Prompt #4: "Direction"
Whoops, got a bit moody with the first part of this one.
4 - Direction
"Patrols inbound to the factory. Keep your heads up!"
"Someone set a distraction. Bombs, EMPs, anything that'll keep them off our tails."
"On it! Could use some backup though."
"Anyone see Chuck's boy?"
"Not since the railway."
"That was an hour ago. He's supposed to be running interference!"
"Fool kid doesn't listen, does he?"
"Don't know who he thinks he—shoot! I've been spotted!"
"Status report!"
"Swats on my six! Making a break for it!"
"Keep them away from the rookies!"
"We're drawing fire over here!"
"Where is that hedgehog?"
Sally groaned and looked up from the rudimentary map Nicole had projected onto the wall of the hidey-hole as Cat growled out a curse and scanned the streets below. The comms crackled with activity as Zeke's squad called out positions and tactics, as Dusty and Polo tried to draw the Swat-Bots away from the factory where Sally's friends—Bunnie, Antoine, and Rotor, the "rookies" as the older Freedom Fighters called them—were trying to sabotage a production line. Trying to prove themselves.
Trying to prove Sally herself.
This was all her plan, after all. Her operation. She'd been the one to demand Freedom Fighter training for her friends and herself. To insist they were old enough to help now. To request a chance to plan and execute a mission like the adults had done periodically since the coup.
She had planned out every detail. It should have been quiet. Simple.
Instead, it was all going wrong.
Sonic had disappeared the moment they arrived in Robotropolis. Zeke's squad and Dusty kept waiting to act until Cat confirmed Sally's orders, despite her status as mission leader being established before even leaving Knothole. Antoine had outright refused to follow her instructions twice because he was too scared, and had to be dragged along by Bunnie. Polo had kept up a running commentary—with his comms on, forcing everyone to listen—about how he would have done things differently, until Cat finally told him to stow it. And then Polo had done his own thing once or twice anyway.
All of it reflected badly on Sally as a leader.
Cat would never let her lead a team again. Would never let the "rookies" fight.
Shouts over the radio. A direct engagement near the sector that housed the main Swat-Bot manufacturing works. They shouldn't have been anywhere near that sector. They should've been in and out. Hit hard, hit fast, and out before Robotnik even noticed.
She looked up at Cat. He raised a brow expectantly at her, gestured for her to issue instructions.
She sighed.
"Fall back."
The call rippled through comms. Someone—might have been Polo—protested. Antoine's wispy voice breathed, " Dieu merci."
Sally scrambled to pack up her scanner and goggles, to clip Nicole to her boot. A waste. All of it a waste.
Cat's heavy hand dropped onto Sally's shoulder, making her jump. She looked up at his gruff features, but he didn't say anything, only squeezed briefly and then let her go to uncoil the rope they would need to get back to ground level.
The comms burst with activity the moment their boots hit the pavement. Sally strained to make sense of the garbled shouting, the static-laced words. Fear like ice dropped into her stomach at what she heard.
" Captured."
Cat didn't wait. He pushed Sally ahead at a dead run, yelling for the other Freedom Fighters to abort mission. For Zeke's squad to collect the rookies. For someone to find Sonic. It all sounded muffled to Sally. Her blood pulsed in her ears and drowned out everything else. The crunch of gravel. The scream of patrol pods overhead. The klaxon that kicked up a horrible wail before she and Cat had even crossed into the scrapyards.
Captured.
Who? Please not one of her friends. Please not anyone.
Let it be a mistake. Let them get away.
So much worse than a simple failure.
But whatever divine force was out there had closed its ears to her. Had probably done so even before the coup.
Their flight from the city went by in a blur, and soon, Sally sat numbly on the log at the rendezvous clearing, fingers clenched around her knees, pulse still drowning out everything else, as Cat checked in with everyone on comms. As the other Freedom Fighters trickled in. A tiny spark of relief flared with each face that appeared at the clearing's edge, every tired expression and sagging shoulder and drooping tail or ears. Even Sonic, who blitzed in still grinning from whatever personal game he'd been playing while everyone else was fighting for the mission. Sally felt some small amount of gratification to see that grin wiped from Sonic's face as Cat delivered an angry lecture about deserting his duties to be a glory-hound.
Gratification swiftly tempered by remorse and guilt at seeing Cat age just a little bit more when Maple handed him Zeke's hat.
Cat stayed in the clearing to wait, to hope, while Maple and Dusty led everyone else back to Knothole. Sally was still awake, looking out her window in the early hours of morning, when Cat returned to the village alone.
—
"Swats on my six! Making a break for it!"
Sally hissed and searched her digital maps frantically for options when Maple's voice crackled over the comms. Maple had been stationed over by the scrap yard as a lookout. The nearest Freedom Fighters were too far away to get there in time.
"Sonic!" she called over the comms.
Silence.
For one heart-wrenching, terrifying moment, silence.
She swallowed. Opened her mouth to call again.
"Here, Sal! Where do you need me?"
Relief flooded her. "Scrap yard lookout. Maple's in trouble!"
"On it!"
Shortly after, a boom echoed through the city streets, rattling windows and loose panels around her, the sound of a supersonic hedgehog blasting by. No attempts at stealth, but that wasn't the point. The point was to draw as much attention to himself as possible, to lure every Swat-Bot for miles away from the rest of the Freedom Fighters and their clandestine activities so they could work in relative safety.
That was the first thing Sally had learned, after two more failed childhood missions where Sonic had kept running off to race through the city instead of sit still in a lookout somewhere or pick at the inner workings of some factory. Sonic wanted to run. Wanted to challenge himself.
Sally had been trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
Once she realized that, recognized where she'd stepped wrong with the hedgehog, she'd been able to pivot. Had stopped trying to force Sonic to act like the other Freedom Fighters, when his singular abilities demanded he not.
Find the right hole for the square peg.
And somewhere along the way, Sally's direction—or Cat's lecture, reinforced by seeing Zeke roboticized in one of the factories—had resonated with Sonic, and he'd proved to be valuable as a one-man act in their team efforts. He'd put in more of an effort to listen. To coordinate with the group rather than run off on his own. To do his part so that the rest could do theirs. He'd given Sally that bit of a safety net she needed to trust him.
That safety net had, in turn, given her more confidence. Pushed past her misgivings. Allowed her to hear what Cat tried to tell her, that every leader has setbacks, that things will go wrong even with the best-laid plans. The true mark of a leader was in adapting. In working through the problems.
In inspiring.
Maple adjusted quickly to listening to Sally rather than waiting for Cat to confirm every order. Dusty had come around in time. Polo had left Knothole instead, but even he admitted "no hard feelings" to Sally. And Sally's friends...
Chatter over the comms alerted her to Maple's safe extrication from the Swat-Bots, as the sentries peeled off to chase after "Priority One: Hedgehog" instead. Sally turned back to her maps and charts, issued orders for Antoine's and Rotor's small squad to move in and pick off parts from the roboticizer while they had the chance. For Dusty and Bunnie to lay charges along the stealth-bot assembly line that had popped up in the past month. For Maple to resume her post and keep Sally updated on Swat-Bot movements.
Sally's friends had stepped up. Filled empty spaces as older Freedom Fighters fell. Even Antoine.
Another boom resounded across the city.
"Keep it up, Sonic," Sally murmured with a smile. Comms off, of course. No sense inflating his already city-sized ego.
Not long after, a blue streak skidded into the nook she'd turned into her command center, bringing with it a gust of smoky air and tossing Sally's short hair around. She didn't even have time to turn before he had come up beside her, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek and brushing his nose against her ear.
"Maple's safe, Swat-butts tangled up in a trash chute," he reported. "What's next?" One of his hands lingered on her shoulder.
She smiled. "Rotor's almost in position. I need you to draw fire at these coordinates here." She pointed at a spot on her digital map. "Once Rotor gives the all-clear, we're out of here."
"Done and done," he said with a grin and a squeeze of her shoulder. "Let's do it to it."
She held out a fist. He tapped it with his own, shot a grin and finger-guns at Sally, and dropped backwards out of the window to the ground below, where she heard him race off with the high-pitched thrum of his sneakers hitting the pavement at speed.
Sally allowed herself a lingering, fond smile, before turning back to her plans.