Chapter two: A prince enters the field!
It was sometime after midnight, when Sally, Bunnie, Antoine, Rotor, and myself made our way towards the place we had heard King Umberto was being held. The others were all silently nervous about the operation, I could tell, but something about the whole thing just wasn't sitting right with me.
"Are you sure about the transmission you received, Sally?" I asked my sister, as we flew through the air on Dulcy's back. "This seems like an awful long way out to imprison a captive monarch."
"Sì, fratello maggiore (yes, bug brother), this is the message we received from the main branch of the resistance on Westside Island." Sally replied, tapping away on her PDA. "According to the intel the Chaotix gathered from an egg base they infiltrated, Snivley is holding our father in prigione di ferro."
Prigione di ferro... Ironlock prison. The gulag built by my ancestors long ago, to hold enemy prisoners from the wars against the battle bird armada and Nocturnus Clan. The prison has been abandoned for over a century, and should be a crumbling ruin by now. It makes no sense why Eggman would hold our father there, instead of a more secure facility. Something did not feel right about this...
"Hey, y'all need ta lay off the talkin' in Spagonian, princey an' Sally girl." Bunnie told us, putting a finger to her lips. "We're goin into enemy territory. An' we need ta maintain our covers."
"Oui, zhat iz ze best way to keep ourselves safe, no?" Antoine agreed. "I just wish ve had some of those weapons ze other branches of ze resistance use,,,, vhat are zhey called again?"
"Wispons, Ant." Rotor answered, tinkering with some small device as we flew along. "I'd love to supply our teams with some sweet hardware like that, but we don't have any Whisps on the island to fuse with them. We'll just have to rely on more old-fashioned means of fighting."
At his words, my hand went to the hilt of my blade, the sword of Ghianda. The blade passed down from the time of the first king of our bloodline, it is said he forged it it is from leftover metal that came out of the earth during Gaia's last great awakening thousands of years ago, and that the sword contains the power of Gaia itself. I have never seen such power from the weapon myself, but I suppose anything is possible. In any case, we needed any weapon or advantage possible, it our brutal war with the eggman empire.
"Okay, everybody, were flying over the dark swamp now!" Dulcy told us, looking back over her shoulder. "Uh oh, my chaos energy charger is running out, I'm gonna turn back into an islander!" The dragon panicked. "Be sure to hang on tight, it's gonna be a rough landing!"
Dulcy came in for a rough landing, almost crashing to the ground, and sending the five of us tumbling. As we picked ourselves up, Dulcy reverted to her sungazer form, stumbling around kluztily.
"It's okay mom, I'm coming to dinner!" She mumbled dizzily, as Sally and Bunnie helped her back to her feet.
After getting our bearings, the six of us began our long trudge through the dark swamp. Antoine and pulled out or blades, and sliced our way through the tree branches, vines, and foliage. As we waded deeper into the watery slime and filth, the girls and Antoine clearly did not like being out in this foul, mosquito-ridden environment. But though the disgust showed on their faces, no one but the coyote raised a single complaint.
"Ew, ziz is nasty, vith ze bugs and ze dirt!" Antoine whined. "Can't ve just go home, and zend another team out?"
"Aw, Antoine, quit bein' such a baby!" Dulcy grumbled, putting her hand on a slimy tree and grimacing. "It's just a little dirt, you don't hear Sally or Bunnie or I complaining about it!"
"Come on, you guys! Try to hold it together!" Sally sighed, lookign back to her PD. "Nicole, how far on foot to the ruins of ironlock?"
"About two thousand years, Sally. Though it is obscured by the mists." Nicole replied, in her fake 'robotic'- sounding voice. "but be careful, this could still be a trap. The crown prince must be protected."
I rolled my eyes at that statement. Nicole had argued up and down that I should not be out here, risking my own neck with everyone else. Whenever Sally or I asked her why, her face would redden, and she would turn away. Needless to say, she had no good argument, and I was finally out here with my subjects, in as much peril as they were. Still, the others did still seemed to dislike me being out here, but I commended them to let me come along, so they said nothing.
We soon came upon the crumbling prison's walls, and we all spin-dashed our way over the moat with the rotted-away drawbridge. The inside of the prison it was dark, cold, wet, and... empty. Row after row of cobweb filled cells, with noting but the obscene graffiti left on the walls to indicate anyone had ever been here. It was then that the uneasy feeling I had had spread to everyone else present. and from the look on her face, my sister's eagerness to find our father... gave way to fear.
"Guys, this isn't good." Rotor exclaimed, looking around nervously. "If this was where they were keeping the king, why would it look so abandoned?"
"Uh, I don't mean to be worrying anyone else, but..." Antoine whimpered again, his teeth chattering. "But i zink ziz iz ze trap!"
"That is correct, foolish resistance members! It is indeed a trap!" A laughing voice came over the prison's loudspeaker, surprisingly still functioning after over a century. "One that all of you have so foolishly walked into!"
"Why, that's Snivley!" Bunny snarled, clenching her cyber-armor enhanced fist tightly. "Ohhhh, that ornery sidewinder! Why, I oughtta-"
"Foolish little rodents! Do you not realize that your king has been banished to the special zone?" Snively laughed again. "That little piece of information was left for your resistance to find as a trap, and you fools fell right into it!"
Within moments, we were surrounded. Baniks of every shape, size, and description were all around us. Before they could even move, Sally gave the cry to attack, and we were upon them. Antoine ans I slashed and hacked and slashed at the egg knights, cutting them to pieces left and right. Sally popped twin daggers out of her wrist gauntlets, and stabbed away at the motobugs, while Bunnie smashed a bunch of catterkillers with cybernetic punches and kicks. Dulcy and Rotor were bouncing all over the room, spin dashing and destroying the bakiris and batbrain badniks that came flying into the room. We were smashing them by the dozens, slowly making our way through the storm, back towards the entrance. But they came in such overwhelming numbers, that we were starting to wear down.
"Uh oh, I think there's two many of them!" Dulcy cried out in a panic. "I think we're goners!"
It was at that moment, the six of us stepped on an ancient trap door that was hidden in the floor, and were sent hurtling downward. By the sheer chance of stepping on an ancient trap meant to handle escaping prisoners, we were able to get away from Robotnik's trap. But for our little group just trying to escape, it was out of the frying pan, and into the fire. After a long fall, we came crashing down onto a hard dungeon floor in the darkness .
THUD!
"Ow! That was quite a fall! Is everyone okay? Big Brother? Bunnie?"
"Oh my little bunny behind hurts! Yeah, Sally girl, I'm alright! Antoine, how are Y'all?"
"Sacre Bleu, I zink I broke my little baguette! How iz everybody elze?"
"Yeoch, I'm lucky I didn't snap a tusk! Okay here! Dulcy? Alfonze?"
"I'm fine mom, could ya maybe make the room stop spinning?"
"I'm okay, little sister." I finally reply as we all turn our flashlights on. "But I don't think we're alone down here."
"Raaaggghhhhhhhhh!"
We had just fallen into the lowest part of the dungeons, and barely landed on our feet, when we heard an inhuman roar coming from down the tunnel near us. Now, my memories of what followed are a bit blurry, but... I remember a giant, one eyes, tentacled monster emerging from the darkness. I remember us fighting the beast, and ending up everyone else getting trapped in it's tentacles but me. I remember pulling out the sword of Ghainda, it's blade glowing with a red supernatural power I had never seen before. I recall attacking the beast, slashing away at the tentacles, as if in a trance... I recall howling like mad squirrel, driving my blade deep into it's eye socket as it desperately tried to fight back, brutally slamming me with it's tentacles. Finally, I remember standing over the beast's corpse, holding my sword all covered in the monsters purple goo aloft, screaming triumphantly as my tail thrashed about.
After that, I recall only darkness.
The next thing I knew, I awoke on a medical bed in our resistance base's infirmary. Opening my eyes slightly, I could see my sobbing sister holding my one hand, and the crying Nicole holding the other. I was still too weak to move or speak, but I could hear their voices as I slowly returned to consciousness. I couldn't turn my head to see who was talking, but I could make out the individual voices
"Stupida!, I knew it was veramente stupida to let the crown prince go down there! Why did anyone even listen to him when he ordered us to take him along?"
"He iz de crown prince, Rotor! Ve had to listen to him! Ve are just lucky ze Mighty and Ray showed up to save our behinds from certain doom, no?"
"We're just lucky Mighty and Ray brought those chaos drives so I could jack up into a dragon again, and fly us out of there! Otherwise we would have been captured!"
"Yeah, you got us out of there in the nick of time, Dulcy. But are you sure you're okay? Those blasters from the egg airship got your wings pretty bad while we were escaping."
"Aww. I'll be fine! I've taken worse hits!" Her voice stopped for a moment, before growing softer. "Say, Rotor? After we're done here, would you mind going for a little walk? I want to talk to somebody for a bit."
"Yeah, c'mon. let's get out of here." There voices stopped, but the others continued to talk.
"Alfonzo, you fool. Vhy did you get out and risk your own life? Your people, zhey are needing vou."
"Y'all should go easy on him, Antoine honey. He was only tryin ta hailp."
"Yet he almost got himself killed, no? With zhat magic blade of his doing all of ze wooshing around."
"Princey here saved all of our lives, and as he's the actin' monarch, we haid no raight ta question his judgement." I hear her sigh. "C'mon Ant, let's go get something to eat from the canteen."
I hear those two walk off, and then only hear the sobbing of the two women on either side of my hospital bed.
"Oh, fratello maggiore, perché sei dovuto andare a metterti in pericolo?" (Oh, big brother! Why did you have to go and put yourself in harm's way?).
"Alfonzo should have known better, Sally. Don't blame yourself for this."
"B-but Nicole... he was just trying to protect all of us, he-"
"Your brother is the heir. It's his responsibility to worry about his safety, as much as he worries about the rest of us. With your father banished to the special zone, the prince is a living symbol of both the resistance, and the kingdom of Sabato. If he falls, it would be a serious blow to our people."
"Nicole, I've noticed you've been showing a great deal of concern for him, more than just concern for our future king." My sister's voice inquired. "Are you truly concerned out of patriotism, or..."
I never heard the rest of the conversation, as I slipped back into unconsciousness once more. They never realized I had heard snippets of their conversations as they came and left the room, and what they said made me realize what I had to do. They are all far better fighters than I; I am no great hero, ready to rush out and lead every mission. Oh,as a prince I have been trained in the arts of battle and warfare, but I am supposed to be leading my people from a war room, not charging out onto the battlefield like some kind of naive the power of that sword, until I learned to control it...
It was at that moment I decided that things worked best with my sister as the field commander, and I leading from behind the scenes. We each have our roles to play in this freedom fight, and I was now certain where my place is. As soon as I was better, I decided, we would begin to plan away to rescue our father. I would go with my sister and the others to the other occupied islands, to gain allies from the other kingdoms... perhaps to Thunder Plains island, to seek the aid of the wolf pack, yes. And I would also find some way to control the power of this sword.
In the meantime, I need to go and have a serious conversation with a certain she-lynx...
Next: New allies, and the coming of Doomsday!
