10. Unexpected Enemies
Bunnie swiped her wrist across her brow. "How we doin', Antoine?"
Since the alert was well-known by now, Antoine had given up ringing the bell to scout for stragglers. "It is all seeming most emptiness, Bunnie."
"I been countin' heads as best I can, but I lost it somewhere around the time Tails an' Rosie went past. Ain't nobody I can recollect not seein', though, 'cept…" A thought turned over in her mind, presumably at the same time it did in Antoine's, because he looked at her with the same sudden alarm. "Rotor!"
They made a beeline for Rotor's workshop, but before they reached it a familiar figure lumbered towards them along the path. Rotor's arms were full of burlap sack, and similar brown sacks hung off each elbow and were strung across his back, weighing him down. Bunnie and Antoine relieved him of three without asking, Bunnie clutching the mouths of two in her metal fist while Antoine struggled with one.
"Oh mon ça alors, Rotor, what are you being having in here?" Antoine wheezed.
"Talk as we walk, Sugar-twan," Bunnie instructed, shoving him forward with her free hand. "Rotor?"
"The balloons," Rotor panted, lifting his cap to shake sweat from his eyes. His fur was slick and daubed in what looked like soot and green slime. "The balloons full of metal-eating solution and the anti-metal plant seeds." He patted a pouch on his belt. It was odd to think that the greatest weapon they'd ever found against Robotnik could get lost in the lining of your coat.
"We gotta pick up the pace, or we'll lose everythin' precious," Bunnie stated, leaving the implications of that hanging. They passed through her meaning like a cloud of cigarette smoke and kept on going, starting to jog as best they could.
They were into the trees when they heard the first shots. Bunnie forced herself not to look back, not to put a memory in her head that she could relive later. Knothole was everything to those who had escaped Robotnik's evil; it represented freedom as much as the Freedom Fighters, if not more. If Robotnik could find Knothole and destroy it, he was dealing a huge blow to the morale, confidence and spirit of everyone who had thought they were safe from him.
"C'est la finition," Antoine murmured sadly. "Nous sommes sur le pavé. He is killing Knothole."
"How did he find us?" Rotor asked, and Bunnie could hear the angry tears in his voice. He'd lost his home, his workshop, all the plans they'd been setting against Robotnik and Robotropolis.
"I dunno, sugar," she replied truthfully, "but I do know we gotta hoof it to the shelters 'afore anybody finds us. We ain't clear just yet. Let's just stay thankful we all made it out alive an' figure out what happened later"
"Buti don't understand. How? It seems pretty convenient-" Rotor got no further, for at that moment the trees above them exploded and showers of burnt wood, twigs and leaves rained down on them.
"Take cover!" Bunnie yelled, throwing herself at Rotor to prevent a chunk of oak falling on him. They rolled over and over, and Bunnie heard some of the balloons pop in their sacks. She cursed losing the precious weapons, but Rotor's life was more important. So was Antoine's. she raised her head to call, "Sugar-twan, you okay?"
"Oui, Bunnie, je suis bien." Antoine, still heroically holding onto his sack of balloons, appeared from behind a fallen branch covered in angular leaves. He ducked behind it when a burst of laser fire shot past his head, incinerating a large hole in the trunk of the tree behind him.
"Dab-blame it!" Bunnie swore under her breath. "One of them there SWATpods must've done seen us runnin' away." She yanked open one of her sacks and took out a balloon. It was glossy with spilled solution, so she held it in her flesh hand. She wasn't quite such an accurate shot this way, but she couldn't risk dissolving parts of herself along with the enemy. "Rotor, you take Antoine and get the hip-hip outta here. I'll cover you an' catch up after I'm done."
"We can't just leave you," Rotor started, covering his head as another salvo of burnt tree parts rained down.
"The pod's too big. It's burnin' a path for itself so's it can get to us. That'll give you an' Sugar-twan a chance to outrun it. Don't worry, I'll be fine. I'll keep these two sacks so's y'all can run faster." And so she could hold off any more pods that might have seen their tails disappearing out of Knothole.
Rotor's eyes were serious, but he was no fool. He knew the wisdom of her words and after a few more seconds he nodded, clambered to his feet and set off at as fast a clip as he could manage. He grabbed Antoine's shoulder as he passed, dragging the coyote behind them so Bunnie could see Antoine's confused expression when she didn't follow.
Bunnie turned to face the pod firing a path towards her. Robotnik's forces must have flown over the Great Forest and down into the clearing that held Knothole, but tracking creatures through the woods themselves was more difficult. The trees around these parts had grown close together, tightly knit so that only small Mobians on foot could comfortable travel between them. It and the lack of beaten path were two of the reasons Sally had elected to put the emergency shelters over this way. Out in the open a SWATpod was deadly, but Bunnie had the advantage out here, having trained and played amongst these trees since she was a kit. She could cripple any comers and high-tail it out of there before reinforcements arrived, ducking and dodging like she was a monkey instead of a rabbit.
Another blast of laser sounded from somewhere, and another, and then a shaft of light poked through the thick canopy. Bunnie heard branches snap and readied herself, watching to see if she could also gain the advantage of surprise. Just because the SWATpod knew someone was down here didn't mean it knew exactly where, nor did it mean she couldn't creep up on it as it descended.
Except it wasn't a SWATpod that descended. From below it looked like a white oval studded with three glowing lights that turned the air beneath them hazy like air during a heat wave. As the oval came closer a handrail appeared, like the front of a running machine, and holding onto it were two figures that made Bunnie gasp and nearly drop her balloon.
"Oh my stars…"
Holding onto the handrail were a pair of echidnas.
Sonic was getting antsy. "I don't like this. It's taking way to long for them to get here."
"Now Sonic," Rosie cautioned, "Don't you go fretting unnecessarily."
"Who said it's unnecessary? For all we know, the others have already been captured and are on their way to Robotropolis right now in a SWATpod." He hopped from foot to foot, pressing one eye against the viewfinder that poked aboveground.
The emergency shelters had been built by moles and so were subterranean, filled with supporting struts made of durable wood cut and shaped by other Knothole residents. When empty they were cold and draughty, but when they were full to capacity, as they were now, the air quickly turned thick and hot, and not a little rank with the smell of fear and sweaty bodies.
"I know that, dear," Rosie said softly, moving closer to Sonic, "I just didn't think you wanted to start a panic."
Sonic turned to look beyond the old chipmunk, to where Knothole villagers nestled among the struts and cross-pieces. All sorts of beasts had gathered, nestling shoulder to shoulder in ways that would've been unthinkable in the days before the coup: fox and badger, otter and beaver, possum and platypus! Old social boundaries had been torn down by Robotnik's rule and the survivors had drawn together as if for warmth in a blizzard. There wasn't room here to mill about, but the quiet murmuring bespoke a desire to do just that. Nobody knew what had happened; only that the red alert had sounded and now they were here, waiting for … something. Safety or destruction, and Sonic and Tails were the only Freedom Fighters in this shelter. There were other dugouts dotted around, some in this area, some elsewhere, the idea being that if one was discovered it wouldn't be the end for everyone.
Sonic sighed, realising Rosie was right. A panic in such close quarters, with SWATbots and who knew what else lurking aboveground, was the last thing they needed right now. It just frustrated him that he was stuck down here without knowing whether Sally, Dulcy, Bunnie, Rotor and Antoine had made it to the other shelters or were still out there somewhere. His eye had been glued to the viewfinder since he arrived, and he hadn't seen them pass by yet, which only made him worry and want to juice it to wherever they were.
"You're right," he said instead. "How's Tails?" Next to Sal and his friends, Tails was Sonic's biggest concern.
"Coping," Rosie replied. "He was talking to Cornelius when I saw him last."
"Dr. Quack?"
"Not at the moment. He's channelling his daughter Lucy right now. She was only five when she was roboticised, so Tails is keeping him calm by telling him stories of your exploits."
"He is? Wow." Sonic swept his spins from his face even though they weren't even in it. "The Big Guy is sure more mature than I was at his age."
"You won't find any disagreement from me, dear, although you seem to have turned out quite well. The sleepless nights I used to spend worrying about you and Princess Sally, especially when I knew you were sneaking out and I couldn't so anything about it. I used to sit in my kitchen making bread until I heard you sneak back in again. It kept my hands and my mind busy. Very therapeutic, making bread."
So that was why they had so many sandwiches when they were kids. "You knew we were sneaking out?"
"Of course."
"So why didn't you stop us?"
"Would you really have listened to me?"
He thought back to the early days, with the pain of their families still fresh wounds in them. He thought of the Robians who made them determined to fight Robotnik and near-misses that made them careful about doing it – seeing their loved-ones working in the factories, or their names listed on convoys already shipped to distant lands not even Sally knew where to find on the map. "I guess not."
"Experience soon sobered you up, even if it did add a few wrinkles around my edges." Rosie gestured at the viewfinder. "Are they here yet?"
"I thought you said-"
"I never stopped worrying, dear. I doubt I ever will."
Sonic looked at her curiously for a second, before peering through the periscope. "Whoa, incoming!" He grabbed for the fastening that flipped back the hollow tree stump masking the shelter's entrance.
Seconds later he yanked it closed again as Rotor and Antoine staggered inside. They carried suspiciously bulgy sacks and wore matching troubled expressions.
Sonic took one look at them and demanded, "What's wrong?"
"Elle est restée pour combattre un SWATpod!" Antoine panted.
"What?"
"Je souhaite que nous ne l'ayons pas laissée derrière!" Antoine went on, gabbling and puffing so that even the words Sonic did understand were unintelligible. "Elle ne devrait pas seul combattre!"
"Speak English, Ant!"
"Bunnie!" Antoine finally managed. "She is lefted behind."
"You left her behind?" Sonic repeated incredulously. His words were just loud enough to cause nervous mutterings amongst the villagers. Sonic heard and wisely dropped his voice. "What were you thinking?"
"We were being followed by a SWATpod," Rotor explained. "She volunteered to take care of it so we had chance to save the metal-eating solution. She said she'd catch up." His words made sense but his eyes told a different story; already Rotor was regretting the decision.
"What about Sal and Dulce?" Sonic asked, glancing at Tails who was engaging Cornelius Quack in what looked like a very thorough discussion of dolls versus train sets.
"You mean they haven't checked in yet?" said Rotor.
Antoine threw up his hands, or motioned he would have liked to if he hadn't been carrying a sack. "My poor princess! She is too much at the mercy of those fiendish SWATbots!"
Sonic's stomach sank to cosy up with his intestines, but he put on a grim face and squared his shoulders. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was how to be a symbol for those who needed it. right now everyone needed strength, and even if his own throat felt like he'd swallowed broken glass, he couldn't let it show. "She'll be fine. Sal is one tough cookie, and so is Dulcy. They're not stupid enough to take on a whole army alone."
"The girls aren't dumb. They'll all be fine." Sonic wished he felt as confident as he sounded.
"The princess has always been an exceptionally responsible young lady," Rosie commented.
Responsibility. Yeah. Sally would skin him if he left the shelters now, in case he alerted any SWATbot scouts as to their location. Still, the urge to throw back the stump and zoom to the rescue was like a near-physical ache in the soles of Sonic's feet. He grew up with Sally and Bunnie, and had watched Dulcy turn from a tiny, gawky draglet into a bigger, gawky dragon. Dulcy and Bunnie were his friends, Bunnie feeling sometimes more like the sister he never had, putting him back in line and wiping dirt from his cheek. And as for Sally … If anything happened to those three, Sonic knew, he would never forgive himself.
Yet for years now their first priority had been Knothole and its people. Sonic looked around again, noted how many old, young and infirm were in here with him, trying and failing to calculate the number in the others shelters too. These creatures depended on him and the Freedom Fighters to keep them safe from harm. Their security and Robotnik's defeat had occupied Sally's head for so many years it was a wonder she had room in there for anything else. Now she'd put herself in danger for them once again, and it was up to Sonic to hold down her precious fort while she was missing.
Missing…
"I'll give it fifteen minutes," he muttered. "If they aren't in a shelter by then, I'm going out after them."
Nobody within earshot saw fit to argue.
To Be Continued…