Chapter 9 Night
While the rest of the village slept, Rotor and Aaron stayed up. They were in Rotor's lab working on the computers.
"I never thought I'd see the day that I actually work with someone known as an Overlander. Here on Mobius, you guys are hated and not allowed to come near the village or us due to one Overlander almost conquering the planet." Rotor explained.
"Well, I never thought I'd see the day I sat down and had a conversation with a purple talking walrus. As for the King; has anyone considered using the King's sword in conjunction with a chaos emerald?" Aaron asked. As Aaron asked this, both teams arrived back at Knothole.
"Hey, guys! Over here at the Infirmary! Hurry!" Bunnie, the guard that night, said.
"What's up? Where's Sally? What's going on?" St. John said as he led his team to the Infirmary.
"What'cha want? The good news or the bad?" Bunnie asked as she led them to Rotor's lab.
"I dunno about the rest of ya, but I want the good news first." Geoffrey said.
"We now have the Princess and the King in the Infirmary. The bad news is that we can't do anything for either of them at the moment." Bunnie said.
"May I go in to see them?"
"I'm sorry, but I have strict orders from Dr. Quack that no one, under any circumstances, is allowed in." Bunnie said.
"Can you take me to the doctor then? I must give him the sword in person." Geoffrey asked. Bunnie nodded and then led them to Rotor's lab.
"Rotor, I'm sorry to interrupt you. We have something you guys desperately need." Bunnie said, then stepped back and let Geoffrey enter.
"Doctor Quack… I give you the Sword of Acorns." He said as he presented the sword to the doctor. The doctor accepted the sword.
"Now, let's just hope we can figure out how to use it." Rotor said under his breath.
"There's only one person who can use it besides the King… that person is Princess Sally." Said a voice from behind them.
"Knuckles, I do wish you'd stop sneaking up on us like that! You've heard what Sonic did? If you see him, capture him with whatever means you must use and bring him to Drago. In the meantime, you must stay out from underfoot. Sally is getting worse by the hour, the King is stabilized and the planets are sixty percent merged. All we can do is hope it ends soon." As the doctor said this, there was a flash and then nothing.
"What happened? Where's my power?" Quack demanded.
"Doc, we have lost power to all of Knothole. I can't get the backup generators to start up, but the backup batteries should kick in a couple seconds, but they won't help a whole lot." Rotor explained. The moment Princess Sally's heart monitor came back on, it showed that she had flat-lined.
"Start CPR! We can't afford to lose her now!" Doctor Quack ordered. After five minutes, they still had nothing. The team of medics had given up and stood around the operating table upon which Sally lay. Doctor Quack glanced at Rotor and they both knew that it would all work out perfectly.
"Oh, God! Is… she… de… dead?" Samantha quietly asked.
"I'm sorry… but yes; she is dead. I just can't believe that Sonic actually killed her." Rotor softly said with tears in his eyes.
Aaron walked out of the Infirmary running what had just happened through his head. He walked Samantha back to her hut. "You sleep tight. I don't want anything to happen to you. And, remember I love you." Aaron said as he hugged her good night. Aaron then walked back to his hut and settled in for the night.
That night, as Knothole slept, Drago carried out the second part of the plan. The plan was to replace the real King with a robotic King that would take over Knothole and surrender the village to Robotnik and his army. Once he was sure Knothole was asleep, he snuck into the Infirmary and after carefully unhooking the medical monitors and life support systems, he quietly wheeled the King into one of the back storage rooms and then carried the robotic King into the Infirmary. He carefully hooked the machines back up to the King and placed him upon a medical bed and went back to his hut. Quietly laughing to himself, he fell asleep. His sleep was troubled by dreams of him approaching Robotnik to accept this job.
Aaron had no such luck falling asleep. At three thirty in the morning, after tossing and turning for the last few hours, he got up and walked outside to have a cigarette. As Aaron surveyed the village from outside his hut, he noticed that the door to the Infirmary was slightly ajar. He put the cigarette out and went to investigate. He walked over and found that the Infirmary's door had been forced open from the outside.
Aaron quickly went through the Infirmary and found nothing was amiss. He got his sleeping bag from his car and set it up outside the Infirmary door blocking it. The next four hours passed uneventfully.
At eight o'clock in the morning by his watch, the sun made its first appearance on the horizon, which Aaron just happened to face. Finding it would be useless to try to sleep any more, he got up and set about assessing how much damage had been done to the Infirmary. Other than the door, nothing else seemed to be amiss. He walked into OR1 to check on the King and had the shock of his life; the King was sitting up in bed. Upon seeing this, Aaron ran to get Rotor.
"Rotor! It's the King! He's conscious! Get Doctor Quack! Hurry!" He shouted as he ran down to Rotor's hut. As soon as Rotor realized what Aaron was saying was the breakthrough they needed to end all this madness, he got up and went over to the Infirmary as fast as possible. Aaron continued on, waking up the King's former royal guards and anyone else who had been attached to the King in some way or another. After everyone else was on his or her way to the Infirmary, Aaron made his way to Sam's hut.
"Samantha! Time to wake up! We have lots to do today!" Aaron called from outside her door. There was no answer from inside the hut. He slowly opened the door and found that she was not in her hut. Aaron closed the door and turned around. To his surprise, Sam was right behind him.
"Girl, you scared the crap outta me! What're you doing up so early?" Aaron asked. Samantha had a sad look upon her face.
"I've been helping ready the memorial for the Princess. We were able to build a glass coffin for the viewing. We even arranged for a Catholic burial under my guidance." Aaron was still saddened by the death of the Princess, but was at the same time overjoyed with the return of the King. Aaron explained to Sam what had transpired in her short absence and they made their way hurriedly to the Infirmary. As he and Sam entered the ER, they dreaded the moment the King was told of Sally's fate. They arrived right on time, for as they entered, Bunnie was telling the King what happened.
"…And as she scaled the wall, Sonic reached over and cut the rope. She fell the seven stories she had climbed. When I got to her, she was not breathing. We did all we could with what we have. I'm sorry, Your Majesty." Bunnie finished before she ran off crying.
"Finally I am rid of that spoiled brat. As your King, I demand that all activity be cleared through me from now on." The King commanded. Samantha could not believe her ears; Sally had told her how caring he was before the betrayal and now he sat here giving orders like nothing had ever happened to him. Aaron turned and angrily stormed out of the Infirmary towards the lab.
"Rotor! What's with the King? One moment, he's a vegetable and the next he's giving orders like he was never captured and imprisoned. Think it's an after affect of his being isolated for so many years?" Aaron asked. Rotor shook his head and then said,
"I'm not sure, but I'm gonna find out. First thing I'm gonna do now is bring the Princess back."
"What'cha talking about? We all saw it! You said it yourself… we can't do anything else for her." Rotor packed a few of his gadgets into a bag and headed for the door.
"At least, that's what you saw. What you see is not always the truth. Follow me and I'll try to explain this to you." Rotor instructed. As the two of them left the lab, Sam came walking up the path towards them.
"Hey guys! Where you off to in such a hurry?" She curiously asked.
"We're on a mission of utmost urgency. We're going to bring back the Princess." Sam stared uncomprehendingly at Rotor.
"She's dead. We all saw it!" Sam said, close to tears.
"Come with us. I'm sure Rotor will answer any questions we may have." Aaron said, still not sure what exactly Rotor had up his sleeve. They arrived at Sally's glass coffin. Immediately, Rotor removed a panel at the foot of the base upon which the coffin sat. He then hooked a small computer up to whatever was housed within the base. After hitting a few buttons, there was a hiss of escaping gas and the top raised up exposing the Princess. For a few seconds, she remained motionless and then she sat up and began coughing and gasping for air at the same time. Rotor gently patted her back to help her get over her coughing spell.
"Sally, you're alright! Thank God you're back! But, how? We all saw…" Aaron trailed off. Sally hopped down off the coffin and slipped her boots back on.
"What you saw was a plan designed to fool all who were present into believing that I had died. My death was all planned out." Sally explained, turning to Rotor.
"Our plan was for Sally to take a small wound and be brought back here, where she would supposedly die. The reason for the plan is that we believe we have a traitor in our midst. And to tell you the truth, it could be anyone. We don't suspect you two because we have no reason to; you wouldn't have any reason to betray us. The plan was for the Princess to be out of the picture for a week while we searched for the traitor, but when we found out he was better, we decided to abort the plan. We figure the King will listen to his own daughter. Also, we managed to get the Sword back. It's in my lab under lock and key." Rotor finished. Aaron was still a bit confused by the plan.
"I say we bring the Princess back to Knothole, then we try to straighten the rest of this mess out." Aaron suggested. Quickly, Rotor packed his equipment up and once he had it ready, they left for the remains of the castle.
(End of Chapter 9)