Greetings once more.

I open this chapter on realizing I had a certain character absent, and needed to refresh you all with about her and her ordeal. Tell me how I did with her current state.

But the meet and bones to this chapter involves a character who originally I didn't want to take this far in the story. But my journey with him has been an eye opener in my own mind and my own feelings. Yes, Wesson is an orphan. I do want to touch on his backstory but not here. I don't want it to take away the overall picture of this project and it's main character Aleutian.

Will they meet? Not in the near future. I think I'm going to have Wesson as his own chronicle in this...but yes, I do plan on having them meet. We just have to stay committed for it.

Alas, the story. I am caught up, however, I'm still formulating plans to help bring out sense and not have this hashed together at the end. I, and I'm sure you all, have read too many books were that happens.

So Disclaimer; I own nothing of the original characters and I observe the rights of their creators.

Thanks to Sara for the review. I would love to respond to it personally, however it's there is no way to reach you but here. Thanks a'bunch from the bottom of my heart for the motivation.

Enjoy!

The Medicine of Family

By: Mauser

Numb.

Even the feeling was numb.

"Moving...I think I'm moving."

She couldn't open her eyes; nailed shut from sleep, from pain. It came from her right arm; shooting, tingly. Burning. But the motion of her being pushed as she lay–that she knew she felt– was evident.

Coldness laced her body. Was she clothed, or was she covered? Something thin shielded her from the cold but she never lifted her eyelids to see. She couldn't; didn't offer the will to do so. "What's...going on?...where is that...squeeaking..coming...from?" Her lungs were filled with the cold, damp air. They felt numb too.

The squeaking ceased; so did the forward motion. Still, she didn't open her dry eyes; like the desert they felt.

A shunt...a gate or door. She couldn't really tell.

"Ehhhhh..." she moaned; a response from being pushed forward once more.

A stop again. A moment of silence. Then, groans of motors; a falling sensation. The feeling stopped as soon as it began...she thought. Time was so far out of reach.

The same shuts. The same squeaks. A change in direction; pushing backwards.

"Where am I?" she whispered to herself.

But darkness was her answer.

A sudden stop; a sudden turn to the right...or was it left? Her motivation to seek answers or to even find them was gone with her senses.

All she could do was listen; fading voices, drowning voices coming in and out of her consciousness.

"This subject's iron is lo...blood is below minimum to continue...put her in coma stasis...her brain lives for another eighteen hours till then...the other is brain dead...still giving blo..."

Silence...sleep...

At a hundred stories up New Robotropolis gave the effect that Snively was still standing on the ground. Increasing his grip around the metal railing helped combat the rolling wind from his perch on the large observation platform, the upper hangar at his back. Straying his pensive stare to the surrounding structures, some wide at the base but tapering at his vantage point inwards while others were thin and short, constructed with and without windows; embodied under steal and iron with hardly any rock, he would barely see the night sky over the yellow light pollution and the clustered buildings all around him. With the black canvas to draw new ideas forth stained in amber he returned to the large skyscraper in front of him, its windows dark, continuous, separated from the stories above and below them by smooth sheets of grey steel. And between Snively and the structure–which he now remembered was a tank factory converted into creating the Delta-Bot which was about to make its pass and review–a long wide berth. Like a canyon but with a river of asphalt at the bottom, provided one could see it through the lingering haze.

And thus he grumbled at his imposing surroundings. Fatigue was winning out over his motivated self. Between the fast paced morning, that saw nothing afterwards of the phantom echidna nor Rob-O, and the boring oversight Eggman had him do, it was a wonder he could keep his eyes open if not from tearing. He wanted to review the latest data from his project and not his uncle's, but again, fatigue was winning out. Although the latest that he saw was still pleasing, Snively still wanted to study the subjects' vitals so he could still pump their valuable blood to make his new tools become the most efficient and unseen killing machines to date.

Unfortunately, that end of the stick was still untested. Too many variables had to work: the blood to flow through the chasis and armor, if the charging magnetos could sustain the prolonged use the Com-Bot needed to be cloaked. And if the batteries could hold out...He was pretty sure it all could work out, but the doubts kept rolling in. He could never be satisfied unless he saw it cloak first hand. That of which was out of the question. An unscheduled absence would arouse suspicion in his uncle. At this stage, he couldn't afford it.

"So how to test you out?"

It came first as a whin, the sound finding its way through the spaces of the skyscrapers. Soon it became a dull roar, making Snivel tilt his head to the left and stare down the open ravine of steal, glass, and iron. When the collision lights of the bot showed through the gathering pollution haze, Snivel could faintly make out the shape of the Delta-winged bot that was quickly approaching. The twin hyper-turbine engines at full yell was deafening when it passed, the canopy-less bot rolled on its wingtip, exposing the two intake scoops under each wing with its empty missile racks, four in all. Snively shook his head at the sight of the paint job Eggman had decided was a form of art: an eye colored the nose where a canopy should have been constructed, if it were meant to house a pilot, the intakes resembling claws, and lines painted over in red resembling feathers. A bird he didn't know what it was supposed to look like, but a bird nonetheless.

Snively kept his heavy, attuned eyes on the rear of the bot, watching the glow of the afterburners fade as the Delta-Bot rolled further on its side and dashed between two buildings when it nosed up for its turn. And when the screaming engines lost texture in the city, a slow series of claps came from behind him.

"Well done!"

Snively turned to see his obese uncle lightly stepping up behind him, impacting his hands once more before letting them sway to his side as if he were marching. His long mustache ruffled in the high attitude winds, his nose blush red and long, eyes beady, and his red, black, and yellow body suite sketched the bald man's name perfectly.

Eggman.

"Another piece to my already grand puzzle completed," he said with immense pride over something so trivial. "With my latest batch of ships to my fleet getting their fuel, I say things are on track. Don't you, Snively?"

Snively moved away from the railing and raised his timid voice to be heard over the wind. "We are still twenty-five percent from being at full strength. That is what you desire?"

Only a nod confirmed the already laid down plan. "Time and patience, Snively. Sinister things come when we have time and patience. The Rodent and his friends will have their just rewards for pestering me."

Snively said nothing, keeping his face even though he took the advice with annoyance but noted it for his own benefit.

"When can we load this new creation?" the large scientists asked.

"Our escort carriers near the Great Plaines can receive their first wings come three days time," Snively answered with a false pride.

Eggman's silent nod was expected. And so was the carefree hand pushing at Snively's back. He droned on about his hate, his loath of a certain blue hedgehog. Then his ramblings of how the refinery work camp wasn't needed. "Terminate them all tomorrow, Snively. My use for them has run its course." he said.

And he heard it over his cringing self. A senseless job to be done with the push of a button. His plans were on a grander scale than his uncle's. He wanted to tell of his own workings, but those workings didn't fare to well for Eggman's health. That was if they were going to work. To test he needed to have a good challenge to fit the overpriced bill to end his Uncle's life. And where else than to test it on his Uncle's enemies.

As he nodded and listened, he smiled inwardly.

"Keep talking...I'm conspiring."

"Hey, watch it!"

Wesson speared through a line of meandering echidna's on the wet sidewalk to cross the street, sprouting the verbal reaction of the man he'd just cut off. All focus of his situational awareness went by the wayside. So much so that when his boots landed in the street he was met by the blaring horn of a sleek, black hover car which almost didn't stop in time. Wesson twisted himself from the jolt to his senses before gracefully turning back around to his impeded direction. He never saw the driver shake his fist in the car. Instead, he kept going, weaving around a stopped truck and leaping over the curb to the other sidewalk.

Pivoting west, the Legionnaire sprang forward. Every limp brought pain. Every passing shop brought on a building relief. Squeezing by the people in Albion's middle district was trifling to his already burdened mind: Echidna men holding umbrellas for their significant others. Echidna mother's using the latest news dispatches as shelter for their babies that rode in their strollers. They were all resistence to his new war. When he came to a busy intersection, he stopped himself for a brief second, gathered where he was, turned right to the north and pressed on. His arms swung by his side, his left brushing past his holstered pistol while his right clenched his mechanical fingers tightly that much resembled his charged, wet face. "Three blocks," he breathed to himself, passing a building which was lined with limestone columns of ancient architecture, and becoming his landmark.

Passing the first street was an insignificant feat. The second however triggered the stabbing pain of his abdominal muscles cramping. He tried hard to ignore it, hearing the voice of his former sergeants and officers shouting to him it was weakness leaving the body. When he crossed the third street he wondered if the tightening feeling in his throat and his heart was the real weakness. Or were they his drive to bear with the pain and not to let up. He wanted to give into it once he reached the street entrance to the hospital. He wanted to stop and catch his breath when he followed the apex path to the sliding doors of the emergency room. He wanted stop and stare at the sick and injured in the triage lounge. But he didn't act on the temptations.

Riding the elevator up was the only the rest he allowed himself. A nurse and a few doctors rode with him, perplexed at the hard breathing, half-hardwired echidna in their presence. Wesson tried to ignored them by intently focusing on the climbing numbers. And when the bell rang, it was like a starting shot for him to continue, dashing through the door and darting right down the white corridor of the second floor. Stopping at the foot of the door he was met with crushing disappointment once his eyes fell on an empty room.

"I'm too late!"

His head shook left then right, looking for someone who possibly had information. He found it as a purple furred echidna nurse, her hands occupied with a metal tray as she was leaving a room. He didn't let her get far when he rushed up to her, breathing hard.

"W–where is Nata-Le." No response when she looked at him, more so at the meaning of his question than his replaced features. "The wounded Centurion," he explained further, his gritty voice wet with emotion.

"Oh...her. Yeah, they moved her up to orthopedics a short time ago, forth floor," she replied kindly. "She's going for her replacement..."

Wesson never let her get finished, scrambling away from her and seeking another elevator. Again, he watched as the numbers climbed. Again he ignored the gawking inhabitants. When the doors sprang open he filed through them, searched out his destination on the directory board on the wall in front of him, and followed the arrow that pointed down the hall to the right. His pace had slowed dramatically, the sounds his boots echoing along the hallway with every slamming step he took. A left turn brought him to a pair of swinging doors. He fell into them, leaning forward as he lumbered along.

Ten yards later he came to a hard breathing stop when he read the words "authorized personnel only" written on the heavy metal doors in front of him. It had become the barrier of his driving feelings of fulfilment, sending guilt to his stomach that churned with a yearning sensation that he couldn't put down. A gapping breath and a stamp of frustration with his heavy boot answered his indifference to his betrayal against his word. And when he took a second breath, he let it out as moan, almost a sob.

Lifting his arms above his head, Wesson turned around to the right but stopped short when his wide eyes glimpsed inside the waiting room that he had failed to see. The glum lighting in the brown-wallpapered room echoed the mix feelings of the couples' eyes that glared at him. They were the only two in the room, sitting in the back row of chairs by a table, on which perched a lone lamp. Wesson studied them a while longer as they studied him in turn: both holding each other by their hands, comforting each other against their worries for whatever they might be. It was here that he turned away, fearing he was intruding on their time of solitude as they waited.

Within two paces, the young Sergeant heard a deep voice come from inside the room.

"Young man?"

He ignored it, letting his eyes fall on the tile floor and tracing...

"Wesson?"

The questioning voice, still deep, however commanding, to the point that Wesson stopped, straightened and did a slow about-face. The male echidna he saw holding the aged woman was now looking at him with confidence in the middle of the passageway. "Are you a Mr. Wesson?"

He didn't respond at first, letting the question plug into his head and formulate the right answer.

"It's Sergeant Wesson, sir, yes," he finally said, vacantly, still breathing deep but mildly.

The two locked eyes with each other passively before the older male spoke. "My Nata-Le has said much about you...is it true you ran her back to us?"

Wesson felt a warm shiver caress his heart when the man smiled after his question. The Legionnaire's natural hand trembled at his side, looking up at the taller echidna in awe at what he was asking. He never said the reply; he only showed it, lifting the left side of his soaked jacket that exposed Nata-Le's stained violet blood. He never could have predicted what he saw next. A lone tear fell from the man's eye and traced down his muzzle which held onto a carefree smile. It was hard to fathom what the meaning of this response was for Wesson. He figured the man was about to break down completely when he glimpsed inside Wesson's jacket at his own daughter's stained blood.

But smile?

"Ames!...Ames, don't leave me here alone!" came the shrilled voice from inside waiting room.

The older echidna turned back to the room then returned his wrinkled eyes back to Wesson. "Come in, son. Please come wait with us."

Wesson looked to the floor and then inwards to himself. "I...I don't need show myself to her mother like this."

Ames frowned somberly as he stepped away from the door and up to the Legionnaire. To Wesson's surprise he took him by his cybernetic hand, studied it briefly before tugging him along with it. The Sergeant had to look up to see if he was getting the message right. Ames wasn't tall for Wesson was short, but the smile from the height that separated them was still belittling. It was enough to lift his boots from their entrenchment on the floor and be lead inside the room.

The mother gasped the instant she finally got a good look at Wesson being towed behind Ames, but her husband lifted his hands for easement. "Car-Le, please. Don't be timid. He means no harm." Ames then clasped his hand over the other on Wesson's arm and brought him closer. "This is who are daughter was asking for and who we should be grateful to have with us right now."

The temper and the fear Wesson once saw went away with a relieved sigh from Car-Le. For a moment there was no expression on her elegant face when it wasn't lashing out for some ill reason, but then it brightened to a disarming smile that made Wesson feel nervous out of not knowing how to accept it.

"So, you are Wesson," she stated graciously.

He lowered his voice down to a whisper, shielding all that could hear him from his raspy, bawd growl. "Sergeant Wesson, ma'am."

Car-Le's face squinted when she didn't hear him quite right. "Come again?"

"Sergeant Wesson, ma'am," he repeated, unfortunately returning back to his gritty, raspy voice.

"Well..." Car-Le swallowed before continuing on; Wesson had a feeling why, "well, come sit with us," she finished, laying her hand down by the chair next to her.

Taking it, with Ames sitting beside him, Wesson didn't turn his head or adjust himself to converse. Instead, he reverted back to his bearing; eyes forward, blank; hands on his lap, and his knees and feet closed in.

When Car-Le spoke after a long, deafening silence, her voice was shaking that made Wesson wonder if he should've declined the invitation. "W–what happened to your voice. You haven't gotten sick from being out in the rain. Look at you...your soaked head to toe."

Wesson's cybernetic irus fidgeted to Car-Le before finding its spot back on the far wall. "I...I had my throat cut about four months ago."

Ames responded before his wife could gasp. "Dear Aurora, son. Is that the story for the rest of you?"

A timid, nervous nod was the response.

"Where do you come from?" Car-Le asked after gaining her composure. "I don't remember seeing someone like you around here."

"I'm not from around here," Wesson said evenly. "My home is on Angel Island with the Legion."

"Ahh...that answers some things," Ames stated in a mocking wonder. "Is this Legion a resistence movement? We've heard much about the occupation on the Island."

A curt shake of the head and a fast conclusion that he wasn't going to explain who he calls his superiors. "In a way it is, sir, but I really don't want to...um...frighten your wife about things–"

"It's understandable, son. Maybe over dinner or a drink you can explain. You are old enough to drink, aren't you?"

"I'm only seventeen, sir," came Wesson's sighing reply, his ears ringing from the way Ames kept addressing him as.

"Dear Aurora. From the looks of you, my boy, I'd say you can forgo the age limits. Looks like you deserve it."

Car-Le laid her hand on Wesson's robotic arm, studying it some. "Is this what my Nata-Le is getting?" she asked, the temptation to cry was evident.

"Um...Ye--"

"Oh, come Car-Le. Don't burden the boy," said Ames, his stare reaching over to his wife. "Can't you see he's all shook up as it is."

"It's not that, sir," Wesson replied softly.

"I'm sorry, Wesson. I didn't mean..."

Car-Le voice trailed when she noticed Wesson's eyes wandering down to her and Ames' hands on his arms, observing further that he was uncomfortable about it.

"We're not making you feel bad, are we..." She saw a tear come down the other side of his face. "What's wrong, dear?"

Wesson couldn't explain it right then. The warm touches he felt, even through the simulated nerves of his right arm, somehow unearthed repressed memories of warming smiles, caring hands, and gentle voices. Those voices reverberated loudly in his ears without the true form of who spoke them being present. He fought to picture them, he knew who they were after hearing them. "Son," said a firm but kind voice. He repeated the voice over and over in his head, hoping it would spark a picture.

But none came; and for his fruitless efforts he broke down.

He felt the gentle squeeze, saw it came from Ames.

"Son, what are you crying about...we haven't hurt you, have we? You are our hero...we can't hurt our hero."

Wesson rolled his hand into a frustrated fist. "Son...you keep calling me son," he sobbingly fought to say. "I...I haven't heard that being called to me in a long time."

Ames and Car-Le eyed each other as if they had ended someone's world.

"I can't remember their faces," Wesson hammered under his crying whisper. "I can't remember my parents. I can only hear them."

"You're without family?" Car-Le asked in sympathy.

His mouth quivered, forcing him to lay silent but he nodded his head in reply.

"Well, Wesson," said Ames, his deep voice growing soft, "you have a family in us. It's for you for the taking. You deserve it for what you did for us. It's all I can offer you for saving our only treasure."

He kept his chin at his chest, saying nothing but seemly taking in Ames words as a breath of free air. And soon after, Ames and Car-Le listened to Wesson's crying die when he was overcome by sleep. An hour passed with silence, Ames supporting the sleeping Legionnaire over his shoulder, never letting his hand go, until a brown echidna with a white coat labeling him as a doctor came marching in while taking off his surgical mask. Ames was the first to stand with Car-Le waking Wesson, who jolted right to life to her surprise, and helped him stand to his feet.

"She's doing fine," said the surgeon. "The nerve stimulates are keeping her asleep and we are running the beginning diagnostics of her arm now. The nerve attachment went along very smooth. No real damage that we can see and nothing beyond repair after a few weeks of physical therapy."

"What about infection? Are you using hydraulic actuators?" Wesson asked hastily.

"Hydraulics? No, we haven't used those in awhile," the doctor answered flatly. "So, no infection will come of it. We use flex joints."

Wesson nodded, casting his sight at Ames and Car-Le.

"You worry too much, son," Ames observed with a light smile.

"Why I've stayed alive so long," Wesson replied in earnest.

"Can we see her, Doctor?" Car-Le asked eagerly.

The brown echidna pinched his lips and nodded. "Yes. Please follow me."

I hope you have all enjoyed this chapter and of course the next.

Eggman/Dr. Robotnick, to me, is one character from the other stories I have read on here that has never been described but by a few authors. Red Mage 04 did it great with "Ghost from the Past." But I have also seen Snively taken a backseat in many other's, so he is the main villian in this instead of the Fat-Dude! To me, Snively is the far more danger than Eggman in the comics. Hey, he was the killed the first Robotnick in Sonic #50.