I stood there frozen in abject horror of the task the town represented.
The mobian town was a series of terraces carved into the side of a hill and homes carved into the rock and dirt. In a wood scarce terrain such as this there were precious few examples of wooden structures, what few there were, were important structures like the spokes of windmills, weapons and probably the Chieftain's door. Great woolen rugs were used as doors everywhere else and as hung up shade to recline beneath. There was a surprisingly vibrant array of colors on display, sharply contrasting against the dull browns of the mountainous terrain.
Down below, the human mobian pair were driving up a dirt path towards the town, trailing smoke and flames as the human struggled to put out their burning vehicle. The sound of horns being blown filled the air and I could see the mobians in town bolt into action. Dozens upon dozens of warrior goats run out from the town, taking defensive positions while more run off to the sides. In the town the children were quickly gathered up by their mothers and led away into their homes. Not sure why they were trapping themselves into their carved out homes but I dearly hoped it was because they had hidden exits. These people had generations of experience in surviving and dealing with attacks upon them, I should have more confidence that no matter what happened next that they would be mostly okay at the end of it.
Though whether the same could be said for me…
Looking around I saw warrior goats disappearing behind rock formations and ridges while more warriors continued to maintain a defense before the town. The badniks with me were only a small fraction of the greater badnik horde I had been assigned, being the ones fast enough to chase after the jeep. Outnumbered and potentially about to get pincered from both sides, if a dozen warrior goats can destroy nearly three times their number in badniks in an ambush we were about to get annihilated in short order, of that much I was certain.
I turned back to the motobug that had served as my mount. It leaned on its wheel in what I felt was an approximation of a head tilt before offering me my shotgun. Recalling that Robotnik had contacted me through a caterkiller I leaned in close to it.
"Can you contact Alfa?" I asked as I took the proffered gun. When it tilted back and forth in a nod I felt my heart leap in relief. "Do it!"
"Alfa here!" The tinny voice of the coconuts immediately emitted from the motobug to my ever growing relief.
"Alfa, where are you?" Keeping my voice calm was a task but I didn't want to sound panicked to the murderous little monkey. It had grown less and less caustic towards me recently and I didn't want that undermined. "We've found where the human and mobian were going but now we're outnumbered by those goat mobians!"
"Just over the ridge, here!" This time Alfa's voice resounded from a short distance behind me.
I looked up back towards the ridge and probably to the bemusement of people everywhere I felt stark relief at the sight of a badnik horde descending towards me. Alfa was at the front, leaping and bounding down the slope before landing next to me with a loud thud. It leaned over the boulder I was taking cover beside and took in the sight of the town.
"Heh, found us a proper battle did ya?" Alfa chuckled. "This lot looks nice and fighty, smart enough to try to circle around and hit out flanks too. We could try just charging down and hitting their frontline hard enough to break through to the town? That'll force those flankers to run down to reinforce as fast as they can. Now I know after the last showing with mobians you might be thinking that's a bad idea, but that was an ambush. Out in the open with them having no choice but to stand their ground? We should be able to sweep em aside under the weight of our charge easily enough."
The relief I had been feeling at the prospect of not being skewered to death by angry goat mobians suddenly fell away. I was abruptly reminded that with the reinforcement of Alfa and the rest of the horde we would be able to raid the town. The town full of mobians just trying to live their lives. Those same lives it was my job to end if they got in the way of finding whatever Robotnik was looking for.
I was going to be attacking this place, killing these people and there would be nothing I could do to stop it.
It took a big man to put your life on the line or even sacrifice it for the greater good of those around you. Only an idiot, literally too stupid to live, would sacrifice their life for something pointless. Maybe I was someone who didn't value his principles enough to take a stand on them but taking that stand would accomplish nothing. What would attempting to order the end of this raid do? A quick countermend by Robotnik followed by my execution for one, then the town would just get raided anyway.
Attempt to disrupt the oncoming battle by giving subtly bad orders? I had no idea of what those were without giving the game away. And more importantly I'd be getting mixed up in that fight and trying to make it go badly for myself could get me killed. Despite my stomach roiling in protest I knew there was only one real decision I could make here.
It was no mere gut feeling that I knew I would deeply regret what was to come but at the very least I'd live to do so…
"That's my suggestion anyway, what do ya think Boss Rabbit?" Alfa asked.
"I honestly can't think of anything better, Alfa." Keep that voice even now, no shaking. "Prepare the badniks for the charge, we'll-"
"RABBIT!"
Somehow I didn't jump this time, merely froze in place for a long moment but the jolt of fear was quickly replaced by anger. Here I was about to lead an assault on my fellow mobians in a manner not too much unlike human encroachment, at the same time I had to put up with his bellowing and blatant forgoing of my name? If I didn't value my life so much it might have been enough for me to just throw it all away, cursing him out to my last agonized breath. Seeing as I wasn't in the mood to be mauled by metal teeth I kept a firm hand on my temper.
"Doctor, Robotnik?" I said, turning back towards the motobug his voice had emitted from.
"Whatever you're doing, cease immediately!"
The words surprised me, I felt hope beginning to swell in my chest. Was I really about to be saved by Robotnik from attacking mobians?
Well… gift gloves, holes and all that.
"Of course, Doctor! We're grouped up and awaiting orders!" I replied with a smart salute, already my despairing mood improving by leaps and bounds.
"I've found what I was looking for!" The Doctor explained. "Meet me at the coordinates I am sending now. Eggman out!"
"Well you heard the Doc!" Alfa said as it stood up, waving a hand in the air to gather the machines. "We got our marching orders so get moving you buckets of bolts!"
I was only too happy to fall back in line with the rest of the badnik horde as we made our withdrawal. We wouldn't be killing anymore mobians today, we wouldn't be burning down a mobian town. The relief I felt was palpable and it took genuine effort to not look happy as I marched up towards the ridge and yet…
Scratching my itchy ears I looked back towards the town from atop the ridgeline.
Why did it feel like we were making a mistake of some kind?
"You alright, Boss Rabbit?" Alfa asked with a surprisingly genuine sounding note of concern. "I know it's been a long day. You want to take a load off and ride atop one of the big chrome domes here?"
Shaking my head I turned away.
"Yes, I'd very much like that…"
Despite a whole twenty four hours to rest and recuperate I hardly felt any better.
Arriving at the coordinates the other day brought us to a massive box canyon that was oddly formed even to my eyes. It was as if someone had taken a gigantic ice cream scoop and taken chunks out of the sheer rock ground. So it looked about as naturally formed as Pumpkin Hill with its namesake mountain heads or Green Hills with its loop de loops and checkerboard rock patterns.
Doctor Robotnik was there personally and had parked the airship right in the 'scoop' canyon. It also meant that I was relieved of my command as soon as I arrived, which was to my relief though I hoped I hid it well enough.
I had taken the chance to replace my helmet and goggles from spares I had stowed away on the ship. Though it was something of a risk I also had taken time to quickly fashion a back holster for my shotgun from the looted belts. Unfortunately my seamstering skills were limited, otherwise I'd have also taken the time to tailor a GUN kevlar vest to fit me as well.
Well my luck had been holding up so far so perhaps if I got shot again it'd be in non critical places or on my helmet.
And maybe I'd also spontaneously develop the power to go back in time and stop myself from ever getting near Robotnik.
In any case, the badniks I had been leading had all been loaded back onto the ship to get repaired or perhaps scrapped. Only a few of them had been repaired in time to get back to work, Alfa first amongst them. That wasn't to say we were hurting for badniks now, no the ship had rooms packed to the ceiling with dormant bots just waiting to get the activation order. So the scoop canyon had been swarming with newly activated badniks in short order.
For the most part I was merely resting, I've received mostly minor injuries but they weren't going to get better any quicker if I kept straining myself. The last thing I wanted was to get in trouble for doing nothing so I sat amongst a large collection of unloaded crates and machinery and feigned being on guard. I actually was kinda paying attention to my surroundings, like hell I was going to relax around here, but otherwise I was thinking up plans to escape.
Much of it was going to be contingent on where I'd end up next after this fiasco. If Robotnik went to one of his Eurian bases I'd almost certainly have to trek through places that didn't speak my language. The positive of that though was that I could take a naturally winding route as I made my way home in North Arcadia, that way I could lose or potentially deal with any badniks he sent after me in retaliation. If I ended up in his main center of power on the northwestern end of North Arcadia… well while getting home would be rather easy it'll also be far more likely that I'd lead his bots to my home village.
Suffice to say I'd rather not have that happen.
Mind focused on methods of avoiding the living menace that was Robotnik, I found myself looking over to where he was or rather his general area.
Apparently his scouting machines had found… whatever it was he was looking for in this area buried beneath the ancient rubble of a collapsed canyon wall. It was obviously some kind of ruin based on what we had been exploring before but that was the extent of my knowledge on the matter. All very need-to-know, something I was frankly happy with as the less things I actually knew the more likely Robotnik would just wash his hands of me when I ran for it. As opposed to me knowing something of actual importance and… well…
Thoughts of me returning home only to find it in ruins and a certain blue metal murder machine awaiting my arrival haunted me.
As I went through plans my absent scanning of the cliff tops spotted something glittering. I sat upright and moved my head around to alter the angle I saw the glittering and that ended up saving my life.
Something whizzed past my head sending the fur on my cheek fluttering in its passing, an instant later a gunshot filled the air and I realized I had nearly gotten my head blown off by a bullet. I didn't know when I had laid down flat on the ground, just that the next thing I knew I was on the ground and desperately clinging to it like I'd fall into the sky if I didn't. Looking up I saw a swarm of flying badniks soar overhead towards the source of the shot. There were more gunshots, far more than any one human could make at once and I saw an orbinaut take a shot right to the face. Instead of merely denting its face the bullet actually made a hole. The machine went bug eyed before it fell out of the air and forced me to roll out of the way of its dropped spiked balls.
Well it seemed that the humans had returned for vengeance and came with their high caliber hunting rifles. Joy…
Then a new noise filled the air, something like a roaring bleating. I found myself confused at what it was but it also seemed vaguely familiar. Peeking out of the side of my cover I found myself unable to make sense of what I was seeing for a moment. Then to my utter shock and horror I abruptly made sense of it.
The survivors of our raid on the prospector town were back, the woman lined up along the cliff edge armed with high powered rifles and laying prone. But they weren't alone, practically charging down the steep slope of the canyon walls were hundreds of mobian warrior goats.
It seemed we had made such a poor impression on the locals that literal centuries of conflict ingrained in the local culture were thrown aside. We had become so hated by the prospectors and mobians that they had set aside differences to attack us together. Utterly unbelievable…
And here I was stuck in the middle of it all!
-TBC-
Author Note: It might be obvious in places but much of my first person writing is heavily inspired by Commissar Cain which is also pretty much the only Warhammer Book series I enjoy. I don't know why but something about every Warhammer book I've read so far has just felt so very dry to me. Having said that I'm not about to just make Reginald "Commissar Cain but in the form of a rabbit alien"