacy they could want, but they unfortunately lacked any sort of sanitary location to heed nature's call. They had decided on one of the arms of the T—without ignoring the opportunity for a bit of ironic symbolism, they chose the floor directly next to the biochemical weaponry. It was messy and humiliating, but they had no other choice. It also smelled very, very bad. Eventually, one became accustomed to this as well. It was surprising how low one could sink when their very survival depended upon it.

Alexander had said two to two and a half days. Tails knew that you could survive for about three without water. The falcon had also sounded wryly amused about something, when Tails inquired, he noted that they were actually in the safest possible place on the ship should it be attacked.

"What, surrounded by explosives?" Sabrina had asked incredulously. "Locked in a room without escape?"

"The walls, Sabrina," Tails had reminded her. "For the same reason we can't get out, or tell anyone that we're here, we can't be hurt."

Sabrina remained pessimistic. "Fat lot of good that'll do us if they sink the ship. Then we'll just have the pleasure of starving to death twenty miles underwater." Despite the fact that lack of fluids would kill them first, she had a rather valid point. The only problem with her logic was that their hypothetical attacker would be unlikely to leave any survivors anyhow.

They wouldn't need to be sunk to meet such a fate, however, if they weren't released soon. Tails' mind wandered to the most random of places; he thought of icebergs, of flowers, of Robotropolis's towering skyscrapers and flying to the top of them. He daydreamt of accomplishing glorious things, wild fantasies of heroism that would forever place his name alongside his father's in the history books. He imagined wide-open blue skylines, clear air, the pristine beauty of the sprawling plains below as he soared effortlessly hundreds of feet above the ground. The last time that he had gone this long without stretching his tails with a good, long fly was over three years ago, when he had been bedridden with the flu. He had thought that he was truly suffering then, too. I guess the moral is that it things could always be worse, he thought. Odd time to be so positive, but what else can you do?

Tails was quite suddenly airborne.

This was not because of any action on his behalf, but rather because the entire hold had lurched to the side at about a forty-five degree angle, sending all five prisoners sailing into the shelves. Tails flew, took the brunt of the impact with his shoulder, and slumped, barely conscious. Faint noises could be heard through the (soundproof?) walls, low rumblings, then quick short blasts. The entire room abruptly shifted again, sending its unfortunate occupants sliding across the floor to slam into the other side. Great, now they're having the decency to speed up our deaths. What the hell is going on?

Alexander managed to croak out one word: "Battle."

The Mobotropolis was under attack!

Tails reminded himself that to even think that fatal optimistic statement was to invite fate to toy with you a little more. For the next half hour—fifteen minutes? an hour? who could tell? —they were tossed about the hold like dice until they each got a weak hold on something and fought with what pathetic strength they had left to keep it. Adeline was too far gone; she lost her grip and began to slide again. Quick as a flash, Randall shot out his extendable robotic limb and hauled her back, now struggling as much as anyone from the effort of having to support another as well as himself.

The fox kit's keen ears tried to catch any sounds from above that might clue him into what was happening. Since they had heard absolutely nothing up until the sudden tilt, Tails hypothesized that either the clamor was of truly massive proportions, or a section of the wall was damaged slightly. He heard no voices, but more dull rumbling sounds that surely suggested firing being exchanged between the Mobotropolis and its allies and whatever foes they might have crossed. It gave Tails a nasty shock to realize that any moment their ship could sink to a watery grave, and them with it. The sheer realization that he could do absolutely nothing about it was the most horrifying part.

Then the noises and wild undulating stopped.

A new terror seized the bedraggled captives. The silence could mean either of two things—life or death—and there was no way of knowing which. Had the ship survived the gauntlet, for them to be freed from their horrible prison very soon? Or had it been dispatched to the depths, to rest as a relic upon the ocean floor, and for them to slowly and painfully die in complete darkness? Even to the last breath, they would still be watching, waiting, hoping desperately that there was just a delay in unloading, that someone would release them any moment…

An agonizing half-hour passed, as the young prisoners waited, hoping, praying.

Then two loud cracks reverberated though the hold, those of a wheel being turned and a lock slipping. A sliver of light appeared and began to grow as the door opened, illuminating their jail, permeating luminosity throughout it, shining upon the disheveled inmates where they lay. Tails blinked staring at it. The simple movement had his tearless eyes screaming in pain. He kept them closed, content to simply soak, bask, rejoice in the return of the brightness denied to him for so long. They were saved.

"Come on, let's go!" a voice called from the door. "You've got those crowbars?" A pause, then, loudly, "Phew, what the hell reeks so bad in here?" Then a dead stop.

"I could only find three, and one's bent…" said a second voice, then trailed off. "Something wrong, Lars?"

Lars was assumedly the name of the guy who was now standing, open mouthed, staring at the four half-dead children and their former guide (in no better status). In the odd combination of what seemed bright to one penned up for so long, but was actually rather poor lighting, Tails could not make out his species. He flinched looking at an unconscious Adeline, her head resting in the metallic lap of her older brother. He seemed paralyzed, unable to believe what he was seeing. Then he recognized Sabrina, and his eyes went as wide as his mouth.

"Princess…" he said in a hushed whisper, then, his astonished gaze never leaving Sabrina's face, "Sef! Sef, damn it, drop the godsdamn crowbars and get the captain! Now!"

"What?" Sef asked. "But he's… he's…"

"Do it!" Lars yelled anxiously.

The next five minutes passed by without a word being spoken. Lars kept looking at them, from Tails, to Randall and Adeline, to Alexander, but mostly at Sabrina. He seemed paralyzed, unable to take any sort of action. Here were four half-dead children of revered war heroes, yes, that he might have been able to handle. Here was also the half-dead likely successor to the throne of the kingdom of Knothole… now that was a serious issue. Sabrina's presence turned moderate calamity into full-scale disaster.

It was a bizarre situation, to be sure. Tails wanted to dash out of the stuffy hold, to breathe air untainted by the stench of biological wastes, to guzzle water and greedily devour piles of food until he burst, and to, most of all, rush to the deck take off, circle high above the Mobotropolis, tails whirling, soaring, joyfully exulting in the wonderful freedom of the great blue sky. Absurdly, he felt a moment of rage against Lars. Don't just stand there, you idiot—get us to a freakin' doctor!

Someone was returning. Tails, with great relief, heard Sef's excited fast chatter, Levine's standard, calm, and authoritative replies, and a third voice that he didn't recognize. He didn't have a chance to find out whom that voice belonged to though, not right then. It was then that he finally surrendered his fate to his rescuers and slipped into unconsciousness.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He came to. He was lying on a cot, and even with vision heavily blurred, could tell he was in the shade of a large tree. Considering the fact that trees do not habitually grow on ships, Tails would have liked very much to ask where on Mobius he was. His throat was no longer burning, but his vocal chords would not respond. He tried to sit up and couldn't. A strange feeling in his left arm led him to tilt his head in that direction and realize that he was being fed fluids intravenously.

"This one's awake, Doc!" a female voice said, and continued, "Just lie down, honey. Everything's all right. Just relax, don't try to move. You're very weak. Just stay where you are." Tails managed a low groan and relaxed, knowing she was right.

Dr. Horatio Quack was an elderly duck who had been practicing when King Acorn was in his prime. He and his son Gregory were the two leading medical specialists in Knothole; Greg had stayed behind to care for the still-cataleptic royalty while Quack volunteered to accompany the soldiers to Downunda. War produced no shortage of casualties, and an experienced doctor was highly prized in any armed force. Now, however, the doctor was not digging bullets out of muscle or applying a tourniquet to a bleeding artery, but tending to five extra burdens—five burdens who were a long way from where they ought to be. Four young burdens, one royal.

"Hey, you little stowaway," Quack said affectionately. "I was wondering if you'd ever wake up… and you're not even the last. How are you feeling?"

Tails brought his right hand, the one free from the IV, to his throat in wordless communication of his speechless condition.

"Ah, okay. Well, I assume that you want to know what's going on?" Tails nodded. "I'll try to keep it as brief as possible; I have others to attend to, but you do deserve to know. Most of it is good news. Two destroyers attacked us about a half-mile offshore; we sank one and wounded the other, although it managed to get away. You were discovered as we were unloading; with nothing else to do, we brought you to shore and some of our stronger soldiers carried you here, about two miles inland. That boy was right; you can't get a radio signal out of this place. Some type of large-scale jamming is my best guess."

Tails' vision—and mind—were starting to clear. He went through a few brief charades, asking for pen and paper. Upon their deliverance, he scribbled a word, thought for a moment, scratched if out and then wrote, "How are the others?"

"'Bout the same as you," Quack replied. "All on IV's. It'll be at least thirty-six hours until you can walk again, two days minimum before you can move out of here. You don't seem to have suffered any permanent damage, else it'd be a lot longer."

"What's going to happen to us?" Tails wrote.

"Oh boy," Quack sighed. "Let me tell you something, son… your being here has screwed up a lot of things, which is why it's so important that we get you moving again A.S.A.P.. The original plan was for our troops to move for forty-eight straight hours, slip through enemy lines, and rendezvous with our allies in Luanyu, Downuna's capital city. As things are, however, we can't make any decent progress until you can move along with us. Obviously, we can't get you out of here… you're stuck with us. I only pray that none of you get hurt…"

Stuck! Not only stuck, but stuck and stalling an entire legion of warriors! Warriors that would have to, soon enough, enter into full-scale combat… and what would he do then? Tails wanted to bury his face in his hands. They were screwing everything up! He was going to be traveling with an army; he was going to be in the midst of a battle; he was going to be watching people die around him! He could easily take a bullet himself! What was one small fox, to a ruthless enemy trying to savagely conquer an entire island continent? Would they even care that he was only ten?

Then he began to reconsider. Yes, indeed, right now he was a problem, an enormous problem, and nothing more than a problem. He was not, however, completely devoid of abilities. Hadn't his father played a significant part in saving the planet—countless times over!—when he was no older than Tails was now? Adventure! The word was magnificent, filled with a ringing sense of freedom and independence. It was from adventures that glorified heroes sprung; it was this sort of adventure that had filled the thrilling novels that used to captivate his every spare moment! In a flash, despair and shame transformed into visions of valiant deeds and strategic marvels that left foes chewing their own tails in defeat. So overcome with this newfound confidence was Tails, that he once again tried to sit up on the cot, made it about halfway, and then crashed back down, his wild fantasies landing on top of him like so many heavy sacks of potatoes.

"You've got spirit," Quack said without condescension. "Well, you've heard all of the bad news, but here's the good: as far as we know, they haven't found us yet—'they' being the foe, naturally. We're using radar-deflection technology and we're under rather good tree cover, but, as I may have mentioned, we're only two miles inland. They obviously know of our presence somewhere near the southeastern shoreline; that destroyer that escaped…" Apparently unable to find the proper, he gestured to imply that the ship would have certainly set off quite a few alarms by now, and Tails again weakly nodded.

"However, our technical guys say that that odd radio shield they're using isn't particular to us; they've made a huge gamble by shutting down all forms of wireless communication throughout the entire eastern continent. Our best guess is that they couldn't find a way to just jam ours. So, that destroyer—assuming that they had nobody capable of flight on board—would have had to limp all the way back to port to deliver their news." An astounding gamble it was, indeed. The invaders had been forced to blindfold themselves in order to do the same to their foes. As things were, though, that would have worked out quite well in the assailants' favor… had it not been for Griffin and Lexi, braving all odds to bring the saving message to Knothole.

"In any case," Quack finished up, "as I said before, to them we could be anywhere on the southern shore. That still leaves them with over a hundred square miles to search if they assume that we could be up to five miles from the coast. We have troopers surrounding the area; no skirmishes to date, but it won't last forever."

Tails was again filled with chagrin. Before, he had thought only of his own disgrace and welfare. Far, far worse though… soldiers that should have been charging Luanyu were instead wasting time protecting a small group of kids—and some of those brave militants could lose their lives for him, his error, his godsdamn fault!

My fault! My fault! Like a broken record in his cerebrum. Deaths! My fault!

He summoned the strength to roll over onto his side, away from the doctor, who sighed again. "All right, rest up. You'll need it. All we can really do now is keep pumping you with calories and nutrients and hope for the best." He started. "Oh, Bun—I mean, Randall's awake, excellent." He walked off, saying something to himself about jump-starting Randall's robotic legs. If he meant what Tails thought he meant, he had better be careful. The fox kit wondered how Quack intended to prevent a jolt of electricity from also jump-starting the rest of Randall, with less desirable effects.

Tails fell asleep and awoke six hours later, feeling a good deal stronger. He again tried to sit up and found to his surprise that he could do so without too much difficulty. A screen monitoring his heart rate also boasted a small digital clock that read "19:52". Army time, Tails thought wryly. Just one more friendly reminder of where you are.

He yawned, stretched his arms, and heard bones crack. Yes, he had indeed been motionless for too long. He hurt all over, but he could move… and, he soon discovered, talk. "Water," he rasped to Gregory Quack, who had come to inquire how he felt. The physician quickly complied, and Tails downed the glass with alacrity. Still somewhat hoarse, he thanked the doctor.

"Applesauce?" Gregory asked, producing a small cup of the mashed fruit and a disposable spork. Tails accepted; the cool smoothness provided further relief as it slid down his still-irritated gullet. Gregory waited for him to finish, then accepted the plastic container and utensil back and tossed them into a trash receptacle. "Feeling any better?"

"Much," Tails replied. It felt good to have his voice back, hoarse or not. Then he let loose with the barrage that had built up inside of him during his temporary inarticulacy. "How are the others? And everyone else—I mean soldiers, too? We haven't been attacked, have we? I'm doing better; I really am. They won't attack at night, will they? I think by tomorrow I'll be ready to walk… I… I think…" He trailed off into silence.

Gregory had listened to this tirade with a smile, hearing his patient out in full before responding. "I guess I'll answer those in order. Your friends are all fine; Alexander is even on his feet, if wobbly, and we got Randall's artificial circuits working again. Indeed, you all should be able to walk by tomorrow, although we're not going to try to push you any more than necessary. There's been no attack, and everyone is okay… although we've gone to two-thirds rations to conserve—" He broke off, mortified, with a hand over his ginger beak. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No," Tails said, "it's all right… thank you."

"Thank me? Thank me for what?"

Tails didn't honestly know quite why he had said that, but when he thought about it, he really did have plenty to thank the medic for. He had plenty to thank everyone on this expedition for. Plenty to apologize for, too, nagged a small part of him, but he pushed that thought aside. "For the applesauce," he said matter-of-factly. Half a beat later it occurred to him how idiotic that must have sounded.

It caught Gregory off guard, too. He stared for a moment, then suddenly broke into laughter. Tails joined him as best he could without hurting himself too badly. It was rather funny. Applesauce. Hell.

He briefly considered asking someone about those deadly chemical weapons in green boxes that they had seen on the ship, and then decided against it. It wasn't any of his business, and he was sure that Alexander would make enough noise about it by himself. Considering his connections (not that Tails didn't have plenty of his own) his opinion on the matter would certainly be heard. Tails decided to leave such serious matters to those who knew how to deal with them. He never had any interest in becoming a politician. He had never had any real interest in soldiering, either, but events had taken him in a different direction. Dismissing the thoughts, he asked for something to read.

By the next morning, he was indeed up and about. His IV and heart monitor had been disconnected, and he was eating solid food. He could feel strength returning to his muscles and was fervent to fly, but under strict orders to remain grounded he restrained himself.

Sabrina and Adeline spend the morning sitting and playing cards, while Randall underwent a thorough examination by the contingent's mechanic, a middle-aged mouse by name of Machiko. With her petite frame and soft voice, she didn't have the appearance generally attributed to her profession. However, after five minutes with a couple of various wrenches, a pair of pliers, and some copper wire, she had succeeded in restoring his systems to near-perfect status. Randall demonstrated this by extending his roboticized left arm to twice its normal length, then jogging briefly around the area, every artificial joint functioning perfectly. Tails knew that even with the intense mechanical education passed down from his father he could not have done as well. There was certainly something to be said for experience.

Tails watched in envy as Alexander stretched his wings with a low-level flight just under the canopy level. With more body weight to speak of, the falcon had come through the affair better off than anyone except Randall, and thus was granted the privilege first. It wasn't much—hard flapping at fifteen feet certainly didn't compare to riding a warm thermal through an open sky—but at least he was in the air. Tails gave one of his three bushy appendages a bored bat; the tail flopped limply onto its companion duo.

He wondered what they would do if they found themselves suddenly under attack. Could he run? In fear of his life, yeah, probably, but certainly not very fast. What if they were bombed? Man; one well-placed firebomb could eliminate the five of them in a blinding flash of flame… and who knew how many others in the group would perish? They had to get out of there!

By four in the afternoon—1600 hours, Tails thought—he was finally given the green light to fly. After over four days, he wondered if he even could. With all of the others watching him, he found what he thought was the spot with the fewest branches overhead, took a deep breath, and flexed the muscles that would put his remarkable tails into action. There was a spasm of pain (yes, indeed, he was still somewhat sore) but he gritted his teeth and ignored it, concentrating on his task at hand. Slowly, his three tails began to spin, at first merely flopping over each other, then, faster, building up to a steady whir. He felt stiffness begin to fade and his own body becoming lighter and lighter until finally he pushed off of the ground, bent forward, and gave an extra surge of effort to the spin, and he was airborne.

"Yes!" he whooped, and flew straight upward, stopping just short of where the branches grew too thick for him to penetrate. Down below, his four companions clapped while the Quacks looked relieved. Tails decided that he'd passed the first test, and wondered if he could go a bit beyond. It'll scare the heck out of 'em, too, he thought, grinning. He relaxed slightly, enough for the spinning to slow down, and began to fall… slowly at first, then faster.

He had been only about forty feet from the ground and had only a moment to enjoy the panicked expressions on everyone's faces before he kicked back into gear. Swooping so low that he grabbed a handful of sod off of the ground and carried it back up with him, he could hear the angry exclamations of his friends. Heh, okay, maybe that was a bit too rash. But you know it, baby… can't keep this fox down! Marching? Battle? Bring it on! I am so ready!

The fates obliged him.

A sudden burst of gunfire ripped through the air, followed by a loud boom that shook the trees and sent the cots and gurneys toppling over. Sabrina and the older doctor lost their footing and fell in the mud; the others managed to barely keep their balance. "Attack!" came a voice (was it Sef's?) from a good distance away. Others fast took up the cry. Guttural shouts tore through the air, then more shots and a scream of agony.

"Godsdamnit!" Randall swore, a rare oath from him.

Tails threw away the soil and soared higher into the air. He felt no pain or weakness; adrenaline now surged through his body. This was when he could put his best skill into action; he could scope out the entire battle from the air and report back to those not so gifted with the power of flight. It occurred to him, even now at the most inopportune of times, that he should consider cartography as a profession. It was part of his father's work, anyhow. He tore his mind away from maps, preparing to dodge branches and break through the canopy to get a decent look at what was happening where. Here came the lowest and thinnest limbs now… he hoped his tails wouldn't catch…

"Tails, you numbskull!" Sabrina shouted is a rather unprincessly manner. "You want to bring a freakin' "shoot me" sign up there with you while you're at it?"

That gave him pause enough to descend a little, back into the range of loud speech (especially loud over the constant cacophony of shouts, yells, and gunfire). She had a good point; he would have made an excellent target hovering just above tree level. Still… "But I can let everyone know where the enemy is!"

"That's no big secret, young'n," remarked Horatio Quack, pointing in the direction of the rather overt noise. He turned to Sabrina and Adeline. "You… do you think that you'll be able to jog, perhaps sprint sometimes?" They nodded without too much hesitation; Alexander and Tails also voiced their affirmation. "Well, all right… I guess we had better get moving. As much as I like you kids, I sure hope I won't be seeing you very soon." Tails also hoped so, quite fervently. He submitted to gravity and slowly came back to earth. The two doctors began packing up their supplies.

A short fennec fox came sprinting into the small clearing where they had been resting. Tails didn't identify him as Sef until he spoke, even quicker and more panicked than usual: "You guys gonna be okay to move out?" Again, they all nodded. "Great. Now, luckily, we've got a few extra packs that we brought in case some got damaged, so each of you will still have the necessary stuff. But, since you're in no shape to carry these suckers, some of our guys are going to take two." Five rather large soldiers entered; two brown bears and a black, a very muscular orange dog, and the one-eyed gaur that had been cleaning his blade back at the docks, long before the kids had ever considered that they might end up on this crazy trip. They each wore green-brown vests; the three ursines also had long pants of the same mottled color, and the black one wore wire-rimmed glasses. "Rowan, Mohawk, Orson, Tahmores, and Everett," Sef introduced briefly. "They all know all of you. You'll be staying with them for the duration of your little "field trip", so get to know your buddy. Pair up."

The four kids and Alexander looked at each other, all waiting for one to make the first move. Finally Tails shrugged and stepped forward to Tahmores, who happened to be directly in front of him. Their fur color was a near match; the darker tint that the fox kit inherited from his mother made the difference. Adeline approached Rowan; Sabrina, Mohawk; Randall, Orson; and Alexander, Everett. The last pair seemed to be familiar with each other; they shared a quick grin and head nod.

"A pleasure, Mr. Prower," Tahmores said politely.

"And you," Tails replied. Tahmores was carrying two hefty packs, but bore no visible effects of strain. The canine unshouldered one of them and handed it to Tails, who accepted it and felt the weight. It was probably thirty or thirty-five pounds—in full health, the kit could have carried it well enough; still in recovery from malnutrition, he didn't have a prayer. Resting it on the ground, he opened it at took a quick look through the contents: camouflage clothing, desiccated rations, matches, a pocketknife, water purification tablets, a map of southeast Downunda, a water bottle, emergency food bars… and several magazines of ammunition. He picked one up and inspected it: seven lethal 12mm bullets arranged in a neat row. The side pockets of the bag were filled with loose cartridges. "Why do I have ammunition?" he asked his new mentor and traveling partner.

"What good is your gun without it?" Tahmores asked bluntly. He reached into one of the two holsters that he wore on his olive green belt and withdrew a black pistol that he casually pressed into Tails' right hand. "Careful. The safety's on, but it's loaded."

Tails had to fight not to drop the gun, not because it was particularly heavy but from the sheer shock of holding it. The coldness of the metal seemed to permeate through his glove, run up through the veins in his arm, and freeze his brain. He stood numbly, staring at the obsidian weapon he held in his right hand. "I—you want—I don't know how…" he stammered. It was dead weight on his palm; he could not bring himself to take a firm grip on the latticed handle.

"Kid, I hate to tell you this," Tahmores said, "but you're in a war now. Enemies aren't going to take a good look at you and weigh any moral objections before opening fire." He pulled his own gun and rubbed a finger along the barrel. "Nobody with any brains goes into battle without a weapon."

Tails nodded; he understood. What a mess they were in! There was every chance that he… that they could easily… but that wasn't what he wanted to think about right now. Slowly, his fingers tightened around the grip of the gun. It terrified him; the entire concept terrified him. He was a kid… a ten-year-old kid from a society that had supposedly done away with guns long ago. Yet here he was holding one, perfectly real and loaded, able to destroy life with a twitch of his finger. It made him feel powerful, and he absolutely hated it. He knew well that power was far more curse than boon.

Over the distant fire, a far more local shot sounded. Alexander had flipped off his safety and fired at a tree. Bark dust formed a small cloud; when it cleared, there was a neat little hole in the wood. He nodded and flipped the small switch back to "off". He had donned the earth-tone vest supplied in his pack; it gave him the appearance of a soldier. "You guys ought to put these on too," he called to them. "They're bulletproof."

Ah hah. Tails brought out the protective coat and strapped it on. It was slightly heavy, but he figured that he could still probably fly. As for running… well, he had never been a demon in that category anyhow. In fact, he was downright sluggish. He had tried spinning his tails to speed him up (yet another trick of the legendary original Miles Prower) but found himself unable to concentrate on both feet and tails at the same time, and consequently ended up tripping and slamming into the ground rather hard. Thus, he vastly preferred the air, where even famous Daddy didn't stand a chance. He and his triple gift had been proving that for some time now. Two tails simply could not compete with the force of three… no more than one could with two.

Another shot rang through the air, and a second. Two more holes appeared next to Alexander's. Sabrina and Adeline held their individual weapons, a wisp of smoke rising from each barrel. Randall had no firearm. Instead, his robotic left arm emitted a pleasant whirring sound and altered itself slightly. A beam of laser light flew forth and blew off a large chunk of the tree. It staggered, but did not topple. The five soldiers murmured in admiration, and Randall's yellow and white face spread in a grin. "That was a medium setting," he said matter-of-factly. "Not bad, huh?"

"Not bad at all," said his partner Orson. "That's gonna come in handy."

Tails was the only one left to test his weapon. He flicked off the safety with his thumb, and aimed right above the signifigant dent in the trunk made by Randall's laser. He had been told once after watching an fictitious action movie that one-handed firing was harder, less accurate, and far less realistic than using both to operate the pistol. He had never thought he'd be in a position to use such information… Well, you are now, he thought to himself, so get over it. His hands trembled, and he took a deep breath to steady them. Holding it, he swallowed and pulled the trigger. The gun exploded, the recoil startling him so much that he dropped it on the ground. He carefully bent over, embarrassed, flipped on the safety, and picked it up.

"Well, we'll have to work on that," Tahmores laughed. "Still, though, nice shot."

Tails looked at the tree and was surprised to see his hole exactly where he had aimed. He gripped the handle with more confidence now. Maybe he could do this.

But when a living, breathing Mobian was in place of that tree, would he still be able?

"Well, that concludes your crash course," Sef said, "so let's get going."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Exactly thirty-eight hours later, Tails was fast asleep in Luanyu. He lay sprawled on a couch, his fur caked with grime, dirt, and blood. None of the last substance was his own, luckily, but it easily could have been. He wasn't dreaming, but even if he was, the worst nightmare ever imagined in the mind of the most twisted horror writer alive could not have frightened him now.

He had just lived it.

The moment that the last syllable of the word "going" had left Sef's lips, it was punctuated by a fifth sharp retort that sounded from behind him. The sound was different than that produced by the weapons Tails, Adeline, Randall, and Alexander had fired. It was duller and slightly louder, but it was still clearly a gunshot. The front of Sef's throat was torn open, his fawn-colored fur suddenly dyed an unmistakably vibrant red. He clutched at his neck and opened his mouth to scream, but only another torrent of blood came forth, splattering the leaves and soil on the ground. The bullet had struck him in the back of the neck and pierced both his esophagus and jugular. He collapsed in a heap, a small puddle of fluid forming around his twitching corpse.

Tails had no more than half a second to gape stupidly at the carrion that had been Sef before he was viciously knocked off his feet and rolled, coming to rest behind a large oak. He tried to struggle to his feet, but was held down forcefully. "Don't move!" growled a voice, and he took a moment to realize that it was Tahmores. More gunfire sounded; a bullet made a dull thunk as it struck the tree in front of them. Tahmores kept Tails' shoulders pressed to the ground, then, slowly, began to let him up.

"Stay here," the dog ordered. "Stay behind this tree. Don't endanger yourself unnecessarily, but shoot if you have to." With that, Tahmores leapt to the right, rolled again, and came up with his back pressed to a second oak about fifteen feet away, pistol raised. The dirt where he had just been was suddenly ripped up by gunfire. He waited for the shooting to stop, then swung out from behind the tree and fired twice into brush about a hundred yards ahead. Rustling of leaves indicated a scramble of some sort; whether or not he had scored was unapparent. By the time more shots were fired his way, he was once again behind cover.

Tails looked around, making sure that all parts of his body remained protected. He immediately spotted Rowan and Adeline flat on their fronts behind thick brush. No bullets came their way, by which Tails inferred that the unseen enemy didn't know of their location. Rowan had a sniper rifle (is that what they're called? Where have we been keeping these allegedly illegal things?) trained on the other bushes from which the slugs had been materializing, but held fire. Randall and Orson were under the heaviest volley, not only individual shots but the occasional machine gun blast as well. Like Tails and Tahmores, both had taken refuge behind trees. For just a moment, Randall left his roboticized left side exposed, and a loud clang joined the cacophony as he was hit. "Man!" he shouted, apparently unhurt and sounding halfway amused. "I hate dents!"

If the roar of crossfire hadn't already been deafening, it certainly was a moment later as an intense rattling sound went off behind where Tails was stationed. He whirled, raising his pistol, (he had almost forgotten he was holding it,) wondering if a foe had snuck up from behind. Instead, he saw Everett blazing away at the brush with a heavy machine gun. He was completely in the clear; Tails couldn't see Alexander anywhere. Two bullets struck the gaur in his thick vest, but he didn't seem to notice. Then his unprotected shoulder exploded, and with a roar of agony, he dropped back under cover. The bulk of the firing once again concentrated on Orson and Randall.

"Backup!" someone shouted from the area that they had all been firing at. "We need backup!"

Tails tightened his grip on his yet unfired pistol, checked that the safety was off, and prepared to leap out as Tahmores had done. He didn't know how accurate a pistol would be at this distance, but he was prepared to make the effort. But before he could spring, a huge explosion rocked the ground and lit up the vicinity. Tails' eardrums felt as if someone had mistaken them for timpani and began beating on them with hard mallets. When it subsided, any nearby shooting had ceased. Breathing hard, he looked at Tahmores, who hadn't moved from the second tree. His lower leg was bleeding—it appeared that he had been just grazed—but he was otherwise unhurt. "Don't move!" he repeated, and Tails followed the advice.

Two minutes passed. Finally, Rowan took hold of his pack and quickly raised it in the air, bringing it back down again just as fast. No one fired at him. Tahmores and Orson performed similar tests, with the same result. Cautiously, Rowan raised his head and, deciding it was safe, motioned to everyone else. "Stay behind me," Tahmores ordered quietly. "Stay low. If they fire again, get behind the nearest cover." He began to slowly creep forward, pistol at the ready, and, apprehensively, Tails followed him. They had left the clearing now, and he could see that the woods had been lit on fire by the blast. He tried to make himself as small a target as possible and kept moving.

He didn't have to move slowly for long. "It's safe, guys," came a husky voice from ahead. "Blew 'em away. Come on over here."

"You're sure, Mohawk?" Tahmores asked.

"Just one left alive when I got here, and I put her out of her pain," Mohawk replied. "She wasn't gonna live, anyhow." Tails barely took notice of his former foe's gender, which at another time might have come as a surprise. Male or female, they had been trying to kill him and his friends. At that point, femininity made little difference.

After that, they were able to straighten and jog forward, evading the flames. Mohawk was standing in the center of a small black crater, twiddling the pin of a grenade between his thumb and forefinger and whistling softly. "I haven't done that for sixteen years," he said, looking around with both awe and reminiscence. Sabrina was with him, and only one emotion showed on her face: pure revulsion. She looked ready to throw up.

The center of the crater was, in fact, not too bad in comparison to its perimeter. It had been a raiding party of five dingoes that had stumbled across their temporary medical hideaway and killed Sef, and now it was an ex-raiding party of five very dead dingoes. One's body had been almost completely incinerated by the detonation; almost none of his physical features were any longer recognizable. His camouflage clothing had fused to his fur and skin, and the stench was horrible. A second had been disemboweled. His intestines were spread around his body like a gruesome rope, and his liver was hanging to his corpse by a few sinewy threads. (Seeing this, Sabrina did vomit, and had to turn away.) The third and fourth were female; the former had been forcefully blown backwards headfirst into a tree, breaking her neck; the latter had a bloody stump for a right arm—Mohawk had delivered the merciful coup de grace through her skull. The last appeared to have died before the grenade was thrown; he had been farther away from his comrades. In the end, that hadn't helped him—he had not been wearing a vest, and a bullet had gone directly through his heart. In comparison to the others, he looked downright peaceful.

All of this Tails surveyed with a kind of suppressed horror. He stared, numbly, at the dingo who had survived the blast, then been finished off by Mohawk. She was young, perhaps barely eighteen, with tan fur and blue eyes that now stared unseeingly into the sky. There were signs that she might have once been rather attractive, however, with a gaping scarlet hole now blown in the middle of her forehead and her right arm lying about forty feet behind her, these signs were few and far between. All the work and time that anyone had ever put into her education, her training, preparing her for a long life as an upstanding citizen … all gone to waste, destroyed in the simple pulling of a pin and light toss of a five-pound orange-shaped explosive. All her dreams, her aspirations, her hopes about the future… everything that she had ever anticipated was gone. Perhaps she had dreamt of meeting her true love and raising a family; perhaps she had wished to become an artist, or an electrician, or a poet. So much potential… wasted, wasted.

Tails wondered what her name had been.

"Let's go, let's go!" Orson was saying, gesturing with his submachine gun. The stains of hastily wiped-off mud covered his glasses, and large globs of the stuff were brown patches on his black fur. "Most of the shooting is coming from the southeast. If we hurry and head northeast—towards Luanyu—we can lose them before they cut us off."

"Shouldn't we join up with our other guys?" Alexander asked—no, yelled, over another loud explosion that couldn't have been more than two hundred yards to the south. "They probably could use some help." His feathers were no longer a tawny brown but grimy black, caked with mud and soil. As he spoke, he popped out a spent magazine from his pistol and reloaded it. Empty shells bounced lightly on the ground; his gun had gotten some use.

"It'd be the noble thing to do," replied Rowan, "but nobility doesn't come into play here. Our mission is to get to Luanyu, not to try to defeat an entire army single-handedly." Behind him, a blazing tree toppled to the ground, yet another reminder of the pressing need to hurry. "Guerillas don't stay in large groups. That would defeat the point. It's an 'every man for himself' sort of thing."

The idea seemed repulsive to Tails, who had always held a firm belief in the power of teamwork. The Freedom Fighters of old had always stuck together and never met with supreme disaster. Then again, none of the Freedom Fighters had ever stood holding a smoking handheld heavy machine gun, as Everett now did before him. The rules were very, very different here.

"Let's go!" Orson urged again.

Everyone began talking at once. "Tails," Tahmores called. Tails went over to him. "Here," said the canine, handing him a couple of magazines from one of the two packs he was toting. "Your vest has a couple of pockets where you can keep these."

These guys are freaking strong Tails realized. Tahmores had gone through the entire battle wearing sixty pounds on his back. For a Mobian, that was a prodigal feat. More amazing still was Everett. In addition to Alexander's pack and his own (which bulged with belts of ammunition) he carried an aptly named weapon, easily just as weighty as his other gear. Even with his entire shoulder wrapped in a thick bandage that might once have been of some hue besides sanguine, he did not act or otherwise appear overburdened or injured. Freaking tough, too.

The florae of Downunda's forests were thick, but not thick enough to prevent Tails from taking to the air. To him, even flying at a low level was preferable to moving along the ground. Alexander's five-foot wingspan would not have allowed him the same maneuvers Tails could execute, and he was thus unable to join the kit. He and the others, none of who possessed any flying capabilities whatsoever, moved at a brisk pace along the ground while Tails focused the majority of his attention on avoiding trees and low branches. It took a conscious effort for him to keep the noise of his spinning tails down, but with practice he had developed the technique if he was moving relatively slowly. Since that was just what they were doing, he had little trouble.

Orson had been right in his prediction that a quick advance would allow them to escape the enemy. Behind them and to their right, the noises of gunfire became more and more distant. It never completely faded, though, and seemed to be moving alongside of them perhaps a mile to the south as if on a parallel track with them. According to Tahmores, this was good news It indicated that the rest of their invaders were also advancing towards Luanyu, if more slowly than their party. It also made sense that the group facing actual opposition would likely advance more slowly than the one who had only faced one minor skirmish.

Very soon after the ten of them had left the burning wreckage behind, Orson (who appeared to be the highest-ranking of the soldiers) gave the order to split up into two-man groups. Remembering what had happened to the dingoes who had stayed too close together, Tails was disinclined to argue. He and Tahmores stayed straight, while the other four pairs fanned out to the right and left, about four hundred or five hundred feet from each other. They advanced at a fast pace; Tahmores was leading, knocking away heavy brush with a machete, while Tails covered the rear from the air, his keen ears listening for any sign of a foe. No such adversary appeared, though, and Tails began to wonder if perhaps they really had outdistanced all threats save those immediately around the capital city.

Two or three times there were more local retorts. After these, they advanced with enhanced caution for a few minutes, Tails even landing and walking to minimize noise output, but nothing followed. "Probably one of the other guys firing at a shadow," Tahmores remarked. The others—Tails had all but forgotten that his friends were in this mess right along with him… in mortal peril right along with him. It slowly dawned on him that any one of those shots could have… them… no, he couldn't believe that, never…

After what seemed like an eternity of silent advance, but couldn't have been more than a few hours, Tahmores brought them to a halt. Tails lowered himself, letting his tails wind down to a halt. "You're probably famished," Tahmores remarked, which was true. "Here." He tossed over the smaller bag, from which Tails extracted a container carrying some desiccated pasta, tomato sauce, and vegetables as well as a packet that identified itself as a magnesium-iron MRE heater. Following Tahmores' instructions, Tails carefully poured a bit of water from his canteen into the sachet, which immediately turned blisteringly hot in his hands. After inserting the packet in a designated slot underneath the food, he wet the pathetic-looking dry stuff, which transformed into something that appeared almost edible. He let the pasta warm for about a minute and a half, then dug in with a spork identical to the one he had used to eat the applesauce offered to him by Gregory Quack (had that been only yesterday?). It tasted like a mere shadow of real pasta, but it did ease the gnawing in his stomach. He'd known that gnawing far too often of late, and anything that managed to keep it away, even if it wasn't exactly caviar, was quite acceptable in Tails' eyes.

They sat on two rocks opposite each other. Tahmores' dinner was akin to Tails' in all but the shape of his noodles. Neither had a watch, but the evening light was beginning to fade, the innumerable shadows cast by oaks, elms, birches, and primarily eucalyptus trees growing longer and longer. Mosquitoes were beginning to come out, too. One hovered around the inside of Tails' ear, its arrogant buzzing causing him to twitch and slam a gloved palm against his skull. The hum of the mosquito's wings abruptly ceased. Tails brought his hand back down to see a small black smear running along the lump below his forefinger. He wiped it off on a patch of moss and continued eating.

"Consider yourself lucky that's the worst you've faced in four hours," Tahmores said, smiling. "More dangerous foes lie ahead."

"Mmm," Tails responded, his mouth too full to produce any coherent words. He swallowed and went on, "This whole thing is like—" he searched for an appropriate simile— "like having my head dunked in a bucket of ice water. I mean, what's going on here? What's with all the…the guns? Like, when you were in school, were you ever told the story of Prince Emerson?" It was a fable that most everyone accepted as true, and one that schools emphasized greatly. Emerson had been walking in the forest one day when he came upon an Overlander boy who, without prelude, had gunned him down and ran. Some, including Tails' parents, insisted that there was another version to the story and pointed to an old record that insisted the incident had been a tragic accident. Accident or not, it had been the original factor in both the prohibition of firearms and the fierce hatred between Mobians and Overlanders which was to come.

"I was told," Tahmores said quietly. "We were all told. When we got into the army, however, they told us differently." These days, one hardly ever saw Overlanders. During Robotnik's fierce reign of tyranny, most had fled the region and now were said to reside in two settlements: one in the southwest and one on the central northern continent. For the most part, they and Mobians just left each other alone these days.

"I'm so scared," Tails said unabashedly, looking down at his tray.

"Everyone is," Tahmores said, which was only slightly reassuring. "Me, Orson, Mohawk… even Everett, though he won't show it. We're all terrified. Anyone who isn't terrified when people are trying to kill him is an idiot."

That went dead against the tales of brave heroes of the past that Tails loved to read. His idols knew no fear, no terror. He simply could not imagine his father being afraid, ever. Miles had saved the world a dozen times over before he was a teenager, how could he possibly fear a thing? Tails remembered how Alexander had spoken of not being his own father's equal, and realized that he had something in common with the falcon. I'll have to talk with him about that sometime. Talk with Dad, too. If I live.

He wished the last part hadn't crossed his mind; it just reinforced his dread. Quickly, he brought up another question that had occurred to him. "Everett," he said, picturing the sober face and thick fur in his mind. "What's up with him?" Everett had, frankly, intimidated him a good deal. The gaur was so enormous and so grave, showing no emotion and never speaking. "Did something… happen to him?"

"None of us really know his full story, but supposedly he's been with this division since the Robot Wars—not that I could be sure, I was six at the time—and as far as I know, he's never said a single word. He's not technically a mute. He can grunt or make noises, and he can understand what others say. We have more hypotheses than stars in the sky, each as unlikely as the next."

"How—" Tails was about to say How did he lose the eye? but figured that even if Tahmores did happen to know, it wasn't the most diplomatic of questions. He quickly changed tactics in midstream. "How can he shoot accurately with… you know… his… disability?"

He got the impression that that wasn't particularly tactful either, but Tahmores answered straight: "It's not that hard, actually. For instance, I'm a cross-dominant shooter; I have left-eye dominance, but fire with my right hand. But with his type of gun, he doesn't even need to worry about that. He subscribes to the philosophy of 'put enough bullets in the air and they'll be bound to hit something'. And believe me, he does a good job of it."

Tails had one more question. "It seems weird that we have to burst through a siege line so that we can get on the side being… besieged. It doesn't make sense. In the books I've read, you always attacked a besieged city from the outside to scatter the enemy, not try to get yourself through them and then fight."

"Heh," Tahmores said. "There's so much about this situation that's unusual, isn't there? The fact is that it's not a normal siege. They're trying to batter the resistance into surrender, not starve them out. There are actually plenty of supplies in Luanyu, enough to feed this army. The city has unpredictable weather, and plans ahead. But how would we supply our forces on the outside—especially with the issues back home? You see how hard it is to even get them here!"

"How is the enemy supplying itself?" Tails asked.

"Ravaging the countryside, for one thing," Tahmores said bitterly,. "and we can't exactly do that, can we? Also, it's a short hop for them to bring stuff in by air drop… only a couple hundred miles from West Downunda, which is legitimate dingo territory. If only they would have been satisfied with just that!"

Tails could say nothing to that. What a bizarre mission—and yet so crucial.

They quickly finished off their meals. Tahmores tossed his container on the ground, stood up, and shouldered the two packs. "Just ditch it," he said to Tails, who was looking, dismayed, at the discarded tray. "Far worse things could happen here than a bit of plastic on the ground." Tails still felt like a no-good litterbug as he abandoned his own container, but let the feeling pass. He'd thrown more childhood teachings out the window in a single day than a hardened criminal might in an entire lifetime.

Woods, fields, thickets, swamps. Swamps, thickets, fields, woods. Through the night they tediously hiked onwards without meeting another soul. When they came to a river, Tails airlifted the packs over while Tahmores swam across. At the other side, the dog started to take back the gear, but Tails only gave him one pack. "I didn't have any trouble getting it over," he explained. "I shouldn't have any trouble carrying it."

Tahmores nodded. "All right, but you've still got a long day tomorrow, and you're going to be bushed before we're done. So if you're having any trouble, I'll take it again."

The forty-eight hour estimate originally given had included a significant allowance for delays and hindrances induced by combat. As they were having none, Tahmores estimated that they might arrive in fewer than forty hours. They kept a strict compass bearing to the east-northeast, between 65° and 70°, and just kept moving.

Tails thanked his genetics for the three powerful appendages that kept him from having to slog along the ground with everyone else. Absently, he had risen a bit too high and forgotten to pay attention. The tree branch slamming into his skull brought him back to earth… both figuratively and literally. Stars danced in front of his eyes as he stared upwards. Tahmores helped him to his feet. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he muttered, embarrassed. To prove it, he leapt back into the air. He wobbled a bit at first, but had suffered no permanent damage.

It was just a bit after dawn, and right at yet another crossing from field back to forest, that Tahmores once again came to a sharp halt. "Stop!" he yelled, and Tails quickly obeyed, coming to a dead halt in midair. "Look," Tahmores continued, pointing at the ground ahead of him. "Do you see it?"

Tails stared hard. His eyesight was not as good as his hearing, but he could still see the drops of dew hanging off of the… "Trip wire," he whispered. "Yeah, I see it."

"Thousand to one it's either electrified or rigged to an explosive," Tahmores muttered. "If it's rigged, the explosive will be near, and we oughta blow it up. If it's electric, there's nothing that I personally can do about it unless we can find the power source. Trying to dynamite it might cause an electrical fire. I guess we can—"

"It's not electric," Tails realized. "There's dew on it. Look."

Tahmores stared, first at the line, then at Tails. "Oh, you're sharp," he said softly. "Now how come I didn't pick that up? All right, get back." Tails retreated about a hundred paces on foot, until he was standing in the middle of the field. After a moment, Tahmores backed up about half that distance and took a small remote control out of his pocket. He pressed the button and the forest exploded twice, first from the mine that he had placed right next to the wire, the second from the bomb that could have blown them both to smithereens. Trees burst into flame.

Tails barely had time to let out a sigh of relief before he also heard four pistol shots go off behind him. Something punched him between the shoulder blades, hard. He cried out as the blow sent him reeling forwards into the tall grass and kept him there. It felt as if someone had swung a sledgehammer into his back. He had let down his guard for a moment, and if Tahmores' shout hadn't given their position away, the thunderous blasts certainly had.

He had just been shot.

But he wasn't dead.

"Tails!" Tahmores cried, emptying his magazine into the trees and reloading. "Tails! Are you okay?" He swore loudly. "Tails! Are you alive? Tails!"

"I—fine—" he managed to get out. He had imagined that getting hit in a bulletproof vest would feel like a love tap, a playful punch that without the jacket would have been lethal. Indeed, the vest had saved his life, but he couldn't have been more wrong about the pain. It stung, and the throb kept growing. He figured that he'd have a bruise the size of a plum tomorrow, (once again, if I see tomorrow,) and probably as purple as one, too. The most important thing, however, was that his flesh remained intact.

No further shots came from the forest. Tails wondered if Tahmores' bullets had struck home, or if the enemy was simply making a hasty retreat, thinking him dead. It turned out to be neither. "Tails?" came a voice from the trees. "Tahmores?"

"Princess Sabrina?" Tahmores whispered, his eyes widening. Then he repeated it, louder. "Princess Sabrina!"

"Oh… my… gods…" Sabrina said, her form slowly coming out of the woods. Tahmores had his pistol trained on her, and her own was raised. A second later she dropped it as if it had suddenly become blazing hot. "Oh my gods… Tails… did I just shoot you?"

"I'd say that's a safe bet," Tails groaned, getting to his feet. Then realizing this probably wasn't the time for wit, added, "Don't worry about it. You hit me in the vest."

Sabrina burst into tears. "I'm so sorry!" she sobbed. "You—you looked like a weasel, I couldn't tell… I can't believe I did that! I could have killed you! I'm so sorry!" She collapsed about five feet from the forest edge, gasping for breath through her apologies. Her pack slipped off and she lay in the grass, tears pouring down her face. "You're okay, thanks gods… I'm so sorry!"

Tails went over to her, while Tahmores kept his distance, apparently deciding that since Tails was the injured party, it was his place to comfort the near-hysterical Sabrina. The fox knelt by his friend, who had her face buried in the ground. "Really, I'm all right," he said. "It's just a bruise."

He petted her head softly, and immediately felt silly about it. But when he took his hand away, she looked back up at him through tear-filled eyes. "You—you're really okay?" she asked, sniffing. He nodded. "I… I'll pay you back for that someday… I'll find a way…" She began to get control of herself, and was getting to her feet. "I suppose it's not a blood debt—thank gods—but…" She switched tracks. "Mohawk…" Tails had forgotten all about the grenade-toting ursine. "He…" She just couldn't go on, and looked to be in danger of starting up the waterworks again.

Tahmores walked over to them. "How did it happen?" he calmly asked… no, whispered. "Did he die like a soldier?"

"Yes… it was so horrible… one moment he was laughing, making a joke, and then the next he just… crumpled…" Sabrina swallowed hard and looked up. "He was hit from behind. I don't know how, but… I wanted to stay and help him, but he… he told me to run, and I didn't. I said I could save him, help him, but he… he pointed his… gun at me, told me I had to go, and I had to, I had to…" She sounded as if she was pleading her case before a jury. "And then I heard another shot…"

This is a crime, Tails thought. To take this girl, this royal girl, barely thirteen, who has lived such a sheltered life, and make her witness such horrors… it's downright criminal. He now knew a new feeling for her parents, and his own, and Adeline and Randall's, too… it was pity. They had not only had to endure such things at even younger ages, but it was half of their lives, most of what they knew. Criminal, he thought again. But whom do you arrest for the crime of war?

"He was a great guy," Tahmores recalled softly, squatting next to the two children, in a way that seemed strangely paternal. "He wouldn't have wanted to go any other way. Fighting was his life, his passion. That's the way it is for most of us."

This the wages of the Robot Wars… empty shells of Mobians, robots in mind if not form, addicted to battle, obsessed with killing. Tails had heard of this, the way that some people could never be normal again after being in active duty. He wondered if it would be like that for him. The images came rushing back again… Sef toppling over backwards with his throat torn open… the young girl with those blank blue eyes and her arm a bloody stump… "But they don't all turn out like that," he said aloud. The Freedom Fighters hadn't… had they? Somewhere deep inside, did they still lust for the thrill of combat?

"Hmm?" Tahmores asked.

Tails sighed. "Never mind…"

Before long, Sabrina had regained her composure. Tahmores offered to take her gear for her, but she declined. "I'm okay, it's okay," she kept repeating, but there were visible signs of sleep deprivation in her eyes and stride. Tails felt awful himself, but he shook his head and kept the juice flowing through his tails. Only Tahmores himself seemed to show no signs of wear whatsoever, and Tails had to wonder just how many times the canine had done things like this before.

They wolfed down two energy bars apiece for a moving breakfast and felt at least slightly revitalized. The fire from the explosions was failing to spread much—the wood was damper here than it had been farther back. Still, they moved as quickly as possible to outdistance it (and avoid calling any attention to their location). It was back to the slow, tedious move, not much different with Sabrina than it had been without her.

A little after noon, Tails braved the open air above the treetops. The others admonished him and spoke of the danger, but he had to know just how close they were. Carefully poking his head above that canopy, he looked around. No aircraft or any other unnatural object was visible, but the north-northeast he could see a large lake that was probably identifiable as a landmark on their maps. Back on the ground, he reported on the sighting. Tahmores looked surprised after a fast check of his map. "Lake Fish," he said, working a quick calculation on the chart. "If this… I think we're only about eighteen miles away… we may be there in six hours. No, actually… we're slowing, so probably eight or nine." They had been moving for twenty-two, according to Tails' watch.

"… 'Lake Fish'?" Sabrina asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Wow. Original."

"No less than the 'Great Forest'," commented Tahmores. Sabrina looked halfway offended for a moment, then smiled. It was true. "We're even farther ahead of schedule than I thought," Tahmores continued. "If you're having trouble… I think we're pretty far removed from the fighting. We could afford to let you sleep for a couple hours. You must be exhausted, and I can stand watch."

The prospect of closing his eyes and shutting out the world for any length of time whatsoever seemed to Tails more wonderful than anything at that moment. He looked at Sabrina, and saw that she was considering it too. Could they? Temptation flooded over him, and he immediately felt guilty for it. "What about you?" he asked Tahmores. "It's not right—"

"Nah." Tahmores cut her off. "We train in this stuff regularly. Three forty-eight hour vigils are requisite for becoming a sergeant, y'know. I'm fine."

"You're a sergeant?" Sabrina asked. "… How high is that again?"

"It's a non-commissioned rank," Tahmores replied, "just one step above corporal. But that's not worth talking about, not now. Go to sleep, guys! You really need it. I'll wake you up around 1800 hours." It was 2:30 PM now; that would give them five and a half hours of solid rest.

Too tired to argue any further, Tails removed his back and leaned it against a tree. The cushioned backside, meant to make a hike easier on one's back, now served as a halfway decent pillow. Not that it really mattered—right now he could have slept on a bed of glass shards. The expression asleep before one's head hit the pillow had never seemed closer to the truth…

… The sun shone brightly in the sky over Knothole Village as another day began… Children kissed their mothers goodbye, and began skipping along the dirt paths winding through the oaks, book-bags bouncing in their happy strides… Adults greeted each other on their way to work in a town where most everyone knew each other's names… Friends met up in their designated spots, as they had for months, and began to chatter as they walked, smiling, laughing, joyful in bliss and routine happiness… Tails lingered outside the D'Coolette household for Adeline and Randall to emerge… A light breeze brought the friendly humid odor of spring to his nose, and he sniffed deeply, enjoying the contentment and peace of mind it brought… Here came Adeline, and no, no, that wasn't right, something was horribly wrong, it was her neck, it was broken, her head lying across her neck at an unnatural angle as she smiled and said hello… Tails screamed and turned around, but behind him was Scott, a young brown lemur with purple dyed stripes whom Tails had always gotten along with, except he wasn't Scott, he was a dingo with his arm a bloody stump and a large red bullet hole in his forehead… There came more of them, all the young kids Tails new, and some adults too—each one of them a walking zombie, greeting him as if nothing was wrong, but Trixie had a gaping hole in her throat, and Vasilios' flesh was completely charred, and Sabrina—Sabrina was horrendously disemboweled, yet still laughing and smiling… Tails whirled once more, and there was Randall, with his mechanical arm pointing right into the fox's face, but then it wasn't his arm, it was the barrel of a 12mm pistol… "Tails," they all chanted, summoning him by name over and over in a cruel chant… "Tails…Tails…Tails…"

"NOOOO!!!" he woke up screaming.

"Tails, be quiet!" Tahmores hissed.

Tails was sitting straight upright, panting, his heart beating twice as fast as normal. Tahmores shushed him again. He needed a moment to remember where he was—and when he did, it wasn't much better than his dream. No, it was better… Sabrina was still normal, still alive, as she sat a few feet to his right… and as far as he knew, the others weren't dead yet either. Slowly, his breath and mind stabilized. The first thing that he noticed was that it was still bright out. While Knothole was in Mobius' northern hemisphere, Downunda lay south of the equator, and as the days had been drifting towards the summer solstice back home, the days were progressively shortening here, and by 1800 hours, it would have been just about sunset. He checked his watch and found it was only about 4:20 PM. "What's going on?" he asked, as softly as he could manage, still breathing hard. "Why'd ya wake us up?"

"Heard a twig snap," Tahmores muttered. "Could be a forest dweller. Could be a friend. Can't take any chances. Stay back."

"Why don't they have a whistle call or something?" Tails asked Sabrina under his breath. "So they can identify friend from foe?"

"Special whistles can be easily taken off of captives—or dead men," Sabrina whispered back. "Whistle patterns… well, it still gives away your position to anyone." That was unfortunately true… and the last thing they wanted to do right then was give away their position to the entire forest. "And passwords can be overheard… or squeezed out of people." Squeezed out was a major euphemism. They both knew through what methods some more unscrupulous soldiers might obtain a password. Robotnik had once committed such atrocities…

"Well, we have to risk a call now," Tahmores said. "Can't open fire on our friends, and can't risk welcoming an enemy, either." He raised his voice somewhat. "Hey, you there!" he asked the foliage. "Under whose command do you fight?" Tails knew the answer to that—Malachi Levine was captain of the A.K.S. Mobotropolis and, coincidentally, also wore double silver bars in his army uniform, making him the highest-ranking commissioned officer in the Acorn Kingdom's rather small army. In the time of the Robot Wars, there had been majors and colonels and even a general or two. Levine's name, however, was obscure enough outside Knothole that it was unlikely any enemy would know it.

There was no response from the brush. Tahmores repeated his question, slightly louder this time. "Damnation," he swore. "Maybe it was just some harmless critter—and then again, maybe not. Eh, kids… you'd better get your—"

A gunshot cut him off, compounded with a wet thunk as the bullet struck home. Tahmores never felt a thing as his lifeless body fell to the dirt, a surprisingly bloodless small hole in the side of his head. He bounced once and did not move… except for his eyes, which slowly rolled upwards and halted. Only blank whites remained of those friendly, yet serious and strict, eyes, that Tails had known for barely a day, and yet still come to respect…

He's dead, Tails thought, stunned. But unlike before, when Sef was killed in front of him, another thought shoved it aside in milliseconds. I'm next…

He instantly knew that it would be useless to make a stand. Whoever had just taken out their guide—he's dead, he's dead—was completely concealed. They hadn't seen him (or her), and he (or she… the mutilated carcass of the young girl would never leave Tails' mind, as long as he lived…) had most certainly seen them. In a blink they too would be sprawled twitching on the forest floor unless…

They ran. More appropriately, they fled. But there was another shot, and it whistled over their heads… Tahmores' killer was in pursuit. As he had so earlier blessed his tails for their aeronautic prowess, now the fox cursed them for how clumsy they made him along the ground. Did he have the reflexes to fly at top speed through the thick trees? There was only way to find out, and the alternative was far worse. Bracing himself, he prepared to spring into the air—and was promptly swept off of his feet by a titian blur of motion.

He let out an embarrassingly vulpine yelp, wondering what on earth had hit him. The woods were flying by on either side at a startling rate, as if he had just jumped aboard a speeding train. Air slammed into his face like sheets of steel. Unable to think for a moment, his confusion lasted only a second. "Sabrina!" he blurted.

His words were completely inaudible, carried away by the wind, but his royal friend still gave a quick thumbs-up, then turned her attention back to the task at hand. Her brunette fur was blown straight back from her body, and her turquoise jacket was viciously flapping in the same direction. The gear pack tugged at her arms, suspended off her back. Her eyes narrowed with concentration as she weaved between the trees. It was so easy to forget, at times, that while the girl had indeed grown up with a sheltered life, she was still the daughter of Sonic the Hedgehog. Whatever bizarre genes had granted Sonic his remarkable speed were found, untainted, in his child.

They sped on. Sabrina was gripping Tails under her right arm, nimbly dodging each trunk. She was moving at less than half her potential speed, both because she was heavily weighted down and because to move any faster would be sheer suicide. He could feel her fingers slipping from his waist, though, and apparently she felt it too. Screeching to a halt, she laid him down on the ground and then fell to her knees, panting. She swore softly. Tails wondered just how far they had traveled. Time had seemed to slow down so the trip lasted an eternity, but the practical part of his mind knew that it had been only about ten seconds in reality. In any case, it didn't really matter. They had left their pursuer far, far behind.

"Thanks," Tails finally ground out.

Sabrina swore again. "He's dead," she halfway snarled. "Well, now what? What do we do? Where do we go?"

That was remarkably cold-blooded, but held a potent ring of truth. There was no time to mourn the passing of their short-term mentor and friend. They'd had to leave the map, but… With a start, Tails realized that he'd been holding his weapon in one had the whole time, but in his other, he had happened to grab the compass. He didn't even remember picking it up. Sabrina exclaimed when he showed it to her. "You think you can get us there?" she asked. "With just that?"

Tails began to calculate mentally, fingering the compass to align the arrows. What had happened less than a minute ago, an event that once would have put him into a quivering, sobbing fit for days, now seemed as natural as the rising and setting of the sun. In the span of a single day, his innocence had been stripped from him like covering off a wire. Now… Now he looked up from the compass, and back down again, measuring the direction. "Eight hours," he muttered.

"Yeah," Sabrina said. "You know which way we're going?"

"Think so," he replied. "Let's move it." The compass pointed nearly dead east now, meaning they had been veering slightly too far to the left. As they adjusted their direction and began to troop off once more, a thought came to him. "You know what?" he remarked. Sabrina didn't. "What if you just took off? You could probably be there in twenty minutes, twenty-five at the most, at that speed. I mean, you could get there so fast…"

"No," Sabrina responded instantly, "for I don't know how many reasons." She began to tick them off. "One: I can't run that far that fast, especially not with this pack."

"You could drop it," Tails interjected. "You wouldn't need it."

"I'm not finished. Two, what if there's another trip wire, like the one you guys found before? At that speed, even if it wasn't wired to anything, it'd be like running into the edge of a sword." Tails winced, picturing it against his will. It could easily sever. "Three, there's the matter of these things called trees. I can't dodge them forever. Too dangerous. And four: I am not leaving you."

He would have protested at least the fourth reason. All he wanted was to make sure his friend was safe—a goal far removed from his earlier dreams of glory. But the princess was indisputably right about the others. Fleeing like that had been a desperate measure. "Okay," he said. "Guess you're right; we're in for the long haul."

Sabrina shuddered momentarily. "I hope Adeline and Randall are okay. Alexander, too. And the other guys."

"Me too," Tails responded absently, concentrating on the compass. Concentrating meant that he didn't have to think about his friends, think about Tahmores, who had been so kind, so helpful, who had always avoided treating him like a little kid. Concentrating helped him just lose track of time…

He remembered almost nothing of the next eight hours. They exchanged almost no words beyond the necessary, ate on the move, and encountered not a foe until they reached the siege lines. Here they met up with the relief forces that had arrived ahead of them. The offensive force was clearly immense, and it was easy to see just how they had kept the entire invasion secret for so long, especially against Downunda's under-trained militia. Knothole's army, however, had specialists. Within the course of an hour, the infamous beaver Xenophon, a former thief who had become a registered spy upon his release, had lead a small group through the cordon without notice.

With the battered Downunda resistance now informed of exactly where and when the big push was going to be made, they prepared a secondary attack from behind. Caught completely by surprise in the night, the besiegers were an insect between thumb and forefinger. As they scattered, most of Knothole's army was able to slip through the massive hole in the line—which had moved within a mile of the capital itself. In the pitch dark (it was just about midnight now) the few skirmishes that did occur were mild. Tails and Sabrina, the latter once more summoning the strength to carry the former at full speed, never even saw an enemy up close.

While some soldiers remained to ensure that the battle was closed, the rest (not a few nursing injuries) completed the trek to Luanyu. Xenophon had no doubt already passed on the message about children in the forces, but there was still astonishment as they pretty much crawled into the city. The looks on the faces of some seemed to doubt that these two small bodies caked in grime were even living flesh and not something from beyond the grave.

Tails knew that they were both.

I'm safe—for now. He passed out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He thought he would sleep forever.

In reality, though, he woke up sixteen hours later. He lay still for a moment, taking it all in, remembering. It all felt dull. Then, with a sudden gasp and sitting bolt upright, he realized there was something he still didn't know.

Whispering a prayer, he threw open the door of the room that he was in, and pretty much hollered at the first person he saw, a neon green anole whom he'd never seen before, although a tattoo of an acorn and sword on his chest seemed to mark him as a member of the Knothole relief forces. He looked surprised at first, but then his scaly features softened and he jerked a thumb towards another door to his right. As he swept away, Tails noticed that half his tail was missing. To the fox kit, such mutilation would have forever crimped his flight. He didn't dwell on it though and, breathing hard, he opened the door the anole had indicated.

"Hey, he's awake," Randall said, smiling.

Tails threw himself into his friend's arms. "You're okay," he sobbed. "You're okay." He spared no less enthusiasm or emotion in hugging Adeline, who fell to the floor with a startled quack.

"Get off, Tails! You're still filthy! I just got clean!" But she, too, was laughing with relief.

Sabrina put her hands up as he turned towards her. "Me too," she said. "Keep off." She laughed, slightly giddily. "We're really okay," she said. "I was so scared." Then her face sobered, as she continued. "But… Tails…"

Tails instantly realized something was wrong. "Alexander," he whispered. "Where's Alexander?"

"He's okay," Adeline said, "we think. They aren't saying much about him. But, Tails… the others didn't make it. Everett, Orson… Right in front of me, Rowan, and I never saw who got him. None of them… none of them made it."

They were silent for a moment. The five faces flashed across Tails' mind, then disappeared into the mist that was those gone by.

Just then, the door opened, and a large tawny cougar with a large scar across his chest strolled in. His pants were blue and red: Downunda's colors; he was a resistance fighter. "Polo said you were up," he grunted, nodding at Tails. "C'mon, you look like crap. Get you cleaned up." Clearly playing the messenger was not part of his ordinary duties.

"Do you know anything about our friend Alexander?" Tails asked.

From what Adeline had just said, he didn't expect an answer, but the cougar surprised him. "Yeah," he said, lips skinning back to display several gold fillings in a way that suggested he was going to enjoy what he was about to say. "I'm afraid you won't be seeing your 'friend' any time soon. He's... incapacitated. That is to say, he is currently chained to a wall about, oh, two stories below the surface. Under heavy guard."

"What?!" Tails and Randall exclaimed, at the same time Adeline and Sabrina asked, "What for?"

"Where do I begin?" the cougar replied. "Oh, well, how about five counts of kidnapping, attempted murder, collaboration, aiding and abetting enemies of your kingdom... in short, a good old dose of treason." Tails stared at him in shock as his grin turned downright predatory. "And regent's son or no regent's son," he sneered, "once we find him guilty, the only question left will be whether to put a rope around his neck—or a bullet through his beak."