Chapter 9 "She WHAT!?" As soon as Sonic and Bunnie had heard the translation, they headed for Sally's hut. At first she was still too wrapped up in her grief to respond; when they burst into her hut she simply said: "Please, just leave me alone." But when they told her of Sandy's disappearance and of the note she had left behind, Sally was on her feet in a second. "This is terrible! How long ago did she leave?" "Ah don't know, Sally, and neither does anyone else. She's as quiet as Sonic is quick." "That means she's got a head start. We still might be able to catch her." "Forget it, Sal," Sonic said, "she doesn't want to get caught." But Sally wasn't listening. Instead she was writing a quick note, inserting it into one of the mechanical carrier pidgeons Rotor had designed, and was programming it to fly to Uncle Chuck's hideout in Robotropolis. "You think she means it?" Bunnie asked. "Of course she does. Look at the bottom of the letter. You see that smudge where her signature would be? She made that with a drop of her own blood. I don't know much about the Nomads, but I DO know they're firm believers in blood-vengeance! She blames Robotnik for our mother's death and she's going after him. We've got to stop her!" "Whoa! Time out!" Sonic yelled. "Since when are we in the business of saving Robuttnik's butt?" "Believe me, that's not the point!" "Then I'm missing something here!" "Sonic, I had to watch my mother die and I couldn't do a thing about it. I am NOT going to sit around here while my sister commits suicide! Now come on!" Without another word, Sally raced out the door. Sonic had never seen her so worked up before, but he was even more surprised when Bunnie said, half-aloud and with a broad grin on her face: "Welcome back, Sally-girl!" "Say what?" "Tell you later, Sugarhog." It took a couple of minutes of waiting for Dulcy's head to clear after her latest landing. Once she understood what was happening, though, she was winging her way back to Robotropolis with Sonic, Sally and Bunnie on board. All the while they were flying, they scanned the open country for any sign of Sandy. At one point, Sally ordered Dulcy to land. Even before Dulcy had touched down Sally had lept off of Dulcy's back, rolled on the ground to cushion the landing, sprang to her feet, and ran toward a small bush. There was a piece of torn cloth on it, from Sandy's cloak. They were heading in the right direction. No sooner had the others picked themselves up from Dulcy's landing than Sally was urging the dragon to get back in the air again. In a little while they touched down at a garbage dump outside of Robotropolis. This was a common rendezvous point for the freedom fighters on their various missions. As soon as they were on the ground, Sally had Nicole in hand. "Nicole! Display the three most likely routes between the dump and Robotnik's headquarters!" Instantly, a shimmering hologram map of the city floated before them. "OK, Bunnie will take the southern route, Sonic will take the northern route, and I'll go up the middle. We'll meet at Uncle Chuck's; maybe he'll have heard something." "What if we find her?" Bunnie asked. "Get her to Uncle Chuck's; I don't care how. Dulcy, you retrace our path and look for her again; I want to make sure we didn't pass her on the way here." With that, Sally ran off, leaving the other freedom fighters standing in the garbage dump. "You want to tell me what that 'Welcome back' thing was about?" Sonic asked Bunnie. "Oh, that! Well, Sally ain't been herself lately, what with her ma dyin' and all. I was just glad to get the old Sally back." "Me, too! Good luck, Bunnie; gotta juice!" "Good luck Sugarhog!" With that, Sonic tore off on his appointed route, Dulcy took to the air once more, and Bunnie started on her way. Bunnie was never keen about coming to Robotropolis, no matter how important the missions. The city had changed so much under Robotnik that it was nothing but a gigantic threat. After ten minutes of walking, Bunnie attempted to get her bearings. This had been the oldest part of town before Robotnik blighted everything. The buildings were low and the structures square. Bunnie dimly remembered that the building where she was sheltering herself had been the old Klein Bottle Works. Cautiously she rounded a corner. Looking to her right, she froze: the unmistakable shape of a SWAT-bot lurked in a shadow. She wondered whether to make a run for it. Yet the SWATbot didn't move after several seconds. Emboldened, and fervently hoping that it wasn't equipped with a motion sensor, Bunnie edged toward it. Once she got closer, Bunnie could see the hole punched into its chest. She could also see another SWATbot lying on the ground in three pieces. "Yep," Bunnie thought to herself, "this is Sandy's calling card, all right!" She looked down the street. There was something else in the shadows further along. Cautiously moving toward it, she saw another fallen SWATbot. "Oo-wee! This is just like followin' a trail of bread crumbs!" On she went, hiding in shadows and tracing a trail of fallen SWATbots. She thought she'd counted seven wrecked bots--and who knows how many before she picked up Sandy's trail--when she turned a corner. There wasn't a SWATbot to be seen, not even the smallest part. "Uh-oh! Ran out of bread crumbs." Suddenly she thought she could hear a hover unit approaching. That meant more bots! She quickly ducked into an alleyway. Bunnie was so intent on wondering what to do next, she didn't notice the metallic hand inching out of the shadows behind her and getting closer and closer.