Hello everyone, and for good majority of us, welcome back. And yes, this means me too.
Sorry for the long delay in updating but work and stress of work have kept me from my humble home for two months and my writing for equally long. I've only modified one sentence and formulated another in my wanderings across these United States. I do, however, feel my head coming back to grips with myself and am looking to finish this whole project while I'm off the road.
To this chapter; not one of my better titles, but I hope one of my good chapters in terms of action. Warning to some, graphic detail if your minds can construed it, warning for others, it's a little long, but my dear editor tells me it seemed to go by fast (possibly to fast: yikes!) My only fear is is that I haven't made the small things fit, or I've forgotten a few key things from previous chapters and didn't place the consequence in this. Do search and destroy and tell me so. Helps me greatly.
Disclaimer: I observe the rights of the original creators of the characters presented here except those of my own.
Please review and, again, tell me how I'm doing. Every little bit helps.
The Great Mobian Plains Breakup
By: Mauser
TONGK!
Rotation of the head; servos to move torso toward the ground; a pebble still rolling near its feet on the arid, tan soil.
For the computer processing until inside the round bulk of the Eggbot, its base coat a tundra green while giving contour to its shape was a light shade of yellow, to calculate the origin of the small rock that careened and struck its ever smiling head could have seemed very simple if it'd been observing its sensory system a fraction better. Actuating its servos in its hips to move its legs, the bot turned to the left slightly, scanning the three huts somewhat in front of it. Cutting the nearest hut at the southwestern corner with its body, it flipped a few different imaging programs through its ocular sensors and began to–
Green eyes; juvenile. That was all the Eggbot with its mighty mean looking plasma launcher could discern before he saw this mischievous looking bobcat taking aim around the hut with his crude, pre-technology weapon and–
TONGK!
"YOU, FUR-BALL! COME HERE!" instantly shouted the Eggbot in what it could compute as the proper voice and meanness to establish its authority.
It took two steps to put action to words. But it was in two steps that the little bobcat found a pebble behind the hut where he was taking cover around, placed it in the middle of the large, and stiff rubber band, and let the substance spring forward to reform its stretched self.
TONGK!
This time the rock impacted its metal, round hulk. Pure to its programmed directive, the Eggbot charged itself further towards the kid, its plasma launcher leveling but not powering up. There was a program formulating for the juvenile's punishment.
In four steps the bot witnessed the little brat, that its system reasoned was the right term for the misfit, stick his tongue out at it. Another infraction; another program for punishment. The Eggbot surmised its lard creator would possibly watch the whole ordeal...actually the child's ordeal in the end. Its program was to look for such abnormal mannerisms, especially in the young ones. Let the Eggman's worship of Gears forbid this little fur ball turns out to be another pestilent Sonic. And on cue it seemed, at a four foot interval between the bot and the corner of the wall, the bobcat misfit disappeared in a dash around the hut.
"IT WOULD BE BEST IF YOU REJOIN–" Holding a pause, the bot rounded the corner before giving its last command–
And before its CPU was ultimately shut down, what its fixed ocular sensors saw as its finger tried to work the trigger mechanism to its bulky, round plasma launcher tube was a red echidna, his face coursing with anger and strain, his purple irises looking as if he was about to enjoy his actions, and a large white fist...with two spiked knuckles jutting towards–
The Guardian's hand slammed with a fierce raking motion across the Eggbots rotating head. A loud metal THUD echoed through Knuckles' hand, joints, and bones while feeling the meat of his fingers exhume a comforting pain of driving his hand inside the hulk of the bot. Pulling his right fist back, he along with Sonic, who was plastered against the hut wall, watched the bot crumble as the lack of information couldn't power its hydraulics to keep itself up. Another THUD on the ground and a long sigh came from Mikhail just beside Sonic.
"Well, well, one down, two fists full to go," came the heavy Slavic voice of the beagle.
A voice from between Sonic and the Guardian made both kneel down in a fury to shut him up. "Hey, that was...emph!"
Sonic got the kid's mouth with his hand first. "Dex, little tike, 'ya need to be quiet." Glancing up to Mikhail, Sonic gave an encouraging smile, "We got your play toy."
"Da, and my biggest thanks. Now let me see how I work this thing.""What!" hissed Christian from Mikhail's left. Looking over his left shoulder in dismay he swore Leo's fur was going to turn pure white. If not him, then Antoine's. "I thought you said you knew how to use this?" he managed to breath after gathering the shared consensus beside him.
"Da! Point-n-click, but its power procedure–it different."
"Oh, moi," sweated Antoine from beside Leo.
Knuckles piercingly rolled his eyes and had them fall on Christian. "You were trained on something like this, right?"
"Some," Christian admitted with a nervous tone. Stepping forward and away from Leo, he grabbed Mikhail and cautiously strode past the blue blur before picking up the large, brown tube. At first he felt a spell of being insignificance cast upon him when he studied the red, green and blue buttons on the side of the trigger housing–not to mention the fear of being caught in the great open expansion of the south area. But a training class in Legion weaponry did creep into his mind, voice for his finger to press the largest, rectangular button just above the trigger housing. A harsh wine screamed to life, and so did the plasma launcher.
"Problem one–no problemo," Sonic said, very cocky. "Now what about that kitty-cat with the sulky vibe?"
Leo did his best to be silent as he stepped towards Sonic. "I'll let him now we're ready."
"Yeah, but what about the starting shot?" Knuckles asked in a harsh whisper.
"The roving guards won't pass by here in another minute, but I'm sure, along with Lemeans, that they will be ordered to search for hiders and roamers...like us."
"Great," snarled Knuckles, "more speculations. What about behind us?"
Leo just shrugged defensively. Then he turned around and with a spring in his step, and large feet, pushed away from the six.
"Whatz about moi?" harped Antoine. "I don't have a weapon."
Christian turned to the coyote in the shredded blue uniform blazer in almost dismay. "C'mon, soldier...like what we're doing now. Get one of their weapons and start fighting!"
A raise of shoulders in Antoine's defense, but pure sarcasm from Sonic. "Hey, give him a break, he can't lift one of those chopping swords."
"I can, too," cried out Antoine now in his own defense.
"They heavy, friend," said Mikhail thoughtfully, all the while peaking around the corner with his droopy ears clinging to the wall, the launcher pointed up from its balancing act on his black boot.
"Sonic," Antoine began in a sneer, "you get my saber you told me to leave–"
Sonic waved both hands at Antoine's chest. "Whoa–whoa dude, when I can."
"Yea," added Knuckles, "this isn't going to be a cake walk from here on out. Just help me bash some of them and get the prisoners out, okay 'Ant?"
A hard affirming nod came from the coyote. "Oui!"
"Great, 'Twan," whispered Sonic, "now prove to Bunnie that you're a fighter like us."
Antoine smiled from Sonic's boisterous remark. He will!
As for Knuckles, he eyed Mikhail's back behind him and lined himself against the wall. He let an eye stray from the corner of the wall, peering out slightly to see if the bot patrolling the front gate was passing in-between the double fence line. Nope, and with an affirming smug grin he looked to the east. All quiet expect the rousing noises to the rear. And it wasn't Sonic, Twan, or the squabbling dog and former EST officer. There wasn't even a notion of wind.
"But that's gonna change very soon,"
A long casting eye fell on a certain blue hedgehog. "Hey Sonic..."
How the white envelope could drown out the clattering of metal plates being mauled with spoons and forks, Lemeans could only stare and wonder just for a brief instant until the real drawing of his attention filtered back into his mind. He held it like an unopened letter from a girl long ago he'd used to love, used to depend on until her very untimely, gruesome death, studding the small five by four inch envelope as he rested his back against the northwestern most hut. How long had he'd been looking at it, and why was he so bold to do so in the openness where the strength of the bots had just multiplied?
"Life, Cane...Life," he whispered softly to himself. The message hidden inside the envelope was life...life that needed to be warned.
A shadow crept over him, sparking his mind back to the flat arid landscape and up to the approaching figure.
"Twenty-six gallons, Lemeans," smiled the green hawk acting like a halo over him.
"That's all?" inquired the leopard worriedly. But deep down, there was a gripping fright strangling him.
A taller shadow passed over him, Lemeans only seeing the ears of Leo coming around Henry's back. "Make it twenty-five," the hare said quietly.
Lemeans could see Henry's mind racing, and his was too. The gathered conclusion in their gazes: it could all go down in the next microsecond. "Well, then," Lemeans gestured with a wave of his left hand, pocketing his envelop in his left breast pocket with his other, "why don't you help this old beaten cat up and gather our people for a story. A nice meal is deserving," he chorused grandly.
Leo came to his left side, helping him up with his cane while Henry steadied the old leopard.
It wasn't until he was halfway to his feet when an Eggbot from the line shouted to the mostly sitting crowd. "EVERYONE STAND...PLEASE."
Lemeans' face raced over to Leo's, descrying an aghast look that he was sure was mutual between them. They both had never heard the bots say something polite inside the camp. Ever! Their orders had always been filled with disdain, distrust, and insults. Now it was kindness.
"Kill them with kindness." came a remarked that slithered into Lemean's head.
"PLEASE, GATHER YOURSELVES UP AND COME TOWARDS THE ENTRANCE OF THE CAMP," elaborated a bot, Lemeans finding it came from the black and red one that came with the two squads of reenforcements.
"What's the meaning of this." Jerking his head, Lemeans watched as the grey kola stepped forward from his left, standing amidst the still sitting crowd. Servos were being operated, but Lemeans not knowing from which bot. Then he heard the heavy foot steps racing around the corner of the hut from the main entrance of the camp. Four Eggbots appeared, brushing past him, Henry and Leo, placing themselves around the outer edge of the prisoners.
"THE MEANING IS SPECIAL. DOCTOR EGGMAN HAS ORDERED YOU ALL TO BE RELEASED FROM YOUR CAPTIVITY!"
"Then why do we need to gather around?" Lemean asked harshly, his English accent fluctuating to that of a major in an army full of misfits.
"DON'T MAKE THINGS COMPLICATED FOR YOURSELVES!" retorted the bot, looking Lemeans square in the eyes.
An Eggbot with a large broad sword appeared beside the black and red one, Lemeans watching closely as the new bot to the conversation seemed to stalk than be like a prophet. "THEY'RE GETTING SUSPICIOUS!"
"About what?" screamed Bridget, the lynx rising along with her son.
"Oh, dear Aurora–child stop and sit back down!" Lemeans shouted to himself.
No sooner when the young mother had made her own suspicious clear, the harsh whine and hums of weapons charging up bathed the bristling air. "EVERYONE ON YOUR FEET, NOW!" ordered the leading bot, picking up a small child and throwing him to his shoes.
Lemeans tried to move to get the kid, but several lower pitched hums came streaking across the sky. It was a flying Eggbot, its round hulk with wings slewing sideways, gliding in from the north, its main auto cannon perched underneath its fixated grinning face–charging up. And when he thought one was bad enough, a second appeared over the hut, hoovering slowly overhead above the now frightened and screaming mobians.
"GO SEARCH THE REST OF THE CAMP!"
A loud beep of confirmation came from the four bots behind them, all sporting weapons from a broad sword, a arm mounted plasma thrower, to the two purple bots holding jousts and shields.
Lemeans' heart sank when they rounded the first row of huts. If any explosion, any loud discharge of electrodes to deadly orbs of heat raked the air, the jig was up, and everyone was dead–
"They're holding up behind the southern western hut," came Leo's whisper in Lemeans' pointed ears.
He sighed briefly...but just briefly.
And with renewed confidence, he inhaled for a sharper, accusing voice. "So you're going to take to murdering us."
The black and red bot turned in Lemeans direction but began strafing sideways toward the north fence line. "WE'RE MACHINES! WE DON'T MURDER!"
"Come again! Then explain to me the day before?"
"ORDERS!" it said, a few bots closing beside it now, Lemeans estimating with the arm mounted blasters of the three, getting positioned for a nice crossfire for a better kill zone.
"It's still murder," shouted a female mobian from the crowd.
But to Lemeans' dismay, everyone was following the commands. Everyone began standing. Fear had control over primal instincts.
Seeing the four bots appear then disappear down the row of huts made Christian breathe out a sigh of relief. Carefully moving his head away, clasping his shirt tail from flapping in the unexpected breeze and alerting the bots, he beamed his gaze around Antoine and Mikhail to Knuckles and Sonic, both pressed against the wall and looking around the south corner. "We better start doing something."
Knuckles tilted his over from the other side of the hut. "The roving bot is coming this way."
"We bag dat one," proclaimed Mikhail. "Can you get ones on ground."
"Not all!" Sonic seethed frantically.
Christian almost bolted to Knuckles and Sonic. "Guardian, you at least need to get the towers. Knock out the towers and they can't hose us down."
The emerald eyes of Sonic met Knuckles' violet hues. They both nodded. Then, like an unspoken word passed between them they stepped away from the hut just enough to get into the open space, both holding each other's stares, watching each other's back.
"Like we been practicing, Rad?" Sonic smirked.
"You know the targets?" Knuckles replied, casting a look away from Sonic and attempting to see past the hut towards the gate.
Sonic beamed an assuring wink toward the four mobians, Dextar watching with thrilled excitement. "Hey, kid, check out this slingshot!"
Sonic extended his arms out in front of him, Knuckles latching onto both the hedgehog's gloved hands with an iron grip. An assuring nod was all Knuckles gave Sonic before he started to pivot is left foot around his right. Sonic began running slowly, Knuckles pushing his right shoe into the ground and completing the first turn of a circle, speeding him and Sonic up, giving the hedgehog almost into a full run that for him seemed like a jog. Their second completed revolution saw Sonic's feet skipping across the ground, and by the third, Knuckles was kicking at the ground with his right foot, balancing him and the now whirling Sonic on the toes of his left. Dust now began to fly up; Sonic's shoes had now left the ground.
And at this moment, when Knuckles could feel Sonic's hands slipping from his mitts, Sonic gave a smug smile and very sharp wink!
Knuckles released his grip; Sonic becoming nothing more than a blue bolt as his body and figure became enveloped in a blur of colbolt.
The wind howled in his pointed ears as he raced around the hut...not fazing him. His emerald eyes began to water a little from the air drying them out...so he blinked. He focused on the his first target, a lone bot, yellow he thought he saw the colar of, standing with it's plasma launcher aimed at the crowd of Mobian prisoners in the little wooden guard tower. "Not gonna stand a chance!"
Tucking his head toward his knees, and within the one second of his send off to flight, Sonic stiffened his quills and in three feet he'd done two spins.
He crashed through the wood, rolling across the planked floor in his ball, cutting the Eggbot down the middle, disintegrating the bot's arm and leg to flinging shards of metal, ripping its metal torso open and on the way through, severing and taking wires and other mechanical pieces with him as the living saw barreled through the other side of the guard tower. To make sure he had enough momentum to carry him through to the second tower in front of him, he strayed a foot on the floor as he exited out in furry of splintered wood.
The second guard went just as easy, taking him through the other side but mostly intact on the outside–until its metal carcass landed on a fence pole, spearing through the hulk and killing the bot right off. The loud thuds reverberated though Sonic's skull, but his mind was racing through it all, telling him to come out of his crusted ball. He landed on an adjacent pole with his red and white shoes, pushing off it just as fast as he hit, tumbling himself one last time in to a spin that was aimed at a flying Eggbot. Gravity was a great help in sawing his way right down the middle of the now twisted floating hulk of metal and wires.
Sonic landed hard out of his spin, bracing his impact with his right hand and left knee. The floating Eggbot he just torn through crashed subsequently, leaving the Plains in silence now, and the hedgehog in his kneeling position and his back turned.
He began to slowly stand after a moment, feeling something was definitely wrong. He wasn't shot at, nor was he spoken to. So he turned, casually and surprisingly at the world he just spun into. Where his eyes came to rest was on a black and red bot that possessed no weapons, but was possibly the brains of the outfit. To Sonic's internal dismay which was also laughing its guts out, he watched on as the bots began to study him, the row behind the lead bot inching closer like a curious tribe to see the foreigner.
"I'm waiting, sleezbots!"
Sonic saw something that made his head tilt over slightly and to the left; the roving bot between the fence line seemed to be the only machine making any sense. It was running... and towards him! Sonic could see him when he passed between the open gaps of the line of Eggbots, popping in and out as it tried to clear the first hut that Knuckles and the rest were hiding behind. It had a long way to go to get to him though, Sonic surmised, watching the whole hilarious scene take place right in front of him. In fact, he shook himself just make sure he wasn't in a loopy dream or hadn't suffered from his very first concussion.
Then he smiled, tapping his shoes before raising his high, mocking voice, feeling his eyes starting to ring, like the show was really about to begin. "Hey... been looking for someone cool and blue?"
The lead bot looked at Sonic a second more before its vocal possessing unit ignited the air:
"PRIORI–"
A sudden shriek torched the air and before Sonic could blink, and the bot in front of could release the rest of Eggman's primary order, the bot running between the fence line disappeared in a sudden burst of dust, smoke and parts, the blast's shock wave carrying on the barbed wire fence like a rippling wave, striking the lead Eggbot enough to make it jerk forward. The crowd screamed from the explosion, and Sonic charged forward and smashed his fist into the weaponless bot. It didn't have a fleeting chance to stay up right, Sonic carrying it forward with his hand still in the machine's chest cavity, stopping suddenly and jutting his arm to release it.
The bot's lifeless hulk smashed into a sword toting Eggbot, knocking it to the ground.
But for Sonic, there was no time to spare for anything. He was now the most prized target of the gathered machines and he was completely surrounded by them, and too many innocent cannon fodder in-between.
"Everyone run to rear!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. He started to point to the east, the direction Lemeans wanted them to go–
He almost lost his arm when a red plasma bolt hissed under his forearm and scorched the dirt ground beside his shoes. All Sonic could do was run, and opposite of his pointed direction, only looking up to see where the bolt came from when he felt himself become a suitable good moving target.
"Man, where do those things come from!?" he growled to himself, his eyes taking only a small glimpse of another flying Eggbot, its color green, but its auto-cannon spewing red plasma bolts in his direction.
He swerved to the left some, felling the sudden heat of a round slicing at the ground near him, watching the fence rise up as his increasing speed took him closer. His mind blinked and he was spinning, quills stiffened and fingers crossed. He couldn't maneuver as well as he could upright, but he'd gotten enough speed up to make the bot begin to shoot ahead of him, however not far enough that its rounds raked the ground behind him, tracing a line of the hedgehogs slicing path through both fences.
But the bot had the hedgehog dead to rights. Its calculation of its next burst of plasma had Mobius' hero locked in for martyrdom, its cannon lifting up, ready to peel off–
Knuckles had cleared the second hut in the center row when Sonic had spun through the fences, jumping onto the third at a full sprint and reaching the edge. He leapt with both his feet, dreads flapping at his back and shoulders in the fall, his body leaning forward with his right hand cocked back all the way at the elbow past his ear, leaving his left out front, his twin knuckles like sights to a weapon over the screaming crowd below. A surge of energy filtered through his body; the chaos power he was born with. It was the last peace he had before his enraged warrior took over his soul.
His fist shot out like a steam driven hammer, smashing into the flying Eggbot through its metal skin, crushing a few vital CPU's that instantly cutoff all flight programs, and with the Guardian's now added weight and pure force, bot and echidna plummeted to the ground.
As the minor pain and gratification slipped from his psyche Knuckles lifted himself just high enough to check over his shoulder, witnessing Antoine hurrying in a full run towards him. "Twan, get with Lemeans!"
"Look outz!" screamed the coyote's french clarinet voice.
It was just in the nick of time that Knuckles felt the shadow of an Eggbot tower over him in his kneeling posture of the flying bot he had just slain. His purple eyes grew very wide when he caught the gleam of the raised broad sword over the bot's head.
The sword came down, and Knuckles' left arm shot up and blocked the strike with his forearm, rotated it and clasped his hand at the hilt of the weapon. Pulling the bot forward, and pushing from the dead carcase with his legs, the echidna gave a powerful uppercut that launched the bot's torso and legs skywards, while Knuckles' grip ripped the arms off the droid. Wires and sparks exhumed from the twitching limbs as the Guardian was breathing hard and aching at his right hand. Where the bot landed was anyone's guess but for Knuckles it was out of the game.
"Hey, Ant!" he shouted over his labored breathing, turning his face toward the running coyote, "Got'ya a sword."
Standing was the only thing that went through his mind now. Climbing to his feet, he began stripping the limbs off the sword, looking also in front of him for any new targets. People were everywhere and the bots that he could see were in the mix–
"Ah great–"
He was thrown forward with a sudden rush of air, his body feeling a pang of heat and pain when he slammed onto the ground. A ringing sound presided in his ears and his throbbing head. Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, hot shards of something pelted his back, head and legs. Rolling his head over behind him, he could see a plum of newly created smoke and several slain hulks of twisted burning metal strung out on the dry ground.
"Geeze, guys–little close?" he groaned partially to himself after realizing who's handy work had just exploded behind him.
"I'd say it was a good shot, no! Four bots with one round!"
Christian wasn't amused at all. "You just about killed my Guardian, Mikey!"
"Da! Good save, too, comrade!"
The brown echidna didn't know if he deliberately shook his head or whether it was the sudden rush of adrenalin coursing through his veins. He stood as fast as his shaking legs could manage, grabbing Mikhail by the arm and rushing him forward tot he east of the compound. It had been a long time since Christian felt this surge of total fear mixed with utter excitement, his vision focusing on everything in front of him: the passing hut, the next one ahead, the fence line–scrambling for cover beside the wall, peering out slightly. Everything was quaking to him, his nerves twitching from every scream and cartusion of blasts.
"Christian?" Mikhail called in a course whisper. "How's our tower?"
The EST officer peered an eye out, observing the frantic state of the bot in the rear guard tower. It was pacing, its arm blaster searching for a target. Leaning back, the echidna took a breath and reached over to Mikhail.
"Launcher," he breathed out in the hot air. His lungs were working way too much.
"Easy, friend," Mikhail cautioned, handing Christian the large tube with the sporty looking trigger handle.
The thing weighed a ton as he shouldered the bulky launcher just beside his head. An ocular sight was fitted to the side and in good position for Christian to place his eye over without hardly any discomfort. His index finger found the trigger, his sight watched the power level rise on a bar to full green beside the digital, red crosshair inside the ocular. Everything looked normal...he couldn't say the same for the feeling.
Christian leaned out, Mikhail bracing himself, almost squeezing himself against the wall, watching the echidna go to work.
Placing the tiny crosshair on the bot, Christian gave no thought how or when he should place his finger on the trigger. He just did. The launcher bucked severely on his shoulder, a white cloud of smoke flared around him and Mikhail. But the guard tower erupted when the large red plasma ball connected to the bot on the inside, spewing fire and black smoke to the four winds. The structure began to fail as well, tumbling like a falling tree, it crashing on the fence line.
"Doors open!" Christian shouted, before taking aim at another section in the fence. From the screams that was beating at his already aching head, trying desperately to keep his flash backs at bay from Eggman's triumph and murder of his people in Echindolopis, the now what felt like he was a reinstated EST officer waited antagonizingly for the green bar to reach the top inside the sight. The launcher purred in his hands, the bar reaching its full height.
He squeezed the trigger, another buck followed by a less than intent explosion of fire, smoke and dust the created another hole in the fence line dead ahead with the residual wave rippling through the rest of it.
"Time to get Lemeans," Mikhail said, slapping Christian on the arm. "By the way, I'm better shot."
But Christian didn't really care. He was giving his past nightmare back to the machines and the Overlander who planted them there.
"Kripta."
"Sounds like our utensils have gotten us a way out!"
Unfortunately Lemeans wasn't in agreement with Henry. Not when a blaster bolt severed a male rat's life right in front him. "Get everyone going! Do it now Henry, while we've got a bloody chance!" he ordered, holding up the wall to the northern hut with his back.
Twisting his head, he descried Knuckles smashing a red bot with a plasma arm amongst the crowd. Just behind the crimson echidna was Antoine, swinging a broadsword as hard as he could at an Eggbot with the same weapon. The slice was parried very harshly, sending the coyote backwards to the ground.
He rolled, his fluted voice screaming out as the Eggbot slashed at the dirt. Completing the roll actually gave him an opening though. As the bot almost effortlessly rose its sword above its head, Antoine giving no thought to muscle memory, stabbing his blade inside the bots chest. Apparently to Lemeans it did the trick, for the bot staggered back before submitting to its death and gravity.
And with this the bot numbers were indeed dwindling...but not enough.
"Leo!" Lemeans shouted to the roar of the screams, grunts and the occasional BOOM!
"Right here!" came the hare's distant reply.
Lemeans checked over his left shoulder, finding Leo gathering as many kids as he could and hustling them over in the leopard's direction. Crutching over his cane, the old spy in the ripped open shirt worked his way closer to the hare. "Where's Bridget?"
Five kids scramble past him when Leo made his reply, "Getting our sick ones in the middle hut."
"Liz?" Lemeans shouted next.
He watched in painstaking horror as Leo's hand directed his gaze over to the face down body of the female mouse who everyone had tried so hard to keep alive the night march before. Smoke floated from her back, Lemeans wincing with a pang in his heart when his mind envisioned the girls spinal fluid turning to steam and killing her.
"We need our own!"
Checking around him, he found the dead hulk of a Eggbot, its blaster arm steaming from a recent discharge. "Leo!" Lemeans voiced, "help me hot wire that weapon. We can possibly buy us more time!"
Leo nodded, grabbing Lemeans' arm and rushing the both of them as fast as the limping leopard could manage.
A plasma bolt licked the air between him and the now eastward turning crowd. "Knuckles!"
The Guardian spun around, delivering a round house kick, making sure his metal laces endured the blunt of the attack, and collapsed the metal chest wall of an Eggbot before the thing could swing its sword at his neck. His foot felt numb, but in all other aspects...great. "Yeah!" he shouted into the air, knowing the voice he heard calling for him was Lemeans.
"Cover us, we're gonna make us a weapon!"
Knuckles pivoted towards Lemeans' roving voice. "What!?"
But he was met with a raging river of Mobians instead, his hand needling through them until he had to use his arms to swim. Just when he thought he was close to getting to the hare and leopard, a purple Eggbot appeared behind the crowd, joust in hand along with a shield.
The bot jutted the lance, but Knuckles sidestepped out of the way...unfortunately to the right. All he could do was clasp his arms together and hope the shield was not going to hurt so bad. He was almost deadly wrong. Like being rammed by a hurtling safe, Knuckles watched his sight from the bot dwindle as the impact took him straight in the air before gravity had a chance to reclaim him. He landed right on his tail, making him grunt in pain, and commanding his body to roll somewhere.
"Oww!"
He tried to get up. He tried to gather his senses. But the ringing in his head was more pronounced. His back was throbbing uncontrollably, his tail felt like someone had straighten it and them jammed straight up his spine. And what was worse, all this burn he was collecting in his senses ordered him to stay.
Disobeying became a chore. He worked feverishly to get back on his shoes. He had to, the bot that knocked him down was in full running charge with its lance straight toward him.
One foot planted, knee still touching the ground. His strategies where racing through his mind faster than he could pick out which one to use. "Forget it!" He ironed himself on the ground, readying his left hand to divert the lance and give the bot a refund on the his blow. Knuckles heart skipped when the point came deadly close to his chest. He swung out his left arm, driving the joust over his left shoulder, and when the bot was about the use the shield again, the Guardian pounded his right fist straight into it.
The shield dented and the bot went flying backwards like a ball with flailing arms, landing onto another Eggbot.
Breathing out before inhaling, Knuckles held onto his stance on the ground for a while longer. It was just in that while when Antoine's voice echoed in a scream. The coyote was pinned on the ground, Dexter was doing his best to splat the straddling Eggbot with rocks from his slingshot...and Knuckles' attention seeing two more bots coming from that direction, facing him down.
A glance past his shoulder, a lone flying Eggbot. All Sonic could do was grumble at his situation. From all the flimflam about his blue and tan hide, all he could get to chase after him was one lousy flying Eggbot.
"Man, where do they come from?"
His eyes darted forward and to the left. "Hey, a wheat field!"
Dashing at a leisurely pace for him–a stomach churning turn for others–the blue hedgehog turned into his new heaven. Slowing himself, he started to jog his way inside, looking up and around for the Eggbot. "Yep, it's still–oops!"
His body landed chest first in a nice looking clearing when his legs got entangled with something hard. How on Mobius could such a cool hedgehog go for a nice trip? His answer at his feet was a long scabbard sheathing a sword. "Ah, thanks Ant for the ride." Keeping still–besides his voice–Sonic strayed an eye over his back, curling his arms underneath his chest ready to push him up at a moments notice. He didn't hear a hum, nor could he see the red painted Eggbot flying around. With one coast clear, he stood up slowly, wandering his head around, particularly towards the east.
"Wow," he said dumbfounded to himself. "It may be painted red, but its primer coat is yellow."
The bot had turned back towards the east. Which was just groovy: "NOT!" Turning completely around, the hedgehog floated his darting eyes toward the west. A dust cloud was approaching. "Ah, spiffy, re–en-stupid-forcements! So, what's a hedgehog to do now?"
It was laying at his feet.
Picking up Antoine's saber, Sonic tossed it in the air like he would a baseball player looking to get the next batter, rolling the dormant weapon over and over while looking east where he was going to pitch the thing. Deciding that the slapping of a thousand wheat straws wasn't his idea of fun, Sonic made his way back out of the field to the road, pointed himself dead-east at the prison, looked behind him to see the growing dust storm behind him, spread his feet underneath him, smirked and took off in a hard sprint. In no time was his world an instant blur of tan, brown and passing lines and holes.
Cocking his right arm backwards with the sword becoming more like a spear, Sonic jumped slightly in the air, landing his feet toes up and heels planted to make him come to a very sudden stop. When shoe and sole met ground, he hurled the saber through the air. "Happy be-day, 'Twan."
It looked like the saber could go on forever, becoming a rising object before distance created a falling dot. Away from Sonic's sight, though its limitations of flight were soon to be known, as the wind cut down the speed of the scabbard blade, making it become a mere projectile without any devices or additions to make it fly true, only to careen trough the air like a tumbling rock.
But the mark was almost true...Antoine's weapon stopped its flight when it smacked the side of a hut and landed on the ground just seventeen feet away from him. Unfortunately for the coyote, he was too busy squirming to the right just as the Eggbot's sword sliced through the air, then to the ground Antoine had been upon.
"AAAhhhhh!"
The sharp BANG of the blade made him scream louder. He squinted his eyes over his arms before rolling back over, only to see the bot preparing another overhead swing at him. This time when the blade came down, Antoine bent his body to the left. Seeing his reflection on the bot's blade beside his head dissolved what he had left of courage to a different barren waste land. He clawed his arm above him, kicking with his legs to try to get out from under the bot when it released the sword from the dry ground. He made progress, scrambling a foot away before the bot lunched over him and swung again.
Antoine rolled right again, the blade almost taking a piece of his blue blazer with it. "Ahhh!"
His scream seemed to help, but his ordeal just became worse when the bot inched his foot behind Antoine's slightly turned back. He was jammed, hardly able to move from side to side. Reaching back with his arm, he began to desperately pull himself away by his fingers. He moved an inch...that was all he could get out of himself.
The broadsword was now perfectly leveled over the Eggbots head. Antoine forced a gulp of air down, figuring it was going to be his–
Something metal slapped into his over-extended hand, and before his mind told him to look back, his conscience had already felt the handle and broad hilt of his saber wrap within his fingers.
The bot's sword came down. And Antoine's saber was up faster than he could think to parry the blow. His swing from the right swayed the Eggbot's sword over just enough to let the swordsman in the coyote find a well opened spot on the machine's left side where he in turned stabbed the tip of his blade. The blow wasn't the trick he needed, but it did enough to get the bot's foot out from under his back.
Bringing back the saber, Antoine swung it with all his might that the ground could offer and let the curvature of the blade do its most lethal work, severing the left leg of the bot with it's strong metal, purposely forged to slice through anything. More importantly, Robotnick's minions.
The bot lost its balance, falling over where its leg had been severed.
Antoine rolled over and shot up, taking his saber with the tip down, centered his left hand over the back of the handle...and speared it through the head of the Eggbot.
"Behind you!"
The warning had spun the now energized coyote around. He barely had enough distance and breath to pull the saber out from the dead hulk of the machine he had just killed, and with a hard swing from across his body, swatted a driving sword away from his abdomen, following it with a two handed cut straight up his new opponent's torso. The blade dug in deep, filleting the red and yellow droid almost in two.
Stepping past it as the bot fell, Antoine's turn to the north revealed a charging black and red bot with a lance and shield. He held his breath as he looked just to the right of it. The bot was ready to counter, and Antoine only had a split second to pounce to the left, sending his saber down via a low swing from a backhand, he diverted the lance further inward towards the bots chest, giving Antoine enough room to come back with an upswing, taking the arm and a good portion of the head.
But just before he could witness his latest victim grind to a halt and sprawl out on the dirt floor called Mobius, a loud hiss singed the air past his right ear, causing him to tear his eyes away to find the point of origin–
A sparking, burning Eggbot, blue in color, collapsed just to the left of Antoine's right blue boot, its arm blaster nearly taking the coyote's leg from the fall. Looking past it toward the west, the coyote gazed at Leo and a hard breathing leopard, both crouched on top of an Eggbot of their own, its blaster arm razed with wires and sparks, pointed in Antoine's direction.
"Hey, mister," called out a small, but overly determined voice just to the side of the Royal Guardsman. It was Dexter, extending out a scabbard to Antoine. "Want this back?"
All the coyote could do was smile and take his scabbard, knowing righteously well it was Dexter who put his saber in his hand.
"Knuckles!"
The Guardian's low monotone voice echoed behind the center huts. "Over here!"
Running with Dexter, Antoine stopped cold when Knuckles came around, his face in disarray. "What?"
"How's the fight?" Knuckles asked, diverted.
"Good. Last of the inner camp was sliced away," said Leo from behind Antoine. "But we have a problem, Lemeans says he can see dust rising to the west."
"By chance it'z Sonic?" Antoine asked his heart still beating uncontrollably.
"Don't hold you're breath," retorted Leo. "How many have you gotten out?"
"None," Knuckles grumbled, throwing his hand behind him but not looking. The whole prison was holding up between the huts, catching their breath while swallowing their sorrow.
"Find Henry, Leo," came Lemeans from behind them, his laboring face and body appearing from around the hut.
Knuckles shifted his eyes to the ground, then his body to the side. "I couldn't get the bot in time."
Lemeans' heart sank further than he thought was possible. The hawk was lying on his left side, his wings crumbled around the pool of blood that was soaking into the ground. But what was so sorrowful to him was the sight of the camp's children sitting around him, never carying about their school master's blood spreading around them, but all having their hands crumbled over his lifeless body.
Corey seemed to be the only Mobian crying.
"Ah, damn!" cursed Lemeans, finally releasing something. "David?" he shouted soon after, falling his head around his chest and shoulders. Knuckles could see the frustration spewing out from his sweat.
"Here, Lemeans!" came the chipmunk's dry voice from afar. Lemeans looked up long enough to see the lad standing up from the huddled group by the middle hut.
"Head counts! And get the kids ready to go, tell them to get any sick persons with them."
"We still have three in bed, but they said they will die trying to get to freedom!" announced the kola's distant voice from the rear most hut.
"Great," Lemeans said relieved once more in his gutted voice, "get any able body fit to carry them." Surveying the three huddled masses that treated the small alley as a no-man's land, he asked, "Where's Christian and Mikhail?"
"Guarding our backs?" replied David.
"Along with Sonic," Knuckles added, stepping around and up to Lemeans. "We should be okay with him running interference."
"Should?" Lemeans quizzed harshly, "he's just one mobian against the coming regiment, not to mention to the bloody arsenal coming with them."
Knuckles waved a mitt in front of Lemeans while turning his head to the west–he thought he heard something coming...and it wasn't Trueblue. "Trust me, he's gone up against worst."
"Oh, really!"
"Yep," came Knuckles' confident reply. "Me!"
A moment passed when Lemeans nodded his head and turned to Leo. "Two minutes and we're gone. Get everyone all set to leave. Only the living."
But before the Hare could reply, Knuckles' strong voice cast an ominous tone through the sweltering and burning air with his sight trailing around to the northwest. "Ah, we may not have two minutes."
A look to the right: "Nothing!"
A look to the left: "Something!"
His feet were shoulder width apart, taking on a stance like he was a lost traveler, throwing his head once more to the right, then to the left while standing in the middle of the well beaten road. But what Sonic heard with his ears was the silence of screams and the far away popping chirps of discharging blasters. It was when he swivelled his head like someone who thought they heard a bawd remark when the party music abruptly ended that the growing dust cloud was formulating into a swarm of Eggbots. And like a halo above Eggman's minions were the Eggbots that flew. There was no organization; just a programmed reaction to Mobius' blue hero's induction to crash the evil Doctor's plans.
"Awe, cool–a buffet line all to myself!"
Right foot back, ankle bent at the leg, sideways: "Check!" Left foot bent at the knee, toe aimed straight at the approaching mechanical mob: "Check-o!" Body leaning forward, hands tight in fists, arms swayed back with his left fist centered near his skin chest: "Check-a-roo!" And lastly on his promptly made-up checklist; eyes forward, his uni-brow knitted down in a ferocity of glee, cheek muscles pulled to a vivacious smile: "Check, check and triple-check!"
"Ladies and gents, please have your seatbelts on and tray-tables up...enjoy the white-knuckle ride!"
Not letting his mirthful, sniggering voice get any further than his ears, he pushed his legs independently, his right launching him before his left, and fired down the road. Sonic's world seemed to go by him like a jaunt. But ten feet later the wheat field to his left became a blurred wall of tan, with the desalinate range to his right looking like it had become a passing playground. Sending a burst of energy to his thighs, the make up of his shoes disappeared in a blurry sea of red and white. Distance became a plaything now with his eyes keeping straight-on at the lead bot.
A flash from the center of the group, enough to excite Sonic just enough to make him lean to the right slightly, letting his shifted weight guide is peddling feet off course just a hair. The skin on his left arm felt the hot plasma bolt's pass, Sonic giving his back muscles the command to shift right and with it his feet and body. Never looking back to the see the red blaster round be lost in the rooster tail of dust he was throwing up, the cobalt blue hedgehog burned his feet faster, pumping his legs to pick up a second burst of acceleration. The wheat was being shoved over from his wake as he passed.
And the bots hadn't parted when he rolled into his ball of razor sharp spines and sliced through the lead bot like it was paper. Parts, mechanical limbs and splatters of oil flung through the air at incredible rate, but for Sonic, as he felt every impact of torsos and legs sting his quilled body, and gladly never counting, everything felt as if it was slowing down. That was until he crashed through the rearmost bot like a dead-blow hammer from a child. If the bot had pride, that was all that was injured when its feet were knocked out from under it.
But even when his momentum seemed to diminish from his parting of eleven bots, and one sour customer on his back, he jumped both feet, twisting his body to turn and look at his marvelous handy work of suspended mauled parts before he stomped his shoes on the ground and slid to a stop.
"Sonic the hedgehog," he quoted to his own self, "rain-maker-of-parts."
It was like watching the aftermath of an explosion; shards of metal, arms, legs, and what he thought was a head began lathering the thrown carcasses he shredded and with momentum threw to the side. It was like he parted a river of Eggbots, leaving a littered path to streak down. Problem was...the bots he didn't knock out, or down, were either rising or beginning to level their weapons at him.
Planting his right leg dead on the ground, he swung his other around it, twisting his body around ready to launch himself again and thin the rest of the herd.
Then he remembered he had forgotten something. "Where are those halos I'd seen hoovering over those tin-cans?"
He darted to his right, almost tripping over himself to get away from the strafing flying Eggbot that was leaning hard in its turn and assault. The high pitched firing of its discharging auto-cannon was like a screaming zipper that chewed up Sonic's path. Dodging left for a few feet, then gaining much needed speed and banking his body to the right for at lest three meters, he was well above sixty miles-per-hour when the bot had redone its course and powered its internal jets to kick itself in pursuit of Eggman's, "Priority One."
A passing bush was like a green wooden sign that for Sonic said, "this way south," as the hedgehog thundered his shoes with no remorse on the dirt floor. His eyes were roving faster than his legs were moving. The smudges he saw were obstacles to avoid, pushing right foot sideways on the ground that sent him almost flying to the left before he regained his rhythm in his very blinding strides, breezing by a tree that looked to be petrified–
CCCHHHEWWWSSSSS–POOF!
Dirt erupted in front of him, running through the dust without having the time to avoid it.
"WHOA!"
His head jerked to look behind him. "The sucker wants a race!" he exclaimed, darting hard to the left before another bolt landed where he could've been.
The Eggbot had caught up, almost lazily keeping pace but having one degrading time of targeting Sonic's erratic movements. "Note to self, thank nature for making me be less of a sitting duck." He poured on the speed, dodging to the right again before he almost slammed into a small tree that was more like a shrub to him.
It was all looking good now; the bot looked to be fading as Sonic stole another look to his back.
It sucked that reality was deceiving.
Seven red hot bolts nearly caught him as they racked the ground like a wall in front of him.
Sonic slammed his feet quickly on the ground, creating friction–and a load of dust–that slowed him down just enough to slide through the aftermath of the missed shots, swearing he could feel the heat singe under his shoes, then, like he never lost a beat, threw his legs into overdrive and pushed himself up to where his shadow was going to have a hard time in keeping up.
A weird wind sliced overhead, his green eyes straying just enough to see, "THREE MORE!" flying Eggbots bank hard overhead to join the pursuit.
South was looking more enjoyable than turning around to help Knux and Twan. Not even he could last with ground bots and these annoying flying pests of metal. Distance and speed...as soon as he achieved one or all of the above, he'd be in great position to take them down. In which case, South was a great direction!
"Yea! Just like going down hill!"
A slight turn of his head brought his snickering smile to his pursers. "Okay, guys...you caught up to Shadow, but let's see if you can keep up with the real deal."
And his shoes were sent in a whirlwind that had the contour of a figure-eight!
A long stare at the fence line brought a daunting feeling to Knuckles that sculpted his harrowing heart further into a constricted shell of weight and pain. Sweat lathered his body, making his fur look more darkly crimson than it already was. Even his dreads weren't spared, beads of perspired water napping at his back and tail, soaking the troubled premonition of the run to wire in his bones, locking him solid in his position of observation between the middle and south hut, standing close behind the latter. Beyond that, the eastern row of huts...then to freedom.
But why didn't it feel like death was waiting just beyond the sanctuary of the wooden structures the symbolized cover? The rapping touch that caressed what seemed like every muscle fiber in his body was more akin to a diminutive scientist probing for a source of pain and torture than pleasure. "What are the chaos forces telling me?" he questioned his feelings rightfully. The heavy force that sniveled at his inner-sanctum was undeniably the voice of his birthright speaking to him than just the average Freedom Fighter. To discern all this, however, was burning time that was way past up. Lemeans, and Leo's anxious, fearful faces showed this when Knuckles drifted his eyes over his left shoulder.
His breathing was deep in a pensive way, never knowing the condition of his lungs until he spoke. "Suggestions on how you want to do this?" Knuckles asked, straying his eyes further onto Lemeans before turning his purple hues to the huddled mass behind the south hut to his right. David was there, beginning to get to his feet in midst of the frightened mobians, mostly women and children, and what Knuckles could make out as a brown furred ground hog under a coat of white bandages strewed around his head and chest, hanging close to a girl goat in a denim skirt, and what seemed to be the fashion in this camp, a ragged t-shirt.
"Standard protocol for any situation like this," Lemeans replied, his voice stern with direction, "women and children, followed by the sick."
Knuckles' observation wasn't very forthcoming, holding it under his breath as he leaned out to gauge the distance to the fence line. "If you say so."
His initial idea was to have everyone run in a spaced out pack, giving enough distance between as many people as possible in case they met an auto-cannon somewhere on the run. Close proximity to someone was a sure way to get two killed. But when the echidna turned, nodding to a middle-aged, black furred male gerbil just at his feet, then turning his attention to a female Lynx and her male cub, nodding to them as well, he knew his plan was gone once he started cautiously walking out from the safety of the hut's wall. His heart didn't stop throbbing when he took his second step, speeding up when he took his third.
A trembling hum filtered through his ear, infiltrating his triangular ear canal on the Guardian's right. He had already quickened his pace when heard the unmistakable sound of a hoover unit on full power. It couldn't have been anything Knothole had sent, not this early, he thought, crossing the dead center of the narrow row of huts. More footsteps shuffled the dirt behind him, making his attention drift to either side and seeing Mobian bodies limping and sulking forward like three steady streams from a prong river. This all vanished when Knuckles passed between two huts–
His head snapped to the right, stealing a glimpse of something green and moving fast in the air towards the east, looking like it was banking some towards him. Heart tightening and a stupid lump in his throat was all he felt before a scream ripped through the arid air, and he stepping out from between the huts into the open eastern space.
The shadow of the black smoke burning on the guard tower just to his right became the perfect backdrop for his now wide and attuned eyes to see the green flying Eggbot do a hard banking skid sideways. There was no time to even possibly think but to turn back just as the silver barrel of the droid's auto-cannon swung into his direction. He turned as fast as his feet would let him, grabbing the nearest body in front of him and pushing the girl and her son forward.
Earsplitting pops blasted behind him. Dirt flew around him, hitting his back and becoming mud from his drenched fur, his feet pumping faster as he shoved the Lynx harder through the middle of the huts.
"Go! Get back now!" he screamed before hearing another male voice other than his scream in pure agony behind him. Knuckles just had enough sense to look over to witness the gerbil take at least three red hot bolts to his back, almost becoming sickened when fire erupted on the mobian's arching back. The last thing Knuckles saw before he was grabbed by his arm and thrown around the hut was the gerbil's mouth spitting purple blood and his body falling forward to the ground.
For the moment Knuckles was dragged behind the hut, his breathing seemed to drown all sound in his mind, his heart hammering at his chest wall with the retching smell of burnt skin and ozone overtaking him. That all changed when the Eggbot's firing became frantic, bringing the Guardian back to corporeal world around him.
Screams assaulted him to his left as he found his back to the wall of the hut and his head jolting over to the source. His eyes widened in a terrible horror when they watched a female jackrabbit take a plasma round to her stomach, and a lucky stray shot to her arm. There was no dignity in her fall, nor was the male racoon's journey beside her as he too was cut down at the waist.
With anger gliding over his training, Knuckles stepped out rashly to the side of the hut, balled his fist and began to run towards the hoovering Eggbot. Tragically he only got as far as two steps when he backpedaled and almost dove back behind the cover of the wall when the machine strayed one sensor, then its cannon, hosing where Knuckles had been. Dust and lumps of dry dirt flung through the air as the plasma cannon chewed at the ground. Then the firing kept pumping to the left with the bot never letting up, skewing sideways as it grinded through the middle hut, striking the roof before moving its steady rate of plasma lower, burning large holes in the structure.
To Knuckles' great relief the machine stopped. But the bot's movement from the other side started to grind its way south, and from what he knew, still training its weapon forward.
A pull at his arm brought his head over to the north. It was Antoine; the coyote was the one who pulled him out of the way. "Knucklez, what do we do?"
The Guardian lifted his head up from Antoine and searched the prone mass to his right. "Lemeans–" Knuckles winced and dropped when splitters of wood were spat on him–the bot was tearing up the hut he had his back to.
A bolt penetrated clear through the wall, almost slicing his muzzle open. His heart almost stopped but his muscles took over his body, falling to the ground, taking Antoine with him before he covered his head with his arms. Screams that he was sure weren't his rang through his skull.
And just like a switch had been shut off; the shooting stopped.
"Lemeans!" Knuckles hollered again.
The leopard's heavy accented voice shouted back from the north hut. "Over here!"
It was at the moment when Knuckles was trying to search him out when another burst of hitch-pitched shrieks harped from the other side of the hut. His was spared this round, but the hut to the north was perforated on the roof and sidewall facing him. Then came a small reprieve, like the bot was taking a breathe until it discharged another wild burst, smashing the wood into burning splinters with a few bolts exiting out through the corner of the dank hut.
And the screaming women and kids never stopped!
"Everyone stay put!" Knuckles ordered in his best calming voice he could manage through his punching heart and heavy breathing.
"Mikhail–Christian!" shouted a clean voice from where Lemeans' was lying. It had to be Leo, Knuckles figured in a stroke of concentration; the hares ears weren't hard to miss from all the other prone and hunched mobian bodies who were lying as flat as they could.
Still on his stomach, Knuckles instinctively snapped his head over to his left, finding all his dreads were still intact when a few slapped at his right shoulder just as the heavy Slavic voice chorused from the southern hut:
"Da! And the echidna, he still alive!"
"Good," breathed Knuckles' inner voice.
"Is the launcher still working?" Leo shouted while the air was calm.
It was Christian shouting this time, Knuckles seeing this when he turned his head back over his left shoulder. "It's trying to charge up! The cell is too–"
The air erupted in a banshee of cracking pops, screams and cries. Wood panels began flying over Christian's and Mikhail's position, some with fire burning at the corners when the Eggbot apparently cued in onto the echidna's pitched voice, trying to silence it with a long stream of red plasma. To Knuckles complete gripping horror, the bot began shifting its blinding spray of death, racking through the hut like an Empress guiding her hand in a long arc to her oppressed subjects, punching through the south hut, throwing a few rounds down the split between the one Knuckles was hunkered behind–he suddenly rolled himself further toward Antoine, who was screaming his lungs out with everyone elses–as more wood was shattered off into the Guardians now up right chest–
His eyes were beating in their sockets to the rhythm of his jumping heart, suffocating his ears with it from all sound until it suffused his body under a paralyzing terror...A girl had stood up from the mass! From her bushy white tail to her tank-topped covered white chest and her spear pointed ears, Knuckles panic stricken brain watched completely helpless as the female wolf's own panic drove her to an unintentional suicide as she sprang from her spot beside another wolf of the same color, but a boy, and started to run away to the north fence. Knuckles couldn't move. Couldn't even will his lungs to force out the needed air to tell her to get down! And by the time she got to her feet the sawing plasma bolts had sliced through her hut and was walking its way–
Leo stood up like a spring board, grabbing the girl by the shirt, yanking her down; crimson bolts punched through the wall in a slight down stroke–
The hare caught one in the sternum, a second burning at the alcove between his nose and eyes...and then came a sailing piece of wood taking a meaty gouge from his left ear. Inertia triumphed over the last spark of his will and soul, his body slamming to the ground as his life's elixir fountained from his sliced ear and penetrated jugular. Knuckles wanted to hurl upon seeing the grey hare's face turn towards him, charred with his eyes burnt open.
But the girl was safe! The girl was safe!
Christian's glance through the ocular sight made him grumble at the slow progress of the charging. It was when he looked back up to where the Guardian was lying prone, he nearly screamed when he saw Leo's jerking body lying next to a very scared female wolf. If it wasn't for the ringing in his ears he could've heard Lemeans cry for him. That was the last thing he saw before he clutched Mikhail's arm and started to pull him around the side of the hut.
"Leo's dead–"
Christian cut the beagle off in a furry. "I know!" he screamed, dragging his legs in a frantic crawl on the tan dried clay floor of the Plains. His back was pressed against the boards, his brown fur almost blending in if it wasn't for his sweat soaked face. Getting to the edge was daunting; the screams were motivating; another foot closer, his leg muscles burning like hot lead as they pushed him forward, the launcher's bulky weight adding to his oppressing anxiety. Faces poisoned his fleeting mind. An echidna woman, her stomach ripped open on a street that laid in ruin under ruin, her purple blood spilling into the gutter. A male's face shouting at him to do something about the invading force...before a shot landed at his back, causing him to collapse into Christian's arms in death. Images of Echidnolopis burning under the might of Eggman's machines. The sneering faces of the dingos from their victory. Of his surrender with Kripta behind him.
The corner. Christian braced his back against the wall, trying to breath in fresh air to cast away those haunting images that were replaying this very second. The bot just purged another burst, drawing up more screams from behind him. It was enough to let training rush in. He looked across his shoulder and leaned his body over before ricocheting back behind the wall in a blink of an eye. The bot was hovering between the middle hut, looking to the furthest hut for its next spray. Boards were scattered like clumps of blocks with small fires burning on top of some, with the body of a groundhog laid waste from the chest up, his legs hidden under the burning boards.
He prayed for courage from Aurora. He felt his legs fold under him, placing him on his knees, letting his toes bend on the ground. "Mikhail, help me," he stuttered, working his arms to put the launcher on his shoulder. It came easier when the beagle aided in hoisting the large tub close to his neck.
Right foot flat on the ground, left knee skirting over to the corner. Taking a breath with his laboring lungs, Christian only had one chance in his life to make this shot. He knew this very well when he leaned over, placing the eye piece over his right socket–
"Damn it!" The charge was barely completed–
Shakes quivered his hand when he saw the bot beginning to pivot towards him. It was like the thing was suspended on a balancing pin that was effortlessly turning.
The Echidna's finger slipped over the trigger. He felt his checks strain as with his bearing face. His eye never left the sight-piece. His hands didn't stop shaking...and the bot's auto cannon was circulating on him. Christian could almost feel his death coming.
TONE!
He stroked the trigger when the bar flashed. He didn't feel the tube buck but marveled at the slow shrieking pace of the large ball of red plasma sailing toward the bot, smashing into it like a javelin. An inferno orb consumed the green metal skin, sending twisted metal pieces to the ground with streaming ribbons of smoke behind them. The bot plummeted to the ground under a rising plume of smoke that had the cold transparency of a black flag.
A slap at his back brought him around from his intricate art of destruction. It was Mikhail.
"Do we have charge left?"
Christian glanced at the sight; the charging process was beginning again. "We do!"
"Good, we might need it!" Helping him up, Mikhail took the launcher from the echidna, and with one hand pushed him forward. "Come on, echidna–to the hole of freedom!"
It seemed everyone else had heard the beagle. The small mass of prisoners began to pour out from between the huts, Christian, suddenly turning to the north and fighting his way through them between the middle housing, stopped only when he had reached his destination beside Lemeans. The leopard was in company with Knuckles, Antoine and the wolf girl, her shoulder occupied with a hard breathing and very sick looking maroon hedgehog. The hare's body had stopped twitching long after Christian had made his way to the edge of the hut. But it really didn't matter now.
Knuckles looked on at Lemeans as the aged leopard steadied himself over his cane under mournful eyes. They must've been close, for Lemeans never moved, but he never cried.
"Bye, my friend. I'm sorry we can't carry you to a fitting grave."
He then eyed the Guardian, stepping around Leo's body and spilt blood. "Time we go! Stay close to the middle. I've got this cantankerous notion reenforcements will be here very soon. That burning bot delayed us royally!"
After nodding, and wondering if Lemeans' sorrow will every return just as quick as he saw it go, he lead the way, running past the huts and finding Antoine waiting at the collapsed guard tower like a stewardess welcoming travelers. Christian's shot to the tower brought with it a bonus, a nice path through the barb wire. They just had to watch their step.
"Lets go, 'Twan."
"Oui!"
Knuckles was first, stepping on a support pole, crouching low and taking his thick padded mitt and lifting up a strand of twisted fence. Antoine ducked through it and sprinted east, Lemeans following, breathing fast and wiggling his cane through the hole. Lending him a hand made the leopard smile at Knuckles for the support. Planting both feet outside the camp line broadened it.
"Freedom!" he sighed out forcefully, "I tell you Knuckles the outside ground may feel scorching like the inside, but there is something pleasurable exuding under my paws."
Knuckles quickly nodded, looking up to where Antoine had scurried off to, finding that the now liberated mobians were waiting for them. "Yeah, too bad a few couldn't feel it."
A kind hand at his back, pressing him forward. "Yes, but they're meeting Aurora for the first time. I hope she's letting them feel it with something better behind it."
They scampered in silence, Knuckles checking his back to make sure Lemeans was still coming along. He was quite surprised at how fast the old leopard could move under his bad leg and thumping cane. The jaunt to the awaiting crowd didn't take any time at all. And when Knuckles thought Lemeans needed a rest, the leopard just lifted his cane and pointed southeast.
"That 'ah way, and make hast everyone. Those Eggbots are still coming straight for us" he bade, then making words into action, he lunched forward with his cane in a dash.
The example was set. Bodies began moving at a great pace that floored Knuckles into running. Antoine kept up with him; something he was really good at doing. And it was grand too–Nicole had just beeped from his tunic pocket.
Flipping the computer screen from its folded state, Hershey's black and white furred face filled the screen. "Antoine, what's your status!"
He didn't have the heart to tell her, nor the right answer. He was too busy powering his legs in a constant stride. "Here, you talk to her!" Antoine rang, shoving the handheld computer to Knuckles.
Taking it, the Guardian looked straight at the screen. "Do you have a fix on the comms location?"
"Wait a sec, Knux!" It felt like an hour, holding the computer while running with the now spreading herd. "Gotchya! ETA in five to six minuets. Can you hold your present location?"
"No. We're on the move and fast, heading I think southeast."
"Okay, well check back soon but we can probably intercept without a problem. We just passed over the canyons and Rotor say's he see's the green grass of the Plains."
Knuckles hid his frown under a nod. "Fine, but approach us from the north and have the gate down. We've got company rolling in behind us."
Hershey smiled through the screen with an affirming node."Will do!" she replied before asking, "And Sonic. Is he with you?"
Knuckles grinded to a dead stop. In all the confusing he'd forgotten about–
BABOOM!!
His head swayed over his right shoulder, bringing up his mitt in a knife to shield his eyes from the coming setting sun. The thunder had echoed, but it wasn't an explosion. Knuckles knew this and knew it well as he smiled for just a brief nanosecond before his face melted back into his weathered seriousness he was known for.
The sound barrier was shattered...and he knew only one person in the region who could bust it wide open.
"Doing his thing."
And boy howdy! The next chapter will have the reason for why we have a story to begin with. A good portion of it will involve him.
I tried my best to break this up some for the eyes, and keep the story moving, but I really think I took away some of the action, especially what I wanted to do for Knuckles. This time, I didn't keep count of the bots I was smashing, I just tore loose till i figure some of us might get bored. Note to all: massed staged fights are a pain and you might consider finding a way to make them wrap up good and tight but have lots of killing.
For those of us who've played Sonic Heroes, this had a lot of the elements due to the bots used. I hope I had described them good.
Side note, my friend and co-editor, Professor Ken, has featured our main character Aleutian in one of his stories, "The Death Mohawk Talkshow." He's in the last chapter, that is if Ken hasn't updated yet, and from my stand-point, and some helping but not overly pressured, it's great and a load of laughs. Check it out.
See you all on the flipside...and way down the road.