*Okay, this is my second time trying to post this, since half the time the links to the chapters weren't working, and the other half the story seemed to dissapear from my profile entirely. (Yes, I know this is nothing new recently, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating) I've tried removing references to anything I thought could be possibly be seen as a problem, even though I know it's something systematic... Anyway if you've made it this far and have any actual interest in this story, I'd recommond checking it out on AO3, under my penname Squathcy 11 if you continue to have trouble reading it here. I'm going to continue to try post on here too, but if can't get there shit together then well... It's frustrating enough to try to read new stories on here let alone trying to post a story just to watch it get lost in limbo.
Salutations! I can't believe it's been almost two years since I started working on this project, but I'm finally here. My apologies for the long-winded opening author's note, but I wanted to give everyone some background on what I plan to do with this story. It's mainly going to be a character study featuring my personal favorite character from the franchise… Someone I feel has gotten the short end of the stick quite a bit when it comes to Sega Mandates and quite frankly, could stand for a bit of a refresh. So yeah, if you're not a fan of this particular character, your enjoyment of this story will probably be hampered quite a bit, but I'm willing to take that risk. This story is in part a love letter to that character written mostly for my own enjoyment and for fellow fans of this character who might not mind seeing them portrayed in a differen't role than what they're currently pigeonholed into. I'm also a big fan of other stories that have made attempts to bridge the gap between differen't eras of Sonic media, and I wanted to try my hand at that. For the sake of my sanity, I've chosen to go the AU route. There's just too many retcons, differen't interpretations of characters, and self-contained universes to connect everything without making massive concessions. So basically, I've written a character-driven story wrapped in an AU setting connecting differen't eras of the Sonic Franchise where time is allowed to pass and certain characters are allowed to grow and mature. Now obviously, the Sonicverse is far too massive for me to include every character and piece of Sonic Media, especially for a story focused heavily on one character, so I'll be mostly focusing on the characters, and the interpretation of those characters, that are my personal favorites… As well as others I don't particularly care for or otherwise feel indifferent too, but they fill certain roles in this story a little too well so I basically had to use them. This story will be taking place with a SatAM/Early Comics backdrop, where I'll try to connect other areas of the Sonicverse from there. Despite this being an AU setting, which I will take advantage of, I will try to keep these characters as cannon compliant as possible with their backstories largely intact. I'll have to make a few notable exceptions here and there, but I'll try to keep those discrepancies to a minimum.
In case you're unfamiliar with what the title of this story is a reference to, it was inspired by The Last Ronin TMNT comic, though the name, opening aesthetics, and the brief mini mystery as to who the protagonist is, are where the similarities end. When you think about it, the lone survivor after an apocalyptic war is rather a ubiquitous idea that can work for any franchise that's the slightest bit action based.
One final note, I don't give trigger warnings. They too often feel like spoilers in my opinion. This story will have a hard MA rating, and that's going to be your primary warning that this story will be dealing with themes that are going to make some readers feel uncomfortable, so read at your own risk. Either way, I hope you all enjoy The Last Freedom Fighter. It's going to be a ride!
Chapter 1: The Wanderer
A harsh wind rustled the Wanderer's duster, though he refused to show any visible signs of discomfort as he continued his march through the desolate landscape of what used to be one of the most lush and scenic zones throughout the whole of Mobius. Towering palm trees once lined those rolling hills while flickies sang their songs as they glided though the breeze of the mild costal climate. This was hardly the case now as all the trees had long since been uprooted, while the birds had long ago abandoned the once idyllic region. All that remained were visible scars of war, a war that had been lost long ago. The parts of the planet that hadn't been completely roboticized, or otherwise reformatted for one demented despot's vile purposes, had been reduced to barren hostile wastelands after the Robotnik war machine steamrolled its way through and stripped the land of all its most vital resources. It was sobering for the Wanderer to think how he had once visited Emerald Hills in his youth and thought to himself how the area would make such a wonderful place to live… Absolutely nothing could possibly live in the mess that had been left behind... The coastal water's median temperature had risen to such dangerous levels that it could boil a Mobian's fur or skin clean off if they were to submerge themselves in it for too long. The planet's once vibrant aquatic life had all but been wiped out, the only survivors being the hardiest of ocean-bound species, or those that had mutated into hideous perversions of what they once were in order to survive the onslaught of Robotnik's industrial poison.
Yet another volatile gust of wind caused a ruckus, picking up a spray of dry, nutrient deprived soil and blasting it directly into the Wanderer's face, blowing the cowl off his head, and revealing a discolored white and grey mask that had long gone brittle after years of use. There was a large hole on the left side which only partially concealed a piercing cybernetic eye that would occasionally glow red. A worn-out brown Stetson rested atop his head despite appearing a size too small for him. Both accessories appeared equally ravaged by the passage of time, but the Wanderer didn't wear them to make a fashion statement. They were mementos of a past life, reminders of those left behind and why he was still fighting when there seemed to be nothing left worth fighting for… The same could be said about the crescent moon pendant around his neck and the golden rings around his wrists that had long ago lost their luster… His long brown duster, which wrapped around his body like a cloak was a part of his wardrobe for a more practical reason, a minor defense against the strong winds and frequent dust storms those winds would often stir up. The present was an apocalyptic hellscape, and the Mobian race no longer had a future to look towards…
Sadly, living in a past where young hearts still had hope… Before Robotnik's emphatic victory had been realized, was the only viable option open to the Wanderer to prevent him from completely breaking down and finding a hole to burrow into and wait for death to finally claim him… That, and there was still a small scattering of Mobians out there counting on him… As few as they numbered now, at least that was something… Someone to fight for… As long as there was a reason to keep fighting, he'd keep moving forward.
A gloved hand laid flat across the top of his head to keep his cowboy hat from blowing away in the wind, but otherwise he paid no mind to mother nature's temper tantrum. The Wanderer had grown far too hardened to allow even nature itself to feel like it was getting the best of him. Dust storms had become an all-too-common occurrence throughout the whole of Mobius. With little in the way of trees or vegetation to help hold back the winds, there was little left to keep the brittle soil from unleashing its fury and showing the world just how neglected and derelict it had become.
Well… Everywhere but the desert anyway… You got sandstorms in the desert. Oh well, there was little time to worry about the weather. He still had a long way to go to get where he was going. Speaking of which…
The Mystic Ruins had seen better days… Which was saying something considering the area had literally been in ruins for centuries. It was in the name after all, but it would appear that Robotnik couldn't even leave a long extinct civilization in peace. The despot would settle for nothing less than complete dominion over his newly conquered world, so it was rare to travel even a few miles without running across one of his many outposts, serving as blights upon the already desecrated land throughout Mobius. It didn't seem to matter how remote the location was, how scarce the resources might be, or its strategic advantages… These buildings had little function in the way of practicality, and everything to do with broadcasting the appearance of control… There was nowhere you could run. No matter where you went in the world, you were within an arm's reach of the egg-shaped tyrant. Who Robotnik was showing off too, the drifter had no idea. If that abominable wretch of a creature was so intent on intimidating the locals, maybe he should've left enough Mobians alive or unroboticized to appreciate his efforts.
The Wanderer was far from impressed. These eyesores were little more than targets to vent his frustrations on… Or in this one case, this dump hopefully housed an important artifact he was very much interested in obtaining. His artificial eye tinted red before it extended forward through the large hole in his mask and took a quick scan of the area. The outpost was still a mile away in the distance, however the cybernetically enhanced vision of his left eye acted like a telescope, providing the Wanderer with a nice view of the outpost's entrance as if he were standing on its doorstep… That scope also included another handy feature that allowed him to pick up on heat signatures, particularly the very distinctive patterns of Robotnik created war machines. The Wanderer identified three individual units patrolling the perimeter, but unfortunately, his artificial eye couldn't see through walls. Thankfully, he had a friend who sort of could.
The Wanderer reached up and pressed a button just beneath his hat attached to his left ear. "Nicole… Could you please scan the area and let me know just how many bots I'm dealing with here?"
"I'm already on it…" Replied a wispy female voice from a receiver nestled in the Wanderer's artificial ear canal. "It should only take me a minute… I've been forced to adjust the parameters of my sweep seeing as the terrain doesn't match what I have on file in my database… It's hard to believe this region used to be a jungle…"
"… A lush beautiful one so thick that you might not even notice there were ruins here until they were right in front of your face… Reduced to dust just like the rest of Mobius, and all because Robotnik has never met an acre of nature he'd just as soon destroy…"
"I wish I could've seen it with my own eyes… Well, I suppose that would be your eye now, wouldn't it?" Nicole chuckled as she finished her sweep, the joke bringing the faintest of smirks to the Wanderers face. "Sweep concluded. I've identified eleven robotic hostiles. Eight Swat Drones, 2 C-Class Brawlers, and one Alpha Class Brute…"
"That's it?! That's… Are you certain this is the outpost housing the Chaos Emerald?"
"Unless the Emerald Detection program you uploaded into my system is faulty, then yeah, pretty sure…" Nicole then brought up a diagram through the Wanderer's artificial eye that clearly displayed a high concentration of chaos energy within the building. "I'm sensing the same energy inside that outpost as I do from you… Only much stronger and far more concentrated."
"Then it has to be an emerald… But why leave such a valuable prize so lightly defended?" The Wanderer just couldn't wrap his head around the outpost's lax security… What would essentially be a moderately difficult training exercise too him. Swat Drones were essentially flying eyeballs, round chunks of metal with a camera that the drone could rotate all around its small body. Used mainly for surveillance, they were armed with a blaster in the shape of a pointed diagonal tail on its backend that could pack quite the punch. Drones could potentially be lethal to unarmed ground-bound Mobians, but mere child's play for a seasoned Freedom Fighter, quite literally. The Wanderer had been trashing and dismantling these armored beach balls since he was twelve. Brawlers were slightly more dangerous, but not by much. Basically shorter, more rotund versions of Swatbots with more flexible limbs. The brawler class was designed specifically for close quarters combat. Impressively strong, but slow and inexplicably lacking any form of firepower whatsoever… Again, easy pickings as long as you didn't try to challenge one of them to a fist fight. Now, the Brute would be a bit more of a challenge…. A twelve-foot behemoth that could bend steel and armed with a large laser cannon mounted on its shoulder. Designed primarily for siege warfare, the Brute's main purpose was to inflict as much damage on whatever city or village it descended upon. A foe to be respected, but nothing the Wanderer couldn't handle. As long as he took out the lesser targets first, the Brute wouldn't be all that much trouble to deal with one-on-one. The Wanderer had taken out dozens just like it before with minimal effort.
This would be a five-minute skirmish at best, and that's only if he chose to drag things out to make the fight more interesting. The Wanderer never really possessed the sense of theatrics that certain heroes of the past had though… Combat was just a part of the job to him, so why risk bodily harm when there really wasn't anyone around to impress, though annoying Robotnik would forever be a bonus. He took the ten seconds or so necessary to formulate a plan of action before beginning his slow walk towards the outpost.
The Wanderer could hear Nicole's annoyed sigh in his ear. "Not even going to make an attempt at stealth?"
"The direct approach will be sufficient… If I can bring the Drones and the Brawlers to me and take them out before the Brute is activated, infiltration will be all the easier… Besides, it's not my fault that the outpost's defenses are so pathetic it doesn't warrant more caution… Still can't help but be a bit suspicious about that."
"There aren't exactly many Mobians left to pose a threat to anything the Doctor may want to protect… The Freedom Fighters were wiped out years ago, and you've been in the ether for a while now… It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that Robotnik has grown so overconfident in his conviction that there's no resistance left to stand against him that he's gotten lazy… A more logical solution might be that this is simply a temporary holding place until Ivo has the opportunity to arrange a proper transport for the emerald from here to Robotropolis."
"I can see both being correct," the Wanderer agreed. "One of our reasons for rushing out here was to get to the emerald before the Egg could relocate it."
"Drones incoming…" Nicole warned him. "I know you don't need to hear this, but good luck… And stay safe."
The Wanderer didn't respond, not out of coldness, but from the knowledge that Nicole was already well aware that he appreciated the concern. It may have been misplaced at times, such as now, but he'd found himself in much more dire situations over the years that had given his friend plenty of reasons to be concerned. Sure enough, it was a mere second later that two Swat Drones appeared behind him, directing their potentially deadly weaponry in his direction.
"Halt organic life form! Surrender and subject yourself for roboticization for the glory of the Robotnik Empire or face immediate termination!"
The Wanderer complied with the drone's first request, though more so because doing so was convenient for him rather than the badnik asking so nicely. His left arm for his hand to the middle of his bicep, which looked deceptively natural upon first glance, quickly transformed into a chrome-colored metallic looking blaster. The arm gave off subtle vibes of your typical Robotnik Roboticized limb, only sleeker and somehow more advanced looking. In reality, the mechanical appendage was a multi-purpose tool designed primarily to make the good doctor's life, and by extension, everything he's ever created miserable. "Yeah… Neither one of those things is happening."
The Wanderer whirled around and fired two quick shots from the blaster built into his arm. Each shot connected and blew holes through the center of each of the drones, the Wanderer watching with indifference as they dropped out of the sky like defective children's toys. Like a colony of wasps rallying to the scent of a downed comrade, the other drones rallied to the location of the downed bots just as the grizzled warrior had anticipated. Upon seeing three more of the drones rapidly approaching in almost a straight line, the Wanderer hunched down slightly as he began to charge up the traces of Chaos Energy that flowed through his body. He leapt into the air, and with seemingly little effort, curled himself into a ball before shooting forward and smashing into the lead bot, knocking it back with enough force to send it flying into the pair trailing behind it, destroying all three in little more than a second. Another drone crept up from behind as the Wanderer tried to guide himself back to the ground, only for something fast moving and sharp to emerge from underneath the nomad's duster which he used to saw the drone in half.
The Wanderer hit the ground with a slight grunt, but otherwise no sold the pain now streaking through his legs. No time for a breather though, as the final two drones had made their presence known. The Wanderer used the stacked remains of a pair of downed drones to propel himself upward, pushing himself against the steel walls of the outpost building proper, managing to land on top of the low cruising drone. The metallic casing that served as his hand peeled away, revealing a hook-like object surging with electricity. The Wanderer drove the tool he affectionately referred to as his 'stun gun' through the optic sensors of the drone, right where he knew the central processing unit that effectively served as the bot's brain was housed, before releasing a charge that fried every circuit in the round drone's body. As the smoking husk fell to the earth, The Wanderer leapt from the dispatched drone and landed atop of its comrade which had been following close behind. If for no other reason than varieties sake, the warrior retracted his stun gun in exchange for the slightly rusty and often-used blade of an old saber… Not the flashiest or most practical tool in his unorthodox toolkit, but its inclusion was more of a sentimental one. His approach was the same as the last bot, driving the saber into the badnik's optic sensors and then twisting and turning until sparks began to spurt from the drone. The doomed bot completely short circuited, dropping out of the sky immediately after. The Wanderer went along for the ride this time, hopping off before the disabled badnik could smash into the ground…
And just like that, all eight drones lay at his feet… Mere child's play, as he expected.
The doors to the outpost abruptly opened, and the two brawlers the Wanderer had been forewarned about plodded their way onto the battlefield. They both immediately locked their sights on the disguised Mobian and rushed to begin their assault. They weren't the most intelligent of Robotnik's creations, and they were agonizingly slow. The Wanderer barely had to try as he maneuvered out of the way of their clumsy attacks which consisted primarily of heavy punches that would often leave small craters in the ground wherever their ball bearing like fists landed. Brawlers weren't originally designed for combat. They were worker drones typically assigned to Robotnik's mining operations, or any other manual labor that involved heavy lifting. Many were conscripted into military service over the years due to both their resiliency and abundance. It's why many, apart from the rarely encounter modified model, weren't even equipped with basic blasters to attack with. These two dolts didn't appear to have benefited from the upgrade.
The Wanderer patiently maneuvered out of the way of the crashing metal fists, gradually herding the brainless badniks onto a collision course with one another. It didn't take much effort, so after leaping over the hammering blow from one of the brawler's fists, the other attempted to strike at almost the exact same time… And instead of connecting with the masked drifter or the ground, it instead ended up striking its cohort in the head, thereby caving it in. By the time the badnik processed its goof and readjusted its sights to its actual target, the Wanderer had already shifted his metallic arm to its cannon mode and had it pointed in the bot's direction. He tilted his head slightly as if to say hello, before firing a powerful burst of energy that blew a hole straight through the brawler's chest. The force of the shot sent the bot tumbling backward, pieces of the badnik flying everywhere as its corpse skidded along the ground.
Yep… Slightly more of a workout, though not by much.
"I guess that only leaves the…" Right on cue, the sound of sliding doors could be heard nearby. The Wanderer paused for just a moment as the ground beneath his feet began to shake. From within a silo-like building attached to the outpost, a twelve-foot monstrosity took a clumsy step out of its container, marching straight towards the intruder that had just eviscerated the rest of the outpost's meager defenses. The Wanderer stood his ground until he and the Brute had an unobstructed view of one another.
The overgrown badnik wasted no time firing a blast from its shoulder cannon, creating an impressive crater in the ground where the Wanderer had just been standing moments before. Okay, so it was probably in his best interest not to fuck around and take out this behemoth as quickly as possible. Converting his cannon back to his blaster, he fired multiple blasts at the hulking robot which had absolutely no effect on the machine… Just as The Wanderer anticipated, but this was simply a ploy to hopefully keep the Brute from firing back at him until the bot came close enough for the masked Mobian to focus on his true target.
With the Brute finally in range, The Wanderer directed two well-placed shots directly through the bot's ocular receptors. The large robot put its left hand up to its face as if caught off guard by the tactic and was now trying to assess the damage for itself. The machine attempted to get a visual on its target, but interference in the relay of visual information to its receptors was flickering in and out, half blinding it in static snow. This was the opportunity The Wanderer needed. Best to strike this giant down now while the machine was still struggling to compute how it should proceed with its assault.
"Switching to infrared mode…" the digitized voice of the big robot announced. The Wanderer's brow furrowed behind his mask. Okay, so it was too late to catch the big guy off guard, so he needed to decide on an alternate method that would hopefully knock the behemoth down a peg. His blaster was useless, as was his stun gun… It was good for taking out drones and temporarily immobilizing midsized robots, but it wouldn't so much as tickle this beast. His saber might as well be a butter knife against that thick-plated steel, and he still had at least eight more minutes to wait before his cannon was charged enough for another blast, and while his cannon was capable of putting a nice dent in the Brute, it still wouldn't pack enough of a punch to put the badnik down for good. That left one option… One last weapon in his arsenal he'd yet to utilize that just might be appropriate for this situation. He retracted his blaster and out popped a slightly oversized yellow hammer. Despite its rather comical appearance compared to the rest of his gear, an all too brief sensation of warmth heated The Wanderer's chest whenever he unleashed the hammer due to the memories attached to it.
His plan now formulated, The Wanderer surged forward and jumped into the air, delivering a hard strike to what served as the robot's knee. Predictably, the first hit had little effect, but the effort was simply to get the partially blinded Brute's attention focused on its front as The Wanderer quickly positioned himself behind the giant automaton. Two more hard and rapid strikes too the back of the bot's knee area proved to have a greater effect as the machine began to wobble. Before the Brute could straighten itself out, The Wanderer pulled back his arm again and brought the hammer as hard as he could against the mechanical joint, causing it to buckle. Gravity and the bot's massive size did the rest as the Brute lurched forward, dropping to its knees but utilizing its massive hands to keep itself from completely face-planting. That's all the grizzled Mobian needed, however, as he hopped up on the robot's backside and raced upward towards its head. Upon reaching the machine's damaged eyes, The Wanderer quickly planted something palm-sized and rectangular inside the bot's head through one of the damaged ocular sockets before quickly leaping off the behemoth. He slowly walked a few feet away before pressing a button on his artificial arm. A small explosion rang out from above, and once the smoke cleared, the Brute's head and part of its upper torso were missing… Rendering the machine defunct and useless. What was left rocked and wobbled before falling forward, crashing to the ground below. The Wanderer casually stepped out of the way of the collapsing robot before he could be crushed, barely registering the gust of wind and dirt kicked up from the impact of the disabled machine.
"Seriously… This was all the defense Robotnik could muster to protect a Chaos Emerald? It almost feels like he wants me to take it…" The Wanderer's metallic arm shifted back to its more natural appearance that matched the rest of his body. His fingers found their way back up to his ear. "Nicole… Can you perform another sweep and make sure we didn't miss anyone?"
"Surveying the building and surrounding area now… It looks like you got them all! I'm not sensing any automatons within a square mile of the facility!... Wait a moment… I'm picking up on a Mobian lifeform inside of the outpost in the general proximity of the Chaos Energy signature… It appears to be a… Oh no…"
The Wanderer could sense his friend's hesitance. If she was reluctant to tell him what she was sensing, then something was definitely up. "Do you know who it is Nicole?"
"I can't be positive but… The Mobian signature does appear to be… A badger…"
The Wanderer scowled hard behind his mask. "Well then… It seems will be getting a bonus prize in addition to the Chaos Emerald…"
"We can't be positive it's actually him…"
"How many badgers do you know that are still alive or unroboticized Nicole? That also just happen to be turncoats working for Robotnik?!"
Nicole already knew this was true as well as he did. She had just been concerned that he was going to react exactly the way he was. "What are you planning to do?"
"Nobody else is going to make him pay for his crimes Nicole. It's high time Remy Badginton gets taken to task for what he's done…"
"I know you believe you're avenging your friends and comrades M…."
"You're not going to talk me down Nicole… Look, I know you don't like seeing me stoop to their level but… Just direct me to where Remy and the emerald are located… I'll give you a moment to power down before I go inside so you don't have to watch…"
"It's not watching you that's the problem… It's the fact that you've decided to walk this path at all that bothers me… This… This isn't you… You're better than this!"
"I'm whatever Mobius needs me to be… Who I used to be, and who I should've been is irrelevant."
Nicole hesitated only momentarily. "…Not to me it isn't…"
Remy Badginton grew up with the finer things in life. Born into a wealthy family on the outskirts of the Acorn Kingdom, the Badgintons weren't part of the nobility, but they sure liked to pretend they were. Remy had it made, or at least he had before Robotnik and his mechanical hordes rolled through his hometown, forcing Remy to flee from his life of luxury and spend his formative teenage years in that armpit they called Knothole. As if to add insult to injury, not only was he denied his own private quarters suited for a Mobian of his stature, he got dumped in the orphanage with the rest of the refugee kids that had escaped to the well-hidden village, like he was part of the common rabble. Most of those little urchins hardly bathed and wore the rattiest of attire if they bothered to wear clothing at all. Not to mention that the food and accommodations were just not up to the pompous brat's lofty standards.
So, how could anyone blame him for turning his back on the people that had sheltered him for years when he took Robotnik up on his offer to restore him to the status that was his birthright, under the simple condition that Remy would serve the tyrant without question? As much as Robotnik preferred machines, even the evil madman was forced to eventually accept that living, breathing subordinates were essential for certain tasks his badniks just couldn't keep up with. Remy was hardly the only one who took the rotund dictator up on his offer. They were all on a short list of fugitives to the Acorn Kingdom, considered turncoats and war criminals with hefty bounties on their heads. Not that anyone had ever been able to break through Robotnik's defenses deep enough to ever get to one of them, but Remy had his doubts that the Freedom Fighters ever really tried. They were too caught up in their sad attempts to topple the Robotnik Empire, so everyone involved with the group the goody-goodies liked to call 'The Tribunal of Traitors', knew the resistance branding them as fugitives was more of a political move than anything else. The members of the Tribunal just weren't important enough to dedicate the resources to pursue them. It was more of a way for The Resistance to show people like Remy that he hadn't been forgotten about or whatever wrongs they had done. It had been almost two decades, and pretty much every member of the Tribunal was still free and remained unpunished for their alleged crimes.
Well, that 'had' been the case until around four months ago when HE first appeared. The Mobians in his circle referred to him as 'The Wanderer' for his tendency to well… Wander everywhere, decimating anything Robotnik so much as breathed on that got in his way as he moved from target to target with no perceivable goal or purpose in mind other than wrecking the good doctor's shit. Two of those lost pieces of 'property' just happened to include recently deceased Mobians who also happened to be on that list of fugitives. With the hundreds of outposts spread across the Acorn Kingdom alone, the fact that two members of the Tribunal just happened to be stationed at the sites of one of these otherwise seemingly random attacks, Remy and the others couldn't help but wonder that maybe somebody had finally decided it was high time they paid for their sins.
They did have a good idea as to who The Wanderer's true identity was… Despite the disguise, his gear and fighting style were kind of giveaways. He'd been Robotnik's primary nemesis for almost two decades now after all. There was just one problem with this theory… When the Resistance had finally all but been eradicated a couple of years prior, he had been assumed killed in action along with what little remained of the Freedom Fighters, or at the very least assumed he'd finally given up on a pointless fight that he had no hope of winning. He'd basically disappeared off the face of Mobius since then, but now he appeared to be back… And here he was knocking on Remy's front door, bulldozing his way through some of Robotnik's most ingenious creations like he was swatting away flies. The badger watched in horror as his best chance of repelling the intruder's infiltration of the outpost, the massive Brute as its head exploded. The Wanderer then invited himself inside the outpost and was undoubtedly headed in Remy's direction. There was no conceivable way this could be a coincidence…
Perhaps he could strike a deal with the stranger… Offer up the Chaos Emerald in exchange for his life! Surely the power held within one of those stones was more valuable than the life of one lowly traitor to Mobian kind. It wasn't like he was aggressively loyal to Robotnik anyhow, few of his kind were… The fat bastard had never made good on his promise to return his family's status, and more importantly to Remy, the life of luxury that status once afforded him. Robotnik never had any intention of fulfilling his end of the bargain, which was obvious now, but Remy had to stay in service to the dictator out of fear of Robotnik's wrath if he failed to fall in line. Ironically enough, he was in an infinitely worse position now than he'd been while slumming it in Knothole.
Remy jumped in alarm when he heard what sounded like a knock at the main entrance to the outpost's command center. Remy readied his blaster and pointed it at the door, his hands shaking wildly. Another knocking sound followed, and when Remy failed to answer this time, he began to hear what sounded like machinery being tampered with. It didn't take a genius to realize that the masked stranger was trying to hack into the security panel connected to the door… The last line of defense separating Remy from what might as well be death incarnate on the other side. It only took mere seconds for the intruder to bypass Robotnik's allegedly haughty security measures. Remy wasted no time firing a shot at the large figure as it entered the control room. The Wanderer casually moved his head to the side avoiding the blast… Almost as if he had an infrared scope built into his artificial eye that had warned him the organic being walled up inside the control room was armed with a blaster. Remy continued to fire wildly, forcing The Wanderer to roll out of the way of a few blasts before getting off a shot of his own that struck Remy on his trigger hand, knocking his firearm from his hand. Remy howled in pain before gawking in horror at the mangled state of his right hand, his thumb and two adjacent fingers now little more than smoking ashen stubs. The badger didn't have time to mourn the loss of his digits, for the predator was slowly stalking towards his prey.
"Please… You don't want me! You're here for the emerald, aren't you? Go ahead, take it! I wouldn't dare try to stop you… Surely this mighty artifact is more valuable than this one humble badger's life!"
The Wanderer stalled his approach. Remy imagined he could almost see the face of the man glare at him behind his mask. "You'd betray your master? Just like that? Not that I'm surprised mind you…"
"Robotnik is no master of mine! He promised he'd restore my family's wealth and status, and instead, gave me nothing while still expecting me to serve him like some common peasant slave…"
"Translation, the tyrant that sees no value in organic life and held all the leverage didn't make good on his pinky promise? Shocking… Now sit down." The Wanderer motioned with his blaster towards the chair positioned in front of the security monitors.
"What? But…"
"SIT DOWN!"
Remy's ass immediately glued itself to the chair, subconsciously wrapping his mangled hand up in the fabric of his dress coat. The badger nearly jumped back out of it when The Wanderer's masked face was immediately shoved into his own. Something about the stare of that blank expressionless void of the mask combined with the soft red glow from The Wanderer's artificial eye just behind it was pants-shittingly unsettling. "How many?"
"How many what?" the badger stuttered, clearly as confused now as he was terrified.
"How many dead?! When you sold out the Resistance and gave up the location of Knothole to Robotnik! I want to make sure you understand just how much blood is on your hands."
"You… You've got it all wrong! Robotnik forced me to follow his orders under penalty of…"
"SHUT…. UP!" he roared, and the badger complied. "You're the bastard who went to Robotnik! You're the one who led him straight to Knothole! You're the one who decided to betray the people who took you in and sheltered you after you were orphaned in the war… And for what reason? Because we didn't have 'caviar' or the right kind of sparkling water or any of that other rich hoity-toity crap you felt entitled too! That was all the motive you needed to send hundreds of Mobians to their deaths… Most of them weren't even soldiers Remy!"
"How do you know my…" the badger's eyes grew wide, his suspicions of The Wanderer's identity all but confirmed. He was more certain than ever now that he was about to die. "By Gaia it is you, isn't it?... You… You were hunting me, weren't you?…"
"I came for the emerald… Running into you was just a bonus… And this time I'm going to do a lot worse than just break your nose…" Remy watched on, still frozen in fear even as the masked drifter got out of his face and took a few steps back. His back turned to the badger, he said, "1541."
The only response Remy could muster was a simple, "Huh?"
"1541… That's how many people died when Robotnik sacked Knothole. That's how many deaths you're responsible for! I just wanted to make sure that was the last thought you had before you died."
Remy Badginton didn't even get the chance to beg for his life. A single blaster shot struck him in the center of his forehead, the contents of his skull exploding out the back of Remy's head and decorating the monitors and console behind him. The badger slumped backward, what was left of his head dangling off the back of the chair. The Wanderer spared the body only a cursory glance before seemingly forgetting the corpse even existed, and walked over to the containment unit housing the green Chaos Emerald… The plastic case was locked of course… Damn it, maybe he should've had Remy open it for him first before he assassinated him.
Oh well, it turned out not to matter much. It took less than two minutes for him to hack his way into the system and release the locks on the containment unit… Which wasn't exactly hard when your security code as 1-2-3-4… Remy truly was the embodiment of entitled and lazy. The Wanderer retrieved the Green Emerald from its plastic prison, feeling a slight tingle surge through his body as the energy of the emerald interacted with the Chaos Energy that coursed through his veins. The connection didn't provide as strong of a feeling as it once had though… The drifter had a theory as to why this might be, but he didn't have time to dwell on that just yet. He still had one last task to complete before he could consider his mission accomplished. After placing the emerald safely in a specially made container that helped mask its chaos signature, he made his way over to the control panel, kicking the chair Remy's corpse sat in out of his way.
His fingers began their rapid dance across the control panel as he tried to penetrate deeper into the bowels of the outpost's security. "Nicole… The messy part is over, would you mind waking up from your nap? I may need your help with this."
"Again, it's not the mess that bothers me… It's the fact that you felt you had to make it to begin with… Do you feel better now at least?"
It was impossible to miss the condescension in his friend's voice. He didn't blame her one bit. It wasn't like he was proud of what he just did. "Not at all… In fact, I don't really feel anything… Not anger, no satisfaction, no regrets… It feels more like I ran down to the market to pick up a carton of milk than it feels like I just executed a notorious traitor to our cause. Not gona lie, it kind of scares me… I'd almost prefer it if I had enjoyed it a little bit since that's an emotion I could at least reconcile with. Am I really that far gone?"
"After everything you've been through…" Nicole's tone was much softer and sympathetic this time around. "You're doing the best that you can do."
The Wanderer wasn't sure he agreed… So, he chose not to offer a response. "You can hack into the system and bypass Robotnik's security protocols a lot faster than I can. Would you mind kicking the door open and activating the outpost's self-destruct sequence?
"Now that's a cause I can get onboard with! The fewer of these eyesores desecrating Mobius the better! This might take a few minutes though…"
"Take all the time you need," he replied, as he removed a flash drive from a compartment beneath his artificial eye and inserted it into an appropriate slot on the control panel. The Wanderer smiled as he saw the comforting image in the form of the face of a lynx smiling at him somewhat somberly. Nicole got to work shifting through the computer's files, but as she worked, decided to kill some time by probing her partner for information on what exactly his plan was… He hadn't exactly been very forthcoming with her about it, and it was strange for him not to confide in her. "I've been meaning to ask you something… I understand why you targeted this particular location…. To acquire the emerald, and that you want to eliminate as many of these outposts that are near the bunker as possible, but why is there such an erratic pattern in the facilities you assault? We've gone as far as a hundred miles out of our way to target a warehouse in the mountains, manned with a whopping three Swatbots…"
"Simple… It's mostly a smokescreen to blind Robotnik to my true objectives… As much as we might like to pretend that Ivo's a shortsighted predictable oaf, that doesn't change the fact that he's a very intelligent man who pays more attention to his enemies than he cares to let on. If I senselessly attacked Robotnik's interests only in the areas closest to the bunker, then Ivo would eventually pick up on the pattern and possibly triangulate the bunker's location… Or at least come to the conclusion that there's something in that area that I have a vested interest in protecting, which would provide Robotnik with more than enough of an excuse to send every badnik within a hundred miles to that location. By making my raids appear completely random, hopefully that'll be enough to throw the doctor off our scent."
"Is that why you targeted the locations manned by those fugitives? To make Robotnik think your motive was revenge, attacking his facilities at random to hunt down traitors?"
"Happenstance and pure luck. I had no clue that any of those turncoats were even stationed in those locations until I showed up on their doorsteps. Odds are, you would've been aware of their presence long before I would have, just like in this case. To your point though, they do make for a fantastic cover story. Maybe old Eggie will assume I paid a visit to the Mystic Ruins to say hello to my old friend Remy rather than suspect that I'm actively hunting for the Chaos Emeralds."
"I hate to be a wet blanket, but that degree of luck typically alludes us."
"You're not wrong… I've probably made enough noise around the kingdom by now that I doubt, I'll be complaining about the lack of security at these facilities for much longer…"
Nicole went silent for a moment as she finished her task. "And…. There! You'd think with all that 'noise' you were talking about, Robotnik would've at least beefed up his cyber security. It's far too easy to bypass his system's security protocols."
"All the more convenient for us, right? The usual thirty minutes until this place goes boom, I take it?"
"Correct. Initiating self-destruct sequence… Now!"
The Wanderer showed little urgency escaping the steel box that Nicole had basically turned into a live grenade. Yet still, he was nearly a mile away when the explosion rocked the Mystic Ruins region, The Wanderer neglecting to spare the impressive fireworks display a single glance. He was more focused on his next destination, one that ironically had an interesting connection to the ruins. The drifter found himself reminiscing back to his younger days and how beautiful this region once was before it became one of the many barren wastelands that dominated the planet of Mobius. Specifically, he was recalling the day of that fateful mission where everything went wrong, the first domino to fall that would eventually lead to the Freedom Fighter's ultimate defeat and Robotnik's conquest and subsequent eradication of most of the sentient life on the planet.
It was hard for him to believe that the countdown to the virtual extinction of Mobian-kind began almost twenty-five years ago to that very day.
End Chapter 1
The next chapter will be a little bit of a departure, as we'll be traveling twenty-five years into the past to witness the event the Wanderer blames as the beginning of the downfall of the Freedom Fighters, and Mobius as a whole. We'll also be unmasking our protagonist in Chapter 3, not that I'm trying all that hard to keep it a secret, lol… Then again, I did write the story, so maybe that's why the answer feels so obvious to me. Either way, the not such a mystery was only ever supposed to be a small aspect of the story anyway, a nice little hook to introduce readers to the story and this bleak world he's living in. What I am sure of is that I'm already getting tired of referring to him as The Wanderer, and while editing I've already caught Nicole trying to reveal his identity prematurely twice. Til next time!