2. Old Friends Reunited

Sally knelt and frowned at the river. The water level was down again, as evidenced by the rulers she'd pushed into the mud at strategic intervals. Each had a tiny red line to mark where the water had reached when she first set them up three days ago. Now the waves lapped a good few centimetres lower.

"I don't like it," she told Rotor, who'd been noting down measurements as she read them out.

Rotor scratched under his cap with his pencil. "I agree. It's normal for the levels to fluctuate a little in this kind of weather, but not this much this quickly. Do you think it's Robotnik?"

"I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past him." Sally pushed herself to her feet. "Perhaps it's time to travel upstream and make sure everything's okay. But the timing…"

Finally bowing to the desires of the other Freedom Fighters, she'd arranged a reconnaissance mission into Robotropolis. She'd have preferred to wait a little longer, still thrown by designing tactics without Bunnie's strength, but Sally understood that if they left it much longer Robotnik would get suspicious and possibly bring the fight to them. As long as he was fending them off on his own turf and repairing their damages, he wasn't trying to discover the location of Knothole.

Rotor shrugged. "I could always go by myself."

Sally shook her head. "No. If it is Robotnik I don't want you at a disadvantage, which you will be if you go it alone. We'll just have to wait until after the raid and think of something them that doesn't leave Knothole too undefended."

"Tails would love to go on a mission. This might be perfect for him."

Sally felt herself flush a little. Tails had proven himself more than capable as a Freedom Fighter, but she still tried to keep him out of combat as much as she could, which usually involved leaving him off the mission roster completely and feigning ignorance when it was too late to change things. It was another reason she'd been so reluctant to commission a foray into Robotropolis; every active body counted in that stinking hole, and without Bunnie she'd be expected to include Tails. Call her selfish, but Sally wanted to keep Tails an innocent as long as she possibly could, and if that meant hurting his feelings … well, so be it. She'd rather have him not speaking to her than traumatised or dead.

Dead. Ugh. Sally shivered at the thought, the weight of leadership heavy on her shoulders.

"Hey, what's that?"

"What?" She looked to where Rotor pointed, grateful for the distraction. "I … don't know."

Two dots sped across the sky, growing larger as they approached. They could've been Bee-Bombers, except that the more she squinted, the more Sally rejected the idea. They were the wrong shape, and Bee-Bombers travelled in swarms. They were too large to be stealth-orbs, although the sun glinted off one so it was clearly metal…

A slow grin blossomed on Sally's face. She began waving furiously. "It's Bunnie! And Knuckles!"

Rotor's eyes, typically weak for a walrus, took longer to distinguish the two shapes. When they did, however, he jumped up and down like an overexcited kit. Sally hadn't seen him so elated since the day they rescued a two-tailed fox cub from the gutter in Robotropolis and realised there might be other survivors besides themselves. "Hey, Bunnie! Bunnie, over here!"

The two figures banked left and spiralled down towards the riverbank. They landed a few metres away, feet touching down first. Each had to run a short distance to absorb the speed and impact of their descent, but eventually they came to a halt and Bunnie could wave just as frantically as her friends.

Knuckles was more reserved, watching as Bunnie disentangled herself from her hanglider and rushed over to Sally and Rotor. He waited for them to finish their greetings and come to him, and then nodded at Sally, ever the reticent one. Even in childhood he'd been frugal with words. Had Sally not been such a tenacious soul she might've taken umbrage at his coolness and abandoned their friendship before it even began.

She was glad she hadn't. Seeing the echidna again created a warm glow in her stomach, which she usually only got when everyone got back safe from a mission. It reminded her that no matter how far or long they spent apart, she would always consider Knuckles her friend.

"We weren't expecting – this is so – why didn't you tell us you were coming?" she asked.

"We didn't know we'd be travellin' over this way. The island don't exactly follow a set pattern, but just as soon as we realised we decided to mosey on down here and bother you." Bunnie winked. "Surprise."

Sally replied by hugging her friend tight. So was so pleased to see Bunnie she could hardly speak.

Bunnie's hair was a little longer, but it still sat on top of her head in a giant tuft. She glowed with happiness, and one glance was enough to convince Sally that the other girl had not suffered physically from being away from Knothole. Bunnie's flesh half was toned and she could probably still punch any one of the other Freedom Fighters into a wall without using her metal fist.

Rotor was impressed with the gliders Bunnie and Knuckles had used to fly in. He knelt to examine one, pulling at the wooden frame and the wings attached thereto. Green fabric stretched taut in a giant V shape, with hanging rails to both grip and brace one's feet against and a large loop of plaited vines coated in resin strung underneath as a makeshift harness. Keeping the body braced in that kind of perfectly straight line would've been extremely difficult. No wonder Bunnie looked toned.

"Wow, Bunnie, I didn't know you knew anything about aerodynamics."

"I ain't just a pretty face, sugar," Bunnie replied. "You think I didn't pick nuthin' up after spendin' so much time helpin' in your workshop? 'Course, yucca leaves ain't the hardiest thing in the world, but layerin' one over the other seems to work fine, provided you don't fly near anythin' sharp. Knuckles came up with the materials. I wouldn't've had a clue where to start, but he just wandered off for a spell an' wandered back again with exactly what we needed."

"We made several test flights," Knuckles supplied. "Short trips. This is the longest journey so far. They've held up fine." There was a hint of pride in his voice. His Guardian duties didn't usually call for him to exercise his imagination, and Sally recalled how Sonic once sniped that Knuckles was so straight-laced he didn't have an imagination at all.

"I'm impressed," said Rotor. "The lines are simple and clean, the resources well prepared. Did you treat the leaves with something before you stitched them together-?"

"Rotor," Sally interrupted before he could start talking shop, "I think we should get back to Knothole. These two probably haven't had a good meal in a long time."

"Hey!" Bunnie said indignantly. "I ain't such a terrible cook as all that."

Sally levelled a look at her. "Rosie's hazelnut twist pastries."

A dreamy light crept into Bunnie's eyes. "Landsakes, I'd forgotten about those. Knuckles, honey, pick up them gliders, we're gonna have us some real home cookin'."

Sat around the table in the centre of Knothole, Bunnie and Knuckles laughed and talked with the Freedom Fighters – which is to say Bunnie laughed and Knuckles politely answered their questions. He wasn't as uncomfortable in company as he used to be, and Sally swore she saw him smile once or twice.

Their presence had summoned up Rosie's inner-hostess. After producing jars of preserved fruit and dandelion cream she disappeared, only to return a short while later bearing plates of hot, buttered bread and jars of her own jams. When they were only halfway through this she reappeared yet again with assorted cakes, including the promised hazelnut pastry twists – puff pastry plaited around a thick, sweet hazelnut and honey paste. They were still warm from the oven. Everyone beamed as they worked their way through the feast and Rosie turned scarlet at the rush of compliments.

"Gracious, it's not like I had much time to prepare anything special."

"Are you kidding?" Sonic stuffed another pastry into his mouth and noisily sucked his fingers. "I could eat these all day."

"Yeah, and throw up all night," Sally jibed.

Yet Sonic was too taken with the food to fling a witty response at her. Instead he just stuck out his tongue and reached for another slice of honey cake.

Antoine sniffed as he nibbled delicately at his own cake. He'd eschewed the pastries because they made a mess and he didn't want to dirty his uniform. "I am thinking you are acting most gluttonousness, Sonic."

"Who, me? I'm just a growing hedgehog."

"Oui, you are to be growing the outwards."

"This is all muscle," Sonic replied, patting his stomach. The motion expelled a gigantic burp that echoed all around.

Rosie looked aghast. "Sonic!"

"Whoops. 'Scuse me."

"I thought you had better manners than that." Rosie wrung arthritic fingers and glanced at Knuckles. "And us with guests. What must you think of us, Mr. Knuckles?"

"It's just Knuckles, ma'am," Knuckles said. "And I assure you, Sonic's done nothing that would offend or make me think any less of you."

Rosie seemed slightly mollified, but Antoine sniffed again. "You have a strong stomach, monsieur, to being confrontationed with this display of piggery and not being sick."

"You seem to be managing fine, Ant." Sonic gestured at Antoine's plate. "That's your fifth slice."

Antoine bristled. He'd thought nobody was counting. "Truly, you are not a hedgehog, you are a hedgepig."

Sonic frowned. "Hey!"

"I am thinking this is what I am to be calling you from now on. Sonic the Hedgepig. It has a nice ring to it, non?"

"Non." For some reason this seemed to irritate Sonic more than Antoine's usual insults.

"Sonic, let it go," Sally chided, pushing her own pastry towards him. She'd had two and was beginning to feel a little sick. How the boys scoffed so much sugar in one sitting was beyond her. She could understand complicated computer code and martial strategy, but boys and their appetites-

"Hedgepig," Antoine smirked, seizing upon this new ammunition. It wasn't often he could say or do anything that wouldn't slide off Sonic's ego like rain off a waterproofed roof.

"You're really starting to get on my nerves, Ant." Sonic rose from his chair and leaned both alms on the tabletop.

They were on opposite sides of the table. Tails, who was on Sonic's other side, mirrored Sally's move and grabbed Sonic's wrist. "Sonic, did Aunt Sally tell you?"

Sonic turned to him, diverted. "Huh? Tell me what?" He looked at Sally on his other side. "What's up, Sal?"

"I'm going on the mission into Robotropolis!"

Sonic's eyes narrowed. He didn't say it, but Sally could hear him think the "Not cool." For all that he'd championed Tails's admission into the Freedom Fighters, and taken him along on missions when Tails far to young to go anywhere near Robotnik's citadel, he too had doubts when it actually came to putting the fox cub in the line of fire. Sonic preferred to discuss plans involving Tails beforehand. Getting news of his involvement second-hand would not, as Tails had obviously hoped, improve Sonic's mood from his spat with Antoine.

Yet as Sally watched, an expression of approval clanked into place on Sonic's face. He mussed Tails's hair and gave him a thumbs-up. "That's great news, big guy! You and me against Robuttnik. Robo-town won't know what hit it."

Tails giggled. Sally breathed a sigh of relief. Probably Sonic would tackle her about this later, but for now he seemed ready to hush up and put on a happy face for Tails and the happy nature of the occasion.

Antoine, on the other hand, was less willing to bury the hatchet. "I am thinking Sonic the Hedgepig is not such a good role model for you to be following, Tails. You would be much better off to be followed my lead into battle."

"But there's only room for one coward under the bed, Ant," Sonic sniped.

"Will you two cotton pickin' babies just stop already?" Bunnie waved a frustrated hand at both of them. "Y'all are worse than a litter of minpins, an' twice as noisy. Sally-girl, what's this I hear about a mission into Robotropolis?"

Sally sighed. Here it came. She'd been concerned Bunnie would feel displaced when she learned Sally had planned a mission that didn't include her. Briefly she explained her plan: how it was strictly reconnaissance, how they were going to check out a couple of new factories on the very edge of Robotropolis, and how NICOLE had registered increased traffic to and from those factories in the past fortnight. "Traffic that doesn't stop at any other point in the city. It just comes in, stops off at the factories, and then travels back out across the Great Unknown."

Bunnie's expression was grim. "You reckon it might be more civilians from the duchies?"

Over the years Robotnik had spread his influence into the far reaches of Mobius, like an ever-widening ring of smoke from an explosion. The House of Acorn used to rule over several distinct duchies and isolated colonies away from Mobotropolis, usually in rural areas. They operated under a somewhat feudal system, whereby residents, ruled over by vassal lords, donated foodstuffs to the city. In return they were honorary Acorn citizens, protected by the hand of Sally's father, the King, against invaders from other kingdoms.

While Sally would've loved to believe that her family presided over all Mobius, she'd learned as she grew up that the House of Acorn was in fact only one of many royal families scattered across the continents. Some kingdoms were devout pacifists, but others nursed dreams of empires, and had been known to invade their neighbours, or surround duchies and try to absorb them wholesale. In the years directly preceding Robotnik's coup there had been a period of harmony and several significant peace treaties signed. This, and a resounding defeat of invading armies during the Great War, led up to King Acorn's decision to dissolve the War Ministry. However, after Robotnik rose to power he used the King's name to sneak convoys of SWATbots into the duchies before they learned of the coup, quickly and efficiently spiriting the populace to the renamed Robotropolis for robiticisation.

There were still some outlying colonies he hadn't been able to absorb, though, for a variety of reasons. Once in a while they fell. Sometimes the Freedom Fighters were able to liberate survivors before they made it to the Roboticisor, and in this way Knothole's population had increased.

Yet there had not been much happening with the duchies for a long time. Sally wondered why Bunnie had immediately leaped to this conclusion. Perhaps she was feeling a little homesick – her family came from a tiny fief in the Deep South. The huge distance from Robotropolis had always been Bunnie's comfort blanket because it gave her hope that the rest of her family may still be alive and fighting, just like the Knothole Freedom Fighters.

"It's possible, I suppose," Sally said, "but I suspected he may have found an alternative fuel source and is bussing it in as quickly as possible."

"And you wanna throw a wrench in the works," Sonic surmised. "Or a hedgehog."

Sally saw Antoine open his mouth and hastily cut him off. She hadn't intended this shindig to become a mission brief, but if Sonic was talking about this then he wasn't spoiling the atmosphere by squabbling. "That was the general idea, yes, but first we have to make sure of what exactly is going on in those factories. Uncle Chuck said they're heavily guarded and Robotnik never speaks of them directly. He always uses codes."

"Codes?" Rotor scratched his head and swallowed a mouthful of apple pie. "Like digital codes?"

Sally shook her head. "Codenames. He calls the factories 'eggs'."

"Eggs?" Sonic frowned. "What, I should start calling him 'Eggman' as well as 'Blubberbutt'?"

"He also mentions transporting energy from the Etheric Region."

Rotor made an 'ah' noise. "Hence you think he's found a new fuel source."

"Whoa, wait, back up a second." Sonic held up a hand. "The hedgehog needs an explanation."

Antoine rolled his eyes. "Why am I not surprising in this?"

Sonic rounded on him. "Okay, Ant, maybe you can tell me where the Etheric Region is, 'cause I sure as heck don't remember seeing it on any maps."

"I, uh…" For a second Antoine looked panicked, as everyone around the table fixed upon him. He pulled nervously at his collar, before coughing into one fist and visibly clawing back his composure in front of his friends and Princess. "Monsieur Knuckles, you have been travelled muchly. Peut-être you can be telling us where this asthmatic region is being?"

"Etheric Region," Sally gently corrected. Usually she would've been annoyed at Antoine passing the buck to a guest, but NICOLE hadn't been able to find any Etheric Region on her maps of Mobius either, nor any cross-references in her extensive atlas library. Perhaps it was an older name that was no longer used outside its own borders.

Knuckles didn't look displeased to be asked, but he didn't exactly look happy, either. He frowned at bowl of preserved fruit in front of him and gripped his spoon as though holding a deadly weapon. It looked ridiculously flimsy in his huge glove. "I don't talk much to the people of places I fly over. Most of the time I prefer not to make contact, so they don't even realise I'm there. Angel Island has a special magnetic field around it that disrupts Robotnik's scanners and tells them it's just dead air up there. That's how I've kept the Emerald safe for so long. If I communicated with too many ground-dwellers it'd jeopardise my responsibilities as Guardian."

"We understand, Knuckles," said Sally.

"You might, but I don't. Is that a 'No, I don't know either?'" Sonic demanded.

Knuckles sighed. Sally recognised the timbre. "Correct."

"So we're going in blind."

"Not quite, Sonic," Sally corrected. "That's the whole point of reconnaissance – it's to find out what Robotnik's up to so we can plan the best way to stop it."

"I gotcha, Sal."

"Me too, Aunt Sally."

Sally smiled. "Thanks, Tails."

"Hey, don't I get any thanks?"

"You too, Sonic."

Bunnie smacked the tabletop with the flat of one hand. Sally noticed it was the flesh one – the metal would probably have broken the wood. "Then it's settled; I'm comin' too."

"You are?" Rotor echoed.

"You are?" repeated Sonic.

Tails bounced in his seat. "Cool! Aunt Bunnie's coming on the mission!"

Knuckles looked a little shocked at the declaration. Obviously this was not something Bunnie had broached with him before, or at least not so much that he'd expected her to volunteer this time. Sally divided her attention between him and Bunnie as she spoke. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Bunnie?"

"'Course I'm sure, Sally-girl. I'm still a Freedom Fighter, ain't I?"

"Well, yes, but -"

"Then it's still my duty to do my part for the resistance, right?"

"But you have other commitments now -"

"Landsakes, sugar, that don't stop me from bein' who I am. I've been a Freedom Fighter since I was knee high to a grasshopper, an' I ain't about to shirk my responsibilities."

Out the corner of her eye Sally saw Knuckles deflate imperceptibly at this mention of responsibility. Coming hot on the heels of reference to his own responsibilities as Guardian, he couldn't very well react badly to Bunnie's words. Still, Sally knew him well enough to read in the slump of his shoulders that he wasn't pleased.

Yet what had he expected? Bunnie was fiercely principled, and for a long time she'd lived solely for Knothole and the Freedom Fighters.

Still…

"You've been training while on Angel Island, I suppose?"

Bunnie winked. "Kata every mornin' an' evenin'."

Sally bit her lip. She hadn't planned for Bunnie to be involved, but the desire to have her back on the team was intense – especially since Dulcy was visiting the other dragons for a few weeks. Any help was invaluable, and who knew when Bunnie and Knuckles would visit again? "All right. But you have to promise me you'll take extra care out there. No stupid risks, no unnecessary gambles, and no fancy heroics."

"Oui, you must be leaving those to Sonic," Antoine muttered.

Sonic blew him a raspberry. "And no being totally spineless. That's Ant's department."

"Hedgep-"

Bunnie clamped a hand over Antoine's muzzle. "Thanks, Sally-girl."

Sally nodded, but was aware of Knuckles's disapproving stare.

To Be Continued …