Chapter Three – Changed
It took Sally several weeks to get her head round what happened that day and even longer to pick up the pieces of Geoffrey's regime. Her head had been partially robotised. It made sense. It explained why she had no control of anything and was nothing more then a puppet for Geoffrey. She had no memory of him doing it to her, either. It must have happened just after they met, during the celebrations of the end of the war with Snively.
As for Sonic. What the hell? She watched him die and yet he's alive. How? Like Bunnie said, where had he been? They really could have done with his help, long before now.
But all this was irrelevant, as Sally had a much larger problem. Winter would be coming in a matter of months and Mobotropolis and the House of Acorn were...broke. The royal purse was empty. Sally couldn't believe it. They definitely had money, in fact they were quite wealthy when the war ended. So where had all the money gone.
Geoffrey!
Checking through the finances, Sally found that nearly all the money had been channelled to something called 'Rogue Squadron'. Sally had no idea who or what that was. This would mean that not only was Geoffrey on trail for treason, they could include fraud as well. Sally wanted to see him hang, but the death penalty was abolished years ago. But right now, she was happy with him being the puppet for a change, fully robotised and obeying her every command. But the novelty didn't last long. It horrified her when she found how bad a state her city and people were in.
They were starving.
She shared all the food she had in the Palace out amongst her people but it wasn't anywhere near enough. Sally was getting desperate. Her people needed supplies but she had no money. Right now, Sally needed her Sonic back. But he was nowhere to be seen. Several months went by and nothing.
Then early one morning, there was a very loud knock on the door, which woke everyone. The temperature was dropping outside as the late Autumn leaves whirled around them. Sally was summoned outside to see what had been left.
It was a large palette of...supplies. Taller then Sally and extremely well packed. There was food, blankets, medicine, everything they would been for the Winter. Sally was delighted but then her heart sank. Even though it was much needed equipment, it still wasn't enough to go round. There was a note. Someone passed it to her. She stared at it. It just contained a one single symbol. Two 'M's interlocking each other. Sally didn't know the symbol but everyone else did. She could hear frantic whispers all around her. She looked at Bunnie.
"Its the Mutant Movement!" She exclaimed. "But I didn't think they helped anyone but themselves." She huffed. Sally was confused.
"Who?" She asked. Bunnie looked at her.
"Sorry, you wouldn't know. Since the war against Snively ended, the people of Mobius have split in factions. There the Mobians and Robians, (pointing to Sally and herself) but there is also the Mutant Movement." Then she paused. "But why would they help us?" She shrugged.
They all looked at each other. Rotor sounded confused.
"But the Mutant Movement are supposed to be rumour!" He asked. But Sally frowned.
"Rumour?" She asked. Bunnie answered.
"Nobody knows for sure but the Mutant Movement supposed to be vast. They are the people who have mutated as a result of being robotised, then de-robotised" She paused. "And apparently, they can all fly." She added. A few people in earshot laughed. It was a ridiculous idea. Right now, Sally didn't really care who the Mutant Movement were, she was just extremely grateful for their help. But it got her thinking.
'Did that mean that Rogue Squadron were another faction. If so, who were they?' She thought. Sally didn't know, but she did know that Geoffrey St. John had to be at the heart of it. Bunnie sighed.
"Also..." She slowly added. "The Mutant Movement have just recently voted in a new leader. He is simply known as The Sapphire Dragon. Very little is known about him, only that as far as the Mutants are concerned, he's their King." She shrugged again. She had heard a lot about the Mutant Movement over the years, keen to be kept in the loop, but wasn't sure if any of it was true. How could one single faction be so vast? Were they dangerous? She genuinely didn't know.
More whispers sprang out. There something in the word 'Sapphire', that rang an air of familiarity to Sally. But she couldn't think what. She sighed.
"How do you know all this?" She asked. Bunnie giggled.
"I'm the leader of the Robians." She replied. "Its my job to know." She grinned.
They all dragged the supplies into the Palace. Then, suddenly, the doors slammed behind them and an extremely powerful force field was put up all around the Palace.
They were trapped.
Sally ran back to the Great Hall to use the computer console there, potentially to ask for help, but they were cut off from the network.
Now they really were trapped.
The Great Hall was rammed full of people looking to their Queen for guidance, Rotor was really confused as to what was going on. But Sally was angry.
"What the hell, Bunnie?" She exclaimed. The Rabbit was angry back at her.
"Hey, don't look at me!" She spat back. "It's not the Robians." She defended. Sally was still fuming.
"Then who?" She snapped. Then someone cut across them.
"Rogue Squadron!" They said, coldly.
That voice. Silence reigned. Instantly recognisable, but incredibly calming. He was back, but this time, his voice was deeper, a lot deeper. Strong, powerful, yet more mellow, and this time, not coming out of any computer speakers. It seemed to echo downwards, somehow from the ceiling. Sonic was above them all. He huffed.
"It's no coincidence that when all three leaders of the main factions of Mobius are all together in the Palace, they get locked in. Blaming each other for the cause, can only lead to one thing." He said emotionlessly.
Everyone knew the answer:
Civil War.
Sally would be damed if she was going to let that happened. She was getting rather angry at Sonic for just suddenly turning up again. She looked up but couldn't see anything. She growled.
"Where have you been? We needed you here." She spat. Sonic replied, with a note of confusion.
"Did you not get the package I left you. I have to pull some serious strings for you to get it. Officially, the Mutant Movement isn't supposed help anyone. We're supposed to be..." He paused and then made a silly voice. "...'impartial!'" He grinned. A few people giggled. But Bunnie cut across him.
"Your with the Mutant Movement now?" she asked. It made sense, kind of. Sonic was disgruntled.
"Yes." He hissed. But he didn't sound a hundred percent happy with the idea. "They have, sort of, taken me as one of their own. It has all happened rather fast." He sighed.
Fast! Sonic was a one to talk. But Sally had had enough.
"Where are you?" She snapped. Sonic sighed.
"Up here. Sal!" He gestured above her.
There was movement in the shadows of one of the windows of the Palace roof. A very large black cloaked figure stood up. In fact, the figure was very, very large indeed. So large in fact, that Sally didn't quite believe it. But she took a leap of faith anyway.
"Come down." She spat. But Sonic was very hesitant.
"Are you sure, Sal? Like I said, I've changed." He stammered. But Sally was loosing her patients.
"Just get down here." She spat. She was past the end of the tither. She didn't know or care how Sonic got up there. She just wanted him down here with her. Sonic sighed again. He shrugged.
"O.K." He added, and the black cloaked figure just walked off the edge of the window frame, from which he was perched. People gasped as he fell through the air about three storeys and landed perfectly on his feet with an almighty thud, cracking the metallic floor of the Palace. Sonic looked down. He was somewhat surprised that the floor was made of metal. As he stood up, the Great Hall had an air of familiarity about it, despite having never been here before, well, not in the flesh anyway. As an hologram, your field of vision is pretty narrow. This was the first time Sonic got a proper look at the place. Then his eyes fell, very quickly, on Sally. She seemed so small. Sonic stood there in his long black cloak, extremely tall, a clear head and shoulders above everyone else in the room. Sally head barely reached his elbows.
Despite the size of the black figure, Sally didn't fear it. In fact she was so angry that she made a beeline for him. Sonic saw her coming and grabbed her arm. Firmly but as gentle as he could, he didn't want to hurt her. He was panicking.
"Sally...It's me." He stammered. "For real this time." He added. Sonic's voice had a note of desperation in it, but Sally eye's had fallen on something else. The hand Sonic had grabbed her with, wasn't wearing a glove (he didn't wear them anymore) and on one of his finger's was a ring. The Royal Seal of Acorn. Sally had given her father's ring to Sonic as a good luck charm for the final battle against Snively and there it was, moulded onto his very finger. It would never come off again.
Her anger dissipated as she looked up at him. Sonic got the impression she never truly believed until now. He smiled as he used his other hand to lower the hood of his cloak.
"Hello Sally." He grinned.
He looked absolutely stunning. His large green eyes smiled at Sally as his long, shining royal blue quills flowed down the back of his head, sharp and strong. His ears were pricked up to slightest sound and his black nose twitched. Beneath his cloak, though it couldn't really be seen, he appeared to be wearing a black t-shirt, black jeans and large black goth-style boots and no gloves. He was so glad to finally see her properly. Sally had been all Sonic had thought about for years. Sally looked him up and down. Was it really him? For real? But she couldn't figure it out. How come he was so...
"Big!" teased Sonic.
Sally looked at him. Could be read her mind? Sonic giggled but Sally was unimpressed again.
"Where have you been?" She spat.
Sonic let her go and walked away, rather uncomfortable. People backed away from him because of his sheer size. This didn't really help matters. In fact, it made him even more awkward.
"It's a long story, Sal." He exclaimed. But Sally was unimpressed.
"Well, humour me." She said. "We aren't exactly going anywhere." She added.
She was right and all eyes were on him. The silence in the room was waiting for his story. Sonic sighed. He was not liking this one bit, but he had to tell the truth, he had no choice.
"A coma!" he said simply. Everyone looked at each other and Sonic could see that no-one believed him.
"No, seriously!" He exclaimed. "Five and a half years in a coma, six months in therapy, I have only been back on my feet properly the past couple of weeks. Thats why I came to see you as an hologram, by body wasn't exactly functioning properly at that point and I was desperate to see you."
Sonic went slightly red with that last sentence. He still loved her but no seemed to notice. Bunnie frowned.
"What happened?" She asked. Sonic shifted, very uneasy. He sighed. He may as well start from the beginning.
"What do you do if you thought you were dead but you weren't. You'd be completely confused, right!" He paused. "My consciousness had been aware the whole time. But it was in a great deal of pain. It felt it every second as time went on. The coma. How long had I been there? Where was I? I didn't have no clue when I open his eyes. They were very blurry. I couldn't move. I was in a bed. I didn't know where I was or even who. I had only vague memories of what happened..." He sighed.
Sonic's sentence hanged as he stared around the Great Hall. Everyone stared. Then suddenly, he grabbed his head, gritting his teeth in pain.
Flashbacks!
They were coming thick and fast. They were of that final fateful fight. He began to recognise the Great Hall. His mind was racing. He ran towards where Sally's throne stood and pulled up the rug from beneath it. There on the floor were bloodstains, and a one singular hand-print. Sonic stopped and stared at it. He knelt down and place his own hand on the print.
A perfect fit!
Sonic freaked. In absolute raw panic as further flashbacks rushed at him. He struggled to keep his composure. He rounded on Sally.
"You didn't rebuild the Palace, did you? You just converted it from Snively Headquarters!" He spat. Sally growled back at him.
"No!" She defended. "We didn't have the money to build new." She paused. "Geoffrey stole it all." She hissed.
Geoffrey. Rogue Squadron. There was a lot of information rushing at Sonic and it snapped him out of his panic. Still breathing heavily he realised he still had a job to do. He calmed down, amazingly quickly. He sat next to the hand-print on the floor staring at it, replacing his hand over it again. Bunnie came and sat next to him.
"Is this where you..." She stammered, leaving the sentence to hang. Sonic sighed
"Died!" He shuddered. "Yes but I didn't. Someone pulled me back." He added, looking up at her. Bunnie frowned.
"Who?" She asked. Sonic smirked.
"Uncle Chuck!" He grinned. Uncle Chuck is Sir Charles Hedgehog, Sonic's uncle and inventor to the House of Acorn. He vanished six years ago. Silence. Sonic continued.
"He gave his life so that I would make it." He sighed again, with a heavy heart. "Snively had converted the roboticiser into a portable weapon, a gun, and during fight had I had being it with it. So parts of me were robotised which fortunately included my head. Uncle Chuck hooked himself directly to me and downloaded his life-force into me." He added, pointing to the back of his head. Bunnie gasped.
"So that you would survive." She said astonished. But Sally began to cry.
"And Uncle Chuck didn't." She sniffed. Sonic looked up. He raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?" He paused, sound instantly cheery. "Uncle Chuck's alive. Well, sort of. He uploaded his mind as well as his life-force into my head, and the guys at the Mutant Movement were able to download his mind out again. He now lives in the Mainframe Computer. I believe he now married to Nicole." He shrugged.
Sonic said all this very quickly. Sally was shaking. It was a lot of information to take in. Not only was Uncle Chuck 'alive' but so was Nicole. Her old hand-held computer A.I. whom she believed to be lost years ago. Married! Sally sighed. She couldn't get her head around it all. She just didn't believe it. Sonic spotted her and read her like a book.
"Yep, married." He said. "I keep hearing them making love every time I access the R.I.N., It's not pleasant really." He smirked. There some disgusted and confused looks about. Sonic rolled his eyes.
"The R.I.N. - The Robotnik Intelligence Network." Still confused faces. He continued. "Old Buttnik set it up during the Great War and nobody has bothered to take it down. On the R.I.N. you can go practically anywhere on the planet, its that extensive." He grinned. Bunnie looked at him.
"So that's how you got here, leaving your body behind." She thought aloud. Sonic smiled.
"Yes." He said. "But the R.I.N. is a dangerous place to be if you don't know it. I heard of people entering the R.I.N. and never coming out." He added. Several people gulped in fear. But Bunnie was eager to find out more.
"So what happened. How did you get out after the fight? By the time we got into the headquarters, we found Snively dead but you and Uncle Chuck were long gone." She asked.
There was a pause and then Sonic suddenly jumped up.
"Uncle Chuck is still here." He declared. The nerves in his voice could clearly be heard and he was eager to change to subject. He didn't want to talk about his escape just yet. They all looked at each other. He continued. "His body must still be under the floor. Must be a pile of rusted parts by now." He added. Uncle Chuck was fully robotised at the time. That information was grizzly but Bunnie shook it off.
"And what about you?" She pressed on. She was getting very impatient at the Blue Blur. Sonic shifted on his feet. He didn't want to talk about it. But looking at them, if he wanted their trust, he had too.
"What you saw of the fight was only half of it." He spat. "The lightning storm that happened that night took out the T.V. signal. After Uncle Chuck revived me, I found myself inside the roboticiser capsule. Snively had throw me in there while I was down. Seeing I was still alive, he tried to robotise me fully. I curled into a ball and span, with every ounce of speed I had. It was literally all I could do. I felt the robotise rays hit me and then it happened..." He sighed. Bunnie was with baited breath.
"What?" She asked. Sonic looked down at her. He gritted his teeth. The memories were now very raw.
"The Lightning Strike. They say that lightning never strikes twice but that is.." He hissed. He swore. A few people giggled. But Sonic pressed on, getting carried away by his own story. "I went flying as the lightning surged straight through the Robotiser and then into me." He said. "Straight through the glass capsule, and right into Snively. We both went headlong into a set of shelves the other end of the room. They seemed to be full of syringes, filled with who knows what, because we both got one square in the chest. They were automatic syringes, so they quickly pumped their contents into us. Mine seemed to be different to Snively's as his emptied into his chest before he could pull it out. He panicked as he tried to find something on the floor, properly the antidote, but it was too late. He collapsed and died where he was." He sighed.
Everyone stared. So Sonic didn't kill Snively. It was an accident. They were all somewhat relieved. To kill was not Sonic's way. But what about him? They asked him. Sonic shrugged.
"I looked down at my own syringe." He replied. "It had a picture on it, but I couldn't make it out what in the darkness. But I was quickly loosing consciousness and passed out." He paused. "What happened next is what I have been told by Charlie, a friend of mine in the Mutant Movement. In fact, he recused me, and was apparently by my side all way through my coma." He shuddered. "The coma, it was painful. Excruciatingly painful. It was the thought of you Sally that go me through it." He added. Sally went slightly red. Sonic continued. "And I woke up looking like this." He said, indicating himself.
Bunnie sighed and thought, looking at Sonic.
'If he had been put into the roboticiser then he must be...' But Sonic cut across her.
"Robotised" He said "Oh yes." He giggled. Bunnie stared. How did he do that? She shook it off.
"But you don't look it?" She spat. The roboticiser worked to turn organic matter into robotic parts from the outside-in, so they always showed. Sonic growled, pacing the room.
"But I'm robotised from the inside-out." He suddenly spat. "The only person on Mobius who is. I think it was the combination of the lightning, the speed, the roboticiser rays and..." He sighed, letting the sentence hang, feeling incredibly guilty. Sally was getting frustrated that Sonic who not getting to the point.
"And what?" She grilled. He looked down.
"And the Power Rock!" He stammered. Sally gasped.
"Wait. You went into the that battle carrying the Power Rock. What if you lost? What if Snively got his hands on it? We would have been done for." She spat.
This struck a cord with Sonic and angry swelled up inside him. He growled at her. He sounded like a dragon. They all backed away, including Sally. She could see that Sonic now had full set of canine teeth, also like a dragon. The more information Sally found out about Sonic, the more dangerous he was becoming. Was he still trustworthy?
"Well I didn't loose, did I!" He spat. Sally was surprisingly calm at this.
"You almost did!" She said smoothly.
This broke Sonic's temper. He fell to is knees, pleading with them. He just wanted to be accepted.
"I'm eighty percent robotised with solid Adamantium, a hundred percent mutant, caused by that dam syringe! A Cyborg." He cried. "A Monster." He heaved. "I have the Power Rock for a heart and nowadays I'm pretty much indestructible. I can even instantly heal myself, Sally. I'm literally nothing like the Hedgehog that came here to fight for his people six years ago, not even down to the DNA level. But this is who I am now." He cried.
A single tear fell down his face and for a split second, Sally saw it, and so did Bunnie. Sonic had been having the problem, throughout this whole conversation, of convincing them that he was who he said he was. He may have somewhat looked like it. But they just didn't believe him. He could hear it in their voices, see it in their faces. He had never felt so alone in his life. An outcast. Completely unwanted. He would rather be dead then kneel where he was right now.
But they saw it. A single sparkle. In one of his large green eye's. It proved that he was still in there. Sonic's eyes used to sparkle a lot before the change. His were the only eyes that ever did and now despite everything, they still did.
Before he knew it, he had both Sally and Bunnie in his embrace. Their heads were barely level with his. He was stunned. Why the sudden change of heart?
"Whoa! Ladies? What gives?" He asked.
Sally hugged him with everything she had. She could feel his incredible power, and his immense muscles beneath his cloak.
"Your eyes, they sparkle. Just like they used too." She smiled. Sonic smiled back.
"Yeah they do, by only very occasionally. Not as much as they did." He shrugged. He was relived. At least some very small part of the original him still remained.
Bunnie also hugged him, but she noticed that his skin wasn't covered in the usual short fur of a Hedgehog but was scaled like a reptile. Then she remembered that he'd admitted he'd had a hundred percent Mutation. A hundred percent! Most mutants she had ever heard only had twenty to thirty percent, and most she ever heard was fifty. This put Sonic in a completely different league. Maybe change wasn't so bad. Still, what the hell was in that syringe to give him scales? Bunnie could have asked but she felt Sonic had been through enough. They had barely scratched the surface of Sonic was capable of, but now she and more importantly, Sally trusted him again. But now, Bunnie realised, enough talk, they had more important things to do.
"Sugar-hog?" She asked. Sonic grinned. He loved it when she called that.
"Yes..." He smirked. Bunnie giggled.
"Get us out of here!" She grinned back. Sonic laughed. He was wondering when he was going to be asked that. They were still trapped. In some aspects, things between them hadn't changed at all. He was still saving them. Sonic looked around. He smiled.
Yeah, he knew exactly how to get them out.