Taking a step back to adjust my stance I raise one arm to at least defend myself.
Despite the stereotype that most mobians are pacifists, a stereotype I can't help but agree with most of the time, I've been in several fights before. Those fights were either with other mobians in bars and the like or animals I've stumbled across in my treks through the wild. NONE of them were to the death, not even against animals trying to eat me. Unlike the typical human, a mobian's natural abilities are often more than enough to either fight off animals or simply avoid them long enough that they just give up. Me being a rabbit mobian allowed me to quickly jump up into the trees or ledges to avoid predators, and when I had to stand my ground my kicks were powerful enough to give a bear second thoughts. I had thought that when it was finally time to fight and defend myself in the service of Doctor Robotnik I'd be okay and at least manage to survive the fight. The look in the eyes of the goat mobian however had me fully convinced that one of us was going to die and all that running and hiding would do was ensure that it was going to be me.
My left hand suddenly brushed against something and I suddenly recalled the thrown spear. Perhaps I wasn't as doomed as I thought…
Gripping the end of the spear I whipped it around as fast as I could to ward off the enemy mobian and cursed my own inexperience a moment later. Instead of holding it spearhead out towards the mobian I was holding it like a quarterstaff.
The leaping form of the goat mobian crashed into me, hands clasped firmly around the shaft of the spear and keeping me from clubbing him with it. I cursed out loud this time, again regretting the fact that had I held the spear properly it would have kept him from leaping at me or maybe even skewering him as he did so. Instead I laid on my back, my eyes widening as I watched my enemy rear back his horned head before bringing it smashing down into my own.
Pain flashed through my head and the world went spinning. It felt like my brain had bounced around the inside of my skull like a pinball. Starbursts exploded in my vision as I clutched my head with my hands.
Wait… my hands?
Horror flashed through me as I realized I had let go of the spear and I tried to refocus my doubling vision. My heart near stopped in mortal terror as my vision suddenly refocused and I saw the goat mobian standing over me with with spear raised, about to plunge into me. I reached out with my hands, whether to beg mercy or try to catch the weapon as it stabbed down I didn't know, either way I failed.
The spear blurred in motion and I heard a sharp crack!
I lay there motionless for a brief instant, not knowing what in the world had happened. Was my skull split open by the spear? If it had it felt oddly more like something had hit me really hard in the face and given me a black eye. I couldn't have been stabbed in the body, I didn't feel anything. My eyes widened as I realized what happened.
His spear had gotten caught in the lenses of my goggles!
A spider web of cracks blocked the vision in my right eye, leaving but a blurred shape wiggling just in front of me. With my left eye I could see the warrior goat scowl in frustration as he began to twist and force down on the spear.
The sound of my goggle lenses cracking more and the blurry form of the spear point beginning to stab through jolted me into motion.
Grabbing onto the spear shaft to keep it from sinking in any deeper I bent my lower body and reared back a leg. Just as the warrior had noticed the motion and made to move out of the way I lashed out with a kick.
It landed squarely where I intended and he was sent flying off of me with a high pitched howl of pain.
Wrenching the spear out of my goggles I stood back up and simply had to stand there a moment, holding tightly onto the weapon to keep my hands from shaking. I reached up towards my face and numbly stared through the hole in my goggles and absently counted the fingers on my hand through it.
'Say what you will about GUN but their gear is second only to Robotnik.'
I took a deep shaky breath to calm my nerves and immediately cursed myself again. The warrior goat wasn't dead, he'd surely be charging right at me again!
Whipping around I was both surprised and gratified to find my worries baseless.
The warrior laid on the ground, rolling in pain doubtlessly even his battle hardened nerves couldn't ignore. A kick from a rabbit was painful enough without it being a well aimed strike at the ole family jewels. Still though I couldn't just stand there and wait for him to regain posture and attack me again.
With that thought in mind I charged at the prone warrior goat, intent on bringing the spear shaft directly on his head.
It was then I made two dire mistakes.
Number one was that in my inexperience I had both misjudged the length of the spear and my ability to aim with it, hitting him with the wrong part. The second was that I had forgotten there was a sharp pointy bit at the end of it. Both of these mistakes I realized all too late as blood sprayed into my face and I gaped in horror at what I had just done.
The warrior goat attempted to gasp but succeeded in only gurgling and choking on his own blood. He clutched at his neck desperately, the crimson red serving a sharp contrast and demonstrating the red on his hands really had been just paint. It seemed to last such a painfully long time, his desperate struggle for life dragging on and on seemingly without end. Finally when it seemed like his final seconds were upon him he had looked towards me and stared into my eyes.
I… my ability to read people I had long since taken pride in had failed utterly at this moment. He stared into my eyes and I didn't- couldn't, I couldn't tell what was there. Fearful desperate begging? One final wordless curse of spiteful hate? I didn't know and quite suddenly the life had left his eyes and he finally, mercifully went limp.
A jolt shot through my body as I was quite suddenly reminded that my fight was merely a small part of a greater battle. I looked around and to my relief the battle hadn't gone against us. It hadn't completely gone our way either as I could clearly see a number of smoldering badnik wrecks. But clearly the battle had ended in victory for us as I could see a number of war machines giving chase off in the distance.
I was just thankful I had gotten through that with my hide intact if a bit battered and bruised.
"HA! What in the spiny hells was that!?"
Looking over I saw Alfa sitting precariously atop a gravestone, absently spinning a pair of bolas with one hand. I actually found myself reevaluating its threat level after looking it over. Unlike most visible machines in the area it had come through that fight with no damages whatsoever beyond a few scratches from the initial surprise attack. Clearly I had been much too flippant with the idea that Alfa was a machine that had genuinely survived multiple encounters with the famed Blue Blur himself.
"Well?! Are you going to explain yourself or what?" Alfa said again with an increasingly impatient tone.
"E-excuse me?" I replied and immediately cursed myself for the stutter in my voice.
"T-t-t-t-that!" Alfa pointed at the now dead goat mobian, its suddenly mocking tone had my face burning much to my shock. I was very obviously unbalanced at the moment though I was also at an utter loss of how to rectify it.
"Don't tell me you've never been in a fight before?!" Alfa continued in exasperation.
"I've been in several fights!" My retort came out so embarrassingly weak and childish.
'Shut up!' I wanted to say to myself, 'Stop talking!' was another. A million thoughts, problems both big and small, solutions both useful and pointless, rushed through my mind like a whirlwind. The control over my emotions and reactions I had thought was so solid before was unraveling more and more by the minute and to my mortification I was beginning to realize I was about to have an utter nervous breakdown.
"Oh "been in several fights" he says!" Alfa said with surprisingly lifelike tongue clicks. "And how many of those schoolyard tussles had ended with one side dead huh? How in the world am I supposed to mentor you into being something useful for the Great Doctor Eggman?"
And just like that the nervous breakdown that was about to literally send me to my knees became such a minor problem. Robotnik was watching, probably staring at me in disgust at this very moment and one more disappointment away from just having his machines do away with me. If I collapsed at this moment, becoming just a ball of unchecked emotions on the ground it would almost certainly be the end of me.
What use was a minion that broke down from successfully defending himself in a life or death struggle? Robotnik destroyed plenty of clearly useful warmachines in his own piques of frustration at his losses to Sonic. Getting rid of a genuinely malfunctioning asset? It wouldn't even be worth a moment's consideration for him.
"Which… is why… it is doubly important I make sure to pay special attention to everything you do!" The words almost had to be forced out, the calm hammered into my psyche with sheer force of will and desire to live. "You are a veteran after all! How many other machines in Doctor Robotnik's service can boast about surviving Sonic as much as you?"
"Heh, yeah not even newbie Metalfake can say that!" Alfa said with a prideful town, grinning brightly and happily. "All those other versions of him weren't really him so those don't count! Not like they're still around to complain anyway… pretty sure I fixed my foot with one of their remains in fact."
Reassured I managed to regain control of not only myself but the coconuts before me I glanced over my surroundings again. Easily two dozen badnik wrecks dotted the graveyard but I could only make out a half dozen goat warrior corpses. Swallowing down a wave of revulsion the sight of the still forms instilled in me I looked back to Alfa.
"How many attacked us?" I asked. "Did we get them all?"
"Oh only about a dozen." Alfa gave a careless shrug as it allowed the spinning bolas to go flying away. "Counting that grand nemesis of yours enjoying his dirt nap we killed eight of them. Sent the bucketheads after the survivors, ain't got hope for actually catching them though.
Only a dozen?! I looked over the battlefield the graveyard had turned into and couldn't help the chill I felt at taking in the wrecks of the near thirty severely damaged and destroyed badniks. A mere dozen warriors armed with primitive weapons had managed to destroy over double their number in badniks. Thoughts of mobian physical superiority over humans often drifted through my mind and yet even this achievement seemed like it shouldn't have been possible.
'The power of a well sprung ambush is terrifying to behold.' With this thought I resolved to respect and take in the clear lesson of this skirmish
"Right, well… it's clear that this place was made recently and won't hold the ancient secrets Doctor Robonik orders we find." A brief pause brought no conviennent interruption from the Good Doctor so I continued. "We should head to the second site."
"No arguments here, cony!" Alfa said and hopped off the gravestone before giving a loud ear piercing whistle. "Form up rust for brains!"
I was in the middle of surveying my surroundings again, still clearly jumpy from the near fatal ambush and immediately grew annoyed with my deceased vision. My goggles had saved my life but damaged as they were they would only impair my vision and made another ambush more likely to be fatal. Taking them off I suddenly realized I was still holding the spear taken from the warrior goat.
Trying to ignore the fact I was pointedly turning away from the corpse I had a hand in making I looked down at my hard won weapon. Recollections of how useless it was up close filled my mind, how I wasn't even able to use the shaft as a blunt instrument in defense had me clench my hands tighter.
Looking up I stared at the gravestone Alfa had just vacated and hesitated only a moment before nodding.
Walking over I placed my new weapon just behind the gravestone and placed my foot against the stone itself. Holding tightly onto the spear shaft I kicked out and there was only a brief moment of resistance before a loud snap resounded followed by a louder crack of stone upon stone.
Tossing away the broken off shaft I held up the much shorter spear to admire it in the sunlight. Reduced to a quarter of its original length I wouldn't make the mistake of trying to use it like it was a quarterstaff again. Making a few testing stabbing motions I nodded at the new lightness of the weapon.
I also steadfastly refused to look at the grave I had defiled nor the other one I had ended up destroying when my leg sent the first flying.
Looking over to see the badnik horde had reformed I joined up with the machines and began following Alfa as we made our way to the second site. Despite the new length of my looted weapon I found myself clutching it with both hands to stop the uncontrollable shaking in my free hand. Even then my breathing started to increase and I knew that any moment I would start hyperventilating if I couldn't control myself.
Even if it was done to save my own life I had still committed murder… and for what? For the right to record a history not written by humans for once? I had naively assumed I could just stay back and merely fight only to ward off direct attention on myself. To somehow become a non-combatant in the forces of the 'Eggman Empire' as Robotnik called it. But when it came down to it I was barely skilled enough in fighting to keep from dying and not nearly good enough to not kill when defending myself. The fight had happened in moments, barely enough time to think, just react, attack and hope you lived at the end.
What in the world was I doing here?
Looking around at the warmachines that would unhesitatingly gun me down upon me attempting to slip away I already knew the answer.
Surviving.
I was now in quite the 'sticky wicket' as Uncle Wallace would say. No amount of realizing how foolish it was to take part in things so far above myself as to even loom over mountains would keep me from becoming excessively perforated. Not that there was an acceptable level of perforation when it came to my own well being. Really the only even half decent place for me to get shot in would be my ears as they were somewhat regenerative as long as it was only a hole…
Now would be a good time to stop contemplating my ears being shot to pieces, they were becoming rather itchy.
Traveling to the next site took many hours of hiking. Normally a mobian such as myself would find hiking just part and parcel of the life but never before in my life had I had to contend with such sheer verticality. Sure there had been hills and the occasional cliff face that detouring around would take much too long but the path Alfa insisted was just constant literal ups and downs.
Thankfully enough despite its mockery earlier it seemed to have started to approve of me somewhat as I was allowed to ride one of the larger badniks during the harsher stretches.
Anxiety started to grow within me however when as we approached the second site, Alfa started ordering the machines to take a careful approach and keep the noise to a minimum. Eventually I started to pick some noises in the distance over the next ridge. Straining my enhanced hearing brought to mind voices and the sound of machinery and breaking rock.
The first coconuts motioned me to follow it and I did so, leaving behind the badnik horde to silently wait at the base of the ridge. Both of us silently ascended the ridge, almost crawling up the sheer slope as we did so and doing our utmost to avoid a cascade of rocks from our passage.
Before reaching the top of the ridge I made sure to pull and hold down my frustratingly itchy ears with a hand. The edges of the holes I had made in the top of my helmet irritated my ears but it beat getting spotted like an idiot. As I joined Alfa in looking over the edge at the second site my stomach dropped like a stone. Investigating the second site would be far worse then the first site even taking account of the fact we were ambushed at the first site. The second site was very obviously occupied and there were far more of them than a mere dozen warrior goats.
"Humans."
This was going to be messy…
Author Note: Some emotional depth in this snippet and coming to terms with foolish short sighted decisions. It's only going to get messier.