Chapter 5: Bug! Part 1

Queen Aleena: My eldest children had taught Harry many things about being in the Resistance in the months that he had joined them. But my youngest son still had a lot to learn. About teamwork.

Harry loved to fly. He had been so happy when Manic had given him a hoverboard. He enjoyed surfing along the skyline feeling the wind through his hair. Surfing some really great thermal clouds. "Yahoo!" He cried out as he burst through a particularly dark cloud. "This is the best!" He did a few loops and tricks and flew back in sight below the clouds where he spotted a small lake. He flew down and hopped on the water a few times but failed to notice a SWATbot emerging from the water to follow and attack him.

Harry felt like he was being followed. "Huh? Woah!" He said when he saw the SWATbot coming for him. He flew along the surface of the water sending waves behind himself to try to obscure the bot's vision.

"Don't worry lil' bro. i got it!" A familiar voice called.

"Sonic!" Harry called and he turned his head back to see his oldest brother twirling around a rope tied in a loop.

"Yippee kai ai ay!" Sonic called as he threw the rope running at his usual speed. Then he grebbed on and the rope drew tight around the bot's ankle areas and he ground his feet into the dirt He managed to get the SWATbot to stop, then he revved up and started pulling it backwards along with him. "Think your gonna stop the Hedgehog's huh?" Sonic asked the bot as he managed to get it away from his little brother. "I don't think so." the blue hedgehog said as he started doing a super spin and then threw the bot a good distance away where it crashed and broke apart.

"Awesome." Harry shouted in awe. But he didn't see where he was flying. He crashed into a big pile of mud. Big as a small cliff.

"SWATbot unit 27." Sleet called the SWATbot from its communications device which survived somehow. "There is a rumor of a sighting of Queen Aleena in Quadrant 10. Check it out and report back." The wolfish bounty hunter ordered.

"Affirmative." Sonic said while pinching his nose. "Checking out rumor." He then destroyed the communications device.

"Sonic!" Sonic heard his brother call.

"Hey Harry!" Sonic called as he got to where he heard his little brother's voice. "Where are ya lil' man?"

"Up here." He heard and Sonic looked up to see Harry's feet hanging with his upper body stuck in the mud. "A little help please?" He heard a muffled plea.

"What are you donig out here ALONE?" Sonic demanded as he pulled the human's ankles to try to get him out.

"Surfing some awesome thermals." Harry replied as he wiggled and tried to get unstuck.

"What happened to the Buddy System?" He asked the youngest sibling as he succeded and he felll backwards down the small cliff while Harry fell a bit slower. He looked up.

"Look out below!" Harry called and somehow Sonic didn't get out of the way in time. Harry landed on Sonic and they both let out a "oof."

"Next time we go together." Sonic promised. "And I'll show ya how to surf thermals."

"You surf thermals?" Harry asked in skepticism. Sonic hated water. How could he like clouds which where mostly water and air? He then gasped as he saw his older brother do a few loop de loops about twenty feet in the air. "Crashin'" Ok. Manic's rubbing off on me. Harry thought after he said that.

"Kid you are looking at Sonic the Surf Hog. I could surf thermals upside down with my eyes closed. Come on. I heard some news about mom. We need to find Sonia and Manic" He said tossing Harry his hoverboard and he boarded while Sonic pushed him from behind at full speed.

So this is Sonic speed. "Woohoo!" Harry called out as Sonic let go and he somehow maintained that speed.

They soon came across a valley of oil wells. Burning oil wells.

"Eww that stinks." Manic said pinching his nose.

"These oil wells have been burning for months." Sonia noticed. "Why would mother come to a place like this? Eww...Harry look out!" Harry had hit a pothole and the van soared into the air.

The triplets decided to let Harry drive the van. Big mistake.

"Yo Harry what is it with you and potholes?" Manic demanded as Harry drove on.

"Yeah lil' bro. You can't seem to get enough of 'em." Sonic added.

"I don't know how many more my teeth can take." Sonia added her bit in.

"Come on guys how many have I hit?" Harry grinned from the drivers seat.

"38." The triplets all said at once. Then they all shouted as the van soared into the air again. Harry hit yet another pot hole.

"Wrong. 42. So cut it out with the backseat driving all right?" Harry asked

Sonia groaned. "How much farther?"

Harry checked the map. "Twelve miles." He grinned cheekily. His siblings all cried out in terror. They hated pot holes!

But his love of potholes caused a tire to break. And they had to pull over in the desert. While they where fixing their tire, an unknown vehicle was approaching. Inside the vehicle, was a lizard man. A Freedom Fighter just like them. Not that they knew at the time...

"Identify yourself." Sonia ordered as they got on guard. Harry had crawled out from under the car (They decided he should change the tire as it was his fault) and started preparing a punch. Just in case. While Manic and Sonia grabbed their medallions.

The lizard man was wearing leather. A common thing in the desert as it braced yourself from the sand and wind. "You Sonic?" He asked Sonic in a "down under" accent.

"Who wants to know?" The blue hedgehog demanded.

The lizard man walked over to them. "Name's Rudy." He introduced himself. "The party's in Mofus." He whispered to Sonic.

"And the musician's are down the hall." Sonic said in reply. "HI. I'm Sonic." Sonic smiled at his fellow Freedom Fighter. "And this is Sonia, Manic, and our little brother Harry." He introduced his siblings.

"We heard Queen Aleena was in the area. Is it true?" Sonia asked Rudy as she shook hands with the one eyed Freedom Fighter. Apparently he, like Argus, also lost an eye.

"Nah I haven't seen her." Rudy said as he shook Harry's hand. "And that's a good thing."

"How come?" Manic asked.

Rudy looked around suspiciously. "Cause somethin' strange is goin' on 'round here."

Then he told him about the previous night. How he had seen what looked local Bottle Flies glowing in the night.

"Bugs?" Sonia asked fearfully. "Eww!"

"Its nothing I hadn't seen before. There just some majorly big flies 'cept they never glowed before last night. Then, one of my mate's, a Freedom Fighter same as me, turned on me. Wanted to take me to Robotnik. I was lucky to get out alive."

Rudy remembered how one of their more stockier friends had grabbed him from behind while two others rushed him from the front. One with a knife. He kicked the two smaller ones away and hurled the bigger guy over his shoulder into the others and ran off.

"I think its something to do with those bugs." Rudy told the teens and child. "We could really use some help here hedgehogs."

"What do you guys think?" Sonic asked his siblings. He wanted to help the Freedom Fighters out here. But they where a team. He was pleased to see each one nod. Even Sonia.

"First we need to catch one of those flies." Manic suggested.

"Yeah. We should probably go check out the village and see if any Freedom Fighters survived too and get some supplies for-." Harry suggested before Sonia cut in.

"Sonic, why don't you go check out the village?" She suggested. "Your the fastest. Then we'll come up with a plan to get one of those," She shuddered, "icky bugs."

"Right sis." Sonic agreed.

"I'll come too." Harry suggested. "Two can get more done."

"Sorry lil' guy, no time. This calls for some warp speed." Sonic said before running off. Harry walked away with an angry, upset look. His siblings looked after him as he walked behind the van. Even Rudy saw he was a bit upset. Sonic tended to forget that though he was the youngest of them at ten, he was still a Freedom Fighter first. He then saw his hover board from where he was changing the tire.

Manic and Sonia where shocked as Harry soared into the air. "Harry don't!" Sonia protested.

"Come back little mate!" Rudy called.

"Sonic thinks he can go solo, so can I." Harry said determinedly to them. "I'll bring back one of those flies in no time."

Soon enough, Harry was surfing thermals again while keeping an eye out for one of those flies. "Yahoo!" He called as he glided along one that looked like a surfing wave at the beach. He failed to notice though, a fly that appeared just after he did. "Huh?" He said in confusion as a small fly landed on his nose. Then he heard a mechanical buzz and he felt the sting. "Ouch!" A bump appeared, then vanished almost instantly. "Robotnik." Harry said in a monotone voice. "Must report to Robotnik."

When Sonic arrived at Rudy's village he was very disappointed. "Bummer Mahores." He said as he surveyed the damage. "Yo Freedom Fighters!" He called out. "I'm waaaiting." Then he saw one of the mechanical flies. "Hey needle nose!" Sonic called and waved it down. It came down and Sonic pointed at his nose with a grin, hiding a jar behind him. The fly prepared to sting and flew into the jar. Destroying it as it rammed itself against the glass.

"Woah." Sonic said. "If your a real fly then I'm a SWATbot." He said before running off.

In Robotnik's base, Sleet was overseeing the Roboticization of FLYbot victims.

"The serum lasts for about one hour. Enough time to temporarily subdue the victims." Sleet told Robotnik. On one side where FLYbot victims. On the other where roboticized Freedom Fighters. The Outback wasn't the only place where Robotnik had tested his new FLYbots. "Long enough to roboticize them that is." He said with a sneer. I will never forgive myself for telling Robotnik about that Hunting Method I designed. Sleet said in his mind. He and Robotnik had been talking about his Bounty Hunting career. Robotnik had been wondering how a team who had captured A to S-class criminals in Aleena's time where repeatedly failing to capture three teenagers and a child.

"Excellent." Robotnik sneered. "Sometimes I'm amazed by my own brilliance."

My method gave you the idea you oaf. Sleet snarled in his mind. Sleet at times deployed a robotic fly filled with a sleeping serum to catch their targets. "Continued overseeing the Roboticizing." He ordered Sleet.

"Yes your evilness." Sleet said with a bow before starting to leave. Then Dingo entered, with HARRY! Sleet turned. Dingo was holding Harry by the neck of his shirt. Something was wrong. He wasn't struggling. Could he be?

"Look what I found. " Dingo said to Robotnik bringing Harry over to him.

"Ahh, how pleasant. The Hedgehog's youngest come to visit." Robotnik chuckled.

"Robotnik." Harry said dully. "Must report to Robotnik."

He is. Sleet thought in dismay. A bit disappointed that his son let himself be caught by a FLYbot.

Robotnik waved his hand in Harry's face. "What's wrong with him?" He demanded.

"I believe he's a FLYbot victim sir." Sleet said. "You see the sting mark?" He pointed out a very faint mark on Harry's nose.

"I am your humble servant sir."

"Oh this is perfect." Robotnik laughed evilly. "Cause I have a very sepecial job for you."

"Anything for you sir." Harry said in a loving voice that made Sleet sick to his stomach.

"Good. Bring me one of the modified FLYbots." Robotnik ordered and Sleet relucantly brought him one. "This FLYbot is radio controlled." He told his two "servants."

"So before the serum wears off, we drop him off in the Outback and then-" Sleet said realizing Robotnik's plan.

"And he will bring us the Hedgehogs." Robotnik chuckled darkly. "Bark like a dog." He ordered Harry.

"Arf arf." Harry said bringing up his hands and arms in a lower curve making Sleet want to throw up even more.

"Ahh loyalty." Robotnik laughed evilly.

To Be Continued...

The FLYbots I think where one of Robotnik's better ideas.

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