This was a rather difficult chapter to write and then more so when it came down to edit. I spent all of today putting the finishing touches on it and am ready to finally post it up. But...however, this chapter is actually a two part section. It doesn't continue on but instead it will stay focused on Aleutian in the next chapter. You can't rear\d one without the other. Hopefully tonight and tomorrow I can hammer it out and have it done.
Lost Courage is what it stands for...Courage that has been lost over time, forgotten.
Disclamer: I observe the rights of the orginal creators of the Sonic characters and tak no profit from them
Please read and review.
Lost Courage
by: Mauser
Amadeus' psyche never left the passing ground beneath him. He stared out the right-side cockpit window as he fought not to sleep, due in part from the smooth flight of the Hoverbot. Considering Sally's words that the outdated piece of Robotnick Primes' junk was all they could spare as transport, and partially due to his suggestions to keep the main transports around for emergencies, the notion of an unsettling ride dissipated right after "skids up". Tails' handling was smooth as silk across the air streams.
Glancing over to his son, the one eyed fox beamed a smile that was filled with pride. "You fly like it's second nature to you, Miles."
Tails let out a mirthful snort; "It's kinda my life, dad," he quipped, holding a smirk for more than a moment, straying his attention away from the controls just enough to show it to his father.
Amadeus digested the remark in his head before he let out a quick laugh, mostly at himself. Shifting his warm smile to his left, he raised his brows at his cloaked brother. "I should've seen that one coming, eh?"
"We're only Mobian, Amadeus," Merlin replied with a crisp bow of the head. The old fox had the appearance of a monk, but the powers he could summon were immeasurable and mysterious to say the least. Over his dark grey hooded robe were orange colored orbs that could've been easily mistaken as a large necklace, however wielding power of which only Merlin knew. With his hands passively clasped in front of him, he too found peace with the uneventful flight.
Eyeing a screen to the upper left of the flight console, Tails took note of their position across the rolling hills of the Mobian Forest. It wouldn't be long before the full canopy of the trees would be replaced by level fields of grass. "We should be there in a few minutes," Tails announced after seeing the dot of their destination drawing closer on the screen display.
"What's our approach look like?" his dad asked.
"East from what I can tell. The highlands I usually like to bypass, so I made a slight detour around them. Turbulence isn't fun in one of these...trust me!"
Amadeus bowed his head in understanding and continued his numbing trance towards the foothills of the ground. Sailing eight-hundred feet up, he could clearly make out the different species of trees even as they appeared to be an endless blur of green. Speed tackled the distance with ease, crossing the landscape over time that seemed like mere seconds. The tall hills shallowed closer to sea level with trees reducing in numbers being replaced by their trunkless cousins.
Reality soon flowed back into his mind when negative G-forces interrupted his aloft concentration. Tails brought the Hoverbot lower to the ground and followed the shallow valleys with careful rolls and turns. Passing over a grove of trees, an unevenly wide mound appeared over the horizon like a curtain rising up to a play. Giving a quick glance to the onscreen map, Tails rolled his head back to his father:
"We're here, but where's here?"
Amadeus leaned forward in his seat and studied the terrain, searching for something that didn't belong on the smooth slopes of the hills. "That, we are here to find. Just keep a sharp eye out for..."
Amadeus knew one when he saw it. The hulk of it was decapitated, and encrusted with rust and clumps of grass, perched at the edge of a ridge that was just lower than the summit of the mound. For a military geared mind like General Prower's, a tank was hard to miss. Even when the turret was missing.
"Find a shady spot to land, Miles," he quickly ordered with a calm voice.
Tails didn't need to be told twice after a quick glance to his left, his azure eyes lighting up almost instantly upon seeing a break in the canopy far off below them. "I think I've found it, pop–hang on!"
Amadeus gave a sharp tug at his restraint belts across his blue uniformed chest as he braced himself. The sinking feeling of negative-G's eroded his numbness to sleep when Tails pushed the Hoverbot towards the ground with a steep one-eighty degree turn. Pulling the control yoke back along with the throttle lever, negative went to positive as the young fox pitched the nose up. His hands went flying across the console to punch the right buttons for the landing skids and reverse thrusters. Watching their descent slow with the heavy tops of the trees as a reference, Amadeus clamped down on the hand rests of his seat, bracing himself against the light shudders. To his surprise, they came to a quick stop with hardly a jolt from the landing. Smoothness had nothing on Tails.
Unsnapping himself from his belts, Amadeus was about to express his profound satisfaction with his son's family linage if the image beyond the cockpit window hadn't made him gape in overwhelming puzzlement. Buried underneath heavy vines and fallen branches stood the testament that a battle from years past had possibly been marshaled at the spot where Tails ensconced their transport as Hoverbots laid entombed under the foliage, their lone blaster cannon with their oval shaped hulks being the only earmarks of their identity.
"Looks like they were retrieving something here," Merlin observed.
Amadeus only nodded, gauging the disordered layout of the transports as a quick snatch and go tactic instead of his previous thoughts. "Any reason for this, Tails?" he asked, figuring his son might know the tactics of the first Robotnick better than he. Course, one rudiment strategy that Prower does remember about the fat Overlander they'd once trusted was that Julian Kintobor could muster a coup d'etat perfectly in the shadows from everyone else.
Prower could only dream of seeing his saber spilling Julian's life contents on the ground, wishing he could have done it twice over with the thought of not seeing his son born still being fresh in his mind.
"This was usually a setup for a prisoner transfer or pickup. Just land, grab and go. It was to make sure they got done as quick as they could before me and Sonic showed up," Miles explained while busy power down the Hoverbot.
"You went on missions?" Amadeus asked with a raised brow.
"...And I still do. I can't let my talents go to waste."
A reaching smile lined Amadeus' face. "Of course not." He then turned his single eye towards Merlin who was already standing. "Ready to dig up some history?"
"That's what I'm here for, dear brother. I can't guarantee my magic will reveal the full story, but I'm sure we can find something for Elias."
With an affirming nod, Amadeus pulled his blue tunic taunt across his body, adjusted his left eye patch, rubbed the polished brass hilt of the saber that dangled from his belt, and checked his boots for any scuff marks that they might've received from the trip over. Satisfied that everything was squared away on his uniform, he took the lead out of the Hoverbot. It was a sentimental treatment in his eye when he touched down on the thick grass. He viewed past battlefields as places of immeasurable honor, and why he took great attention to his uniform before he left. A sloppy soldier to the dead was an unthinkable sight that he would never decree to himself.
At first glance of his surroundings, the clearing wasn't more than a hundred yards in diameter. Slightly to his right laid the littered paths from the gaps between the trees to the barely visible open field to the north. Sucking in a long deep breath, he threw his shoulders back and started his march towards what he believed was the focal point of the mission. "Got to see about that tank," he said to himself.
"You're sure, nephew, that this wasn't a staging point for an attack?" came Merlin as he stepped out from the Hoverbot.
"I thought the same thing too, Merlin," Amadeus pointed out.
Tails was right behind, taking caution into his surroundings even though his dad and uncle were already ahead of him. "Could be? Can you sense anything here, uncle?"
Merlin closed his eyes for a brief moment. No sights...no sounds. Shaking his head, he moved on, following Amadeus at a leisurely pace through the undergrowth, his mind taking in the tall trees that sprang up all around him. The breeze was felt by all, finding paths through the woods and blowing at their bodies.
It had been a long while since Amadeus gauged his traveled distance by merely counting his paces. It was one of those skills that either you use it or you lose it. Considering his last place of residence for the past eleven years that was literally on another world were Magnetic North never existed, he downplayed his lapse in the fundamentals of orienteering as something that he had no control of. Instead, he kept focused on the ever brightening field in front of him, stealing a glance over his shoulder and seeing Merlin and his son still lumbering close behind him.
Their trek through the forest ended shortly there after with Amadeus being the first to come to a slow halt at the edge of the long field. A long ago voice–one he realized he truly missed–echoed up from the deepest reaches of his psyche with the image in front of him being the flashpoint of it all.
"The land is neutral, Prower,"Mathias had once said to him during the course of a royal dinner party. "No matter what colors we carry under our banner, the land will always fly white."
The old dingo...his old friend's voice rang true at that humbling instant. Never once had he thought he would see the sight that was before him now: wavering grass on a field that stretched endlessly in all directions, the tall mound acting as a broad peninsula to the hills behind it in the sea of grass. Two sparrows sang and played in the wafting air, catching Amadeus' gleaming eye only for an instant before he gazed back to the flowing field, the tops of the grass seemingly becoming a waving flag.
"A battle was fought here," he said to himself, smiling consciously as his face stayed even. "You can't look at this place and not feel the honor of battle echoing...singing in the wind, calling out the names of those who fell with no one hearing. Only the grass is waving the flag of their triumphs...hinting at the courage that once thrived in the hearts of the unknown. I can't help but feel like I've helped found that courage...that bravery that has been lost." His eyes lowered when Aleutian's scarred, depressed face trickled into his mind. "Why, young Guardian did you keep this lost until now? Why do you not honor your fallen comrades without telling about their last desperate hours here on this world? Why be so selfish of them?"
"Amadeus, come take a look at this!" decried Merlin from behind him, breaking his numbing trance.
Turning around, he saw Tails kneeling beside his uncle, who was rubbing his grey bearded chin over several downed trees. When Amadeus approached, he could see why. "These were blow off their stumps by charges!" he elaborated quickly.
"Hey dad, check out the burn marks on the one behind you," said Tails, pointing.
Amadeus shifted his stance towards the next specimen. The trunk was littered with plasma marks, however, the whole tree was not scorched beyond recognition.
"It must've rained here when this battle took place," Amadeus finally answered after a long examination. "Merlin?"
"I'm not feeling any energies, my brother. But I do observe a witch under a house," the cloaked fox said, his hood motioning to something under another fallen tree a head of them.
Tails picked himself off the ground and hurried towards it, only stopping dead when his eyes caught the grey metal of a cybernetic arm. "It's a Swat Bot!"
"Are there any others around you?" asked his father.
Tails put his head on a swivel and scoured the ground around him. With his memory afoot from the previous war with the machines, he caught a glimpse of another familiar torn piece of wreckage. "Yea!"
Nodding his head, Amadeus kneeled down beside his brother and spoke his opinions, "someone with good tactical sense laid a nice trap. Blown trees, bots smashed underneath them, and what appears to be close fire support; someone set a lovely trap."
"I agree with you, but from what Elias and the rest had said, the trap was on the reverse side of this equation."
Amadeus faced his puzzled thoughts. "Tails, Mathias did say Aleutian was betrayed?"
"To the letter, pop."
Twitching his right pointed ear with the questions that raced through his head, Amadeus stood up and began to march back towards the north. "Something's not adding up. If we are looking for a betrayal then why are we seeing slain bots from well placed charges?"
"My observation: there is more than what lies on the surface," Merlin added --but he really didn't need to.
"How I'd know you were going to say that."
Fumbling his way over the trees, Tails kept a close distance from his father and uncle, all the while searching the field in front of him. The grass stood up to his chest, tickling his fur with every change in the wind. "Anything yet, Uncle?"
Merlin smiled. "Give me time, Miles. Battlefields can be tricky things to uncover."
Letting Tails take the middle, the sorcerer who once served King Maximillan glided across the field, taking note –and wondered if Amadeus had seen them– of craters the size of large cauldron pots dotting the landscape. The rings of sediment were hardly visible from the years of erosion, as the grass staked claim to the perforated soil underneath. Stiffening his interlaced fingers under the long sleeves, he took in the pollen filled air and replaced it with moisture that he could sense in his mind. Closing his eyes as he kept his pace even he pictured rain falling in sheets across the sky. He concentrated on that thought, searching for energies that drifted like discarded papers in the air.
He waited patiently, breathing a steady pattern as he listened intently for long ago echoes.
Groans of machinery suddenly filled his ears. Stopping quickly and shifting his footing around to the right, Merlin slowly lifted his eyelids, finding that the blue sky had turned a sickly pale with his image of rain falling truer than he expected. The grass had become juvenile, being drenched to the point that the ground was becoming more of mud than the latter.
Something zipped through the air behind him, sounding familiarly like a charged practical bolt, but trailing off with a hiss that sounded like steam. This brought Merlin's curiosity to the forefront of his mind, telling him to turn faster to gaze at the source of the heavy, servo footsteps behind him. His pupils suddenly jumped in his eyes when a red plasma bolt ripped across the river of rain towards the mound, leaving a steam trail behind it before dissipating in the falling, heavy drops of water. It wasn't long before four additional bolts of crimson zapped and hissed across the soaked void, leaving the same steam trail as the first. But what Merlin saw next made him question his sight, for it wasn't that the grey sheets of rain that camouflaged their metal skin, Merlin could still see the outline of the Overlander type figures with their domeheads, but it was their numbers that stretched his imagination beyond words. They came out of the thick tree line in hoards, the edge of the front line ending about a hundred yard from where Merlin stood as he followed the line east to west.
Even with his psyche far removed from the present, the arm blasters of the Swat Bots still thundered in his chest, releasing their deadly bolts of energy in swarms, never once letting up to cool down the particle chargers. Pivoting further towards the south, Merlin's sight was met by a black Swat Bot. It and it's countless counter parts marched liked an emotionless army, never fearing life nor death as they seemingly charged into battle without hesitation of what consequence might come. Beyond the frontal push were streamlined shells of tanks, their turrets pointing their pieces to the north, towards the mound, ready to release their shells on binary command.
"Dear Aurora!" Merlin breathed in his mind. That was the only thought he could conjure up before his senses were shattered with what came next.
Thunderous hisses ripped through the rain soaked air like a kid whirling a tethered ball around his head. The chest cavity of the bot in front of him erupted with showers of sparks, metal shards, and hydraulic oil. Merlin counted two piercing hits in the time it took him to blink, counting a third a fraction of a second later that decapitated the bots head from its falling frame. But the black Swat Bot wouldn't be the only machine to experience the carnage of its steel outer shell being ripped open. Its comrades behind and beside it suffered the same fate, gravity setting a course for their terminated chassis to the sloppy ground. Earsplitting claps signified the impacts of highspeed projectiles that slammed into the numerous spaces of the bots' crudely designed bodies without so much of a blur being seen. Only the disrupted pattern of the falling rain marked their flight path. Behind the claps came a muffled series of low popping shunts that never let up, seemingly commanding the bots to disintegrate to pieces before his wide eyes.
"MERLIN!" Amadeus shouted for the third time.
The rain faded as the sky resumed it's blue texture of the present weather. Turning his whole body around to address his brother, he managed to keep an even face over his numbing psyche. "This was a trap for the bots," he said in a teaching tone.
General Prower shifted his brows in puzzlement, Tails only listening intently.
"How so?" asked Prower.
"The charges were set off against a look-and-see group," Merlin observed after reflecting that some of the trees he saw before his senses became blanketed with carnage, were bellowing white smoke from their severed trunks. Even with his limited knowledge with military tactics and strategy, his conclusion wasn't far removed from what they had seen in the woods previously, and now compounded with what he witnessed with his channeled energy.
"...That's called a scouting party," Amadeus corrected, waiting for his brother to continue.
"However you call them, but the prime force came in numbers that I couldn't count, Amadeus. But the defenders of that mound," he motioned with his right hand, "were waiting for them. Don't be surprised if we see the leftovers of propellent weapons."
"Firearms?" question Amadeus. "Those weapons are outdated...especially against metal armor!"
A quick shake of the head. "I witnessed Robotnick's machines being torn apart without the glow of plasma fire. And the rain was thick."
Amadeus' brows shot up from that comment. Heavy rain was the worst environment to fight with plasma weapons. Or in his case during the Great War; the better environment to fight against the Overlanders. Logic soon followed with his reflection; heavy projectiles could definitely increase the odds in a rain storm.
"So where's the trap?" the one eyed fox mused. Turning back around, he continued forward towards slopping the mound, stopping to gauge the diameter of a few craters along the way.
Merlin on the other hand, kept his mind open to the wind. Finding his place well in the expedition, he channeled his thoughts back the rain, clearly seeing the weather as a leaping point from the present to the past. As he stepped passed an eroded crater, he suddenly saw the eroded hole in the ground erupt with mud, smoke, and steam that showered the heavy air. The thunderous blast of air could still be felt even when the event had long ceased from existence. Merlin nearly leaped backwards as torn, twisted pieces of Swat Bots rained down on top of him with the tossed clumps of mud, showering down with the rain. Blue and orange plasma bolts soon followed, darting towards the south in sporadic bursts; shouting voices fighting to overpower the earsplitting sounds of weapons discharging all the while.
Merlin felt the energy leave him, but not without hearing a whistling shriek that ended with another thunderous BOOM!
"What's the term you use to describe where nothing lives during a battle, Amadeus?" he asked after regaining his senses to walk forward.
"No-man's land!" bolstered Prower. "You see it too?"
"I might term as, no-machines' land. Tell me, Tails; how did the old Swat Bots operate in combat? Were they cunning?"
Tails kept his eyes forward, tracing a hollow ridge at the foot of the mound as he kept pace with his father. "Only to stay booted up. They could fly, think on their own, and duck for cover, but they lacked ambition that sometimes made them a sitting duck."
"Fly?" countered Amadeus, snapping his head back over his shoulder. "What about in the rain, son?"
"Don't see why they didn't?" Tails replied.
"Skeet?" Merlin pondered aloud.
A frowning nod. "Good reason not to with heavy firepower on the field."
With the tactical question of flanking maneuvers coming to mind, Amadeus look to the west and east of the wide mound. It was about three hundred yards across, he guessed, before both sides gently curved towards the north. There, it carved into a rig that stood only a few meters taller than itself before forming into a very broad plateau that stretched across the horizons in all directions. All the enemy had to do was flank the defenders from the east while push on up the center of the hill. Hammer and anvil, Amadeus reflected. It was simple enough that a poorly trained platoon could manage to attempt, much less succeed in trying.
But even with that logic, the craters in the ground showed the bots had little in the way for battle theory, assaulting the defensive ridges head-on like they were soldiers only looking for the glory of death and not victory.
"Unless...the defenders were just being toyed with." That...Amadeus couldn't fathom to be possible.
Stopping cold when his eye laid upon the summit of the bottom divide, Amadeus examined the mound with his trained mind afoot to his surroundings. Behind the crest laid a well concealed trench that wasn't carved in by the weather or the growing grass, but instead by many hands. Leaping down into the shallow crevice, Prower examined the defensive battlement with strict attention. The cover line was tall enough to fully conceal his head but shallow enough to come up and take a pop shot with a crossbow if he had to.
Shifting his battle attuned senses to the tall face of the mound itself, he took note of the littered craters that had sprouted grass over time and seasons. The depressions were noticeable but someone could also easily mistaken them just for the hill's features. Sitting squarely on the two, possibly three story summit was the wrecked hulk of the tank, its right tread clearly off the drive wheels and dangling out of sight on the ground. To Amadeus it looked pathetic without the semblance of a turret sitting atop its battered hull, only wondering what decapitated the tank; even if he could call it that now.
"Hey dad, take a look at this?" shouted Tails as he dashed up to his father and Merlin with something clasped in his hand. Holding it out, the two older foxes studied the speckled white rectangularly rounded object. A slit had been cut into the center, rounding the object like an equator to a planet with bulges to either side of it. What intrigued Tails about it was the countless holes it had littered around it.
"I don't know, son? Looks like a hand grenade if you ask me; just the shape is a little off."
"Electro Magnetic Pulse?" inquired Merlin.
Tails shook his head. "EMP's don't have holes. Besides, this device is too small to be one."
Prower pivoted to steal a quick look to the trench; "Well, at any rate, I'm venturing to guess that this was the first line of defense..."
"...and that's where Knothole stands!" Merlin shot his head over to the trench, seeing nothing but hearing everything that a young baritone voice was proclaiming. "If we turn tail and run...we'll have nothing to go home to! Knothole will fall, and the world will fall with them. We're all in the middle of a trap...a betrayal that is overreaching! We've all been used so no one can help save Knothole from the tide that's coming for us! Robotnick expects us all to be dead or Robotosized by now. His army is about to pay for that assumption. Dish it out for Knothole!...They depend on us this morning!"
"Amadeus!" Merlin called out. "They knew about the trap!"
Prower shook his stunned head from the out burst. "What?"
A curt nod. "A strong voice echoed here, rallying people to fight for Knothole. They knew what was coming."
Staring up the hill, Amadeus let his puzzledment show on his face. Shaking his head, he said, "lets see what that tank holds."
To Merlin's delight, the thirty degree incline wasn't hard to traverse thanks to a trail that one really had to look for to find it. Upon a quarter of the way behind them, the cloaked fox closed his eyes again and searched the air for sounds and disturbances. It didn't take long for low rumbles to come to him, followed by piecing laser fire from all directions it seemed. But when he opened his eyes back to what he thought was the same world, he was violently gripped with terror from the sight that laid before his robed feet.
Staring up at him with brown eyes that tore into Merlins heart was a khaki colored coyote, crying deeply as he frantically grabbed at his spilled out intestines. Purple blood drenched the soaked ground beneath him with more spilling out from his severed groan. His left leg was barely intact, sliced to pieces with ivory white chunks of bone spread across his ripped BDU's and the mud. His right was totally gone. Merlin stood in horror as his petrified psyche kept asking him why the poor soul was still alive. He faced his sorrow at the image, ignoring the flashes of plasma bolts slicing through the easing rain.
"JAX–JAX!" screamed out the coyote over his racing pants, begging with his arms out as a salt and peppered wolf raced up beside Merlin. "HELP...ME...JAX! PLEASE...HELP ME!"
The wolf stopped, his heavy black rifle centered across his chest with the barrel pointed safely towards the ground, wearing the same battle dress as the dying coyote. He was about to say something when the ground beside him was pelted by red plasma fire, bellowing steam from the blackened mud. The smell of the ozone and the excretions from unknown origins somehow filtered into Merlins black noise. He almost wanted to spit for he could taste it.
"PLEASE...JAX!" The coyote's breaths were fastly approaching hyperventilation, every in take producing a shrieking weep.
The wolf took a quick and frightening look where the plasma fire had originated. Terror stretched across his face as he beamed it back down towards the coyote. Shouldering his rifle, Jax lifted the barrel and centered it on the coyote's head.
"JAX –NO! PLEASE, NO..."
The wolf turned his grimacing face away just before he pulled the trigger. The coyote's brain flash fried when the plasma bolt leaped out from the barrel and connected to his furred head, burning it along with his eyes. He never felt the pain as his body relaxed without so much as a shudder of protest of his soul leaving his ripped open corpse.
Giving no time to reflect, the wolf sprinted up the hill, deviating from the well defined path as he climbed straight up with his rifle spread across his hands. Just as suddenly as they raced by Merlin's head, two crimson bolts seared into the wolf's back without any show of remorse, cutting him down face first into the mud. His body twitched as it rolled down the hill, stopping just mere feet from where his life was taken.
Merlin took in what he saw and felt his heart beat with sorrow. With ice that now seemed to flow through his veins, he was about to shout to his brother when a hard charging female echidna sprinted up beside him, her locks and hair drenched from the rain, fluttering across her shoulders and back. In an instant it took one to blink she suddenly skidded to a hard stop and spun around. Her blue eyes raged with fire as she brought a slender but bulky constructed rifle up to her shoulder, its barrel protruding four inches under the particle charger bar that was enshrouded over a thick forearm stock.
"NOOO!! TAKE THIS YOU PIECES OF ..." Her ear-shattering scream became mute over the sharp whining claps of her rifle, keeping pressure on the pistol grip trigger as she took no sight picture from the compacted raised scope. Her body shuddered with every repulsing kick. Merlin could clearly make out her canines as she bared her teeth to the things that showed no quarter. Somehow, her passionate rage added to her elegant beauty even in the midst of the grisley ordeal. Merlin couldn't help but eye her trim figure under a thick black jacket, her firm breast covered up with a cotton green shirt.
"EMEE; GO!" came a forced yell from behind Merlin.
"NOT WITHOUT YOU!" she screamed back, dropping the slender box battery cell with a push of a button the side of the rifle before slapping a new one in.
A blur of black and red raced right through Merlin. It was another echidna, his back turned and grabbing the arm of the girl to push her up the hill. "Don't shoot, just run!"
Merlin watched as the two made a desperate dash up the hill, their rifles trailing beside them as the boy kept her body covered with his. Suddenly a brown squirrel appeared before him, scurrying as fast as she could up the muddy slope with a rifle clutched close to her chest.
Neither Merlin nor the girl heard the whistling thunder of a shell racing over head, landing right where the squirrel stepped at that very moment. She exploded in a shower of red flesh and purple blood. When her body settled with the raining mud, she resembled nothing of her feminine self but a butchered piece of meat.
"Tails; STOP!" shouted Merlin after his sight faded to the sanctuary of peace to the present day. Miles quickly obey what he was told, holing his left foot up before he stepped in a crater. "Please, walk around that, nephew," Merlin said, finding that he didn't discipline his voice enough to show calm.
"Merlin, what's gotten into you?" asked Amadeus from afar up the hill. His answer was given by a cold shake of the head. Seeing this, General Prower made his way back down, clasping Tails' shoulder. "Stay here Tails."
"But dad..."
"Stay!" Amadeus asserted, squeezing Tails' shoulder. Seeing his request was going to be fulfilled, he stepped passed his son and made his way up to his brother.
When he arrived, Merlin had a somber but puzzled look about him; "A girl was sent to Aurora in the most violent way that I have ever witnessed." He swallowed hard as he caught the stare of his Nephew. "Where we stand, a coyote was killed out of mercy by his fellow soldier." A long deafening pause. "And that soldier was slain for his actions up the mound."
General Prower stiffened his body as he spread his sight across the land to the east. "What else have you seen," he asked with a low, even voice.
"A girl...an echidna girl."
"...And a boy by chance?"
A curt nod with focused eyes. "I think I have seen our Aleutian."
Placing his arm around his brother's back, Amadeus gave a light push to Merlin as a come-on. "I'm hoping that tank has something for us at the top."
A quick sigh as he found his footing. "I hope so."
Navigating the slightly cumbersome trail in silence, Tails lead the way to the top of the mound. There, he found the path had cut deep across the ridge that formed another trench. It stretched a hundred feet until it ended under the decapitated tank. The sun brightened the dark green texture, showing only minute traces of rust on the armored hull. When Tails looked back to his father, he could clearly see the dotted moonscape of the field below.
"How does a turret get blown clean off a tank?" he asked.
"A lucky shot!" his father returned, only rasing his brow at the question: "What's the accuracy of Robotnick's old machines?"
"Dead-on, dad. They were machines for crying out loud!"
Prower rolled his eyes at himself. "Maybe not so lucky."
The short conservation took them to the wrecked hull. Tiny blades of grass intruded through the spaces of the treads as dandelions played amongst the seven track wheels with the wafting wind. Dangling half off the wheels were the metal treads, looking like slabs of ribs already cooked. Seeing that the bottom portion of the track had laid a four foot trail at the front, Amadeus quickly concluded that the tank had attempted to make a covering retreat when the right side tread took a hit during the fight and rolled off the lead drive wheel. Fifty feet directly behind it lay its head, the back end of the large rectangular turret pointing skywards as its barrel pierced through the ground like a spear, its frontal portion resembling an acute triangle that pointed forward.
The tall wheat grass and dancing flowers was a fitting grave to it in Prower's eye.
Using the slumped tread as a latter, he and Merlin climbed up the tall hull. Taking great care in where he placed his hands, Amadeus peered down to the bottom portion. To his amazement none of the controls nor anything of value were striped from the inside. But he did see dried Mobian and Overlander blood –the darkened brown stains of the Skinners' life elixir wasn't hard to miss.
"Stay there, Tails," Amadeus said with a disarming tone. "Don't go anywhere."
"But I can help, dad!"
Merlin this time took in a calm voice as he peered off the side of the decapitated hull. "Plus, young nephew, it will only be for a moment."
Tails huffed his indifference, crossed his arms tightly across his chest in defiance, and took to his surroundings with slanted eyes. "I'm older than I look."
Pushing his son's minuscule rebellion, and the thought of his uniform getting dirty aside, Amadeus climbed down inside with his brother doing likewise, taking great care where they stepped. When they settled inside, both brothers were overcome by the insufferable heat as they began to study the heart and soul of the tank. Peering towards the front, Amadeus noted that the driver didn't have much of a chance to escape his or her death. The metal surroundings had scorched marks all around the driver's seat, which had been burned to ash, leaving nothing more than the wiry metal supports of the backrest. The controls on the other hand were smashed beyond recognition, the driver's hatch caved in with the top laying in the seat.
On the floor beside his left boot laid the ivory trace of a bone fragment –a muzzle of some Mobian species, Amadeus realized with relaxed eyes.
"Feel anything?" he asked after a long silence of gathering his observations."
"No...but this should be enough."
A long sweeping glance to the rear of the inside. "No one survived this," he somberly explained, peering through a hole at the firewall that exposed part of the large fly wheel on the engine.
Merlin lowered his eyes, finding his brother's words driving his next line of thoughts. "Why haven't we seen any bodies...graves?" he asked eerily calm. His answer came only as a musing shake of the head.
Tails stabbed the ground with his white and red shoe, shifting his wondering attention to the north. Standing with his arms crossed, he could make out what appeared to be another trench some distance away. Gazing intently past the overturned turret, the young fox realized that the hill they were on was really a barrier to the upper lands. Lightly huddled trees mark the sides of a well beaten road. Over the horizon, more empty stretches of rolling land.
Turning his soar face back towards the turret, Tail's saw something move from behind the turret. He strained his eyes, seeing nothing at first until a small shoe appeared from around the weathered steel. A second later, he was met by a pair of seething brown eyes.
"DAD!" he slowly forced out, backing up slightly and readying himself to dive into the trench behind him.
"Not now, son!" shouted his father through the gapping hole where the turret once stood.
"BUT DAD!"
"Miles Prower...what did I just–"
It was an unmistakable sound that could leave the most experienced soldier standing in fear; a shot-blaster chambering in a lithium battery to charge the particle accelerators. The mechanical action sent shivers down across Amadeus' spine with the muffled whining of the chargers burning his ears After the initial shock died in two heartbeats, he placed his right hand over the hilt of his saber and slowly peered out of the tank. What he saw next was beyond his comprehension.
A short, blonde Overlander girl stood ten feet away from Tails, holding him at bay with a pump-action plasma gun. Her hair was pulled back behind her in a pony tail, but her face and stance meant all business. Holding the scatter gun over her right hip, she tensed her grip on the stock and pump.
"GET OFF THE TANK!" she quickly demanded with a high pitched, distorted voice.
Amadeus eased his hands up over the tank and tried to produce a smile over his frightened self. "Easy little one. We're only here to look."
"I SAID GET OFF THE TANK, FURRY! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND PLAIN SPEAK!?"
"I certainly do, young lady, but I..."
"Then get off the tank! You're standing on holy ground!"
When Merlin raised up from the tank she jerked the barrel around towards him. Amadeus took note at what she said and her reflexes, and determined right then that she wasn't to be fooled with. She was trained. Poorly, but she was trained.
"We'll do as you ask, but can you be so kind to safety and lower your weapon?"
"It stays on you, Furies! Now move!"
Amadeus and Merlin didn't need anymore motivation than the tempered girl and her shot-blaster. With fear afoot in both of them, they climbed off the tank like molasses in winter, taking great care in not to make sudden movements. When they both had landed on the grassy plain, she relaxed her grip, but not by much.
"Now leave, or my father will deal with you!"
Amadeus took the remark as a weapon. "Why don't you, young lady. You have the power in your little hands."
She widened her stance, mostly to relieve her aching feet. "I said leave, Furry! All of you!"
"And if we don't?"
The girl laid silent, showing Prower that her soul was still innocent even though the shot-blaster said otherwise. He shook his head inward as he kept a determined smug look across his face. She looked comical in her pose; a blue pair of pants that extended to her calves, and a white t-shirt that was speckled with dirt.
Finally she answered to Amadeus' delight; "You won't be the first people I've kill, and I'm a pretty dang ole shot with this!"
"Sure you have." Merlin and even Tails swung their frightened faces around at him as Amadeus kept his cool.
"Are you testing me, mister!?" she fired back.
Merlin answered with his hands gesturing as a plea below his waist: "Please child, we mean no harm."
"Then why are you here, and why are you in the tank? You've already caused enough harm just by being here!"
Amadeus brought his hands up for calmness. "Young Lady, we are sorry if we have disturbed your shrine here. Okay?" A curt nod from the girl. "To answer your question: we are here to learn what all transpired here."
"Then, who are you?"
The one eyed fox anticipated that question as did his kin:
"I'm General Amadeus Prower from the House of Acron," he said with solemn bow. "This is my brother Merlin, and my son Miles."
She stood there for a moment, still keeping her weapon pointed in their general direction. When her determined face morphed into a puzzling stare, Amadeus knew he had won her over. "You're a real General?"
"Yes, ma'am. The stars on my shoulder boards along with the gold tassels reminds me of my responsibilities." He waited to let her star struck mind soak in the little speech. "May I be so kind as to ask your name?" This he noticed put her on the defensive.
"Amber."
"Okay Amber, may I ask why this ground his holy?"
A long pause. "My daddy says it is, and he doesn't want to see people on here like the likes of you."
"Okay little one...easy now," Merlin whispered in the air.
However, Amadeus saw something different. With his next question, he hoped the answer wasn't going to be heartbreaking for the little girl. Rage and a shot-blaster is never a good combination.
"Is your father around, Amber?"
Again, another long pause. With her answer came a face filled with scorn. "Yea, he's back at the house, Furry!"
Her threatening demeanor never phased him. Amadeus knew she was trying to bring control back to her end, and he let her. "May we speak to him? I'm sure he is a reasonable man to just have a talk. After all, we are only wanting to learn what happened out here; to give the dead peace."
Merlin shot his a brother a glance that made him know how much of a bold face liar he was. Any man who lets their daughter play out in the field with a scatter-gun just couldn't be reasonable.
"Okay, Furies! But I'm 'lettin you know, I'll be 'havin my eye on you's."
"Darling, I'm the one who has the eye..."
"...Ah, a funny man..."
"...I'm just only trying to correct you."
Amber snuffed. "The only thing that will be corrected around here will be you. Now get 'ah move-on!" she fused, pointing her shot-blaster towards the north.
With Amadeus taking the lead, making sure his hand stayed away from his saber, Tails felt the tension somewhat lessen. When he glanced back towards his uncle, he almost wanted to laugh at Amber's expense as she held the oversized scatter-gun like a spear across her hips. But nevertheless, he still had vast amounts of respect for the weapon she held, as one blast could unleash a wave of plasma that could scattered across the air, and at her range, she could easily cut him and his uncle down with a pull of the trigger. Tails just prayed she had the safety on.
Dropping down into the trench, Amadeus studied the features with a hastily tour of his eye without stopping his forward pace –last thing he wanted was for the little girl to get agitated even more so than she was. It wasn't as long as the previous ones behind them, but it was surprisingly wider and deeper with the ridges of dirt coming up to his knees. When he stepped out of it, his tactical mind concluded it was a rallying point. Nothing lay beyond him as a source for cover. What ever the battle plan had been for the engagement, it was thrown together without much preparation. That much was certain.
Merlin quickly closed his eyes, mustering up his senses as fast as he could manage. When he opened his eyes, he was met by disappointment. His vision still held the blue sky and approaching setting sun over his left shoulder.
Blinking his eyes to focus away the brightness of the clear day, he sighed as he eased his way across the...
"ALEUTIAN!"
Merlin fired a gasping glance over his right shoulder. The girl's mind piercing scream was enough to make his heart race as he searched the heavy air for her, hoping to find who he knew was the same girl echidna that he witnessed from before. Anxiety somehow found a path to his weary mind, gripping his senses with sadness as he took in the terror filled voice; only undying love and fierce anger could echo that loud from the energies past.
"Speak to me my child...what happened? I feel you...tell me what happened!" he exclaimed in the air, listening with his powers for her reply.
There was nothing but silence of the wind.
"Hey old fart...keep it going!" demanded Amber from behind him. He soon felt obligated when the barrel jabbed into his back.
Amadeus waited as his brother lumbered over the trench. What he could hold for a smile faded when he saw the scarred look on Merlin. "Everything all right?" The answer came as a hard stare. Turning back to the way ahead, Prower was beginning to wonder if his brother was going to need counseling for post-traumatic stress. The Magician's face said it all.
"So how far is it, Amber. To your house I mean?" Tails inquired with a stiff voice.
"About a mile. Say--why you have two tails? You like deformed or something?"
Tails shot his dad a nasty look when he heard his old man chuckle. "I'm perfectly normal! Unlike you who carries a gun..."
Sharp points of ice seemed to fossilize Merlin's nerves, beckoning him to jar to a stop. If it wasn't for Amber and her shot-blaster behind him, he would've.
"...it keeps me safe from the black monster, twerp!"
"Ha!" Tails snorted with a snide laugh. "You're still afraid of monster's under your bed!?"
"Tails!..."
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHH...!"
Merlin this time obeyed the voices in his head and locked every muscle in his body to a shaking halt. The mournful scream still echoed in his pointed ears as he glared back towards the source of it.
"...Oh, monsters are real. I saw one back at my old house. It would've killed my daddy if it wasn't for me. And you know what..."
Deep weeping screams floated through the air without any resistence from the wind. Merlin's right ear involuntarily twitched under his cloak as he listened the tearful sobs replace the agonizing moans. He kept staring...waiting.
Amber gave two slaps on the polymer stock of her rifle. "...If that monster comes back, I'm gonna give him a good juicing with this here scatter-gun.
"Hey fur-ball, you gonna move or not!?"
Merlin somehow found the will to walk again, bowing his head low as his hands were covered by his overlapping sleeves. His heart felt crushed with emotional pressure from an outside source, wondering if a monster had been created far off behind him in the distant past.
Amadeus never saw his brother's reflective face. Keeping his eyes forward and his wits about him, he changed the subject with a simple question.
"So who's daddy, Amber?"
Darien Wallace wasn't finding any pleasure with his dirt garden. He was supposed to kick back, relax, and grow a garden to find tranquility in life; not fight for it. It was there at that blistering moment that he was willing to give in to his temptation to totally give up and sit on his rump and vegetate. At least he would grow something that way; a nice fluffy beard over his smooth face. Stabbing the ground with the flat bladed shovel, he maneuvered his heavy black boots around the humps of tilled ground. He wasn't far off from being done with prepping the garden. Seeds were next on his list, and he seriously hoped that the next batch would produce something other than one pitiful turnup.
With another thrust towards the ground, the shovel's handle this time gave into Darien's over strengthened arms, splitting the wood into a sharp spear that slashed opened his left hand. Bawd descriptions of fecal matter and male puppies of a female dog spewed from his mouth. But not ending without being followed up by:
"Damn it!"
Wanting to wrap his injured hand over his grey shirt, the former medic in him came out and told him otherwise for fear of infection. Reaching deep into his right cargo pocket–the left pocket was completely missing–he found his emergency gauze bandage that he kept for stupid brain-farts such as this. His hand was ripped across the palm towards the pinky with crimson blood raining down towards the ground. Wrapping his hand and applying direct pressure with his right, he still found fondness for the female dog as he said her name twice over. Finding the strength to walk over the pain, he cowered his hand across his waist and began the journey to get stitched up. And he knew he was going to need stitches.
Rounding the west side of the house that resembled a compound over the latter, Darien sped up his walk towards the door. Trees provided shade for it but not by much to keep the power generator from straining to keep the place cool. To his right lay the open dirt path towards Old Mobotropolis that was nothing more than a glowing parking lot. It wasn't until he tried to reach the door knob that something caught his eye down the path. Black silhouettes appeared over the x-ray heat void, their figures shimmer as they crept closer. Darien waited at the door, calculating whether he needed to spring for a gun. Lucky for him that he shot with his right.
When they became visible as they passed under a few trees that dotted the road, Darien couldn't believe his straining eyes and his aching head. "Foxes?" he gasped at himself, turning away from the door. He started walking forward soon after, focusing on the smaller of the group who seemed to have two tails.
What he saw next turned his eyes into acid. "Amber...get over here, NOW!" he barked, pointing down at his daughter's destination with his blood soaked hand.
"But daddy, I found these, Furies..."
"...I said get over here! Don't make me order you again. Is your shot-blast chambered?"
"Uh-huh!" she quickly returned as she started to run around her captors.
"What was that!"
A scorn look rippled across her face. "Yes, sir!"
Darien watched his daughter with slits for eyes as she scrambled up beside him. "That's what I want to hear for the duration of the day! Understood?"
She cowered her blond head down towards the ground, her shot-blaster pointed to the same place across her chest. "Yes sir."
"Good," he replied with a calmer voice. "Now go inside, safe your weapon and get ready for supper while I attend to these gentlemobians."
"Yes, sir," she affirmed with a skipping dash to the door.
When Amber had slammed the door, the short Overlander turned his attention to the even shorter trio of foxes:
"Can I help you?" he asked at a relaxed attention, his eyes focused with wonder.
Amadeus studied the Overlander a little more than what the silence had called for, eyeing the his posture more so than his blood soaked hand. Somewhere, a smile formed across his lips.
"Might want to get that looked at, soldier. That's going to require some..."
"...yea I know, Prower! And I am not a soldier."
Amadeus blinked with confusion. Not because Darien knew who he was, but because the way he renounced his former self even though it still stood rigid in his demeanor. "You will always be..."
"Save me, Prower! I an't got the time of day for that horse squeeze." Darien shifted his eyes behind Amadeus and smirked. "Hello, Merlin. Looks like you've seen a ghost. That magic of your's isn't getting to your head." He then darted his eyes to Tails. "So who's the pipsqueak?"
Amadeus narrowed his eye. "That's my son Miles, sir!"
"Oh! So this is Tails," the Overlander quipped. "I've heard a lot about you. So far you're a better Mobian than your father." Darien exchanged cold glances with the one eyed fox before he ended the bitter introductions. "Yea, I know who you are, General. I wasn't around for the whole war, but I sure did get to know your name pretty well along with that snout of your's."
"Just put it aside, sir. If you want, I can help stitch your hand up."
A curt shake of the head. "No need to turn your hands red. I've gained enough experience to do it on my own –no thanks to Acorn's policies of war!"
"Burnt organs aren't glamours either, sir!" Merlin finally spoke up.
Darien stood in silence as he digested the bitter exchange over the throbbing pain in his hand. "So what do want? Is it that scrap I sold to you all after the first war? I specially said I wasn't responsible if those damn machines coming back to life. Okay? I..."
Amadeus cut him off with a wave of the hand and a disarming expression. "We're not here for that."
"Okay! Well then, you are all free to leave. I have a hand to stitch up before I bleed to death. I apologize for what my daughter has done, and I will be rectifying that, I assure you."
Darien executed the sloppiest about-face that Amadeus had ever seen in his military life.
"We're here to find out about a battle. Can you tell us anything about it?" Amadeus asked with a commanding voice that reflected his leadership position.
Darien kept his march to the door. "Many people died to save your families," he replied, his indifference still clearly evident in his mocking tone.
"You can be a little more descriptive about, can you!?" Amadeus fired back, easing forward with his remark. "King Elias is seeking for what had happened here so we can honor the veterans and gain an understanding of what they been through." He saw he touched a nerve when the Overlander stopped at the door, almost reaching for the handle. "We are also looking to find out about an echidna name Aleutian and what his role..."
Darien coldly cut Amadeus off under a quite whisper that still seemed to seethe from his lips."...Who's name did you just say?"
Amadeus exchanged glances at his brother and son before he repeated the name. "His name's Aleutian."
Cocking his head to the side, he hunched his back as if lightning had struck the ground beside him. "Where is he!?"
"He's with his father," replied Tails evenly.
Darien finally turned around, his face still tempered from the throbbing pain and now something else. "So Mathias finally chained that monster to his sub?"
"What d'ya mean Mathias, sir. Aleutian's dad is the Guardian Locke!"
"Huh?" Darien festered, shaking his head. "That doesn't make any sense?"
Amadeus brought his brows up. "Mathias' son was a Chester Drake. Unfortunately they're both gone none, their bodies committed to the sea."
The Overlander just stood there with his left hand dripping blood on the ground, musing over something that Amadeus couldn't put his finger on.
"And the sub?" he finally asked.
"Sunk."
"And Aleutian?"
Prower looked at his son Miles and nodded. "With his father...Locke."
Darien perched his lips tight, fighting to make a choice over the his throbbing hand and formidable heat. The long faces of the Prower's won out.
"Please, come inside."
Amadeus saw the instant change in the skinner's demeanor. Somehow, Aleutian's name had struck a nerve that pushed all difference of a long past war aside. Darien's eyes traced the ground with bitter sadness, almost like he was willing to cry. He faced the door in front of him and walked towards it, his back postured as to invite the foxes to follow. They did, and to Amadeus, he felt the fete was uneasy. He still felt contempt to the skinners', however, he was willing to curb his thoughts.
"You'll have to excuse the mess, I have a ten year who thinks everything's a toy," Darien said as he stopped at a pair of heavy metal doors.
"This looks like an old compound?" Tails observed from behind the Overlander.
"Hold over from the Great War. This was a field hospital for us back in the day; now I just call it home."
Merlin chuckled at the comment as he followed the Overlander inside behind Amadeus. What Darien had said about his home rang true. Slits for windows near the ceiling limited the sunlight to the inside, weakly exposing a large living room that was littered with furniture and other essentials for comfort, carving a pathway that Merlin believed he would need a map to get around. Newly constructed walls formed the single rooms down a wide hallway. Lights were left off to let the sun do their work, leaving gapping patches of darkness in the house.
"Heather, we have guests," Darien announced as he navigated towards a desk on the left wall. "And I need a sutcher kit!"
"What d'ya do this time?" came a soft but demanding voice from down the hall.
"I split my hand open good, sweety. Now please hurry!"
"You wanna eat!?"
Merlin did his best not to smile but his free will lost in the endeavor. Finding his eyes focused on the Overlander's injured hand, he traced the glimmering red blood to the concrete floor...and there, is smile faded as quickly as it came. The outside light was more than enough to pierce through blackness. Shivers came over him as he witnessed the blood splatters turn from crimson to violet with every drop, glimmering under the low sunlight as the stains became pools.
Tracing his sight back up the dark boots and pants of the Overlander, his eyes fell on a limp tail that didn't belong. It was red and rinsed with streams of blood that trickled down the tip, dripping to the floor like drops of rain. Merlin traced a larger river of blood up the bare, lower left back, of whom he realized was an echidna, two deep gashes separated by an inch across from each other screamed out in pain to Merlin's sympathetic eyes. He fought the urge to look away, but in turn, he focused on the boy's slumped right shoulder and dangling dreads. Merlin had never thought he would see the truest meaning of the phrase bleeding-from-head-to-toe standing before him. Drawing courage from his stunned mind, the old sorcerer took the needed steps to move across the floor, watching the right side of the echidna's complexion change for the worse. Two fresh slashes streaked behind his right eye, spilling his life's contents down his neck and over both sides of his shoulder. Even his dangling locks weren't spared. But what strangled Merlin's heart with unwavering sadness for the echidna was the boy's muzzle. A deep fissure gouged across his face, spilling a river of blood that traversed his gapping mouth down to his chest; staining the white fur crest of his birthright as Guardian. It was at that gut wrenching moment that Merlin knew he was starring at Knuckle's brother, swaying as his senses fought to stay conscious, the echidna's breathing deep, taking in long pulls of sweet oxygen through his mouth, his jaw trembling as he exhaled.
But what called Merlin's attention to the forefront was the Guardian's blue eyes. They were eaten with rage, turning into slits as his brows were forced to the brink of collapsing...crying murder!
"You mind shutting the door!?" decried a flustered feminine voice from behind him.
Merlin turned to see an Overlander woman walk behind him and closed the door to the bright outside. If the fox was a foot and a half inch taller, he could easily match the brunet girl in height. Her clothes were of a working type, covered by a blue aparine with speckles of flour and grease scattered on it. Her face was smooth all the way around, giving hints that her smile was far better than her agitated gaze at the cloaked fox.
"I apologize. My mind must be wandering," he finally answered with a cordial bow. When he turned his attention back to the front of him, the Guardian was gone, replaced by Tails and a recliner.
Heather said nothing, but instead walked over to Darien at the desk and handed him a small black webbed case. He took it from her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Thank-you, Heather."
"Let me help you out with that, sir," requested Amadeus.
Darien looked at his injured hand and nodded. "Yea...I'm gonna need a second pair of hands for this one..."
"...And I'm not lacing our dinner with your blood!" Heather returned with a grump voice.
Prower smiled as he unbuttoned his tunic. "Don't worry, my hands are pretty steady for this."
"That's okay, I just have hands of silver, not gold."
Amadeus flinched his head at the comment as he removed his arms from his uniform sleeves, exposing his brown furred chest. "What do you mean by that?"
Darien took a seat at the desk and switched on a florescent lamp against the wall. "I used to be a battlefield surgeon during the Great War...which wasn't so great on my end. I only was taught the basics so that I could patch someone up in the field so the real doctors could have a shot at killing them. I'm second rate to the real thing you might say."
Amadeus nodded his head in a understanding while draping his tunic on the back of a walnut stained chair before sitting in it.
Unzipping the bag, Darien produced a syringe and filled it from a clear vial before he handed it off to Amadeus. "Place the needle here and squeeze down on the plunger," he instructed, pointing his right index finger at the center of his hand.
Amadeus did just that, watching Darien wince from the needle prick but then observed his face relaxing. "Feeling better?"
"Ahh, the wonders of lidocaine," he breathed out. Taking a needle and a black string of thread, he handed it off to Amadeus. "Thread it in, tie it up, and I'll walk you through this. It's easier than what most people think."
Once Prower did as he was asked, Darien pointed to the bottom portion of the long gash and guided Amadeus in closing up the wound. But seeing only brought repressed thoughts that he longed to stay repressed.
"How are the scars on his face?"
"You know about those?" Tails blurted out.
"That's cause I worked on him," Darien forced out as Amadeus began another stitch. "I almost wished I hadn't some days, but...that's my handy work across his face."
Tails took a step closer. "So, how did he get those?"
"He...OW! Watch it! That's my hand there!" Amadeus shot him a trying face before he continued with the next stitch. "Yea...he–ah, had ah...hand grenade go off in his face."
They way Darien said it made the stuffy room go cold. With glances being exchanged around the room, Merlin ask the next question; "Were you there when that happened?"
He winced when Prower jerked the needle by accident. "No, I happened to be running for my life to get back to my family."
"So, how do you know it was a grenade?" inquired Amadeus.
Darien took a deep breath as he waited for the next stitch to be put through his skin. "Okay, you've seen those two across his eye?" He saw the nods in confirmation. "Little lesson in physics and someone's anatomy: those two run deep before they thin out behind his eye. That trench across his face...if he hadn't have glanced off to the left for some reason, the piece that I dug out of his snout would've killed him right between the eyes. He is one lucky boy!"
Silence fell upon the room before Amadeus broke it even while he was intently fixated on Darien's hand; "How did you come to patch him up?"
Darien starred straight into Prower's lone eye with a deathly expression. "When you happen to meet a blue and green eyed lop, you come to me and I'll share my thoughts about the meaning of life..."
"LAD!"
Merlin buckled from the harsh voice that hammered in his head. Darien caught the fox hunching over and slamming his hand across his head as if trying to kill an annoying fly. "Hey, what's up with him..."
"The bloke to your right just put his hand on his pistol. The one on your left I think just took the safety off..."
"Uncle, you okay!?" came Tails over the deafening voice.
Shaking his head, Merlin regained his vision back from the swirling blur. "I'm fine nephew. Just a headache."
Darien shook his head before turning his attention back to Amadeus. "Where's your transport at?"
"Down the hill. My son just happened to place it in the middle of a bunch of Hoverbots."
"Yea...those! What luck, eh?"
A slight chuckle. "Yes."
Nodding his head, he winced again when Prower stuck the needle in his hand to make the fifth stitch. "I have spare beds for you to sleep here tonight. My wife's cooking isn't as bad as it smells..."
"...I heard that?" Heather snapped back from down the hall.
"I'm afraid we must decline. We need to get back to Knothole..."
"...Sir," Darien calmly interrupted, placing his good hand on Amadeus'. He sighed before he continued, "your answers need time to be explained. I know...we used to fight against one another a long time ago, but what happened on that hill was the closest thing that brought Mobians and Overlanders together as a whole. Unfortunately, that union was also a well laid trap."
Bowing his head, Amadeus turned to his brother. He was still caressing his head for some reason. "You think Elias won't mind, Merlin?"
"I..."
What Merlin's eyes fell upon next made him stop breathing all together as every nerve in his body turned to ice that the green glow he was seeing couldn't thaw.
The man screamed right in front of his face with Merlin almost tasting the Overlander's burning flesh and boiling blood as the man's body was consumed by a blazing green fire. It was when Merlin saw the Overlander's skull become well defined, as the flesh was completely melted away like a river of oozing wax that smoldered with a crimson and deep emerald afterglow, that the fox closed his frightened eyes to the horrific, burning image in front of him and found himself wanting out.
"If you'll...excuse me please. I need a bit of air," he said with terror in his voice.
Amadeus shifted himself in the chair to see his brother leaving at a brisk pace. "Merlin?"
He never heard his name over his churning stomach and the loud screams that echoed in his head. Reaching the knob to the left door, he slammed his hand on it and began to turn it when his sight drifted towards the ground. Slammed up against the wall was a Fire Ant, his face glowing in the green ambient light of the fire, frozen in terror under his folded brim hat as he stared towards the living room. With sympathy beaming towards the ant, Merlin finally felt the urge to open the door.
The sky looked a sickly pale contrast to the cloudless sky the Overlander girl had slammed the door on. The post energy was brutally strong. Instead of heat filtering into his senses, Merlin felt ice consuming every last vein in his body. Sucking in fresh, clean air that he hoped would ease his petrified mind, he darted to the left, throwing his hood off in the same space of time. It had been over six years since his ears had cowered to the sides of his head. Even longer since he felt himself bristle.
Grinding to a halt he searched the grey sky for something to entertain his thoughts. He wished for blue but the clouds never faded. And so he waited. Praying to Aurora that what came next wouldn't purge his soul of his innocence.
To his wrenching heart, a sobbing gasp of air came weeping beside him. Lowering his head down from the sky, Merlin closed his eyes before slowly turning his anxiety filled face to his left. When he opened them, he was meant by an image that tore at his very soul.
Aleutian stood as he peered at his shaking hands, tears raining down his face over his quivering mouth. His wounds across his muzzle and back had been cauterized, turning into glowing shades of violet, resembling crystals. The blood was still there, still dripping off his body as the Guardian starred straight into his hands.
"What have I done..." Aleutian whimpered out with tearful and guilt ridden eyes. "...what have I done!?" he shouted, burring his hands into his face to shun away his vision, crying out hard, deep sobs that shook his body with wails that echoed in the damp air.
When he brought his face up to the sky, Merlin saw the Guardian's welling blue eyes become wide in defeat, surrendering to something that Merlin couldn't fathom until the Guardian spoke; in which after made him loose all barriers to his emotions.
"Father...I want come home...I want to come home, father."
And now...Aleutian comes in from the cold.