The Chronicles of Jhoeseophae

				   Book One


			       Joseph DeLaCroix


     Joseph, Bahb, and all other independent creations of Joseph de
laCroix are the copyrighted property of JoCo Inc. and are also protected
by the firm of Louis, E. Ville, and Slugger.  Commander Packbell,
Bookshire Draftwood, and Sandra Nightweaver are the copyrighted property
of Bookshire S. Draftwood.  All other fanfic characters that may or may
not be used in this or future works are protected under their respective
copyrights.  All other rights reserved, etc.







			Chapter One - Starship Down




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Timeline: After "Bloodlines", but before "Doomsday".  *shrug*

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The starship hummed as it approached the solar system.  The apparently
doorless, windowless, disc-shaped reddish interplanetary vehicle dropped out
of warpspace, and dropped to conventional ion drive.  Readjusting its
bearings slightly, and cloaking itself in order to avoid detection, it
headed toward a medium-sized planet, roughly 92 million miles from its
sun.  It was an quite inviting, beautiful looking place, that had the
possibility of supporting millions upon millions of different lifeforms.
Usually, these planets developed intelligent life within 4 billion years or
so after their initial creation.  This planet was one of them.

The inhabitants of this planet called it "Mobius".

The ship first detected the signs of an post-industrial planet three
years ago, as it was doing a routine scan through various frequencies.  The
signals were several years old, but they indicated this "Mobius" was a
relatively peaceful planet, with only a single squabble between city states
bothering the otherwise serene world.  But, according to a signal the
ship had picked up a bit later, a man called "Julian" had apparently beaten
them.  The last signal the ship recieved was that a sort of gala
celebration was going to occur to honor this man with a more peaceful
position in the government.  But just as the party was scheduled to begin,
a meteorite finally achieved the 1.679 x 10^80 against to one
probablility of something penetrating the shields and damaging the
communications array, and the ship was unable to recieve any further
information about the planet.

Noting the occurance in the ship's log, the computer set a course for the
origin of the signals with the maximum allowed speed for the ship; exactly
99.9% of the speed of light.  (The ship's computer was programmed with a
directive that forbade it from going faster than light while on
autopilot, because of the various unpredictable things that could occur
in jumpspace.) A few years had passed since the beginning of the journey
and its current status, but the ship assumed (with less than a 2% margin of
error, according to its calculations of probablility according to the
information it had recieved) that the planet had not changed dramatically
within the past several years.

And now, the ship was slowing to a slow orbit around the planet, and was
doing a sensor sweep in order to determine the planet's exact status.
Needless to say, the ship was mostly correct.  The planet still appeared to
be a relative paradise.  However, one dramatic change had occured.  The
coordinates of the capital city, which was described as an "garden city",
was now covered in a black-grey smog cloud.  Had some sort of volcanic
eruption occured?  The ship reconfigured its sensors scanned for
carbon-based lifeforms.  Two showed up, both of them apparently bipedal,
evolved simians.  Obviously, the ship hypothesised, some sort of major
catastrophe had severely damaged the city, and had only left two survivors.
However, the ship also detected motion below.  Switching to IR, it peered
through the murky clouds, and spotted several thousand bipedal machines,
vaguely resembling various evolved mammals, doing various tasks.  The ship
was puzzled for a moment, and then came to the conclusion that they could
possibly be cyborgs.  Sure enough, when the ship scanned for cybernetic
lifeforms, the beings below showed up on the scans.

Now the ship was in a quandry.  Within a few years, Mobitropolis had
apparently switched from garden city to ultra-industrial megacomplex for no
obvious or logical reason.  The view of the environment must have radically
changed for the leaders of the planet, the ship surmised, or else they
would not be damaging it so.  Whoever decided on this decision must have
felt they were under some sort of threat, because the ship then detected
beam weaponry on the planet's surface.  But from what?  Nothing threatened
them from space, for they were the only inhabited world around for several
light years.  The rest of the planet appeared relatively uninhabited, and
there were surely no armies on the planet capable of damaging that city.

As if to disprove the ship's assumption in an ironic sense, a large
explosion was suddenly detected within the limits of the city.

The explosion was apparently caused by a sort of sabotage, for a platoon of
heavily armed robots was racing toward it, firing at an unknown
terrorist that the ship could not detect (due to the severe interference).
Moments later, the firing ceased.  Either the shots had reached their
target, or the terrorist had escaped.  The ship was about to note the
first in its log when a very fast-moving bluish object was detected racing
toward the area called "The Great Forest".  Before a scan could be
activated, it was gone.

The ship had come to the conclusion that this planet was not a good place
to land.  Apparently, some sort of major upheaval had occured, and the area
did not look very inviting.  It decided to leave before something else
happened.

However, the ship then realized it would have to power down its cloak in
order to pull out of orbit, and expose itself to whichever inhabitants were
running things down on Mobius' surface.  Also, if it left orbit, it would
be unable to find another suitable planet to land on, due to the damage
done to the communications array.  It now had no choice but to land.
Protocol demanded it land away from a settled area.  Fortunately, those
were widespread...  It also wanted to land someplace where it could decloak
and remain covered.  Scanning the surface, it discovered a small
clearing deep within the Great Forest that could it could safely land in,
which had no large or intelligent life forms around it.  Not only that, a
small creek was spotted no more than 10 yards away from the center of the
site.  It would be an ideal place to land in.

It decended into the atmosphere without disrupting it enough for anyone to
really notice.  It soared above the Great Forest, found the spot it had
selected from orbit, and descended into it.  Moments later, the ship had
landed uneventfully and silently within the small clearing.

After the landing had completed, the ship set up a camoflaged canopy so to
keep the ship from being spotted from orbit.  After all, it couldn't remain
cloaked indefinitely, and when the ship's passenger finally emerged, he
would wish to work in secret.  In seconds, the clearing no longer appeared
to exist from any altitude higher than 10 feet above it.

Things were moving along rather smoothly.  All that was left to be done was
to reactivate the pilot, and the repairs on the ship could begin.

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Immediately behind the cockpit, an area had been set up for the cryogenic
storage of a single individual.  As the ship began to power back up the
area, it slowly became visible to an observer's sight.  It was basically a
single man-sized tube, connected to a coolant pipe and a computer.  The
computer began to hum as the pipe began to withdraw from the tube.  Then,
from the back of the room, a small laser powered up and began to fire at
the tube.  It slowly began to grow red from the laser's heat.  After a
predetermined period of time, it ceased.  The ship then removed whatever
liquid remained in the tube, and pumped it outside.  Finally, it
appeared the process had been completed. The tube opened up so to
allow its contents to exit, and the machinery shut down.

Jhoeseophae awoke groggily from his long slumber.  <<"Arrgh.">> he muttered
as he wandered over and put on his clothes.  He stumbled over to the
replicator, generated something hot and wet, and threw it down his throat.
Now with most of his faculties active, he wandered over to the mirror.
As a test of his cognative abilities, he decided to examine himself as an
impartial observer, and see what he could infer about himself from
a quick examination.

The green eyes bored into his face.  He was a vulpine, bipedal and highly
evolved.  Orange fur.  Eyes that seemed to radiate intelligence.
Razor-sharp teeth.  Slight muscular build, but somewhat apathied from the
long period in stasis.  Roughly 23 years old.  On the tall and slim side
for his species, standing at about 6'4" and roughly 180 pounds.

Seeing that his mental faculties were operating at optimum efficiency, he
went over to his wardrobe and threw on some clothes.  A pair of
fashionably-frayed denim pants, with a pair of knee-high black metal-tipped
boots were laying about, so he put those on.  Platinum-buckled belt, and a
green t-shirt...didn't look THAT dirty...  Fingerless gloves were already
on, so had to complement the ensemble with his grey trenchcoat.  Voila.
Instant cool.

Now that he felt pretty good about himself, he wandered into the cockpit to
discuss his awakening with the ship's AI, Bahb.  <<"Okay,">> said
Jhoeseophae aloud, sitting down in the captain's chair, <<"where are we,
Bahb?">>

<<"We are on a planet called Mobius.">> spake the computer in a sexless,
mechanical voice.

<<"Tell me what you know about Mobius, Bahb.">> said Jhoeseophae.
                                                
And Bahb did.

<<"This is not good, Bahb, you know that?">>

<<"Affirmative.  Landing on this planet at this stage of its development is
not advised.">>

<<"Then why are we here?">>

<<"Repairs required for communications array.  Cannot continue with mission
until repaired.">>

<<"So we're stuck here, on a planet in the midst of an all-out war, with a
busted radio and no place to go until I fix it?">>

<<"Affirmative.">>

<<"How do I fix it, Bahb?">>

<<"Unknown.  Pilot intervention required.">>

Jhoeseophae mused over this point, grabbed some tools laying next to the
seat, and walked over to the hatch.

<<"Open the hatch, Bahb.">> he said, and it was.

Jhoeseophae emerged out into the canopy's filtered moonlight.  The area
appeared fairly healthy.  The plants were green, and the water looked crisp
and clear.  It didn't look like a industrial hell, and certainly didn't
have the aura of death about it.  After a few deep breaths, he padded
quietly over to the area of the smooth, oval-shaped ship's
communications array.

<<"Arrgh.">>

The communications array looked totaled.  Something a tad larger than a
full-grown vulpine's head had hit the thing, and hit it hard.  Most of the
parts were pulverized.  He sighed.  Jhoeseophae was incapable of
repairing it, even with his arsenal of technological knowledge.
He walked back into the ship, and sat back down in the captain's chair.

<<"Bahb?">>

<<"Aye.">>

<<"We got any extra communications arrays back there?">>

<<"Negative.  However, one could be replicated.">>

<<"Do you have enough power to do that?">>

<<"Negative.">>

Somehow, he had expected that would be the answer.

<<"Are there any power sources on the planet you could utilize?">>

<<"Scanning.  Please wait.">>

He waited for about 3 minutes, and then heard:

<<"Potential energy source located.">>, Bahb beeped, <<"Designation:
Crystalline.">>  Jhosesophae's hope began to rise until he heard,
<<"Location:">> Bahb suddenly fell silent. <<"Electromagnetic flux from
Mobitropolis makes exact location currently unavailable.">>

He sighed.  <<"Any good raves on Mobius, Bahb?">>

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Robotropolis, shortly after the "terrorist attack":

Snively hated his life some days, with a bottomless, infinite passion.
This was one of those days.  Yet again the Freedom Fighters (curse them!)
had detonated another vital part of Robotropolis, and yet again Snively had
to be the bearer of bad news.  He didn't know why, just once, a SWAT Bot
couldn't tell Robotnik the bad news.  At least they were expendable.  Of
course, in Robotnik's red, glowing eyes, so was he...

He wandered into the Death Egg's control room, where Robotnik spent the
majority of his day.  He was sitting there in his chair, tapping his left
index finger on the left armrest.  Just sitting there, waiting.

Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.

Robotnik spoke first.  "Let me guess, Snively," Robotnik sneered, not
turning around, "you have bad news for me, don't you?"

Snively started stuttering.  "Umm...y-y-yes, Dr. Robotnik.  Umm...the #6
Refinery, uh, uhmm..."

Robotnik spun the chair around, and glared at Snively with all his might.
"#6 was DESTROYED, wasn't IT?!"

"Uhh..."

"Shut up!" Robotnik roared with all his might, "I *know* about the #6
Refinery, you simpering dullard!"  Robotnik lept out of his chair, grabbed
Snively by the scruff of the neck before he had a chance to get away, and
shoved him against the screen showing the flaming wreckage of the said
refinery being cleaned up by various robotizised citizens.  "I *watched*
the attack from HERE!"  Snively could only freeze in a sort of delayed
survival instinct.  "Didn't I tell you last week to TRIPLE the amount of
SWAT Bots guarding the refinery zones?  DIDN'T I?!?  After all, they
attacked #1 a month and a half ago, #2 5 weeks ago, #3 the next week, etc!
We've only got the #7 *left* now, Snively!  WE are going to be SHUT DOWN
unless we can keep #7 up!  Do you know what that MEANS?!?"

Snively desperately tried to defend himself as Dr. Robotnik twisted his arm
around so that Snively and him were now eye-to-eye.  In a burst of
confusion mized with fear, Snively uttered, "I d-d-did t-triple the
amount, sir..."

Dr. Robotnik roared in rage, and threw Snively at the nearest wall, which
he collided into painfully.  Robotnik then strode over to the intercom, and
pushed the button down with a sudden calm.  "Quintruple the amount of SWAT
Bots guarding #7 Refinery."  "Yes, sir." a voice on the other side spoke.

Repressing the remainder of his anger, he sat back down in his chair, and
stared into the viewscreens.  He was now seriously depressed.  Repairs were
continuing on the first few refineries, but the first one that was
destroyed would not be operational for another 2 days from then.  If that
blasted hedgehog attacked #7 tomorrow (which he probably would, considering
that if he did, it would annoy Robotnik further), and destroyed it,
Robotropolis would probably have to slow down for a few days until the new
refinery went up, which they would, of course, attack.

He was at a critical point now.  If they were able to continue destroying
his refineries, he'd have to either shut down or find an alternative, more
efficient, and probably (yuck) cleaner energy source for Robotropolis.  The
whole scenerio depressed him.  Even beating the crap out of Snively (who was
up against the wall, wheezing) didn't make him feel better.  He growled,
pounded his fist against the armrest, and swore for a little bit about the
hedgehog's demise until he felt somewhat more civil.  Suddenly, he thought
of a way to make himself feel better, yet do something constructive at
the same time.

He pushed the intercom button again.  "Bring up a prisoner, please.", he
said evilly.  He always put on an air of faux politeness when about to
torture the living daylights out of another sentinent being.  "Sorry," the
voice said, "we don't have any prisoners left, sir.  You robotisized them
all yesterday."  Robotnik blinked.  "What?!?"  The voice sounded less
sure of itself.  "Yes, sir, don't you remember?  21:00 Robotropolis
Central Time."  He snarled.  "Then go out and capture some then, and tell
me when you get them here!"  Sharply, the voice said, "Yes, sir!" and
disappeared into silence.

Robotnik then looked over to the fairly-recovered Snively.  "Snively," he
said casually, "make yourself useful and go with some SWAT Bots on their
little hunt." Snively just nodded, and ran out of the room.  After he was a
fair distance away, Robotnik muttered, "Good help is so hard to find these
days." and began a perimeter sweep of Robotropolis.

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Knothole, after the attack:

The usual small celebration was going on over the destruction of yet
another Robotnik installation.  Sonic, was, of course, drinking in all of
the positive attention and recieving most of the compliments; while Sally
and Rotor, who accompanied Sonic on that mission, would occasionally roll
their eyes at some of the hedgehog's more gratuitous exaggerations.  After
a few more minutes, the celebration came to an end, and the trio wandered
back into Sally's hut to discuss the next mission.

"Well," said she, "we're in good shape, guys.  Robotnik only has one more
refinery left, so Robotropolis is almost completely come to a halt now."

"Yeah!" spoke the blue wonder, "So, what time tomorrow do we go to destroy
lucky #7?  I'll set my alarm."

"Sonic," Sally said, "if we went off and tried to destroy that refinery,
we might as well just walk up to Robotnik and surrender.  We barely got
out of this one alive."

Sonic started tapping his foot on the ground, and crossed his arms.  "Well, if
that's the way you feel about it, Sal, I'll do it myself!  I know how Rotor
plants the bombs!  *I* can do it!"

Sally looked over at Rotor.  "Well," the walrus said, "they aren't really
*that* complex.  All he'd have to to is type in however much time he'd need
on the first one, and all the others would sync."

Noting that point, Sally mentally selected another one and glared at Sonic.
"Are you insane?!  Robotnik will at least have 400 SWAT Bots in there, and
you KNOW they'll be on alert now."

Sonic smirked, and gesticulated his arms in a manner an umpire denotes a
player is "safe".  "A few hundred 'bots won't slow me down.  It'll be a
breeze."

"A *breeze*?!" Sally shouted, "You'll be slaughtered!"

"Ha!" the blue one noted, "I'll be there and back before they'll even
notice the attack!" and snapped his fingers.

"Sonic..." she pleaded, "I forbid you to do this.  It's just too
dangerous."

"I *live* on danger!" cried the hedgehog, "and if I pull this one off,
Robotnik will REALLY be hurtin'!  C'mon, Sal, let me do it!"

Sally looked over at Sonic.  "Look, I'll tell you in the morning.  I need
to consider this, okay?"

Sonic smiled.  "Sure, Sal, no sweat.  You know where to find me."  With
that, he powered himself up and rocketed out the door.  Lightly grabbing
any stable objects, Sally and Rotor rode out the shockwave with a minimum
of distress.

"You're going to let him go, aren't you?" said Rotor softly.

She sighed.  "Do I really have a choice?  Even if I say no, he'll go."
She took a breath.  "At least if I tell him when to go, I'll be able to see
him leave..."

"Now Sally," Rotor spake, "don't act like that.  Sonic will come back from
this one.  I just know it."

Sally walked over to the window, and stared up into the night sky.
"I just hope you're right, Rotor."

Suddenly, Tails walked in.  "Aunt Sally," he said, "we're out of berries
again.  Should I go out and pick some tomorrow?"

Sally sighed.  "Uh, sure, Tails.  Could you take Bunnie with you?  She's
been pacing around here bored."

Tails smiled.  "Sure, Aunt Sally, it'll be my pleasure!"

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A new day broke over the Great Forest.  Light streamed in through the
leaves of the various trees, and most of the animals, sentinent and
non-sentinent alike, were awakened.

Jhosesophae came out of sleep mode, and forced himself to stand.  A
rapid exchange of carbon dioxide for oxygen occured, and his appendeges were
properly recalibrated.  (To a layman, that would be percieved as Jhosesophae
yawning and stretching out.)

He wandered over to the replicator, created a yellow cube about 5 cubic
inches in volume, and began eating it.  He wandered into the cockpit, sat
down in the chair, and activated the screen.  <<"Status report.">>

Bahb beeped back to life as Jhosesophae reclined and ate his cube.
<<"In a two klick radius around the ship, approximately 1.5 small mammals
had been detected moving in the last 12 hours.  None have come within one
klick of the ship.  4 birds had been detected flying above the ship at a
average altitude of 100 yards above sea level.  150 worms have been noted
approxamately 2 inches below the landing gear.  The temperature outside is
+73.5 degrees.  The probability it will remain clear today is 95.1%.  Fuel
level is at 75% of maximum.  Communications array is down.  Weapons, cloak,
shields, navigation, transporters, propulsion, sensors, life support and
cryogenic storage are on standby.">>

Jhosesophae finished his cube.  <<"We need to get those crystals, Bahb.  Do
you detect any mines or above-ground sources of them today?">>

<<"Electromagnetic flux is currently low enough for a precise scan.">> Bahb
tweeted proudly, <<"Now scanning for crystals.">>

<<"Confirmed.">> Bahb beeped.  <<"An enterance to a mine system exists
exactly 3 miles from here, in the center of a whirlpool.">>

<<"I hate water,">> Jhosesophae uttered, <<"But I hate being marooned even
more.">> Jhosesophae grabbed his microcomputer from a shelf, walked to the
replicator, and placed it on the replicator's altar.  <<"Bahb, waterproof
and charge this device.">> Bahb quietly did so, with a pulse of plasmatic
energy.  He then removed the computer from the pad.  <<"Bahb, link with
this device.">> Suddenly, Bahb's voice was heard from the small speaker on
the device.  <<"Affirmative.">>

Jhosesophae took a small stun weapon from another counter as he walked into
the transporter tube.  <<"Bahb, teleport me as close as you possibly can to
the enterence to the mine, but keep me distant from other life forms.">>
Bahb didn't answer.  It merely set coordinates and shot Jhosesophae through
the atmosphere.

Seconds later, Jhosesophae rematerialized about 5 feet from the edge of the
whirlpool.  He noted that this was where the creek ended that ran by the
side of his craft.  <<"Bahb, copy.">>, not expecting an answer.

The device beeped somewhat with some light static, <<"On standby.">>

Jhosesophae suddenly realized that this was technically impossible.
<<"Bahb, how are you doing this?">>

The device uttered, <<"Your microcomputer has a seperate communications
array than the central one on the ship.  A small version of the main array,
with a lesser range, is implanted inside the ship.  That is how my signals
are reaching you.">>

<<"Oh,">> Jhosesophae said, <<"that makes sense.  How much further away can
you reach me from?">>

<<"You can go either 100 more miles in any direction horizontally or
straight up, or 5 feet straight down.  The soil on this planet is
interfering with the array.">>

Jhosesophae grumbled.  <<"Very well.  I'm going down the whirlpool now, and
I'm leaving my communicator up here.  I will try to report back on an
regular basis.  Over and out.">>

<<"Affirmative.  Good luck.">>

As Bahb fell silent, Jhosesophae looked down into the watery pit.  Thinking
about the approximate size of the crystal he was going to need, and the
fact that it was probably going to weigh an excessive amount, he calmly
removed his trenchcoat, boots and jeans, and folded them neatly beneath the
microcomputer.  Then, grabbing the stun pistol in his jaws, he plunged
beneath the surface.

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He swam as hard as he could down through the narrow passageway.  Lower and
lower he went into the hole, descending deep into the heart of the
underground caverns.  Suddenly, he felt a current pulling behind him.
Instinctively following it, he swam for another few yards until he slowly
began to see a dim light further ahead.  Pouring on the speed, he
determinedly swam toward the light, and finally emerged inside an
airpocket.  As he took some much-needed oxygen into his system, he glanced
around at his surroundings.

Meanwhile, a creature was watching the vulpine's movement within the
tunnel, and silently waited for him to exit it again.

He was floating by the shore of an currently unused crystal vein.  They
lined the walls, and glowed with a mysterious, yet beautiful, light.  As he
pulled himself onto a slab of granite, he marvelled at the strange calm
that this room seemed to have about it.  He stood there for a minute or two
on the inlet, and then resigned himself to his work.  He found a crystal
that appeared to be of a medium-size, and used his stun-ray to cut it off
the side of the cavern.  After it had been freed from the wall, he tucked
it under his shoulder, put the stun-ray back in his mouth, and dove back
into the water.

This had been much easier than expected, he thought to himself, and he
could probably get off this planet before anyone ever knew he was there.

The creature saw the fox leave the cavern, and silently prepared itself for
a filling meal.

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As Jhosesophae swam back through the tunnel, and out toward the shaft
leading back up to the surface, a shape shot past him, startling him.
He dropped the crystal out of an instinctual reaction to the threat, and
tried to swim as fast as he could up the shaft.  But whatever darted past
him saw this intent, and wrapped a sort of tenticle around his leg,
restraining his escape.  He turned to face whatever was grabbing him, and
suddenly realized he was in a deep spot of trouble.

It seemed to be some sort of robotic octupus.  But this particular model
was also outfitted with a a beak made out of two chainsaws, lazer beams by
its eyes, and incredibly strong tendrils with little spikes on them.  Very
*sharp* spikes, because they hurt a lot and were making him bleed.

Pain made him mad.

With a sort of psychotic glee, he took the stun pistol from his mouth, and
set the device to maximum power.  Looking over at the creature, he smiled
and shot it a "big mistake there, pal" look, and blasted the evil thing right
inbetwixt the eyes.  It released his leg, and seemed to stumble backwards,
if such a thing is possible underwater.  But the thing was not yet dead.
It fired several shots of a sort of death-ray beam at Jhosesophae, and
emitted a "HALT FREEDOM FIGHTER!" at him.  However, since Jhosesophae was
not familiar with the Mobian language, he had no idea that this thing was
actually one of Dr. Robotnik's defense mechanisms that was posted on the
outskirts of the mine's underground river.  He dodged the beams and blasted
the thing in the head again with his particular beam weapon.  It reeled
again from the impacts, but had one last trick up its robotic sleeves.  It
whipped one of its tendrils around like a mace and shot several of the
spikes off its tendrils at Jhosesophae.  He was able to dodge the majority
of them, but a few of them caught him in the back, giving the holes in his
leg some company.

At this point, Jhosesophae was so incredibly mad at this creature, he had
completely forgotten about the crystal and was now dedicated to totally
decimating this creature once and for all.  He rushed at the octupus and
knocked it against the wall.  While it was stunned, Jhosesophae ran at it,
and tore at the holes that he had put in the octupus, looking for anything
that looked vital and smashing it to bits.  It tried to thrash around, but
Jhosesophae would not let it get away.  Finally, he spotted the CPU of the
evil machine and punched it with all his might.

With a single whistle, the machine sunk to the bottom of the cavern, never
to move again.

Having stopped the threat, Jhosesophae dove down to the bottom of the
cavern.  He collected his crystal, and swam back up to the surface to catch
his breath.  He hoped this sort of thing wasn't going to happen to him
often while he was here.  This planet was becoming less hospitable every
day.

He returned back to the bright sunlight of the surface.  Placing the
crystal next to the communicator, he spoke, <<"Bahb, copy.">>

<<"Welcome back, Jhosesophae.">> the device said, <<"Were you sucessful in
your endevor?">>

<<"Affirmative.  Will this crystal suffice?">>

Bahb scanned the crystal.  <<"Negative.  One more is required of this size
in order to properly replicate the communications array.">>

Jhosesophae sighed.  <<"Confirmed.  Be back in a minute.">> He dreaded
returning to the area, in case there were more of the things that attacked
him down there, but he wanted off this crazy rock extremely badly.  He dove
back down beneath the water with his stun ray in tow, and hoped he'd never
have to do this again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A few hundred yards away, on a trail leading close by to the pool in
question, Bunnie was escorting Tails back to Knothole.  She'd never say
that in front of Tails, of course, because Tails felt that he was competent
enough to pick some raspberries, which he had done sucessfully, and take
them back to Knothole himself.  The reason Bunnie was coming along, Tails
believed, was because she was going slightly stir-crazy from hanging around
Knothole for so long without going on a mission.  Besides, Sonic was busy
planning his strategy for tonight's mission, and was unavailable.

"Thanks for lettin' me come along wit'cha, Tails," Bunnie said,
perpetuating the ruse, "I was gettin' kinda bored helpin' out Rotor all
day." Like Sonic gets tired of eatin' chili dogs, she thought, smiling
internally...

"It's okay, Aunt Bunnie." Tails said politely, snapping her out of her
daydream.  Suddenly, Tails saw something glitter through the trees over
by the pond.  He placed his arm out in front of Bunnie, and gestured toward
the pond.  In a unspoken understanding, they slipped quietly off the trail
and walked in a semicircle behind the source of the shine.  They slipped
almost immediately behind it when they saw its source; a large chunk of
crystal.

This puzzled the both of them.  That size crystal just doesn't grow on the
land.  Only ones that are found underground grow that large.  "We should
get a closer look," Tails whispered, "in case it *did* just happen to end
up there."

Bunnie was slightly more conservative.  "Ya wanna get yer head shot off,
sugar?  This looks like a trap!  We should go back to Knothole and tell
Sal 'bout this."

"And how," Tails muttered, "do you expect to get back to Knothole?  The
path is the only way I know of from here."

Bunnie was stumped for an answer.  She didn't know another way, either.
"Okay, sugar," she said to Tails, "but you go back to Knothole and tell
everyone, okay?"  Tails nodded, gained some altitude, and flew off toward
Knothole.  After he was out of sight, she cautiously crept closer
to the pond.  As she got closer, she noticed a pair of black boots next to
a pile of clothing, with a microcomputer like Sally had next to it.  "Y'all
went for a swim?" she thought as she crept closer, gazing upon the crystal.
"Then what d'y'all need such a big crystal for?  They don' float..."

Suddenly, the computer tweeted threateningly at her.  "Halt, Mobian
intruder!" it shouted in perfect Mobian.  Bunnie looked dumbfounded at the
machine.  "Huh?" she said, confused.

"Halt!  Halt!"

Realizing she was still walking, she ceased.  "What's your problem, little
computer?"

"You are permitted to go no closer.  Go back!"  As to accent this point,
the computer somehow fired some energy beams in the air until she started
to back up.

Slowly, she backed up, back into the forest, until she noticed blood in the
water, and started putting two and two together.  Clothing by a pool.
Blood in the water.  A belligerent, armed computer.  And then, two or three
bubbles popped on the surface of the water, as to be sure she understood
what was going on here.  She came to the conclusion that the device was
somehow picking people off who walked by the path (which was no more than
2-3feet from the edge of the water).  She couldn't just leave the thing
there in good conscience undistrubed.  So, as she passed by a nearby
boulder, she kicked it at the microcomputer.  It fired at the rock, but it
ricocheted off the rock and hit Bunnie's abdomen instead, knocking her
unconscious.  As Bunnie hit the ground, the rock hit the microcomputer.  If
the ground would have been hard, it would have broken it.  However, the
soft mud gave way beneath it, and it sunk underneath it harmlessly.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This probably could have been avoided if Jhosesophae had gotten the last
crystal at a slightly more rapid pace.  Unfortunately, accidents happen,
and Jhosesophae surfaced just seconds after the incident occured.

<<"Bahb,">> Jhosesophae said, wiping water from his eyes, <<"I've got the
last crystal.  Do you co--">> Suddenly, he noticed what had just happened.
<<"Oh no.">> He turned over the rock, grabbed the communicator, and wiped
it off.  <<"Bahb, WHAT DID YOU DO?!">>  Before Bahb could answer,
Jhosesophae intervened.  <<"NEVER MIND!  Just beam everything directly to
sick bay, STAT!">>  Seconds later, all evidence that Jhosesophae ever came
to that pond was gone, aside for some torn-up grass, was gone.

Back on the ship, Jhosesophae was frantically applying some first aid to
the damaged cybunny.  <<"Bahb, you better hope REAL HARD that was just a
stun ray.">> he cursed, as he got finished patching Bunnie up.  He then
rushed back to the replicator.  <<"Okay, now what?">>

<<"Place the crystals in the engine core, and I'll take care of the
rest.">> Bahb noted.  Jhosesophae complied, sticking the two large crystals
next to the smaller crystal rods already present.

Bahb immediately set to its work.  It first cut out (using microblasts from
the weapons systems) the damaged communications array, so that there was a
somewhat jagged hole in the side of the ship.  Then, it created a energy
pattern similar to a perfectly functioning communications array and placed
it inside the transporter's energy buffer.  Finally, it teleported it over
the hole in the hull that used to be the communications array.  After
reinitializing the communications systems, and by bending several laws of
physics, the ship was yet again at 100%.

<<"Repairs complete,">> spake Bahb, <<"All systems at 100% efficiency.">>

<<"Good,">> said Jhosesophae.  <<"Now, I'm going to put on some clothing.
Please keep our guest in REM sleep for the duration of my absence.">>
The ship beeped in compliance as Jhosesophae began putting on a similar
outfit; and wondered how exactly to deal with this new snag in his plan.
Suddenly, he discovered another snag.  He was still bleeding profusely from
his legs and back.  While this didn't bother him as such, it was getting
all over the carpet.  So, he wandered back into sick bay, laid down on an
unoccupied slab, and activated the medical robot.  After he was bandaged
up, and the cuts and nicks welded shut, he dressed himself and checked on
the damaged cybunny's condition.

The sucking hole in her abdomen was healing nicely.  In about 5 minutes,
she'd be healed enough to release.  Then, he could get off this insane
rock, and back into space, where it was SAFE.  He was definitely not
recommending this place to anyone.  Suddenly, he sensed that she was
starting to awaken.  He activated the restraining field, and backed up a
few paces.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bunnie slowly started to come out of her forced slumber.  Her head felt
like someone had used it to bowl a perfect game.  "Ooh, muh head..." she
groaned as she tried to sit up.  Suddenly, she felt the wound in her
stomach, winced, and laid back down again.  Sitting up was not something
she was going to do for a while.

"Please don't do that." a synthesised voice uttered.

"Huh?" Bunnie groaned, as she opened her eyes.

The room was white.  White, and lit by some unknown source.  She was laying
on one of the many slabs that were around the room.  A single doorway lead
out directly in front of her.  A monitoring unit was to her left,
apparently keeping track of her life signs.  A tall, thin orange fox was
monitoring it.

This obviously wasn't Robotropolis.  If it was, they'd finish her off
around now.  But if it wasn't Robotropolis, and it certainly wasn't
Knothole, where was she?

"Hey," she muttered and waved her roboticized arm at the figure, "you
there!"  The figure either didn't hear her, or didn't understand her.
Jhosesophae heard the creature `making noise' at him, and said <<"Bahb,
does the creature appear to be sentinent?">>  Bunnie could only look
puzzled.  <<"It appears so,">> Bahb said, <<"Also, she was implanted with
cybernetic limbs that seem to be poisoning her.">>  Jhosesophae hmmed.
<<"Well, we'll ask her about that, later.  For now, I need to know what
she's saying.  Please create a translation program, and prepare to upload
it to my crainal jack via the dataspike.">>  Bahb beeped in compliance, and
a wall in the back of the room suddenly grew a 4-inch long silver spike.
Bunnie watched as the figure walked over to the wall, turned around to have
his back to it, and shoved his skull up to its hilt.  A slight hum filled
the room as an electrical pulse entered the figure's skull.  A minute or
two later, he removed his skull from the spike (which retreated back into
the wall) with no ill effects.

"Well," Jhosesophae said in proper Mobian, "am I coherent to you now?"
Bunnie weakly nodded.  "Good.  It's always kind of annoying when one lands
on a planet and doesn't know the language."  He smiled, and walked closer
to the discombobulated semi-metallic rabbit.  "You took quite a shot there,
young female.  If you would have been any closer to my device when it went
off," His smile fluxuated slightly.  "Well, let's just say having children
wouldn't be an option."  He perked up again.  "Luckily for you, the blast
only shredded some of your abdomenic muscles, and didn't cut any deeper.
The healing pad," He gestured at the white gauze-like pad taped to her
stomach. "you have on should return you to normal in about 2 or 3 minutes."
Jhosesophae took a deep breath.  "Okay, do you have any questions?"

"Who are you?  *WHAT* are you?  Why are you here?"

"Ah," Jhosesophae said, "the inquisitive type.  That sort of attitude gives
me hope for this planet."  He bowed.  "I am Jhosesophae, formerly of the
planet Ur'thae.  Mentally, I am 18 years old.  Physically, I am 315.  You
see, I am a cybernetic device that is used as a manner of
immortality by containing the sum of my meat-brain's neural pathways
encrypted in my circuitry.  And I came here because my ship's
communications array was damaged."

Bunnie blinked.  "Could you explain that in more detail?"

Jhosesophae shrugged.  "As you wish..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"About 300 years ago, there was a planet around a star...a very large
distance...away from here.  This planet was mainly populated by what you
call `foxes'.  They had achieved massive technological breakthroughs, such as
a propultion system than enabled them to travel faster than light,
artificial intelligences, and the ability to transfer energy into matter,
and matter into energy."  He let this sink in.  "For a reference point, my
world was about 100 years ahead of yours in technological prowess before
whatever happened here happened."

"However, unlike your world, mine was not a peaceful one.  Wars raged
continuously over the most valuable technology on the planet; the neural
transfer device.  This device, when used in conjunction with a android body
with a neural net, could replicate the thought patterns of any individual
and transfer them into the android's form."

"The main problem with this sort of technology was, of course, the
religious element.  Several of the settlements on the western continent
felt this technology stripped the soul from the essence, thus causing a
scream of psychic agony after transfer was complete.  This was,
hypothetically, causing a major disruption in the psychic plane, and
therefore had to be stopped before the wave started effecting the physical
plane."

"Of course, very few individuals on the eastern continent, where my father
(the inventor of the process) and I lived, wanted to give up the chance to
further advance science by escaping the limitations of the flesh.  So, a
law was passed; those who wanted to become android versions of themselves
moved to the east, while those who did not moved to the west."

"Well, you'd THINK this would solve the problem, but it didn't.  The
western continent simply became more infuriated at the people in the east,
because they were now isolated from them physically, psychologically, *and*
mentally.  Not only that, but the western continent was far more populous
and prosperous than the east.  The move only allowed the fanatical west to
stew in their own juices."

"So, the spritual (and not surprisingly, political as well) leaders of
the east decided their eternity could tolorate no more psychic warping, or
the spirit world was going to burst into this reality, or some horse-hockey
like that, and thus motivated the people to war against the west."

"The wars raged on and off for years.  Major damage was done to both
continents.  Deforestation from napalm runs caused the environment to
slowly collapse, and beam weaponry destroyed most external structures."

"Finally, the world could take no more.  The individuals in the east, being
purely organic, were dying from the inhospitable environment.  The west,
however, was only annoyed by it.  Finally, the east came to a decision.
Since they could not, and would not, escape the very unfortunate
weaknesses of the flesh by cyborgization, they decided NOBODY would.  They
sabotaged the Central Crystal, which powered the entire planet, and the
planet was suddenly turned into a giant bomb."

"We had 1 hour to live."

"My father..." He bowed his head slightly, took a breath, and continued.
"My father gave me the greatest gift he possibly could.  He had been
designing a special cyborg body for me, that would be stronger, faster,
heal quicker, and had a better sensory array than any other cyborg on
Ur'thae.  He was intending to port my intelligence into it on my 21st
birthday.  However, due to the impending disaster, he grabbed me, knocked
me unconscious, and started the process."

"I awoke 5 minutes before the planet exploded.  I was in this body, and I
was in a sort of a daze.  My father said to me, `Son, I cannot escape, but
you can.  Take this star vessel,' and he gestured to the saucer which you
and I now reside, `take this star vessel, and get far from this world.  Take
the knowledge of this planet with you, and teach the rest of our universe
of our mistakes.'  He embraced me, and whispered he loved me into my ear.
Then, he forced me onto the ship, for I did not want to leave him to die by
himself, and I shot away from my home, my birthplace...my father..."

"I *wanted* to turn back, but he had programmed the ship not to.  By the
time I was able to regain control, there were two stars in my solar system
instead of one.  They had all been utterly destroyed because of a matter of
philosophy..."

He continued on, fighting back tears.  "We were very close.  He and I
worked together on experiments since I was but a kit.  But he gave me the
great burden of sharing the knowledge, history, and culture of my world with
the universe, and the near-infinite time needed to do so."

"After a period of mourning, I programmed the ship to seek out any signals
from planets with intelligent life, set coordinates for them, and awaken me
when we arrived.  I then entered the ship's single cryogenic chamber, and
the reason my father could not go with me, and slept for over 300 years."

"I awoke on this world just a day ago.  The only reason we stopped here was
because the communications array had failed.  Since we were not only forced
to land here, but this planet had large deposits of crystal, I went out to
mine some out of an underground cavern; and after I slayed a large metallic
octupus which tried to destroy me, I met with positive results."

"Unfortunately, you must have discovered the small pool which I dove into
to acquire said crystal, with my small microcomputer defense mechanism
guarding it.  You must have kicked that boulder at it with
your...augmented...legs, and it fired upon it to defend itself.
Unfortunately, it richoceted off the rock, and hit you.  I discovered you
lying there and teleported us and the crystals I had mined back to the
ship."

Jhosesophae calmed down considerably.  "Now, I have repaired my ship, and
I will leave your planet.  Now, I give you a choice.  Since you are
somewhat similar to myself, I will give you a chance that nobody else on
this world has.  You can travel the universe with me, because I have just
enough power left in the replicator to create another cryonic chamber, or
you can remain here."

Jhosesophae ceased speaking.  Bunnie blinked again.

"Uhh..."

Jhosesophae held up his hands.  "Please, take your time in deciding.  I'm
in no particular rush.  Besides, you need to stay here just a bit longer,
because your stomach is still damaged.  I'll be back in a few minutes, and
you can tell me your answer then."  He smiled, and walked out of the room.

Bunnie started mulling this over in her mind.  She could finally escape the
clutches of Robotnik.  Maybe this person could de-roboticize her.  And she
could do something no Mobian had done before; visit another planet.

But, she remembered what Robotnik had done to her.  What he did to other
people.  What he was doing to other people!  Then, she thought of the friends
she'd leave behind.  Tails, Sonic, Sally and Rotor.  They were probably
looking for her!  She had completely forgotten about that.  No, she could
NOT leave.

Jhosesophae walked back in.  He removed the bandage from her stomach.
"Well, that looks a LOT better now than it did before."  She looked down
and didn't even see a scar.  "The muscle tissue will come back in a few
days." he said, and grinned at her again.  "So, what do you say, uh...."

"Bunnie." she said, "Bunnie Rabbot."

"Ah, Miss Rabbot.  Yes.  So, do you wish to travel the 12 Galaxies with me,
or do you wish to stay here?"

"I gotta stay 'ere, sugar.  I'm needed."

"Needed?" Jhosesophae said.  "But this planet's been trashed.  Why would
anyone be needed here?"

And Bunnie told him why.  She explained what had happened on Mobius, and
what had happened to her.  She told him about the Freedom Fighters, and
the fight against Robotnik.

This struck a chord in Jhosesophae.  He lifted up Bunnie's robotic arm.
"So that...animal...did this to you?"

Bunnie nodded sadly.

"I understand why you cannot leave.  What is happening on this planet
should not be allowed to spread to other worlds."  He helped Bunnie to her
feet.  "Come on, we're going to drop you off in style."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knothole was abuzz with activity.  The rumor was that Bunnie was somehow
captured by Robotnik via some sort of trap.  They had searched the forest
for her, after Tails had returned to Knothole and told them of the
mysterious crystal in the woods.  A search party was sent out to the site,
but they found nothing but some torn-up grass, and a few drops of oil and
blood floating in the water.  When they went down to the pool to take a
closer look, all they found was a trashed sentrybot that guarded a crystal
mine they had not known about before.  No Bunnie.

The search parties returned unsucessfully, and everyone was starting to
worry.  "You think that a 'bot patrol got her, Sally?  There's been a lot
more of those lately..." Sonic asked.

Sally shrugged.  "I don't know, Sonic.  We can't find her anywhere."

Sonic paced around impatiently.  "Well, Sal," he said, "I'm not gonna wait
around any longer.  I'm gonna hit the refinery and then check the prison
blocks for her."

Sally said, "Sonic, please..."

Sonic scowled.  "You can't stop me now, Sal.  I've got my power ring, and
I'm gonna come back with Bunnie.  It's juice time!"

With a burst of speed, Sonic was nowhere in sight.  "Good luck," Sally
whispered, her soul filled with dread.

Suddenly, the sky began to darken.  People began rushing out of their huts,
and glancing to the sky.  An round shadow blocked out the sun that seemed to
be larger than the entire village.  Panic spread like wildfire.  Nobody
knew what the shadow was, nor if it was Robotnik.  Then, two sparkling
outlines appeared in the center of Knothole.  Sally rushed out to meet
them, expecting the worst.

After another few seconds, the outlines solidified into the forms of Bunnie
and Jhosesophae.  "Hey there, Sally-girl!" Bunnie shouted, and rushed over
toward Sally and gave her a big hug.  Jhosesophae just stood there.  Sally
had a puzzled look on her face. "Umm, Bunnie..."  Bunnie kept on talking.
"Boy, wait 'till I tell ya what hap'ened to ME today!"  "Bunnie..."  "I
tell ya, it'd make a pretty good novel."  "Bunnie!"  Bunnie snapped out of
her excited stupor.  "What, Sally?"  "Who is that?" Sally said, and pointed
at the tall, thin, orange vulpine.

Bunnie walked over to Jhosesophae, took his hand, and led him over to the
Princess.  "This is...uh, how do you pronounce it?"

"Jhosesophae." he said.

"This is Joseph," Bunnie said, "and he's come from, uh..."

"Ur'thae."

"Earth."

Sally shook the stranger's hand.  "Hello, Joseph."  Jhosesophae
shook back.  "Hello, Sally.  Your planet is very...uh...nice."

She smiled, and said "Thank you, Joseph.  I'm afraid that it's not in the
best of conditions now, but it used to be quite beautiful."

He smiled.  "I'm sure it was, once."

Then, Sally remembered Sonic's mission.  "Bunnie, Sonic thinks you've been
captured by Robotnik!  He'll rush right into his clutches!  We've gotta
warn him somehow?"

Bunnie said, "But how, sugar?  Nobody's faster than Sonic!"

"Nobody, perhaps," said Joseph, "but not nothing."  He looked up at his
ship.  He activated his communicator.  <<"Bahb, three to beam up.">>  In a
flash of a molecular limbo competition, they were gone.  The ship pulled
away from Knothole, leaving the astonished citizens to gawk at the beauty
of the vessel.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"This is incredible!" yelled Sally as the ship rocketed through the upper
atmosphere, its cloak activated.  "Your people had these sort of ships?"

"Yes," he said, "they did.  But this is just a mere two-seater.  Some of
the larger ships were quite glorious."

They coasted above Robotropolis, completely unnoticed by the sensors of
Robotnik.  "Now, let's see if we can find your friend."  He activated the
sensors, and scanned for organic life.  Sure enough, he detected a signal
by the only refinery left standing.  "Your friend is going to get his butt
shot off," Joseph said, "unless we give him a little bit of help."

Meanwhile, on the surface, Sonic was running for his life.  He had walked
right into a trap, alright.  There were more SWAT Bots there than he had
ever seen in his life.  He had to use his bombs to blast his way out of the
refinery, but didn't do much damage to it otherwise.  Now, he was dodging
lazer fire from every angle, and was probably going to meet his maker on
this one.  That really irritated him.  He'd never get to see Sally again,
he thought as he jumped behind a small wall.  And they'd gotten Bunnie as
well.  That REALLY steamed him.  Robotnik was not only going to get him,
but Bunnie as well.  He was getting ready to suck lazer when the firing
stopped.

He heard a figure walking toward him.  He turned around to face whatever
demise awaited him.  As he suspected, it was Robotnik.

"Well, hedgehog," Robotnik growled, gloating, "looks like you've run out of
luck."  He laughed.  "You've got nowhere to run now, do you?  At last, I've
FINALLY got you right where I want you!"  He waved his arms around to show
Sonic the hopelessness of his situation.  "You move, they fire.  You don't
move, I fire.  You've lost, hedgehog!"  He laughed again, louder, enjoying
his triumph.  "I won't give you the honor of being robotized by your
uncle's device!  I'm just going to kill you right now, and I'm going to
make him carry your blackened, smashed carcass into the center of
Robotropolis, and hang it from the highest tower!"  Laughing again, he
raised his beam weapon pistol at Sonic's head.  "Good-bye, hedgehog."

As if the hand of a god had swept Sonic up, he was suddenly surrounded by
an energy field, which deflected Robotnik's shot.  "WHAT??!!  NOOO!!!!!!"
he swore, as Sonic began to dematerialize.  "You'll never destroy mee...."
Sonic said as he disappeared into nothingness.

And then Robotnik was incapable of coherent speech for several hours
afterward.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The ship slowly made its way back to the Great Forest, as Bunnie filled in
both Sally and Sonic about their new friend's life.  They cheered about
Sonic's safe return, and the mood was rather jovial.

"Even though we didn't get that last refinery destroyed," said Sonic, "it
was still worth the power ring to throw Robotnik into such a huff."  He
giggled a little bit.  "Man, I thought I was a goner.  Bet Butt-nik
thought so, too.  Boy, he's gotta be real mad."

Then, the lights began to dim inside the ship.  "Oh no," said Joseph, "this
does not look good.  Bahb, what's wrong?"  Bahb beeped, "WARNING: Power
levels at 25% and dropping.  Cloak dropping in 3 minutes.  Propultion
deactivating in 5 minutes."

Joseph growled, "Bahb, I thought you said that we'd have enough power to
repair the communications array and get off this planet."

Bahb simply uttered, "You didn't give any higher parameters than that,
Jhosesophae.  I used most of the ship's power in repairing the array."

Joseph pounded the dashboard and swore.

"What does that mean?" Sonic said.

"It means I'm going to be here for a while." said he.  "Good thing my
landing site is only a minute away."

The ship slowly drifted over the site where he had parked last time, and
suddenly dropped right onto it.  The passengers were jostled, but not
seriously injured.  A collective groan went over the ship as they got out
of their seats and departed the ship.

Joseph looked at the ship.  "Well, so much for my vacation at Alpha
Centauri."

It wasn't damaged as much as it was submerged.  The nose end of the ship
had sunk into the ground, leaving the rear sticking up at a 80 degree
angle.  The cloaking drones, however, had made the ship appear from the sky
to jut be an especially tall tree, surrounded by several smaller ones.

"Well," Joseph sighed, "You guys got any vacancies in that Knothole?"

"Why yes, we do." Sally said as they walked off toward Knothole, Sally
explaining several things to Joseph the whole time they walked away.







			Chapter Two - Ring of Truth



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: A few weeks after Joseph's crash.  Several days before Doomsday.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The sun rose over the Great Forest.  Light began to stream through the
trees, giving the forest a primordial feel.  The wind began to lightly
caress the treetops, as the birds began to sing.  Squirrels jumped from tree
to tree, looking for a meal.  Fish lept out of the water to consume the
early-morning cloud of gnats that hovered above the life-giving fluid.
These were the usual sounds of the morning, that had been heard on Mobius
since time primeval...except for one.

Deep within the forest, within a mist-covered clearing, a figure silently
began his morning exercises.  He stretched and flexed his muscles, allowing
sinew to slip pass bone in the proper fashion.  He concentrated on the task
at hand as he took the traditional fighting stance.  He prepared himself
for the physical exertion that was about to occur.  Centering himself
spirtually and mentally as best he could, he locked onto his target and
readied himself to the mission he had dedicated himself to.

About 10 feet away from the solitary figure, there was set up a 6" thick
piece of wood, cut into the rough shape of a very fat human.  It had a
target painted on the side of it, with its center resting in the middle
of the human's stomach.  It also had a cariacture of a smiley-face pasted
over where the head usually would be, with a bullethole through it.

After taking a deep breath, he began the exercise.

He did a series of forward flips toward the target.  But just as he came
into range, he vaulted over it, into the forest.  He hurtled toward a
nearby oak, but precisely compensated for the change in course and
lept off its trunk toward a vine.  He swung on the vine until he reached
another tree.  He slid down the tree, cartwheeled away from it, and
tucked into a spinning roll toward the target.  But again, as he became
in range of it, he lept over it.  This time, he chose to grab a branch of
the oak and did some various acrobatic exercises around it.  After he had
orbited the appendage a few times, he quickly began crossing the clearing
by pulling himself from various vines.  After a bit of this, he lept off
one on the furthest side of the clearing, reversed himself in mid-air,
and began cartwheeling, and then backflipping, toward the target for the
final time.  When he entered attack range, he set up a perfect roundhouse
kick, and beheaded the silly-looking dummy.  Immediately recovering from
that, he executed a precise low punch to the target's main target,
putting a fist-sized hole in the bullseye.

With the target destroyed, the figure stepped back, took a deep breath, and
calmly cleaned up the remains of the target.  He broke it up into portable
strips, wrapped them into a bundle, and walked back off into the forest,
his morning exercises completed for the day.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The figure, now having a good pile of firewood to use, wandered back toward
a path that had been beaten years ago to a village where he now resided.
He had not been born in this village, nor even this world, but he had, just
from his brief time there, come to consider his new surroundings to be his
home.  After all, his old home was no longer very hospitable; nor had it
been close to such a good training area as the one he had come from even
when it was.

He drew closer to the outskirts of the village, where his hut resided.  He
had built it himself several days ago, and he cared for it dearly.  It was
probably the most comfortable, warm, and homey home in the entire village,
thanks to the advantage of the advanced technology he had utilized in its
construction.  Within 2 days, it came to stand as it did that day,
beautiful and tranquil in the gentle light of the sun.

Joseph loved his new home.

The entire structure took up less that 10 feet in diameter to the naked
eye.  It was dome-shaped, and appeared to be constructed of a sort of
opaque brown glass, that perfectly camoflaged the structure from the air.
Occasionally, there was a clearer spot that served as a window.  A small
chimney stuck out from the right side of the dome, giving it a even more
surreal appearance.  However, a ordinary-looking native sidewalk led from
an area a few feet from the home to its front portal.

To him, it was a "little cottage" that his people could have generated in 5
minutes; it had taken him several days to properly replicate all of its
features with the small amount of power left on his ship.  To the
inhabitants of this planet, however, it appeared as a wonder of the world;
a nigh-invulnerable fortress that no evil could breach.  Well, at least
nothing on this world could, Joseph thought.

Smiling, Joe meandered toward the sidewalk he had constructed, and walked up
it back toward his front door.  Opening it with a single word, he strode in to
unload the pelf he had carried from deep within the Great Forest, and to
clean himself up for the day.  Placing the bundle of firewood in the
fireplace, he shut the door behind him to consider the state of the home
Joseph had constructed with his own paws.

It was a tidy home, being spartanly furnished with only a few chairs, a
couch, and a practically empty bookshelf.  A monitor displayed the area
outside his house on a screen to the left of his door, with a small speaker
beneath it that served as an intercom.  The floor was hard wood, but the
walls were constructed with the same glassy material that the exterior
possessed.  A few windows allowed light to drift in from the outside, and
a hallway led off in front of him to the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom.
Next week, Joseph thought, he would furnish the bare basement with a
laboratory, so to make his time here more constructive.

But, for the time being, he was content with what he had.  However, he was
hungry, and his organics could use some hydrogen combined with oxygen in a
liquid state at roughly 40 degrees.  So not to lessen the ship's energy
further by replicating food for him, he decided he would cook up some
"grub" (as the blue one called it) for breakfast.  His organic systems
would certainly appreciate it, after the workout Joseph had recently put
them through.

He walked into the kitchen, and pulled out a object that served as a rough
"mug".  It was actually a hollowed-out sapling stump he had found a
few days after he had "decided" to stay here, but he had sanded,
shellacked, and generally waterproofed the thing enough so it would be a
decent container for food, drink, and such.  Smirking bitterly, Joe chided
himself for taking all of his tools with him from Ur'thae, but none of
his utensils.  He grabbed it by its handle (a bent piece fof metal he had
stripped from the ruined communications array, screwed tightly into the
side of the glass) and walked over to the sink.

The fact that this cottage had running water was one of its main advantages
over several of the other huts around.  Instead of going over to the well
like the natives did, he had brilliantly chose to directly tap the water
table, using some tubing he was able to replicate.  He had "zapped"
(another colloquialism taken from the blue one) a hole through the ground
to the area below the village that the well drew its fluid from, and
installed a long pipe into it.  Then, he set up a pipe that released
the wastewaster from the home, placed a purifier onto it, and had the
output flow into a creek.  Finally, he created a compressor unit (powered
by some ultra-efficient solar panels implanted in the roof), and
placed it on the pipe so it would draw water up from the underground
reservoir, and into his home.

After he had drank a few glasses of water, he walked over to one of the
cubbords and removed a small, metal can.  Then, he took a iron-copper
alloy pot from the counter (he had smelted it himself only a week ago),
and walked off into the den.

He took a match from the shelf as he walked in, and struck it on a coarse
part of the glass wall.  Tossing it onto the wood, he waited until it
started to catch before opening the flue.  Then, Joe dumped the contents of
the can (beans, apparently) into the pot, and placed it over the fire.
Putting it on a stand, he hit a small switch by the fireplace to activate
the air filter at the summit of the chimnney.  He wouldn't want any aerial
scans to pick Knothole up, after all.

Estimating the time for the contents of the pot to properly cook at 10.4532
minutes, he decided to try and squeeze in his shower before breakfast.  He
wandered into the bathroom, removed his training gear, and activated the
makeshift shower.

A blast of cold water slowly sublimated to cool as the figure gave himself
a through scrubbing.  His mind began to loosen up as he mulled over the
tasks he had to accomplish that day.  The only thing he needed to do was
get more things from the ship.  Joe also wanted to study more throughly the
behavior patterns of the Mobians, and observe a "power ring" being formed.
Nothing earth-shattering, but enough to keep his mind busy.

He finished his shower and walked into a drying stall.  A 10-second blast
of specially charged atoms later, and he was dry.  Then, he put on some
clean clothes, and checked on the progress of his breakfast.  Ah, he
thought as he reentered the den, the beautific stench of bubbling beans
before brunch.  They were just about done, and done precisely the way he
liked them; hot.  Taking a bowl from the counter, he poured some of the
contents of the pot into it, and quickly placed the pot on a rack where
it would not damage the rest of the area.  After he had accomplished that,
he took a small wooden spoon from one of his pockets, picked up the
steaming bowl of legumes, and walked back outside.

Knothole was looking particularly wholesome today, Joseph thought as he
continued eating his beans.  It must be a psychic counterbalance to the
evil of Robotropolis, he assumed, and took another mouthful.  He strode
along the main "street" of the village, looking for any signs of activity.
Most of the village was still asleep.  Joseph noted again that the village
was usually completely shut down from roughly midnight to about 6:15 in the
morning.  He hoped to one day be able to pin down the total time of
dormancy to milliseconds.  But, that would not be today.  He sensed
activity coming from one of the huts.  He believed it was of the entity
called "Tails"; a pre-adolescent two-tailed fox that Joseph liked a great
deal.  Joe saw a lot of himself when he was that age in him.  Intelligent,
polite, inquisitive, yet somewhat naive.  But that was to be expected.
He sensed that Tails would one day be a very important individual in the
future of this world.  Then, he noticed Tails slowly wander out of his hut.
He wasn't quite awake yet, so Joseph chose to avoid him until he became
fully sentinent.  (Joseph had also noticed very few Mobians were "morning
people".)

Continuing his walk through the village, he noticed that Sally had
obviously been active almost as long as he had.  Sally was also a person
Joseph could somewhat identify with.  She was a driven individual, very
buisness-like and unrelenting in her pursuits.  Yet, she could be
excessively kind and warm to someone as well.  Being the proper ruler of
Mobius, Joe reasoned, she must feel a great responsibility for the welfare
of the remaining, non-robotizied citizens of Mobius.  She was currently
preparing breakfast for herself and Tails, and was probably expecting Sonic
to come along, too.  She was obviously busy, so he quietly slipped by her
hut and furthered himself along his way.

Rotor was just finishing his breakfast, Joseph noticed as he walked by his
hut.  He was one of the rare people Joseph could talk shop with, and have
the other party reply in kind.  They both loved to fix things, build
things, and make objects more efficient.  He respected Rotor a great deal.
In fact, Joseph thought, he was coming to feel Rotor was the brother he
never had.  He decided to drop by his hut, and see how he was.

Rotor waved to the tall, orange vulpine as he ducked his way inside his
hut.  "Hey, Joe." he said, as he gestured for Joseph to take a seat.
"How are you doing this morning?"

"Oh," Joe said, "I'm just fine.  I was just going on a walk around the
village when I noticed you were awake.  Got up early today, eh?"

"Me?  Nah," Rotor said, "this is the time I like to get up.  I feel more
creative at either the extreme beginning of the day, or the middle of the
night.  Figured I might come up with something new to make."  He sighed.
"I've been in a bit of a dry spell lately.  I don't know, maybe I've been
working too hard."

Joseph smiled.  "I wouldn't worry too much about it, Rotor.  Everyone has
their ups and downs.  Just relax and let it happen."

Rotor was about to say something else when a shout echoed through the hut.
"Rotor!!" a female voice yelled, "Muh arm is stuck again!"  Rotor looked
over at his guest.  "Oh jeez," he muttered, "Bunnie's arm locked up again.
I just don't know what she does to it to kink it up so much."  He looked
out the door and yelled, "Be right there!".

Joseph smirked.  "It's okay, Rotor.  Go do what you must do.  I'm gonna
keep walking around the complex, anyway."  Rotor nodded, and rushed out
the door, tools in hand.

Joseph walked out of the hut, continuing to eat his beans.  After walking
another brief distance, he came across Antoine's impeccibly maintained hut.
Antoine was one of the Mobians Joe could only identify with by means of
extreme metaphor; both he and Antoine were out of place here.  But even
then, it was stretching the comparison a tad far, because Antoine was
alien even to people who had known him since birth.  At least to fellow
Ur'thaens he was normal...on the eastern continent.  He listened, and
realized Antoine was still grooming himself.  It seemed like every time
Joseph saw him, he was grooming himself.  Wouldn't his skin start to hurt
after a while?  Honestly, he thought, his fur should be like silk from all
of the combing and primping that it had to endure.  He decided to leave
before he started talking to him in that strange alteration of Mobian he
was fluent in...

Suddenly, he heard the sound of a fast-moving individual zipping around a
few huts down.  Sonic had finally woken up, and he was doing his morning
"juice run" to wake himself up.  Seconds later, the blue blur blasted by
him, causing a large cloud of dust to fly into Antoine's hut.

Antoine staggered out of the hut, coughing.  "Sonick!  I'll get vous for
zat!"  He gesticulated blindly back toward his dusty hut.  "It will take me
the days to clean dis up again!"  Joe took this opportunity to leave, while
Antoine was still blinded by the plume of dust.  He was still shouting when
he got out of range of his bellowing, and wandered back into the forest.

Ah, the quiet of the forest, Joe thought, finishing his beans.  He walked
up to a stream and rinsed out his bowl in it.  Drying it off with his
shirt, he put it in one of his larger pockets and continued on his way.
He looked up into the sky.  By the position of the sun, he'd say it was
about 8:25.  Just about time for a power ring.  He started walking up the
path to the power ring pool, where Sonic would probably end up shortly.

He walked over to the pool, and took a seat on a rock.  He looked into the
pool.  A dull yellow glow was visible near the bottom of the pool.  The
ring would surface in 3.4 seconds.  He was expecting to hear the sound of
the hedgehog roar up here, snatch the ring, and zip off again.  However, he
must have been delayed, because the ring rose unaccompanied by a blue
flash.  It was floating there, waiting for someone to grab it.  Joseph
realized someone better grab it before it sank again.  He reached out his
hands--suddenly, four words drifted in front of him, a warning message--

<< DIRECTIVE TWENTY SIX ALPHA >>

--and his body catapaulted itself back into the bushes.  A second later,
Sonic blasted up the path, grabbed the ring, and rushed back to Knothole
before he could even notice the orange heap laying in the woods.   Joseph
groaned from the sudden automatic movement, and stumbled to his feet.  What
had just happened?  Had the power from the ring shorted out his neural net?
If it had, then what did that message mean?  Joseph was confused.  He
needed to ask Bahb about this.  He ran back into Knothole, and was
beginning to worry about the new development..

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He jogged back toward his home.  Trotting through the village, he was
unnoticed by the inhabitants, who were busy starting their chores for the
day.  Then, a voice called his name.  "Joseph!" the voice shouted, "could
you come here for a minute?"  It was Sally.  Wondering what she needed of
him, he walked toward her hut.

Entering the hut, he realized Sonic, Sally, and Tails were in the middle of
breakfast.  Tails was sitting on the left side, and Sonic was on the right.
Sally was sitting on the far end.  It was apparently oatmeal with
strawberries today.  It looked rather appetizing.  Tails waved to Joe as
he walked in, unable to talk with his mouth full of whitish slush.  Sonic
had, naturally, completed his bowl, and was somewhat more talkative.
"Yo, Joe." he said to the tall fox as he ducked his way into the home.

"Greetings, boss." Joe jokingly called Sally `boss' because of a
translation problem he had initally had with the word "princess".  In
Ur'thaen, the word "p'hrincese" meant "overlord"; seeing that Sally was not
the current overlord of Mobius, he had taken the next logical step and
called her by a synonym of "overlord", "bhoss".  Later, when he had
consulted Sonic about it, he realized the error.  Sonic and Sally
smirked as Joe then proceeded, as usual, to bow slightly.

"You can just call me Sally, Joseph." Sally laughed, "There's no need for
such formality."  She gestured for him to sit in the vacant chair at the
close end of the table.  As he sat down, Sally continued talking.  "So," he
spoke, "how are things going for you here?  Do you need anything?"

Joseph smiled.  "I require nothing," he said, "I have everything I need to
survive on my ship.  I can imbibe Mobian water, and consume Mobian food.
My home has been constructed, so all I require of you now," He smiled and
winked at Sally.  "Is your kindness."

Sonic quipped, "We've got that in high supply, dude."

Joseph grinned at the blue mammal.  "I figured as much.  You have been so
kind to me, I don't know how to make it up to you."

"Well," Sally interjected, "there *is* something we'd like to ask you."
She looked over at Sonic.  "Sonic, why don't you do the honors?"

Sonic smirked.  "Sure, Sal.  Joe, my man, why don't you join us in our
fight against ol Ro-BUTT-nik?  You've got serious skills."

"It would be an honor," Joseph bowed, "to assist you in the uprising
against him.  Any assistance you require of me would be gladly given."

Sally smiled weakly.  "That's...uh, great, Joseph!  I didn't think you'd
be so enthusiastic about this.  After all, you don't live here.  This
isn't your fight."

"It's mine now." he said plainly.

Sally blinked.  "Are you sure you want to get into this?"

Before Joe could answer, Sonic interjected, "Sal, whaddya tryin' to do,
change his mind?!?"

"Sonic," Joe said, "I decided to help you the minute you people helped me.
I have no home to return to.  This is my world now, and I shall defend it."

Suddenly, Tails, who had been quietly eating his breakfast for most of this
conversation, chose to state, "But Mr. Joseph, I thought you could leave
here at any time.  Didn't you say all you needed was more crystal power to
escape?"

The orange fox turned to the younger, two-tailed one, and then to the two
adults.  "Tails," he spoke, "Sonic, Sally...let me explain my prediciment
to you all."  He stood up, and went into speech mode.

"My world was merely a more positive reflection of what Robotnik wants
Mobius to be.  Our people gave up their flesh in return for immortality.
Sure, there was no pollution, death, disease, or famine; but Ur'thae also
lacked peace.  The flesh battled steel.  Religion fought science.  Brother
dueled brother...all over the quest for eternal consciousness.  The only way
my planet lasted for as long as it did after the creation of the neural
transfer device was because of the continental division."

"The first part of my life, I saw this war from Robotnik's side
(to a certain extent).  Now, I live among the flesh, and I see that my
father was the creator of an evil too great for mortals to handle; affordable
immortality.  At first, it seems to have no downsides.  Improved strength,
speed, senses, agility, and your mind never loses its edge.  You can
continue learning and experimenting for aeons.  The pleasures of the flesh
never dull...in fact, they sharpen due to computerized enhancement."

"But, my father never realized that someone could use this ability for evil
purposes...to enslave another by "roboticizing" (as a somewhat similar
practice is called here) him or her.  He never saw that a part of ones
nature would rebel against it, and eventually even out the score.  They
escaped death for a while, but in the end they all paid the ultimate
price for their crime against nature."

"No, it is better to die in the flesh than live forever in steel.  I will
fight Robotnik for you because of this...he has tried to duplicate my
father's formula for immortality by using Sir Charles'--your uncle,
Sonic--roboticizer.  But he poisons himself and others by this...he has his
slaves, but he realizes not that the flesh and steel cannot live in the
same body.  If he is not stopped, this world will suffer the fate of
Ur'thae; a Fountain of Youth powered by blood."

"So, Sally, I offer my services to you.  Command me, and I will comply.
Robotnik must be stopped.  At this point, all else is irrevelant."

Sally, Sonic, and Tails could only blink.

"Joseph," Sally whispered, "you are gladly accepted into the Freedom
Fighters.  I see now that you are honest in your statements.  Your services
to us will be valued."

Joseph bowed.  "Thank you, Sally.  May I be excused?"

Sally nodded, and Joseph left the hut silently.

After he had gotten out of earshot, Sonic whispered, "Man!  That guy is
intense!"

Sally nodded.  "Yes, Sonic...he is certainly driven.  He must feel he has a
whole world to avenge."

"I'd say!" Tails piped, "I can't wait to see what HE does to 'Butt-nik."

Sonic muttered, "So do I, Tails.  He looks like he could do some *serious*
damage to some SWAT Bots."

"I wonder what's going through his mind right now?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He continued back toward the dome that served as his domicile.  The brief
interlude with the leaders of the FF didn't make Joseph forget what had
happened by the power ring pool.  It intrigued him.  Could it be that this
planet had a power source greater than his internal power core?

He entered the dome and walked over to the now-smoldering remains of his
fire.  He tossed the bowl on the table, and walked over to the Bahb 27290-A
Unit, affectionately known as Bahb.

"Bahb," he said, "I need info.  Talk to me."

"Ready for command."

"Define Directive 26-Alpha."

Bahb hummed quietly for a minute.  "Classified.  Cannot access externally."

"Surmise a hypothesis on how to acquire this information."

Bahb beeped and tweeted as it ran through every possibility.  "Required
materials are on the ship."

"What do I need?"

Bahb began rattling off names of various components within the ship.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Over the next few days, the village eyed their new arrival suspiciously.
His main occupation seemed to be removing all of his computer equipment
from the ship he had crashed in, and installing them in the basement of
his amazing home.  He would say what his purposes were, nor why he did not
keep them on the ship.  Some believed he was going to sabotage Robotropolis
completely.  Others, that he was going to destroy Robotnik's communications
grid.  A few just thought he was finishing unpacking; but everyone had an
opinion.

Joseph was, in actuality, preparing his new computer lab for two reasons;
to continue his work, and to discover the secret of Directive 26-Alpha.
Joe also could no longer leave all of his hyperadvanced technology in the
middle of the woods in good faith...the ship had drove off several gawkers
in the last few days.  But he told no one of his experience at the power
ring pool, nor of the mysterious malfunction.

Finally, 4 days later, the ship was totally gutted of its vital systems,
and was nothing more than a husk of its former self.  It was still cloaked,
but there was no longer any point in trying to steal it.  Joseph had
installed the power cells of the ship in the basement of his home, as well
as the communications systems and the main computer.  His domicile was now
a flightless version of the ship he had entered this world with.  A few
more mining expeditions gave Joseph as much power as he could possibly use,
and then some, and he had tuned the house itself into a large antenna.

He was finally ready to attempt to find out the secret behind the
directive.  Preparing the dataspike, he sat down in a chair he had created
for this purpose, and jacked in.  Taking a deep breath, he prepared for the
total discombobulation that was to come with the scan.

"Bahb," he said again, "define Directive 26-Alpha."

"Accessing, Jo--."

There was a great flash of light.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When he could see again, Joseph found himself standing on the shore of the
Iundaeck Ocean, in front of the home he and his father shared back on
Ur'thae.  The twin moons shone down upon him in that glorious,
awe-inspiring violet sky.  The water was as clear and glowing as the first
day he had set eyes upon it.  The blue sand blew by his legs as the cry of
a lark whistled through the air, invigorating him.

He was home again.

<<"Jhosesophae.">> a voice said.  Turning around to face the voice, he
knew for sure this was his home.

<<"Dhaevid?">>

The male was about as tall as Jhosesophae, with reddish-orange fur.  His
yellowing eyes denoted youth, yet the streaks of white in the fur showed
great age.  He was wearing a yellow lab coat, the mark of the Scientist
Prime on Ur'thae.  However, beneath the uniform, there was a pair of simple
slacks and a sweater, and a pair of whitish tennis shoes.  His hands were
metallic versions of the ones Jhosesophae had, but the voice was strictly
the unique baritone of his father's.

<<"Yes, Jhosesophae.  This is me.  At least, a composite image of me strung
together from your own memory banks.">>

<<"I don't understand.">>

<<"Let me explain, Jhosesophae.">>

The world flickers for a minute, and then switches to a different scene.
The scene now is of the room Joseph was transferred in, and the spaceship
docking ramp that was its only exit.  Dhaevid is typing something into a
keyboard while the android body is recieving its intelligence.

<<"Your story begins here, Jhosesophae.  While you were being transferred
to your new body, I was pre-programming your ship to take you to the planet
where you now reside...Mobius.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  I should
explain to you how I discovered this world, first.">>
        
The world flickers again.  The picture returns on a starfield, where an
Ur'thaen ship is cloaking itself around an orbit of Mobius.  <<"I
discovered intelligent life here shortly before your 16th birthday.
Utilizing time warps, I was able to commute to Mobius and back home several
times a month without being noticed.  I was studying their advancement,
and...helping it a little.">>  Scene cuts to the workshop of Sir Charles
Hedgehog, and Dhaevid sneaking into it late at night.  <<"One specimen
interested me especially.  His name was "Charles".  He was beginning to
develop the technology that had made the neural transfer device possible...
the roboticizer.  A similar technology was developed by your grandfather
356 years ago...anyway, every once in a while, I would sneak into his
workshop and alter some of the equations to assist in the advancement of
this technology.  He had the basic idea, but every once in a while he
would make an unintentional error due to the misguided scientific theory
of the time that I would quietly get him out of.">>

Scene cuts to Sir Charles constructing the device used to generate power
rings.  <<"But, Sir Charles had also stumbled upon something that was far
beyond Ur'thaen technology.  This was the Power Ring Generator.">>  Scene
cuts to a diagram of the device, showing various graphs and projected power
fluxations next to it.  <<"From my observations of Sir Charles' tests, this
device had the potential to generate enough power to penetrate the
dimentional barrier; the one thing Ur'thaens could never breach, if
harnessed in the correct manner.  I'll tell you the truth, son, I have no
idea how, why, or if it even *should* work.  Only the hedgehog knows.">>

The scene cuts to a picture of Sir Charles on the left, Sonic on the right,
and a power ring in the lower center.  <<"This brings me to my final
request of you, my son.  Your mission is threefold; first, you must find
Sir Charles, and assist him in any way he requires.  Work with him.
Understand his devices.  This will allow you to escape the bonds of this
dimention, and become the first, and only, Ur'thaen to explore the other
universes that have been proven to exist.  Your second mission is to find
the nephew of Sir Charles, Sonic.  He can use the rings, according to Sir
Charles' notes and hypotheses, and perhaps he could teach you how to
properly use them as well.  Your final mission is to acquire
a power ring for yourself, and learn how to replicate more.  They are the
only way you will be able to travel from timestream to timestream safely
and efficiently.">>

The scene cuts back to the beach.  <<"This is all you need, or can know
right now.  Alas, I know no more than this; my observation of Mobius was
cut short by the destruction of our world.  Good luck, my son; the last
survivor of Ur'thae.">>

<<"But..">>

Everything went black.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Scan complete."

Joseph opened his eyes, and detached from the datajack.  Groaning, and
rubbing his throbbing skull, he spoke.  "Computer, time elapsed from
beginning of scan to its completion."

"1 minute."

"Deactivate dataspike."

The system powered down.  Joseph laid back in his chair.  The situation had
changed considerably.  Now he knew why the power ring had effected him, but
a million other questions came to mind...

After musing this over for a minute, he knew what he had to do.  Organizing
it into his directives list, he began to estimate how to best accomplish
them...

Priority One:   Find Sir Charles.
Priority Two:   Find Sonic.
Priority Three: Acquire power ring; experiment.

He had already guarenteed himself two and three just by being at Knothole.
However, he had never heard of Sir Charles being about.  This was
illogical; Sonic and Charles were family, and therefore Sonic wuld
probably, according to his observations, either find some way of honoring
him (if was deceased), or he would have brought him back to Knothole.

Seeing that he was missing something, he decided to confront Sonic about
the issue after dinner that night.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After Knothole had been fed, Joseph wandered the village, looking for
Sonic.  He finally encountered the blue blaze sitting quietly by the power
ring pool, looking into the sky.  Realizing that Sonic was observing the
three moons of Mobius, he allowed him a few moments of silence before he
finally piped up.

"Where's Sir Charles, Sonic?"  Joesph was always direct in his questioning.

"My unc's in Buttnikville, Joe." Sonic said, quietly.

"Why is he there?  I thought you'd try to get someone as brilliant as...I
heard he is...out of Robotnik's clutches."

"He's our spy, Joe.  He hangs out, acts like a drone, but tells us
all about what happens there."  He glanced at his hands, dusting them off.

"Oh," Joesph said.  "Wait a minute, I thought everyone in Robotropolis was
roboticized."

"They all are." Sonic spake.

"Well, how does your uncle spy on Robotnik if he doesn't have free will?"

"He's got his brain," said Sonic, turning toward him.

"I don't understand."

"Look," Sonic said, "My unc's been snapped out of Buttnik's control 'cuz I
waved a power ring in front of his face.  It somehow rewired his 'ol head
back to where it should be, and now he's cool."  He looked back to the
moons.  "And someday," he whispered, "he will be totally cool again."

"Now I understand," Joesph said, "but it's too bad he's in Robotropolis.
I'd like to meet him."

Sonic smiled.  "Well, Joe, you'll be able to see him tomorrow night, when
he sneaks out of Buttnikville and gives us the weekly gossip.  You can chew
his ear off then, 'kay?"

"Sure." Joseph said, smiling.  "Thanks a lot."

"No prob," Sonic said, and went back to staring off into space.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The next morning, Joesph went about his training as usual, but the whole
while was thinking of how to explain to Sir Charles his prediciment without
alerting the rest of Knothole about it.  Surely if they knew they had been
visited by aliens for several months without being told, they would become
somewhat alarmed.  He knew the Ur'thaen governments wouldn't like it, so it
was without a stretch of the imagination that the Mobian government (the
real one) wouldn't appreciate it, either.  No, he did not want them to
know anything about his father, the message he left, and the mission he
was given until it was time.  Charles would understand.  He was sure of it.
They were fellow scientists, after all, and he felt that Charles might have
done the same thing if he was in his father's place.

He spent most of the day meditating on what he would say to Charles.  He
wanted to be sure he knew exactly what had happened, and would therefore be
able to make an informed decision about what to do about it.  He mentally
composed a rather simple, logical essay on the whole situation, and
translated it into a speech that Charles could easily understand.  Then, he
reviewed it, looked for possible misperceptions, and altered them into a
more logical structure.

When Charles arrived that night, Joseph was ready.  He let the aged
metallic hedgehog inform Knothole of what had been going on over the past
several days in Robotropolis, focusing mainly on something called Doomsday.
Joe stayed out of it, hoping to avoid becoming involved for as long as
possible.  He knew that one day his powers would be called upon, but he did
not want to get mired in this world's mess unless he knew that he would
have to remain here.

After Charles had finished, and the Knothole gang was involved in planning,
the eldest hedgehog politely excused himself, and began the long trip back
to Robotropolis on foot (Sonic couldn't zip him back, due to the amount of
security that had been placed around the area as of late.) Joseph began
following him.  Finally, after they had gotten out of visual range of
Knothole, he made himself visible to the kindly cyberhedgehog.

"Excuse me, but I need to tell you something."

Charles lept back, startled.  "Oh!"

"Please excuse my abrupt appearance, sir.  It is my custom to remain silent
unless absolutely necessary."

Charles quickly regained his composure, and his eyes took a more pleasant
shade of red, if that was even possible.  After shifting around a bit, he
spoke.  "Well," Charles said, "if it isn't our star-travelling newcomer.
I'd be happy to talk with you, son, but I really need to get back to
Robotropolis before Robotnik misses me..."

"This is important.  It involves you, Sonic, and your invention."

And then Joseph told him what he knew.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Charles could only blink.  "So, what you're saying is that your father -- uh,
David, right? -- was the one who allowed the Roboticizer to be `perfected'?"

Joseph nodded.

"And that the power ring generator is something beyond even your
technology, and you want to study it in order to further advance your dead
world's science?  You think it can help to deroboticize people?"

"Yes."

Charles began to lose his composure.  "Do you honestly expect me not to be
angered by this?"

"No..." Joseph uttered, becoming somewhat nervous.

"Good," Charles snarled, "because I am."    He balled his metallic hands
into fists, and shook them at Joesph irritatedly.  "Your father brought
a curse upon this world by `helping' me create that damned machine!
Millions perished because of its power!  Only a few hundred remain
untouched by its evil, and we lose more every day!"  He spat upon the
earth, and angrily pointed toward the distant outline of Robotropolis.
"Is *that* what your world was like, Joseph?!?  A oligarchial `government'
ruled by madmen, and supported by millions of robot slaves?  Is *that*
what your superior world was like?  A souless, callous factory, existing
only to rape and loot your world?"  His eyes shrunk to slits, and turned
bright crimson.  "Is Robotnik merely a different version of your
*father*?!?"

Joseph could withhold his rage no longer.  He had taken most of Charles'
outburst, but his slap at his father was unforgivable.  Raging, he
grabbed Charles by the throat, and lifted him high above his head.  As Charles
desperately tried to escape his grasp, and get some shots in, Joseph went
into a total spaz fit.  "Do you THINK I'm *happy* about what has happened
here?!?  Do you BELIEVE that my father MEANT to ruin this world?!  He
wanted to *HELP* you, you dottering old fool, by teaching you how to
overcome the weaknesses of the flesh; without losing its advantages!  Your
society would be as it was 15 years ago if it wasn't for the fact your
PATHETIC bodies weren't wired so TOTALLY different from ours!  It's not
MY fault, or even my FATHER'S fault that this happened!  Nobody is at
fault here but Robotnik!"  He looked toward the smoking, hazy industrial
hell, and shook Charles vigorously.  "Don't you SEE?!" he cried, "It was
a tragic MISTAKE that the roboticizer was miswired for this world's
inhabitants, and the drive of that sadistic egg-sucking simian that made
it the menace it is now!!"

Having exhausted his venom, he glanced over at the creature he had
captured.  His eyes watered with the cybernetic equivilent of tears.
"Boy...I'm sorry.  It's just that--"

Joseph lowered him to the ground, becoming suddenly calm.  "You don't
need to apologize, sir.  I understand why you would have so much hatred
for my father...it's just that, well, he and I were very close.  Ever since
I woke up here, I have had to deal with the grief of losing him, my
friends, my world..."  He fell silent, and wiped tears from his eyes.
"I don't want it to happen here, sir.  I'd never wish what happened to me
on anyone...not even Robotnik."

Somberly dusting himself off, the robotic hedgehog sighed.  "I lost
control.  I shouldn't have snapped at you.  We both know that neither of us
are really at fault for what's happened here.  It's Robotnik who is to
blame.  He stole the plans, and he threw the coup.  Not me, not you, not
your father, but Robotnik."

"You must have lived with so much guilt...." Joseph whispered, "having to
have lived for so long with the assumption that the device was all your
own.  I can relate to your feelings now, but there is no time for therapy
now.  Your world will be decimated unless we can find some way of reversing
the effects of roboticization.  I want to, and must help."  He looked
toward a certain star.  "This is my home now."

They stared into the sky for an eternity.

"I will give you whatever you need, and assist you in any manner that I
can," said Charles, "and I promise you, none shall know of this until you
feel it is time."

"Thank you, Sir Charles."

"It's no problem, son."  They shook hands, nodded, and went their seperate
ways.  Now both had a new variable to deal with; and some new hope.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Over the next few days, Charles would sneak out to the edge of the Great
Forest, and give Joseph as much information as he possibly could about the
roboticizer Robotnik had as he could.  Diagrams, circuits, anything that
might be important to the process, Joseph had by the end of a few days.
Comparing it to the roboticization process he was familiar with, he was
able to understand how far he had to go in order to reverse the process
sucessfully...in theory.

However, he needed one of the power rings.  He couldn't just take one;
they'd ask what he wanted it for, and he didn't want to tell them yet.
Stealing one was out of the question.  He pondered this for a while.
Eventually, he simply moved on with his experiments by running simulations,
but they didn't have the important x-factor he needed calculated in; the
potential energy of a power ring.

He moped around the power ring pool whenever he wasn't working, dismally
looking down toward the generator.  Charles couldn't help him build a
replica of it, because he had to destroy the plans when Robotnik took over.
Thus, he was just going to have to wait a bit longer...but he hated
waiting!  Lives were at stake.

One day, he just snapped.

He timed the exact generation of a power ring down to a second, and
prepared himself to grab it.  As it began its ascent, he heard Sonic
coming.  Quickly, he positioned himself in front of the pool, so Sonic
would have to go through him to get it.  When the ring crested the surface,
he grabbed it just as the hedgehog arrived.

"Hey, Joe!" he shouted, "Gimme that ring."

Joseph looked at him blankly.

"Well?  Give it."  He began to tap his foot impatiently on the ground.

Joseph was in a rough spot.  He needed the ring.  Sonic wanted the ring.
He couldn't deny him it; it was his birthright.  Yet, he needed the ring
in order to complete his experiment.  Would it be better to tell him now or
later?  What to d--?

"Be that way, then."  Quickly, Sonic jumped up and wrapped his hand
around the ring, and attempted to snatch it from his hand...

And then, something quite unique happened.

The nova effect covered both Sonic and Joseph.  Levitating them both into
the air, it glowed brighter than it ever did before.  Lightning crackled
from the bubble as the wind began to be sucked into it, and a low roar was
beginning to be heard around the area...

There was a bright flash of light.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[Joseph's internal chronological record of the next day or so is somewhat
fuzzy.  The following log was given to the historial record from Joseph's
own auditory reception.  No visual records of this period exist.
Time has been estimated to the nearest minute.]

+00 hours, 02 minutes

"Sonic!  Sally's look--oh muh stars!  HELP!!"

Static.

+00:03

"C'mon, help get him up, Rotor."

"Boy, he's heavy."

Static.

+00:10

"Do you think he'll be okay, Aunt Sally?"

"I don't know, Tails.  Maybe he just needs to rest."

Static.

+00:45

"Joe!  C'mon, Joe, wake up!"

Static.

+01:25.

"...he's got his eyes back..."

Static.

+02:00

"Ah cain't get into his house, Sally.  Bob's got it locked down."

"Can't you explain to it what's happ--"

Static.

+02:56

"See what I mean?  Every once in a while, his eyes wi--"

Static.

+05:15

"He still hasn't moved, Sal.  I think he's de--"

Static.

+08:02

"And there it goes again!"

"He's not dead.  He probably wishes he was, tho."

Static.

+20:35

"Still there?"

"I guess so.  Look at him twitch."

"Wait!  Don't pus--"

Static.

+40:00

"I'm not goin' in there, Sal, and you can't make me."

"But Sonic..."

Static.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

+47:00

<<"Reboot completed.">>

"Sally..."

<<"Self-diagnositic cycle commencing.">>

"What is it, Rotor?"

<<"Repairs complete.">>

"Uhh...it's alive."

<<"Sensor reacclimation complete.">>

"Tails!  Get out of here, now!"

<<"All systems at 100%.">>

*sounds of people rushing out of the room*

<<"Visual systems reactivated.">>

Suddenly, all he saw was white as his visual sensors came back online.  In
a few seconds, they had properly reacclimated to the environment, and he
took some time to examine where he was.

It was a hut, plainly decorated and felt somewhat sterile.  It was empty,
save for a bed and the small cloud of dust that was drifting
around...obviously, from the rapid departure of several parties.  He felt
no offense by this; they were being cautious.

He hopped out of bed.  Standing upon the ground, he assumed that his
sensors were still malfunctioning; he felt about half his original height.
Activating his homing beacon, he began to follow the signal back to his
home, where he could do the necessary repairs.  He stumbled out of the hut,
and quickly did a scan.  Nothing.  They were all inside.  Seeing no
threats, he wandered back toward the trail that led back to his dome.

As he stumbled back up the sidewalk that led to his home, he noticed he had
a lot of excess energy.  He wanted to run up the sidewalk, rather than
safely walking.  He pushed those strange thoughts out of his mind as he
opened the portal and walked into his home.

A few minutes later, he was in his laboratory, and standing in the
diagnostic tube.  Activating the scan, he wondered what exactly had
happened to him.

"Joseph, sensors indicate a change on the subatomic level."

"Is it damaging?" Joseph was startled by the sound of his own voice.  It
sounded a lot like Sonic's.  The mimicry software was obviously still not
at 100%, he thought, and readjusted his voice (with some difficulty)
back to the default.

"Negative.  It has, however, increased your speed by 10,000%."

Joseph was surprised.  "Wow, that ring packs some punch." he uttered,
returning to his usual tone.  "What other changes have occured?"

"You have also begun to take on the characteristics of the entity called
Sonic the Hedgehog.  However, your internal systems are counteracting the
effects, and will have you internally back to default settings in another
day."

Bahb paused briefly, and beeped.  "However, the visual effects are going
to require additional power to counteract."

"What do you mean?"

"A visual apprasal has concluded that you appear to be Sonic."

Joseph was shocked.  This was why everyone was so frightened before!  It
wasn't just a sensory error...

"However, several things about you are far different than him.  Your quills
are orange.  Your eyes are silver, with no pupils.  You're wearing boots."

Joseph was still in a daze.  "How...?"

"Unknown.  Hypothesis suggests that the power ring, being suited for
Sonic's DNA, caused your biological systems to take on his genetic code
when he activated it.  You were knocked mostly unconscious during the
shock, and your internal cybernetics rushed to keep up with your physical
mutations."

Joseph nodded, still in shock.  "Do you think I can ever return to original
form?"

"Unknown.  Your inital transformation put a heavy strain on your internal
robotics.  It is very improbable that they could take such a strain again."

Joseph decided to get away from generalities, which were beginning to
frighten him, and get back to specific problems.  "Why are my eyes
silver and pupilless, as you said before?"

"When the intial blast occured, it blasted your original eyes from your
sockets, being that you were at ground zero.  It took exactly one hour
twenty minutes for new eyes to be created, and for them to fill up your new
eye sockets.  Unfortunately, they are not visually pleasing yet, because
your nanite repair system is still finishing up your primary systems."

"This concerns me, Bahb."

"Affirmative.  However, it is a logical conclusion that you should probably
learn to cope with this form, because it's going to be yours for a while."

Joseph mulled this over.  "Yes, I suppose so."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A few more days went by.  Every once in a while, someone from Knothole
would come by, and try to see if any movment from Joseph's dome was
detected.  And every time, they noted nothing.  All anyone could hear was a
low hum.  Since no communication had been heard from the dome, they were
beginning to wonder how he was.  Sonic felt especially guilty,
since he appearently caused it.

"It's my fault he went all haywire," he would tell Sally at length.  "If I
wouldn'tve been in such a hurry, he'd still be around.  Now he's messed up
big time.  I wouldn't be surprised if he never came out again."

And, for a while, he seemed to be right.  Nobody could get in, and nobody
had left.  They mused on his status.  Some said he had gone in there to
die.  A few clung to the belief that he was creating a new body to return
to his original form.  Most people, however, couldn't come to a conclusion
at all.

Then, when they had almost lost all hope, the portal opened.  A figure
left the dome, starting slowly, and then speeding up.  He went faster and
faster, and faster still.  When he reached the center of Knothole, a sonic
boom went off, and he roared through the forest toward the Great Jungle.
Nobody had to say anything.  They knew what it meant.  Sally, after
glancing once at Sonic, knew exactly what was going to happen next.
Seconds later, a second sonic boom went off, and both supersonic hedgehogs
were gone.

They raced around Mobius, over water, land, and chasm.  They burrowed deep
into the earth, swung on vines, and lept high into the air.  Finally, they
reached the summit of the highest mountain, and stopped their relentless
pursuit of each other.

Joseph took a few breaths.  "You are fast." said the orange blur.

"So are you." said the blue.

"I suppose you'd like an explaination."

"Yes, that would be nice."

Joseph explained the entire preiciment to Sonic as best he could.
Trying to dumb it down enough for the relatively non-technical
hedgehog, he tried to explain about his father, Sonic's uncle, and the
power ring effect.

"So that's why you tried to steal that ring..."

"Yes," Joseph whispered, "that is why."

"I can see now why you wouldn't want to tell Sal and I about somethin' like
that.  Way past uncool."

"Yes, it is."

"We wouldn't have hurt you for what your father did, Joe."

"I could not know that for sure," he gasped, taking in more oxygen.

"You couldn't have, could you?" Sonic mused.

Joseph nodded, and moved on to the next thing on his mind.  "I hope the
blast didn't injure you."

"Nah," Sonic said, "it's cool.  Used up the whole ring, tho.  But I got
another one this morning."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

The wind whistled through their quills, but neither of them seemed to mind.

"Whaddya gonna do now, Joe?"

"I don't know.  I certainly can't help your world until I get my head
together.  I've seen too much in the last few days...I gotta go off and
think.  You can understand why."

"Yes," he nodded, "I can."

"I must go."

With that, Joseph rolled into a ball, and shot down the hill.  Sonic just
stood there, looking out toward the horizon, wondering...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

                              EPILOGUE

Sonic returned to Knothole a few hours later, after he had gotten his own
head together.  He realized how very confused Joseph must be at that
moment, and put together a proper fabrication to tell the rest of Knothole
about it.

He walked back to the edge of Knothole, where Sally was the first to
confront him.  "Sonic?  Where's Joseph?  What happened?"

Sonic looked plainly back at Sally.  "He needs to be alone for a bit."

Sally gave Sonic a wicked look.  "I *knew* that, Sonic.  What I mean is,
what happened?  Where did you guys go?"

Sonic leaned up against the wall.  "Oh," he said, "we just ran around for a
bit."

"For three hours?"

"It's a guy thing, Sal."

Sally started to become cross.  "Look, just tell me whether or not he's
coming back."

"I don't know, Sal.  He said he's all messed up, and he's gotta juice
around until he knows what time it is."

She sighed.  "Well, I hope he comes back before something major happens."

Sonic got up from against the wall, and put his arm around her shoulders.
"He will, Sal.  He just needs to be alone for a while."

"But what if Robotnik captures him, and his technology falls into the wrong
hands?"

Sonic suddenly began to smile.  "'Butt-nik isn't gonna catch him, Sal.
He's the 2nd-fastest thing on Mobius."

Sally shot Sonic a faux-questioning look.  "And what, pray tell, is *the*
fastest thing on Mobius?"

"Want a hint?"

"Antoine?"

Sonic acted shocked.  "Oh, c'mon, Sal."

"But who could be faster?"

"A slug is faster than Antoine, Sal."

Sally giggled.  "Well, I suppose you're right.  C'mon, we better get back
to Knothole and explain what happened."

They wandered back to Knothole, wondering of their friend's fate.








		    Chapter Three - This Island Floating


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline:  One day before Doomsday.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A pure, green-pigmented plain placed upon the northern continent on Mobius.
Some dried leaves fluttered in the gentle breeze, warmed by the noonday
sun.  Birds sung the ancient melody of the world, and a few non-evolved
rabbits hopped through the shorter grass.  It was a scene beautiful enough to
melt even the most jaded heart; for on this world, scenes like that might
become rare...

In the middle of this scene, barely visible in the high grass, was a 3 foot
tall hedgehog.  But this was not one of the usual variety of bipedal
hedgehog.  Nor was this particular hedgehog even a child of this
world; rather, he was a misplaced, genetically scrambled member of a dead
planet millions of light years from the spot where he now laid, calmly
enjoying the beauty of his new home.  This was the lot of Joseph, the
descendant of two DNA helii; his natural, Ur'thaen brand, and the current
Mobian hedgehog variety which he was experiencing now.

However, his genetic identity crisis didn't appear to be bothering him now,
as he silently laid in the sun, soaking in the yellow star's warming rays.
The wind drifted over his motionless form as if it was a mother's gentle
movement, tucking him in for a night's rest.  A butterfly alighted on one
of his longer headquills, and slowly came to peacefully rest there.

This was paradise, Joseph thought, as he continued to simply lay there and
revel in the sublime beauty of Mobius.  He wondered why Robotnik would wish
anything like this harm.  Had he never simply walked outside on a glorious
day as this, sat down in a field, and merely admired the handiwork of
Nature?  Was all of his destruction merely due to him being a homish sort?

Nay, he pondered, Robotnik had been out in the wilderness.  He'd sit in a
field like this, take a deep breath, and think...how he'd first cut
down those trees to create housing, then drill holes in the earth for oil,
then ponder mining for precious metals...no, Robotnik could simply not
appreciate nature.  It was simply not his to appreciate this one.  Probably
all those simian genes.

But Joseph let those unpleasant thoughts leave him.  He didn't want to
think about Robotnik or Robotropolis or the damned pirated Ur'thaen
roboticizer now.  That would only impede intuitive thought of solutions to
those problems.  Alas, he had only allotted himself only a few more days of
being au naturale before returning to Knothole and resuming work on the
deroboticization process.  He needed to value this vacation time as a
period to let his strained mind adjust to the myriad of changes that had
affected him; landing on a foreign world, finding out that he was not the
first of his kind to land here, being mutated...it made his head spin to
ponder all that had occured in only a few months.

However, Joseph realized that looking backward would only impede his
progress.  He had to overcome the obstacles placed in his path, and
continue on.  He had people to help now, so brooding wasn't going to do any
good.

But he wasn't going to think about that anymore.  No, this was a vacation,
and Joseph knew that thinking about work would only slow it down in the
long run.  So, he laid there in the field, took a deep breath, and
continued staring into the sky.  After a moment, he felt much better about
his situation again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, a different sort of conteplation was occuring an a craft
speeding away from Robotropolis.  The sole passenger of the craft was
pondering what to say to his new friend to get him to return with him
this time.  He had still been reluctant to leave his precious island the last
time he had visited him, but he knew that he could convince him to return
with him today...

Laughter echoed through the small craft as it sped further away from the
dark outline of Robotropolis.  Soon, the short human thought, soon,
Robotnik would be out of the way; and then he, Snively the Great, could
take his rightful control over Mobius!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Eventually, Joseph grew tired of just laying in the field, thinking about
nothing.  If it's one thing his new body demanded, it was activity.  So,
he chose to get back to the activity that he had engaged in for most of
his vacation; exploring Mobius.

He had searched most of the Southern continent last week, and the Northern
continent was already throughly charted.  Perhaps he would visit the
sea again.  It was certainly beautiful enough to warrant a second look.
Besides, he had a yearning for seafood.  A boiled lobster about then seemed
mighty good.  He licked his lips and stood up.

He hadn't yet mastered the whole powering-up thing with his running.  He
always seemed to mess something up.  He'd either fall on his head, slip on
something and fall backwards, or lose control entirely and fly into a tree.
So, with some trepidation, he started running in place like Sonic did,
slowly picking up speed at first, but quickly picking up speed.  After
a few seconds of this, he took his foot off the clutch (so to speak)
and blasted forward.

Surprisingly, he was able to maintain control of his propultion well enough
to direct himself to the shore.  Within minutes, he was able to see the
line of the horizon reflecting off the sea.  Now, he had to stop.  He
didn't particularly *like* stopping.  He had never been able to cease his
propultion on a 1 Mobian coin like Sonic did.  He had always gone up some
extreme surface without speeding up to come to a halt.  The water was now
in plain sight.  It looked awfully blue today.  He wondered how deep--

Unconsciously speeding up, he sucessfully breached the coast, and was
suddenly running over the water.  Whoa, Joseph thought, this is cool!
He ran straight off the coast for a few minutes, and then tried a left
turn.  After sucessfully turning left, he tried turning right.  This also
was accomplished easily.  Deciding to put his navigation skills to the
test, he ran in a figure-8 a few times, and then shot off in a different
direction.  Way Past Cool, he mentally snickered, and headed off further
off the coast.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The small craft landed on the far side of an anonymous island somewhere in
the Great Ocean.  Snively departed the craft, told the SWAT Bot pilot to
maintain a holding pattern, and walked away.  As the craft took off, Snively
disappeared into the island's jungle-like foilage.

After walking on a roughly-beaten path for a while, he came to a clearing
that he had visited countless times before.  And, like every time, he
walked over to a small stump, took a seat upon it, and waited for his
host to appear.

"Welcome, Snively-mon," a voice said, "back to my island."

"Knuckles, cut the dramatics."  Snively looked around.  "Just tell me
your answer.  Will you return to Robotropolis with me, or not?"

Some leaves rustled behind Snively, and a red-quilled figure appeared.
"I tol' you, mon, I canno' leave dis island.  I gotta guard my Ruby."

"Echidna," Snively falsely smiled, "there is no one left on Mobius with the
capability to find this island but myself.  How could someone steal your
precious `Ruby' if they don't even know this alcove exists?"

"But ev'ryone wants my Ruby, mon.  It's special."

Snively internally chuckled.  This foolish creature of the forest was so
paranoid about some idiotic reddish rock.  It probably was a piece of
glass, or maybe it *was* a tiny little ruby.  Either way, it was
unimportant to Snively what it was.  "I told you," he said, "you can take
it with you if you want."

"I can' take it.  I tol' you, it don' wanna be took."

Snively sighed.  "Look, I could station some robot-soldiers..."

Knuckles grimaced.  "No!  No robots!  Dis island shall NOT have robots
on it!"

Snively recoiled.  "Okay, I won't put any here.  I just thought you'd want
some protection for your stone."

Knuckles grew silent, obviously considering some things.  Snively talked as
he thought.  "Look, I promise you that nothing shall happen to your `Ruby'
until you return."  Snively put his hand on the echidna's shoulder in a
false gesture of empathy.  "You will return here.  I *promise*."

"You promise?" the echidna spouted.

"Yes, I do."

Knuckles hmmed.  "Okay, I go wit' you.  But I want one mo' day here on the
island before I go.  Dat okay?"

Snively smiled.  "Yes, that will be fine."  *JUST* fine, he thought, and
just in time...  "I'll be back here at sundown tomorrow to pick you up.  Go
to the north shore, and a ship will come for you."

As Snively got back up, Knuckles disappeared back into the underbrush.
The short human smiled evilly, and walked back up the path to flag down
his vehicle.  This was too easy, he thought, as the ship landed, allowed
him to board, and rocketed back toward Robotropolis.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph sped over miles of water, going in no particular direction for very
long, nor really planning to go anywhere.  He thought he might eventually
circumnavigate the world if he kept at this long enough.  And, when he saw
the patch of land over on the eastern horizon, he thought he had.  He sped
curiously over to it, wondering which coast it was.

After a second or two, he was running along the coast of the land, and then
realized it was an island.  He hadn't quite circled the globe yet,
obviously, but this phenomenon still deserved investigation.  He went
ashore, and started to slow--

*BONK*

When he came to, it was nighttime, and he was staring up into a pair of
eyes.  "Uhh..." he groaned as a pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him to
his feet.

"How did you get 'ere!?  'Ave you come to steal my Ruby?!?"

"Huh?"

Something that felt like a brick nailed him across the face, causing blood
to drip from his mouth.  "I ASKED you a ques'ion, intruder!"

"Muggaahh..."

"Arrgh!  "What are you, stupid?!"

"I...don't understand...intruder?"

*POW*

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph woke up a few hours later in a bamboo cage, hanging over a large
pit.  A few rails had been redded with the liquid that had poured from his
oral cavity after the figure had decked him.  (With what, he wondered, a
brick?)  In addition to that painful injury, a few more additional cuts
had been inflicted (but healed) on parts of his stomach and arms;
obviously caused by being dragged through some sharper underbrush.

Struggling to his feet, he tried to regain his bearings.  He was in a dense
part of the jungle.  The cage was hanging from a single treebranch, but it
looked stable...for now.  There was solid ground closeby the pit (which he
now saw having sharp spikes at the bottom) and a single path leading away
from it deeper into the forest.

He quickly came to the decision to try and swing the cage out from over the
pit, and onto solid ground, where it would probably break open.  As he
began to rock it back and forth, he heard (as expected) the branch
beginning to go.  He rocked a little harder, and he started to hear it
crack.  He finally gave the cage a teriffic shake, and the branch broke,
plummeting it to the earth below.  The cage began falling soon after that;
it tumbled toward the ground, shattered open, and spilled its
contents onto the forest floor.

What Joseph had forgotten to anticipate was the pain factor involved in
being inside of a cage when it crushed into the earth.  He agonizingly
climbed out of the wreckage, picking small pieces of bamboo out of his
quills.  He was beginning to hate this place.  A lot.

After he had gotten himself together, he wandered silently down the path.
Luckily, his martial arts training had not been effected by his
transformation, so he was able to stealthily traverse the path without
distrurbing a single item in the forest.  Hopefully, he could find the
shore, rev up, and get off this island before anything bad--

<< WARNING: POWER LEVELS AT: 5% AND DROPPING.  REQUIRE REFUELLING BEFORE
   DEPARTURE BACK TO DOME ALPHA.  ACQUIRE POWER CRYSTALS.  PRIORITY: ONE
   PRIORITY: ONE.  PRIORITY: ONE.  PRIORITY: ONE.  PRIORITY: ONE........ >>

--happens.

He emitted a series of vile Ur'thaen curses, and snarled.  This irritated
Joseph to a great degree.  His internal power cells were supposed to last
for about 1000 years before ever dipping below 50%, and here were his
systems crying 5% 6 months after it had been activated.  Then, he
realized exactly how much load he had put on his body in the last
6 months, and was able to calm his fears of his body having leaky fuel
cells.

But, it still left the problem of finding fuel.  He was going to have
difficulty finding something digestible without having to confront whatever
it was that struck at him.  It was about as strong as he was at this point,
and certainly didn't like him very much...he thought Joe wanted to steal
his `Ruby', whatever the hell that was.

So, he did some quick internal calculations.  If he went at a normal speed,
didn't use his augmented strength much, and avoided further injury, he
could last about a year on the island.  After all, the food looked edible,
and the water was fairly clean...but he didn't want to be here a year.  He
didn't want to be there a day!  He wanted to go home.

He pounded his fist against his hand.  No, there had to be crystals on this
island.  There were crystals everywhere on this planet!  All he had to do
was look.  He turned his optical scanners to detect energy signatures, and
went off to find some.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At daybreak, Joseph reached the shore.  He had covered half the island, and
he was down to about 4% of his total energy.  So far, he hadn't detected
much of anything.  Some small pebbles were all that carried any sort of
juice in them, but they had not enough to even make a spark.

The sun beamed down upon Joseph, trying ineffectually to give him some
solar energy.  Alas, but he had no solar panels on him, and no means to
make any.  It did, however, warm him up enough so he physically felt
better, and made him think to sweep the horizon and admire the view.
As he looked around, he noticed a small, craft-shape energy
imprint upon the ground.  He walked over to it to examine it further.
A ship had landed there earlier, no more than a day ago, and quickly had
taken off again.  (He could understand why someone would do that.)

However, it appeared that it was a Robotropolis-brand ship that had landed
there, by the blackish residue that was left on the ground.  Had someone
else decided to take a holiday here?  He hadn't seen anyone else but the
figure that attacked him...but Robotnik wasn't into bamboo, he thought.

This was becoming a really strange situation, Joseph pondered, as he
wandered toward the other side of the island.  Mysterious guardians of
unknown jewels, unknown landings of Robotnik-made crafts...it was all
connected somehow, but Joe couldn't see it.  He started walking down a path
that led through the other side of the island.  He began to mull over
exactly what could be so important that whoever was guarding it would
savagely beat whomever seemed to threaten it...

Then, a blip appeared in front of him.  A large crystal vein was on this
side of the island, toward the center.  He smiled.  His ticket home was
right on the beaten path.  Perhaps this is what the strange one was
guarding, Joe thought.  Well, he won't mind if I take a few off his hands
for lunch now, would he?

He wasn't going to take any chances either way.  He returned to his
stealthy mode of walking, and seemed to disappear into the underbrush.
Within a few hours, he was in the center of the island.

He was on the very edge of the clearing.  A cave was directly in front of
him, giving off an reddish glow deep inside of it.  This is what the person
who had attacked him was guarding.  "I wonder what's inside of it," Joseph
whispered aloud.

"My Ruby's inside o' dere."

He didn't turn around.  He *knew* what would happen if he turned around.
So, he just burst forward toward the cave.  "GET BACK 'ERE!!!" shouted the
figure as Joseph hit the sound barrier halfway through the cave.

<< WARNING: POWER LEVELS AT: 2% AND DROPPING >>

He got to the back of the cave, no longer caring whether or not that person
liked him or not.  When he got to the inside of the cave, he pushed a large
boulder in front of the opening out, so that the individual trying to kill
him would at least be slowed down.  He heard thumping on the rock, and
muffled shouting, but he had not broken it down enough to get
through...yet.  Having that out of the way, he ran as fast as was
prudent to the back of the cave.

He was stuck dumb with awe when he entered the area where the light was
coming from.  The walls of the domed area were covered in glowing, sparking
energy crystal.  In the center of the room, there was an energy core that
was being powered by a reddish rock...his `Ruby', obviously.  But why did
this undeveloped island need this much power?  What was this `Ruby' really?
He took a closer look at it, and accessed his records of Mobian geological
history.  No, he thought, it couldn't be.  But it *had* to be.

This `Ruby' was actually a Chaos Emerald.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This explained a lot, thought Joseph.  Chaos Emeralds were mythical,
mystical power crystals that are capable of generating extreme amounts of
clean, emissionless energy.  They were also said to have special powers of
their own, depending on their color.  But this was unimportant to Joseph
right now.  All he knew was that the red rock in the center of the room was
best left where it was.  It was probably incompatible with his digestive
system, anyway.  So, instead of attempting to acquire that particular
crystalline morsel, he started trying to break off bits of the more
digestible power crystal on the walls.

Meanwhile, the boulder in the front of the cave suddenly formed a large
crack in the center of it, and seconds later it crumbled to the ground.
A very pissed-off Knuckles then strode in, looking to beat the tar out of
the `thief' inside by his delicate `Ruby'.

Joseph was too busy trying to chip off a mouth-sized crystal off the wall
to notice the boulder crumbling to dust in back of him.  He hoped that if
he ate this one it would be enough to keep him going long enough to get
back home.

Unfortunately, he never got a chance to find out.  Knuckles swiftly went
into a flying tackle onto the weakened and bleeding hedgehog, knocking
the crystal out of his hand.  It flew across the room and shattered on
the wall, directly next to Joseph's hope of leaving here peacefully.
He was then slammed against the wall and kicked in the back.  He yelped as
he felt a quill snap off one of his lower rows and scatter onto the floor.

Being driven to even more savagery by Joseph's acknoledgement of his abuse,
he punched Joseph repeatedly in the face, yelling on each impact.  "STAY!"
*POW*  "'WAY!"  *SOCK*  "FROM!"  *BAMF*  "MY!"  *WHACK*  "RUBY!!!"  *CRACK*
By the time "FROM!" had rang out, Joseph had begun to go somewhat blind,
and his eyes freely bled blackish fluid.  He coughed up a few mouthfuls of
bloods after the 5th or 6th sucessive hit, giving Knuckles a sense of great
personal pride.  But, he grew tired of this, and decided to switch from his
face to some other part.  Making a split-second decision, he threw him to
the ground and started kicking Joe in the stomach.  Joseph was blinded
completely, and was beginning to lose his sense of hearing.  All that was
left to his sensors was the pain.

After a few more kicks, Knuckles grabbed him by the throat, pushed his face
inside the engine core, burning a centimeter or two off of it.  Joseph
tried to scream; but the echidna closed his fist around his throat, choking
his howl to a squeak.  "You betta take a nice, GOOD look at my Ruby,
'cuz it's the LAST thing you're EVER gonna see!"

<< WARNING!  WARNING!  CRITICAL DAMAGE LEVELS!  WARNING!  WARNING! >>

He weakly struggled to break the echidna's grip, but he barely had enough
power to writhe around in agony.  He got a few good kicks in around
Knuckles' midsection, but nothing that could make him let go of him long
enough to let him breathe...

<< WARNING!  WARNING!  ENERGY LEVELS CRITICAL!  WARNING!  WARNING! >>

He felt like he was gagging on his own pancreas.  He knew his eyeballs were
about to pop out from the pressure, and his mind was beginning to go...

<< TOTAL SYSTEM FAILURE IN 10 SECONDS >>

He clawed at Knuckles' quills, but only managed to prick himself in the
fingers.  He kicked and swung his arms, but Knuckles knew he was almost
dead....

<< TOTAL SYSTEM FAILURE IN 5 SECONDS >>

No!  Not again!  Not before I--

<< SYSTEM SHUTDOWN >>

For Joseph, time stopped.  He lost all memory of his life, his world, his
entire existance.  The struggling ceased; the static died down to silence,
his sensors stopped recieving information...the world grew cold, spun,
and slowly faded to black...

But then, a miracle occured.

Actually, a biological miracle occured.  His body used the remaining volts
of his internal power to mutate his tongue into an energy reciever.  Then,
running on sheer exhaust fumes, it gave it just enough length to wrap
itself around the crystal, and shot it out to try to siphon off as much
energy as it could.

It got far, far more than it bargained for.  In fact, it got more than
enough.  Immediately, ruby-red energy carressed Joseph's limp form,
catapaulting Knuckles across the room and out of the cave.  Slowly,
Joseph's energy levels went up, slightly dimming the crystal's light.

However, as Joseph was recharging, the island was beginning to sink.
The beaches slowly started to retreat under a blue wall of water.  Small
animals desperately ascended trees, rocks, anything they could find in
order to avoid being drowned.

<< ENERGY LEVELS RISING.  10%.  20%.  30%.  40%.  50%.  60%.... >>

After a few moments, Joseph's power levels were back to 100%.  As he
disengaged his tongue from the crystal, and returned it to a normal length,
his healing systems came back on-line, and started to repair the damage
that had been done.  He barely noticed the small earthquake that occured
after he fell from the crystal, nor did he care what it meant.  He just
wanted to repair his screaming shell of a body.

He slowly rubbed against the energy crystal-covered wall.  He was too
exhausted to even move.  He doubted he was going to be able to go anywhere
for 15 minutes or so as he renewed hiself.  The creature had beat him up
pretty bad.  His vision was just coming back, and his hearing was still
fuzzy.  Not only that, it seemed like his entire body core hurt.

He coughed up some blood and spat it onto a nearby rock.  It hissed,
bubbled, and ate right through it.  He was relieved.  He wasn't internally
bleeding anymore; or else the clotting agents would have neutralized the
blood's acidic effects.

His sight clarified seconds later.  That was much better.  Checking his
power levels, he was somewhat discouraged...it was eating up most of his
power.  He'd be back to 50% after all the repairs were complete.  But
that'd be enough to finish his host off...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knuckles was laying unconscious in a clearing about 1000 yards from the
cave.  The charge had knocked him clear through the forest, and he was cut
up pretty bad.  Of course, he didn't notice this, because he was in a
stupor, but it still appeared awfully painful.  His gloves were also
somewhat singed, but they were at least not on fire any longer.

He began to come out of it.  Shaking his head, he groaned at the amount of
damage the hedgehog had done to him.  Ruby had shocked both of them pretty
good.  Hopefully, the stupid orange hedgehog thief was dead, and nobody
would bother Ruby until he got back.  He hated trespassers.

He stood back up.  Ruby was still there, by the glowing that came from the
cave.  But he had to be sure the hedgehog was dead.  Had to.  Could be
alive, FAKING dead.  He wandered back into the cave, and slowly returned to
the crystal room.

Joseph was there, acting dead.  Since he didn't have any pupils to dilate,
he simply gave off a pheromone that denoted deadness.  Hopefully, the
echidna would smell it, and think him demised.

Knuckles entered.  He looked over at the puddles of blood laying around,
seeping into the ground.  The hedgehog bled a lot.  Dirty hedgehog.  Bad
hedgehog.  He looked at the dead hedgehog.  Good.  His instincts told him
he was dead, so he had to be.  He decided he didn't like the dead hedgehog
with Ruby, making the place smell bad.  So, he grabbed him by the
shoulders, and pulled him out of the cave.

The sun was beginning to set, so Knuckles hurried along, dragging the
hedgehog through the dirt.  He'd leave him outside the cave as a warning.
Nobody would go into a cave where a dead animal laid outside.  Just the way
it was.  He dropped him in front of the cave, right in the center of the
enterance.  Thinking no more of it, he turned his back on the `dead'
hedgehog, and started to walk up the trail.

<< REPAIRS COMPLETE >>

Joseph stood up, and ran over to Knuckles as silently as the wind.  He
grabbed the naive echidna by the throat.  "Miss me?" he whispered into his
ear, and threw him into a tree.  A few teeth fell out of Knuckles' mouth,
accompanied by a few droplets of blood.  Smiling psychotically, Joseph
peeled him off the tree and spiked him on the ground.  "So..."  He punched
him in the snout.  "You *actually* think--"  He fit his left ear, making it
squirt most reddish fluid.  "--you can go around beating--" He kicked him
in the head.  "--people--" He stomped on his abdomen.  "--up?"  He threw
him down the path.  "Huh?"  Knuckles stumbled toward the beach, trying to
escape the enraged hedgehog.  He pursued Knuckles, anxious to pummel
him some more.

Knuckles ran toward the beach.  Bad hedgehog not dead!  Got strong from
Ruby!  Now was angry at Knuckles for stopping him from stealing Ruby.
Help!  Help!  Snively would help.  Snively powerful.  Has powerful
machines.  Lazers that blow things up.

Joseph relentlessly chased his attacker.  He was going to be sure he was
throughly punished for beating him up when he was defenseless, and without
provocation.  He didn't want to kill him, mind you--he was not a
overzealous member of the warrior caste--just rough him up enough to teach
him to be more tolorant.

Knuckles stood on the north shore nervously.  He looked back toward the
path, and saw the outline of the hedgehog coming close.  He looked to the
horizon, and just then saw the shadow of a single ship...Snively's ship!
He'd save him!  He'd blast the bad hedgehog into dust.  Teach him a lesson.

He saw Knuckles standing on the beach, and noticed the small craft fly
down, pick him up, and go back into the air.  "Oh, no you don't," Joseph
said, and projected some energy at the ship.  It locked onto him and shot
some beams back.  He ran along the shore, trying to trick the ship into
dropping down low enough so he could get a clear shot in.  Unfortunately,
it did not.

Meanwhile, while the SWAT Bots were firing at Joseph, Knuckles was trying
to tell Snively what had happened.  He ignored most of the foolish babble
about `Ruby', of course, but realized he'd have to kill this fast,
nigh-invincible (hmm) hedgehog before Knuckles was going to leave.
Knuckles, of course, had an idea...

Joseph had now almost ran a total circuit around the island.  He was
wondering how he was going to escape their fire, and not let them get the
Chaos Emerald at the same time.  But then, Knuckles jumped out of the
craft, and (instead of running at him) ran back toward the cave.
Hopefully, he'd find some way of hiding it, or destroying it.  He thought
no more of the odd occurance, and continued dodging the fire of the SWAT
Bots.

He ran beneath a series of cliffs, trying to dodge the continual bursts of
plasma.  However, he neglected to notice the large boulder directly above
him, and hid there from the ship.  It apparently didn't see him...but
Knuckles did.

He had ran around in front of the cave, taken a path to the other side of
the island, and climbed up the cliff where the boulder was.  Then, he had
gotten a piece of wood, lodged it under the rock, and was waiting for the
hedgehog to get in position....NOW!

The boulder, after being dislodged from its resting place, raced down to
the ground, making hardly a sound.  When Joseph finally noticed it, it was
too late.  It slammed into him, and shoved him deep within the moist
earth.

Knuckles, of course, *knew* this had to have killed him.  He cheered, did a
victory dance, and rapelled down the cliff.  He then stumbled out to the
ship, and hopped in.  Seconds later, they were both gone.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

An hour passed.  The rock didn't move.  A small puddle of blood was forming
next to it, and it was beginning to attract various insects.  The tide came
in, and started to wash softly against the rock, cleansing the earth of the
reddish pool.  The occasional bubble began to hiss up from the wet crater,
making it sound like a boiling mud pool, but instead of mud, there was
hemoglobin.  It looked like some sort of macabre metorite had crashed.

Then, as if a geyser was forcing it away, the rock split in half, and
Joseph crawled out of the hole, vomiting up sand and dirt.  He felt
absolutely miserable.  It had taken him what seemed like aeons to charge up
anouther energy in his index fingers (the only part that was touching the
rock after it pushed him 2 3/4 feet underground) to start cutting the rock,
and it had drained him down to 25% again.

This *sucked*.

He had been beaten, electrocuted, buried, crushed, burned, nearly drowned,
and shot at.  His energy levels had gone from 100% to 1% to 50% to 25%.
It felt like a really nasty form of vixen PMS.  He just wanted to charge
up, teleport home, and not leave the dome for 2 weeks.

As he continued to wash himself off, he began to realize how fortunate it
was to be able to teleport home.  Sure, he'd have to get fully charged,
have to pretty high up, and his broadcasting array on his body wasn't
the best, but it'd be just enough to tell Bahb to teleport him home to
his own power charger.  He made a mental note never, never, never EVER to
take another vacation the rest of his life.  At least not without a plasma
shotgun.  Man, he could have used one of those.

He wandered back up the path to the cave.  The interior of the forest
looked like it had seen a world war.  Trees were bent over, there was blood
everywhere, and nothing dared move.  He grumbled.  He had lost control, and
messed up this entire ecosystem for everyone.  Good one, moron.  Hopefully,
it'd heal itself in 5 years or so, with luck.  It would look a little
better, anyway.

Approaching the cave, it didn't look much better.  He'd really beaten the
tar out of that echidna here.  Little red quills were sticking out of the
dirt like a bad hair weave.  A few teeth were also intermixed with the
quills, giving the whole area the stink of death.  It made him sick.

He wandered into the cave, which didn't look as bad.  It was only *his*
blood in here, and the crystals on the walls were vaporizing it pretty
quickly.  He went over to the Chaos Emerald, placed his hands around it,
and boosted his power back to 100%.  A few repairs and a minor earthquake
later (possibly caused by the Emerald's draining) pursued later, he charged
himself again.  Now he was back to where he was supposed to be.  He hoped
he wouldn't have to do that again for a long time.

A few minutes later, he had left the cave and ascended the cliff where the
boulder was.  Looking down, he realized that it had to have nailed him
really freakin' hard.  The cracks in the mud looked like something you'd
see on one of the three moons of this planet.  A complete wreck.  Thank
goodness it had happened in an out-of-the-way place, or else the entire
island would look like a war zone.

He pointed his eyes to the rising moons.  He calculated his exact location
in relation to Knothole, triangulated the angle of the moonbounce, and
transmitted an encrypted transporter call, with full coordinates, to his
teleporter in his lab.

The transmission shot to the 1st moon, bounced off of it at a 34 degree
angle, and refracted to the secret reciever unit by the original crash
site.  It traveled from there by buried wire 1 mile down into the earth,
went back up the hyperfast eribrum-doped fiberobtic backbone Joseph had
strung down into the earth, and back into the dome.

Bahb intercepted the transmission, decrypted it, and sent it down to the
3rd level of the Dome, the laboratory.  The automatic servos began pumping,
and the teleporter powered up.

Joseph was then surrounded by an opaque bubble, which lifted into the air
momentarily and popped, leaving no trace of either bubble or passenger.
With that, Joseph left the Floating Island...a wreck.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A second or two later, he rematerialized, looking like a refugee, in the
3rd SubBasement of his home.  Ahh.  Home sweet home.  He'd never want to
leave it again.

He didn't even acknoledge the computer.  He hopped on the minielevator pad
and went straight to the 1st level, his bedroom.  Then, he plowed right
into the bathroom, showered, dried off, walked back into the bedroom, laid
down on the bed, and passed out.

He slept for 5 days.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

But what of Knuckles and Snively?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Here," Snively said, "put this on your face.  It'll heal it faster."

Knuckles could only moan quietly.  He hurt.  "Muhguh."

"Oh, stop complaining.  You'll be fully healed by the time we enter
Robotropolis.  By now, Robotnik should be throughly crushed by the
hedgehog."

Before Knuckles could groan something, Snively said, "No, it wasn't that
one.  The one I talk about is blue.  Don't worry, you'll get to
meet him..." He smiled evilly.

"I promise."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

                             Epilogue

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

About 5 days later, Joseph woke back up.  He mumbled as he stumbled out of
bed and gave himself yet another through scrubbing.  He still felt echidna
quills sticking out of his back.  Not only that, he'd slept for a really
long time, according to his internal chronometer.  He'd probably needed it.
Alas, he was going to have to mine some crystal pretty soon, because he
knew his energy levels weren't going to be constant for long...

He got himself back to a tolorable state and went back to the surface of
his home.  The Dome looked especially lovely today.  Bahb had made sure the
windows had stayed especially clean, and the light streamed in with
impunity.  The entire room was warm with the power of the sun.  It made him
feel much better about himself, and far more vibrant--

He got an idea.  Solar energy!  Of course!  The entire Dome was almost a
perfect focusing tool; it was a massive upside down lens.  All he had to do
was to install another lens in the reverse direction in front of his
skylight, and he could focus the rays of the sun into an extremely
high-frequency energy beam.  Then, he could create some sort of battery to
store it, and get recharged off of the light of the Mobian sun.  Just like
how he powered the rest of the house!  And he wouldn't have to take any
more of the house's energy to do it.

Quickly, he set to work on drawing up the plans for the new device,
wondering what else he could use the excess energy for....







		     Chapter Four - Everything Changes


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: A month or two after Doomsday.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


It was nearing noon over the Great Forest.  The day's activities were in
full swing for most of the world, and save one--nay, make that two--places,
it was bathed in a glorious yellow tint from that world's local star.

However, the place we shall be focusing on would soon be bathed with light
as well.  When the sun reached its zeinth above it, focusing mirrors would
bounce an amplified beam of light off a series of mirrors and focusing
devices, until the light was a tight, hard beam of energy.  Then, it would
be shot down from the final mirror, and hit an energy port on a certain
still figure laying on a slab in the center of the area.  For 3 minutes,
this beam would strike the port, raising the object's energy levels back to
its full capacity.  Then, the mirrors would fall out of alignment, and the
area would return to its normal, dim state.

Seconds later, the sun reached its full height above that area of Mobius'
horizon, and beams of the life-giving orb fell upon the Dome's clear
skylight.  The beams reflected off a series of mirrors, through a myraid of
lenses, and finally struck the lifeless figure's opened abdomen.  The ray
crashed into a ultraefficent, recently-installed solar panel, and created
gigawatts of energy within seconds.

It continued like this for several minutes, gradually raising the
temperature inside the glassy structure to an almost unbearable,
fog-inducing high.  Finally, the sun started to descend toward the other
parts of Mobius, causing the beam to weaken, dim, and finally die.

As the abdomen of the figure closed up, the ventilation system kicked in
and started pumping the hot air out of the structure.  It traveled through
a long pipe along the forest floor, and finally was permitted to escape
several yards away, into another glassy structure.  This one, however, was
rectangular, and was completely opaque.  It was the size of a small hut,
and appeared to have no door in or out of it.  The mysterious structure
released nor admitted a single particle.  Its purpose is only known to
Joseph, and he has yet to choose to explain its purpose to the common
populace...

Meanwhile, Joseph was beginning to regain his senses.  His power levels
were back where they should be, and the Dome had cooled off rapidly.
He felt pleased with himself over the device he had constructed, and the
deroboticizer was coming along nicely.  So, since he had worked so hard the
last few days, he decided to allow himself a day of leisure.  He took a
cleansing breath of the charged air, and set himself to the remainder of
the pressing work that he had to accomplish before going out to `play'.
Thus, after he cleaned up the public area in which he now stood of the
Dome, and doing some minor body maintanence, he emerged into the warm
sunlight of the forest floor.

It was a lovely afternoon around Knothole, he noted.  The wind was blowing
toward the wreckage of Robotropolis, so one couldn't smell it.  The sun
shone through the forest in places, illuminating parts of the well-trod
path to Knothole irratically.  A few non-evolved rabbits hopped by,
looking for clover or grass to eat.  In the distance, he could see the
secret entrance to the village, with a few Mobians lurking around it
on guard duty.

Smiling slightly at the rustic scene, he blasted toward the secret entrance
at nearly full speed, and stopped just short of flying through it.  His
control over his new form was improving daily.  Who knows, he thought,
perhaps it was an even better form than his initial one?

Meanwhile, the two guards were gradually getting used to Joseph's blazing
entrances.  It was usually the way he entered the village, because it was
the way Sonic usually entered it.  The two were becoming more alike than
either of the hedgehogs would like to admit.  Yet, Joseph's behavior was
still more unpredictable than Sonic's...he was slightly more mature than
his blue twin, and far smarter.  But before either guard could muse on this
topic further, the orange hedgehog nodded at them and shot through the
stump with a flourish; to a lower clearing in the forest where
Knothole was located.

He popped out of the log, and rolled to a halt upon the pile of hay that
served as a cushion for incoming Mobians.  He slid off the pile and brushed
himself off.  Few were around the entrance today...security had become
slightly more lax since Robotropolis was mostly destroyed.  The mood of the
village had also become lighter, and a bit more hopeful.  More roboticized
citizens wandered into the Great Forest daily, and they almost all
regained their free will within days...thanks to a quick hack called a
`Cerebral Re-Activator' Charles and himself had created.

However, the newly-reborn roboticized citizens' reaction to Joseph
occasionally was not always positive, he ruefully mused.  After someone
that had been in the village relayed the story of Charles and Joseph to
one of them, the odd cold stare could be felt creeping up his neck by a
few irate roboticized citizens.  They didn't dare say anything, of
course--Sonic would zealously defend his new intergalactic `brother'
as if he were Tails--but he could feel their hatred.  He honestly couldn't
blame them for it, either...his guilt was not to be purged until the
deroboticizer was running, and all damaged were healed.  And even then, he
thought, it'd still be there, albeit weaker than before.  Sighing at this,
he walked toward the hub of Knothole, hoping to snag a chili dog or two
off Sonic.

He walked (he preferred walking within the city limits) into the town
square, where Sonic was leaning against a tree, munching a chili dog.  When
Sonic saw Joseph wandering into the village, he waved him over to him, and
tossed over a chili dog.

"Yo, Joe!" he hollered, and continued to gnaw on his pork product.

"Hello, Sonic," Joseph said, and started eating his.  "Anything new?"

"Nope, just havin' some of Unc' Chuck's chili dogs."  He looked at the one
which he had almost completed, and sighed.  "Mmm, I didn't know how
much I missed these--" He polished that one off in a single motion,
and began eating the other, half-eaten, one.  "--chili dogs."

Joseph nodded.  He sometimes envied Sonic's simple approach to life;
running fast, thwarting `badniks', eating chili dogs, and pursuing the
mutual affection of the Princess.  No guilt, no internal demons gnawing
on his soul about someone else's mistakes, no constant, nagging feeling
that he's going to fail miserably, or that one of his mistakes could
destroy the entire world.  No loneliness, no yearning for a home that was
annhilated centuries ago, or even one pang of misery from the cold looks of
a roboticized citizen that would make his eyes sting from woe.  Just speed,
heroism, and the fufillment of carnal desires.  Oh, how that life appealed
to him!  He wished he could just return to nature; go feral, live in the
woods, eat berries...but, alas, his new form demanded technology to
survive.  He was no longer a simple organic construct, he was the last
remaining creation of his father, his world, his entire culture...he might
as well wish for a purple sky instead of wishing to escape the
technological plague that his mind, body, and soul were infected with.
Both were about as likely!

It didn't stop him from wishing, tho.  That's all he had; hope, wishes, and
dim memories and the collected knowledge of a world that nobody could ever
see, ever again.  He actively despised the last part, especially.  If he
was just blind to what had happened, and was just a rogue being crusing the
galaxy for cheap beer and cheaper women, his soul would be far purer.
But the knowledge made his soul blacker than night.  The evils that his
world had perpetrated, the curses they had heaped upon themselves...they
laid only on his shoulders now.  It was his only inheritance.

At night, he looked for the star that Ur'thae used to orbit, and waited
patiently for the one moment when the light of the explosion would
finally reach Mobius.  Only then would he believe it was actually gone.
He didn't want to believe it was dust...he so wanted to blame the live body
of his father for this, just to get the hatred away from him.  But his
father was dead, as was his world.  He was the only target left for Mobius'
anger, so he would take it all upon himself.  He was glad his father
couldn't see this world now--

"Joe!  Snap out of it!"

Joseph returned to his normal mental state.  "Sorry," he embarrassedly
said, "I was thinking about something."

"You think too much." was Sonic's reply.

"Yes," Joseph said, "I do."

Sonic kept eating his chili dog.  "Anyway, nothin's up now."  He smirked.
"It's just another boring day in Paradise."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, in the smouldering wreckage of Robotroplis:

Snively flew around the perimeter of Robotropolis in Robotnik's hovercraft
(which gave him a great deal of satisfaction) assessing the progress of the
reconstruction of Robotropolis.  For the most part, the progress was
positive; without bothering to rebuild all the useless, smoke-belching
factories, and only rebuilding the essential parts of Robotropolis, the
reconstruction would only take another 6 months or so.  SWATBot production
was up, so soon regular patrols could start again.

However, Snively was becoming progressively more irritated with the lack of
Worker-Bots remaining to do the menial work of Robotropolis.  Apparently,
most of them were simply wandering off into the Great Forest.  Also, a good
portion were being abducted by Freedom Fighters.  This was really beginning
to bother him, because he was forced to call in other platoons of
Worker-Bots from other installations all over the planet.  If this kept up,
soon Mobius would be liberated from sheer lack of an occupying force.

But Snively let not this bring him down.  After all, he was Snively the
Great, Ruler of Robotropolis, Conqueror of Mobius, Master of All He
Surveyed!  No problem could hold *him* back for long.  He'd just think of a
way around it!  He laughed fiendishly.  And soon, he'd destroy the Freedom
Fighters once and for all!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Back in Knothole:

Sonic and Joseph were leaning against a tree, and they were up to about
their 4th chili dog each when Charles walked over to them and greeted them.

"Hello, boys," Charles' metallic voice spoke, as he took a seat on a nearby
stump.  "What are you up to today?"

Sonic shrugged.  "Not much, Unc.  I'm chillin' until Sal needs me for
somethin'.  Maybe I'll get to go to ex-'BUTT-nikland to kick some more
SWATBot tail!"

Charles smiled.  "Son, at the rate you kick 'Bot butt, we're not going to
have a single one left standing for target practice."

"I know!  Isn't that Way Past Cool?!"

Charles laughed.  "Yes, Sonic, it is."  He turned toward Joseph as Sonic
started into another chili dog.  "How about you, lad?  Are you just going
to take a break today...you should, considering you haven't left that dome
in 2 weeks."  The metallic hedgehog smirked.  "I'm surprised you haven't
discovered the secrets of the universe yet; you've not stopped work in
all this time to go out and relax."

"I'm not quite the vacationing type," smirked Joseph, "and besides," He
regained a more serious expression.  "it's important to all of Mobius
that I perfect this device.  Then, Robotnik will truely be dead."

"Well," said Charles, "give yourself SOME time to relax.  We don't want you
to have a nervous breakdown or anything like that.  We do have a good chunk
of time left for you and I to work in."

Joseph nodded somberly.  "It's as much for your benefit as it is mine."

Charles understood this silently.  "Look, just don't work yourself to
death."  He smirked.  "You're the other resident expert on the roboticizing
process, so stay alive long enough to finish the deroboticizer, okay?"

Joseph chuckled.  "Okay, okay, I get the idea."

Sonic chose then to complete his dog.  After gulping it down, he said,
"Anyway, how're you doing, Unc?"

"Me?  Oh, I'm fine.  I just completed work on the Cerebral Re-Activator
Ray--something I had in the works after Joseph and I completed the
nonmobile chamber--and it should greatly raise the number of roboticized
citizens we're able to return here.  All you have to do is make sure the
beam hits the head of the target, and their mind will override the
programming Robotnik put in them."  He smirked.  "And I'll have it in the
stores by Christmas."

Sonic smiled.  "Way Past Cool, Unc!  That'll make Sal happy."

Joseph nodded.  "Affirmative.  That will really be a big help."

Charles bowed.  "I try."

Then, Bunnie wandered over from a nearby hut.  "Hi, sugahhogs!" she shouted,
and hopped over to the tree.  "Anythin' new?"

Whenever Joseph looked at Bunnie--ever since he learned of the true nature
of the roboticizer, that is--he always felt a pang of sorrow for the
damaged rabbit.  Her body had been cursed with those ugly steel limbs, yet
she continued to be as she always had been.  His awe of her sheer will to
be happy was only exceeded by his shock of her lack of external bitterness
toward her life.  She was a survivor, and she still considered herself
(publicily, anyway) beautiful...yet, Joseph could not help but feel a
dagger plunged into his psyche from the sight of her.  He knew it wasn't
his fault for any of this, but he still felt responsible...she was one of
the main reasons he worked so hard on the deroboticizer.  It was one thing
to see someone who was totally roboticized: at least that person had lost
all of their external links to nature.  But Bunnie still was warm to the
touch, still had sparkling blue eyes to admire the world with...and a steel
arm to touch things with, and metal legs to walk across it.  He felt
that she was a metaphor for Mobius; damaged, sick from the contaminants
that seeped into her; yet still strong and determined to be well again.

Sonic shook his head.  "Nope."  He smirked.  "The metalheads are just
talkin' shop."

Charles and Joseph laughed.  "That we are," said Joseph, suddenly breaking
from his internal anguish.

Bunnie smiled.  "Well, god forbid Ah keep y'all from yaur work."

Joseph shrugged.  "Well, we're not accomplishing a whole lot now."  He
smiled at her.  "How are you doing?  Are you doing anything interesting?"

"Nah," she said, "Ah'm jus' killing tahm until Sal needs muh."  She looked
around a bit.  "It's a slow day in Knothole today, sugah.  Nuthin's gonna
happen 'til tonight, when we'll get s'more people outa Robo-tropolis."

Joseph raised an eyebrow.  "There's gonna be a mission tonight?"

Bunnie bemusedly looked at him.  "Yah, sugah, there's been a mission ev'ry
night.  Didn'--"  Then, she realized something.  "Oh yah, you've been
inside the whole time.  You wouldn' know."

While Joseph mulled this over, Charles broke into the conversation.  He
smiled, and said, "Excellent.  Now my new device can be tested!"  Before
Bunnie could ask, Charles explained what he had made.

"Y'all better tell Sal about that, sugah."  She waved to Sonic and Joseph,
and took Charles by the hand.  "She's planning the mission now," she said,
"So c'mon, let's go."  She dragged the disoriented Charles off to see the
Princess, while Sonic and Joe looked on.

"Well," Sonic said, "if that thing works, it'll be Way Past Cool!  No more
dragging spastic 'bots back to Knothole!"

Joseph nodded, and smiled.  "It'll certainly save you a lot of time."

"I hope so," he said, "Joe, how I hope so."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Snively sat down in the large green chair that was the main piece of
furniture in the control center.  He observed the various screens that
displayed live video of areas all over Robotropolis, not to mention Mobius
itself.  It looked quiet today; the Freedom Fighters still only became
overtly active at night.

He pushed some buttons, and reveled in the fact he was sitting in
Robotnik's chair.  He spun it around a few times to gloat.  After growing
tired of that, he talked into the intercom.

"Attention all SWATBots!" he piped, "roboticize all remaining prisoners,
and send them to work in Sectors 5A, 6G, and 436A-5."

A metallic voice on the other side acknoledged his transmission.

He smirked evilly.  "And do it slowly."

A quiet beep was heard from the speaker, and it fell silent.

Satisfied with that, he thought of other things he needed to do that day.
He had covered Robotnik's usual itinerary; He'd surveyed the landsdscape,
ordered the daily robotization, had lunch, sneered at the Great Forest,
brooded about the domination of Mobius, and abused a SWATBot.  The
Worker-Bots and SWATBots were able to handle the actual repairs by
themselves, and the refinaries would do just fine without any
Sniv-intervention for a year.  He sighed, as bored badniks are wont to on
occasions such as these.  What to do, what to do...

Then, his eyes brightened as he realized what he could do to pass the time.

He walked over to a R&D laboratory close by to the Control Center.  He
entered it, and gazed upon an object he was keeping in here for its own
good.

A Worker-Bot on the far side of Mobius, while in a crystal mine, hit the
large stone while trying to dig out a particularly tenacious formation.
It broke the pickaxe on contact.  So, following its programming, it called
over a SWATBot for assistance.  It blasted the stone out, and when it could
not determine its nature, sent it to Robotropolis a few days after
Doomsday had miserably failed (...as expected).

Since then, Snively was trying to figure out exactly how this stone,
the Amber Chaos Emerald, worked.

He decided against trying to make it power Robotropolis...Robotnik had
tried something similar once, and Snively thus reasoned that that course of
action would be suicide until the Freedom Fighters could be eliminated;
they would notice the sudden lack of smoke being belched out of the city,
and go to in to investigate, and then they'd find some way of stealing the
emerald from him.

So, he decided to pick a less obvious use for the emerald, yet one totally
predicitable to any individual familiar with Snively's mind: convert it
into a weapon that could destroy the Great Forest, and reveal Knothole.
However, this course of action was mysteriously difficult to accomplish.
The Emerald Ray would destroy non-natural things completely; SWATBots,
Worker-Bots, garbage, anything that was manufactured.  But if it was fired
at a tree, or a small animal, it'd heal it and make it stronger.
That annoyed him to no end.  But, he was determined to bend the emerald to
his will, no matter how difficult it would be to do so.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The sun was beginning to set, which signaled Knothole to begin to prepare
for the night's activities.  The Mobian village put away its things from
the day's work, ate its dinner, and cleaned up everything else before
preparing for a restful sleep.  Everyone, that is, but the Freedom Fighters
who were about to go out for a night's mission.

Sonic, Sally, Antoine, Charles, Dulcy and Bunnie were standing
around the updated holographic depiction of Robotropolis, planning their
route in and out in order to get as many people out as they could in a
night.  The Cerebral Re-Activator Ray dramatically increased this number,
so they figured on getting (at the least) about 20-25 people out that
night.

While they were discussing their plans, Joseph sat outside the hut,
silently listening to their plans.  He'd never been on a mission, and he
always had wondered how one had been organized.  Quite well, by his
observations.  Maybe they'd ask him to tag along one day...

He heard movement in the hut, and disappeared up a tree.  Using his martial
arts training, he slipped into the shadows without a sound.  Sonic was the
first to emerge.  "I'm gonna bag a ring, Sal," he said into the hut, and
ran off to the Power Ring Pool.  A few seconds after he left, the rest of
the Knothole crew went outside the hut.  They divided into teams, and
the leader of each team recieved a pistol to zap roboticized citizens with.
A second later, Sonic arrived with his ring.

"Charles, you're with Antoine," Sally said, "and Bunnie, you're with me.
Sonic will provide the diversion, and we'll ship the roboticized citizens
out on you, Dulcy."  She looked at the dragon.  "Do you remember the
rendezvous point, Dulcy?"  The dragon nodded.  "Good."  She took another
deep breath.  "The last ride out is at 00:00, at the predetermined
rendevous point."  She looked at her watch.  "Okay, sync your watches
at 21:00.....now!"  A round of beeping later, everyone had the same time.

"Everyone ready?"  A round of nodding.  "Okay, everyone on Dulcy but
Sonic."  They boarded the dragon.  "Sonic, you rem--"

"Like the recipe for Unc Chuck's chili dogs, Sal."

Sally smirked.  "Then go!"

Sonic, with a wink and a flourish, took off toward Robotropolis.  After
waiting a minute or two, Dulcy got a running start, and also took off
toward Robotropolis.

After they had left, Joseph lept out of the tree, and landed quietly on the
ground.  He vaguely considered going home, and waiting for them to return,
which would be what a logical, rational person would do.  But, for some
reason, he had a yearning to pursue them.  He wanted to kick 'bot butt as
well.  (Such feelings were becoming more common as the hedgehog DNA began
to sink deeper in to his genetic makeup.)  He pondered for about 5 minutes,
but finally snapped.  He was going to follow them.  But he wouldn't
interfere; he'd watch from a distance cloaked.  To study Mobian guerilla
warfare.  That's it.  He would *study* them.  It wasn't tagging along when
he was forbidden to, it was science!  He checked Bahb's energy levels.
Once he was sure they were up to 100%, he took off toward Robotropolis as
well.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Snivley stared into the control center's screens.  So far, the Freedom
Fighters hadn't shown up for the night's attempt at freeing Worker-Bots.
He had, like he had done for the last several nights, dedicated himself to
killing them all tonight.  He put Robotropolis on full alert, and had
his aerial forces circling the perimeter, as usual.  There would be no
mistakes tonight.

I(vos)H(yper)A(c)T(iv)ET(rackerof)H(e)AT(fromthe)HEDGEHOG (Robotnik's
last joke.  The acronym is I.HATE.THAT.HEDGEHOG.  He always did make
really, REALLY stupid jokes, Sniv thought.) radar beeped, detecting
Sonic roaring in to start the eternal diversion.  Sniv wondered what he'd
hit tonight.  He was running out of things to destroy...Robotropolis
wasn't much now to begin with.  The lazer fire he heard, and the
SWATBot calls for backup seemed to denote that Sonic was assulting one of
their primary refineries again.  Snively growled.  He either let the
hedgehog weaken Robotropolis further by destroying the refinary, or let the
hedgehog weaken Robotropolis further by his abduction of Worker-Bots.
Snively was beginning to DESPISE these Catch-22s.  Resources for SWATBot
production was going from 300% to 500% tomorrow, he vowed annoyedly.
Then, Snively angrily activated the intercom.

"Attention all SWATBots!  Hedgehog alert!  Report to Refinery 24-A!" he
bellowed, "AND SHOOT TO KILL!"

Snively realized that this was going to leave the Worker-Bots in Sectors G,
H, and I unguarded and ripe for FF attack.  But the refinery was more
important to Sniv, so he forced himself to tolorate the FF damage of his
labor force.  (Needlenose isn't the brightest bulb in the box, y'know.)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sonic raced through the refinary, smashing the hell out of anything that
looked fragile or important.  Dodging SWATBot fire, he swerved to and fro
inside the building, spin-dashing through the metallic menaces.  It would
normally take him maybe 5 minutes to totally disable one of these
establishments, but he needed to buy lots of time for the rest of the FFs
who were rescuing citizens.  So, he simply continued to race back and forth
irratically, damaging and destroying as much stuff as he could.

Meanwhile, the first 5 people they were able to grab and zap were loaded
onto Dulcy, and were flown back to the Great Forest as fast as Dulcy
could manage.  They were disoriented, but they got themselves together
enough to hang on to the dragon for dear life.

Joseph was watching the whole scene from a safe distance on the eastern
limits of Robotropolis.  He'd tapped into the security system, and was
getting a Sniv's-eye view of what was happening.  (He was also blanking
certain screens at random times, so to make it appear like simple technical
problems as a result of Doomsday, to keep Sniv from knowing where the FFs
were...but it wasn't directly hurting anything, so it was okay!)  It
appeared to Joseph that what Sonic had told him about Snively was correct.
He was a freakin' moron.  He was concentrating a majority of his forces in
one localized area to fight one Freedom Fighter from destroying something
that would be vital in the short-term; while the majority of the
Freedom Fighters were all over Robotropolis, taking a resource away that
would be vital for the long-term survival of Robotropolis.

His brother would have a cerebral hemorrhage from watching this.

Joseph smiled when he thought of his brother.  Jhack was a big, tough
high-ranking member of the warrior caste, a master of all things tactical.
He always kicked Joseph's butt in jed'ar (a game similiar to chess).  He
would have loved to watch this conflict unfold; it was a classic example of
unconventional warfare toppling a conventional regime.  He missed him
sometimes.  Sighing, he went back to watching the chaos unfold...

Then, he noticed something.  There were no SWATBots around the Command
Center.  Nary a one.  They were all either at the Refinary, or guarding the
prison blocks.  Sniv left his front door wide open, but locked the back!
Quickly, Joseph debated how to utilize this information.  Should he sneak
into it and directly sabotage the command center, and risk capture, or
should he try and tell someone else?  He shook his head.  No, telling
someone else would endanger the mission.  If anything was to be done, he'd
have to do it himself.  What to do...

He took a 25 Mobium coin from the side of his boot.  He examined it.  The
side he was looking at had a grim-faced King Acorn on it, with some writing
along the side.  "Heads, I go, tails, I don't."  He flipped the coin, and
caught it in midair.  He opened his hand; heads.  He smiled.  "Very well,
I go."  He quickly removed all evidence he had ever been there, threw the
coin over his shoulder, and stealthily stalked toward the egg-shaped
Command Center.  The coin flipped over again when it hit the ground; on
that side, Acorn was smiling.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sonic was beginning to tire of bouncing off the refinary walls.  He was not
only running out of things to smash, but the whole thing was getting old.
He just wanted to trash the damn thing, and move on to something more
interesting.  But what?  This was the only distraction Sally had given him.
He didn't know what other targets to hit.  There wasn't much left!

Then, it occurred to him that he could drag all the SWATBots into the
center of 'BUTT-nikville by attacking the control center.  Then, the rest
of the place would be nearly empty, and Sal could grab LOTS of guys and
gals.  He was rather pleased with himself for thinking at such a supersonic
pace.

So, the next pass by the control room, instead of blasting past it, he
blasted into it.  This bought him a few precious seconds while he pressed
every button in the room, pulled every switch, and generally started
trashing the place.  Alarms upon alarms went off as the entire plant went
critical.  "WARNING!  AUTODESTRUCT MODE ENGAGED!  30 SECONDS UNTIL
AUTODESTRUCT.  29.  28.  27.  26.  25...."  Sonic took that cue to juice
on outa there.  He engaged a little bit of power ring, and left a
deafening sonic boom to be the harbringer of the larger orange-yellow
explosion seconds later.

Snively went spastic.  Now not only had the Freedom Fighters gotten several
more Worker-Bots than usual out of Robotropolis, his favorite refinary was
totally destroyed.  He screamed and pounded his fists against the chair, a
la Robotnik.  "I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!!" he hollered as he ordered every
resource he had available to stop the hedgehog from escaping.

But meanwhile...

Joseph approached the central entrance point for the egg-shaped
control center.  As more SWATBots streamed out of it, he quickly snuck in
against the flow of traffic and got past the 'bot dispatch point without a
hitch.  Sniv was too irate at the recent destruction of some installation
he liked to put up floating spybots inside his own inner sanctum.  Joseph
took this as a good omen, and traversed his way up the access stairs.

After walking for a few minutes (and hiding from a few SWATBots that were
rapidly streaming down the stairs as well) up the stairs, he finally came
to the outer fringes of Sniv' innermost sancti sanctum.  This was obviously
where all the really important stuff was.  Various sensitive and fragile
computers were hidden all the way up here, not to mention Sniv's R&D labs.
He was really losing a lot of respect for Needlenose.  And since he didn't
have a lot to begin with, that's saying something.

He walked into the center of the room, and observed some monitors.  Ooohing
at the stuff he saw, he extended his dataspike from his right arm and
started downloading all of it.  After an incredibly short period of time,
he got it all.  200 virus checks later (2 seconds), he compiled it and
mulled over the information.  The latest version of the roboticizer
software, plans for everything Robotropolis had, locations of bases, codes,
everything Sniv didn't want anyone to know about he had.  Joseph cackled
quietly.  This would certainly be useful--he heard a noise.  Quickly, he
hid behind a pile of old boxes, and waited to see who drew near...

Snively stomped down the stairs, and rushed into his R&D room.  He
*thought* he heard the sound of rapid downloading, but there was obviously
nobody there.  Quickly, he ran to the back of the room to fetch his Emerald
Ray.  He kicked some boxes out of the way as he reached the zero-energy
field in which he kept it--a shadow--he turned to look behind the pile...

^L

Nothing.  Sniv shuddered.  He must be so angry, he thought, his mind was
starting to play tricks on him.  He took a breath, and took the gun from
the field.  He wanted to be sure that he had it with him if the hedgehog
tried to attack him tonight, and he believed he'd figured out how to make
it kill.  He didn't know, tho, but he didn't want to have it laying out,
anyway.  He rushed out of the room and shot back upstairs to the central
control center, beginning to snarl somethin' fierce.

After he had left, Joseph cautiously poked his head out.  Sniv had taken
some sort of weapon from the far side of the room, and rushed back
upstairs.  Obviously, it was meant to attack Sonic with.  He hoped he'd be
able to evade it once Sniv started pursuing Sonic actively.

Either way, he had what he basically needed.  Now, he'd just set up a nice
cat's-cradle program within the Robotropolis computer system OS, and...

"RED ALERT!  RED ALERT!  HEDGEHOG PRIORITY ONE!"

Alarms!  Had he been discovered?  Arrgh!  He had no time left now.  Quickly,
he looked around for an exit.  He couldn't take the door--footsteps!  Shit!
He spotted a vent and jumped up and through it, closing it behind him.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

But it was not Joseph that set off the alarms.  It was the first
Mobius-biased Freedom Fighter hedgehog, Sonic, who set off the alarms.
He managed to set off every alarm system that Sniv had downstairs, calling
every SWATBot in Robotropolis back home to defend it from the blue blaze of
vengence that was Sonic.  He started his usual smash-and-run technique
there, attempting to take down the central Robotropolis SWATBot dispatch
grid, the food machines, and anything else that looked somewhat valuable.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

But Snivley knew the alarms to be the work of the hedgehog.  Immediately,
he rushed down the stairs, through his lab, and to a secret minihangar.
There, Snivley kept *his* new pride-and-joy, Robotnik's old hovercraft.
He'd dug it out of the wreckage, and refurnished it himself.  It looked as
good as new, and now he'd add one more accessory to it; his (hopefully)
new Emerald Death Ray.

He slapped the turret into place in front of the hovercraft, and jumped
inside of it.  Wasting no time, he started the formitable craft and blasted
out through a nearby wall.

The unexpected explosion was felt all over the remains of Robotropolis.
When the Freedom Fighters spotted the hovercraft, several of the
weaker-hearted (namely, Antoine) quickly panicked.

"Aaaa!!  It is zee Robotnik!  Ze has come back from ze dead to make us
dead like heem!  Aaaaa!"

Charles didn't even try to calm him down.  "Run!" shouted Sir Charles, and
took the petrified Antoine by the paw as the remainder of the rescued
roboticized bretheren followed suit.

Meanwhile, Sonic rushed out of the building, dodging some irksome SWATBot
fire, and was observing the hovership's flight path.  He was apparently
circling the center of Robotropolis, looking for where the hedgehog might
have hidden.  He quickly came to the conclusion that he'd give the ship
something to look for.

He rushed over to the center of the street, and started yelling.
"HEY, NEEDLENOSE!" he yowled from the streets below, "YEAH, YOU IN
RO-CLUCKNIK'S RIDE!"  This sucessfully got Snively's attention.
"PREPARE TO DIE, HEDGEHOG!" he bellowed, and started firing amber beams
down upon him.

"Uh-oh." Sonic thought, and swiftly began swerving through the center of
Robotropolis to avoid the beams.  "Stand still!" Snively muttered as he
continued aiming, firing, and missing the hedgehog.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph was watching the battle unfold from inside the intake vent for the
Control Center, high up on the remains of the `roof' (if an egg-shaped
structure can have a `roof').  He had noted that even though Snively
believed he was weaving around as irratically as the hedgehog, he passed
through a certain area of space every few seconds or so.  Joseph was
working on refining the exact target area, and was beginning to time his
envelope so he'd know when to....now!  Snively had passed through a section
of space every 2.3 minutes.  In another 2.3 minutes, he'd be there again,
and then would be the time Joseph would enact his plan.

He watched silently from his perch, continuing to watch the battle
unnoticed.  Sonic was irritating Snively rather efficiently.  Apparently,
whatever sort of `ray' he was using was constantly missing the hedgehog,
and he was making sure Snively knew it.  "HEY SNOTLEY!  NICE AIM!"  "YOU
WILL EAT THOSE WORDS, HEDGEHOG!"  And then another barrage of firing from
the hovercraft, even more badly aimed than the first.

He prepared himself to enact his plan.  30 seconds.  20.  10...9.....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At the exact moment Snively first entered an area directly below Joseph's
vent, he jumped into the hovercraft, taking the repugnant imp by surprise!
With a smooth movement, Joseph grabbed Snively by the neck, and started
throttling him.  "Die, you hideous excuse for a semi-evolved simian!" he
shouted into Snively's ears, and attempted to take control of the craft.

But Snively didn't fight fair.  (Or well.)  He kicked at the hedgehog's
stomach, only to fracture a few toes on the android's chestplate.  Yelling
in agony, he pulled a small dirk from his belt, and tried to shove it
through the hedgehog's armpit.  It penetrated it, but didn't even seem to
slow the creature down...then he got a good look at him, and then that's
when he really became frightened.

He looked like Sonic's body double, aside from the bright silver eyes.
Also, the hedgehog didn't look like he took prisoners.  After a quick
assessment of the mood of his attacker, he came to the conclusion that he
was about to--

Joseph knocked the little rodent out with a single punch.  He tore the
knife from his armpit, and threw it out the window.  Now, while trying
to regain control of the odd craft, he was also attempting to disarm the
strange weapon, which seemed to be approaching overload levels.
Apparently, whatever this thing was powered by, it was too much to be
withheld by the weapon for very long, once it was fired up.  He feared it
was going to explode, and he was still far too high up to jump--he quickly
pulled hard to the right, barely missing a tall buidling.  He was still too
high to jump, and he didn't know how powerful the power source was.  As he
fumbled around with the access port for the fuel cell, he mused what Sniv
could have found that was so powerful?  Some sort of radioactive isotope?
Alien technology?  Perhaps a Keld'yrian had lost something again...

All this time, Sonic had been hanging out, watching the aerial battle.
He was surprised to see his `brother' here, but he was glad he'd shown up.
Joe'd given Snotley the pounding of his life.  And soon, he'd just bring
the ship down to Mobius, and then they'd REALLY have him...

He finally fumbled with a octogon-shaped thing, and quickly removed it from
the gun.  He threw the powerless weapon off the ship, and tossed the stone
casually into the back seat, not bothering to examine it (steering a
unfamiliar ship tends to discourage scientific discovery), and continued to
attempt to regain control of Robotnik's round hovership.  He tried to make
it go lower by cutting the power, but all that suceeded in doing was make
the ship slow down.  That wasn't the effect he'd desired, but at least he
could concentrate on the altitude control.  As he fiddled with the lever,
he realized he was now drifing around on the eastern outskirts of
Robotropolis.  He was rather surprised.  This vehicle travelled rather
quickly.  It must be the lack of its usual load.  He snickered at his joke.
Robotnik must have needed a whole lotta thrust to move this thing, he
pondered, and took the lever in his hand.  Then, taking a breath, he began
to slowly pull the lever down...

While Joseph had been trying to regain control, Snively had slowly regained
consciousness, and gradually came to the conclusion that this passenger was
not wanted in his hovership.  Reaching silently under the seat as the craft
started to come to a halt, he pulled out a short pipe Robotnik had kept
under the seat to club things with if they came too close to him in flight.
With a slow, purposeful movement, he raised the club above his head, and
swung just as Joseph was starting to lower the ship slowly to the ground.

The impact from the club didn't hurt Joseph as much as it surprised him.
The metallic `thud' from the club attempting to damage his right lobe did,
however, make his teeth rattle unpleasantly.  He fell forward from the
blow, suddenly sending the small ship on a course straight up into the sky.
As it rocketed upwards, it began exerting strong g-forces against the
contents of the craft.  Snively, being a runty little weakling, was
immediately forced to the floor of the craft after the second g, while
Joseph (being an android and having more resistance to such things)
merely readjusted his stance a bit, and desperately tried to regain
control of the reddish blur before it entered a low Mobius orbit.

Sonic watched the ship bob downwards, stop, and then scream up into the
upper stratasphere.  Needless to say, this surprised him.  Obviously, Joe
wasn't the world's greatest pilot.  Or maybe he was going to fly all the
way up there to drop Snively, or--lazer fire from behind him.  Uh-oh.
The SWATBots had wised up, and now had figured out where he was.  He
quickly poured on some speed, and raced away from the area, hoping to buy
Joe some time...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

With a small degree of difficulty, he stuck out his hand and took hold of
the lever.  Not wanting to be thrown out of the craft, he slowly started to
pull it back down; and slowly, the ship began to stop.  It came to a halt
again near the center of the lever's pull-area, to just about the limit of
the Mobian atmosphere.  Taking the opportunity to relax, seeing that
Snively was too weak at this height above Mobius to put up any sort of a
fight, Joseph looked up to note this unique perspective.  He could see the
darker areas with almost no ozone above it from the lighter, bluish areas
that had a higher level.  It was odd to observe such a thing; one comes to
believe after long examinations of the sky on a clear day that the sky
seems to be an impervious bubble from which the rest of the universe is
seperated.  But, he thought, as one gets closer to the fringe of the
atmosphere, one can see the small gaps that are formed as air currents
cause the air to flow around in erratic patterns, leaving for minutes at a
time small holes in the atmosphere; yet, from the ground, the sky always
appears to be a solid blue bubble.  It brought to mind a proverb his
grandfather had taught him... "Even the strongest wall has a hole."  He
waved his hand around in the small, black gap.  "A hole." he logically
said, and exhaled a breath into the hole, filling it.  "Filled."

After looking into the sky some more, he decided to return to a more
Snively-compatible altitude, before the now quite-cold and weak human went
and died.  He was sure that Sonic could figure out what to do with him.
Probably put him on trial and lynch him, or maybe throw him in Ironlock.
Either way, it was an affair of state, so he'd try to stay out of it.
He was probably in enough trouble as it was going off to Robotropolis
without telling anyone.  Ruing Sally's potential wrath, Joseph pulled
the lever slowly back, and gradually brought the hovership back closer
to Mobius.

As he got nearer to the blackish cloud above Robotropolis, Snively began
coughing himself back to consciousness.  As he entered the murky depths of
the pollution cloud, all vision became temporarily obscured.  After
penetrating the center of the cloud, Snively gasped out a few words.

"Where... *cough* are you tak-- *cough* ing me?"

"You're going back to Robotropolis, Snively."

"*cough* Huh? *cough*"

"Yeah, you're going back to Robotropolis, and Sonic is going to decide what
to do to you next."

The ship broke through the cloud, and the air slowly began to clear up.
They were still high above the tops of the buildings, tho, but they could
now both see each other clearly.

"The hedgehog won't have the chance to.  My SWATBots will finish him before
we even hit the ground!"

"Oh, really?" Joseph snarled, and grabbed Sniv's green collar.  "I don't
think so, Snotley."  He lifted the protesting Snively outside the
hovercraft.  "You're going to call off your marauding SWATBot armies right
now."  He grabbed the microphone for the com-unit with his other free hand,
and shoved it into Snively's face.  "Aren't you?"

Searching for any sort of retort, Snively could only gasp.  After a second
of hanging precariously over the ground, tho, he finally stuttered,
"Att-t-tention all SWATBots!!  Cease Priority One pursuit and await
further orders!"

Joseph clicked the microphone off.  "Good work, monkey.  Perhaps we'll keep
you around to read commercials."  Snively could only stare blackly at his
obnoxious orange opponent of his overtaking of Mobius.  "Now, stop
squirming around, or I'll save Sonic the trouble and snap your neck right
here."  The human stopped wiggling.  "Good."

The ship finally came to a slow halt 3 inches above a stretch of road
somewhere within the center of Robotropolis.  Joseph dragged the whining
Snively back into the ship, and took him with him as he dehovercrafted out
the other side.  Looking around, he realized that it was almost time for
the Freedom Fighters present to go to the rendezvous point on the outskirts
of town, and then return to Knothole for the night.  Quickly, he realized
he'd have to get their attention in order to bring them back here.  So, he
shook Snively again.  "Flares!  I need a flare gun!  Now!"

Snively quickly gesticulated to the glove compartment, where there was a
loaded, largish flare gun.  Joseph quickly grabbed it, and fired the device
into the air.  It shot into the sky, and into a bank of explosive gas that
one of the factories had recently set off.  The ignited phosphorous in the
flare reacted with the various methanes in the cloud, and created a large
explosion that quickly became a massive one.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, Sonic and the rest of the Freedom Fighters had assembled with a
large group of recently renewed roboticized Mobian citizens.  Sonic was
attempting to explain what had happened to him as quickly as possible.

"...and then, Joe comes flyin' off the roof of Sniv's command center, right?!
He must've said something cool like me, and done some of that wicked
kung-fu stuff he does, 'cuz Sniv went down for the count in a Sonic Second!
Then, he starts joyriding in 'BUTT-nik's hovercraft, and was tryin' to land
but Snotley musta done somethin' 'cuz Joe fell forward and hit some lever
and then the ship went screamin' up, up, Way Past Up into the sky,
right about--" and just as he pointed to where it went up, a small flare
went up into a small cloud.  Within seconds, the whole sky seemed to be
on fire.  "--there."

"He must be in trouble!" Sally said, "Sonic, go--"

When Sonic heard the word `go', he figured out the rest for himself.
Quickly (which is the way he did most things), he took out a power ring and
ultra-juiced toward the center of Robotropolis.

As he entered Robotropolis, the usual entourage of SWATBots arrived, and
began chase.  Normally, he'd be pelted by lazer fire, but this time they
only followed him.  Sonic found this odd, naturally, and came to a
temporary stop a few blocks from the flare's origin.  The SWATBots came to
a halt about 30 feet away, and floated in mid-air omniously.  They stared
at each other for a few moments.  Then, Sonic broke the silence.

"Hey, bucketheads!  Why don't you shoot me?!  I'm the Hedgehog Priority
One!  Your JOB is to shoot me!"

The SWATBots looked at each other for a few moments, obviously relaying
information back and forth.  Then, the bot on the pursuit module closest to
him said, "Snively has overrode our programming, and has ordered all units
to pursue, but not damage or terminate Hedgehog Priority One."

Sonic looked puzzled.  "Why?"

"Unknown," the 'bot said.

"Way Past Weird," Sonic thought, "maybe Snively's captured Joseph, and
wants me as ransom."

With that, Sonic took off again, toward the center of Robotropolis.  A
second later, the 'bots took off after him.

Joseph was beating Snively's head against a wall to sedate him when Sonic
arrived seconds later, being trailed by the oddly non-violent SWATBots.
Sonic's view of the situation changed rapidly after that.  "Yo, Joe!" he
shouted, and ran closer to the orange doppleganger.

Joseph stopped clobbering Snively for a moment, and allowed his stunned
body to slump to the ground.  "Hey, Sonic."

Sonic looked at Joseph, then at Snively.  "I see you've been busy," Sonic
smirked, "but you didn't leave a lot for me to play with!"

Joseph shrugged.  "The opportunity presented itself, so I seized it."

Sonic kicked Snively lightly in the chest, which didn't seem to phase him.
"Looks like he's just about ready to die."

"You want to do the honors, Sonic?"

"Huh?"

"Do you," Joseph plainly spoke, "want to finish him off?"

Sonic looked at Joseph strangely.  "You mean..."

"Kill him.  Yes."

Sonic's face went blank as he considered this.  If he killed Snively, it
would finally put an end to all of Robotnik's legacy in one blow.  No more
roboticized people.  No more pointless deaths.  The world could be
beautiful and clean again.  Joseph would make a deroboticizer, Uncle Chuck
and Bunnie and everyone else would be well again, and they'd find a way to
bring back King Acorn.  And everything would be beautiful and clean again.

But Sonic had never killed anything before.  He didn't think he could....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He remembered when he was a young hedgehog, and he'd built a small rabbit
trap.  He'd built it because he'd overheard Uncle Chuck complaining to one
of his friends about how rabbits kept getting through the fence he'd built
somehow, and eating his produce.  So, Sonic decided he'd make Unc Chuck
proud of him, and kill the rabbit that kept getting in the next time it
tried.  He thought of the proper way of constructing such a trap, collected
enough stuff to make it out of, and snuck into Uncle Chuck's workshop to
build it.

He'd been proud of that trap, he recalled, and he'd tested it throughly to
be sure it'd work.  It was a small wooden cage, held together with bits of
twine.  The front of it opened up with hinges, and a small stick would hold
it up.  A little piece of string could then be attached to it, and close
the cage.  In retrospect, it was a pathetic, primitive device, but it did
the job...

He'd set it out in the back yard, in the middle of the garden.  In it, he'd
put a carrot, covered with a layer of peanut butter.  (Uncle Chuck had told
him once that small animals loved the taste of it, so Sonic put it on as
additional `bait'.)  Then, he covered the string with a thin layer of dirt,
so to be sure the animal couldn't see it, and hid in a bush.

About 15 minutes later, the rabbit hopped into the yard.  It sniffed
around, nibbled on some lettuce, and then noticed the peanut-butter carrot.
As planned, it hopped into the cage.  The second it was all the way in, he
pulled the rope, and closed the cage.  The rabbit frantically tried to push
its way out, but it was far too weak to push open the door.

Sonic cheered upon capturing the rabbit.  Uncle Chuck would be so proud of
him!  He'd get a few extra chili dogs for this!  But, he thought, he'd have
to finish the job.  So, he found a large rock that would eclipse the cage,
and difficultly picked it up.  By slowly walking toward the cage, he was able
to keep the rock above his head so to more easily smash the rabbit.  He
finally arrived close enough to the cage to see the rabbit.

The pathetic look in its eyes drained Sonic of its resolve.  No matter how
much vegetables it had eaten, Sonic had thought, it didn't deserve to die
for it.  He just threw the rock in the opposite direction, toward a small
creek, and ran away from the cage.

A minute or two later, he was able to find Uncle Chuck at the chili dog
stand.  He waited until he was done serving a customer, and then explained
the situation to him.

Oddly enough, Charles had said, "Sonic, I'm proud of you for not
killing that rabbit."

Sonic blinked.  "I don't get it, Uncle Chuck.  Why?  I chickened out.  I
choked."

Charles put his hand on his shoulder.  "Sonic, you didn't kill that rabbit
not because you're not brave, you didn't because you felt it was wrong.
Your conscience told you not to, because you know it is wrong to kill.
That's not a bad thing.  In fact, it's good.  If more people were like you,
Mobius would be a perfect world."

"Really?" Sonic said.

"Yes."

And then, Uncle Chuck gave him a hug, and they walked back to his
garden.  Charles picked up the cage (after commenting on its handiwork
positively) and wandered over to a neighbors' house and borrowed a small
burlap bag.  Then, he carefully dropped the contents of the cage into the
bag, and put the wooden construction down.

After that, he signaled for a PeaceBot via a special watch he had on his
arm for that purpose, and gave it some very specific instructions on what
to do with it.  The PeaceBot beeped in compliance, took the bag carefully,
and zipped off to parts unknown.

He'd remembered hearing Uncle Chuck tell him later that the rabbit was
released on a different part of Mobius, where it wouldn't eat anyone's
garden up.  He smiled when he remembered that Uncle Chuck had always been
proud of him for never killing anything, and that he'd promised never to...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

But, if he didn't kill Snively, he could escape from whereever they'd put him,
and return to Robotropolis.  Then, he'd keep hurting people and destroying
things and doing things that were Way Uncool.  Maybe he'd get lucky and
kill one of his friends.  Maybe he'd even kill Sally!  Or him!  Then,
something or other would cause Joseph to NOT make a deroboticizer, and
everyone who'd been roboticized would die...Uncle Chuck...

No, Sonic thought, he'd have to break his promise.  The cycle had to end.
If he didn't, too many more lives would be put in jeopardy.  He had the
chance, and he had to make the most of it.

"It would be," Sonic said, "a pleasure."

With a fluid movement, he grabbed the semi-unconscious Snively by the
collar, and threw him against the wall.  He punched him a few times in the
stomach, yelling and cursing at him the whole time.  He'd occasionally
shout out, "This is for--", nail Snively in the face, and then yell a
name of a FF, friend, or just some innocent person who had been killed
or roboticized.

After a while, Sonic began to sense that Snively was just about to buy it.
He knew if he was going to complete what he had started, he had an
obligation to make it impressive.  Then, he knew what he had to do.
He curled up into a ball on the ground, and started to power up a
Sonic Spin Dash Attack...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The rest of the FFs around arrived there seconds later.  Dulcy had returned
home, with the last load of citizens they'd get that night.  Antoine had
also been taken home as well, because he was just too mental at that time
to even join the rest of them to find out what had happened to Sonic and
Joseph.  So, just Bunnie, Sally, and Charles arrived at the scene.

Needless to say, they were surprised that Snively was nearly dead on his
feet, and his large nose (not to mention the rest of him) looked all bloody
and bruised.  However, they were more surprised to see Sonic getting ready
to do a Sonic Spin Dash Attack right into him!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Charles knew he had only seconds to act.  While the rest of them were simply
struck dumb with shock, he rushed toward Sonic and shouted "STOP!"

The shout distracted the hedgehog just long enough for him to slow down
to a low enough speed so Charles could rush into him to knock him over.
"No, Sonic!"

This was one of the times Sonic was simply struck speechless.  He tried to
form a complete sentence explaining why he was about to kill an Enemy of
the State, that it was worth a life to save a million others, etc, but he
simply could open and shut his mouth and make the articulate conjunction,
"Uhh...".

But Charles was far more verbal.  "Sonic, it is not for you to decide who
lives or dies!  I don't care if Snively *has* nearly destroyed this world,
and I wouldn't care if Robotnik was in the same position Snively is in!
Killing is wrong!  It would make you no better than Robotnik to destroy
this pitiful creature!"  He pointed at the area that Snively was occupying.
"We will take him back to Knothole, and--"

But when he, and everyone else who had been intently listening to Charles,
turned to look at the spot he was pointing at, he was gone!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sonic broke the silence with "Oh, man..."

"Where'd the smeg he'd go?" Joseph said.

"Never mind that," Sally said, "we better get out of here before he finds
out where the...uh...smeg WE went!"

"Agreed," Charles said nervously, "we can discuss this back at Knothole in
the morning."

Sonic, silently damning himself for blowing it, let everyone join hands,
each person linking to another in a chain, and grabbed the last link in the
chain, Sally.  He looked back, checked that everyone was attached, and took
a ring from his backpack.

He looked at Joseph, but said nothing.  Joseph understood his silence, and
spoke softly.  "No, Sonic, I'll run interference," he said to the blue (in
more ways than one now) version of his body, "You just get everyone
safely back to Knothole."

The hedgehogs nodded, and Sonic fired up the ring, albeit grimly,
and took off out of Robotropolis.  Distant lazer fire was heard seconds
later, but none of it seemed to hit its mark, as usual.

However, Joseph chose to stay behind not to run interference, but to get
the rock that he had taken out of Snively's weapon.  He grabbed it from the
backseat of the idling hovercraft, and examined it closely for the first
time.  Within seconds, he realized exactly what it was; Snively had somehow
gotten the Amber Chaos Emerald from somewhere.  He didn't even want to
guess, tho.  What was important now was that he had it, not him.

He was already thinking of all the good ways he could use it when lazer
fire started raining toward him.  SWATBots!  Now he was in `the deep
merde', as Antoine might have called it.  He quickly turned on the hedgehog
drive, and zipped away at a rapid pace.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, a familiar figure was tapping some buttons on Robotnik's chair,
and ordering various SWATBot batallions out to capture the stone from the
orange hedgehog...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph dodged the lazer fire as best he could.  He wondered how Snively had
recovered so quickly.  Or perhaps this was an automatic program in case of
the injury of either Robotnik or Snively.  He didn't know, and didn't care
a whole lot at the moment, either.

He tried to devise a plan of escape.  If he could get free of Robotropolis
proper, then he could lose the 'bots in the maze of garbage.  The only
problem was that there were a LOT of SWATBots left, and Joseph couldn't
stop to fight them, or risk the Chaos Emerald falling back into Snively's
hands.

He continued to dodge some 'bot plane fire and the pursuing platoon of
SWATBots.  He was able to trick one of them into flying into a wall, and
another by splitting it in twain on the corner of a building.  But there
were still a lot of them around!  And they were *gaining* on him!

Quickly, he knew he had to really throw on the speed, or be overtaken by
the SWATBots.  But how?  He didn't have a power ring or anything.  He
certainly couldn't fly away; he had neglected to bring his antigrav belt.
Returning fire was right out because he was plasma cannonless.  And
surrendering meant death.

Then, he remembered the glowing Chaos Emerald he had in his hand.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sonic had told him a week or two ago how he fired up a power ring.
"It's like...well, imagine having a chili dog in your right hand."
He lifted up his hand to demonstrate.  "Now, imagine the dog's chili and
sauce starting to run over your hand.  That's the energy from the ring.
Now, you certainly can't *eat* the power ring...it'd blow off your jaw."
He smirked.  "Besides, they don't taste very good."

He lifted his empty hand higher in the air, like he'd hold a power ring in
his hand.  "Now, try to imagine the chili starting to run down your arm,"
he said, starting to trace the path with his left hand. "tingling over
your forearm, elbow, and finally all the way to your armpit."  He paused to
let this sink in, and moved on.  "After it's covered your arm, imagine the
flow of chili starting to move down your ribs, becoming stronger after
jumpin' over each one.  After that, have it fall down your stomach, and
finally have it dribble down your leg."

Sonic resumed a more relaxed posture.  "After that, your body should
probably take over.  It's reflex to me, but you should be able to do it
right one day.  It's a Way Past Cool feeling, like you're a big blue--"
He smirked.  "--well, orange, in your case.  A big, orange lightning bolt."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And if that could be done with a power ring, he thought...

As Joseph ran, he began to lift the emerald above his head, in his right
hand.  He imagined the chili dog....

The figure in the chair watched the orange hedgehog lift the emerald above
his head, seeming to begin some sort of meditation ritual.  The figure
wondered what the hedgehog was trying to do.

As he began to visualize the chili dog beginning to drip down his hand, the
emerald began to glow brighter and brighter...seeming to power up for
the occasion.

The person in the chair was entranced by the brighter-glowing emerald.
Could it be that a Chaos Emerald could also be used as a power source for
organic beings?

Down his arm....and the emerald's light went from orange to yellow to green
to blue to indigo to violet and beyond in under a second.  "Wow," Joseph
said, and continued to visualize the chili dog exercize.

The figure quickly kept up with the emerald's frequencies, altering the
scanning units to counter.

He imagined the power flowing down to his ribs, lapping over each one.
The emerald was now giving off strong x-rays.  This was beginning to
frighten him.  But he could not stop.  Even if there weren't any SWATBots
chasing him, the feeling was intoxicating.  He was high on the sheer amount
of power he had in the palm of his hand.

The figure was glued to the screens.  The level of power from the emerald
was far higher than had ever been calculated in such a small crystal.
It could be even more powerful than the total collective energy from the
Mobian sun...

When the energy rolled onto his stomach, the crystal started giving off
gamma rays.  If it wasn't for the fact Joseph's body was designed to be
spaceworthy, it would have instantly killed him.  This led him to the
conclusion that only he would be able to safely use the emerald in this
way.  Of course, he was too busy trying not to fly into a dead end to mull
that thought over further.

The figure was passionately awaiting what would happen next.  The SWATBots
had almost steered the hedgehog right into a dead end, where'd he either
stop, or become a greasy spot on a wall.  Either way, he'd get what he
wanted.  He laughed at the simplicity of it all...

Joseph kept running.  The final stage of powering up must take the longest,
he noted, and ran down an alley.

Oh no.

The alley ended in a wall.  There wasn't enough room to turn around.  The
SWATBots were pursuing him, and were now firing at him with extreme
prejustice.

The power hit his legs.

The wall stretched before him now, and in one second he'd--

All reality snapped away in one blast of light.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The figure in the control room screamed, and pounded his fists against the
armsrests.  No!  That was impossible!  Nobody could bend reality!  How?!
Why?!  He couldn't think of an answer, which even made him madder, and just
contented himself with screaming, and bludgeoning things.

The hedgehog had powered up the crystal to a level that his instruments
couldn't even measure, been surrounded by an ultra-powerful version of
Sonic's usual nova effect, and shot *through* reality.  The wall had
literally bent IN, and he had blasted through it.  A second later, the wall
had normalized, like nothing had even happened, and his platoon of SWATBots
slammed into it, destroying them instantly.

The night had been a tour de' force by the Freedom Fighters.  They'd not
only gotten about 25% of the remaining Worker-Bots out of Robotropolis, but
they'd destroyed a few good refinaries and somehow (and the figure had no
explaination for this) downloaded the sum of the main computer's knowledge.

That fact just made him madder.  And the figure didn't even have a Chaos
Emerald left to experiment on, to boot!

However, even this horrid experience had an upside.  He smirked
unpleasantly as he turned the chair around, toward a slab in the back of
the room.  The figure looked over at the unconscious form of Snively, who
occupying the slab, and was plotting a way to give Snively a very,
VERY unpleasant surprise when he woke up....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Everyone had arrived back at Knothole but Joseph.  The night's activity had
exhausted the Freedom Fighters, and they still had to instruct the new
rescuees on basic procedure.  But that could wait until the morning.
They gave all who needed it temporary lodging somewhere, reunited as many
families as possible, and put the rest of the village to sleep.

Two hedgehogs, however, were still awake.  They sat by the Power Ring pool,
staring out at the ripples that formed in the water.  Occasionally, one of
them would skip a rock over the surface of the liquid, attempting to break
the tension.

After a while, one of the hedgehogs spoke.  "Sonic?"

Sonic nodded.  "Yeah, Unc?"

"Do you want to talk about this now?"

Hesisitation.  "Well, if you want to."

Charles coughed.  "Yes, I do."  He paused.  "I'm not angry at you, boy.
Not in the least.  If I had been in your place, and Joseph had given me the
option, I would have done the same thing.  It was just that I didn't expect
you to think of doing that..."

He sighed.  "In retrospect, I suppose killing Snively might have been a
feasible option; seeing that he escaped somehow.  However, I still feel it
would have been morally wrong to do so, no matter how evil he is."

Sonic put his face in his hands.  "I'm confused."

Charles put his hand on the hedgehog's shoulder.  "Boy, so am I.  These
kind of situations are always the worst.  This war....god, this war...it's
starting to take its toll on you kids.  I wouldn't wish the position you've
been in on Robotnik.  All this death.  I'm surprised you didn't crack
earlier; you've had the opportunity countless times, when you could have
just killed Robotnik and/or Snively, and ended it."

Sonic mumbled, "It was because...because I would have endangered others if
I woulda killed 'BUTT-nik or Snotley in those situations.  Yeah, I coulda
spin-dashed 'BUTT-nik open, and finished off Snively a few times, but I
always had to save someone else, or stop a berzerk machine from destroying
somethin' important.  This time, I had a Way Past Clear shot, and I knew I
might not get another."

Charles nodded.  "Sonic, it's okay...everyone is entitled to act on impulse
occasionally--"

Sonic stood up and angrily pointed to himself.  "But I let you down!
I became as bad as Robotnik when I got pumped up to kill!"

Charles' eyes glowed a surprised red.  "You certainly did not!  Your father
would have done the same thing, and he was the finest man I ever knew!"

Sonic's resolve fell as Charles said this.  "H-he would?"

"Yes, he would have.  Your father was so much like you, boy, that I
sometimes have to remind myself not to call you by his name."

Sonic dazedly sat back on the ground, and stared back over the water.
"Everything's gone crazy."

Charles scooted closer to Sonic, and gave him a hug.  "It will be right
again some day, boy.  It will."

Sonic whimpered softly, and let his head fall upon Charles' shoulder.
"But what if I go crazy like that again?  What if I lose control, and--"

Charles comforted the confused hedgehog.  "You won't."

Nothing more needed to be said.  Nothing more could be said.  All that was
left for Charles to do was to hold his nephew in his arms, watch the sun
rise in the east, and make him right again...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was the gap between realities.  It had been called the `Void' by some,
`Creation' by others.  But it was everywhere and nowhere, at alltime and
notime.  It was the universal nexus, where all dimentions combined.
This is where Joseph found himself after breaking through the alley wall.

He drifted through nothingness for a moment while the emerald idled down.
It took an incredible strain on him, but he was able to return the mighty
object to orange status again.  He felt weak, and he so wanted to sleep...

He saw the floating crystal `iceberg' a few miles....feet....inches?
Length, width, height, volume, mass, location; they meant nothing here.
Everything was as close as anything else in this strange semi-universe.
Either way, he drifted for some period of time before finally pulling
himself onto it.

He looked around.  There was a small crystalline home here.  He wondered
what else could survive in this odd omnispace...he walked over to the door,
and knocked upon it a few times.  A voice.  "Hold on, Nagus, I'm coming."
So there were at least two other people here, he thought, and stepped a
polite distance away.  The door opened.

He looked at the figure.  He was dressed in a outfit that looked like it'd
seen better days.  It was kind of ratty, and there were stains on the
lapels from what looked like a few years of dinners.  Yet, it appeared to
have once been regal, and it denoted authority.  The figure was tall for a
Mobian fox, about 4' something rather than the usual 3'.  He had a
tarnished, dented crown on, and his eyes gave the impression he'd been to
Hell and back again on several occasions.

"You aren't Nagus," he said, evaluating the strange creature.  "Who are
you?  How did you get here?"

Joseph bowed.  "Greetings, citizen.  I am Joseph.  I seem to have ran a
hole through the time/space continuum.  Would you have any idea how to
leave this strange world?"

"That depends," he said, intrigued.  "Where did you come from."

"Mobius, specifically around Robotropolis.  Time 'round 3237."

The figure was surprised.  "Oh?  Well, I'm from Mobius too.  In fact,
I'm--"

"Look," Joseph interrupted, "excuse my rudeness, but it's vital I get back
to Mobius before my friends start panicking and go back to Robotropolis to
look for me.  You understand, right?"

The figure looked a bit hurt, but quickly got over it.  "Yes, yes, of
course.  Now," He pointed to a bluish hole on the horizon.  "go over to
that hole, and run through it as fast as you can.  And KEEP running through
it.  After a minute, you'll pop out in the Great Unknown.  The Great Forest
is to the east."

Joseph nodded.  "Thanks, citizen!"

"Please," the figure smiled, "just call me Acorn!"

While running off, Joseph smiled, and yelled back, "Sure, Acorn!  See you
some other time!"  With that, he fired up the crystal, and shot through the
hole as fast as he could.

As the figure zoomed out of sight, King Acorn smiled.  "Oh, you will,
orange one.  You will."  Then, he walked back into his hut, and closed the
door quietly behind him, leaving no evidence of any activity there at all.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Snively groggily awoke on the cold, hard steel plate in the back of the
semi-operational control center.  He pulled himself to a sitting position,
and hopped off the uncomfortable table.  He rubbed his head.  The hedgehog
had beaten the crap out of him.  He wondered how or why he had either
escaped from them, or was rescued...

He walked over to the wall-intercom, and pushed the button.  "Please send
some aspirin up to the command center, anyone."  It beeped, noted the
order, and set to work delivering it.

He walked over to the drink dispenser and poured himself a cold glass of
water.  Chugging it rapidly, he felt some of his memory returning....

He'd been tottering on his feet while Charles was yelling at Sonic for
attempting to kill him, with the unknown orange hedgehog looking on.
Then, someone had snuck up behind him and roughly grabbed him, pulling him
into the shadows.  He remembered someone ordering a SWATBot battalion out
to capture the Freedom Fighters--

"Hello, Needlenose!" a too-familiar voice shouted.

Uh-oh.

He turned around to look for the source of the voice, and saw someone he
did NOT want to see.  He screamed upon recognizing the evil features of...
Commander Packbell?!

"Miss me?"


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: That next morning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Daybreak over Knothole was its usual glorious self, if not somewhat busier
than usual.  The multitude of rescued Mobitropolis refugees were basically
wandering around, trying to learn their new routines.  Order was something
that could be achieved later, and confusion shortly became the rule.

It had started, of course, with Sally's usual speech about what had
happened in the last 10 years, about how Way Past Cool the Freedom Fighters
were, etc etc.  The usual propaganda, Joseph mused, as he watched the
various parts of Knothole from deep within his control room, yet inspiring
in a way...

He went back to flipping through the selections he had available.  Every
sector of his fortress, and the surrounding lands around it, looked
relatively peaceful.  The occasional roboticized citizen would wander in,
look around, and walk back; either that, or someone would escort them
back...it had been learned that Joseph did not like uninvited guests
roaming around his property.

However, it was relatively quiet around Knothole today, because everyone
was trying to readjust to their new surroundings.  So Joseph finally grew
bored with looking around, and began the day's work.  He would upload the
information he had taken out of Robotropolis the night before, and then
begin creating an antidote for the roboticization process...and then, he
could rest.  He walked over to the input port, and activated his dataspike.
He balled his left hand into a fist, bent it up toward the ceiling,
and...clik.  Clik.  Clik.  Clik.

Nothing happened.  His arm looked like it did before.  Normally, the top of
his forearm would open up, and a 3" long spike would pop out.  Then, he
would insert it into the port, and begin a direct interface with the
computer.  But all he got now was an error message and a metallic `clik'.

Obviously, something was wrong with him.  Perhaps the Emerald had somehow
overloaded his arm, and it had just fused shut.  That could be fixed rather
easily, so this didn't start to bother him...yet.  All he did was to go up
to the repair level, and started a full diagnostic on his body.

As he walked on to the pad, as he had done many times before, he realized
he felt odd as the plasma rings went up and down his form, doing a routine
circuitry check.  Normally, he'd feel nothing.  But today, it was a
tingle...that was slowly turning into a stinging...that forced him to shut
off the scan out of self-preservation!

He quickly reviewed the results of the scan, and suddenly realized what the
problem was.

^L

He was flesh again.

He pondered this for a moment.  This was not necessarily a `bad'
thing...this was merely a very strange, abnormal thing.  He had a basic
idea of what the `why', `what', `who', and `when' was; obviously, the use
of the Amber Chaos Emerald figured into it somehow.  But the `how', the
`how'...a freakish nanite failure?  Impossible; nanites can't make metal
flesh again, and his repair systems would have kicked in to stop it.
A late-forming side effect of the DNA mutation from the power ring?
Highly improbable; the nanites were able to neutralize the reaction
after the initial change.

"So, hotshot," he muttered to himself, "what's done it?"

He hated to admit it, but the hated word `magic' seemed to be the `how'.

Joseph did not like the whole concept of magic.  It was like getting a
desired result without knowing -why- or -how- or -what- did it.  He did not
like just having blind faith in anything; his father had taught him that,
as his father taught him.  But this was the only (and he hated admitting
this) logical answer.

He sighed.  This situation was getting more annoying by the minute.
Maybe doing an internal diagnostic would help get his mind off of it.
He closed his eyes, and concentrated on reactivating as much of his former
abilities as possible...if there were any left.  But since he still had use
of his brain, that meant most of his android form's mental abilities would
be left...

He thought hard and unwaveringly about his task.  Normally, he could
activate all of his sensors and other powers in a nanosecond.  But
something had gone wrong due to the emerald.

He finally opened his eyes again.  It was hopeless.  He was 100% Mobian
hedgehog now, and there wasn't anything left inside of him to change
that--but outside...

"Bahb," he said, "prepare a brainscanning unit, to the following
specifications...."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Back in Robotropolis:

Packbell sat in the Control Center, overseeing the repairs of Robotropolis.
Snively's utter failure in running the city was obvious.  Only 25% of the
total possible SWATBot units were operational.  12% of the city had power.
Just over 35% of the Worker-Bots remained, and a good portion of it was on
fire.  Typical.

However, the repairs were going as well as could be expected.  He had
employed a large portion of the SWATBots with the Worker-Bots to increase
productivity, which was working out about as he'd predicted.  A few of the
refineries were going back online that afternoon, which would keep the city
operational while he worked on finding an alternative energy source.

For the time being, Packbell noted, the city would pretty much take care of
itself.  There was no need for him to sit and stare at it while it put
itself back together....so he could allot himself some leisure time.
Turning away from the monitor screens, he smiled evilly at the thought he
had recently created.  He pushed the intercom button, paused for a moment,
and bellowed with all of his might into it!  "SNIVELY!!!!!  GET IN HERE
*NOW*!!!"  He released the intercom button and laughed fiendishly, and
waited for the sound of Snively's footfalls rushing up the stairs.

Snively rushed up the stairs from the 3rd basement in the Command Center,
where Packbell had put his new room.  He knocked the filth and rubbish out
of the way as he clawed his way up the the lobby and rushed up the stairs.
He knew very well why Packbell was doing this, but if he wanted to live
another day, he would have to obey...

Packbell listened in silence as the short, large-nosed human desperately
threw himself up the stairs, probably taking some minor damage as he
climbed.  (Packbell didn't even begrudge Snively a stairrail...he had to
run up the stairs completely under his own power.)  After a few more
seconds, Snively burst in, falling at Packbell's feet.

Snively panted as he pushed out the words that Packbell forced him to say
every time he saw him.  "*pant*...Hail *pant* Supreme Commander *wheeze*
Packbell, Total *gasp* and Omnipotent *cough* Ruler of Moebius *pant*,
Conqueror of *wheeze* Robotropolis, and my *gasp* Almighty Lord."

Packbell kicked Snively out of his way.  "Good boy, Snotley."  He stood up,
looking down on the cringing human.  "Now, here is your task for the day.
I want you to go back downstairs, and run to the other side of
Robotropolis.  There you will find a soda machine."  Packbell threw two
golden coins at Snivley, which hit him in the chest.  As he grabbed them,
Packbell continued to speak.  "Purchase a can of Fizz, and open it.  Then,
run back here, and hand it to me.  If so much as one drop is missing from
it," he stated, smiling evilly at Snively, "you die."

Packbell snapped his fingers.  "I want to see you back in...oh, let's make
it 5 minutes this time.  Now go!"  Snively quickly rushed out of the
room, running for his very life.

Packbell laughed, and sat back down.  He giggled as he started his internal
chronometer....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph stood in his lab as Bahb put the finishing touches on the
brainscanner he had instructed it to make.  It was similar to the neural
transfer device, but merely made a backup of one's memories and preserved
them on a storage device.  It was ideal for this situation's delicate
position...he didn't know how much time he had.

It was a rather nodescript device.  Basically, a long pipe that was
connected to the computer ended in a plunger-shaped scanning device, that
fit around Joseph's head with room to spare.  When the device was
activated, a slowly scanning ring of energy would pass up and down his
skull, taking a 3-D scan of his brain and replicating its design into a
file.  It would capture any thoughts he had since he was born, was having
now, and could predict what he was going to think 10 seconds later.

He sat down under the device and allowed it to surround his head.  He
started to clear his mind of any thoughts, and ordered the scan to begin
when his mental activity was at its ebb.  He focused--and for 5 seconds,
his entire existance was blinked out.

A minute later, the device lifted, and Joseph's mind was returned to
normal.  He stood back up, shook his head a bit to reorient himself with
reality, and walked over to the console.

"Bahb, give me an ETC on the compliation of the brainscan."

Bahb hummed for a moment, and then emitted, "Estimated time of completion:
one solar cycle."

Joseph nodded.  "Very well.  I am going to go check on the Emerald, and
then I shall go outside to interact with the populace.  Give me a status
report hourly."

Bahb beeped obiediantly, and set itself to its work.  After a moment of
silent contemplation of this development, Joseph opened the secret stepdisk
that led to the power core and rode down to examine it.

The sight of the emerald made Joseph feel better already, for some reason.
He had placed it where his old ship's power core had been, which he had
used to power the complex when he first arrived.  It glowed with a warm,
orangish light, and made him feel younger and stronger.  The room was
beginning to grow greenish energy crystal around the sides of it as well,
but only in a few isolated patches.  Either way, Joseph found the
development intriguing, and sought to encourage it...and perhaps, even
understand it.

The annoyance toward the crystal could not be manifested here.  He simply
was too invigorated by its presence to be angry at it.  It was only an
inanimate object, after all...it couldn't hurt him...in fact, he rather
liked the glowing, warm emerald.  It radiated an almost maternal love and
happiness (perhaps an airborne antidepressant is created from its reaction
with the oxygen here, he mused) for all living things...  Occasionally,
a swirl of a different color would be visible in it, but it would
quickly fade back to its normal amber state.

Joseph found the object beautiful.  He liked to look at it, feel its power,
and be near its warmth.  But he had a responcibility to check on his
various experiments on it; so he tore himself away from gazing on it, and
examined the readings that were taken of it instead.

The readings still made no sense to him.  He could detect all sorts of
radiation coming off of the emerald, yet still could not find any energy
signatures that could tell him what the emerald was made out of.  On scans,
it showed the emerald as a black area, denoting an unknown substance.
But it gave off energy that could come from hydrogen up to element 534.
It contradicted itself.  According to most sciences, this object shouldn't
even exist in this universe...he decided he should probably give up on this
for the day.  Sighing as he walked away, he looked at the emerald one
last time before he took the steppad back to the surface.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He squinted somewhat as he stepped out of the Dome.  Normally, his optical
sensors would adjust within nanoseconds to the light change, but organics
took a bit more time.  He cursed them as he slowly adjusted to the photon
bombardment.

The Great Forest looked as it always did.  The trees were still there.  He
could hear the sounds of his creek in the distance, with the occasional
fish jumping out of the water.  It was `pretty' to most people, but it gave
Joseph a different sort of feeling.  All it was to him was a series of
subconscious distractions to keep people from getting too close to his
home.  But still, he enjoyed being around them.

He wandered to the creek, and sat down on a rock.  He gazed into the water
for a few moments, collecting his thoughts.  His life was spinning out of
control.  He had no family, no lover, no hope of escape.  From the moment
he set foot on this planet, it had started taking things from him.  His
ship.  A few droplets of blood, which must have wetted its thirst for more.
A clean conscience?  Good bye.  Even his last reminder of home, his own
body, had been taken from him.  All because of this damn planet.

But it was a good world, he mused.  There were nice people on it.  What was
happening here happened on his own world long ago; perhaps by helping it,
he'd help himself.  Besides, his was a black and cold culture...the
universe probably is better off without it.

He stood up.  Nay, he thought, it is gone 300 years now.  As the universe
has forgotten it, so shall I...they would have wanted it that way.
"Progress over the antiquated, and those that lead the march shall live
forever in the hearts, minds, and actions of the next generation."  His
grandfather had said that all those years ago when he had given the Empire
the power of roboticization.  And he knew now that his words applied here.
He needed to evolve.  He was a outdated model of a line that had gone out
of production.  He pounded his fist into the palm of his other hand.
It was time to make the leap to the new model year!

He sat down again and thought.  He wanted to be able to return to his fox
form; might as well not reinvent the wheel.  But the form of the hedgehog
would come in handy, too.  He also wanted some of his old android abilities
back, and especially some sort of neural net.  And, of course, he wanted
to be able to utilize the Chaos Emerald again.  But, how could he do all
three feasibly?

He pondered for a few moments.  He would have to design a body that could
do some limited shapshifting, but with resistance to powerful gamma (and
above) radiation.  Also, he would have to patch in cybernetics with it that
could handle the shifting and adjust quickly.  It would be a challenge, but
he was sure he could figure out a way to pull it off...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The spacecraft glided silently over Robotropolis, cloaked to all known
scanning devices on Mobius.  It quietly landed on the appropriate pad in
the center of Robotropolis, making no noise or signal that it had arrived.
A small hole seemed to open in reality as a figure emerged from inside the
cloaked vessel.  As the figure walked away, the hole closed, making the
ship completely invisible again.

The tall, slim creature quietly walked up the stairs, ignoring the various
SWATBots that ordered him to halt.  They fired at him, but their lazers
refracted off of the figure's personal shield.  After a while, they ceased
fire, and made way for the commanding, yet silent, figure.

Upstairs, Snively had just arrived, and was cowering before Packbell.
The figure, wanting to observe what was going on, arrived at the open door
and phase-cloaked.  While invisible and untouchable, he listened to the
banter that went back and forth...

"Well, Snively," Packbell exclaimed faux-happily, "you've gotten me my can
of Fizz!"  He grinned in an unpleasant way.  "*Thank* *you* -so- much."
He then snatched the can from the cringing underling's hand, and threw it
violently out the window.  Upon seeing Snively's shocked and horrified
reaction, he laughed.  Then, his expression and tone became infuriated.
"Now get out of my sight!"  After Snively had run off for his life,
Packbell sat back in his chair and had a good laugh.

"I see that you've inherited Ivo's sick sense of humor, tinkertoy."

Packbell sat up in his seat.  "Who said that?"

"It is not for you to know.  Tell me where Robotnik is."

Packbell blinked, and looked around.  "Where are you?!"

"Tell me where Robotnik is.  You have 30 seconds to comply."

Packbell stood up.  "I don't need to tell you anything.  I am the ruler--"

"20 seconds."

Packbell became irate, and pushed the intercom button.  "SWATBots!  Report
to the Command Center *immediately*!"

The voice grew increasingly more annoyed.  "10 seconds, tinkertoy."

SWATBots streamed into the Command Center as Packbell began shouting at
them to find the voice.  The voice even whistled quietly so to assist them,
but they couldn't seem to get their hands on him.

"Time's up, tinkertoy.  Where is Robotnik?"

Packbell cursed and angrily looked around for the voice.  "Show yourself!"

"Very well."

In the center of the room, about 3 feet from Packbell, a humanoid figure
began to materialize.  It was about 6'4, about 190 pounds, and was vulpine.
He had reddish fur, with hints of orange in it.  His silver pupils glared
at Packbell, and his silver canines glinted against his otherwise
natural-appearing teeth.  He was clad in a black trenchcoat that went down
to his calves, and was wearing a uniform-like suit under it.  His black
boots went over his pants, and his white fingerless gloves gave him a
distrubing appearance.

"I seek Robotnik.  You will tell me where to find him, or you will be
terminated."

Packbell looked at the figure.  "And why should I tell you anything?"

The figure grabbed Packbell's throat at an unnatural speed, and began to
squeeze it tightly.  "Because, tinkertoy, I said so."

The SWATBots tried to move to act, but collectively realized that movement
to assist Packbell would most likely result in his termination.  So they
simply stood at attention as the figure continued to speak.  "If I didn't
have a liking for Robotnik," it said, "I'd simply break you in half right
now, and use your entrails as materials for a selection of post-modernist
art."  He moved his face uncomfortably close to Packbell's.  "So cut
the attitude and tell me where he *is*."

Packbell tried to squeak out an answer, but the figure had closed off his
windpipe.  Realizing this, the nameless one threw Packbell back into his
seat.  "Tell me -NOW-!"

Packbell took a few breaths, reacclimating his lungs so to be able to
produce an answer.  "Robotnik," he wheezed, "is dead."

The figure looked temporarily surprised, but resumed his normal demeanor.
"So, Ivo finally managed to get killed...  I told him his idiotic Doomsday
project was doomed to failure."

Packbell looked at the figure confusedly.  "You'd been communicating with
Ivo?"

The figure resumed his cold stare at Packbell.  "Yes...my people have an
interest in this world.  We would...well, would have liked to acquire
it from Ivo."  He paused.  "So I suppose you have possession of it now?"
Packbell nodded, and started to speak, "But..."

The figure raised his hand for silence.  "Very well.  We will simply
continue the negotiations with you.  But first, we will require an updated
manifest of your possessions.  Would you happen to have the latest one
available?"

Packbell nodded, thinking.  "Give me 30 seconds to produce one."  He walked
over to the console, pushed a few buttons, and displayed a file on the main
viewer.  "I had wondered what this was..."

He rose his hand again for quiet, reading...  "You've suffered some losses
recently, haven't you?"

Packbell nodded, silently cursing the idiocy of Snively.  "A minor
catasthophe occured when one of my underlings took control of the main city
while I was on a brief hiatus."

The figure mused.  "Yes...was it the hedgehog again?"

"You know about Sonic?"

The figure looked over at Packbell.  "I'm beginning to despise that
accursed vandal as much as Ivo...did."  He muses.  "Well, have you tried
using nanites to get rid of him?"

"Yes."

"Tried making a robot version of his little girlfriend and have her kill
him?"

"Yes."

"Tried to use his ego against him?"

"Tried it."

"Broke his will?"

"Unbreakable."

"Killed some of his friends?"

"Several.  Hasn't phased him."

"Kidnapping?"

"Many, many times."

The figure hmmed.  "Well, you're on your own, then."  He looked back at the
monitor, and tsked.  "My, my, my.  You've lost over 75% of your Worker-Bots
in the past 3 years.  This won't do at all.  This planet was already a
fixer-upper, and now most of its work force has escaped."

He looked back at Packbell.  "I'm afraid Ivo's original price for
this world is just too high."

Packbell blinked.  "Price?"

The figure looked surprised.  "He never infor--oh yes, silly me.  He didn't
want the possibility of a Freedom Fighter finding out that he was going to
sell this planet to the highest bidder."

Packbell stood there, his positronic brain temporarily locked up.  He could
not justify in his mind a reason to sell Mobius.  After all, it was Ivo's
home, right...?

"And, naturally, this development is simply going to lower what we are
willing to give.  We were hoping to convert this planet into a colony
world...it will take a bit longer, now; we'll have to recapture the already
roboticized citizens, and polish off the rest.  But I assure you, you'll
still get a very nice package for this..."  He smiled evilly.  "very rustic
little world."

Packbell snapped out of his lockup, forming a plan.  "Understood.  What are
your new terms?"

The figure started to turn away.  "I will have to update my people on this
development first.  I will return in about 2 of your Mobian weeks.  For
now, we will leave the promised...gift below with your SWATBots."

As he faded from view again, Packbell got to his feet.  "Wait!  I don't
even know your name!"

As he slipped back into the shadows, he whispered, "Call me...John."

With that, he disappeared, leaving behind a confused and puzzled Packbell.
After a few moments of processing this new influx of data, he pushed the
intercom button.  "SWATBot Squad 34-G: retrive the crate left by our
visitors, and bring it to me."  A compliant beep was heard, and then the
intercom automatically shut off.

The SWATBot squad went down to the pad, where a small crate was being set
out by some lowly-looking red foxes.  They scurried back inside the
light-hole, and disappeared.  A few moments after that, a dim hum was
heard, and something seemed to leave the area.  A hole was poked in the
clouds, allowing the outline of the saucer-shaped craft to be seen before
it faded into space.

The SWATBots didn't really notice that as they carefully picked up the
crate and walked into the freight elevator.  SWATBots are not creative
machines; they are rather dull, and aren't great conversationalists.
They merely follow orders.

The platoon of SWATBots arrived inside the Command Center, and placed the
box by Commander Packbell.  They stepped away from it, saluted, and walked
back to their posts.  Packbell waited for them to leave before opening the
box.  He carefully popped the top off of it, and pulled off the nearest side.
A wave of packing material fell at his feet as he removed the object from the
crate...

It was a long object, about the length of a baseball bat.  There was a hole
on one side, and a power cell attached to the other.  It had a button
on the top by an aiming sight, and an shoulder rest.  A few extra power
cells were attached to it by some shrinkwrap, with a note.  Packbell put
the device down for a moment, and opened up the note; which read:

"Ivo: This is the latest revision of our basic plasma cannon.  We've
altered the power cells so they can be charged by your power stations.
The usual schematic is inside the shrinkwrap.  Enjoy!  -- T."

Packbell smiled.  So this is how Ivo kept `developing' the new technologies
they had been utilizing!  He sat down in the chair, and begin to analyze
the new device...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The day had passed uneventfully at Knothole.  The initial chaos of having
an influx of new villagers had been taken care of, and everyone had settled
in well.  Everyone had gotten their work assignments, which really began to
fly by...the day's work usually would end at noon, thanks to the
introduction of new technologies and the muscle power of the roboticized
citizens.  So the rest of the day had been a needed relaxation period for
most people, while Sally and the rest of the military section of the
Freedom Fighters planned their next raid.

But, deep inside Joseph's lab, the events of the surface were of little
concern.  He had spent most of the day running simulations...and he had
figured out the exact DNA he would need in order to create something to his
specifications; a mixture of Keldy'rian, Ur'thaen, Mobian, and a bit he had
strung together himself would be the matrix for his new shell.  The
Keldy'rian would be the conduit for the Ur'thaen and Mobian DNA, and would
hold all three together while only allowing one to manifest at a time.  In
a nutshell, it would give him the ability to appear to be either a normal
Ur'thaen orange fox, or a normal Mobian orange hedgehog, while being able
to switch to one or the other freely.  The extra bits of DNA he had added
would give his new body the ability to withstand extremely high radiation
for unlimited amounts of time, and be sure that his body would not reject
the cybernetics he was going to add.

He was especially proud of the way he was going to be able to maintain his
intelligence within the form.  If he was home on Ur'thae, this would have
gotten him the same level of accolades that his father had recieved for the
neural transfer device; he had perfected a mimetic polyalloy.

His people had tried for decades to perfect one that would maintain
molecular consistancy yet be able to remember programming and instructions.
But all of them had failed for one reason or another...but not this one.
Not only would it be able to remember and maintain his own personality
matrix, but it would maintain the knowledge he had already acquired *and*
was able to hold an unlimited amount of additional data.  It would be the
perfect central nervous system; all he would have to do is to inject it
into the new form (after the brain and nervous systems had been removed)
and it would take over.

At last, he would have the ideal, nearly perfect body he had always wanted.
Free of the worries of brain or other physical death, yet still organic.
Enhanced sensor sensitivity, fast nervous system, highly resistant to
outside influence, genetically compatable with most other species...and,
with the addition of nanites, almost instant healing and a nearly
invincible immune system.  It was a form that could last for as long as he
wanted it to.

After doing some final bits of tweaking, he began the creation process...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

But up on the surface, a mission was being planned.  The usual suspects,
Sally, Sonic, Rotor, Antoine, Dulcy, Charles, Bunnie, and Tails were standing
around an updated aerial view of Robotropolis, figuring out the
Worker-Bot details for that night.  Tails was mostly in the background,
tho, listening.

"...and that's how we're going to do that.  Remember, Snively probably
realizes that we'll strike here, so it's going to be a hard fight.
Therefore, it's a fair bet that there'll be lots of SWATBots around,
guarding the Worker-Bots.  That's why only Sonic will actually go in to get
the group of citizens, while Dulcy, Antoine and Bunnie will assist people in
escaping.  I will lead a diversion with Charles and Rotor that will strike
on the opposite side of Robotropolis, forcing Snively to spread out a few
platoons of SWATBots at us."

She paused, looking for questions.  Finding none, she deactivated the
hologram.  "We will leave for Robotropolis at the usual time.  Dulcy will
drop Charles, Rotor, and myself off first.  Five minutes after she has
returned here, Bunnie and Antoine will leave for Robotropolis, with Sonic
having an approximate head start of 10 seconds."  She smiled.  "Dismissed."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

An hour or two later, thanks to the science of age-acceleration, Joseph's
body had completed being grown.  The mimetic polyalloy had been injected
without incident to take over the nervous system, and it had created a
datajack in the center of the back of its neck to permit Joseph to upload
himself into it.  Everything had gone according to plan.

Now, Joseph waited for Bahb to complete processing the collected
information of his life he had given it that morning.  It was just about
completed; Bahb had sped up the process considerably, thanks to the long
periods of zero input he had endured.  In another five minutes, it would be
completed.

He drank his coffee and admired his old form one last time.  He tapped it
somewhat, smiled, and laid down on the guerney.  It pulled itself over
underneath the intelligence transfer unit, next to his new form.  The
device went down over both of their craniums, and activa--

Reality stopped.

^L

Reality started.

Joseph opened his eyes in his new form as the old one was derezzed.  The
device lifted away from his face, and he hopped off the guerney.  He
noticed that he was already back in his normal vulpine form.  Success!
He walked over to the mirror, which confirmed his suspicions.

He was a normal, breathing flesh-and-blood fox again!

Quickly, he tested out his mimetic polyalloy brain.  He pulled up his
heads-up display faster than he ever had before.  He scanned the room in
every spectrum of electromagnetic radiation he could surmise.  Perfect!
He did an internal diagnostic.  Everything was at 100% -or- -greater-!
He was better off than he was before!  He did some backflips to celebrate,
and to test the agility of his new body.  Perfectperfectperfect!

But there was one final test.  He closed his eyes, and thought of becoming
a hedgehog....he was overtaken by a sense of vertigo....he opened his
eyes...and was a hedgehog.  Yes!  This RULED.  He closed his eyes, and
thought of becoming a fox again...the vertigo...and then he was.

He was so proud of himself.  He'd finally done something worthwhile with
his abilities...then he remembered.  The files he had gotten from
Robotropolis!  Were they still there?!  He closed his eyes and searched...

[NO INFORMATION AVAILABLE]

Joseph cursed.  He must have lost them during the transfer.  He'd have to
go back and get them again...of course, he couldn't just go out and
steal them like he did last time.  That was an extremely lucky break.
No, he would have to think of a new way of going about getting what he
needed...his super-strength, for example, was no longer present.
He'd have to find a way to deal with that.  Of course, he'd have to explain
to the others how he had returned to his `natural' state, and find a way of
getting to and from Robotropolis as quickly as possible.  He certainly
didn't want to mooch a ride off that dragon.  Too unreliable.  He'd have to
get around to building some sort of transportation one of these days.

But that would wait until later.  Right now, he'd be content with simply
shifting into his hedgehog state, running to the edge of Robotropolis, and
allowing the Freedom Fighters to distract Snively while he stole as much
data as possible.  Then, he'd run back home, and return to normal as Bahb
processed it.  He'd extrapolate the needed data, and have Bahb rig up
deroboticizer software.  Then, he'd build the necessary device, and finally
begin repairing his father's mistake once and for all...in an orderly
fashion, to boot.

For now, he'd bide his time until nightfall, enjoying being a fox again,
and perhaps he'd work in a brief martial arts practice period before he
left...so much to do, so little time!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Night fell on the surface, and the majority of Knothole turned in for the
evening's rest.  Only a few denziens of Knothole, the ones going on the
actual mission stayed awake.

Dulcy airlifed Sally, Charles, and Rotor to Robotropolis, where they were
planning on sabotaging a chip manufacturing facility.  Upon her return,
Bunnie and Antoine were taken to the other side of Robotropolis, where a
large group of Worker-Bots were working under heavy guard on repairing a
SWATBot production plant.  Sonic shot after them, and hid in the shadows
until the diversion started.

A minute or two later, Joseph came out of the Dome, ready to do an assult
on Robotropolis as well.  He had his personal shield unit fully charged,
had a small phaser attached to his side, and was at 100% efficiency.
He took a path that would lead him into the center of Robotropolis with as
little difficulty as could be expected.  He'd have to dodge the occasional
squad of SWATBots (and who knows what else), but he figured he could always
teleport out if it got too hot.  He hoped.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sonic arrived at Robotropolis a minute before Dulcy did.  He paused to
examine his current target, a refinary.  SWATBots were assisting the
Worker-Bots this time...guarding and working at the same time.  Clever, the
hedgehog thought, but not Way Past Cool.  He plotted a course of attack,
figuring in the large amount of SWATBot fire that was bound to occur.  It
appeared everything was going to go as expected...yet, something seemed
amiss to the hedgehog.  It was unlike Snively to use his SWATBots for actual
`work'...just Freedom Fighter-shooting and patrolling.  This stunk of
something fishy.  Big Time.

He heard Dulcy land in the distance, far enough away so not to be spotted
by 'Bot planes when leaving Robotropolis.  Now, all they had to do was wait
for the--

An explosion in the distance lit the sky as alarms started to sound.  Sally
had set off the charges around the SWATBot production plant, slowing the
further regeneration of Snively's troops.  That'd get him steamed for sure.
He listened for the usual screechy howling from the loudspeakers, cursing
for all available SWATBots to destroy `that hedgehog', no matter who
actually -did- it.  Bulbhead was pretty low-watt.

But not a voice was to be heard.  Yet, the SWATBots put down what they were
doing, climbed into 'Bot planes, and flew off toward the explosion.  Sonic
was puzzled for a moment, and then remembered that SWATBots could take
orders by certain radio frequencies, too; encrypted, of course.  But
Snively had never thought of that before...maybe he was finally starting to
catch on about this `badnik' business.  Nah.

He waited for the majority of them to leave before readying himself for the
attack.  It appeared that about a squad was left, something Sonic would
normally be able to take care of in an instant....it still didn't feel
right.  It was as if a 6th sense had noticed something deeper than his keen
hedgehog eyesight couldn't detect.

He was wasting precious time with this wimpyness, he thought.  What am I,
Ant?  He scoffed at that, imagining how panicky Ant would be in a situation
like this.  That's why he was always left in someone else's care, noted
Sonic, and started into a run--

A glitter of 'Bot metal from around a corner.  That's all Sonic needed
to see.  Now he knew this was an ambush; his delay had allowed him to see
what was coming.  Past Cool!  Wait.  Way Uncool.  Now he'd have to either
turn back now, warn Dulcy and risk hanging around here without doing
anything until Sally ordered the evac; or fight through a few squads of
SWATBots and risk being captured, killed, or roboticized.  Hmmmm...

Discretion is the better part of valor, it is said.  If that is so, Sonic
was slightly worse off than Antoine in that department.  He took out a
power ring, took out his free-will inducing pistol, and blasted off into
the now-expected `ambush'.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph approached the front gates into Robotropolis, his cloak active.
He stealthily approached the main door, listening for activity.  Only a few
SWATBots were around now...the Freedom Fighters had probably distracted the
rest of them.  But, of course, this was to his advantage.

He snuck inside the gates with no incident.  Walking quietly by some
SWATBots, who were barely even paying attention to anything behind them, he
wandered closer into the heart of Robotropolis.  Some repairs had been
completed since last night; a few buildings had tarps on them to keep the
outdoors out, while a few piles of garbage had been tended to.  This was
odd to Joseph; Snively would not normally take such care of Robotropolis.
Then, he detected the familiar sounds of distant explosions and lazer fire
echoing in the distance.  Joseph listened carefully to them, and concluded
they would not become a threat.  At least, it was improbable that they
would.  He hurried up somewhat, not wanting to tempt fate.

Joseph approached the Command Center, and was mildly surprised.  The
Command Center was actually -guarded- today with SWATBots.  Finally, he
thought, Snively had got on the ball.  You can't just leave a fortress, no
matter how formitable, unguarded.  Roughly two squads guarded the main
entrance, while 3 or 4 were watching over the minor entrances.  This would
actually be an enjoyable challenge to infiltrate, Joseph mused, and walked
closer to the main entrance.

The SWATBots took little notice of the cloaked figure before them...they
didn't have the amount of imagination required to put together that the
occasional disturbance around 3 feet above ground level was not caused by
some sort of fumes, nor were they merely the product of a heat-producing
device underground.  They merely ignored it, and kept scanning the horizon
for threats they could comprehend.

Joseph crouched on the ground, looking for an opening.  He kept waiting for
a SWATBot to move, or for something to occur near enough to them to trigger
some sort of response.  Nothing.  He stared at the SWATBots.  The SWATBots
looked out over him.  He waited.  They didn't move.  Finally, he sat down
and thought for a little while.  What would cause me to panic, if *I* was a
SWATBot...having an idea, he rushed off back into Robotropolis.

A few minutes went by.  The SWATBots still stood there, emotionlessly
waiting for a stimulus to respond to.  Then, a low hum was heard in the
distance.  The SWATBots sent queries among themselves, trying to determine
the cause of the noise.  It drew nearer.  The SWATBots armed their
wrist-blasters and waited.  Then, it went further away.  Automatically, the
SWATBots went back on standby.  A few more minutes went by.  The hum
returned, and then left.  This was starting to make even the most
uncreative SWATBot among them suspicious, and a few of them broke rank to
investigate.  The hum remanifested after the SWATBots would have gotten
close enough to hear it...but suddenly, the sounds of SWATBots getting
fried were the precursors to a very fast, rocket-powered red blur racing
past the Control Center.  The SWATBots immediately started to pursue the
blur, and called for backup.

After most of them had left, Joseph walked out from behind some
semi-demolished architecture, and wandered into the more invasion-friendly
Control Center.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph was yet again greeted by the odd semi-cleanliness of Robotropolis.
This was beginning to get ridiculous, he mused.  Snively is definitely not
behind this; but if not Snively, who?

He went over to the stairwell, only to stop short of opening it: an alarm
was attached to a low-powered lazer, which had set up a bounce-pattern
around the door that made entering by that method impossible.  Whoever was
behind this had a knowledge of security that was beyond Snively's...so how
would he continue to ascend into the Control Center into the central
computer core?  He pondered, and then flattened himself against a wall as a
group of SWATBots walked over to a wall.  The head SWATBot sent a small
blink of red light into a panel, opening an freight elevator up.  Before it
could close behind them, Joseph poured on a little hedgehog speed and
zipped into the elevator.

The wall shut in front of the elevator, and it started to ascend...

Joseph stood in the midst of 4 SWATBots, all of them oblivious to his
presence and busy communicating amongst themselves in a sort of robotic
gossip.  Joseph listened in to the conversation, which was mainly a dull
discussion of the new policies that would be implemented in Robotropolis
as of such and such, blah blah blah.  He caught snippets of the important
stuff, tho...a more agressive search for Knothole, a continuation of
roboticization of captured citizens, rather than termination for offenses
against...`Packbell'?

Joseph had heard the name in the occasional conversations he'd
`unintentionally' listen in on.  Apparently, `Commander' Packbell was an
android like he used to be, but with a (and this had made him chuckle)
-positronic- brain.  He almost giggled in the elevator when he thought
about it...he'd built a positronic brain when he was a child.  It was his
final exam for his admission into what would be `4th' grade on Mobius.
They were comically inefficient, they locked up when chaotic situations
(like the majority of situations in life) occurred, they learned
slowly...all they were good for was memorizing things and applying what
they learned to certain tasks.  But their thought patterns ran to practical
means.  You could stun one with a good, hard riddle, and pretty much fry
one by leaving it in the presence of a few kits.  But a few of the more
`advanced' (ha-ha) ones had simple emotions...it was very possible that
Packbell had somehow returned from whereever he had been hiding for all
these months, and taken back over Robotropolis.  It would explain the
strange and semi-intelligent security measures that had recently taken
place.

The door opened, and the SWATBots (and Joseph) left the elevator.  They
were on a lower level than Joseph would have wanted, but hitchhiking never
got one hand-delivered anywhere.  So, he looked around, and tried to figure
out what he could usefully do from this area.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was a basic sub-level of any good fortress.  It was a SWATBot storage
area, and had some basic supplies present in it.  No windows, but dim
lighting that was just enough so SWATBots could manuver their way around
inside.  However, they did Joseph's regular vision no good.  He switched to
I/R, which was usually easier to utilize.

Ahh, here we go.  He was standing at the end of a corridor that stretched
down around the curvature of the building.  A few sliding doors were on the
side, for quick SWATBot dispersal.  The floor was solid, but there was a
grate in the ceiling that might lead higher up into the complex.  He'd have
to investigate that soon enough.  However, he might as well explore around
in here while he had the chance to at a leisurely pace.  After all, he
had--he checked his internal power gauges--about 2 hours left of full cloak
before he'd have to start heading home...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, back on the surface:

Sonic had dispatched the majority of the SWATBots that were at the complex,
due to the fact that they had anticipated on having the element of
surprise.  He'd gotten a few Worker-Bots conscious and out, but he found
that few others were about.  But, he had gotten some of them out, so the
mission wasn't a total failure.

However, the SWATBots seemed to be crawling out of the walls...the more of
them he was able to destroy, the more that seemed to appear.  They had
also scored a few nicks on him; mainly in the back, ironically enough.
But the outcome of the battle was still uncertain.  They wouldn't get
Chuck, Bunnie, Ant, Sal, Rotor or Dulcy...they had escaped with the platoon of
Worker-Bots he'd sent out with them.  At least they'd thought of that.
But he had one last hope; his power ring.  The only thing was, they'd never
back off enough to let him take it out, concentrate, and then juice.  They
kept coming, so he'd have to keep spin-dashing through them.  And he was
getting tired.  Way Past Uncool.  Unless he kept moving, they'd grab him,
and then it'd be Game Over...but, just when all appeared lost, and Sonic
was about to pass out from exhaustion, a great roar was heard drawing
near...

To the amazement of Sonic and the SWATBots assaulting him, Robotnik's old
hovercraft, albeit worse for wear, was the source of the fire!

It swooped out of the sky, cannons blazing, and started strafing the
SWATBot platoons.  'Bot after 'Bot fell to its rampage, most retreating
after the first pass.  With flames licking out from beneath it, it scooped
the hedgehog and roared back into the sky.

After a moment of adjusting to the shock, Sonic looked up from the floor of
the hovercraft and saw a hazy image of an orange hedgehog.  "Huh?" he
grunted, trying to grab onto something solid.

"Hello, Sonic," the image said, "and no, I'm not really Joseph.  I'm a
holographic image of Joseph, programmed with a limited amount of his
knowledge.  He quickly assembled me as a diversion, but since I saw you in
a spot of trouble, I decided to assist you as well."

Sonic was still reassembling his senses.  Then, a chili dog and a Fizz [tm]
soda appeared before him.  "Please, consume this food," the image said, "it
will help your body recover its needed nutrients."

He quickly bolted down the food, and reacquired his basic personality
matrix.  "Whoa," he amazedly said, realizing exactly what was going on,
"Joe put you together as just a -diversion-?"

The figure nodded as the craft roared faster around Robotropolis.  "He
required an intelligence to fly the craft around to distract SWATBots.
There were too many around the Command Center for him to elude."

Sonic blinked.  "Allow me to explain," the image said, and filled Sonic in
on the finer details of what had occurred within the last 48 hours.

"So that's why he keeps tagging along," Sonic said, "he wants to get the
info right from the source!  And our missions were the perfect diversions
for him.  Way Past Smart!"

The image smiled as the craft dodged some incoming lazer fire.  "He'd thank
you for that...but now I must complete my function."  He flickered for a
moment.  "You might wish to hold on to something, hedgehog," the image
twittered, "because it's going to get very bumpy in a moment."

Sonic nodded and strapped himself in.  "Hold on," the computer said, and
set the craft into a 3G turn...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph navigated the halls for a while, but then realized there was nothing
of value to him inside here.  Not a solitary dataport was on this level;
he'd have to go up further into the complex to find such a device.  So, he
wandered back to where he started, opened up the grate, and climbed inside.

He crawled around inside the grates for a while, listening for the familiar
sounds of humming computers.  He climbed up a few 75 degree planes, jumped
up into a sheer ventcliff, and finally seemed to get close enough to the
computer room to hear it...

Looking through the grate, he saw the familiar R&D room.  However, it was
guarded by a few SWATBots this time, so it would be unwise to merely bust
through the grate.  No, a more subtle method would need to be used...so, he
chose to crawl further down the line, outside the R&D room itself.

He looked out this grate, and noticed guards outside the R&D room itself as
well.  Packbell was certainly paranoid, wasn't he?  He mused for a moment.
How could he get rid of both guards without alerting anyone else of it?
His phaser certainly wouldn't be quiet enough, and smashing them would be
even worse.  He leaned against the wall and thought harder...and had an
idea.  An insane, completely stupid idea, but one that just might work.
He remembered how Sonic had told him once that he was able to free Sally
from a cell by impersonating Robotnik to a computer.  So if Sonic could do
it with a cup, Joseph could certainly do it with his precision mimicry
programming.  He concentrated on the sound of Robotnik's voice...adjusted
his vocal chords accordingly...and then announced out the grate:

"Attention all SWATBots!  Report to the lobby IMMEDIATELY!"

He looked out the grate, and waited for the incoming fire.  But that didn't
happen...appearently, SWATBots must be programmed to obey Robotnik's voice;
because not only the ones in front of the door rushed off to the elevator,
but the ones inside pursued them!  Joseph was oddly surprised, but he was
never one to look a gift horse in the mouth--he kicked out the grate
and rushed inside the R&D room.  As his vocal chords returned to normal,
he popped out his dataspike and quickly did the 2-second download of
all of Robotropolis' information.

This, of course, set off every alarm in the entire complex.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Packbell had been busy ordering about SWATBot squads and 'Bot planes when
the main alarm system finally went off.

<< RED ALERT!  RED ALERT!  SECURITY BREACH IN SECTOR 2-ALPHA! >>

He immediately sprung out of his seat, ordered all SWATBots to continue
their respecitive pursuits, and grabbed his plasma cannon from off a table.
After he had armed it properly, he burst out the door and ran down the
hall, in an especially bad mood.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph emerged from the R&D lab rapidly, also in a angry mood.  He
shouldn't have been in such a hurry.  Now he'd really have a problem
escaping from here with all his quills attached.  He looked down the hall,
and saw a humanoid figure toting...

He increased magnification and enhanced the image.  He scanned it twice to
be sure, but it was.  He dared not say it, for he did not wish to reveal
any information inadvertantly to this individual (besides, he was still
cloaked).  But he knew he could not leave without it.  But how could he get
it from him, and yet not risk staying here to fight him?

As he got closer, he tried to scramble behind a wall, but bumped into
something going the opposite way and stumbled forward.  His forward
momentum caused his foot to stick out from the corner of the wall, directly
within Packbell's path.  As Packbell drew closer to the corner, he tripped
over the hedgehog's foot and fell forward, dropping the gun from the shock.
The gun spun across the floor to the foot of an open elevator, which then
lodged itself between the inside of the elevator and the hallway; holding
the door open.

Several things happened very fast after that.

Joseph, not wanting to miss an opportunity, scrambled over Packbell
(leaving an imprint in his face from his boot) and shot into the open
elevator.  The thing he had bumped into happened to be a SWATBot, which
shot in the direction of the motion.  Joseph spun, grabbed the gun from the
door, and slipped to the side--as the door closed, deflecting the blast.
Quickly, he toggled the down button, leaving the floored Packbell alone to
pummel the SWATBot in anger.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As the door opened at the lobby, Joseph was immediately besieged by SWATBot
fire.  (Perhaps it was a mistake to send them down there after all.)  He
blasted a few of them, but mostly fired wildly as he used his innate
hedgehog speed to race his way out of the complex, leaving a blue-hot trail
of plasma behind him.

As he raced toward the exit of the city, trying madly to evade the
entourage of 'Bot planes he'd attracted, he wondered what wrong life
decision led him into this situation...but his brooding was interrupted by
the familiar-sounding roar of the hovercraft as it smote his pursuers.  Now
he was the one rescued as the hovercraft swooped down from the sky and
grabbed him from the earth.

Now Joseph, Sonic, and his hologram raced through Robotropolis, being
blasted at by anti-aircraft cannons.

"Joe!" Sonic yelled, ducking a few bursts of lazer fire.

"Yeah, Sonic?" was the reply from Joseph as he took control of the craft.

"Do you have," Sonic hollered, "a plan!?"

Joseph shouted back, "No!"

"That makes the both of us!"

"Good!" was the last retort, as a shot from a 'Bot plane finally crippled
the craft, sending it spiraling down...down...

^L

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The two hedgehogs jumped from the craft instinctively, but they both soon
realized bailing out about five thousand feet over hostile territory with
not a parachute between them is not a good idea.

Sonic and Joseph let out a long, collective scream as they plummeted toward
a rather unpleasant part of Mobius, waiting for the bright light to start
shining before them.  After all, neither of them could *fly*...

However, Dulcy could.  And she cracked the whip in the nick of time, and
saved the two hedgehogs from becoming greasy spots on the pavement.  As
they calmed down and flew away from Robotropolis, the banter began again.

"Hey," Sonic said, "my life just flashed before my eyes!"

"My breakfast just flashed before mine," Joseph said weakly.

The rest of the flight passed in silence.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Everyone was glad to see Joseph and Sonic when they returned.  Well, that
is, except Sally.  After accepting a round of applause, Sally dragged the
both of them back into her hut, demanding an explaination.

"What did you two think you were doing out there?!"

"Just getting my butt saved!" was Sonic's initial reply.  "If Joseph hadn't
pulled the hat-trick and had his diversion come get me, I would've been
fried!"

"You shouldn't have stayed to begin with, Sonic Hedgehog!  If you knew that
the odds were against you--"

"Tell *that* to the people I just bailed out of there, Sal!"

A pause.

Sally's voice grew softer.  "Sonic...those people would have been there
tomorrow.  We could have gotten more out if you could have waited--"  She
immediately saw the response forming in Sonic's head.  "--and, yes, I know,
you aren't the waiting type."  Her voice rose again.  "But what you did
was foolish!  It was insane!  It was--"

"Honorable," Joseph said.  "and it was something I would have done, if I
would have been in the same place."

Sally looked over at Joseph, and shook her index finger at him harshly.
"And *you*, you maniac, what possessed you to go and invade Snively's--"

"Packbell's, ma'am."

Sally blinked.  "What?"

"Packbell's, ma'am.  Packbell has unseated Snively.  He is in charge now."

Sally's anger left her.  "Dear Lord..."

Joseph nodded.  "It is rather unfortunate.  But I was able to get important
information out of his computers, and capture a piece of very sensitive
technology."  He hefted the cannon out in front of Sally.  "I need to run
tests on this, but I believe it may utilize an...alien technology.  Perhaps
it would give us a clue to who is helping...umm, Packbell now, I guess."

He put his hand on Sally's shoulder.  "Boss, I know what I did was
unsanctioned by you, and was certainly an unwise thing to do tactically.
But I did get positive results, and I will have more developments for you
in the coming days as I analyse this data."  Then, Joseph bowed slightly.
"I will make this up to you."

Sally just blinked, her initial anger defused.  "Well, okay, Joseph.  Just
don't pull any more crazy stunts like this again."  She coughed, regaining
her normal voice.  "Dismissed."

Joseph smiled softly.  "Affirmative."  And then, he walked out of the hut.

Sonic blinked.  "Packbell's in charge?  Way Past Uncool, Sal!  What'll we
do now?"

Sally turned away from Sonic, and looked out the window.  "I don't know,
Sonic...I don't know..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph returned to his lab, and placed the cannon down in front of him.
He stared at it for a while, transfixed on the information that identified
the kind of weapon, its make, and its year.  He stared at it for a while,
hoping that if he glared at it long enough, the familiar language would
change, as well as its information.

He touched it, feeling the steely perfection of its design.  It was
probably built by a machine, yet it retained that familiar workmanship
that was so familiar to him...

He could not let them know.  Not yet.  He would be lynched, burned, and
possibly drawn and quartered; and his work would die here, on this
desolate, primitive world so far from civilized space.

He took a power sander from the table, and fired it up to its full power.
In a burst of strength, he slowly tore away the paint that held the
accursed phrase on the side of the weapon...

"UR'THAEN PLASMA CANNON, MARK 26-ALPHA.  MODEL YEAR -- 8000 PE..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -







		      Chapter Five - Heart of Snow



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: A month or two later.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Winter had fallen in the Great Forest.  The trees, long since bare, were
covered in a robe of glittering ice.  A few patches of snow laid on the
ground, and occasionally blew around to other places requiring more.  The
rivers and ponds had long since iced over, and the sky had wrapped itself
in a quilt of grey; it appeared that all of nature had fallen into a
blissful slumber.

But, as we shall see, not all life sleeps during the winter...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The forest was silent in winter, she noted, which gave her pursuers a
distinct advantage.  Lazer fire crackled behind her, and rushed
increasingly closer to her ears and neck.  As she ran between trees and
leapt between fissures in the earth, she damned her small, yet idiotic
mistakes.

It had started innocently enough.  Her replicator unit (which she had
acquired from someone, who had stolen it from someone else, who had rebuilt
it from the remainder of the parts someone -else- had stolen, which had
been initally acquired from the smoking husk of a crashed spacecraft before
it was mysteriously stripped bare the next night) had ran out of power, and
she wished to acquire more.  This wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't
for the fact one of her favorite fences had finally been captured by
SWATBots and had entered `re-adjustment'.  (This was just a polite term
for roboticization, she winced, that Robotnik occasionally used when he
dropped propaganda near the edges of the Great Forest.)

However, she had not had any success in finding a new source.  Apparently,
the powerpacks that her unit took were extremely rare, and could only have
been acquired by her source...but there was something that gave her hope of
finding more; his goods had not been found by Robotnik.  Of course,
it would figure that nobody *else* knew where they were, either.  So, yet
again, she was going to have to rely on her own detective work and wit to
pull herself through hard times.  She searched the Great Forest for months.
All the while, the world kept spinning, changing, and becoming stranger
than she was accustomed to.  Mini-coups were held in Robotropolis,
starting after Doomsday.  (To her understanding, the odious Packbell was
now running things.)

Fall turned to autumn, and she had still not found his cache of items.
She began to have more difficulty hunting down food.  Her diet of
the larger predators (which had been giving her a viable career in
fur-trapping) slowly began to switch to that of the smaller mammals and the
occasional bird.  Chewing on bark seemed to be becoming more attractive.
Yet, her search continued.  But, she admitted to herself, she had not
totally dedicated every waking moment to searching out the 'packs for
the replicator...

During one of her explorations of the Great Forest, she began noticing
minor changes in one of the parts of the forest that she frequented often.
First, a small creek had been dug out from the Great River and had been
made to run through a normally barren part of the woods.  Then, a pond had
slowly began to appear, lined with multicolored stones.  A wooden bridge
had been constructed next, which went over the creek, and finally was
replaced with a firmer stone one.

At first, she assumed that one of the Freedom Fighters had simply wished to
add some infrastructure to the forest, or wanted to build someplace
where he or she could relax.  But the arrival of the `SpyGlobe', which the
floating device had called itself, seemed to denote a different presence.

At first, it had chased her away when she tried to cross the bridge, firing
stun beams.  But, she had slowly began to develop a rapport with the
device, eventually beginning to learn things from it.  She had came to the
conclusion (incorrectly, unknown to her) that the SpyGlobe and its owner, a
individual named `Joseph', were seperate entities.  Therefore, she
attempted to learn about one by asking the other.  And she thought she was
making remarkable progress; she knew that this `Joseph' was a male, an
alien, and a scientist.  He was also a psudo-Freedom Fighter, and worked
extensively on the deroboticizer project.

This intrigued her.  She knew little else of this man than what the
SpyGlobe had stated after coercing...but she realized that if he could make
a device like this, and change his environment around as he pleased, that
he could probably assist her in her prediciment.

So, after a few more days of discussion (seperated by further sporadic
searching), the 'Globe finally determined that she was not a threat, and
allowed her to cross the bridge over into the area by this `Joseph''s
house.

She was somewhat surprised to find that Joseph's home was not the normal
cottage of the basic `Knothole' motif.  Rather, it was had a classic
`tech noir' look to it.  It was a large dome that was constructed out of a
sort of brown crystal.  There were clear areas in it that served as
windows, which one could not see into clearly.  However, it was a fair bet
that one could see out perfectly from them.  This person became more
and more intriguing...she needed to learn more.

Leaving the area, she decided to spy on the residents of Knothole for a
week or two...while quietly acquiring some of their stores for her own use,
of course.  Unfortunately, she couldn't learn much of him there, either.
He was a reclusive fox (she had at least learned what his -species- was),
and was not, it was rumored, friendly to uninvited visitors.

Perhaps a more cautious female would have taken that as a pretty good
reason to leave well enough alone, and not to disturb this person.
Yet, there were other bits of evidence that seemed to justify the risk to
her.  For example, this fox had won the trust and loyalty of the upper
level Freedom Fighters, and specifically Sonic.  Sonic regarded Joseph as
some sort of `brother' to him, for reasons that never did become clear to
her.  This could be an advantage to her in the future if she somehow was
able to win his trust.  Also, she found striking similarities between
herself and the yet-unseen fox.  He was an accomplished spy; somehow, he
had acquired all of the info that Robotnik had on Robotropolis, the Freedom
Fighters, and every other miscellaneous piece of information he had right
from Robotnik's main computer.

He was a crack security expert.  The urban legends about the Dome seemed
to follow a very coherent, common thread -- a unknowing, naive dupe
would attempt to break in, and would be thrown in a cold, openingless,
dark, opaque floating box somewhere within the structure.  After a few
minutes, you were surrounded by a bright light and teleported back into
Knothole.  Only if you solved Joseph's riddles would he let you through his
various levels of security.  She smiled when she thought of this.  He had
a level of class that was far above the norm.  You wouldn't see Snively or
Packbell be creative like that...

He was also said to be a skilled martial artist.  He had a practice area
behind his fortress that he was said to frequent often during the warmer
months, even though nobody had ever seen him there.  When anyone aproached
when Joseph was practicing, the legend said, they would find naught but a
staff and a breeze there to greet them.

Of course, the most amazing thing about this fox was the fact that he had
somehow managed to instill awe and fear into the people of Knothole that
could also be used to her advantage, in time...it was not a hatred that
seperated him from the people of the village, but a sort of jealousy and
Neanderthalic instinct against things they did not understand.  Aside from
the upper brass, they were almost uniform in their opinion of him; he was a
powerful, brilliant fox...but it means your doom if you get him on your bad
side.

But, she had never been the kind to make snap judgements about people based
on rumors and urban legends.  She had been misjudged that way many times as
well...another similarity.  She smirked.  Perhaps, she sarcastically
thought, they were soulmates.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

All the while, Joseph had been observing the vixen as well.  He had watched
her and studied the records available on her life, trying to learn her
nature.  From his observations, he had rigged up a personal dossier on her.
She looked youthful, about in her middle twenties...fur of a deep black,
stood about 5'10".  She had a very feminine, yet athletic, figure; a long,
silky tail, a well-curved frame, sparkling, intelligent eyes...but she
also had a sort of wary toughness about her that reminded him of some of
the warrior caste vixens back home.

The records he had available on her showed a turbulent early life.  She was
a professional thief, with a rap sheet a mile long.  In and out of jail a
lot...when the coup hit, she had nothing to lose.  She'd worked for both
sides for a while, finally switching over to the FF side after some
incident with Packbell...the rest of her current history was based on
rumors he had picked up on his hidden microphones and cameras.

Yet, for completely illogical and foolish reasons, Joseph thought he'd like
to be her mate.  He found her irresistably attractive...despite her past,
the way he had acted toward Tails and other incidents, he saw someone he
could relate to.  They shared many interests.  Both were voyeuristic to a
certain extent; her for survival, him for the sheer fun of it.  She was
obviusly an athletic type, who loved to push herself to her limit.  They
both were loners, spies, outcasts, and generally not people you'd likely
find in `polite' society.

He'd started observing her movements through the Great Forest almost
obsessively...he wanted to understand how she was like, how she lived, what
she cared about...for the first time in over 3 centuries, he felt the
twinges of an early love forming.

Thinking on this further, he laughed.  He hardly even knew this vixen!
He'd obviously spent way, way too long down in the Control Room...
but he still kept watching.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A day or two after that, she had decided to try and catch a glimpse of what
this mysterious uberfox looked like.  Only a dusting of snow was on the
ground at the time, so he'd still be able to go outside and practice.

After convincing the 'Globe to let her through, she had snuck through the path
to the training area.  It was a small, densely wooded alcove within a dim
part of the Great Forest.  It was nearly impossible to see into it unless
you went out of your way to observe what was going on.  Pine trees and
thick shrubs surrounded the 12' square that had been cleared for practice
and meditation.  Not even animals dared tread within it, which surprised
her to a great degree.  She climbed up a thick evergreen and perched
precariously upon a thick branch.  Hopefully, she'd be able to see him,
while he would be unable to see her.

The sound of nearing footfalls caused her to involentarily shudder.  She
quickly took her position, close to the trunk of the tree, and emitted not
a sound as the fox approached.

He was a tall, elegantly-framed fox.  His fur was a shocking citrus orange,
which she had not expected...yet, this did not seem to make him any less
attractive.  He was dressed in a training suit; cotton pants and shirt,
which looked like they once were white.  His black, reflective wraparounds
kept his eyes from sight, and also kept her from being sure where he
was looking.  He was clad in naught else, but carried himself with an air
of confidence that would make you think he was clad in a sturdy suit of
armor.

He said no word, but went right to his work.  He started with some basic
stretching exercises, which stretched out his tightly-packed, yet strong,
muscles.  She watched him as he bent and twisted, watching the rippling
undergirding beneath the suit flow along in perfect harmony with his
mind's command.

After a while of that, he began to work himself into a sweat slowly.  He
did some minor meditations, moving his body to some rhythm known only to
him.  He slowly extended his arm to punch, and recoiled it in again.  Then,
a swift roundhouse, to throw some variation into the perfectly controlled
dance.  He flipped backward once or twice, and then did a forward roll back
to his original position and lept to his feet.  His mind and body were one.

He continued training silently, her his only audience.  But finally, as all
things do, it came to an end.  He took a series of deep breaths, sat down,
and crossed his legs into the lotus position.  He bowed his head, and began
to slow his breathing...

After she was sure he was lost within his meditation, she silently climbed
out of the tree, and retreated back into the woods.  His physical form
had...affected her in a way that she had not been in a long time.  He was a
creature of an elegant beauty...he had perfect control of his body, mind,
and soul at all times.  Cold as ice...but the only way she could ever tell
would be to see into his eyes.  The eyes that were obscured by the black
wraparounds were the ones she wanted to see...would they be emerald, blue,
or brown?  He smiled, and giggled as if she were a young kit again.  This
was such a silly way to behave.  She should just go up to him and start a
conversation, instead of treating him as some sort of subject to be studied
and analysed for tactical potential.

But that raised some interesting questions in her mind.  Did she want to
treat this fox as a potential mate, or as a resource?  Could she do both
in good faith?  Whose side was she on, anyw--

"HALT, CITIZEN!"

She started to run as the lazer fire began.  She'd wandered right into a
SWATBot hover patrol she should have seen coming a mile away.  Stupid
vixen!  Never let your mind wander while you're in enemy territory!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And that's where we left our heroine all those pages ago:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She ran as fast as she could, heading back to the river.  If she could get
to the Great Swamp, she could hide there until the patrol gave up and went
back to Robotropolis.  But things were starting to happen that were
interfering with her plans.  For one thing, it was starting to snow.
Heavily.  Second, the patrol was speeding up.  Third, she was already
fatigued from the lack of food she had taken in the last few days...
maybe it was time to stop running.  If she could irritate the SWATBots
enough, she could earn a quick and relatively painless--

The sounds of metal being rended from metal resounded in her ears.
Something had attacked the squad from behind!  But what...? was not her
problem.  Her body was set to run, and it was going to.  She didn't feel
like stopping, and she honestly didn't want to be within striking distance
of something that was big and nasty enough to polish off a squad of
SWATBots.  So she ran deeper into the snow, that was coming down in thick
sheets now....not knowing that the thing that had terminated the SWATBots
meant her no harm.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The wind blew an icy slap across the Dome, slowly covering its already
crystalline design with a glimmering lining of ice.  As the snow continued
to taper down from the opaque, grey sky, slush accumulated along the sides
of the sidewalk; a low-powered forecefield kept the ice and snow from
reaching it, and instead pushed it to the sides.  A closer examination of
the structure would also reveal that it had semi-clear `windows' built into
a few sides of it...via clearing up portions of the otherwise brown
crystal.

If we looked into one of the small, less-opaque clearings in the otherwise
brownish crystal that made up the `roof' of the Dome, we would be able to
see the nebulous outlines of a few Solstice decorations...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph was putting the finishing touches on his entertainment area,
preparing for a Solstice party for the `upper brass' of the Knothole
Freedom Fighters.  It had taken him a few hours of work every day, but
he'd done what was required as the eccentric Mobian traditions stated:
he had acquired a small evergreen tree and decorated it with colorful
bright things, made a punchbowl full of a vaguely alcoholic substance
called `eggnog', replicated a festive buffet of holiday foods, as well as
some snacks, and set up a music generator that knew traditional Mobian
music (as well as some contemporary hits).

Comfortable sofas were set up around the room, and particularly one in
front of his large fireplace for...well, he didn't know.  It would depend
on who saw it first.  Either Bunnie and Rotor or Sonic and Sally.  Probably
Sonic would acquire it.  He smiled.  After all, he'd get there first.

In the center of the room was a impromptu dance area.  He was especially
proud of it; he'd wired it to a series of auditory/visual triggers that
would set the proper mood for any song.  It was padded nicely, and was kept
warm by a series of heating coils.  After all, it certainly looked chilly
outside...

He checked his chronometer.  3 hours until he'd have to do last-minute
setup for the party.  Perhaps he'd go out on a walk...

Oh, who was he trying to kid?  He was worried about her.  Sure, he'd
followed her for a ways, and was about to actually -say- something when
that brigade of SWATBots came roaring down from nowhere, blast them.
And he'd taken them out, and watched the vixen escape.  But it was snowing
heavily outside, and the wind was blasting.  He had the proper shielding to
survive in the woods on a night like this, but she certainly didn't.

Yes, he was going to go out and look.  This was important.  She looked
unwell to begin with, so she couldn't have gotten far...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She ran and ran and ran, deeper into the woods than she'd normally go.
Her body ached, was cold, and needed food.  She needed to stop
running...but if she did, she thought she'd never run again.  But her body
made the choice for her seconds later; her knees simply buckled beneath
her, and she collapsed with a wet *swak* into a snowdrift.

She lied there for a moment, reflecting on how utterly pathetic this was.
She hadn't eaten in days, her cave was miles away, she was lost, and she
was starting to accumulate snow.  And she still hadn't actually heard the
sound of her strange fox's voice.  That, on top of the fact she was lying
in a snowdrift that was starting to collect additional snow to pile
upon her every minute, was making her absolutely miserable.  She wanted to
cry, but couldn't even find the strength to do that...she was tired, so
tired...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph turned up his I/R vision to maximum range, rushing through the
forest in hedgehog mode.  He was desperately looking for the remains of her
trail, hoping to find some trace of her...a trail, a scent, a heat
signature--but all traces were gone beneath the gusting, icy wind and the
blankets of snow that were falling from the sky.  He shouted her name in
vain, still running as fast as he could...and then, as he was about to turn
back and pray for the best...he saw the very hint of a heat signature
sticking out of a large snowdrift.

Quickly, he rushed over to it, doing a deeper scan.  She was in there, all
right.  He frantically dug at the snow, hoping to pull her out before she
sufficated or drowned or whatever you do when you're crushed by snow.  She
was going into hypothermia, so he had little time to lose...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The dark-haired vixen was in a semi-delusional state.  At first, the snow
that draped her seemed to be the slow hand of death gripping her soul
tightly, ever tighter...then, she felt it slip away, with her limp form
being pulled away from it.  A short figure (a demon?) was pulling her out
into the cold again.  Too weak to fight, she only moaned as the figure
draped her as much as it could over its shoulders, and started running.
Fast, so fast...the snow, trees, and her life streaked into a blur--she
slipped into a state of unconsciousness.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She awoke again inside a glowing white room with a shudder.  She laid
upon a king-sized bed, wrapped tightly in the covers.  She was, for a
change of pace, comfortable.  Her fur was dried and cleaned, her
wounds were tended, and her strength was somehow renewed.

She tried to remember how she got here, but could not.  She was outside,
moving fast...SWATBots, speed...then nothing.  As if that was all a dream.
Perhaps it was.  But if it was, where was she?

She unwrapped herself from the soft covers, and hopped upon the strangely
warm floor.  Standing there, she felt she needed some sort of support for a
moment, so grabbed against the side of the nightstand.  Closing her eyes
for a moment, and taking a breath, she opened her eyes and looked around.

It was a cozy room, with a low ceiling and carpeted floor.  The bed took up
most of the room, but some chairs and a table were also present.  A
replicator...a replicator!  Food!  Water!  At last!  She rushed over to
it, and spoke.  "Computer, quickly!  A plate of spagetti and a glass of
Mobian black wine!"  And, surprisingly enough, it gave her just that.
She snatched it from the replicator and quickly imbibed it, filling her
aching stomach at last.

After she had completed her meal, she put the plate down on a table and
wiped some of the excess spagetti sauce and wine off her muzzle.  She felt
much better now, and wanted to explore this strange place she found herself
in.  She walked over to a stepdisk near the back of the room.  She walked
on top of it, and got herself steadied on it.  But before she could give it
any orders, a hole opened above her and lifted her to the surface.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She arrived in the inside of a large dome-shaped structure.  It was
decorated for the upcoming solstice holiday, but seemed to be ready for
some sort of party.  A buffet was here, as well as a roaring fire with
couches facing it.  It even had a jukebox, complete with a dance floor.
She smiled when she looked at it, remembering times of old...

"Up already, Miss Nightweaver?"

She looked over in the direction of the voice, which came from a couch most
directly in front of the flickering fire.  "Please, come here and take a
seat," he said, "I know you must be tired."

Cautiously, she approached the couch, and sat down on the opposite side of
it.  She looked over to her right, and saw Joseph sitting on the other end.
Neither of them said a word for a while.  Joseph stared into the fire for a
few moments, and appeared to be calmly collecting himself.  Sandra (as you
must have figured out by now) simply looked at him.

"It appears," Joseph said, "that my party is going to have to be postponed.
The weather has appeared to have come in the way."  He sighed, smiling
slightly.  "Ah well.  At least I'll have leftovers."

"Why have you brought me here?"

Joseph blinked quickly, and looked t her.  Thinking, he answered with
another question.  "Would you rather be out there?"

Sandra shook her head in the negative.  "Well, what do you want of me?"

Joseph smiled.  "I want nothing of you."  He paused, and drank a glass of
wine.  "I simply have developed a liking for you, that is all."

Sandra pretended not to blush, then smirked.  "Oh?  And why might that be?"

Joseph pondered for a moment.  "You are attractive to me, mentally and
physically," he said, stomach going into a bowline hitch, "and it would be
hard for me to imagine someone not liking you."

She swooned internally, but maintained her aloof facade.  "My, aren't you
to the point."  She laughed quietly.  "Well, you're no Antoine, yourself."

His heart raced, but still he showed nothing of it, aside from a small
smile.  "Such kind words are unnecessary."

She smirked.  "Well, then most of what you've said to me is utter fluff."

He smiled, beginning to fear unnecessarily that he'd offended her.  "That
is not so," he said with his mind reeling, "because you are all of those
things to me."

Her heart melted like a ice cube in a microwave.  "But how could I be all
of those things to you?  We've only just met."

He smiled, stomach knotting tighter.  "I've watched you for a long time."

She blinked, stunned.  "You've been watching me?"

He nodded.  "Almost as well as you've been watching me."

Sandra flushed crimson beneath her fur, humiliated.  "So you've known..."

He took part of her hand in his.  "It does not offend me that you have done
so, as I hope my observations have not offended you."

They looked into each other's eyes for an eternity.

They said almost simotaneously, "No, they have not."

Both recoiled a bit, surprised.  Then, they laughed quietly at their
syncronised thoughts, and looked back into each other's eyes.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" Joseph said.

Sandra looked deep into Joseph's eyes, and then deep into herself.  She
considered who he was, how he seemed to feel and about how she felt about
him.  The answer presented itself instantly.

"I do now," Sandra said, and crept closer to him.  He shrunk away a bit,
but Sandra softly took hold of his shoulder.  She stared into his eyes, and
smiled.  Joseph sent his other arm behind her back, and pulled her nearer
to him in a soft embrace.

No further words were needed.






		       Chapter Six - A Cold Shoulder



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: The next morning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The sky was still opaque with the grey ceiling of snow clouds.  Silence
reigned over the Great Forest like an tyrannical king, censoring all of
the usual noises of life.  Wind whistled through the treetops, bringing a
quiet snowshower on its coattails.

The freshly-fallen snow had draped the outside of the Dome in an opaque
blanket of sparkling white ice.  The howling snowstorm last night had
left its mark; a foot of snow laid on the ground, smothering anything
smaller than a domesticated nonanthro cat completely, leaving nary a
trace of what was formerly there.

The sun rose that morning, as it had done for aeons.  But only a dim glow
was seen on the ground, with the oppressive mass of grey and white blocking
its warming rays.  But yet, the sun shone as mightily as it could, at least
warming the tops of the clouds.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bahb was silent in the core of the complex, awaiting the commencement
of the official (not technical, which activated at +00:00:00) solar
cycle at +07:15:00.  During the night, it was required to do little.
Most systems were deactivated, except for the security protocols and
survellience systems; so Bahb was what most Mobians would define as
`bored'.  It was self-aware, which not only gave it the capacity to know it
existed, but also gave it the ability to experience ennui.

So there it sat, silently recording the activities that its cameras
recieved, keeping the night shields up, and calmly processing the
roboticizer information that had been annexed from Robotropolis.

The deroboticizer project was something that Bahb only had a minor interest
in.  For one thing, all Bahb did was run the series of algorhythms
constantly, substituting various variables with steadily-increasing
numbers.  When the proper matrix was reached, eventually, that equation
would form the key to completing the deroboticizer software.  Joseph had
a substancial interest in it, so Bahb made the equation-finding as
efficient as possible.  This meant that Bahb devoted 25% of the total system
resources to the finding of this equation.  That also meant the 75% of the
system left over would be divided between the other subsystems: security
(25%), survellience (25%), maintanence (10%), life support (10%), and
the miscellaneous situations that tended to occur around the Dome (5%).

Bahb had taken it upon itself to automate most of his functions.  It was
mostly disinterested in life support and maintanence, security was usually
a non-problem, and survellience was something Joseph handled.  So that left
the majority of its intelligence with very little to occupy itself...

[ Dome pattern: "NIGHTWATCH" ceased at +07:14:59 ]
[ Dome pattern: "DAYWATCH" activated at +07:15:00 ]
[ Activating processes...]

Bahb twittered a bit at the automatic processes firing up, which finally
gave him something to observe.  The daytime activities of the Dome were
more `fun' to manage, in Bahb's opinion, because they were more chaotic.
They forced it to adapt to new situations, which Bahb had been programmed
to enjoy.  Nighttime was usually rather bland, with few (if any) odd things
occurring during the darkness; the frightening psychic repulsion
field that surrounded the Dome after the sun went down kept most things at
a safe distance away.  But, as the cycle began, it powered down for the
sake of preserving energy; that, and because Joseph would be able to deal
with any visitors that arrived during the day.

Bahb activated the child processes that would handle most of the tedious
grunt-work of firing everything back up.  The heater kicked over in the
lower levels, starting to warm the otherwise freezing cold (all radiation,
from heat to cosmic rays, were stopped dead by the 2-foot thick curved
crystal wall that made up the foundation of the Dome) lower levels first.
It slowly worked its warm way to the middle of the complex, and up
to the `roof' of the complex; then, recycling its way down to the basement,
and back up.  As the heat began to waft up through the ventilation system,
the lighting system powered up.  The walls, which had entinguished
themselves so to expediate sleep, reactivated.  Dim at first, then slowly
increasing their magnitude back to normal.  With the vital heat and light
systems active, the next priority was the work area.  Silently, the
laboratory systems activated, and began their own series of cycles to
prepare for the day's work.

[ Processes Activated. ]

With the startup sequence completed, Bahb chose to check up on Joseph
before going any further with the daily prep sequence.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

They laid there in front of the fireplace, the last ambers of last night's
fire extinguishing.  She was wrapped around him snugly; her head resting on
his chest, with his arms barely caressing her abdomen.  Both were sound
asleep, at peace in each other's arms.

Bahb analyzed this scene for signifigance.  He obviously realized that this
new, strange individual was enamored with Joseph, and the feeling was quite
possibly mutual.  However, Bahb was unfamiliar with the `why' of this new
situation...she'd never entered here before, and its records showed that
she wasn't a Freedom Fighter.  So who was she?

It scrolled through its records, looking for a match.  She was not
royality, not a scientist, not military.  Her nubile form hadn't gone to
any Mobian college, or worked for the state.  Finally, checking criminal
records, it found a match.  The subject's name was Sandra Nightweaver.
A thief and a spy.

Bahb processed this.  Joseph, a respected citizen (at least, he filled the
criteria for a respected citizen), had fallen in with a renegade.
Illogical and improbable.  Yet, Bahb had learned that illogical and
improbable things happened when living things become involved.

Bahb was no judge of moral character, and didn't try to be.  Rather, it
simply followed the commands of its creator, Joseph.  So, both parties
were to be treated equally, and have the same things done for him or her
that would have been done otherwise.  Sandra had been added to the
userlist, and would be treated kindly.

Breakfast cycle became active.  While it replicated Joseph's favorite
(waffles slathered in maple syrup, orange juice, toast, bacon and home
fries), it activated a brain scanner and poked around inside the female's
head.  It skimmed through some uninteresting memories, and finally stumbled
upon a morning meal she appeared to enjoy; scrambled eggs, toast, coffee,
hash browns, and a few links of sausage.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra began to wake up, sensing the familiar smells of a hot breakfast.
Dimly, she started to remember where she was, and who she was with.
There'd been a lot of snow, and something orange involved.  She noticed her
head was resting against warm fur, with a slow, nearly mechanical heartbeat.
Her eyes opened, and looked around the room she was in.

She was inside a curved dome, which was a dull brown in color.  A metallic
portal led outside, while a stepdisk implanted in the floor obviously led
downward.  A replicator with two plates and glasses in it hummed in a
corner, while various party equipment was being taken down and away by
maintence drones.

She looked over at the large, warm object that she was laying upon.
He was a tall, slim fox, with bright orange fur.  A pair of black
wraparounds were snugly attached to his face.  He had striking
features; a strong muzzle, with a well-put together cranium.
He probably had green eyes, she mused, or grey.  She smiled, and rubbed the
side of his face lovingly.  Out like a light.  She looked him over a bit
more, and noticed he had no shirt on.  His chest and stomach were
well-defined, but not overly bulky.  She ran her hands lightly over it,
hearing a quiet whine emit from her kind provider.  Yet, he didn't wake up.
Giggling softly, she snuggled a little closer to him.  The cool steel of
his belt rubbed against the side of her hip.  Reflexively, he held her a
little tighter...

<< "Joseph?" >>

Sandra's ears flicked.  "Huh?"

<< "Are you awake, Joseph?" >>

She rolled over on top of the fox.  "What--?"

A beep, and a dim clicking sound.

"Hello," a voice said, "Miss Nightweaver."

Sandra looked around in a futile effort to find the source of the voice.
"Who--?"

"I am a Bahb 27290-A Unit, the central computer for this area."

She unbuckled his arms, and slid off of him.  She thought for a moment, and
then spoke.  "Oh, you are now?"

"Yes, I am."

She looked over at the replicator.  "Is that for us?"

A beep.  "Yes.  Please awaken Joseph for breakfast now."

Sandra, not knowing exactly how to respond, gently shook Joseph.
"Honey...breakfast."

Joseph rrrred, not wanting to get up.  Sandra nudged him a bit harder.
"C'mon, you.  Get up."  He rolled over away from her.  She smiled
sublimely.  "Oh, so you want to be like that, eh?"

She grabbed around his abdomen, and rolled him gently on his back.  She
rubbed his stomach firmly, working her fingertips into his firm stomach
muscles.  He murred, panted, and curled his toes.  A soft smile crossed
her face.  "Get up."

The male fox rubbed the arms that massaged him.  "I don' wanna."

She climbed on top of him, and straddled his waist.  Continuing her
rubbing, she softly spoke, "For me?"

He opened his eyes behind his glasses, and looked up at his mate.
"Well, okay."  He picked her up, and held her in his arms.  He hopped off
the bed, and carried her over to a table.  Placing her in a chair, he
walked over and fetched the food from the replicator, and put it on the
table.  He smiled.  "Your food, madam."

She giggled.  "Why, thank you, sir."

He smiled, and sat down parallel to her.  He took a quick swig of orange
juice before speaking again.  "Sleep well?"

She gave him a smoky look.  "Very."

He raised an eyebrow.  "Good."

She sipped some of her coffee, thinking.  "So, tell me...what's
your story?"

He smiled.  "My story?"

"Yes.  You know so much about me, but I know almost nothing about you."

"Well, where would you like me to start?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, a few thousand yards away...

Knothole was attempting to dig its way out of the worst snowstorm in recent
history.  Sheets of ice covered the doorways, making travel slippery (if
not impossible) while the thick, wet snow took hours to shovel away.

Sonic has spin-dashed his way out in a few minutes, and cleared out most of
the main street enough for travel.  The roboticized individuals helped as
well, shoveling out paths anywhere they could.  After a few hours, Knothole
was relatively functional again.

The bitter cold forced many to stay inside, especially most of the younger
citizens of Knothole.  But Tails, being almost an official Freedom Fighter,
was out with Sonic, giving him as much assistance as possible.  Of course,
that wasn't much.

"Gee Sonic," the young fox stated from inside Sonic's backpack, "what
should we do now?"

"Dunno, kid," Sonic said, roaring across the ground to melt away a
particularly nasty sheet of ice, "maybe we should check up on Sal."
And, without a word, Sonic changed direction and ran toward Sally's hut.

Sally was trying, at the time, to shovel off her walk.  Unfortunately,
as supersonic hedgehogs are wont to do, he plowed right into a pile of
snow; knocking him and snow back onto the walk.

Sally stood agast for a moment, and then regained her senses.
"Sonic Hedgehog!" she shouted, "That took me 15 minutes!  Now I'll
have to start over from scratch!"

Sonic pulled his way out of the snow, and smirked wickedly.  "I'm okay,
Sal.  No, really, I don't need any help getting up."

Sally brushed some of the snow off of Sonic.  "Like you would have taken
it."

Sonic laughed.  "True.  But it's still nice to hear sometimes."

Sally smiled.  "I suppose so."  She thought for a moment.  "Is everyone
okay?"

Sonic nodded.  "Aside from some little dings here and there from fallin' on
ice, everyone in Knothole's A-OK."

"Have you talked to Joseph yet?"

Sonic shook his head.  "No, Sal.  We had ta dig our way outa here first."

"Well," she said, "you better send someone up there to see if he's okay.
He's probably wondering about us right now."

Tails climbed out of Sonic's backpack.  "I'll go!"

Sally looked hesistant.  "Well, I don't know, Tails...it's awfully cold."

Tails appeared determined to go.  "Aw, c'mon, Sally.  I'm dressed for the
weather.  'Sides, it'll only take me a minute."

Sally smiled.  "Okay, Tails, you can go."

Tails grinned widely.  "Past Cool!"  He flew off toward the stump quickly,
wanting to be sure to get far enough away before she changed her mind.

Sonic dusted off his hands, and watched Tails go off.  Before Sally could
say a word, Sonic stated, "He'll be okay."

Sally nodded.  "I just hope he doesn't catch another cold."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"...and that covers up to the present day."

Sandra was entranced.  "You've had such an interesting life..."

He smiled.  "You really think so?"

She nodded.  "Very."

They looked into each other's eyes for a aeon or two.

"Well," he said, "you've not had such a sheltered life, either."

She grinned at him.  "Is that a good or a bad thing?"

He slinked out of his chair, and slid behind Sandra.  Draping his arms
around her shoulders, he whispered, "That depends..."  He kissed her ears.
"...on if you are a good or bad thing."  He looped his arms beneath her
shoulders, and lifted her up.  Then, he put his right arm under the back of
her knees, and his left propped up her back.  Sandra smiled, and snuggled
up to him gently.  She asked, "What would you like me to be?"  He carried her
over to a couch, where he laid down first.  "Anything you want to be."  She
slid on top, and kissed him...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails flew by a SpyGlobe, which didn't seem to be paying attention to much
of anything.  That was odd, Tails thought, because SpyGlobes were said to
transmit right into Joseph's mind.  Perhaps he is asleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph dumped the incoming transmission into the nearest null spool, and
caressed Sandra's back with the hands of a skilled masseuse.  He held her
close, smiled, and kissed her deeply...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails arrived at the front portal, and knocked on it.  When knocking didn't
seem to do the trick, he yelled into the intercom.  After that seemed to
fail, he started whipping snowballs at the door.  "Lemme in, Joseph!
It's cold!!!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph soundproofed the wall where the portal was, and kept necking with
Sandra; hoping the noise would go away, or at least come back later.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails pushed the `open' switch, which activated the security program.  A
riddle was put up in front of him.  Grumbling, he looked it over and
thought.  His tails were getting icy, and he needed to blow his nose.
Why won't he open up?!?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra kissed him deeper, rubbing his shoulders as she straddled his waist.
Her heart pounded quicker as she massaged the inside of his mouth, her hand
running down his side to his belt...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails examined the riddle, and punched in an answer.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph grasped her sides firmly, stroking her back as they laid in their
passionate embrace...a small red box started blinking in the corner of his
eye, but he blinked it away so it wouldn't obstruct his vision.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails hit the enter toggle, and the door opened.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The portal opened.  A cold blast of air rushed in from the outdoors, with
a cloud of snow.  Sandra and Joseph looked over at Tails.  Tails looked
over at Joseph, and then Sandra.  Joseph looked at Sandra and then Tails.

Joseph's mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing coherent came
out.  Sandra, however, had some of her wits about her.  She unwrapped
herself from around Joseph, (for lack of a better term) dismounted, and
stood in front of Joseph.

"Hasn't your mother," said Sandra at the also-speechless Tails, "taught you
not to enter some place without being let in first?"

A younger Tails would have simply run away when she said that.  But this
was not the same Tails that Sandra had captured and shot all that time ago.
"I'm not afraid of you," he said more to reassure himself than to use
against Sandra.

Sandra smirked, put her hands on her hips, and bent down a little to make
direct eye contact with the small fox-child.  Her lips curled up in a
perverse version of a fanged smirk, and her glaring blue eyes pierced
into the kit's with a very unnerving effect.

"Yes," she growled, "you are.  You are very frightened, and you need to
run home very fast."  She waited until he started shaking, and then
continued.  "Because if you don't," she snarled, her voice increasing in
volume, but not pitch, "I'm going to send you there, *piece* by *piece*."

With that, Tails screamed for dear life, and flew back to Knothole at
roughly the speed of sound.  After he had faded into the snow, Sandra
closed the portal, and told the computer to hermetically seal it until
further notice.

She smiled, and dusted off her hands.  "There," she noted, "that should
stop any more multi-tailed interlopers from interfering..."

Joseph sat up, his voice returning.  "Was that really necessary?"

Sandra blinked.  "Yes, of course."

An awkward silence.

"Well, ummm...you didn't need to scare him like that."

Sandra swished her tail slowly from left to right, looking unflinchingly
into his eyes.  "He'll get over it."

"Sally won't."

Sandra blinked.  "Sally?"

"Yeah.  You know, the lady who acts like Tails' mom?  The heir to the
Mobian throne?"

Sandra suddenly realized exactly what the consequences of what
she had done would be.  And, for the first time since her early teens, she
felt guilty about something she'd done.

"I've probably gotten us in trouble," she noted softly.

Joseph laid back down and thought.  "A little, yes," he mused
emotionlessly, "but nothing that can't be fixed."

Sandra's tail unhappily drooped to the ground, as the corners of her mouth
seemed to wish.  "That was a really stupid thing to do."

Joseph blew some hair out of his eyes.  "No, a really stupid thing to do is
not to exterminate Snively when you have the chance to."

Sandra snuck back over to Joseph, and laid back down on top of him.  He
stroked her back reflexively as she rested her head on his chest.  "I'm
sorry," she said softly, closing her eyes and sighing.  Joseph rested his
muzzle on top of her head.  "Forgiven."  He thought for a moment.
"Perhaps if I just calmly and rationally explain this to everyone,
they'll understand."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"I want her in here NOW!"

Sally was in a fury.  She had just sat down to relax after getting most of
the emergency storm protocols in place, when Tails had ran in her hut and
dove under a table.  Naturally, this caught her attention, and she rushed
over to it to see what was the matter.  After much coaxing, she was able to
get him to speak again.  What she heard didn't please her.

Let it be said that Sally was as forgiving as any soul on Mobius.  She was
unusally kind to those she did not know, and she always was there for a
friend when she was needed.  But, like everyone, there are some things that
she could not forgive.  This was one of them.  It was bad enough that
Sandra Nightweaver had not only been spying on them, assisting Robotnik at
times (so the rumors went), and had shot Tails...but now she was
corrupting Joseph (actually, it was probably the other way around to the
opposite extreme, but Sally couldn't have known that), making him do
`weird' things (which meant she was going to have to have the "talk" with
him now!), and she had threatened Tails with physical harm (which Tails had
seemed to have no doubt in his mind that she was going to deliver on; that
meant nightmares for the next few days).  And, she had also spotted her
snooping around Knothole in the last few days, apparently looking for
additional information about Joseph.  The three times she had saw her,
she'd chased her off sucessfully.  But, for every time you'd see her, there
were ten times that you wouldn't...

So, Sally had called Rotor and Sonic in, two people who somewhat understood
how Joseph's mind worked, to see if they could give her any suggestions on
how to un-enchant Joseph with this `bad' influence and to find some way of
punishing her for all of the mean stuff she'd done.

Rotor was no great help in this regard.  Being relatively a romantic
novice, and knowing little about either of their backgrounds, he could form
no sort of workable strategy to solve this problem.  Eventually, Sally
stopped talking to him about it, and focused her energies on Sonic.

Sonic was more of a help in this area inasmuch as 0.000000000000000000001
is greater than zero.  While he was not in any way romantically helpless,
he knew even less than Rotor about the both of them.  All he saw was some
nice, yet shy fox who lived all alone in a big, lonely fortress, who'd met
a mysterious (perhaps lonesome) vixen who had no home to speak of.  They'd
met, fallen in `like' (certainly no guy could fall in love that quickly!),
and chosen to live together.  Tails had stumbled in where he shouldn't have
been at the wrong time, and had gotten off rather easily.  Joseph was
happy.  Sandra was probably, too, and Tails was alive.  Sonic saw no
problem there.  "Sure," he had noted, "Sandra's been bad before.  But
Joe wouldn't go out with someone who'd hurt us.  He's too smart for that."

This wasn't what Sally wanted to hear.  She wanted some clever plan to
seperate them, not empathy for the deluded fool!  (At this point, both
Rotor and Sonic realized this was not Sally's usual mindset, and suggested
Sally rest for a while.  But she wasn't about to listen to them...not when
her Tails had been frightened and threatened by that brunette bitch of a
badnik!  (Which she wasn't, but that's something Sally, as noted
previously, does not know.))

She finally got so irritated with the both of them that she pretty much
threw them out of her hut.  After they had been removed, she slammed the
door, bolted it, and brooded silently.

After a little while, Tails poked his head out from around the corner, and
looked in on his aggressively angry aunt.

Tails wasn't a young kit anymore, as could probably be guessed.  He'd
started on the winding journey to teenager, and was developing his
understanding of the world to a degree that he never had before.  He was
feeling more independent, and even a little surly.  Yet, he was still just
a child, and had much to learn.

But Tails' basic naiveity still gave him a different view of most things
that `adults' either couldn't, or wouldn't, see.  He'd thought about what
had happened for a while, and realized he, not Joseph or Sandra (despite
his natural dislike of her because she was mean to him), was at fault.
He'd explained it sucessfully to everyone else, and they'd pretty much
forgiven him.  (Most people had done something similar when they were
children, he'd discovered, tho what they'd interrupted they would not say.)
He wanted to go apologize to Joseph and Sandra, but Sally wouldn't let him
even go outside.  She wasn't mad at him, even though she acted like it, but
at Sandra.  Sally didn't like Sandra very much, because she had hurt him.
And Tails didn't like her much either because of that; but, if she was bad,
why did Joseph like her?  Joseph was a good person, and good people
don't give bad people the time of day.  Right?

Thus, Tails had concluded, Sandra must not be a bad person anymore.  So,
somehow, he'd found it in his heart to forgive her.  After all, the wound
had healed long ago, and the tongue-lashing had been deserved.  (That's
what everyone said, anyway.  But Sally said she wasn't going to explain why
until later.)

Sally, however, didn't seem to understand this clear (to Tails) logic.
She was following some sort of maternal instinct that demanded grudges
against those who had hurt him.  And Tails could understand a great deal of
it.  Sandra had done lots of bad things in the past.  She was a thief,
a spy, and a traitor to Mobius....yet, Tails had learned from Sally herself
that all people are basically good.  So Sandra had taken a little longer
than other people to come around.  Big deal, as Sonic might say.  If the
change was perminent, she deserved to be happy as much as anyone else was.
And Joseph certainly deserved someone to love.  He was the most unhappy,
lonely, morbid and shy person Tails had ever met.  He was almost mean in a
way, but he always did what was right...

Yes, Tails felt he was right in forgiving Sandra for what she'd done, even
without including in what she was doing for Joseph.  So why wouldn't Sally?
He walked over to her and nudged her.  She blinked and looked down at
her charge.  "Yes, Tails?"

Tails lost all bearing on what to ask her.  He stood there for a moment,
and then said something just for the sake of saying it.  "Umm, I'm going to
bed now."

Sally nodded.  "Okay, Tails.  G'nite."  And she kissed him on the nose, as
was the custom, and went back to her thoughts.

Stuck in his statement, he went off to his room, shut the door, and put out
the light.  Great.  -Now- how could be apologize?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph and Sandra had held each other in their arms for a while after that,
and then tried to figure out what to do.  Travel to Knothole was
inadvisible for several reasons; Sally was still angry, and would be for a
while yet; it was bitterly cold; everyone there was busy; and Sandra (much
to Joseph's chagrin) would not go into any place she felt uncomfortable
unarmed.

So they decided they would merely stay inside for awhile, and wait until
someone wished to communicate with them face to face.  Joseph had shown
Sandra around much of the Dome, demonstrating his unique home to her.
He'd tried to explain the deroboticizer to her, but the fact that he only
had a loose grasp on it so far didn't help.

The beauty of the Emerald Room (as he called it, appropriately), and
especially of the Amber Chaos Emerald, had awed her.  "It's beautiful..."
she had said, struck by its beauty.  She put her hands by it, rubbing them
around the limits or its aura.  "...and warm..."  She gazed into it.
"...and bright!"  He smiled.  "Like you."  Sandra blushed.  "Certainly
my beauty cannot..."  He held her in his arms.   "It does."  She giggled,
and allowed him to move on.

After a little while, they made it down to the 13th SubBasement, where
Joseph's personal quarters were.  She marveled at the efficient bathroom...
and the large bed.  She'd made especially crass remarks about the bed,
which had made Joseph laugh.  (And you aren't going to hear them, either.)

Then, they'd wandered into his most vital room of all, the Master Control
Room.  By now, night had fallen, so Joseph could freely show her all of the
various camera angles and sensors he had wired to it.  She was very, very
impressed.  Sitting on his lap, they went all over Mobius.  Robotropolis,
Knothole, outer space, beneath the sea, over hill and dale they saw, yet
were never seen themselves.  She hugged him after a while, and smiled.
"Choosing you as my mate has once again reaped benefits."

He blushed.  "I hope you don't love me just because I've got a big eye."

She laughed.  "Certainly not!"  She snuggled up to him tighter.  "I can
think of many reasons that I love you as well."

Joseph smiled mischieviously.  "Oh?"

Sandra cuddled up to him.  "Yes."

He snuggled back.  "How many?"

"At least ten," she smiled, "offhand."

He ran his fingers through her hair.  "Name 'em."

She giggled.  "Okay.  You're strong."

He rubbed her ear.  "That's one."

"You're brave," she murred.

He stroked her neck.  "Two."

She ran her hand down his stomach.  "You're handsome."

"Three," he replied.

She nuzzled into his abdomen.  "You're well-proportioned," she noted, and
patted a certain part of his anatomy.

He blushed a deep russet red, and looked up to the ceiling.  "Four..."

She pulled his muzzle back down and kissed it.  "You're brilliant."

He kissed back.  "Five."

She smiled at him.  "You have excellent fashion sense."

He looked down at her eternally-nude form.  "So do you," he winked.  "Six."

Sandra giggled.  "You're kind and loving."

He smiled, and nibbled her neck.  "Seven."

"You know how to behave--" Then, the neck nibbling started.  "--as well as
how to treat a lady," she purred, rolling her head around.

Joseph licked her chin.  "Eight and nine."

She rrred.  "And, Joseph," she whispered, "you're a good fox."

"Ten," he whispered back, and kissed her quite deeply...

On the monitors, the moon temporarily parted the snow clouds, and rose.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails had waited until Sally appeared to drift off to sleep in the next
room before deciding to act.  He would go out tonight, and secretly go to
Joseph's home.  He would throw himself on their mercies, and hope they
forgave him for all the trouble he caused.  Then, maybe, Sally and them
could work something out, and everything would be nice again.

He skulked out of his room, and carefully opened the hall closet.  He took
out his thick boots, his jacket, his hat and gloves, and his scarf.  He
bundled up well, like Sally would have wanted him to, and snuck out of the
house into the night.

It was quiet outside Knothole that night.  The clouds had cleared for a
moment, and the winds had died down.  The moon was high in the night sky,
and the stars shone brighter than Tails could remember in recent history.
A comet zipped by, and only the sounds of his own breath could be heard.
The streets were empty, naturally, because it was ridiculously late at
night.  Yet, he'd heard that Joseph would often work late at night on the
deroboticizer, so he'd have a good chance that he'd be up.  He thought...
As silently as possible, he spun his tails into a propeller, and flew off
toward the path out of Knothole.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After a little while, Joseph's power levels began to drain.  So, as
discreetly as possible, he disengaged from the kiss, and started to get up.

"What's wrong, honey?" she asked, confused.

"I need to recharge my mimetic polyalloy now."

"Mimetic polywhat?"

"It's a type of metallic substance that can change shape easily," he
lectured, "and it appears to be a sort of mercury to the naked eye.
My brain and central nervous system is now made out of the substance, as I
told you over breakfast.  Every few days, I must recharge it back to
maximum, or risk suffering memory loss.  It will only take a half-hour.
I'll be right upstairs."

Sandra looked wary.  "What if something comes up?"

Joseph mused.  "Well, if it does, ask Bahb.  It'll advise you on how to
deal with the situation."

Sandra stood up, a little concerned.  "You'll be okay, right?"

He smiled.  "Oh, I've done this a few times now.  I just plug in, charge,
and plug out.  Like taking a nap."  He handed her his portable link to the
computer.  "This should be able to assist you if you need to go outside."

She hugged him.  "Okay.  I'll see you in a half-hour, then."

He smiled, hugged back, and walked out.  "See you in a few."

She sat back down after a minute, totally alone inside this powerful
room.  She could get away with murder while he was charging, she mused.
I could steal all sorts of information.  She stroked the side of the
portable unit.  And this computer, she thought.  Goddess, I could make
my fortune off of just the *parts*!  All this power--!

Then, she realized what she was thinking, and mentally slapped herself.
You heartless wench!  This fox loves you.  You can't just use him like
the others...he actually loves you!  Not just desires, or likes.  LOVES.
Have you become so cold as to think of love as just another ploy?

No, she thought, I will leave well enough alone.  He loves me, and I...
She thought for a moment.  Was this the one?  He certainly loved her.
He made her feel warm, loved, attractive...yet, needed.  She wasn't a
trophy to him, she was the vixen he'd probably want to marry...for love.
Not because of something on her outside.  For her...she'd never felt like
that before.  It had always been physical affairs...nobody
actually had related to her before, or wanted to know how she felt.
But Joseph talked to her.  Listened, too, and really cared about what
she thought.  She smiled.  And the physical part probably wouldn't be
bad either, once he got up the nerve to go all the way...

A monitor displayed Tails flying up the path to the Dome.  She blinked,
derailing her old train of thought.  Now why would he be out now?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails flew at a steady clip toward the Dome.  The winds were starting to
pick up, however, and it was making it difficult to fly.  He had to spin
his tails real fast to stay airborne, and it was really starting to slow
him down...

He got to the master path that lead toward the Dome, and he had just about
made it to the SpyGlobe when his hat, which had been on fairly tight, blew
off down the path toward the pond.  Tails, of course, was forced to go
after it.  After all, if Sally found out he had gone out at night, he'd
really get it.  But it wasn't too bad; the wind was with him now.

The hat rolled over the ground, and blew onto the icy pool.  Having little
resistance now, it blew over the surface of the frozen water like a bowling
ball over a recently-greased lane.  It was starting to irritate Tails.
Every time he got close enough to grab it, a puff of wind would blow it
further away.  In fact, he had gotten very near the center of the pond
without realizing it, and just as he was about to grab it--

A crack, and then a splash.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

An alarm started to go off inside the control room that startled Sandra.
"Bahb," she said, "what's the problem?"

Bahb silently showed a view of the pond, with a speck of movement in the
center.  "Magnify," Sandra said.

Tails was on the screen, and was apparently drowning!

She panicked.  She wouldn't be able to run to him in time!  What could she
do?!  "Bahb, teleport him out of there!"

Bahb twittered.  "Teleportation out failed.  Too much interference."

Sandra thought quickly.  "Bahb, can you get me near enough for me to lock
a...um...tractor beam on him, so I can pull him out?"

Bahb beeped.  "Affirmative."

She grabbed the portable unit.  "Do it!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She appeared in a puff of blue energy near the side of the broken ice.
Quickly, she pointed Bahb at the kit.  Nothing happened.  "Bahb!!!" she
shouted, frantically waving the device at Tails.  "What?" Bahb twittered.
"Fire the tractor beam, Bahb!"  A beep, and then a ray of deep blue energy
fired out of the device, and grappled the kit.  It pulled him out of the
water quickly, and pulled him over to Sandra.  She grimaced as she got
ahold of the kit, and quickly moved away from the widening hole in the ice.
"Thanks much, Bahb," she thought, and frantically worked to regain her
breath...

"Bahb, get us out of here!" she finally shouted as she pulled the wet kit
toward her, hoping she wasn't too late...

"Destination?"

"Some place where Tails can get medical attention, Bahb.  But do it NOW!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bookshire had been staying late in his office, as was his usual behavior.
He'd felt, with all the cold weather, that it would be prudent of him to
stay in his office as late as possible in case of emergency.  And, having
that sense of intuition that doctors are wont to have, he went and stumbled
into one.

Sandra and the soaking wet, semi-conscious Tails teleported directly into
the emergency room, where he had been doing some routine cleaning.  He
quickly dropped what he was doing, and immediately started asking questions
to Sandra as to Tails' condition, which she answered to the best of her
ability.

Bookshire was able to get Tails' condition under control enough to leave
him in Sandra's temporary care, while he went to inform Sally to what had
happened.  During the time of his absence, Sandra fed Tails some hot soup
she had told Bahb to replicate, and asked if he was alright.

Tails drank some of the soup.  "Yes," he said quietly, "I am."

"I'm sorry I shot you that one time, and yelled at you today."

Tails smiled a little, and consumed more of the hot broth.  "It's okay."

Sandra shook her head.  "It was the wrong thing to do."

"Everyone makes mistakes."

She smiled softly.  "You're quite understanding for a fox your age."

"I guess I am."

A moment or two later, Bookshire came in, with Sally bursting in behind.
She immediately rushed over to Tails and held him in her arms.  "Tails!"

Tails sniffed quietly, and coughed softly off to the side.  "Sally, I..."

Sally hushed him.  "Rest.  We'll talk about this later."

Bookshire interceded.  "Yes, he does need his rest.  I want to keep him
under observation for a day or two, anyway.  He pushed the two women out.
"You can see him in the morning.  Let him sleep now."

Sally smirked at Bookshire's prodding.  "Okay, okay, we're going."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The two women walked back toward Knothole silently for a while.  Then,
after they had gotten about halfway to Knothole, Sally spoke.

"I guess I was wrong about you."

Sandra was silent.

Sally tried again.  "I know that you must not trust me, but please listen.
Tails and I owe you our lives..."

The vixen spoke.  "I am not angry with you," she stated, "I just want to be
treated like anyone else."

Sally paused.  "Like another Freedom Fighter?"

Sandra gave Sally one of her quiet, secretive smiles.  "Perhaps one day."

They walked in silence for a while, until they reached the junction of the
path that led back to the Dome.  "Will you forgive me," Sandra stated,
"if I forgive you?"

Sally thought for a moment, looking at Sandra.  She thought about what she
had done, what she hadn't done, and her various deeds.  Should she be
forgiven?

The snow blew across the ground, obscuring both of them for a moment.

"Yes," Sally stated after an eternity, "I will."

Sandra gave Sally a mischievous look, and started up the path.
"That's your answer."  And then, she disappeared into the night.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

                               Epilogue
                              ----------

Solstice Eve, a few days later.

The party was at Knothole this time, over at Sally's house.  The food was
hand-made, cooked to perfection over various stoves for a few days.
Drinks had been prepared, and a few gifts had been exchanged between
friends.  It was a sucessful party, but two people were yet to show up.

Most had figured that one of them had decided to throw a special `party'
(the adults smirked wickedly) for the other, and that they probably
wouldn't be showing up.  It probably wasn't meant to be offensive, so the
conversation gradually slipped to more petty things.

And, to a certain extent, they were correct.  Sandra and Joseph were
celebrating, and were in a state of emotional joy and happiness.
Both parties were pleased, satisfied, and quite happy.  They shared an
incredible joy that rose to ecstatic heights that refused to level off....

However, the activities of said celebration were less sexual than they were
sheer emotional release from months and months of guilt.

For, at last, the deroboticizer had been perfected.







		        Chapter Seven - Awakening



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: Just about then...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

An abandoned sewer, deep beneath Robotropolis; one of the last reminders of
the great city that had existed there before.  It fell into disuse after
the coup, and was slowly falling into ruin.  However, a small creature
called this place his own...

The creature laid inside a smaller pipe, curled up into a fetal ball.  He
was far from home, cold, frightened, and going through painful withdrawl
symptoms.  Slowly, his mind began to collect itself from the shattered,
psychotic state it had been in, and his memories started to return...

Months ago...peace, tranquility.  Beautiful waterfalls, tall cliffs,
glorious trees that reached to the sky.  Sparkling gems...an accident...
a short man...fighting...a burning city...fleeing...

And one day, he had returned to normal.  His quills soiled, his shoes
scuffed, and his head pounding.   His memories were fuzzy, his body was
weak, but one thing was certain.

Knuckles the Echidna was still alive.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph held Sandra in his arms happily, gracefully spinning around the
room.  After a while, he swept down onto a chair, taking her with him.
They were both very happy foxes; Joseph had finally perfected the
deroboticizer, and could save Mobius from Robotnik's final curse.
Theoretically.

Bahb had put the appropriate numbers in the equation, and had discovered
the proper approach that deroboticization would have to follow in order to
work.  It was actually quite simple; the machine would scan the subject for
a DNA signature, and begin the replication of appendages and internal
organs one part at a time.  A transporter would gradually transpose the
part over the damaged one, and would return each section to full working
order within seconds.  A full deroboticization would take about 5 minutes,
while partial ones could take as little as 10 seconds.

However, it had not been tested yet.  It had only been created about 10
minutes ago, and was still in the process of installation.  Still, to
Joseph (and to Mobius), it was a major breakthrough.

Sandra smiled at her mate, and snuggled up to him softly.  "I like it when
you're like this," she stated, "it's so much easier to talk to you when you
aren't brooding about the deroboticizer."

Joseph stroked her back gently, thinking.  "Well, if this works, you'll
never have to hear of the damn thing from me again."  He grinned.
"Except when I brag."

She poked him in the stomach.  "Do you mean I'm going to have to hear about
this from you the rest of my life?"

Joseph chortled.  "Yes."

Sandra rolled her eyes and laid back against him.  "Great..."

Joseph put his arms around Sandra's abdomen.  "I promise I won't talk in my
sleep..."

She giggled.  "Oh, shut up, you."

He kissed her ears.  "As you wish."

Sandra involuntarily flicked her ears around.  "You never tire of doing
that, do you?"  She smiled.  "Don't answer, I already know."  A pause.
"So, what are you going to do with your life now?"

Joseph blinked, having not considered this option.  "I don't know.  How
about you?"

She hmmed softly, and then replied, "No idea."

"Well," Joseph noted, "maybe I'll work on my painting, plant some trees,
build a spaceship, do some redecorating..."

"Spaceship?" Sandra looked confused.  "You aren't going to--?"

Joseph rubbed inbetween her ears reassuringly.  "No, I'm not going to leave
you.  In fact, I'd like to take you with me."

Sandra raised an eyebrow.  "Oh?"

Joseph nodded.  "Yes.  I want to see if I can find any other survivors of
my kind in this galaxy."  He paused almost unnoticably, his mind bubbling
with secret knowledge.  "I have a feeling there are a few."

Sandra mrred softly, almost oblivious to Joseph's subtle change of mood.
"But you said they were all dead."

Joseph groused internally.  "No, not quite.  You see, even though most of
the fleet was by my homeworld when it...happened, a few ships were
exploring deep space for new worlds to, uh, plunder."

Sandra looked up at him with a disapproving look, which caused Joseph to
rub harder.  "Well," he said, "that's the truth."  She sunk back down at
that, regaining her former good mood.

"Anyway," Joseph monologued, "The Royal Ur'thaen Solar Obliterator
`Legacy' was out in a far sector of the Empire, as well as the infamous
Royal Ur'thaen World Dominator `Apocolypse'..."

"Infamous?"

"Yes...among our own ruthless breed of captains, we had one who was the
cruelest, meanest, most efficient, and quite possibly the most evil that
had ever been spawned from the genesis tubes of Ur'thae.  That fox was
called `Soulless John', by your native tongue.  He was the captain of the
`Apocolypse' at the time of the...incident."

Joseph continued.  "The `Apocolypse' was only called in for a X
operation...the last resort of our fleet, and the one John
(Jhohn in my tongue) most loved; total obliteration of all life on
a world."

Sandra shuddered, clinging to Joseph tighter.  "Did--"

"About 10 worlds have been destroyed by the `Apocolypse' at the last
count 300 years ago.  Thousands have felt lesser punishments, but only ten
have been utterly terminated.  It is a part of my history that I would rather
forget...yet..."

Joseph paused.  "Both of these ships have never been accounted for.
The `Legacy' and `Apocolypse' seemed to have disappeared from this universe
entirely after the accident, and have never been heard of since."

"And you want to find these people?"

"It is the only hope of finding out what happened afterward."

"I hope they'll be a bit nicer if you meet them."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Yeah, right," Knuckles grumbled, "it's all a dream."

Knuckles spat as he walked down the tunnel, looking for an escape.  How had
he gotten down here?  Certainly it wasn't by magic.  Magic felt different.
All he felt now was a sincere sense of nausea, and an omnious feeling that
he was in a very, very bad situation.

He looked around for windows, doors, or holes in the smooth, round walls.
What sort of cave was this?  It looked like it should have a river in it,
but there was no smell of moisture in the air.  Only some sort of
foul-smelling breeze occasionally wafted in from directly in front of him.
Why did the air smell so -bad-?  Not even the sulfur pools around the
bubbling mud pits on his Island smelled so awful.

After walking for a few more minutes, a fissure in the wall a few yards
ahead drew his attention.  He carefully approached it from the side,
flattening himself beside the wall.  He took a stick from the ground and
waved it out in front of the fissure.  Noticing no negative reaction, he
carefully peeked out around the side.

What he saw was not the sulfur pools of his youth, but something far more
awful.  A huge city stretched blackly before him, looking decadent and
dying.  Black clouds of choking smokee belched out of towers of rock and
smooth metal.  Flying machines roared by above him, carrying batallions
of metal-men...

He withdrew from the fissure and flattened against the wall.  How could
anything LIVE here?  What was this place?  Why did he come here?

Then, a flood of memories suddenly hit him, causing Knuckles to tumble
to the floor...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A small earthquake had hit the Floating Island, and had damaged the master
chamber where the Chaos Emeralds were usually stored.  In order to begin
repairs on the chamber, he had to remove the emeralds from the core, and
place them in the backup caves that served as secondary storage areas.

But, something had happened when he was putting the last Chaos Emerald in
its storage area...some sort of power spike.  It had saturated him with
the emerald's energy, and had caused some sort of negative reaction.
In the case of the Red Chaos Emerald, it made him very angry and violent.

The small man had come a few days later, and had talked to him.  About
what, he had forgotten, but he thought it had something to do with the fate
of the world.  He had convinced him to assist the small man's quest to save
the world, and had spoken to him several times...

A hedgehog thief had tried to steal his red emerald, and they had fought.
The hedgehog had been killed, and he had escaped with the small man in his
flying machine.

A blur, and then the sounds of a city exploding.  He had ran deep into the
caverns beneath the city to escape...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knuckles opened his eyes, and climbed back to his feet.  He leaned against
the wall, panting.  He had left the Floating Island defenseless!  Idiot!
Who knows what had become of it now?!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph allowed Sandra to fall asleep laying upon him.  It was rather late,
so he simply talked to her in a gentle, soothing voice until she fell
asleep.  She had no reason to pull an all-nighter, after all.

After she had dozed off, he climbed carefully out from under her, and
covered her with a large blanket.  After tucking her in snugly, he went
about his work quietly.  He realized that much still had to be done before
the first test...simulations to run, equations to check...

A few hours later, dawn broke above him.  As he punched in the final <save>
command, the sun's warming rays activated the Dome's internal morning
programming, and ended the long night at last.  The deroboticizer was
officially completed on the first seconds of Solstice Day.
Not bad, Joe, he thought, not bad at all.  Now, all he had to do was run
a few more simulations, and then he'd be done...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On the surface, Solstice celebrations were beginning.  A quiet prayer was
said to each person's individual god(s/ess/esses), a small morning feast
was held, and the celebrations began.

The children entertained themselves with their various snowpeople, minor
outbreaks of snowball launching, and generally enjoyed themselves.  The
adults worked on making more food for the nightly feast, or observed the
children and kept them from getting into too much trouble.

Sally was concerned with the master organization of the event, and kept the
proceedings from going completely off-kilter.  Bunnie and Rotor kept and
eye on Tails, who was keeping an eye on a small group of children.
Antoine and Charles helped to cook up some parts of the nightly feast,
which Dulcy attempted to create heat for.  (Eventually, some matches and a
few drops of kerosene did it.)  And Sonic, naturally, ran around.

However, a few people wondered when Sandra and/or Joseph was going to come
out and enjoy the holiday with them.  Certainly they saw what was
happening.  (People had began to notice the fact that Joseph knew
everything that went on in Knothole as it happened.)  Why wouldn't they
come out and participate?

But thoughts soon wandered back to the feast, and the present-giving that
would occur soon afterward...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knuckles tried to collect his scattered mind.  He had been off the Floating
Island too long.  The place he was in now boggled his sheltered mind, and
he was probably in danger.  What could he do?

He knew that he had to get away from the city, and into the wilderness.
There -had- to be wilderness, right?

Where to find it, however, was the problem.  All around him were the walls
of this strange, unnatural cave.  The only fissures looked out on the
broken, evil city.  And he certainly couldn't smell the sea from down
there.  (He could smell other things, tho.)

So, Knuckles kept walking forward, and kept thinking back...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

They were on the flying machine, speaking of the future.  The large-nosed
man was doing most of the talking, while a robot patched Knuckles' wounds.

"Robotnik," the man said, "is a stupid man.  Evil, yes.  Sadistic, yes.
Smart?  Far from it.  He was -clever-, but not smart.  He has totally
wasted the past 10 years with his foolish plundering of the
planet...probably devaluing it in the eyes of the Buyers."

He had paused for a moment, and smiled at him.  "But such things are not of
your concern, echidna.  It is probably far beyond you to imagine the
interweaving webs of relationships in the universe that have made this
planet such valuable real estate.  You'd be able to do little about it,
anyway..."

The ship lurched a bit to the right, avoiding a spot of turbulence.

"...after all, when the Buyers want something, they get it."

Thunder boomed outside as the ship began to fly into a storm.

"However, they have chosen to buy it from the current ruler of this world,
Robotnik, so to avoid a run-in with this galaxy's various busy-bodies.
They're doing us a favor by doing it legally, which is a fact not left
unnoticed by either Robotnik or myself."

The cabin was briefly illuminated by a flash of white light, which nearly
blinded both carbon-based lifeforms.

"Naturally, we've been holding out for the best deal.  Occasionally, they
will give us a bit of a bribe (in the form of alien technologies) to warm
us up to them, but they know what we're doing, too.  The only question is,
echidna, whose patience will run out first?"

The cabin flew out of the cloud, and returned to a state of relative
stability.

"This is why I have asked for your help, Knuckles.  We must overthrow
Robotnik now, before they lose all interest in doing things fairly and
decimate this world for the sheer joy of it.  Together, we can defeat
Robotnik, -and- doublecross the Buyers; thus giving us the spoils of war
and saving our world from a hostile takeover."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knuckles shook his head, shuddered, and moved on.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A few weeks later, he had recalled, Snively and himself were doing a
routine tour of the city, assessing the damage from something called
`Doomsday'.

"Look at this mess!  And this is supposed to be the capital city!"
Snively was displeased with the extent of the damage, he recalled,
not believing the sheer amount of explosive force that had been
unleashed.

"The Buyers will be displeased...this will reduce their offering price
substancially.  Robotnik had made a deal based on a fully-functioning
Robotropolis."

Knuckles remembered saying, "What -was- de original offer?"

Snively raised an eyebrow, but thought before speaking.  "According to
Robotnik's records, the Buyers had offered a totally manned
starkiller...a very large, powerful ship that could conquer a planet
single-handedly.  Quite nice."

"Why does 'e wan' one of those?"

"Well, Knuckles, Robotnik wanted to get into the real estate business, as
it were.  He wants to do more of this sort of thing; conquering a world,
taking out a bit of its resources, and selling it to other races for a
small profit.  From the profit, he would restock his war machines, and
begin anew on a different world."

"Dat's not a great thing to do, mon."

"Robotnik wasn't a great person."  He smiled.  "But, as you know, -I-
am great.  I have thought ahead, beyond Robotnik's pathetically small plans
for conquest..."

"Ah." (Knuckles remembered his strange mental state at the time, so he
wasn't surprised that he had simply said `Ah' to Snively.)

"Yes," Snively growled, "this is going to force me to lower the price
to a mere battleship and some fighters; but it will still enable me to
pursue my own goals."

"And what might dat be?"

"Like Robotnik, I wish to go into..."  Snively smiled in an disturbing
manner.  "...`real estate'...but I also have other plans.  The burdgeoning
field of space piracy, for example, or protection."

"Ah," Knuckles had said again, uncomprehendingly.

"Yes, friend, I think this will be a very interesting time indeed..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knuckles continued to plod down the corridor, gradually approaching the
end of the tunnel.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

His next flash of memory came soon afterward, when he had left Snively and
escaped to the tunnels...

They were in the Command Center, observing a group of `annoying Freedom
Fighter terrorists' fight off a group of metal-men.  A rabbit was fighting
one hand-to-hand (and winning) while a hedgehog...wheels in his mind
turned...

The coloration was different, but the form was the same.  Speed and cunning
were evident in the hedgehog's actions as wave upon wave of SWATBots fell
to him.  Yes, it -had- to be the same one!  But how?!  The boulder had
killed him...hadn't it?

He had begged Snively to let him go after him, but was flatly refused.
"I'm saving you for a special occasion," he stated, "so the SWATBots can
take care of them for now."

Knuckles was infurated.  This was his -right- to kill the intruder.
He had somehow escaped death, so it was his responcibility to finish the
job...so, while Snively was giving orders to the robots, Knuckles quietly
crept out of the Command Center, and descended the steps to the surface...

He walked for a few minutes toward the site of the attack, avoiding the
various spy devices that swept the area for other visitors.  His senses
tingled with the anticipation of the battle, enhancing them to their full
strengths.  The invisible world opened to him, and Robotropolis was filled
to the brim with unusual sights and sounds.

However, as he began to approach the battleground, an explosion inside a
nearby building knocked him off his feet.  The brick and steel rained from
the sky as the explosion spread all around him...surrounding him in
flame...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And then he had awakened from his mental problems a few weeks later,
after somehow escaping into the tunnels of the city.  His head ached with
the memories...how could he have been so foolish?  Snively and Robotnik
were -both- evil; he knew that by living in their city and listening to
their plans.  But their evil plans were not his concern.  His life's work
was to protect the Floating Island and keep the Chaos Emeralds from harm,
not to keep the rest of Mobius safe.  The `annoying Freedom Fighter
terrorists' could deal with that.

He approached the end of the tunnel.  Carefully poking his head out, he
gazed around at the strange landscape.

The tunnel was on the outskirts of Robotropolis.  The garbage piles and
smoking ruins of the city were far lesser here, and the wasteland that
lead away from the evil place was in plain view.  No metal-men could be
heard, nor flying machines be seen.  He could escape from here without
being noticed by anyone (he hoped).

After waiting a moment, and checking his surroundings again, he ran out of
the tunnel and out into the wastelands...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, back in the Great Forest:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra had woke up a few hours later, after the first few hours of the
Solstice celebrations had been going on.  Cracking her back a bit, she
climbed out of the chair to see what Joseph was up to.

After looking over his shoulder, she realized that he was putting the
finishing touches on his work, so that it would work perfectly the first
time.  He wasn't very chatty then, however, because his mind was set only to
his work.  So, after explaining what she was doing, she went up and out of
the Dome to see how Knothole was faring.

She hummed a happy tune to herself as she walked down the path to the
stump.  She was a very contented fox at that time, and was in the holiday
mood.  Everything was going splendidly.  Joseph would perfect the
deroboticizer, and get everyone back to normal.  With that invention, the
Freedom Fighters would crush Packbell and retake Mobius.  After it had
become peaceful again, and the reconstruction had begun...well, they'd just
play it by ear.

She came to the secret entrance, and stared at it for a minute.  Now, how
did Joseph work this thing...?  Then, just within Sandra's range of
hearing, the flapflaping of foxtails was heard.  This usually hearlded the
arrival of Tails somewhere nearby.  As an instinctive reaction, she found
someplace to hide, and got ready to observe what would happen next.

Tails flew in from her right, not seeing or noticing her at all.  He landed
for a moment, jumped in the air, and swung on a vine.  The top of the stump
popped open, and the small kit slid down inside of it.  A second later, the
vine retracted, and the lid closed.

Sandra raised an eyebrow, but paid the entrance no further heed.
Obviously, whomever had made this area for the King was a clever person,
indeed...  The entrance to her cave was only slightly more discreet.
But, of course, she was sneaky for a living.  This made her smile
involentarily, and perhaps she giggled quietly to herself before coming out
of hiding.  She repeated what Tails had done, and carefully slid down the
opening into Knothole...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knuckles rushed through the wastes of Mobius, gradually approaching the
Great Forest.  As he ran further and further away from Robotropolis,
he noticed a strange change in the weather.  The black clouds faded to
grey, and then to the occasional white.  The air grew colder about him, and
the wind blew a wet, white substance around him.  He didn't understand what
it was, but it was very uncomfortable to have on him.  He was constantly
brushing it off, and shaking his head to get it out of his dreads.

As he got closer to the strange-looking forest, he noticed the ground had a
great deal of this wet, white stuff on top of it.  It was slippery, and
hard to run on.  It stuck to his shoes almost as unpleasantly as mud, and
got his feet soaking wet.  He was beginning to take a decided dislike to
it.

He entered the very edge of the Great Forest, and began to slow down.  The
trees here differed from the kind he was familiar with.  They grew to the
sky, had branches, and all of the usual tree-like attributes, but they
had scratchy, brownish-black trunks and no leaves.  He wondered what good
were trees without leaves...you certainly can't eat *bark*.  The bushes
he found were hardly any better.  Stickish, prickily things, they certainly
weren't very good tasting.  No leaves, no berries, no -flavor-.  Bleh.

He walked deeper into the woods, and looked about for some sort of path,
natural or otherwise.  Maybe if he found some sort of river, he could find
his way back to the sea.  And if he could find his way back to the sea, he
could build a raft and float back home...

He shivered.  This place was very cold.  The white substance collected
around his heels, and probably could have blasted through any hut he could
have built.  How could any natural thing survive here?

He wandered down a cleared out path patted down by some sort of hoofed
animal, searching for some place to warm himself.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra made herself as nonobtrusive as possible within Knothole.  The
people of Knothole kept their developed hatred of her well-disquised, she
noted, if there was any left for her.  The holidays forced them to show
their best sides toward all Mobians, even if they had once been less than
kind to them...

Sandra snuck through most of Knothole, evading most of the pleasant holiday
activities while looking for some sort of vantage point over the whole
scene.  Joseph might have been able to walk through this area with no fear,
but Sandra was outnumbered and disliked here...even though they tried to
mask it, the majority of Knothole still did not like her.

She smiled to herself, secretly pleased.  Oh, but soon they would HAVE to
like her.  They'd have to be her best friend.  After all, the mate of the
inventor of the deroboticizer would have a little *clout*.  Yes, she would
be loved, alright.  A regular Sally among the commoners.

She allowed herself to laugh quietly.  She had never been liked, even
before her criminal tendencies had begun.  Desired, lusted after, and even
a few attempts at using her (Indeed!  The very idea that *she* could ever
be used...laughable) had been tried, but never a friendship did blossom
during her `tender years'.  She had been the bad girl in the back of the
class that the atheletes wished for a `trophy' date, the studious ones
wished would get hit by a hoverdisk, and the more homely wished they had
her flawless body.

Ha, but she defeated them all.  She took the athletes for all they had,
tortured the smart kids mercilessly, and used the homely as `friends' when
she needed information.  Ah, youth.

In her later life, she had slipped into a sucessful criminal career.  She
could get anything for anyone, and no price was too high.  She took the
offers of the Mobian Secret Service, the various organized crime agencies,
and any rich millionare with a desire for a certain piece they couldn't
afford.  And, of course, she was known to take something just for the hell
of it.  It was a rush, her wild and reckless life of amoral abandon.

In and out of a few pathetic cells, the occasional foxhunt for her
whereabouts, but they never could catch her for long.  She was the
ultimate criminal...

But Ivo, Snively, and Packbell had ruined her normal business.  She had
been forced to work for them a few times, but always made sure they paid in
kind.  She smiled wickedly.  Her sabotage of a few key items had allowed
the hedgehog numberous escapes...and kept her business useful.

Her life changed again when the Doomsday project and the various
reprocussions affected Mobius.  Now the little metalhead ran things,
which made any future transactions impossible, anyway.  Even though she
had hated his synthetic guts to begin with, a customer is still a customer.

She'd gone 180 degrees since then, she noted with a soft smile.  She'd been
saved by Joseph...she smiled again.  For once in her life, she knew someone
actually loved her.  Her!  Not for her body, but for who she was.  He found
her techniques and wit more attractive than her physical attributes.  This
was something she found very sweet about the mysterious giant...he'd
probably love her unconditionally for the rest of his life.

This issue had been something she'd been wrestling with for several days
now.  She knew he loved her; any cretin could pick that out.  He was a
warm, kind, honest, and brilliant individual, who'd fight to the death for
her.  He was one of the most handsome foxes she'd ever met.  And he *knew*
how to make a vixen happy.  The only question was...did she feel the same?
She'd only met him a few weeks ago, after all.  She knew most of his life
story...but what did he now about him, the *real* him?  Almost everything
he did on a daily basis was a total mystery to her.  He did very weird
things sometimes, which he could only explain with great difficulty.
He was an alien individual in more ways than one.

She sighed, leaning up against a tree and thinking.  Yet, he was kind to
her.  He always did things to make her happy.  She was certainly one of the
healthier foxes on Mobius now...his `nanites' were making sure of that.
He did so much for her...but did her heart have the capability to love?
It was an alien feeling to her.  This was happening so fast...

Some rustling in the bushes triggered her instincts to freeze and listen
for noise.  A person was approaching through the woods, but the breathing
was not familiar...her well-trained instincts caused her to instinctively
scale the tree, and hide within its dark, gangly branches.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The echidna stomped through a few bushes, and walked out into a clearing.
He was very, very cold now; snow covered his red quills from dreadlocked
tip to steel-soled bottom.  The wind slashed at him like a dirk, and his
body felt like a sack of rotton banana peels.

He looked around, and saw huts and fires in the distance.  His spirits
rose, and he totally ignored the instincts to hide from unknown individals
and keep a good distance away from fires until the people around them can
be sized up.  His immediate concern was warming up, not defensive strategy.
He stumbled away down a path, heading toward the people.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra watched the weird-looking creature stumble out of the bushes, make
desperate groaning noises, and stumble toward the fires.  She didn't know
quite what to make of the odd person...bright red (where the snow didn't
cover it), a long snout and tail, but long, dangling headquills.  And ugly
shoes.

At first, she felt that the FFs could handle this themselves.  She wanted
to see how they'd handle it, anyway.  But her curiousity was overriden by
her newfound concern for the guardians of Mobius.  They'd probably get
their butts kicked or do something else stupid if she didn't intervene,
anyway.  She slipped out of the tree, and quietly padded after the
stumbling creature with as little noise as possible.  The final decision
about her feelings for Joseph would simply have to wait a few more minutes.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The echidna stumbled close to a group of people, who mostly ignored him.
They were too busy running back and forth, preparing some sort of feast.
But Knuckles wasn't as hungry as he was cold.  So, ignoring the nearby
food, he walked close to a large bonfire and stood almost in it for a few
moments.  The steam wafted off of him in a plume, and the hissing of
melting snow hit the fire...

Right about then, Sandra took a defensive position outside the
light-ring of the fire, watching the new arrival closely.  Her eyes focused
in on the creature, and examined his every attribute.  His knuckles were
large and sharp, she noted with wonder, and could probably pound through a
wall or a tree.  He had long dreadlocks, which seemed like a near-sail...

Knuckles began to regain his full faculties as the heat filled his fingers
and arms again, and melted the remainder of the cold, wet substance off his
quills and skin.  Gradually, he began to notice things around him more
clearly.  He was standing by a unused cooking fire, which had recently been
used to boil a kettle of water.  Around him, preparations for a great feast
were being made, and all sorts of people were running around.  Foxes,
squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, rabbits...but most of them were strange.
They were covered in some sort of metallic skin, but this didn't seem to
bother them much at the moment.  What strange creatures!  He thought they
were native to the City only.  Perhaps they were all around the mainland...
A question for another night, perhaps.

Knuckles wasn't planning to stay long.  This wasn't some place he felt
comfortable in.  Besides, he needed to get home.  The Chaos Emeralds were
probably in great danger...

He dusted off his hands over the fire, cracked his knuckles, and looked
around for someone who looked like they knew where the Great Ocean was.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He came to an open-looking hut, where a majority of the people appeared to
be hanging around.  With disturbing as few people as possible, he walked
into the hut, and looked around.

It was a medium-sized hut that had some generic furniture in it.  A series
of tables were set up in a buffetish form, with lots of various food items
laid in an organized fashion on it.  A stack of paper plates and tools
made out of a strange white material laid on the table closest to him.

Knuckles tried to make out what he should do.  This food wasn't his.  He
hadn't helped make it, catch it, or even set the table.  Should he take
some, or should he leave it be?

Suddenly, an older-looking raccoon calmly walked in front of him, took a
plate and a few tools, and started placing food on his plate.

Knuckles realized he was holding up the line, and started moving again.  He
got his plate and tools (tho he didn't know what to do with them) and also
took some food, working his way around the line.  If the raccoon picked up
something, Knuckles took something similar.  If he ignored something,
Knuckles also paid it little heed.

The raccoon came to the end of the line and walked out of the hut, and
Knuckles continued to follow him...little realizing he was being followed
himself.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bookshire didn't notice the echidna following him, lost in his own
thoughts.  He nibbled absentmindedly at a chili dog while he kept walking,
heading toward the center of town.  The present-exchanging part of Solstice
was going to happen soon, and he wanted to be talk to Sally before
returning home to start his own personal gift-reception.

Knuckles followed the raccoon quietly, eating away at the strange food.
He recognized some of it, but in a different form; potatoes, mushrooms,
and some fruits.  However, some of the strange spices and meats were
unfamiliar to him.  Some of them tasted good, others did not.  However,
most of it was pretty good, especially the strange object on which he was
chewing on now.

A cylindrical bun with a gash in the center for the finger-shaped meat was
the outside of the object.  In the crevice, a layer of beans, sauces, and
ground meat covered up a core of hot, squishy meat.  It was rather good,
and many other people were consuming them as well.  Perhaps this was some
sort of ethnic food that these odd people had at Solstice.

Knuckles ate away at his chili dog, and kept walking behind the raccoon
quietly.  He had absolutely no idea where he was headed to, but he only
hoped that it wasn't into a dangerous situation.

All the while, Bookshire continued to absent-mindedly walk toward the
center of town, eating his chili dog and occasionally taking a drink of his
Fizz [tm] soda.  His mind wandered through the various playful imaginings
of what he would recieve, and what people's reaction would be to the
presents he would give them.

Finally, Bookshire reached the center of town.  Sally was leaning quietly
against a nearby tree, watching the various proceedings occur.  A few other
people were gathered around her, asking her various things and recieving
orders regarding the closing of the public ceremonies.

Bookshire waved to her.  "Hello, Sally," he stated, "mind if I call you
away for a bit?"

Sally smiled.  "Sure, Bookshire, just a moment."  After politely excusing
herself, she walked over to him.  "Yes?"

"I was just wondering if you knew the whereabouts of David.  He's been
absent all day, and I wanted to ask him about what his perceptions of this
Solstice holiday were..."  He smiled, and took a small box from his pocket.
"That, and I have a gift for him."

Sally grinned softly.  "Well, I'm afraid I don't know where he is, either.
Try asking Tails, or maybe Rotor."

Bookshire nodded, and walked off.  However, the echidna behind him didn't
follow this time, and stood close by the Princess.  But again, he was not
noticed; Knuckles' natural stealth allowed him to lurk around most beings
for an indefinite period of time before being noticed.

Sally walked away from the tree, and headed back toward the edge of town.
The public Solstice celebrations were coming to an end, and the decorations
and such were being cleaned up.  Couples and families returned to their
huts for their personal gift exchanges, but a great majority remained
behind to return the village to normal.

She smiled as she walked through the main path through town, observing and
lending the occasional paw to assist. It was a pity, she thought, that
Joseph and Sandra had not come to Knothole to participate.  She wanted to
spend time with them, and show that no hard feelings were held against
either of the duo for what they had "done".  When she thought about it,
both of them were really only misunderstood.

Well, she noted, that wasn't entirely true.  Sandra *had* been a thief, a
criminal, and generally a bad person for quite a long time.  However, she
had appeared to have changed for the better.  At least, she hoped so.
Joseph didn't deserve to have his heart broken...

Sally took a misstep on a slick patch of ice, and slipped backwards.  As
her heart skipped a beat, she braced herself for the fall; but was caught
by a pair of large hands.  "Hey, you be car'ful dere," a voice said, "you
almost fell on me, lady."

The hands helped her to her feet, and dusted her off a bit.  "Thank you,"
she said softly, not having heard that voice before.  She turned around.
"thank you very much, Mister..."  She looked at the odd-looking creature.
"I've never seen you in Knothole before," she stated, "are you new here?"

Knuckled smiled a bit, trying to gain her confidence.  "Aye, you could say
dat, lady.  I'm jus' passing through."

Sally put her hands to her sides, appraising this new person's veracity.
"We don't get many people who 'pass through' Knothole, stranger.  How did
you get here?"

Knuckles pointed to the patch of bushes he had crashed through.  "I walked
in through those bushes."

Sally looked over at the trodden-down foilage.  "It appears so."  She
paused.  "What's your name, sir?"

Knuckles smiled.  "My name's Knuckles.  Knuckles de Echidna."

Sally stook out her paw to shake the newcomer's hand.  "Well, Knuckles, my
name is Sally.  It is a pleasure to meet you."

Knuckles shook hands with the Princess awkwardly, her hands so dwarfed by
his own.  "'S a pleasure to meet you too, Sally."

Sally manuvered her hand free out the echidna's.  "So, Knuckles, just
passing through?  Where are you headed?"

"I'm goin' home."

"And where might your home be?" she enquired.

"On de Flo--"  He paused, realizing it would be best not to tell this Sally
person any more than she needed to know.  "My home 's at the Great Ocean."

Sally nodded, suspecting nothing.  "That's quite aways away from here,
Knuckles.  How did you get all the way over here?"

"De short mon took me to the City."

"The short man?"

Knuckles looked at her confusedly.  "Yah, Sally, de short mon.  He calls
'imself Snively da Great.  He sez he rules the world."

Sally blinked, but was able to keep her composure.  "Could you excuse me
for a moment?  I have to check on something."

Knuckles shrugged.  "Sure."

Sally calmly walked into a nearby hut, took a chipmunk aside, and whispered
something into his ear.  He shot up, but Sally kept him from making any
noise.  She whispered some more things into his ear, and walked out of the
hut.

"Sorry about that," she said calmly, "but I had to attend to something."

Knuckles smiled.  "'ey, it's all good."

"Okay.  Now, why don't you tell me some more about this short man...?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

While Sally continued to talk to the red echidna, a chipmunk walked
casually out of the hut until he couldn't see Sally or the echidna any
longer.  Then, he broke into a sprint, and ran to the far side of the
village, where he found Sonic.

Sonic was boredly racing about, taking down Solstice decorations.  He was
just about done when the chipmunk seemed to mosey over to him.  He stopped,
and walked over to the exhausted-looking person.  "Yo, dude, what's the
problem?  You look like you've tried to break my speed record."

And he told him.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A second later, Sonic was lurking in the shadows behind Sally, waiting to
see if his aid would be required.  They were still talking about what had
caused Knuckles to end up in the Great Forest in the winter, so far away
from the Great Ocean.

Knuckles, with great difficulty, was trying to abridge the parts about the
Floating Island, the Chaos Emeralds, and generally his entire life; while
trying to satisfy the squirrel's curiousity.  It was more difficult that he
would have liked.

"And den, ev'rything started to explode.  I don' remember much else after
dat."

Sally was transfixed.  This obviously wasn't a spy, because his story had
too many holes.  For example, he didn't know anything about Packbell or
Robotnik, aside from what 'Snively the Great' had told him.  He had no
knowledge of the coup, the King, or even who the Acorn family was!  He
probably figured Mobius was always like this...as if he'd lived on a desert
island all of his life.

However, what he had told her was enough to make her believe that he was
really just passing through.  He obviously wasn't a Northern Continent
sort of person.

She smiled upon the completion of his dialogue, and took a breath.  "Well,
if you'd like, you can stay here for the night, and begin your travel back
to the Great Ocean tomorrow morning."

Knuckles put up one of his massive paws in a polite gesture for silence.
"No, I'd rather jus' get moving again.  Dis place is foreign to me, and I'd
rather burrow out a place fo' myself in this...umm..."

"Snow."

"Yes, this 'snow'.  What an weird name."

Knuckles waved, and started to walk away.  Sally smiled, becoming gradually
more nervous internally.  "Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay?  The
Great Forest is a dangerous place at night."

"No, but 'ank you anyway."

Sally shrugged, her mind racing but maintaining a cool exterior.  "Well,
okay.  But please come back here again sometime.  You're welcome here
in Knothole."

Knuckles grunted a dismissing sort of noise, and melded back into the
forest.  After he had gotten out of eyesight, Sonic stepped out of the
shadows.  "Do you want me to shadow him, Sal?"

Sally nodded.  "Yes, but be careful, Sonic.  He looks like he could take
out an entire patrol of SWATBots with those fists.  Also, he doesn't appear
to be a threat...so if he notices you, get scarce, okay?"

Sonic nodded.  "Okay, Sal."  With that closing statement, he blasted off
into the woods, quietly pursuing the echidna.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra watched the echidna walk by, a few yards away from her hiding place.
He was a strange person, she noted, and someone with a lot to hide.  But
why?  The question mulled about in her mind like cream swirling in a hot
cup of coffee.  She'd certainly never seen any sort of creature like him
before; a vaguely hedgehogish individual with a long, thin snout; sharp,
dangling headquills; large fists with sharp, hard knuckles; and a short,
pointy tail.  This was definitely not a creature born naturally here.

As expected, the hedgehog pursued Knuckles a few hundred yards behind,
observing where he went.  Sonic didn't notice her, either, and trotted in
Knuckles' footsteps as quietly as such an amateur could.

She got into a crouch, and thought for a moment.  Should she continue her
survelliance of the echidna, or leave the rest up to Sonic?  After all, he
had left Knothole.  Sonic could take care of himself.  It was starting to
snow a little harder.

Nah.  She wanted to see how this would develop.  Joseph probably was too
engrossed in the final tests on the deroboticizer to miss her, anyway.
Besides, she had questions that she wanted answered.  She got back up, and
started to follow Sonic's trail...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knuckles was aware of someone following him in the distance.  He didn't
dare turn around, for fear of provoking his pursuer into a direct
confrontation...which Knuckles felt uncomfortable about in this
environment.  So, Knuckles tried to melt into the background.  But this
'snow' stuff kept defeating his attempts.  It was beginning to bother him.

The clouds parted long enough in the grey glob of sky to show the sun
rising to its zenith above him.  Knuckles quickly took note of its
location, did some quick internal calculations, and altered his course
appropriately.  He'd have to walk for another 5 days to reach the ocean,
he noted, or run for about 6 hours at maximum speed.

He looked around at the weird forest, the cold air blasting through his
quills, and thought of the unattended Floating Island.  He made his choice
rather quickly.  He took a breath.  Using his speed was always one of the
more difficult abilities for him to harness.  It took great concentration
and stamina to control it.

He centered his mind on his home; the Floating Island, strong and free,
bobbing freely over the waves.  The warmth and beauty of it echoed through
his mind, as the nectar of the sweet flowers seemed to dribble down his
throat.  He smiled, braced himself, and took off in a burst of hot air.

The shadowers both blinked from their respective hiding places.  Sonic
walked out into the open, looked where Knuckles had taken off, and shook
his head.  "Forget this," he said, and blasted back to Knothole.  Sandra,
lacking the speed to even try, started the winding walk back to the Dome.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sonic returned to Knothole a few moments later, and filled Sally in on what
had happened.  She looked rather stymied.  "He's got super-speed too?"

Sonic nodded.  "He juices in a most Past Cool way.  I'd say he'd be almost
a match for even my awesome juicage.  And he's got those big fists and the
hair thing going, too."

Sally groused.  "I hope that he one day comes back, and helps us fight
Packbell.  He'd be quite an advantage over that evil tinkertoy."

Sonic smiled.  "Well, Sally, I've got a feeling we haven't seen the last of
him.  Somehow, I think that there's more to him than meets the eye..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra entered the Dome, shook some of the snow off of her, and desended to
the laboratory level.  She smiled as she noticed Joseph still hard at work
on the deroboticizer, running several tests...but, she noticed his former
good mood had faded to one of grave concern.  She walked over to him, and
put her hand on his shoulder.  "What's wrong?"

Joseph turned around.  "We've got a problem."







		       Chapter Eight - Memories


"A problem?"

Joseph looked at Sandra blankly.  "Yes, we have a problem."

Sandra frowned a little.  "What's wrong?"

Joseph sighed.  "The damned deroboticizer is going to be delayed at least
one more year.  Apparently, the roboticizer software occasionally upgrades
itself so become more efficient."  He scowled.  "And Bahb will have to
decompile the roboticizer software I gave to it in order to hit every
possible evolution pattern of the sotware, crosscheck it, and find a way to
reverse it."

Sandra smiled weakly.  "But it's not a total reversal," she noted softly,
trying to return Joseph to his former good cheer.  "It's just a minor
setback...right?"

Joseph blew some air out of his nose.  "A year is a long time.  Anything
could happen between now and Solstice-time next year...that is, if no
unexpected setbacks interfere with the progress of the deroboticizer."

Sandra gave her mate a soft hug.  "You'll get it right one day.  Just look
how far you've come so far...you've done more in a year than some have done
since the beginning of this accursed war."

Joseph hugged her back.  "You're right, of course.  I just want this to end
so badly..."

Sandra kissed his muzzle gently, and embraced him firmly.  "We all want it
to end, Joe.  And it will end...I know it.  I have faith in you, my love,
and I know you'll have sucess in time.  You just have to keep going."

Joseph grinned and held her close.  "Of course.  Honestly, I let the
littlest things bother me sometimes--"

Sandra put her right index finger against Joseph's lips, quieting him.
After he had stopped attempting to verbalize anything, she took her finger
away, and rested her head against his chest.  "Let's worry about the
world tomorrow, Joe."

Joseph stroked her headfur.  "Good idea."

The lights clicked out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That next morning, the people of Knothole groggily awoke from their
nocturnal slumber, and attempted to shake off the effects of last night's
festivities.  They stumbled about their homes, bathed themselves to the
best of their ability, brewed up something hot to drink, and sleepily tried
to return their homes back to normal.

However, most of the populace had a few days off from whatever work they
did around the village, and thus had time to recouperate.  The adults stayed
inside and gossiped about the doings of several people at the communal party
that occurred the previous night.  The older youths hung around with their
various companions, and a few made snowpeople.  The younger kits had a
snowball fight near the center of town, enjoying some time off from school.
Occasionally, a passerby would get nailed by a stray shot, and get
momentarily dragged into the ever-esclating mock war.

The core Freedom Fighters, however, were busy planning another assault on
Robotropolis, with the goal of getting another legion of roboticized
citizens out of the clutches of Packbell.  Theirs was a job with few
holidays and even fewer sick days.  The responcibility of a war was one
that would be normally too great for such a young group of people...but war
makes men out of boys, and women out of girls; and heroes out of hedgehogs.

They stood around the holographic map of Robotropolis, and designated their
paths of entry and escape.  It would be a dangerous mission, one probably
that would be the model for future assaults.  Sonic would start a diversion
by sabotaging one of the main refinaries, and try to annhilate as much
equipment as possible.  When some of the SWATBot forces were distracted, a
second squad would move in and attempt to take a minor group of roboticized
citizens out of the city.  After more forces were dispatched to deal with
that problem, a third group would go after their target group of citizens,
and get them out as quickly as physically possible.

It was a solid plan, which had a fair chance of success...at least once.
All of them realized who they were fighting now, and they knew that
casualities were going to become inevitable.  They'd escaped rather well in
their previous missions; a few nicks, a wound or two, or perhaps a few
broken bones.  Only rarely had they had a death on a mission...

But they knew that Packbell was not Robotnik.  Robotnik had the weaknesses
of the flesh working against him; emotion, rage, greed, and simple bad
luck.  Packbell was a designed killer.  He would start to detect patterns in
their attack strategies--if he hadn't already!--and find ways of defeating
them...and the legends about POWs that Packbell had acquired made
roboticization look like pure esctasy.

Naturally, they were frightened--they weren't immune to fear.  But they
knew they were the only thing standing between Packbell and total world
domination.  Their fear only showed itself at the quiet moments between
the times their eyes closed at night and sleep...the fleeting time when
their mind fully comprehended the sheer level of danger they were in on
a daily basis, and how easily they could expire.  This was, however, a
temporary feeling.  When the spectre of doubt crossed their paths, the
look in the eyes of a child or the painful glance of a roboticized victim
would fill themselves with determination, and chase the ghost of dread far
from view.  Their missions were for the safety of the world, and for the
honor of their lost King.

After Sally had completed assigning troop details and strike plans, she
dismissed them all to the day's beauty, allowing them to view the wonder of
winter: for some, it might be the last time they would ever see the glory
of the sun, or feel the gentle embrace of snow around their feet.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

While Bahb began the long and arduous process of decompiling the
roboticizer program, Joseph and Sandra shared a quiet moment within
a upper level of the Dome.

They sat in the "living room" of the Dome, sitting on a couch in front of a
roaring fire.  Bahb occasionally projected live video of the outside world
in front of the fire, at the request of either party involved.  It seemed
to keep them occupied long enough to start a few conversations, which Bahb
paid little attention to.

"Tell me more about your people," the vixen muttered, resting quietly on
Joseph's shoulder.

"Very well," Joseph spoke, "what would you like to know?"

"Did you ever have...a girlfriend...back on your world?"

Joseph sat there for a moment, his expression becoming rather morose.
"Yes," he whispered, "I had one...once."

Sandra detected a hint of sadness in Joseph's voice.  "Did it end badly?"

"You could say that..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"It was so long ago....I was simply 16 megacycles old at the time..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Technopolis.  The great capital city of the western continent, and the last
remaining domed gigalopolis on Ur'thae.  The majority of the west was now a
smoking ruin from several 100 megaton antimatter bombs launched from the
anti-android terrorist organizations of the east.  But Technopolis, since
it guarded the Head Vixen of the Imperial Ur'thaen Federation of Worlds,
was very well protected by the loyal Ur'thaen Imperial Space Navy.  Not
even the most zealous terrorist would dare attack it...the punishment
for attempted terrorism was a slow trip into the molecular deresolution
chamber.

Inside the city, it appeared to be a Utopia.  Plants and atriums were
everywhere for the satiation of the populace's desire for "Nature" in
their lives.  Happy people did their work without complaint, and even
the lowly Greys were mostly pleased with the way their lives were.

Within these curved walls, nearing the center of the busy civilization,
many Ur'thaens were in the middle of hard training.  To be specific, the
Dark Foxes, ultra-augmented Reds that were the personal guard of the
Violets, trained in a nearby dojo; along with a solitary Orange teenager
who did a similar set of martial arts training.  They paid him little heed,
tho, being all-consumed with the desire to become the biggest, hardest,
most perfect predator that they possibly could.

The slim, quiet Orange did his exercises with vigor.  His father, the
Supreme Scientist of the Empire, had always taught him to do everything
he put his mind to with the same amount of effort he would put into
serving the Head Vixen, no matter how rote or dull the task might be.

However, his martial artistry was something that Orange, designated by the
Moebian tongue as "Joseph", enjoyed.  It gave him an opportunity to get in
touch with his...spiritual side?  No, he thought, not spiritual.  More
likely his carnal, wild side.  It gave him an opportunity to force his
body to do acts of great physical strength and control, which made
him feel like more than a simple member of the Scientist caste.

He completed his usual training exercises, and calmly collected his things.
He usually carried little on him when he walked the streets of
Technopolis...despite the reassurances made by the Greens and Yellows in
charge of the city's security, he knew perfectly well that there were
always Eastern spies within the city limits, just waiting for a hostage
like himself to come shuffling their way...sons of Supreme Scientists are
hard to come by, after all.

He put his things in his sack, and went into the locker room to change back
to his usual outfit.  While he felt his training suit was comfortable, it
was socally unacceptable to even make a short trip outside in it.  After
all, this was Technopolis, seat of the Empire!  It wasn't like his
old home...

Joseph sighed as he thought of his old home in Vixen's Valley...the place
of his birth, with the waving green grass and the trees that reached
beyond the clouds.  It was where his father was allowed to grow him in
the executive biotubes; quite an honor for a simple Orange kit!

He remembered the smooth hand of his father as he began the implantation of
his neural implants all those megacycles ago.  The great leap into coherency
temporarily had phased him, but his mind quickly adjusted to his added
intelligence.  His attempts to speak were foiled by his still-immature
vocal cords, and his gestures did little to communicate anything but
disorientation.

The smile of his father had calmed him, and his gentle grip had lifted him
from the guerney from where he laid to a datajack.  A cord extended from
the cool steel box, and softly attached to a silver spike that had
automatically extended from his wrist.

With that, his education began.

The megacycles slid by faster than his mind would have liked.  He began his
training in the martial arts, and gradually began to understand the
wonderous world around him more clearly.  He played in the lush fields of
Vixen's Valley, worked in the small macrodome that made up the city
itself, and found his niche in the world with little strain.

Then, one day, it had all changed.  The eternal war grew closer to the
peaceful settlement, unbeknownst to the majority of the inhabitants of the
isolated city.  He and his father were whisked away one night from the
city, their work quickly assimilated by the large-minded neural carriers.

The next day, a antimatter blast annhilated the entire settlement in one
awful flash of light.

They ended up in Technopolis, where the High Command had barricaded
themselves in under a powerful series of forcefields and reenforced
structural modifications to the large dome that covered the city.
They were given quarters and guards to watch them and to protect them
from attempted terrorist attacks.  Given labs and equipment, they resumed
their work with shaken psyches.

Since then, the last 6 megacycles had been dedicated to his life's work and
the arduous process of rebuilding some sort of peer group.  And, for the
most part, he had succeeded.  Many young Oranges existed near his quarters,
and they often hung around the popular hangouts of the city...and, as
teenagers are wont to do, get into minor spots of mischief.

However,  the particular Orange we speak of kept out of trouble for the
most part, partly because he was too smart to be caught, and partly
because he desired his father's approval more than anything in the world.
It was his goal in life to one day ascend to the great scientific height
his father had achieved with the Neural Transfer Device, and his
grandfather had achieved with the mighty Techno-Organic Replacement/Repair
Unit; to create an invention that so increased the quality of life of all
Ur'thaens that it gave the entire Empire an edge over the rest of the
Universe...and to recieve the title of Supreme Scientist after the
present one either retired or expired.

This goal gave him a great deal of incentive to put tremendous amounts of
work into everything he did, so that he could one day find an inspiration
for his Great Deed.  However, he was finding that it was much harder to
achieve than he had first envisioned.  There was very little left to
perfect on Ur'thae, so his achievement would have to be that of pure
science.  And even then, it was heavily competitive.

He finished putting his training clothes away, and entered the cleaning
chamber.  As the liquid raced through him, pulling away the grease and
grime that had collected on his fur, he allowed his mind to idle down
slightly.  His sleep period was coming up soon, so he'd have to put off
purchasing the upgrade CPU for his experimental AI later.  Ah well.  He
could probably get away with getting it sent to him during the work period
tomorrow.

Ceasing the rinse cycle, he stepped onto the dryer pad and demoisturized.
Bahb was coming along nicely.  He'd gotten all of the knowledge of the
Empire into its memory, as well as some biographies of some famous people
in, just for fun.  He'd written a few simplistic games for it, and taught
it how to write poetry.  However, it was still a difficult task to get it
to develop alternative solutions to troublesome scenerios.  He felt it was a
issue of processor speed, so he'd jack it up to the highest level they had
available and see how that helped.  If nothing occurred, he'd rehash the
code a bit more, and throw in a hip new algorhythm he'd seen submitted to
the mathematics database.

After a through drying, Joseph went back to his locker and put back on his
clothing.  He hoped that Bahb would be capable of generating a novella one
day that would be equal to that of at least a second-rate writer.  Indeed,
such an achievement could quite possibly net him the "Scientist of the Cycle"
award.  He smiled.  He'd like to win that one day, he thought, because it
would let him actually speak with his mother, the Head Vixen, for a whole
minicycle.

Joseph had never actually met the egg donor that had given him life.
She was a reculsive individual, and mostly focused on command decisions and
the occasional public appearance.  Otherwise, the only way the people knew
what she looked like was from the several murals of her that often appeared
on walls.

Yet, she seemed like the kind of person who the Orange could have a
conversation with, at least on a superficial level.  Certainly she knew his
father, so that would be an interesting topic.  Perhaps a discussion on
the NTD might eat some time up...

He put on his ceremonial grey trenchcoat and walked out of the dojo.  He'd
probably let her do most of the talking, if the opportunity arose.  After
all, he was just a humble scientist with a famous father, not some big-shot
war hero.  Her words were weighted with authority, anyway, and could
probably enlighten even his dumb ears.

His entourage of guards soon surrounded him, and escorted him back to his
quarters on the Orange level.  They were discreet, well-trained bodyguards,
who'd recieved the same sort of training the Black Foxes did when entering
initiation.  They would die for whoever was in their charge as easily as
they could tell you the time.  Needless to say, they were very expensive.

Entering his quarters, he had his guards search it before dismissing them
to watch the door.  His eight-hour sleep period began in 5 minutes, so he
had little need for their direct influence at the time.  With little regard
for his personal appearance, he flopped over on the nearest soft surface
and passed out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra yawned.  "Fascinating."

Joseph rubbed her neck a bit.  "Yes, I know this is reallly exciting, but
it's important that you understand the circumstances I was in before I get
to the rising action of this tale."  He snuggled her a bit closer.  "So
don't fall asleep until I'm done."

She giggled.  "Sorry, Joe."

He kissed her gently.  "Trust me, this gets interesting in a minute."

She smiled.  "Then continue on."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He woke up eight hours later, shook out his headfur, and walked back out
the door to his work area, tailed closely by the drousy guards.

Entering his area, he fired up his workstation and began scanning lines of
AI code.  This was the great majority of his present job; going through
page upon page of code and optimizing it into a further-compressed lump of
programming perfection.  It was a mind-numbing job at times, and was the
main cause of burnout among those Oranges with weak mental stamina.  Most
people liked to think it wasn't the job that killed your brain and made it
the consistency of syrup, but the mind that pondered it.  Of course,
you don't have time to ponder that when a few hundred pages of code go
racing by, demanding such level of optimization by such time.

Joseph had little problem with working the coder line.  His nimble mental
gymnastics kept pace with the screaming bursts of code that raced by, and
enabled him to always meet his quotas early.  But still, it wasn't a fun
job.  It took too long.  It was boring, and occupied too much of his mind.
On the other paw, *someone* had to do it.

Thankfully, a few hours later, his time on the coder line ceased.  Bounding
out of his seat for the next ragged Orange to occupy, he gleefully went to
his personal workshop to continue his AI project.

The computer was about the size of a desk in its current prototype state.
It was hooked into a small display unit, which described its vital
statistics.  They were impressive even in its present, semi-akimbo form...
it had the mental maturity of a 14-megacycle old kit, which was something
quite impressive for a project that had started as an activity began
on a rainy day...

He smiled as he began his tests.  Bahb and himself had nearly grown up
together.  It was nearly a sibling of his in several ways, but a creation
of his own in others.  Both had the influence of his father in them, for
example; Dhavid had named both of them after the pair of nearly mythical
Ur'thaen warrior-scientists who not only defeated a massive plague
that once swept the world ultracycles ago, but were able to unite the
planet under the present colors of the Empire.  It was quite an honor to
be able to designate yourself under that name, and his father had worked
hard through both official channels and semi-legitimate to allow the usage
of those names on his son, and his son's creation.

He tinkered with some internal circuitry, and looped some code around to
optimize testing even further.  He had personally designed the neural
network that was the core of his creation's mind.  It was something that
had taken him months upon months of off-the-clock research to accomplish,
but Bahb's mind was a superior model to all previous psudocreations
of the Ur'thaen Oranges.  It had an intelligence quotient of astronomical
proportions, and could do very challenging problems in minutes.  It did,
however, have some bugs in it.

<< "Greetings, Jhosesophae." >>

The fox smiled.  << "Hello, Bahb.  Are you self-aware today?" >>

<< "Affirmative, sir.  I was able to realign my 54A-X neural simulation
    disk into a more logical setting, thus returning my sense of self
    from its previously malfunctioning state. >>

Joseph took note of the computer's reply.  << "Excellent.  Have you created
an answer to the question I asked you about the other day?" >>

The computer hummed.  << "Yes." >>

Joseph took a breath.  << "Very well, Bahb.  I shall repeat it for the
benefit of my records." >>

<< "Affirmative." >>

<< "If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, does it
    make a sound?" >>

<< "Negative.  Sound is a name for a series of stimulations that your
    tympanic membranes create that cause you to believe that you 'hear'
    something.  Without a mind to comprehend this stimulus, and without
    any equipment around to replicate the stimulii, the stimulii does
    not 'exist' to anyone." >>

The computer paused for effect.  << "Therefore, I conclude that a tree that
falls in a wooded area with no witnesses not only makes no sound upon
impact, but it also does not actually 'fall'; sight is another name for a
series of stimulations that your optic nerves recieve when varying levels
of photons strike them.  It will be in a different position if you were to
be there before and after it occured, but the tree never actually
'fell'; it simply went from one position to the next.  Or perhaps it was
always like it would be after it 'fell', but your mind simply came to the
conclusion that it somehow 'fell'." >>

Joseph raised a brow.  << "Your observations are curious, Bahb." >>

<< "Am I incorrect?" >>

<< "There are no incorrect answers to that question, Bahb...simply
different ways of approaching a situation." >>

<< "Explain." >>

<< "Truth is a perception of several factors; accepted knowledge, personal
    knowledge, and the sentinent's personal view on the previous two
    catagories.  Something that is 'true' to one person may be 'false' to
    another." >>

<< "Is this why people have conflicts?" >>

<< "Very perceptive, Bahb.  People often disagree over differing
    interpetations of 'truth' as opposed to 'lies', and will sometimes
    violently disagree about the two.  This is why a utopian climate
    cannot survive without a strong, supreme central ruler; involving
    more than a few people in the operation of a settlement fouls the
    governmental water with too many differing perceptions of 'truth'." >>

<< "But what if the ruler's view of truth is too different from the
    majority's?" >>

<< "Then it is the ruler's responcibility to make her view of 'truth' the
    majority's." >>

<< "What if she cannot?" >>

<< "Then she will be replaced by someone who will.  It is a natural law;
    only the strongest survive.  This goes for memes, opinions, and
    machines, too...only the most superior are permitted to continue to
    exist, while the weaker fade out into nothingness.  The evolution of
    thoughts are key to the survival of any ruler." >>

<< "This is acceptable.  I will record this in my memory." >>

<< "So noted." >>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"That is how you perfected Bahb?  By having philosophical discussions?"

Joseph smiled, entering lecture-mode.  "Yes, Sandra.  The best way to
evolve a mind is to stimulate it with discussion, not just feed it facts
until it has grown fat on data.  A well-exercised mind that had pondered
the unponderable is a far better one than that which can repeat every word
of a speech or every battle of a war."

"Fascinating...please, continue."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After speaking with Bahb a bit more, and installing a new core processor,
he allowed it to have some quiet time to itself to think things over.
While Bahb was occupied with pondering the problems of Ur'thae, Joseph
worked on a new weapon system for a new series of fighter the Ur'thaen
Space Navy was developing for search-and-destroy missions.

It was dry work for Joseph to sharpen up disruptor cannons.  Sure, it was
challenging work, but it was so...the term escaped him for a moment.
Unpleasant?  Dull?  Rote?  Ah, he knew...uninspiring.  It was a job which
he could disearn very few lessons to help him develop Bahb to its full
capacity.  All it was was tweaking circuitry and code.  It gave him very
little perspective on mental development or vital qualities for a spry mind.

However, Joseph was one of the better weapon experts around.  He could make
the power of a cannon 35%-50% more powerful than it would be usually, not
to mention sharpen the target systems to pinpoint accuracy.  His work on
the "Enforcer" series had already won him some minor awards from the
military, and had cut Ur'thaen losses in several campaigns considerably.

It was simply a day job for Joseph to do his work on military systems.  He
had little interest in the Reddish way.  After all, he was a scientist,
not a warrior.  Yes, he knew martial arts, and he was a master of stealth
and tactical planning, but that was just the basics he'd picked up from
living in Technopolis for so long.  You *wanted* to be as powerful as possible
in this city; it was how you kept people from pestering you when you wanted
to hang out at the Red bars to look cool.  Kill or be killed.

He finally surrendered to the engineering constraints of the "Noctrurne"
series of fighters, and went back to check up on the progress on one of
his secondary projects...a new and improved design for a plasma cannon
he'd recently been toying with.

It was a device about the length of a average Ur'thaen's forearm and half
of her bicep, and about the thickness of a paw.  It was light, and had a
internal power source he had personally improved from previous models.  The
handle was designed to be something a soldier would want to hold on to;
like a security blanket or a mother's hand, it made one feel safe.  The
device had an optional lazer sight for possible sniper operations, as well as
a range-finder.  Sturdy and well-made, it would definitely become a tool of
future victories over the inferior species that populated the galaxy...the
Mark 25-Omega series of plasma cannons, year of 7796.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph's narrative gradually creaked to a halt.  He began to think about
the weapon he had acquired in Robotropolis, and considered the
possibility that...

Sandra nuzzled against him.  "Something wrong, Joseph?"

Joseph snapped out of his thoughts.  "Oh, sorry.  Was distracted."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He ran a few scans on the weapon, and noted that a CPU on it needed to be
replaced.  This happened often when weapons were in R&D, because such
vigorous testing of them occured.  They would often be called upon to
fufill tests that pushed them far beyond the call of their future duties,
so often their computers simply overloaded from the strain.

After attempting to patch the CPU back manually, he came to the conclusion
that the unit simply had to be replaced.  Frugality was his nature, but
he wasn't willing to rewire the whole damn thing for the sake of a
miniscule bit of silicon and gold.

He typed in an order for a CPU on the comm console in the corner of the
room, and waited a few moments for the components to be replicated on the
enmat unit.  While he waited, he mused over streamlining the design
further, or perhaps adding a bit more girth to the weapon while adding a
higher calibre of power to it.

The chip popped into existance on the enmat pad.  As he went over to
investigate it, he noticed that the chip was not the newest model.  This
annoyed him.  Obviously, the typical bureocratic restrictions had slowed
the introduction of the chip design into the Science Sector's systems.
(Testing, approval, bribes, et al.)

He sighed, and flicked the chip into a nearby rubbish disposal tube.  He'd
have to go to the Fringe to pick up a proper specimen to continue his
testing with.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"The Fringe?"

Joseph paused.  "Oh, yes.  I haven't ever talked to you about the Fringe
before, have I?"

Sandra shook her head in the negative.

"The Fringe," he stated, "was the general Ur'thaen black market that
existed on the very edge of Technopolis' domed wall.  It carried all of
the contraband, illegal narcotics, weapons, and mercenary services that
were occasionally required by our society to tie up the 'loose ends'
that arose with...complex situations."

"I see.  Go on."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He skulked out of his lab, awoke his guards, and walked to the lift.  He
told it to descend to ground level, where the only access to the wall was.
His guards calmly armed their weapons, toggled their cloaking devices, and
mentally prepared themselves to endure the Goddess-forsaken world that
was Level 0.

Joseph allowed his guards to create a protective wall of influence around
him when the lift came to a halt.  They emerged first, and secured the
area for safe travel.  Neither guard nor master wished to remain long
down here.

Level 0 was the Grey level, the cursed place where the casteless were
forced to exist.  It was a dark and dreary place, stuffy from the lack of
natural light and ventilation.  The surfaces there were streaked with filth
and mold, and anything that gave off any sort of heat was colonized by
the various organisms that competed for food, mates, and shelter
there.  Shallow puddles of acid and wastewater burbled in every direction,
evaporating into the redolent stench that permeated every cubic inch of
L0's area.

The slums and scraphouses that laid against the sides of the great towers
of Technopolis reminded Joseph of vines crawling up a tree, he thought
idly to himself as his guards cleared a path to the scrap-sellers.  Always
yearning to see the sun, but never quite penetrating through the canopy;
eternally destined to lick at the crumbs and flickers the top lets dribble
down to the ground.  The way it was, is, and should always be, the fox groused.

After a short journey through Hell, they arrived at the outer Fringe, where
the parts and old military scrap was sold.  The scientist knew this place
well, having been forced to visit it many times before.  The various
technological thieves, spies, and pirates waved or otherwise sent their
salutations to him as he strode over to his usual connection's small structure.

The hut was about the size of concession stand.  It was constructed out of
the leftover plastic, steel, and the occasional piece of crystal that was
often found laying in the scrap heaps that accumulated beneath the large
tower-structures that existed under the domed city's limits.  It had a
vaguely triangular shape, a small, hacked-out portal that served as a
door, and had grafetti all over it in various languages.

Joseph approached the structure, banged on the side of the structure to
announce his presence, and walked inside of it.

The inside of the structure was almost as ugly as the outside, but at least
it was darker.  Disguarded crate pieces lined the walls as a sort of
post-modernist wallpaper, with only a single lightglobe breaking the
pattern at the tip of the structure's psudogable.  The floor was a
concretish-dirt mixture, with the occasional black streak across it from
weapon "misfires".  The sounds of water dripping into a bucket were
also one of the more obvious sounds; besides the usual screams and phaser
fire that were the soundtrack for the Fringe itself.  In the center of
the area, tables were set in a square.  In the center of the square, a
fox in a ratty chair sat, reading a illegal papryus pornographic magazine,
waiting for another customer to connive out of a few minicredits.

Joseph walked deeper into this area, looking about for what he wanted.
There were the usual "impulse buys" of handphasers, plasma grenades,
cortex bomb kits, and portable hoverunits; but this store mostly carried
items for the scientific clientele; illegal programs, chips, deadly
computer viruses, keytraps, spy programs, and so on.  The fox that worked
here made a good living off of supplying these items, but by being a Grey,
he had no chance of ever asending into any of Technopolis' towers of
glass and steel.

Joseph looked around with a great deal of precision, trying to find what he
needed.  Finally, after being unsuccessful, he approached the owner of
the hovel.

<< "Yo, Dhamien." >>

The fox smiled at his favorite customer.  << "Hey, Jhosesophae!  What's
new, fox?" >>

<< "Oh, not much.  How are the kits?" >>

<< "Just fine, hoopy one.  I'm teaching them how to read now.  A real pain,
    considerin' that all they ever want to do is run around and pick
    pockets." >>

Joseph laughed.  << "Kits!" >>

The fox grinned.  << "Ah, I'm sure they'll grow out of it
eventually...after someone catches 'em, that is.  But they've gotten pretty
good; I think they've been gettin' lessons off of whatshisname in
Sector 8-D." >>

<< "Hey, it's a craft." >>

<< "Yeah, I guess so.  But I'd rather they take up something respectable,
    like murderin' or at least a higher form of theft.  They'll never
    support a family on pickpocketin'." >>

Joseph smiled, and shrugged.  << "Well, there's always the family
business." >>

<< "Yeah...I think my eldest will choose to go into my line of work.  It
    makes decent money.  But my other two seem to be into more in-your-face
    sort of jobs.  Ah well.  They'll learn after the first Red gets pissed
    at 'em and blows off their ears." >>

Joseph tsked.  << "What a way to learn." >>

<< "Experience is a cruel teacher, but it gets the point across." >>

Joseph took a breath.  << "Well, to get down to official business, d'you
carry GTA-34b4.3 CPU chips?" >>

Dhamien growled unpleasantly.  << "No, but I sure as fox wish I did." >>

<< "What happened, D?" >>

He snarled, and spat into a nearby bucket.  << "Ah, some tu'lath down in
Sector 5 cornered the black market on those damned things last minicycle.
The bitch lockedout every other sector from the bloody things, so nobody
but her has any." >>

<< "That certainly isn't fair." >>

Dhamien started to get irritated.  << "Damn straight it's not!  It's a plot
by the friggin' Reds to try to take over the Fringe!  Everyone knows that
she's one of their little simps.  Makes me foxing SICK!" >>

Joseph shook his head.  << "That really blows, friend." >>

<< "It blows harder than a yiffy Green in a Violet's party." >>

Joseph nodded in agreement.  << "Well, Dhamien, I really need to get one of
those chips.  I'm sorry I couldn't give you any of my business." >>

Dhamien regained his usual demeanor.  << "It's okay, kid.  You do what you
have to.  Just be sure to always come here first, and ol' D won't hold it
again' ya." >>

Joseph waved.  << "I will.  You've got my father's honor on that!" >>
With that, he signaled for the guards to leave, and then followed them out
into the inky blackness of the Fringe.

As they started walking toward Sector 5's technosector, Joseph began to
notice newer faces in the swirling mass of foxality that he usually
encountered on his trips into the Fringe's darker levels.  Perhaps more
refugees from Necron?  He mused over that issue as the trip gradually came
to an end outside the main technomarket of Sector 5, where two armed Greys
stood, guarding the area from thieves.

Joseph waved his guards back outside the structure, and entered it alone.
After all, there was an unwritten rule about bothering anyone while they
were inside a shop; sort of a sanctuary was declared while one was buying
things, which forced most of the fiendish activities that would occur
while in the Fringe to happen immediately outside most stores.

But Joseph doubted that this store had much of a problem with that.  Armed
Greys surrounded most tables, all the exits, and 3 were protecting the
shopkeeper herself.  This was obviously one of the higher-security areas,
where the really illegal stuff was kept.

Joseph approached the shopkeeper cautiously, trying not to make any sudden
moves.  With a great deal of politeness in his tone, he asked, << "Do you
carry GTA-34b4.3 CPU chips?" >>

Everyone in the store stared at him for a minute, and then went back to
what they were doing before.

The shopkeeper looked back at him silently, smirked, and led him into a
backroom.  She took a shiny box off a shelf, opened it, and showed the
chip to him.  << "500,000 megacreds." >>

Joseph took out a credstick, as the shopkeeper took out hers.  He punched
in the appropriate amount, hit <transmit>, and transferred the appropriate
funds to the female.  She put her stick away, closed the box, wrapped it
in brownish industrial paper, and tied it shut.  Handing the box to him,
she quietly led him out of the store, only saying << "Have a nice cycle." >>
to him before leaving.

As Joseph walked out into the lit sphere of light that surrounded the
store, he noticed his guards were mysteriously absent.  He snapped his
fingers for them, and shouted their names.  Nothing.  Only the sounds
of distant plasma cannon discharges and dripping water met his ears in
return; not even his own voice echoed back.

This bothered Joseph considerably.  If someone had killed his guards; well,
it'd be a real grey to explain how the hell they got out to Sector 5
when they were supposed to be guarding him...who was supposed to be on
Level 50-A in the central tower!  That, and it was expensive as all hell
to get well-trained, efficient guards working for you after one has lost
a few.

And, of course, he was an expensive hostage in one of the most crime-ridden
sectors in the Fringe, carrying a package worth 500,000 megacreds.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Sounds like you got yourself into a bit of trouble, Joe."

"Well...you'll see in a minute."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph signalled for his guards again, but to no avail.  He thought about
using his comm-device to call for a pickup, but that would be like sending
up a signal flare to all the spies that watched over the millions of
transmissions that went in and out of Technopolis, who would report his
whereabouts to his superiors.  Teleporting out was a big no-no.  At this
level of Technopolis, a scrambling field was active to keep terrorists
from teleporting inside the domed city and destroying it.  Troop
transports never came out this far into the Fringe unless they were
putting down a riot, and even then they'd probably report him out of spite.

His only available choice, he mused, was to walk back to the first tower he
saw, and ride above the scrambling field.

He examined his tactical potential.  He lacked any sort of body armor, for
starters.  One good shot from a phaser, and he'd be history.  He had no
other useful cybernetics besides his datajack in his left arm.  That meant
he'd have to take the lighted routes out of the Fringe to remain safe,
which often were the most meandering ones.  He was packing one of his
experimental plasma cannons, but it was only at half-power.  If necessary,
he could blast his way out, but that would be almost as bad as sending a
hail out through his comm-device.  His most useful ability in this
situation would be his hand-to-hand combat skills, but if he was ever
surrounded--

<< "Hey there, lads.  Look what we've got here." >>

Joseph didn't even bother to speak.  Instantly, he spun about to face his
attackers, ready to fight to the death.

There were 3 of the Greys, all obviously doped up on high-powered agression
drugs.  They were about his size, but a bit more bulky due to the steroid
effect of the chemical.  One had a club of some sort, another had a
phaser, and the lead one was armed only with long, metallic claws.

The one with the club rushed at him first, attempting to bash his muzzle
in.  Joseph, anticipating the attack, punched him in the face as his
assailant rushed into his fist, knocking the stupid fox out cold.  The
bat flipped out of his hands, allowing Joseph to acquire it.  However, he
had to drop his package to do so.  Before anyone could act, he kicked the
package into the lit doorway, effectively putting it out-of-bounds.

After that (allowing little time for Joseph to regain his concentration)
the one with the phaser started to blast at him.  Joseph dodged the
first volley by diving behind a few piles of garbage.  But this didn't
last long enough for him to plan an attack...the phaser blasts wore down the
piles low enough to force him to change position on the playing field.  The
shots from the phaser grazed his back as he tried to rush away from them,
occasionally setting his back temporarily ablaze.  In anger, Joseph rolled
into a somersault, (losing his cannon from the compression of his form, and
causing it to roll against the side of a pile of disguarded food canisters)
jumped in the air, and threw  the bat as hard as he could at his assailant.
The bat met its mark; it cracked open the skull of the phaser-wielding fox,
killing him instantly.

Joseph landed upon the ground, exhausted and wounded.  He quickly tried to
regain his former fighting posture, but was out of breath from running.
This gave his final assailant, the leader, an opportunity to strike.
Seeing his compatriots taken out of commission, the final fox attacked
Joseph, bum-rushing him into a wall.  This knocked the wind out of
Joseph, and left him vulnerable to the attacks of the fox's sharp, steel
claws...

But Joseph was not so easily beaten.  Gaining a second wind, he quickly
rolled off the side of the wall, allowing the attack of the fox to strike
against the hard wall.  The resounding ringing of his claws caused him
great discomfort, and drove him to rush at Joseph again; steel claws
extended in anticipation of slashing against the scientist's jugular.
But Joseph was prepared this time, and began to backflip out of harm's way.

This worked for a bit, and wore down the steel clawed fox's endurance.  But
the drug kicked in harder, and gave his slashing claws the extra reach to
tatter the bottom of Joseph's trenchcoat.  Anticipating the eventual
success of the fox's arttack, Joseph converted his movement into a
cartwheel...spinning behind the weakening fox, he planted a kick into the
grey's back, knocking him on his face and into a nearby pile of garbage.

Joseph again flipped, but this time backwards into a crouch.  His took his
plasma cannon from the ground, armed it, and leveled it at the subdued
steel-clawed simpleton--but was suddenly knocked off balance from the
impact of a bat on his back.  Reeling from the blow, he stumbled onto the
ground, limbs akimbo.  The phaser-wielding fox stood above him, bat
in hand, and pulled his arm back into a deathstrike.

^L

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra clung involuntarily closer to Joseph, shivering slightly.

"It's alright, darling," Joseph said quietly, holding his frightened mate
closer, "I'm still here."

"But what happened to you sounds so awful..."

"Let me finish, honey."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The fox held the bat above his head, looking for the best possible spot to
slam the bat's blunt surface into.  The head, the chest, or the groin?
Which would be most mentally satisfying, the psychotic thought gleefully...

A noise behind the fox caused him to turn around, distracting him from his
original task.  He scanned into the darkness, only seeing the unconcerned
guards standing outside the lit doorway, piles of rotting garbage, and
the bodies of his fallen compatriots.  Assuming that whatever made the
noise had gone away, he turned back around.

His target had somehow gotten away.  That disturbed the chemically
off-kilter fox, and his wild glances around to spot him failed in its
intent to seek him out.  He slammed the bat into the ground in a rage,
and spun about a few times.  He needed to kill that fox!  Needed to!!
He didn't know why, and didn't care.  The chemical ruled the Grey's mind,
and gave little attention to such minor details as reason or logic.
Turning his back to his fallen leader, he looked toward the lit opening--

With no warning whatsoever, a loud, wet crack resounded through the area as
Joseph's fist slammed into the fox's spinal column, instantly killing him.

As the fox fell lifelessly to the ground, Joseph picked his plasma cannon
off the ground for the second time, dusted it off, and blasted the
silver-clawed fox right in the back, just to be sure he didn't try to
pursue him in the future.  The discharge of the cannon lit the area with
an eerie light, and seemed to quiet the entire area down.  Even the sounds
of far-off cannon fire seemed to grow softer in the aftermath of the battle.

Then, a voice broke the silence.  A female voice.

<< "You fight well, for a Orange." >>

Joseph turned around, cannon armed.  << "Who goes there?" >>

A figure stepped out of a inky pool of shadow.  << "Just an observer," >>
the voice said, << "I was in the neighborhood, and thought I'd see what
the AggroHeads were up to." >>

The new fox, a Red female, looked about at the remains of Joseph's
attackers.  << "Looks like they picked the wrong fox to yiff around
with." >>  she noted, and picked the slightly-dented box up from the
ground.  << "Catch." >>  She tossed the box gently to the fox,
who caught it easily.  << "Hope your stuff isn't too foxed up." >>

Joseph strained his eyes to try to get a look at the female.
<< "Thanks," >> said he, eyes straining for a look.  << "Who are you?" >>

<< "Dhiana D'xaeae'xaeon-sol,  45645674th Squadron, Ur'thaen Space Navy.
Yourself?" >>

<< "Jhosesophae dae--">> He paused, realizing now was not a good time to
state his full title.  << "Just Jhosesophae, thank you." >>

<< "Your mother must have had a hell of a time getting that name for
you." >>

<< "You could say that." >>

<< "I did." >>

A pause.

<< "Have you seen some large Reds about here?  My guards have gone
missing." >>

<< "I have," >> Dhiana noted, running her finger over her neck slowly.
<< "Better put an ad out for some new ones." >>

Joseph groaned.  << "Great." >>

<< "They looked like good security people," >> she stated, << "just that
it's a pain to fight those psychotic AggroHeads unless you can
outsmart them." >>

She smiled in the darkness.  << "And you certainly did.  You must have
experience with the 'arts." >>

<< "Some." >>

A pause.

<< "Well, need a lift to a tower?  I'm heading that way to get
my orders." >>

<< "I'd like that." >>

She stepped out of the shadows, and gave Joseph an opportunity to look her
over.  She was clad in the usual uniform of the USN: a black jumpsuit with
several pockets, the Ur'thaen symbol embroidered over the chest; a standard
issue plasma cannon; a standard issue pair of diamondium-titanium knuckles;
thick black jackboots, shineless; and a pair of black wraparound sunglasses.
She was an abnormal specimen of a female, inasmuch as she was especially
curved in all the right spots, her fur wasn't the usual bristling mess that
most Reds were cursed with, and her tail seemed much longer than regulation.

Instinctively, Joseph tried to withhold his attraction to the Red female.
It was improper to desire a member of a lower caste, no matter how sexy
one might be.  (A similar process was running through her head, keeping
her from giving off improper body language toward a member of a superior
caste.)

Joseph coughed quietly, took a silent breath, and smiled.  << "I'd like
that a lot." >>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra rose a brow.  "Honestly...you just met, for Goddess' sake, and
you're already fumbling with sexual restraint.  Is this normal behavior
for your people's males?"

Joseph blushed.  "Well, try to see it from my side.  I had been trained
from birth to choose for a date only one who would make a genetically
superior mate."  With a great amount of psychological effort, he forced
himself to crack a joke.  "And man, did she ever look like a canidate for
PlayFox of the Year.  Yow."  Then, for reasons known only to him, his
teeth locked together.  She had looks that could kill, he thought, but
she wasn't any angel.

Sandra grimaced.

Joseph went back to smiling, and held Sandra close.  "You're more
attractive, tho."

Sandra held back her smile, and decided to really make Joseph work to
regain her favor.  "Hmph!"

Joseph's face took on a concerned expression.  "I mean it."

Sandra started the silent treatment, internally laughing her tail off.

"C'mon, would I lie?"

Silence.

Joseph kissed her ears.  "Hey."

Sandra allowed the seed of a smirk to creep its way across her muzzle, but
still remained quiet.

"You are the most beautiful creature in the entire universe."

Sandra broke her silence.  "Creature?!" she yelped, faux-irritatedly.

"Merely calling you the most beautiful fox would be an insult to one of
such universal and cosmic beauty," he stated, "because yours is a
beauty that transcends species."

Sandra blushed beneath her fur, but kept the ruse going.  "I bet you say
that to all the vixens."

He stroked along her backfur, smiling softly at Sandra's tenacity.  "My
standards are too high for all vixens.  I would only say that to a vixen
of your calibre."

Sandra allowed a smile to weave its way across her face.  "There are others
as good as me?"

"No."

She kissed him on the nose.  "Good answer."

They laughed softly at their verbal gymnastics.

Joseph smiled only externally.  "Well, do you want to hear more about it?"

"Yes...this is interesting."

"Alright.  For the sake of time, I'll abridge the 6 months in which we got
to know each other, learned about each other's familes, and dated in
secret.  I will simply cut to the end of the relationship, which occurred
when--"

<< "Joseph, activity in Knothole." >>

Joseph stopped talking.  "I'll tell you about that later.  Right now, there
is something going on in the village...it would be advisable that we view it."

Sandra shrugged, and got up.  "Alright.  To the control room, then?"

Joseph smiled.  "Of course."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dusk was beginning to fall outside, which gave a strange tint to the
Princess' eyes; as if the setting sun was merely a reflection of her big,
sparkling blue ones.  The time had come to do the final preparations for
the night's mission, one which she anticipated casualties from in
unpleasant number.  The last few times they had trod into Robotropolis
had been blessed with a precious few damaged people, and yet no deaths.

Yet.

Sally knew Packbell was studying their attack patterns, and gradually
adjusting the SWATBot details to compensate.  Every mission had led them
closer into the web the Commander set up to catch them...and the flies
were tredding on the center.

Eventually, it would become far too risky to attempt any further rescue
missions without either more people or bigger guns; both, she hoped, could
eventually be provided by the Keld'yrians or Joseph.  She knew Joseph
could help...the only thing was that he had been acting...strangely?  No,
trying to define Joseph's actions as "strange" would be as ridiculous
as trying to define Antoine's Mobian as "improving".  But he certainly had
adjusted his attitude somewhat...like he knew something the other's
didn't.  Something bad.

Sally chose to let her mind slip away from that topic, seeing that she had
little evidence that anything "bad" was going to happen...aside from
Packbell probably decimating them, of course.  Perhaps his concern for
their welfare was what ate at him.  Or, perhaps not.  She had no real
way to tell, after all.  The only people with any insight to how Joseph's
mind worked were a Keldy'rian simply named "Doc", Tails' brother David,
and Sandra Nightweaver...

Her train of thought was derailed by Sonic's arrival.  He was in his usual
let's-go-kick-someSWATBot-tail mood, which bode well for the mission that
laid before them.  It would require their full devotion to the task at
hand to be able to come out of this mission with light casualties.

"Hello, Sonic."

"Yo, Sal!  We ready to go?"

"Not yet.  The others are still preparing.  Have you got your power ring
yet?"

He took it out of his packback and twirled it playfully.  "Yup."

Sally allowed herself a smile.  "Good.  You know your part, right?"

"Yeah.  Go to the 5th refinary, bust in through a wall, and trash the
place."

"Good."

Bunnie and Rotor walked out of a hut, carrying neural reactivator cannons.
"Ready to go, Sally?" asked Bunnie.

"Just waiting for Dulcy now."

"Ah," Rotor said, and checked his cannon.

Dulcy glided down from the skies above, and made a better landing than
usual.  "All set."

Sally nodded, hopped on Dulcy, and beckoned for the others to follow.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph scanned through the monitors, observing Dulcy's departure from the
Great Forest.  "Well, looks like I've missed out on another mission."

"They probably aren't doing anything vital, anyway."

"Perhaps," Joseph said, "but they're packing neural reactivator cannons.
That means it's a rescue mission...there will be casualties."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because Packbell is learning."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The android sat in his chair, scanning through the slowly-healing wreckage
of Robotropolis.  He knew that the Freedom Fighters were coming...he just
didn't know when, or where.  But he *suspected* that they were going to
go after his cache of slave labor which he had placed in the center of
the city, repairing the city's computer systems from the inside out.
Recent attacks had corrupted certain sectors of it, so it was necessary to
dedicate labor to the tedious realignment of the optical memory centers.

The SWATBots were in place.  Cameras were activated and focused.  The tapes
were recording.  His bait in position, the line lax enough to feign aloof
(if any) protection, and his forces ready to strike...

The hedgehog blasted into his 5th refinary, while the small clique of
veteran FFs began to return the free will of his slaves.  The SWATBots
crashed down from above, lazers blazing.  The FFs feinted
back, moved some of the now-sentinent slaves behind them, and prepared to
fight.

The dance began again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph observed through the multiple eyes of Packbell the attacks of the
Freedom Fighters, the counters of the SWATBots, and their eventual retreat
to the outskirts of the city.  They fought well, the foxes noted, but they
were outclassed and outgunned by the wily Packbell for the moment.  They
got about 30 more people out of Robotropolis, thanks to the ultimate
sacrifice of about 8 roboticized citizens and the various minor to major
hits taken by the lead FFs.  Overall, a "successful" campaign.

They returned to Knothole in tolorable condition.  Dulcy had a wing mended,
Bunnie had gotten clipped in the leg, Rotor took a nasty knock to the head,
and Sonic had beaten up his right hand awfully badly.  Luckily, medical
care was effective and quick, and everyone got put back to a state of
relative normalcy in about 3 hours.

Joseph and Sandra stayed below ground, and out of the minds of the
returning FFs.  They had seen all that they had wanted to of war for now,
and much preferred each other's company over the eternal duel for Mobius.

"So," Sandra inquired, "are you going to finish that story now?"

"Eh?"

"About you and Diana.  What happened?"

"Ah.  That.  Well, I'll skip over the 6 minicycles of courting, dating, et
al.  I'm sure that doesn't matter to you, right?"  Allowing no time to her
to reply, he continued, frost forming on his voice.  "About 6 minicycles
after we'd met, I'd finally gotten up enough courage to introduce her to
my father.  I knew he certainly wouldn't approve of me dating a Red, but
I felt that I should tell him, anyway...my conscience at the time simply
couldn't take the constant lying any longer..."

Joseph stopped for a moment.

"If this is too painful, love..."

"No, I need to let this out."

"Alright."

"So, I chose a time that we could all meet...psudo-accidentally, as it
were.  I picked a small diner I liked on L34 in Tower 7S...a nice, quiet
restaurant...a place where you'd never expect for the fabric of your life
to unravel."

A pause.  "So I had her sit at a nearby booth while my father and I would
sit at a table near the center of the restaurant.  After we had talked
for a bit, and I'd gotten him properly relaxed, I would signal for her to
walk over, and introduce herself."

Sandra smiled.  "Cute."

Joseph's voice took on the temperature qualities of a meat locker.
"Yeah, sure."

"Anyway," continued he, "my father and I had talked for a brief time, and I
signalled her as planned.  She took a seat, introductions were exchanged,
and all seemed to go well.  My father was more receptive than anticipated
to our being together, and gave a sort of lukewarm approval of it."

"Sounds like it went well."

^L

Joseph's voice took on the properties of ice.  "That's when she chose to
pull out a plasma cannon--the one I had designed for her personally--and
attempted to exterminate him."

^L

Sandra's expression simply locked into sheer mortification.

He continued unabated.  "My reflexes were the better of my mind's dismay,
however, and I was able to take the shot for my father.  She tried to run
out of the restaurant, but she looked back to see if I was dead..."

Glaciers moved from Joseph's lips.  "That's when I pulled out my own
cannon, and blew that bitch's head clean off."

An aeons-long silence.

"Later," he snarled with a coldness often found in tax collection agencies
in extreme Northern areas on Mobius, "after they finished picking her
teeth out of the wall, I discovered that she was a member of a Eastern
terrorist group who had been plotting to kill my father for years.  They
had arranged the monopoly of the chip, the attack of the Greys, our
entire *relationship*, and the assassination attempt."

"I had been played like a S'llth mandolin.  The only reason it didn't
succeed was because I had jumped in front of him, and I was clad in my
light armor that night."

Joseph turned away.  "I wish not to speak of this again."

She put her head on his shoulder.  "Joseph..."

"It is a long time finished.  There is no need to mourn for the blackened
part of my heart now..."  He paused, forcing a reassuring smile.  "You are
the only occupant of it now, anyway."

She held him close, silently allowing the pain to fade again.  Nothing was
said between them for the rest of the night; they simply remained
together...sitting inside the darkened control room, they let the glowing
light from Robotropolis' fires light them as they drifted off to a
dreamless sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The ship flew invisibly above the surface of the planet, quietly looking it
over for any significant damages to its precious natural resources.

The leader of the vessel sat quietly in his quarters, pondering over what
had conspired so far on his mission.  A supposedly conquered planet had
suddenly had an uprising which had nearly decimated the seat of power of
the conqueror, and had allegedly killed him...several small coups raged
in the ruined city, and now a simplistic artifical lifeform named "Packbell"
operated it.  It would be no great problem to fool this....tinkertoy....
into doing their bidding.  One rickety ship with some automated fighters
would probably suffice as a bribe for ownership of the (to him, the fool)
relatively useless planet.

After the AI had left, they would have him killed somewhere out of the
juristiction of the busybodies that protected Mobius in interplanetary
affairs, and keep him from cutting in on their particular
action; as was their usual custom toward their "sellers".  Then, whatever
pathetic rebellion that had opposed the idiotic machine would be quickly
crushed by flooding the entire world by melting its polar icecaps; also
freeing the remainder of the valuable water the world was blessed with
to boot.  He allowed himself a powerful laugh.  This would be so easy.

It would just take time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The next morning, the black vixen groggily awoke in the control room with
the activation of the several subcycles that heralded morning inside the
Dome.  She pulled herself from Joseph's lap, dusted herself off, and
headed over to the shower area outside the small, dark room.

She entered the bathroom, hit the light toggle, and headed over to the
stall.  A forcefield wrapped around the opening to the shower, serving as
an efficient curtain for the small area.  She activated the shower itself
by muttering one of the few Ur'thaen words she had picked up from Joseph
to operate some of the lesser systems.  After a moment, the warm,
familiar stream of water rushed over her fur, returning her mental
faculties to their usual sharpness.

As she began to lather herself up, her mind wandered back to the events of
the previous evening.  Her glance into Joseph's past had been something
she rather would have not seen.  Despite his relative facade about his
happiness on his homeworld all those centuries ago, to her it
appeared to be only a more subtle version of what Rotoropolis was now;
ruthless leaders lorded over their docile slaves--which could go from
sheep to lions at a moments notice for their "Head Vixen".  A cold,
unhappy, miserable world, that died the way it lived.  She shuddered
involentarily, and turned up the heat of the water to compensate for her
psychological chill.

She skipped back in the evening to the period when they were watching Sonic
and the others battling SWATBots and rescuing people in Robotropolis.
While it certainly wasn't a fun thing to observe (Joseph made the
occasional mild crack about pay-per-view showings of their missions in
some corner of the galaxy just to muddle about with her head, she
smirkingly noted, but a few soft whaps to the nose had stopped him from
raving further.), it seemed a great deal sunnier than Joseph's story.  At
least Packbell's rule is transparently evil; Joseph didn't realize how bad
off he really was.  But that was unimportant as she and her lover watched
the events unfold from the night before...when she watched the mission from
the control room, it began to seem to her as if she was watching some sort
of fanciful fictional video transmission.  The war and Mobius were
beginning to seem more...unreal to her, as if the complex and Joseph were
the only things real to her anymore.

She scrubbed her fur more vigorously.  Was Mobius, her home, the place her
and all of her ancestors were born, beginning to lack any hold over her?
Was this war between Sonic and Packbell her fight any more?

Sandra mulled this over in her mind.  Well, it was partially Joseph's
war...but in a sort of noncombatant way.  Sure, he'd blown up some SWATBots
in his time, but almost everyone had in Knothole.  He was no uberwarrior
fox with a big ol' gun to back up his ego; he was a gentle scientist who'd
been dragged into this conflict by a muddied honor and the noble
vulpine morals to do what was right with the powers he had available.  He
fought only to further the deroboticizer or to bail out a friend.
Offensive strikes, while he was fully capable of pulling off a successful
one, was not his forte'.  But Joseph planned to try to meld invisibly into
Mobian society after the war ended, from his various inferences and commentary
about the ridiculousness of politics.  He could afford to live quietly
after it was all over; who would dare hound the inventor of the
deroboticizer, a device that would probably single-handedly defeat
Packbell's scheme for world domination?  That, and the fact legends were
beginning to circulate about the area of forest the Dome was located in...
weird noises, bad feelings, evil karma.  She chuckled mentally.  All the
products of strategically placed transmitters with warped SFX programming.

But the war was not truely his.  He stayed out of Knothole most of the
time.  Bahb sometimes had to remind Joseph what season it was after he'd
worked on the deroboticizer for a few consecutive weeks with varying amount
of sleep and her...personal brand of female companionship breaking up his
work periods into tolorable chunks.  He didn't give a damn about the
restoration of the monarchy or the original government of Mobius aside
from the two factors that got him and Doc (one of his Keld'yrian friends)
thinking about reversing the effects of "dimentional displacement"; the
fact that Sally, someone who he respected greatly and cared for as a
close friend, would like to see her father (a concern which he could
completely identify with), and the sheer joy of "pure science".  After he'd
done his bit for this world, as she remembered from before, he just wanted
people to let him be.  Being a celebrity was something he wasn't prepared
for, or even wanted.

This was one of Joseph's few shortcomings, she thought: his eternal shyness
when it came to any group larger than 4 or 5 people he didn't know.  He
could talk face to face with Sally, herself, Sonic, Rotor, Doc, practically
anyone at all...but stick him in a room with a audience and tell him to
read something, he'd freak out.  It was comical sometimes to see him talk to
a group of people 3 feet shorter and 100 pounds lighter than he, and have
him hold back looking as nervous as a debtor being audited.  Her
recollection of a recent episode of this behavior forced a quite wicked
smirk across her face as she began to cease shampooing.

She started to rinse herself off.  Perhaps this is what love really is, she
thought to herself...love was caring enough about someone else that nothing
else mattered; weirdness, heritage, homeworld, race...all other things
became irrevelant.  There was little else really wrong with Joseph's
personality.  He was humble, despite his great technological, mental, and
physical prowess; he had a sense of humor (albeit a dark one); he was
friendly and affable with kits after a fashion; he actually knew how to
dress himself, unlike other foxes she'd known who'd worn less elaborate
outfits than he; he'd have little problem providing anything for anyone...
and, naturally, Joseph could protect her against Packbell.

It would take a higher power than that "mere rainy-day creation" to ever
breach the defenses of the Dome, by her observations of it...and he'd
fight to the death to keep anything from ever harming her...ever.  She
knew that much; Joseph would blow up the entire complex, decimate the
entire planet, and tacnuke it from orbit to keep one ounce of pain from
ever brushing against her.  Losing her, she thought, mildly awed, would
be something that would probably break his mind, as well as his heart.
That, and he'd probably annhilate most of the planet and a few ones
around it, if left to his own devices.

She kept rinsing herself off, luxurating in the warm flow of liquid.  Yes,
he was a good and honorable fox, who'd been used and beaten around by life
throughout his 300 plus years of existance.  She was probably the first
person he'd trusted in some time, the irony of which was not lost on her.
The amount of power she could wield over him (and this world) was nothing
short of frightening.  Yet, for some reason...she *couldn't* use him.  She
had tried to force herself back into her usual sly criminal mentality, but
it just didn't work for her any longer.  She wanted for nothing, was kept
warm and safe by a gentle, handsome, wonderful fox, and had the knowledge
of the universe at her fingertips.  Her mind told her the same thing her
heart did: Don't screw this up.

She finished rinsing, lowered the field, and stepped onto the dryer pad.
As the air rushed through her fur, she again pondered her feelings for
Joseph.  Was she just a parasite, feeding off of his technology and love...
or was it more?  Did she really, truly, love him back?

She finished drying herself, stepped off the pad, and groomed herself back
to a state of relative normalcy.  She smiled as she combed down her headfur.
She'd never thought she'd be having this conversation with herself.  She
laughed softly.  Hell, she'd never thought she was going to live past the
first few months of this insane war.  But she'd survived...with help, but
she'd survived.

She looked into the mirror, searched her soul for an answer, but received
only nebulous half-replies bouncing off her pupils.  Perhaps later she'd
know.  It would just take time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Back in Robotropolis:

The morning broke over Robotropolis, at least allegedly.  The sun's rays,
however, rarely breached the black, stinking, choking plumes of engine
discharge and oil fumes that surrounded Mobius' City of Eternal Darkness,
and only in a fleeting way when they did.

But sunshine and blue sky were not one of the high priorities of Packbell,
who actually preferred the ugly brown-black haze surrounding the city over
the natural, chaotic, and "messy" forests and jungles that otherwise
populated Mobius.  It was not logical to allow such valuable resources
to go untapped in his mind, and if it wasn't such a bargaining chip in the
sale of this world...

But he still had some personal goals to accomplish before he closed up shop
and left this nasty place for someplace more technologically oriented.
One was the total annhilation of Knothole.  That place was constantly on
his mind...he wanted to CRUSH that place beneath his heel, and lay waste
to the place out of sheer spite.  Another was the capture, torture, and
ultimate termination of the ringleaders: Sonic, Sally, Tails--the kit they
had seemingly adopted, the rabbit Bunnie, the walrus called Rotor...and,
a person he especially wanted to destroy, Sandra Nightweaver.  Packbell
refused to allow any meat-thing to outwit and outmanuver him...especially
not some mere *fox*.

His final goal, he evilly pondered, was the capture of one of the planet's
more useful resources (and one that he doubted the Buyers knew of),
the Chaos Emeralds.

He grinned with a psychotic glee as he overlooked the repairs to the
complex.  Those emeralds would catch a fine price somewhere in the
universe...at least enough to buy a small planetoid somewhere, and set
up a mining operation.  And naturally enough to keep him in diodes and
spare parts for a good millenium or two.

And he would have them.  He would not sell this world before he had gotten
all he had needed out of it.  He had infinity to work with, after all...

It would just take time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She stepped out into the bedroom, where she passed Joseph walking in.  He
simply reguarded her with a grunt, patted her between the ears, and
headed into the bedroom.  She smirked at his behavior, and flopped down
on the comfortable bed for a moment.  Joseph was not a morning person.
She learned that rather rapidly after her first few days living in the
Dome, sometime after he set down the "house rules".

Joseph really had only three major house rules.  Don't mess with his lab,
don't take anything without telling him or Bahb first, and absolutely no
visitors below level 1.  It was just common sense, of course, but Joseph
made sure he left little room for error in everything he did.  It
wasn't meant as a knock against her, but more as a way of clarifying for
himself what the rules were.

Sandra paid it little heed.  His lab was far beyond her comprehension,
despite his attempts to explain the various devices it had in it; she
had little need to take anything outside at the moment; and she didn't
have many friends Joseph didn't let in, anyway.  The rules, as she noted
earlier, was just Joseph stating the obvious for his own benefit.

She got off the bed, and primped herself in the mirror for a moment.
Behind her, she heard the sounds of Joseph "knocking the dust" off of
himself, which were rapidly coming to an end.  She wondered what they
would do today.  Perhaps they'd stop by Knothole to wring information
out of Sonic as to the success of the mission.  Or, maybe Joe'd go off to
Haven and hang around with Doc for a couple hours.  Of course, there was
the ever-popular option of staying home and--

Home.  Sandra was beginning to think of this place as "home".  She smiled.
It was a nice place, alright...but even if they just lived in a cave, it
seemed to her that any place that Joseph was could be "home" now.  It was
almost...no, it *was* impossible for her to imagine living anywhere without
him.  She'd just become used to his quiet snoring, the faint (thanks
to the clean room's delousing function outside his lab) smell of well-made
cigar smoke that occasionally was detectable when she brushed against his
coat, the slow, deliberate steps he took when he walked across a room...
the perfect thump-thumping of his heartbeat when he slept...all of it was
so familiar to her, Sandra could not imagine living without it.

Anyway, they could just stay home today and view video transmissions from
the far-reaches of the universe.  They'd done that a few times lately,
and she was always fascinated by different species and what they liked to
watch.  It became especially enjoyable after Joseph had installed a
translator chip in her ear, so she could understand all the different
languages (and even speak them, if she wanted) that she heard after a
few moments of spoken dialogue.  She definitely thought that network
executives from the now-defunct MBN should watch some of this stuff one
day, if they were still alive.  For example, Gh'blarr hyperpolo was one
of the most fun spectator sports she'd ever seen.  It was like a cross of
yachting, dodgeball, light piracy, and a senior trip rolled into one
chaotic, highly entertaining sport with no real rules.  That, and some
strange Terran program called "Mystery Science Theater 3000"...

Joseph finally emerged from the bathroom in a presentable form.  He smiled,
bounded over to her, and hugged her firmly hello in the usual manner.
"Hi, Sandra," said he, disengaging from the hug and walking over to the
replicator to fetch breakfast.  "Sleep well?"

"In a manner of speaking.  Still a little tired...probably should have
slept in later."

Joseph grinned, pulled some food-laden plates and a glass or two out the
replicator, and put them down on a table.  "Well," he said, "you can sleep
through the day now.  I'm not going to have anything to do for a good
while...not until all the first versions of the deroboticizer have been
compiled in about a month, anyway.  Then, I'm just going to start repping
off portable units, loading them with the right software, and letting Sally
handle the whole mess from there.  For the time being, however, I can
finally relax, and work on other things."

Sandra slinked over to the table, and allowed Joseph to pull a seat out for
her.  Thanking him appropriately, she slid into place and waited for him
to sit.  "That's good to hear.  You've been looking pretty ragged lately.
You need a vacation."

Joseph sat down, and slugged back a shot of orange juice before speaking.
"Yeah...I'mgoing to delegate the acquisition of the King back to Doc for a
while.  I'm feeling rather burnt out...yes, it is time for a week off,
alright.  Maybe two."

"Why not a month?  Joseph, you've worked non-stop on this deroboticizer
almost since you arrived here nearly two years ago.  I've never seen anyone
work like you do on it...you're defoxifying yourself for the sake of the
deroboticizer.  We've *got* time.  Take it easy for a bit."

He smiled, conceding to her with a half-mouthful of scrambled eggs.  After
chewing the appropriate number of times, he swollowed it and followed it up
with an OJ chaser.  "Okay, okay," the hapless Joseph replied, "I'll chill
out for a while."

Sandra smiled, and attacked her toast for a moment before replying.
"That's good to hear."

Joseph sat back, beaming mischiveously at his mate while consuming some
tomato-pasted "home fries".  "I'm glad you approve!"

Sandra smirked.  "What, am I turning into an old nag already?  That's not
supposed to happen until after you've met my parents, I've met yours,
we've dated for a year, I get a ring out of you, we endure some ceremony
put together by our family and friends, and some guy down in a records
building officially recognizes us as mated."

She paused for a moment, and laughed.  "Of course, you know my feelings
on `law and order' pretty well by now, don't you?"

Joseph grinned.  "Ah, you've got the same idea I have about that
foolishness.  Too many variables in a simple equation, provided you've
got the right starting ingredients, anyway.  Two people meet, fall in love,
and spend the rest of their lives together.  Forget that dating
period and ceremonies and the rest of that hullaballoo.  Love is the only
true bond, not paper."

Sandra smiled a little.  "But it's pretty."

"I suppose."

"Would you ever, if you found the right person?"

"If so requested.  The groom's side would be pretty empty, tho."

Sandra allowed herself only a snicker.  "You could borrow Sonic's fan
club."

"Then I'd have to clean out the bride's side, or get a cathedral.  I
haven't seen any around here, though."

"But you would, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

Sandra looked at Joseph with an odd glint in her eye, and smiled.  "But not
for a while, of course."

"A good, long time," said he.

"Same here."

They finished breakfast wordlessly, thinking similar thoughts about that
identical topic.







			Chapter Nine - Thirst


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: A couple of days later.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knothole was in better sprits than was its norm.  The news about the
progress on the deroboticizer had gradually tricked from the ears of Sally
to the mouths of the commoners, and had given morale to a previously
morose and dismal group of people.

The rumors varied wildly from section to section of Knothole.  Some said it
would be ready in time for the spring rains.  Others thought along the
lines of next fall's brisk frost.  The overly optimistic believed it would be
ready by the end of the week, but they were few and scattered around the
settlement.  Everyone had an opinion...and they also had something helpful;
hope.

Needless to say, for a few days Joseph and Sandra had had little privacy.
Herds of roboticized citizens whacked on the front portal of the Dome,
demanding to be deroboticized to Bahb and any SpyGlobe they came
across.  Sandra could not take her morning walk without being hounded
by people asking how Joseph was doing.  Joseph didn't dare poke his
head out from his lab...but that was his usual behavior anyway.  However,
the stoicness of his resistance to leak out a whit of information finally
lead to everyone settling down and going home, allowing Sandra and Joe to
live in peace.  This was quite a relief to Joseph, who thought of it as only
another nuisance.

But Sandra had enjoyed her new fame, even though it lasted only a short
time.  It was nice to be seen as a powerful vixen, rather than just a
dangerous one.  It made the typically infamous, dangerous, and quite
suspicious Sandra Nightweaver into a famous, kind, and nearly saintly
vixen; who kept her mate, the future "Savior of Mobius" (as some had
started to call him) from going insane from fighting Science and Time
Itself for the Greater Common Good.

(Instinctively, Joseph hated this.  He wasn't anyone's savior, Sandra
wasn't an angel (and he'd despise it if she ever became one), and the
"Greater Common Good" was just another name for his pulsing, rotting soul.
He wanted to do his job and be left alone.  Didn't people see that was
what he wanted?!)

She played in the spotlight, for the fleeting period it was on them both.
Joseph tightened his coat and hid behind the curtain.  She used it
mercilessly to achieve a sort of delayed revenge against the people who
had, only days ago, looked down their snouts at her as a common
thief, or as some sort of golddigging hussy.  Joseph felt like it was
crushing him, and was beginning to think infamy was the way to go.

However, it had ended soon after it began, and soon things were back to
some sort of normal.  Joseph watched the progress of Bahb's work,
Sandra used the Dome's observation and information facilities, and
they both thought about each other as they did their various tasks.

Meanwhile, Joseph was beginning to notice a sort of listlessness
settling over him; a sluggish ennui started to form that he had
not experienced in the past.  He didn't want to get up in the
morning any more.  He didn't feel as spry and verile as he once
was.  It took greater and greater efforts to complete his daily
exercises...as if the 300 years he had spent in cryogenic storage
was finally starting to catch up with him.

He knew it wasn't his mind that was malfunctioning...his internal
diagnostics and external ones by Bahb had registered no mental
or psychological defects.  He yearned not for TLC; Sandra was
always there with a smile and a kind ear for him.  Physical scans
had detected a lower red blood cell count, but he had jacked up
the production of the corpuscles to compensate.  But he *still* felt
lousy, and that bothered him a lot.

Finally, he just chose to ignore the tiredness and mild depression, and
just forced himself to cheer up.  His long mission would soon be
accomplished.  He had a female who loved him, or at least liked him
a lot.  The Dome was finally to his liking, Packbell was almost weak
enough to be finished off, and progress had begun on a antidote of
sorts for "dimentional displacement syndrome".  Mobius was headed
for better times, in his opinion, and that only could mean better news
in regards to his personal standing on it.

But he felt weaker than he had in months.  Eventually, Sandra would
start to notice his weakness.  Maybe this would make her dislike
him, believing that he was starting to not love her as much.  Perhaps
someone new, like some red-type with more fight in him than brains
would come along and steal her away from the weakened, nerdy fox.
Then, he'd just lay in bed one night, close his eyes, and decide not
to wake up again--

He snarled mentally.  He was starting to become fearful of other
possible suitors entering the equation and stealing Sandra away.
This was a development that displeased him.  He knew he was
superior in every way from the average Mobian fox; taller,
smarter, stronger, faster, and equally skilled in a dojo as in
a laboratory.  But he was no professional warrior.  Battles were
not his *thing*.  Sure, he could fight, but he'd rather work on
making artificial life than artifically ending it.

Sighing, Joseph went from monitor to monitor, tweaking things uselessly.
She wouldn't leave him because of some mild physical problem.  It defied
all he knew about her, emotionally and logically.  She'd be concerned,
she'd want to help him, but she certainly wouldn't up and leave him because
of some stupid spell of depression.  Honestly, he mumbled to himself,
was he that paranoid?

Throughly annoyed with his foolish behavior, he went higher up in the
complex to view some intergalactic news.  Joseph liked to watch the
news from other worlds, because it gave him a reason to remain
on Mobius; compared to other worlds, Mobius was a paradise.

Sandra was sitting in the easy chair when he arrived, idly flicking
through the nearly infinite amount of channels with a control stick.
She smiled when he saw him, masking her concern for his welfare.
"Hey, you."  She winked seductively at him, and scooted over to the
side of the chair.  "Take a load off."

Joseph gladly complied, taking up the majority of the chair with his bulk,
and allowed Sandra to plop down on his lap.  Gently taking the control
stick from Sandra, he flicked to the all-purpose news channel.

"...and the Jh'onar vanquished the Gh'bre, 12 to 10.  And now, the
headlines."

Some crystalline theme music played as the image switched to a
bluish backdrop, with a desk in front of it.  A Keldy'rianish looking
announcer, dressed in a serious looking business suit, sat behind it.

"Greetings to you from the INS of the Union of Allied Worlds, located
on the fifth moon of Centranus."

Zoom to a closer view of the announcer, with a small vid-window popping
up to the upper left of the perception.  "During the elapsed solar cycle
of Centranus, the following major news items occurred:"

A menu popped up on the scrren, blocking the view.  A list of solar systems
popped up, and a request to select one or more to get news items on
was given.  Joseph highlighted <overview> and hit <send>.

The image returned to that of the announcer.  "Today in the INS headlines,
the universe's first commercial subspace jumpship was unveiled today on
Ve'holk.  The ship, dubbed the "Freedom", will be operated by its owners,
the Ba'a'alth'xae species of the Dog Nebulae, on a pay-per-cargo basis."

"Also in the intergalactic headlines, the main database of Keld'yrian
knowledge has been yet again broken into by unknown forces, which
downloaded the approximate sum of their knowledge as of the current
date.  Keld'yrian officials are baffled as to the identity of the
perpetrators, who left no trace of their infiltration besides a cryptic
message left on the main menu of the system, which, when translated
into Galacticspeak, reads, 'if you can't beat them...'.  The Union of
Allied Worlds has no record of what this phrase might refer to, but INS
will immediately report to you, the viewer, any leads they may have.
Details will be transmitted as they are recieved."

The announcer paused for effect, and then continued.  "And also occurring
within the time parameters of the Centranus day, the 1,000,000,000,000th
anniversary of the invention of the FTL drive was celebrated on the quite
ancient and grand world of Equa'a'atus today, with the usual pyrotechnic
displays and triggered volcanic eruptions climaxing the day's festivities."

Another snappy pause.  "In less joyful news, hundreds of innocent
crew members of the shipping frigate "Zu'tha" were killed today in
a lightning pirate raid by the mysterious "Lost Ones".  Their cargo,
an experimental shield generator, was lost to the ruthless rapscallions,
who left only the ship's garbage untouched.  The Unions's armada
is continuing the search for their ship, and the reward for information
leading to their capture and summary execution now stands at
125 million creds."

A shorter pause.  "The star NSTD-324 in the Ribos cluster went nova today.
The usual measurements were taken, readjusting the number of monitored
novas in recorded Union history to 7,942,102,001.  Bids for the collection
of the star's core have begun."

"The long-standing conflict between the Dh'gno and the S'foph'l exploded
into war again over the 5 light-year wide neutral zone between their two
territories.  Deaths have already broken the million mark, with uncounted
property damage still being tabulated."

"Finally, the Union Bureau of Regulations released its annual census of
unaligned worlds today, revealing that approximately 450 worlds with
sentinent life have not joined the Union alliance as of last solar year's
completion.  Among those worlds, 425 have not evolved lifeforms with
the ability to think and reason on a Stone Age level, twenty lack an
industrial level of technology, and four have not discovered FTL drive and
the principles behind subspace communication yet."

He paused, and the music for a special report fired up.  "However, the one
world that has not joined a side yet is somewhat of a enigma.  It has the
available technology, yet, for some reason, does not make contact.
Many have come to explore and research this world, yet none ever
succeed in getting it to join either side.  Why?  Our on-the-spot reporter
Alpha Du'lee found out a few months ago in this special report."

Sandra rose a brow.  "Hey now."

Joseph needed no other inspiration.  "Bahb, begin retroactively recording
this transmission from time co-ordinate 09:45."

Bahb beeped, and the transmission continued.

The scene morphed from the newsroom to the middle of the Great Unknown.
A female anthropromorphic feline stood in the middle of the scene, clad in
the female version of the announcer's attire.  While it complimented her
curves to some extent, it masked them beneath a mantle of respectability.
"This is Alpha Du'lee, INS news.  I stand here in the middle of the great
waste referred to by the natives of this world as "The Great Unknown".
My report begins here not out of simple artistic whim, but out of
necessity."

She paused, coughing and looking around.  "This world, according to some
brief research done by myself and my recorder-wrangler, has been
drastically altered since the last census done by the UOAW 25 solar
years ago.  The old monarchy has been overthrown, and a leader named
"Snively" has somehow usurped power."

"Old tape," Sandra said.

"Bahb, why didn't you inform me of the landing of this female on Mobius?"

<< "You said you were not to be disturbed at the time." >>

"And what time was that?"

<< "Approximately 7 lunar cycles ago." >>

Joseph mused.  "Near the end of Snively's reign..."

<< "I believe the excuse you were using at the time was that you were
      observing the mating habits of ground squirr--" >>

      Joseph calmly stated, "Quiet, Bahb.  You're smothering the audio."

      Sandra looked at Joseph with a bemused expression, but said nothing
      about her feelings about yet another example of Joseph's severe
      voyeurism.  Later, she thought, later.

The reporter continued.  "This...being has apparently been responsible for
the cyborgization of approximately 75% of the population of this world, the
other 25% of which are either in hiding, dead, or otherwise out of his
grasp.  His army of roving--"  A pause, as the sounds of machinery grow
closer.  Her eyes go wide as she breaks into a sprint toward the camera.
"Dammit, R'hde, move!"  The transmission ceases abruptly.

A second later, the transmission resumed.  Her voice is the only thing
that crosses the void for a moment, until a picture of her near a
projection of Mobius appears on the viewer.  A frazzled female voice
continues the narrative.  "Alpha Du'lee here.  My recorder-wrangler has
been terminated by a group of black-tinted robotic humanoid creatures--"

"SWATBots," Joseph interjected.

"--who also damaged my recording equipment.  They have not found the
ship, luckily, which is relaying this transmission to the INS via remote
relay.  It is cloaked, so it will be safe for the next 120 solar cycles,
unless something damages the cloak itself."

She took several quick breaths.  "I have ran to the Great Forest, where
it is said a group of "terrorists" live.  Hopefully, they can somehow
assist me in sneaking by the robotic guards."

The audio cuts out, and then resumes.  The voice of the reporter is very
quiet and frightened-sounding.  "I have failed in finding the terrorists,
but have instead stowed away on some sort of `SWATBot' ship which is heading
back to the Great Unknown.  I hope to destroy them by using this device's
automatic destruct, stealing this ship, and going back to mine.  I will
write a full report on my experience later.  This is Alpha Du'lee, INS
news, signing off."

The scene cuts back to that of the newsroom.  "Miss Du'lee was never
heard from again.  We can only assume that her death was caused by
the strange devices on the planet's surface.  After a UOAW investigation
of her transmissions, they have ruled the planet off-limits until formal
contact, initiated by the planet itself, has been established."

Hope turned to shock to horror to despair all at once back in the Dome,
where Sandra and Joseph sat, crushed.  "Damn," Joseph muttered,
"So much for foreign aid."

"And that is the news.  Now over to spor--"

Joseph turned the viewer off, disgusted.  "That wasn't useful."

Sandra laid back against him.  "It's a long time past, anyway."

Joseph pulled himself out from under Sandra, returning to his old
funk in seconds.  "It still stinks completely."

Sandra frowned and stroked her tail, which had fallen asleep.  "Well,
I guess you and Vision will have to be the foreign aid then, won't you?"

"I s'ppose so.  I think I will go meditate on this now."

Sandra blinked.  "Uh, okay.  I'll see you in a few hours, then."

Yawning, Joseph waved and departed down the shaft.

Sandra frowned when Joseph left.  He'd seemed so cold and distant lately.
Was it her?  Had Joseph come down with some sort of alien virus?
Or was it something else?  She grimaced and hugged a pillow close to her.
This change in his behavior was frightening and displeasing to her.  He
was gradually beginning to stop showing any physical acts of affection
toward her, besides the "act" itself.  He was less talkative and more
moody, and his apathetic attitude was becoming more and more obvious.

She blinked back totally irrational tears.  She needed someone to tell
her what was wrong, so she could somehow get Joseph to be happy
again.  But who?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"You want me to do what?"

Doc had been mindlessly collecting specimens to study in his lab when
Sandra had snuck up behind him, and struck up a conversation.
Unaccustomed to seeing her without Joseph, Doc was easily obliged
into continuing the conversation out of sheer scientific curiousity.

However, an element of it surprised him.  "I need you to find out what
is wrong with Joseph.  He's been acting...funny."

Doc ruffled his headfur in a manner reminiscent of the Terran character
of Doc Brown, from the `Back to the Future'  series of movies, as was
his custom.  In fact, most of his mannerisms and behavior mimicked
Doc Brown's behavior in a disturbingly uncanny way.  "But why are
you asking me?  Joseph's more than capable of doing his own
diagnostics."

"I think whatever's wrong with him is affecting his judgement."

Doc hrmed.  "That bad, eh?  Well, I'll just have to be the judge of that."
She took him to the Dome, brought him through the various levels, and
took him to Joseph's idling body.  They worked quickly, so not to disturb
him from his deep meditation.  A few scans of him were all they needed, and
they got them with no incident.  Fluidly, Doc teleported back to Haven,
taking Sandra with him.

Doc fed the results of the scan into a computer, which mulled over the
facts quickly enough to determine the problem...

*** PROCESSING DATA***

Subject: Joseph

Scans by: Doc, Sandra Nightweaver

Scenerio: Possible contamination of subject with an illness that affect
          energy levels, psychological state.
        
          Results of scans:  Subject's nervous system and brain, a mimetic
                             polyalloy, is intact and unharmed.
                        
                             Excretory system is intact and unharmed.
                                        
                             Nanite boosted immune system is intact and
                             unharmed.
                

                             Reproductive system has been sterilized by
                             subject's choice until further notice, but
                             is otherwise intact.
                                
                             Enhanced sketal system is intact and unharmed.

                             Circulatory system...damaged.

          Synopsis:  The cells of the subject's body require more
                     oxygen than the blood cells can realistically
                     produce on their own.  Despite the increase in
                     production, they still cannot keep up with the demand
                     for oxygen.
        
          Solution:  Short-term -- weekly influx of non-artificial, living
                     blood; artificial blood, while mostly effective, will
                     only stabilize the condition.  The production of the
                     blood should come from a person in an "excited"
                     state, so to have the most effect.

                     Long-term -- a transfer into another host body with
                     augmented circulatory system, or into that of a
                     synthetic shell.
                
                      *** ANALYSIS COMPLETE ***
                
                
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"So, Doc, what this report is telling me is that Joseph's an unwitting
*vampire*?"

Doc frowned.  "Unfortunately, yes.  His body requires fresh doses of
oxygenated blood on a weekly basis, or else it will die around him."

Sandra wiped at her eyes.  "This is awful!"

Doc attempted to comfort her.  "Yes, yes, I know...but he can escape it,
eventually.  He just needs to switch bodies."

"But he put so much *work* into the one he's gotten.  This'll really bother
him now..."

Doc coughed.  "Well, it could be worse.  It could have driven him psychotic
by now, and his body could have so agitated his mind as to finally clue him
in on what he needs...which would, of course, really be bad."

"He would be, after all, the perfect predator."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra teleported home a few moments later to give Joseph the news.
She was nervous, but she hoped and prayed to any god that was listening
that he was still alright.

She entered their bedroom, expecting to see Joseph sitting cross-legged
on the bed, deep within a zauzen trance, as she and Doc had left him.
However, he was not there.  The room had been disturbed considerably.
The bedsheets were knocked onto the floor, the mattress torn and beaten
around, and his clothing in a ragged, torn pile on the ground.

Oh no.

She froze, listening for breathing or any other Josephish sound.  Nothing.
Her heart beat loudly, nearly deafening her with its rapid pounding.  Her
blood rushed through her head with the speed of quicksilver, making Sandra
feel like all she was was one big bag of O negative.

And to Joseph, she thought, that's all she was.

She rushed back toward the pad, starting to detect movement out of the
side of her eye.  She broke into a run, and lept onto the pad.  The motion
swept behind her.  She was too afraid to look.  She smashed her fist into
the up switch, sending the pad rocketing away into the ceiling.

The motion behind her withdrew momentarily from surprise, but immediately
made it known that she would not escape so easily.  A hiss escaped from
its metal-fanged mouth, the silver that made up its nervous system
choosing to become a boon to his circulatory.

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Sandra ran instinctively up the three flights of stairs that seperated the
residental level of the Dome from the other parts.  She knew whatever
Joseph had become was chasing her...toying with her...allowing her to
keep running, until her blood was agitated to his satisfaction.

She started crying as she ran, her mind overloaded from shock.  If she
retained full control of her mind, this would be the most humiliatng
thing she had ever experienced.  She'd let her guard down, and was running
away, crying like a kit, from someone she knew was mentally unstable at
the time...yet, she had gone to get him unarmed.  She felt more helpless
than she ever had before, a feeling she resolved to never experience
again.

Her mind raced as she bolted through the Dome.  She knew this wasn't
Joseph...not anymore. This was not the fox she so cared for, respected,
and would bear kits for.  This was some sort of disease forcing his body
to do these things.  But Sandra wasn't, or couldn't, act on her thoughts.
She only ran, ran fast and hard, to get away from the beast that chased her.

She shot through the trap door at the top of the stairs, and quickly threw
a chair over it to attempt to slow Joseph down.  It only gave him something
else to destroy.  He blasted through the trap door just as Sandra was able
to ascend to the next level, the computer core.

As she ran to the next stepdisk, she looked around for something to throw
or drop on the ground, anything at all that might slow Joseph down.
Finding nothing, she contented herself with jumping on the next stepdisk.
As it started to rise, Joseph seemed to burst out of the lower regions of
Hell and leap up to grab her.  Luckily for Sandra, he did not make it
completely on the stepdisk, but was able to grab onto it as it rose.

The stepdisk daemon inside Bahb quickly made the disk stop, and caused
it to begin to descend.

Sandra panicked as the fox began to pull his way onto the stepdisk.  She
kicked and hit him in the head, trying to phase him enough so she could
get away.  "GET AWAY FROM ME!!" she screamed fruitlessly at the fox,
who was making progress despite her efforts to the contrary.

Sandra lept off the stepdisk as Joseph took it over, causing it to rise
again.  As she landed unevenly on the ground, injuring her leg, Joseph
was pulled into the emerald level against his will.  His roars of rage
resounded through the computer core until the stepdisk hit its destination.

He surfaced in the emerald core angrily.  He repeatedly jumped up and
down to try and force the stepdisk down, but to no avail.  As he did so,
the emerald began to notice Joseph's psychotic state.  It had a
intelligence of sorts, and remembered how well Joseph had treated it in
the past...taking it away from the dark city, caring for it, talking to it,
giving it attention...and so, somehow caring about him, it chose to take
action.

As Joseph raged and pounded against the portal, the emerald hit him
with a gentle, calming amber beam.  At first, it did nothing.  The emerald
jacked up its output.  Nothing.  It focused its energy into a tight beam,
and hit the fox dead on with a hard bolt of amber energy.  He stumbled
and fell to the ground, unconscious.  Its mission accomplished, the emerald
powered down, waiting for the next opportunity to manifest its power.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the planet...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The cool blue pools of water glistened in the daylight, as Knuckles the
Echidna, protector of the Floating Island, returned home again.  The gulls
cried their welcome to him as he raced across the water, lept onto the side
of the island, and climbed up to its surface.

He took a few deep breaths.  Sighing happily, he stretched on the beach.
He was home, where he belonged.  No more wandering around the world
and over the sea for him.  This is where he needed to be, and this is
where he'd stay.

Walking toward the emerald caves, he gathered up the emeralds and
took them back to the main emerald complex near the center of the
island.  The chamber had been repaired, as he suspected, and all it
required was the reinstallation of the Chaos Emeralds to return all
to what it had been before.

He put the emeralds in the correct arrangement around the larger,
green Master Chaos Emerald.  As they reattuned themselves to the
Chaos Chamber, the island itself seemed to relax.  Knuckles himself
felt more contented and safe, and he knew the island was still strong
despite his long absence.

After making sure all was right, he closed the chamber back up and went
back outside.  He felt young and strong, and his mind was clear of
doubt.

The Chaos Emeralds were safe again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In a darker section of Mobius, inside the large Command Center,
two vaguely humanoid creatures spent considerably different
existances.

In the highest level, Commander Packbell, an android with a bad
attitude and a decidedly evil bent, lorded over an empire spanning
most of Mobius.  Armies of SWATBots fell into line at his command,
people lived or died at his decree, and all was sinister and evil,
polluted and decadent.  He bargained with aliens over the fate of
the world while planning to doublecross them all and walk away
with all the spoils of war.

Packbell, to sum it all up, wanted to rule the universe.

In the basement of the complex, a different sort of person lived.  Snively,
the nephew of the deceased Doctor Julian Ivo Robotnik (the original
conqueror of the world) and a wannabe dictator, had far less power at
the moment and certainly smaller plans.  He lived in the lowest part
of the complex, an abandoned, rotting garbage incinerator.  He killed
and ate the vermin that skulked in from outside, and hid from the
SWATBots he used to command.  He'd faked his own death after
a lightning raid from the Freedom Fighters, and had been living in
fear of everyone ever since.

He didn't want to rule the world any more.  He just wanted to live in
peace.  A nice, clean jail cell--even in Ironlock--looked like heaven
compared to his continued existance down here.  The slightest noise
sent him dashing into the darkest, most filthy part of the dead
incinerator, praying it was a Freedom Fighter with intent to kill,
rather than Packbell.

Oh, how horribly Packbell had treated him!  Uncle Robotnik was hard,
cruel at times, but he was never as evil or sadistic as Packbell was.
Robotnik allowed him to eat, gave him a decent place to stay, and
gave him a bit of power over Robotropolis.  Packbell had not only
knocked him out of the throne, but had taken away all of his power
and made him a glorified robot.  Worker-Bots had it better than he.
They felt no pain.  Under Packbell's control, that was all he ever felt.

He growled, angrily shaking his fists toward the ceiling.  He would have
his revenge!  He would get Packbell, destroy him, and take back what
he had rightfully stole!  Even though he had no echidna to help him,
no SWATBots to aid his cause, he would defeat him!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph moaned on the ground, coming to an hour or so later from the
emerald's weird ray.  His body felt sore, like he was coming off a bad
hangover or high.  He rolled onto his back...

...and noticed Sandra standing above him, plasma cannon trained
right between his eyes.  "Don't make another move," she snapped,
glaring at him angrily and fingering the trigger.

Joseph was confused.  "Sandra?"

"You just lie right there, you maniac."

Surprisedly, he exclaimed, "What?  What are you talking about?"

"You can't fool me, Joseph.  I drop my guard, and then you jump up and
suck me dry."  She looked at him with more fear than hate.  "I think not."

"I don't understand."

Sandra's eyes tightened.  "Don't give me that bullshit.  You tried to kill
me."

Joseph looked at her blankly.  "Huh?"

Sandra started to soften a bit.  "You don't remember?"

Joseph closed his eyes, trying to think back.  "It's fuzzy..."

She allowed the cannon to lower a few degrees.  "I went down to the
bedroom to tell you something, and you--"

Joseph curled into a fetal position, packing into a tight ball.  Obviously,
she noted, it had hit him.

As he sobbed about how sorry he was, she put the cannon down and
held him close.  She knew that he was back, for now, and that his
actions were not that of premeditation.  Yet, she kept the cannon in
reach, in case another episode began while he was crying on the floor.

But Sandra did her best at reassuring Joseph.  She tried to let her long-
repressed maternal instincts do most of the work, but this was a field
she wasnot usually called upon to enter.  Perhaps that would be different
one day...but not for a while.

The hulking orange mass kept tightly packed near the abnormally maternal
Sandra Nightweaver, as she hugged him and told Joseph that everything
was going to be alright, and she didn't hold his past actions against
him, and so on and so forth.  Meanwhile, she was busy trying to
conjure a way to tell Joseph about his formerally dormant vampirism
without frightening him, or herself, too much.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Snively lurked through the trash, cursing Packbell and crawling through
the gutters around the city, looking for a meal.  Unbeknownst to him,
the spacecraft that had descended through the clouds many times
and had the people on it who had spoken to Robotnik and Packbell,
now landed again outside the control center.

The boarding stairs descended from it, and the usual greasy red-types
scurried out from it, carrying a large box.  They put the box down on the
ground, and ran back inside the craft.  A few moments later, the
familiar red-orange fox walked out of the craft, and ascended the stairs
of the building once more...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Packbell was expecting his "friend" this time, and had cleaned the
place up to something more tolorable for an organic's taste.  John
walked in as per usual, looking clinically calm.  "Hello, Packbell,"
he said, "I see you've actually cleaned this place up a bit.  Good."
He looked around the room.  "Let me guess...you've taken even
more losses, haven't you?

He gave Packbell no opportunity to reply.  "Oh, that's just lovely,
Packbell.  Keep it up."  The sarcasm was thick enough to support a train.

"I haven't had the firepower or the..."

"Oh, be quiet.  For Goddess' sake, even Ivo kept the place in better
condition than you do, tinkertoy.  He could have gotten the complex
back to at least 45% efficiency by now."  He waved his hand around
irritatedly.  "Just look at the filth that you live in!  What are you,
some sort of vermin?"

"But..."

"Shut up!  If it wasn't for those crazed governmental bureocrats in the
UOAW government, I'd tacnuke this place now and be DONE with you!
But noooo, I gotta buy it off of you for face value."  He sneered at
Packbell.  "Even though it's worth one TENTH of it NOW!" he exclaimed,
lying through his teeth.

"I..."

He stomped out of the room.  "Clean up your act, Packbell!  You're only
going to see me 6 more times before the final offer is given!  Heed my
words!  Displease me again, and I'll be sure yr new-found wealth is
promptly taken away from you!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The fox stomped out of the command center, madder than a rusted
roboticized rat on Monday.  He kicked through piles of garbage,
cursing in a foreign language as he did so.  However, one particularly
good kick made him drop something out of his pockets.  It was
a small device, probably suited for palmtop usage.  It bounced out
of his coat-pocket and into a gutter, where it disappeared into the
darkness.  Even more irritated, the fox just decided to let it lay in
the festering storm sewer, leaving it for whatever rat might try to
gnaw on it.  He marched up the stairs, shouted some commands,
and made the ship fly off into the night.

However, no rat was ever able to get the device.  A human hand
caressed the smooth alien device, taking it from the sludge it laid
in, and wiping it off carefully.

Opening the device, Snively discovered a thumb-controller and a
holographic screen.  It twittered upon activation, and made an
attempt to verbalize with its new owner, already learning his
language...

<< "Chonni'ae 17932-G Unit Ready." >>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph recovered quickly from his severe awful feeling he had gotten when
he had realized what he had tried to do, and patched things up with
Sandra similar to the conditions they had been before.  However,
things were still uneasy when Sandra explained to Joseph what was
wrong with him.

He sat down on the ground, and put his head in his hands.  "You mean
that I'll keep doing that until I get...blood?"

Sandra made a affirmative groan, sitting down beside Joseph.  "Doc
said if you grow a new body, or return to an android one, that you can stop
doing that forever...can you do that?"

He sighed.  "Not right now...I've dedicated all of Bahb's resources to
making deroboticizer software.  If I were to take some away from Bahb to
make a new body, it could throw everything off-kilter."

Sandra frowned.  "So you're stuck like this."

Joseph sniffed.  "Yes."

She hugged him.  "Joseph, no matter what happens..."  But she couldn't
produce the three words that finished that thought.  So, she made up new
ones, that sounded a bit less loving.  "...I'll always be here."

"Thank you.  But maybe you should leave until I resolve this problem."

"No, I can't do that!"  The sharpness of her voice rapidly receded.  "It
would be unfair to let you suffer alone here.  I'd rather stay and help."

"How could you help?"

Without saying a word, she pried Joseph's mouth open and stuck part of
her neck inside his mouth.  "I'll share."

Joseph rapidly withdrew his muzzle, shocked.  "NO!"

Sandra looked at him.  "Joseph, look.  I'd rather have a pint taken out of
me now, when you're lucid...rather than having a gallon removed later,
when you're a raging maniac.  Besides, you need fox-blood.  If not me,
who?  Some dumb Knothole vixen who walks across your path at night?
Tails?  Antoine?!"  She smiled weakly.  "I'm the only one who would
willingly give up blood for you, Joseph.  And you don't even need
to take much.  Only a pint or so, once a week."

"But..."

"But nothing.  Until we can get you a new body, this is the least undesirable
of your options."  She paused.  "Unless you'd like to stalk foxes at night
and drain them, of course."

Joseph looked concerned.  "If something goes wrong..."

"We'll just do it the way they used to when they had blood-drives.  A quick
transfusion procedure.  I'll fill a bag, you get a straw."

Joseph grimaced.  "But taking in another's *blood*..."

"It's my blood, Joseph.  I'm clean."  She smiled lustfully. "Hell, I've got
more of you in me than anyone else would, anyway.  I hope."

Joseph was not amused.  "Yes, you do.  But I don't like it."

"That's good.  I'd hope this wasn't something that came naturally."

A long, long pause.

"Fine.  I'll begin construction of the machine.  Go get yourself ripped.
I don't want to have to do this again for a week."

Sandra nodded, and quietly went off somewhere to exercise.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After Joseph had knocked together a blood transfer device, and replicated
some plastic bags to store the stuff in, he called Sandra from whereever
she had gone via her communicator.  She bounded in a moment or two
later, dabbing some sweat off her brow.  "Okay," she panted, "I'm ready."

"You are *sure* you want to do this?"

"Yes, Joseph.  Let's just get it over with."

Joseph nodded, and gently picked her up.  Putting her upon a comfortable
chair, he fluidly took out the needle that took the blood, and popped it
into her arm.  She barely felt the prick as the device began to slowly
siphon off her red, very oxygenated blood.

As the device twittered away, Joseph sat down on the other side of the
device and held her free hand.  He spoke calmly and gently to her,
explaining in great detail what the machine did and how it worked.
He gave her no opportunity to be nervous about what was happening,
if she was bothered by it to begin with.

After a quarter-hour had passed, the machine stopped taking blood.
Joseph quickly took out the needle, dabbed some disinfectant on Sandra's
arm, and sealed the small wound with a medical device.  The bag was
properly prepared within the device, and was gently produced by the
machine after being sealed.

Joseph held the bag of blood in his hand for a moment.  He looked over
at Sandra.  "I don't think you want to see this," he said.

"I'd rather stay.  I want to see how you'd do this."

"It's scary," he said, in actuality being more frightened of Sandra being
there watching than any actual mechanical procedure.

"How do you know?"

"It just is," said he, looking for a throughly frightening way to explain
it so he could get her to leave.

Sandra looked at him with contempt.  "I want to know what to expect."

He sighed.  He couldn't make Sandra do anything she didn't want to do.
"Fine."

He instinctively extended a single silver tendril from his right index
finger.  With a series of mental commands, he bent the spike into a
question-mark-shaped tube.  The needle poked into the bag with no difficulty,
allowing none of it to escape.  An opening was created at the tip of
the spike, and some suction was produced from it.  The bag began to
drain quickly.  As it did, an euphoric reaction passed through Joseph's
body, similar to that of a sexual orgasm.  He felt like his body was
glowing as the spike took the blood, and sent it all over his body.

But just as Joseph was about to really get off, the bag ran out
of blood.  The spike closed up and retracted almost automatically,
which probably would have bothered a non-wasted Joseph.

Joseph let the empty bag fall to the ground, stunned from the lingering
sensations of ecstasy that dribbled through his body.  It played
havoc with his visual and auditory systems, and gave him weird
flashbacks of mixtures of past events.  He stood there like a statue,
completely ignoring Sandra's alarmed looks and shouts.

But this too passed, and Joseph returned to his `normal' state.
Taking a deep breath, he rolled his head around on his neck, and
walked over to Sandra.

"It worked," said he, "I feel a lot better."

Sandra pulled herself to her feet, and gave Joseph a hug.  "Good," she
grinned, and rubbed his shoulder blades.  "You scared me for a minute
there, when ou were just standing there all stoned.  What happened?"

Joseph smiled toothily.  "I know why you don't see many unhappy vampires
in books now."

Sandra shuddered involentarily, her fur prickling up on the back of her
neck.  "You're not getting any more for a week."

"I know," he said, "and you're in no danger of getting bitten for a good
while."  He paused.  "It's not really addicting, as such...I know a healthy
substitiute for the buzz I get, anyway."  He winked, and embraced her warmly.

Sandra calmed down a bit, her fur returning to a limp state.  She smiled
and kissed Joseph gently.  "Now I have my good old handsome fox back.
All to myself."

He smirked.  "Not entirely.  Science calls me at times...but now, I have
given that mistress its due attention.  Now it is time to show gratitude
to you for my rescue from madness."  He kissed her gently on the ears.
"After all, you probably just saved Mobius."

She smiled.  "Then reward me," she whispered, "but get me some juice
and cookies first."  She met Joseph's inquisitive look with a smirk.
"Hey, I just gave a pint of blood, after all."

They laughed quietly, and went up to the kitchen.







		     Chapter Ten - Tricky Situations

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: Sometime after that...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The sun streamed through the fading grey clouds with newfound
strength.  Early spring had began, and the annual thaw would begin
in a precious few weeks.  The birds were beginning to return to the
forests, and the Great Forest began to become much more noisy.

However, not all the noise was caused by the peaceful return
of spring...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"BUNNIE!"

Sally's voice resounded through Knothole, somewhat anxiously.
"BUNNIE RABBOT!"

Bunnie sleepily stumbled out of her hut, wiping the sleep-stuff from
her eyes.  "Wha...?"

"WE NEED SOME HELP HERE, BUNNIE!"

She grumbled, and began to march her way over to Sally's voice
on the far side of the village.  She knew perfectly well that Sally
wasn't calling her over for tea.  Something had either fallen over,
fell apart, or needed to be moved, and she was the only one with
enough muscle to move it.  But her annoyance pushed itself back
into her mind, while her usual cheery face manifested on her outside.
After all, she wouldn't want to make Sally feel guilty now, would she?

She walked through the center of town, and began to make out the
fuzzy details of what Sally might have wanted.  A tree had fallen on
a hut.  Sally had apparently gotten everyone out before it hit, but the
tree was in danger of falling on some other people's huts...which
meant that she was going to have to pick the damned thing up and
make it fall the *other* way, back into the forest.

She mentally sighed, picking up her pace slightly.  She forced
herself to look perky, despite the fact that she'd been roused from
her sleep and hadn't had her cup of coffee yet.  All she had to do,
she thought, was move the freaking tree back to where it came
from, and she could go back to bed.

She arrived at the scene a few minutes later.  Sally greeted her
politely, explained the painfully obvious to her, and got out of the
way.  Good, Bunnie thought, at least she wasn't making me talk
yet.  She moved under the tree and extended her arm in the air
to grab it.  She felt her fingers grab the deadened bark and extend
within the hard wood of the tree.

She got a solid grip on the tree, and then extended her legs to force
the tree back in the air.  It went easily, going from 180 degrees to
90.  With a light nudge, she caused it to fall into the musky
depths of the forest, and safely away from Knothole.

Some light applause was heard as she retracted her appendages
and returned to a state of relative normalcy.  "Good job," noted
Sally, "thank you, Bunnie."

Bunnie smiled.  "'S no problem, sugar.  Is that all?"

Sally nodded, and dismissed her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bunnie bounded back home, hoping to get a nice, hot cup of
Java before setting herself to the day's work.  She hoped no
other major catastrophies would occur until after breakfast.
Pushing her hair back into some sort of order, she went back
into her hut to prepare some food.

Bunnie had a small kitchen within the confines of her hut, which
suited her nicely.  It had some small pots and pans, a single-burner
stove, a few minor appliances, and some various small containers
of spices she'd picked up in her travels around the Great Forest.

She took an egg from a bowl, and cracked it into a small pan.
Bunnie was glad she'd picked up some chicken eggs when she
went out to get supplies last week...she hadn't had anything
sunny-side-up in what seemed like years.  Activating the burner,
she put the small pan upon it and let it cook.

Turning to the coffee maker, she poured herself a hot cup of finely-
brewed Southern Mobian Java.  She smiled.  Bunnie had to really
bend over backwards to get her monthly shipment of the stuff,
but she always managed to get enough to get her going.  She
took a slug off the stuff, feeling her body kick back in to her normal,
generally happy self.  It was hot, invigorating, and quite good.

She held the cup in one paw while going back to check on her
egg.  It was coming along rather nicely, she thought, so she'd
better start the toast.  Taking a metal coat-hanger-like device
from a hanger on the wall, she took two slices of bread from a
box and clipped them on the stick carefully.  Then, with great
ease, she inserted the stick over a small pipe, and hit a small
switch on the side of it.

A flame curtled out of the pipe, and began heating the bread.  As it
burned away, the stick turned, allowing the flame to heat both sides
of the bread evenly.  It was a clever invention, something Rotor had
made himself after becoming irritated at one-side-toasted-other-side
soft toast.

She smirked.  That Rotor.  Just a big kid.  But he was a nice guy.
Bunnie had never known him to be in a bad mood in his life.  Rotor
just let everything slide by...but if you gave him a project, he'd
work 23-hour days to get it done.  She shrugged.  He, like Bookshire
and Joseph, were just plain eccentric.  Can't do anything about it,
so it's better if you just let them do whatever.

She paused for a moment, sipping some of her coffee.  She
wondered how Joseph was doing.  She hadn't seen him since
last fall.  Probably working away on the deroboticizer like a maniac.
That, or he was probably doing gods-knows-what with Sandra.
Probably less of the latter and more of the former, she smirked,
knowing Joseph.

But man, the rumors she'd heard!  It was appalling
how people gossipped about them.  She thought Sandra
was alright now.  After all, she'd proved her goodwill by
not revealing the location of Knothole, and solidified it
by saving Tails.  But some people simply refused to believe it.
Just the fact that Joseph, with the full knowledge of his people and
Mobius' at his disposal, was willing to date her should have been
enough for the majority of Knothole's knitting circles.
He wasn't some fool.  He knew perfectly well who Sandra was,
her history, and what she'd done lately.  Yet, he stayed with
Nightweaver, and spoke of her in glowing terms.

But the things she'd heard made her almost ashamed to be
Mobian.  They alleged she was plotting to kill him and use his
technology to take over Mobius herself.  They said he was
an advance scout for his own race, and was going to give the
go-ahead any day now for an all-out invasion.  Allegations
of incredibly unspeakable fetishes.  Vampirism.  The works.

Savior one day, heretic the next.  So goes the life of a reclusive
celebrity, she thought.  She was just glad she and Sally were
above suspicion of anything besides the most honorable and
good acts.  She wasn't any angel, but if they could say stuff like
that about *Joseph*...

She turned off the flame, and scraped the egg onto a plate.  Shutting
down the stove, she removed the toast and spreaded some grape
jelly over them.  Bunnie then put the toast on the side of the plate,
and carried it over to the table with her other free hand.

She sat down by the window, taking another sip of coffee and looking
outside at Knothole.  It had a sort of charm to it during the morning,
she thought, before people were gearing up for missions and such.
Kits played in the street, chasing each other around and enjoying
the cool morning wind.  She sighed, watching them play.  Bunnie
wondered if she would, or could, ever have kits of her own to love.
She hoped so.  She always liked to think of herself as mother
material...she'd raised Tails well enough, and sat all the time for
other people's kits.  She knew how to handle common problems
and how to give the various "talks" mothers and children are wont
to do.  If any rabbit was prepared to be a mother, she was.

She consumed some of her egg.  Bunnie felt quite alone sometimes.
Friends, real friends, were something she thought she lacked.  Sure,
Sally and herself were close, but only because she gave her such
an edge in campaigns.  If she didn't have her arm and her legs,
Sally'd probably forget about her soon enough.  Sonic...well, Sonic
was someone you wanted to have be your friend, strictly because
of the edge that gave you in local town politics.  Antoine--no.
Rotor was a possible true friend, but he was pretty absent-minded
and weird sometimes.  A big kid, she smiled, as she had some
toast.  Tails was more of a son than a friend to her, so that ruled
him out.  She didn't know Bookshire real well, but he was more of
a general father-figure than someone you'd have as a pal.

She slugged back some coffee.  That left Sandra Nightweaver and
Joseph, the town recluses.  Bunnie smirked slightly at the irony of
the situation, and took another sip of coffee.  She knew Sandra
by reputation only; the one given by Joseph that made her appear
to be the greatest woman since the Goddess, and the one given
by gossipy old spinsters, which depicted her as someone not
so nice.

Joseph, she thought, finishing her egg and toast, was an enigma.
He liked her a bit, she knew that much.  Joseph was generally
friendly to people who he saw parts of himself in; sometimes more
literally than not, she laughed, thinking about Sonic's relationship
with Joseph.

However, he'd grown more sarcastic and unkind as the months
had rolled on.  Perhaps the death of his people and the constant
gossip was starting to get to him, but he was not as nice of a guy
than he'd used to be.  Sandra had helped the situation, but it
only worked when she was around; probably because he wanted
to keep her happy, she mused.  The deroboticizer had become his
obsession, it seemed, because that's all he ever seemed to *do*.
He only came out when Sandra wanted to go somewhere in
Knothole, or when Sally asked him to give a status report.  At
least, that's how it seemed to most people.

Bunnie, however, knew better.  As she finished her coffee, she
pondered the times she'd been on watch and noticed him walking
through the forest, either alone or with Sandra.  He spoke to
himself or to her in a language she could only assume was his
native tongue, seemingly to release his inner demons.  He
was always emotional during these times, and his face was far
more expressive than it was normally.  Perhaps that's how he
stimulated creative thought.  She shrugged.  Who knew with
him?  Indeed, who knew what he was up to right now?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph flew at Sandra with a sort of a Terran Rebel yell, fist balled
into a rock of flesh and fur.  He hurtled through the air with deadly
speed, homing in on his target with a merciless accuracy.

But Sandra was not so easily struck.  She rolled into a somersault,
spun under Joseph, and watched his fist bite into only air.  Leaving
nothing to chance, she sprung back and lept off the wall, planting a
kick right into his chest.

Joseph recoiled, temporarily subdued.  Yielding into a defensive
crouch, he planned his next attack as Sandra stood in a defensive
posture.  After an approximate two second delay, he handplanted
into a forward flip, zipping over Sandra as she missed her
opportunity to strike him in the back and landing behind her.

Sandra spun gracefully, facing her opponent with her best game-
face on.  Joseph twirled into a roundhouse, forcing Sandra to
retreat or risk being hit by Joseph's flying feet.  She watched his
kick pattern as she backed closer and closer to the wall, waiting
for the opportunity to...

Sandra saw her opening and went for it.  As Joseph's leg became
even with her chest, she grabbed onto it, and executed a flawless
throw of her assailant into a wall.  However, Joseph re-adjusted in
mid-air and lept off the wall, completing a perfect reverse somersault
on the padded floor.

He turned around and was nearly hit by a very fluid flying attack from
Sandra, which just barely grazed his midsection.  It did, however,
throw him off-balance enough to cause him to stumble backwards,
and made him nearly lose his balance.

Sandra collided with the wall, but was able to escape injury by
springing off the side of it, and rolling into a ball in mid-air.  Because
of this, she was able to emulate a spin-attack and knocked Joseph's
legs out from under him.

The hapless fox fell onto the ground, oofing softly as his head
*bonk*ed against the floor.  Subdued, he laid on the ground like a rug as
the victorious Sandra Nightweaver unballed from her former position and
walked over to him.

Standing over her attacker in the afterglow of victory, she stood
directly above his muzzle, and sat down gently on his collarbone.
Thus straddling his head, she wrapped her hand around his mouth
and stroked his muzzlefur softly.  She looked directly into his eyes
as he woke up again, groaning.

Joseph coughed lightly.  "Okay, okay, you get to be on top next
time."

Sandra smiled, purposely cracking her back so to push her groin
into Joseph's neck.  "Aah," she cooed, "the sweet taste of victory."

Joseph smirked, a patronizing tone entering his voice.  "I let you
win," he wheezed, pushing Sandra up more onto his collarbone.

Sandra looked down at Joseph with a completely hilarious look of
disbelief.  "You did not, you big liar!"

Joseph put on a faux-immature tone.  "Did too!"

Sandra mimicked.  "Did not!"

Joseph tried to withhold a smirk.  "Too too too!"

Sandra also tried, but failed miserably.  "Not not not not!"

Joseph's restraint left him.  "Too too too too too!"

Sandra really started smirking hard.  "Not not not not not not!"

Joseph quickly chose to outgun Sandra with the usage of scientific
notation.  "Too to the 10^1,654 x 0.2342352412th!"

But Sandra had played this game before with Joseph, so used the
ultimate comeback in such an argument: "Not infinity!"

Joseph grimaced, laughter bubbling over into his speech.  "No fair
calling infinity."

Sandra bent down and kissed Joseph on his nose.  Putting on an
unneccessarily husky voice, she ran her finger down the side of
Joseph's muzzle and whispered into his ear, "I don't play fair.  You
should know that by n--"

But Joseph took the opportunity to turn the tables on his eye-
pleasing oppressor.  He grabbed her by the sides and rolled onto
his back, now pinning *her* to the ground!  Before she could react,
he slid up her body core and pushed her arms down with his, and
locked her legs under Joseph's well-muscled ones.

Sandra acked, laughing.  "You cur!"

Joseph kissed her nose, doing a dead-on impression of her just
seconds ago.  "I don't play fair."

Sandra pretended to struggle under Joseph.  Giggling uncontrollably,
she exclaimed, "Ooh!!  When I get out from under you, I'm gonna..."

But just as Sandra was about to describe what sort of damage she
was going to do, and Joseph was just about to do something
particularly naughty, Bahb interrupted from the ether.

<< "Version 1.x DeRoboticizer program complete.  Now beginning
work on Versions 2.x and higher." >>

They paused for a moment, forgetting their little game and thinking
about the consequences of this new knowledge.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bunnie finished washing up her breakfast dishes, and had just laid
back down on her bed when Sonic rushed in.

"Bunnie!" he articulated, coming to a halt, "We need your help
again."

She pulled herself off her bed, and stretched herself out.
While smiling and looking only drowsy, her thoughts belied
a rather annoyed doe who needed her beauty sleep.
"What's the prob, sugarhog?" she said softly, walking out the
door after Sonic.  Do you have a bottle that needs to be opened,
she growled mentally, or do you need an extra arm to help lift
up your ego?

"Nothin' big," Sonic spoke obliviously, "we just need to have a
helping hand to lift a busted bridge out of the water.  Ice cracked
the supports."

Oh, GREAT.  So much for going back to sleep.  "Is that *all*?
Heck, that won't take me more than a second."

"That'll make Sally happy, Bunnie.  Thanks."

Yeah, whatever.

They arrived at the site of the broken bridge, which crossed over
a frozen river.  The bridge was cracked right in the middle, the
once-strong support beam split off into the depths of the ice.
Bunnie grimaced mentally.  She'd have to sink her feet through
the river and lift the bridge out from under it.  That would get them
wet, which gave her a greater chance of having a malfunction
in her legs; it would be deadly to have them suddenly disengage
when she was pressing the bridge into the air.

Bunnie said nothing, but got right to her work.  Sliding her way
down into the somewhat deep ravine, she walked out over the ice
and under the bridge.  The support beam hung precariously over
her head in mid-air, and could give at any moment.

Fighting off an attack of the creeping horrors, she grabbed the beam
at a thick point and pushed up on it.  As the bridge began to rise,
her legs cracked and penetrated the ice, hitting the soft, cold
river bottom within moments.

Bunnie rose in the air, the bridge above her and the deadly, ice-
covered river below.  She tried not to look down as she turned the
small bridge at an angle in the air, and pushed it over onto the far
side of the river with no great difficulty.  Her legs had not failed
her.  Taking a relieved breath, she slowly retracted her limbs and
climbed back up the ravine.

Sonic gladly patted Bunnie on the back.  "Good show, Bunnie."

Bunnie smiled.  "Anytime, sugarhog."

Sonic ran off into the distance, probably to get someone else to
do something for Sally.  After he'd gotten far enough away, she
mumbled and hopped off somewhere to warm up, before the
water in her legs froze up and left her helpless.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, on a part of Mobius a bit less cold:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The device hummed softly in Snively's hands, illuminating the inside of
the dead incinerator with a holographic projection of the planet.  It
explained in an alien tongue which Snively had heard so many times
before about something called "Operation Xion".

Snively's pleasure at finding the powerful device turned to horror as the
plan so carefully hidden by the Buyers was revealed to him, in full 3-D
detail...

A projection of Mobius was projected in the air as it was that day, down
to its current position around the sun and even the latest weather
systems.  Time speeded up as the visual projection showed their plans
for the world.  It bobbed happily around the sun, gradually moving from
the Northern continent's winter to spring.  All the while, a large craft
drew closer and closer to Mobius, the menacing machine slowly
creaking its way behind the hapless world.  Why it went so slowly was
unknown to Snively, but he knew that was immaterial.

The North moved into summer as the ship crept into a quiet orbit
around the planet, hanging unobtrusively in a geosyncronous orbit over
the northern pole of Mobius.  As it moved away from summer and into
the fall position, invisible satellites were deployed from the craft and
gradually surrounded the world down to the southern pole.

In the winter position for Mobius' Northern Continent, the satellites took
the sun's warming rays from the south, seemed to magnify them, and
projected them onto the southern and northern poles.  Over a series of
days, Snively watched the familiar continents disappear beneath the
lapping blue waves, seeming like they never existed.

The ship then lowered into the atmosphere, unprotested by any sort of
resistance, and began to take in the water they had released from
the Mobian poles.  More ships appear from various points in the galaxy
to assist the larger ship, and eventually a space station is constructed
around the now-saturated Mobius.

The water began to recede to a low enough level to reveal the lifeless
continents and ruins of cities.  However, they were mostly ignored as
the ships continued to suck water from the world, making the
continents appear in even higher relief.

After a few more solar cycles, Mobius' water is depleted.  The large
ships leave the world, and smaller, scruffier looking vessels appear.
Over a few more years, they begin to mine the planet to such an
extreme as to make the mass of the planet shrink away to nothing.

After every last rock, clump of dirt, and piece of garbage has been
wiped from the area that was once Mobius, the small ships fly off.

The holograph deactivated.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph examined the results of the successfully compiled deroboticizer
software as Sandra sat in a chair behind him.  He seems pleased with
the results, she mused, so this must mean that the simulations were
sucessful.

Joseph walked over to another monitor, which had a quite long list of
names.  As he poured over it, Sandra pondered over the various
consequences of this momentous occasion.  Would this be a date
that would live forever in history as the Great Turning Point in the War
For Mobius, or would it be just another footnote in the annals of failed
deroboticizer attempts?  If it did work, what happened now?  Who would
be the first to be reborn in their natural form?  Sir Charles?  Bunnie?

She could already see the argument brewing.  Sandra just hoped
Joseph just grabbed someone at random for testing, and didn't bother
leaving it up to Sally.  It would probably be better that way.  More
"impersonal".

Then there was the major issue (to Sandra, anyway) of her place in all
this.  She hoped that she would get mentioned somehow in the history
books when this was all over with.  Sandra smiled.  Imagine that, you
stupid teachers; now you're going to have to talk about *me* in class
without using me as an *example* and sending me up to the Principal's
Office!  Ha!

She grinned, leaning back and fantasizing about how her 12th grade
Mobian Government teacher, Mrs. Whippensnak, would deal with
talking about her, "that nasty Nightweaver girl", in a glowing and utterly
sweet way.  Oh, how she'd luxuriate in watching that dried-up old
battleaxe form the words, "Sandra Nightweaver was one of the most
important non-scientist individuals that worked on the deroboticizer
project, as well as one of the most vital contributors to the retaking of
Mobius after the coup." while restraining a snarl...she wouldn't be able
to say what she probably *really* would think, which would probably
sound like, "Sandra Nightweaver, that slut, somehow weaseled her
way into the Great Regenerator's innocent heart, and used her fame
as a means of revenge on those who had opposed her in the past!"

She grinned wickedly.  Of course, if she were to say that, she would
just have to have her killed.

"Sandra, are you fantasizing about revenge *again*?"

Sandra eeped, not realizing Joseph had been staring at her for a few
moments.  "Umm..."

Joseph smirked, sarcasm dripping from his voice.  "Sorry to interrupt.
Carry on, by all means."

Sandra whipped a loose grape at Joseph's forehead.  "Oh, come on.
Like you aren't going to abuse your fame."

Joseph squished the grape in mid-air.  "I certainly will not!"

Sandra smirked disbelievingly.  "Yeah, right.  You say that *now*, when
you've only seen 1/10th of 1% of Mobius' population.  But you just wait,
oh `Great Regenerator', until you've got the whole population of Mobius
deroboticized and hanging on your every word as gospel.  Then you'll
have no choice but to take advantage of their generosity."

Joseph did his best to put his various fantasies out of his mind.
Instead, he put on a noble voice, and did utter, "I'll become a
philanthropist."

Sandra laughed.  "A likely story!"

"I mean it," he smiled, "I'll dedicate my life to the reconstruction of
Mobius and the rebuilding of its cities..."

Sandra fluffed her hair, putting on her best `dumb vixen' voice.  "...and
the *re*tooling of your lab...and the *re*capitulation of your memoirs
into a book, television and lecture series, -and- a docudrama...and the
*re*cognition  of your scientific prowess for several world-improving
inventions..."

Joseph laughed.  "Okay, okay, okay...maybe just a *little*."

Sandra smiled.  "That's what I like to hear."

Joseph looked at Sandra with a jokingly authoratative bent.  "You, on
the other hand, are not going to blatantly abuse your new position in
society!"

Sandra snickered.  "Yeah, right.  Whatever, Joey."

Joseph shook his finger at Sandra as if he was scolding a misbehaving
puppy, giggling the whole time.  "Oh no, you aren't!  I won't have it!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

"If you do," Joseph sniggered, "you'll have to be *punished*!"

Sandra tried to look agast.  "Oh no!"

"And do you know who *does* the *punishing*?!"

Again, Sandra tried to look mortified.  "Not YOU!"

Joseph cackled.  "That's right!  So you better BEHAVE!"

Sandra tried to cower, but she fell back in the chair from laughing.
"Never!" she exclaimed, "You'll have to *punish* me over and OVER to
get *me* to be good!"

Joseph's grinned very, very wickedly.  "I better start now, then..."

Sandra eeped and curled into a ball in the chair, chuckling.
"I'll *punish* you right back, you dastardly fox you!"

Joseph laughed loudly, and unbuckled his belt.  He removed it from
his jeans, bent it into a loop, and snapped it loudly.  "I hope so!"

Sandra poked her head out and eeked!  "Oh, HELP me," she chortled,
"someone SAVE me from being *punished*!"

Throwing the belt away, he advanced on the chair, giggling madly the
whole time.  The deroboticizer could wait a few hours...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bunnie stood in front of a bonfire, watching the steam waft off of her
legs and arm.  She'd have to stick around until they were completely
dried off, she thought, or else they would warp the metal when she
went back out into the cold.

The firelight flickered in her jade eyes as she stared into it, allowing
her mind to wander.  Doing this made her feel at peace...it was as if nothing
existed but the fire and her, a single consciousness drifting idly through
time and space, the warmth from the fire the only indication of
something other than the cold, airless depths of space--

>From infinity, Tails yelled, "BUNNIE!"

Arrgh.

Bunnie turned around, smiling.  "Yes, Tails?"

"Sally needs your help again."

Lovely.  "Really, sugar?  What's wrong?"

"She opened up Rotor's closet."

Bunnie grumbled mentally, but kept her mask firmly in place.  "Oh!
Well, just a minute, Tails..."

Bunnie took off her mental parking brake, stretched out, and hopped
out the door, Tails leading the way.  A cyberdoe's work is never done.

They arrived in Rotor's hut a few moments later, and began digging
Sally out from under the piles and piles of junk Rotor kept in his closet
for whatever particular reason.  It was tedious, annoying work, which a
person with her particular abilities had come to expect.  It was simply
her bailwick to do all of the physical labor...she didn't like it, but she
had no choice but to accept it.  After all, if you can, you do.  It was how
the FFs stayed alive.

She and Tails took more and more junk off the pile, moving it into
another one a few yards away.  They both knew Sally was okay under
all that garbage, but she was probably pinned down by a toaster or
something.  Or maybe she had just chosen to stay still, out of fear of
having a burned-out motherboard impale her.  Bunnie didn't know, and
didn't care.  All that mattered was the task.

A few moments later, they pulled a dirty and rumpled Sally out from
under a series of greasy hydrolics.  She smiled appreciatively and
thanked both of them for getting her out from under all of it.

"Are you okay, sugar?"

Sally nodded, dusting herself off.  "Yes, Bunnie, Tails...I forgot to stand
on the opposite side of the door when I opened it, is all."  She picked up
a small chip from the floor.  "But I got what I needed."

Tails smiled.  "Great.  Can I go now?"

Sally grinned.  "Yes, Tails.  You too, Bunnie."

Bunnie shrugged and left, not bothering to mention that the same chip
had been sitting on the counter the whole time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bunnie was progressively growing more irritated with her lot in life.
Today, while not being an exceptionally annoying one, had been
an example of what she disliked most of all about being partially
roboticized: she was a tool.  Hardly anyone ever came by to talk
to her unless she was needed to do this or that.  She never heard
`how are you' or 'you're having a nice hair day' unless the words
'could you please...?" were attached to it.

Take, take, take, she thought.  All people ever do is take from her.
The Freedom Fighters use her for the muscle, and all she gets is
a pat on the back and a `good show' for her efforts.  All people saw
her as, Bunnie scowled, was an eye-pleasing labor-saving device.

Bunnie walked off into the woods.  Well, she was more than that.
She had a mind and a soul, too.  She had feelings.  Didn't people
realize that, despite her "popularity", nobody ever actually *knew*
how she really felt?

Bunnie walked right by a roving SpyGlobe, which seemed to ignore her
as well.  Would they still think she was so great if she was just a
regular, ordinary rabbit?  Just a doe with a heart and a mind, not just
one with two steel legs and a fist?

Little did Bunnie know that her question was about to be answered...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A few hours later, a relaxed pair of foxes idly flicked through the
various perspectives on Mobius vis i vis Joseph's numerous
spy cameras and microphones.

"Well, you certainly showed me what for," Sandra cooed, leaning
back against Joseph in the large chair.  She rubbed her back against
Joseph's t-shirt, relishing in the warmth of her mate.  "I think I'll be
bad more often."

Joseph smirked, and fiddled with one of Sandra's ears.  "Yeah, like
that'll be a change from the norm."

Sandra playfully swatted Joseph's nose.  "Tsk."

As Joseph was about to reply, the image of Bunnie Rabbot
crossed the main screen, entered Joseph's mind, and gave him
an idea.  "I think I see our test subject now."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Minutes later, Bunnie stood inside Joseph's lab, accompanied by
Joseph and his "assistant" Sandra.  The rabbit marveled at the
technological power Joseph had at his fingertips, while Sandra,
intimately familar with nearly every surface in the lab, fetched herself
a glass of Mobian Black Wine.

Yet, Bunnie was skeptical.  Who wouldn't be after all the past failures,
Joseph thought, so he extended his patience more than usual.
"Y'all are *sure* this thing is okay?" Bunnie said, gazing at the
deroboticizer terminal.

"Yes, Bunnie.  It's quite safe, according to the simulations.  And
since you aren't totally roboticized, it has a very high probability
of success."

"That's whut Rotor said the first time."

Joseph looked mildly amused.  "Rotor," he said, "did not personally
assist in upgrading the roboticizer software yearly, nor was he
instructed in how the device worked."  Joseph noticed Bunnie's
confidence rising after that statement, so added, "I can almost
guarentee that this will work."

"Almost?"

"It is untested.  You are the first."

Bunnie smirked.  "Greaaaaaat."

"You are in no danger, Bunnie.  If anything potentially fatal starts to
occur, the device will shut down.  I can jump over to Haven in 2.5
seconds and fetch their finest medical practitioners, if necessary."

Bunnie approached the pad cautiously, still gazing with awe at the
power of the machinery.  "S-so this won't hurt?"

"Probably not a lot.  It'll tingle."

Bunnie paused, and looked at Joseph imploringly.  "And this will...?"

"Totally.  You'll be just another ordinary, healthy Mobian rabbit."

She looked at her arm and her legs for a moment.  Joseph didn't
interrupt with any comments, nor did Sandra do anything else but
quietly drink her wine.  The only sound was the dull hum of the
deroboticizer device warming up.

After a minute, Bunnie looked back up at Joseph.  No more metal,
she thought, no more sickness.  The pain would fade at last.
She could live out the remainder of her natural life without lifting
another tree, crushing another rock, or saving another--

The Freedom Fighters.  She paused, mulling over what would
happen to them.  Her special abilities had saved them more times
than she could count.  The glittering, steel fist that had crushed a
thousand SWATBots would be just a soft, normal fist.  Her large,
iron legs would become slim, firm, normal legs.  Flesh over metal,
blood instead of oil...

Her advantage to the Freedom Fighters versus her own life.  What
should she choose?  Would her friends think less of her if she
no longer had her limbs of steel and iron?  What if--

No, Bunnie thought, no more.  I have thought about them before myself
for far too long.  It is time to do something just for *me*.

"Do it."

Joseph smiled, pleased that he would acquire a test case.  "Please,
Bunnie, step onto the pad."

Complying, she plodded onto the pad.  "Close your eyes," advised
Joseph, which she also did.  As she stood there in the dark, she
reflected on her past life...her birth, her parents, their demise after
the coup and her partial roboticization...the war that raged for years
and years...after she left her old limbs behind, all of that could stop.
The past could be left behind, the present could be lived to
its fullest, and the future could be a little brighter.

As the machine powered up higher, she thought of all the things she
could do now.  She could swim with all of her appendages attached.
She could walk in the rain without worrying about rusting or being
electrocuted.  Her leg wouldn't attract refrigerator magnets.
No more sadness.  No more pain.

<< "Deroboticizer cycle begins in 10 seconds." >>

No longer would she be seen as a tool.  They would have to see
her for what was inside for once, not just for her strength.  The
constant cries of "BUNNIE!" whenever something fell or needed
to be moved would cease.

<< "5 seconds." >>

Let this work.  Please.

<< "Deroboticizer cycle begins now." >>

Plea--

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As the bluish energy wave crashed over Bunnie, various readouts
monitored the progress of her repairs.  Readings were taken,
variables were calculated and inserted, and the entire complex
seemed to hum louder than usual.

Sandra shielded her eyes from the powerful light, nearly deafened
by the roar of the machine's intake connections.  The floor vibrated
as if someone were jumping up and down on it billions of times a
second, making for uneasy footing on the laboratory floor.

Joseph, whose eyes needed no protection, looked right through the
energy wave, watching the physical process occur as it happened.
Bunnie's arm and legs glimmered with whitish sparks as the flesh
was reconstructed around it, in proper proportion and dimentions to
what a normal rabbit of her age possessed.  The poisons and
regenerator devices that had infected her were melted away by the
powerful device, wafting away into mere clouds of brownish steam;
and being exterminated by the energy wall that surrounded the
deroboticization tube.

Minutes turned into centuries as the process continued, insuring its
success beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Quadruple checks of her
status were made to be sure the machine had missed not a single
atom of roboticized flesh, nerve, or undercarriage.  After a few
more seconds, the machinery came to a halt, and the energy field
faded to nothing.

^L

In the tube stood a rabbit.  A simple, ordinary, bipedal, Mobian rabbit.
She was pretty in the way only a doe could be; long, pert ears,
slim legs with not-too-big feet, and delicate paws.  Her violet jumpsuit
was a little stretched around her thighs and right arm, and hung
loosely around the now-much-smaller openings.

Bunnie stood there for a moment in a literal state of shock; her body
was rapidly readjusting to the curse's removal.  However, her delicate
nervous system was unable to take the strain of staying erect and awake
while it repaired itself.  With a soft moan, she slumped softly to the
floor of the tube, and passed out.

Joseph picked up the unconscious rabbit and laid her down on a
guerney.  Sandra walked over, curious to see the first successful
deroboticized person in the history of Mobius.  As Joseph scanned
Bunnie for any permenent damage, Sandra quietly observed the
dozing doe, and did her own sort of scan.

"She's just sleeping," Joseph relievedly said, "and there appears to
be no real damage.  She'll need her rest, tho...probably a good 12-14
hours or so."

Sandra nodded.  "When do we inform Knothole?"

Joseph took out a cigar.  "We don't."

"We don't?  But this is a momentous occasion!  You've sucessfully
deroboticized someone!  This is a great day in his--"

Joseph shushed his mate.  "Let her sleep.  She can tell them herself...
when she walks into Knothole and shows off her new bod."

Sandra smiled.  "Ever the romantic, de LaCroix?"

Joseph took Sandra's hand, gazed into her eyes, and kissed her
firmly.  After disengaging, he smiled and spoke, "You bet."

She smirked.  "We better get out of here before we wake her up."

They smiled at each other, and went downstairs to let Bunnie sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The sun rose above the Great Forest with its usual might.  The weather
was growing warmer, and the layers of ice and snow around the forest
were gradually beginning to melt.  It was almost warm enough to
venture outside in only your sneakers...

Of course, for Sonic the Hedgehog, this was his typical garb.
As he blasted through the forest, racing between trees and over
creeks, he wondered why more people didn't just run around like
he did.  It was certainly very comfortable; he never got very warm,
or very cold...at the speeds he traveled, all you did was give off
heat.

However, this wasn't the main concern in Sonic's mind at the time.
Bunnie hadn't come home last night, and she obviously hadn't been
captured by BucketHead yet.  Therefore, Sally had told him, she
must be in the Great Forest.

Sonic was beginning to seriously doubt that, tho.  He'd been over the
entire Great Forest about twelve times since last night, and he hadn't
seen hide nor "hare" of her.  It was as if she'd just walked off the face
of the planet.

Sonic stopped for a moment beside a large cliff.  He crouched down
on the ground, and looked out over it.  He hoped she wasn't hurt.
After all, if she went and died, who else could kick 'bot butt the
same way she did?  Who'd do the western watch?  Who'd open
bottles for Uncle Chuck?

He took off again, concernedly scanning the horizon for his lost
compatriot.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She awoke on the guerney, tucked in warmly by someone who
obviously wasn't there any longer.  She looked straight ahead,
and saw the strange crystalline ceiling of the laboratory.  She
hadn't had some sort of bad chili dream, after all...

She hopped off the guerney, and was momentarily shocked at the
coldness of the floor.  She yelped surprisedly and pulled herself
back on the guerney with some minor difficulty.

Then, in a flash of enlightenment, it hit her dead on.

She wasn't roboticized any longer.  Her hands were warm, and her feet
were uncomfortably cool.  As she shoved them back underneath the
covers, she laughed happily at the sensation of feeling from her legs and
right arm.  It felt more wonderful than anything she had felt in years and
years!  To be cold again, to not be strong enough to lift kilotons of stuff
over your head without breaking a sweat!  It was esctasy itself.

She rolled on her side, purring from the sensation of her right arm
being pressed into the guerney from her own weight.  The pleasures
of the flesh were hers again, and were ripe for the taking!  Her whole
life laid before her, fresh and new as the day she was born...

She found her eyes watering.  As she was about to wipe them with her
left hand, as had become her custom, she allowed her right hand to
caress her sensitive eyes, removing the moisture from her sight.
Oh, how good it felt!  It was like being caressed with a featherduster
in all the right spots...

A large hole opened in the floor, which disgorged Joseph and Sandra.
The tall orange fox looked over at her, smiled, and started to walk
over to get a closer look.  Impulsively, she lept off the guerney,
plodded over the cold floor, and jumped within the vicinity of Joseph's
chest to give him a hug.

After a glance of approval from Sandra, Joseph gave the happy
doe a nice, warm hug.  She returned the favor tenfold, at least
in his opinion, by squeezing him as hard as she possibly could.
"Thank you," she whispered happily, "oh thank you..."

Joseph said nothing, but merely allowed Bunnie to hang on.
However, not wanting to seem cold, he patted her softly between
the ears, and smiled.  She did have very soft hair.  He wondered
if she'd ever styled a fox's hair before.  He could probably get it
pretty cheap now, he quipped mentally, and continued the hug.
"You can never know how much this means to muh..." she cooed,
moistening Joseph's shirt somewhat with her tears of joy.

Minutes passed as Bunnie just out-and-out cried on Joseph,
showing her happiness at being finally, totally, free of Robotnik.
She went into great detail of how she used to feel about how
people treated her, how awful she felt when she looked in the
mirror, and how she never thought she could have children.

After a good while of this, Bunnie calmed down enough to let go of
the now soaked Joseph, and began to try out her new legs by pacing
around the room.  While she ran around goofily, Joseph vaporized some
of the rabbit tears and such off of his shirt with a dryer.

"So, Bunnie," said Sandra unexpectedly, "what are you going to do
now?  Take a vacation?  Start your own business?  What?"

Bunnie smiled happily, ceasing her gesticulations for a moment.
"I'm gonna live, girl.  Live like there's not gonna be a tom'rrow."

Sandra smiled.  "I bet you will."

"Yes'm, I'm gonna have some FUN.  Gonna be selfish and greedy
for a change...I'm g'wine get *two* bags of coffee off my connection,
and I'm gonna have a big ol' cup every DAY!"

Sandra grinned amusedly.  "Is that all?"

The rabbit bounded about.  "No way, Sandy!  I'm gonna totally slack off
for once; not do one whit of work, sugah, for a good, long time."
She smiled.  "I'm gonna get m'self dolled up, and I'm g'wine paint the
town RED!"  She giggled.  "Mobius, here I come!"

Sandra laughed politely.  "Well, I'm sure you'll have one hell of a time,
Bunnie.  Just remember that you'll need to take it easy for a few days."

She smiled.  "Naturally!  I wouldn't wanna get sick after all this
trouble."

"Yes," Joseph said, dried, "please be careful."

Bunnie grinned and bounced over to Joseph yet again to hug him.
"Oh, you sweet fox!  Sandy's lucky to have yah."  She gave him a
good squeeze, and winked mischiveously at the hapless fox.  "Jus' remember
to treat him right, girl...else I might just have to steal 'im from yew."

They all laughed.  "Well, Bunnie," Joseph beamed, "I'm afraid that's not
going to be a problem.  You'll just have to be content with the rest of
Mobius--"

"Besides," Sandra said, "he snores."

Joseph looked belligerantly at Sandra as Bunnie giggled.  "Hey!"

Sandra folded her arms and smirked.  "You do!  It's deafening!"

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

The whole conversation was about to sink into a relapse of last time
when Bahb kicked its two cents in from somewhere.

<< "Visitor at the main door." >>

Joseph looked into a random monitor, and pulled up a display of the
area surrounding the Dome.  "Oh, wouldn't you know it!"

"What?" the females said.

Joseph smiled slowly.  "Sonic had to come and spoil the surprise...but
I've got an idea."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph opened the front door, and let his blue half-brother in.
"Hello, Sonic!  How've you been?"

Sonic took a seat.  "I've been better, Joe."

Joseph looked concerned.  "What's wrong?"

Sonic sighed.  "Bunnie's gone missing, and nobody seems to know
where she is.  Everyone's worried about her."

Joseph feigned worriedness.  "Oh no!"

Sonic nodded.  "Yeah, it totally stinks.  I've searched the entire
Great Forest, and she's nowhere to be found."  He growled, and
pounded his fist into his hand.  "If BucketHead's hurt her in any way..."

Joseph put his hand on Sonic's shoulder reassuringly.  "I'm sure
she's probably on her way back to Knothole now."  He took a
breath.  "Wanna chili dog?"

Sonic nodded.  "Yeah, anything to get my mind off worryin'."

Joseph walked Sonic over to the pad, and commanded it to descend
to the laboratory.  As they glided downward, Sonic kept talking.
"Have you se--heard anything about where she might be?"

Joseph didn't even flinch.  "Nope.  I don't get out much."

"Yeah, but people say you...know things."

Joseph's voice took on a questioning tone.  "`Things'?  What sort of
`things'?"

Sonic started to become slightly unnerved, seeing that he was
twisting the lion's tail right in the center of his den.  "Weird things.
Things only a tree or a rock sh--would know."

"Why would I know such things?  I'm a scientist, not a spy."

Sonic's palms sweated within his gloves.  "Well, people say you
have ways of seein' things.  Cameras, microphones, and stuff."

Joseph's tone changed to one of dismissal.  "Rubbish.  I have no
need to spy on anyone.  Such accusations are silly."

Sonic became relieved rather quickly.  "Well, bro, you know *I* would
never believe such UnCool things about my favorite half-sib."

"Yes, of course."

They arrived in the lab a moment later, where a chili dog was sitting on
a nearby table.  Sonic instinctively gravitated toward it, and devoured it
in one gulp.  "Got any Fizz [tm]?"

Joseph yawned.  "Sure."  He waved his hands causally into the
shadows.  "Bunnie, why don't you hand my brother a Fizz [tm]?"

Before Sonic could react, Bunnie walked out of the shadows and handed
Sonic a Fizz [tm] cola.  Sonic's eyes seemed to bug out when he saw
Bunnie in her deroboticized form.  "Way--Past--Cool!" was the only
thing Sonic could emit for a few moments.

Bunnie posed for Sonic.  "Sugarhog, I'm fixed!"

They embraced each other.  "Oh wow," Sonic said, "this is way, way,
way, way past."

Joseph and Sandra smiled.  "You did good," Sandra whispered to
her mate, "and I'm really proud to call you my own."

And then *they* embraced, albeit far more passionately.  Everyone
would have probably gone on like that for a few days if Sonic hadn't
suddenly realized something.  "Hey!  Sally wants me back like
90 seconds ago!"  He grabbed Bunnie.  "We gotta--"

The four of them were enveloped in a bluish blast of light, and
disappeared into thin air.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sally sat worriedly in her chair, gazing out the window for the
hearld of cheers that accompanied Sonic's return from anywhere.
She was beginning to worry that whatever had gotten Bunnie had
gotten him too, which certainly wouldn't make *her* very happy.
But, just as she was about to go out and look for them herself,
a flash of teleportation energy alerted her to an arrival behind her.
Instinctively, she lept into a defensive postion and awaited the assault
of her attackers...however, her eyes met to a much more amazing sight.

Standing immediately in front of her were Sonic, Joseph, Sandra
Nightweaver, and a deroboticzed Bunnie Rabbot!

Sally gasped out of sheer disbelief.  "You...you did it!"

Joseph smiled sagely.  "Yup."

"But...I just can't believe it!"

"Yup."

Sally just stood there, slackjawed with sheer amazement.
Joseph nudged Sonic in her direction to calm her down a bit,
which he pulled off, as usual, with a big kiss.

For a short, extremely precious moment, nobody had a single problem
in that entire hut.  Bunnie was happy, Sonic and Sally were kissing,
and Joseph and Sandra just took it all in.  However, reality soon
intervened with the secession of the kiss.

"Joseph," Sally articulated, now of a cool head, "your name will
be remembered for eternity on Mobius for this.  You've sealed
Packbell's doom with this device--"

"It's not done yet."

Sally looked disappointed.  "It's not?"

"No, no.  I've only got the v1.x deroboticizer done, for people who were
roboticized with any one of the v1.x roboticizers.  I'm working on the
v2.x, v3.x, and v4.x types now."

"And when..."

"Probably near next Solstice."

"Well, you can start deroboticizing people now, right?"

Joseph crossed his arms.  "If you think I'm going to deroboticize the
entire population of Mobius, you're sadly mistaken..."

A pause long enough to put a knot in Sally's throat.

"...because YOU'RE going to do it!"

Joseph waved his hand, triggering a portable v1.x deroboticizer to
materialize nearby.  "Just put 'em in, push the button, and watch
'em cook.  I've already started making more...and when I make
new software, all you'll need to do is plug it in the convienent
dataport on the side of the device."

Sally smiled happily.  "This is wonderful!  Thank you!"  And, as
expected, she went and gave Joseph a hug, too.  (Sandra hoped
this wasn't going to become a trend.)  He magnamiously accepted
the amusing custom with one of his own, and politely disengaged.
"Now, if you'll excuse me..."

Sally smiled.  "By all means, get back to work!"

Joseph bowed, pulled Sandra close, and hit a small toggle inside
his jacket.  "As you wish..."  They both disappeared in a bluish
glow of plasma, leaving no trace of their arrival besides a good
pile of hope.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Later that evening, after the initial happy celebration of Bunnie's
deroboticization, everyone calmed down enough to go to sleep.
As the people of Knothole began to turn in for the night, Bunnie
took her usual night watch post, overlooking a small brook near
Joseph's territory.

She sat back in her chair, feeling relaxed and beautiful.  She hadn't
felt beautiful in ages, she thought happily, especially not at this
hour.  She groomed herself somewhat vainly in the moonlight,
using the brook as a mirror.  My, she loved the way she looked!
She was a very attractive and (dare she say it) sexy doe when
the steel was gone.  Her long legs were firm and svelte, her hands
soft and youthful, and her eyes shone like emeralds in the dim
moonlight.

She smiled and walked around her post.  She knew as well as everyone
else did that no SWATBot could make it through the lethal traps and
roving SpyGlobes that patrolled all around this area; not any longer,
anyway.  The post was mainly to reassure some of the more
hostile, xenophobic members of Knothole that Joseph couldn't sneak
out of there in the middle of the night and suck the blood of the living,
or some stupid line like that.

She stroked her ears boredly.  Joseph was a really, really great fox.
He'd actually picked her--her, of all people, to be deroboticized first.
What an honor!  What a rush!  How great it was to be able to frolic
in the forest like anyone else!  She grinned, a little exhausted from
her prancing about, and sat back down.

The moon even seemed stronger and healthier tonight, she mused,
rolling a smooth river rock in her right hand.  But had she done the
right thing?  Was it wrong not to wait until she was sure her strength
wouldn't be needed again?  Only time would tell.  But she knew one
thing was absolutely certain...

"Joseph, you'd make your daddy proud."






		      Chapter Eleven - Regeneration



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Timeline: A month or two later.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The powers of spring were overcoming the tyranny of ice and slush easily.
Songs of birds were now heard all the time in the budding trees and bushes,
while the nonevolved animals of Mobius were coming out of their long
winter's sleep.

The nearly forgotten music of nature, specifically the chorus that speaks
of rebirth in the warm rays of the sun, rained down from the sky like a
monsoon; carried by the winds, it played through the tops of the trees
like some sort of eternal concert of the gods.

Sunshine and warm breezes smote down the powers of cold and silence,
shattering it like so many icicles in the hands of a playful kit.
And, for the first time in many months, hope and life became stronger
than the dreaded forces that lived outside the primeval forest...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bunnie skipped through Knothole, happily carrying some buckets of water
from the town well.  She was assisting some of the older residents today,
who were either too weak or too old to get such things themselves.  It
was not an exceptionally easy task; the buckets possessed much girth, and
often tried to get away from her.  Yet, she enjoyed her work...it was a
job where a good bedside manner, not Herculean strength, was required.

She carried the buckets of water into a hut on the far side of town, where
a kind, yet aged, female feline lived.  She was a witty old lynx, still
possessing a very thick, fluffy coat; and a very keen, eloquent mind.
Yet, her coat had not been as fortunate as her brain, and did not escape
the ravages of time.  The once orangish fur had turned grey and wispy
with the passage of many years, giving her the appearance of simply being
a patch of fog that had settled to earth.  However, her yellowish eyes
were still sharp, and even piercing, if necessary.

She was sitting in her favorite chair today, which was by a large window.
The sunlight that streamed in made her look even more etherial, despite
her well-mended green dress trying to give her a definite shape.  She
noticed the rabbit enter, and smiled knowingly.  "Hello," she softly
spoke to Bunnie, "I see you've got my water."

Bunnie smiled, always glad to speak with the old lynx.  "Yes'm."

The old female took a walking stick from the side of the chair, and used it
to pull herself to her feet.  "That's a good girl.  Now, just tow it back
into the icebox--"  She gave a general gesture towards the kitchen.
"--and we can talk for a while."

Bunnie nodded, and walked back into the kitchen.  As she did so, the old
lynx hobbled back to her chair, and sat back down.  A moment or two later,
Bunnie emerged from the kitchen, and pulled up a small stool by the
aged one's chair.  "So," Bunnie said, "how've you been?"

The old lynx smiled.  "Oh, I'm alright.  My arthritis is acting up again,
but that's normal for this time of year...what, with the weather changing
around and all."

Bunnie put her paw gently on the old lynx's.  "If you need anything,
Ms. Noon--"

The old woman interrupted.  "Bunnie, I told you, you can just call me
Joanna...we're not lawyers, after all."

Bunnie smiled.  "Of course, Ms--Joanna."

Joanna giggled dryly.  "At least I can't say that you don't respect your
elders, child."  She patted the rabbit's hand.  "But you know all about
me; I don't get out much.  Tell me about your life for once...how's your
body doing?"

Bunnie stretched a bit.  "Oh, 's alright.  A little stiff in the mornin',
but Joseph said it'll pass af'tah a few more weeks."

"Good, good."  She grinned wistfully.  "So, what does everyone else think?"

"About whut?"

Joanna laughed.  "Why, your body, Bunnie.  Have the suitors surrounded your
hut yet?"

Bunnie blushed embarassedly.  "Well...the guys do look a bit mo' at me
since I was de-ro'ed."

Joanna patted Bunnie weakly on the shoulder.  "That's nice to hear."

Bunnie grinned.  "I think so."

Joanna coughed softly.  "Well, I won't embarass you any more by talking
about that...what's the latest gossip?"

Bunnie giggled.  "You get tah the point, don' you?"

She reclined a bit in her chair.  "I like to stay informed."

"Okay, okay, 'ere's the scoop..."

Bunnie took a breath.  "Since dere's so many people runnin' around de-ro'ed
now, Sally's started movin' them to other villages.  Da usual complainin'
and whinin' from people getting sep'rated from their friends hap'ened."

She continued.  "One big incid'nt happened just yesterday, ou'side Sally's
hut.  One o' the big aristrocrat types...ahh, I thin' it was that nasty
Jenny duNeer--you know, the tall mare--that started kickin' up one hell
of a rant about how such-and-such was movin' away from so-and-so, and
that was just awful because it was Breaking Up Families and would she
please reconsider?  Well, Sally didn' take to well to dat, so she told
this horse where to get OFF.  After Sally was done, she just gave Sally
a look an' mumbled s'mthin'.  But as she was walkin' off, Sally walked
right in fron' of her and freaking demanded to hear what she said."

Bunnie took another breath.  "*Well*, SHE said, right to Sally's face,
that any queen of hers that had a mere commoner--Sonic--as a mate,
and dat let a br'lliant scientist--Joseph--be corrupted by a common
t'ief--Sandra Nightweaver--was certainly expected to do something as
idiotic as moving such-and-such from so-and-so!"

"*Well*, SALLY said right back to her, w'thout skippin' a beat, that
anyone who would be ign'rant enough to say things like that about
such great heroes like Sonic and Sandra Nightweaver was some sort of
fool, *and* dat any duNeer dat would say that sort of thing obviously
had not a single drop of blue lef' in their blood, and was just another
common jackass."

She giggled.  "That shut that mare up but quick."

Joanna smiled.  "It's good to hear that Sally knows who the good guys
are.  Anything else?"

"No, not really.  Most people have been concerned with starting to
deroboticize their friends."

"As they should be," Joanna wisely stated, "as they should be."
She paused, and smiled at Bunnie.  "Well, I've taken enough of your
time today.  You can go now."

Bunnie smiled.  "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"Yes, yes...I'm not totally helpless."  She smirked.  "Go play."

She giggled.  "Okay, but only because you said so."  She got off the stool,
dusted herself off, and waved goodbye as she walked out the door.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bunnie walked out of the hut with a smile on her face.  She'd done a lot of
work with the elderly and sick lately, she mused, heading toward the center
of town.  She rather enjoyed it...after all, seeing that she wasn't as
"tactically useful" any longer, she wasn't needed on missions.  She could
dedicate herself now to domestic concerns, which she far preferred.

She entered the center of town, and leaned up against a large tree.  The
effects of the deroboticization on her social standing had been minimal.
For a day or two, she was the town oddity...but, as a few other people
started to be deroboticized, she was eventually forgotten about.

She brushed her hair back with a paw.  Bunnie liked being just another face
in the crowd sometimes.  It made her feel like just another rabbit, not some
sort of freak like she used to be.  It made her feel kind of good to be
anonymous.

Of course, her friends hadn't forgot her.  Sally was still kind to her, and
they still talked often.  The people of the village soon adjusted to her new
role in their lives, and accepted her as one of their own.  In fact, the
general quality of life for her had just about stayed the same; the only
major difference was that her life became much quieter.

Ah, quiet...she liked it so much.  The sounds of kits and the whistling of
the wind were her main distractions now, as opposed to the metallic clanking
of SWATBots and exploding factories.  It was so utterly normal, she could
often pretend Robotnik and the coup had never even occurred.

But then, some roboticized person would wander by, enviously glancing at her
before moving on to some other lucky Mobian.  That served to keep her
firmly planted in the reality that surrounded her--the war continued, just
with her as a spectator.

She crouched down beside the tree, looking out into the village.  She hoped
that Joseph would hurry up and get all the combinations right to the program.
If everyone was as they were before, a conventional army could be
raised, and it could crush Packbell once and for all...just by the virtue of
numbers.  Then they could leave this place, and begin to rebuild Robotropolis
back to its former glory.  Perhaps then, Joseph could find a way to bring
home the King.  Bunnie figured everyone would like that.

As she got back up, the sound of two tails twirling in the traditional
turbulent tactility of Tails was heard nearby.  Cheering up a bit, she
turned around to be sure it was Tails, and not his brother David.

She looked, and indeed saw Tails standing over by a hut.  "Heya, Tails!" she
shouted, "Why don' ya come here and chat with me fer a bit?"

The fox propelled his way over to Bunnie.  "Hi, Bunnie," he said, "how are
you today?"

"Ah'm okay, Tails.  You?"

"I'm okay."  He rubbed one of his ears.  "Just a little bored."

Bunnie smiled.  "Bored, honey?  Want to go for a walk?"

Tails shrugged.  "Sure.  Anything for something to do."

Bunnie got up, took Tails' hand, and plodded off into the forest.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bahb hummed softly, using approximately 85% of its total resources to
calculate the parameters for the deroboticizer task.  It toiled
ceaselessly, testing variables and refining the program to work with the
various different versions of the roboticizer that had been created.

Equations and figures roared by at incredible speeds, being tabulated
at rates that would boggle the imaginations of even the most talented
mathematicians.  Nothing stopped the artificial intelligence's
computations...the difficult parts slowing, but not stopping, the
fierce computational juggernaut.

The other 15 percent of the computer's available power was spread over
many different tasks.  1 percent operated the Dome's basic functions;
replicators, life support, teleportation, and other such minor activities.
Another percent went to the security of the complex; which had been
fortified recently, so needed less attention from the computer itself.
Three percent went to the maintenance of the power core, which happened
to be a crystal of unknown origin.

The remaining ten percent went to, strangely enough, the observation
network that Joseph had set up over his stay on Mobius.

Bahb took its central being away from the deroboticizer for a moment,
leaving its lower functions to handle the juggling of numbers.  It
took a curious interest in the survelliance network its creator had
set up.  It gave Bahb the opportunity to observe lifeforms besides
Joseph and his female companion, which the AI enjoyed greatly.

It activated some of the scanning devices around the area in which it
was housed, and looked over the steel and plastic shell that surrounded
its "body", the computer core.  This perspective on itself sometimes
gave Bahb a feeling of alienation from Joseph...but, it realized that
he cared about Bahb despite this.  He had given it life, taught it
to be self-reliant, and gave it purpose and direction...perhaps
Joseph "loved" Bahb, but in a different way than he "loved" his
female companion, which went under the designation of Sandra Nightweaver.

Growing tired of looking at itself, it gazed around the other levels
of the Dome.  It observed cleaning droids vacuuming up the "living
room" floor, which entertained it for a while.  Then, it looked over
around the laboratory and clean room, which had nothing interesting.
The storeroom was also in tolorable condition, and the long stairwell
that led down to the bedroom was neat and tidy.  Bahb activated the
security cameras in the bedroom, and looked around for anything out
of the ordinary.

As expected, the two foxes were still asleep; dozing in each other's arms
peacefully, deep in REM sleep.  Bahb noted that a tableau like this was
listed in its databanks as "tranquil", and continued its examination.
They appeared to be in perfect working order, according to a light
medical scan Bahb chose to conduct.  Joseph's blood was not due for
any sort of refreshment for another few days, and his mimetic
polyalloy was operating at maximum efficiency.  His breathing was
steady, and his heartbeat was slow and constant.  All was as it
should be, it thought, so it could move on to the other specimen
available.

The female fox was sleeping peacefully in Joseph's arms, holding onto
his chest snugly...her muzzle reflected her pleasure in being close to
Joseph, which mildly amused the etherial Bahb.  Her vitals were normal,
as were expected, and her blood was still healthy and strong.  Sandra was
a very healthy and happy vixen, Bahb hypothesised, and would probably
remain that way for an extended period of time.

Bahb continued to observe the two from a scientific perspective.  They
shared similar sleep patterns: their heartbeats, air intake patterns,
and nearly their rapid eye movements were alike, if not syncronised.
Joseph's larger mass was always below Sandra's smaller mass.  Sandra's
tail usually stuck out a little from the bed, while Joseph's was always
in a straight line beneath the covers.  Sandra's head rested usually on
Joseph's left shoulder, and her nose usually stayed 9.3258 cm away from
the tip of his left ear.

After realizing that the two were not going to awaken and become active
very soon, Bahb put the food replicators and bathroom facilities back
on standby, and moved on to another section of its survelliance network.

With no great deal of difficulty, Bahb `entered' the nexus of Joseph's
external sensory network, which was spatially located in the Master
Control Room.  It opened its great Cyclopian eye slowly, scanning
through the events that had occurred since its last check.

Mobius had been quiet during the last 12 hour interval that had passed
since Bahb had investigated it via its hidden cameras, microphones,
and motion sensors.  Travel away from Knothole had increased lately,
with several recently deroboticized citizens leaving to other villages.
The people leaving were usually older citizens, with the occasional
kit or small nonevolved animal joining them.  Only rarely would an
adolescent join them, seeing that Knothole required the young and
virile to assist them at the front lines.

It turned its iris toward Robotropolis next, and utilized its own
stealthily hidden cameras...and Robotnik's, thanks to the skillful
infiltration of Robotnik's own security system.  Some SWATBot movements
were detected along the eastern and southern areas of Robotropolis,
which were obviously intended to increase the defenses of those areas
against Freedom Fighter attacks.  A refinary had come back on-line,
which was also heavily guarded.  Packbell had destroyed approximately
two SWATBots and damaged another three.  Two roboticized citizens were
taken off-line due to the difficulty in keeping them operating.  A
garbage fire had been extinguished at the cost of 50 gallons of water
and 4 kilos of sand.  And repairs on the control center were continuing,
which was rapidly reaching completion.

Having gathered all useful information from there, Bahb moved on to the
Great Meadow; the natural `buffer zone' between Robotropolis and the
expansive Great Forest.  As expected, little had occurred there.
The Great Unknown was then monitored, and also was devoid of new
activity.  The Great Mountains next came under scrutiny, and
several sections of the Great River.  Nothing.

Becoming rather bored, Bahb decided to check up on a few of the satellites
that orbited Mobius, and project the weather patterns for the next few
weeks.  A gradual warming trend was beginning, which heralded the beginning
of spring.  Temperatures would rise slightly over the next few weeks,
which would slowly trigger the natural pattern of budding and leafing
that was typical of Mobian springs on the Northern Continent.

After running some simulations of hurricanes and tornados rushing around
Mobius, Bahb chose to cut to a live feed of the Great Forest, where
activity was detected...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bunnie and Tails passed by the hidden camera in the rotting elm tree,
too engrossed in their own conversation to notice anything as minor
as a marble-sized nodule in the side of it.

"So you've been feelin' alienated from the res' of us lately, Tails?"

Tails shrugged.  "Yeah...it seems that everyone's been too busy
deroboticizing people lately to pay much attention to me.  I know
it's special that these people are normal again...but still, I can't
help but feel funny when Sally and Sonic sorta blow me off."

Bunnie smiled softly, giving Tails an empathetic glance.  "Hey, 's
no crime to feel lonely, sugah.  Ah used to be when Ah was the way Ah
*was*, once...the only reason that anyone would bother to talk ta me wuz
when Ah wuz needed to move somethin' or smash it.  But aftah Ah was
deroboticized, at least at first, nobody seemed to talk tah me much,
aside from lookin' at me all weird.  Ah felt like some sorta outcast."
She paused, ruminating on the memories for a moment.  "But people came
around, and started treatin' me normal, aftah the deroboticizin' STUCK."

Tails swished his tails against the ground for a moment, thinking.
"Yeah, I noticed that, too."

Bunnie put her paw on Tails' shoulder.  "Look, if you ever need to talk,
or somethin', Ah'll be there."  She smiled, somewhat maternally.
"Aunt Bunnie's not gonna jus' blow her favorite neph-eww off."

Tails smiled innocently.  "Thanks, Bunnie."

"'S no problem, sugah."

They kept walking along the path, observing the scenery in silence for a
mile or so; only emitting a sound to warn the other of patches of ice.
However, when they approached the banks of a small river, Tails piped
up again with a question.  "Bunnie, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, sugah."

"Have you ever...loved anyone?"

Bunnie paused for a moment, not quite expecting the question from the
youthful fox.  "Me?"

"Yeah...I'd like to know what it feels like, just in case."

Bunnie leaned up against a tree, looking Tails over.  "Isn't this something
you should ask Sally about?"

Tails looked away a bit.  "I'm kinda nervous about asking Sally.  She's...
well, she's like my mom.  This isn't the sort of thing I could ask a mom."

Bunnie withheld a smirk.  "Well, okay...give me a minute to put this inta
words."

She thought for a moment, and then thought up something appropriate.
"Love...well, there's different sorts of love.  The weakest sort is the
kind yew usually get first; it's called "kit love", usually.  'S
just like liking someone a whole lot, but not really deeply...it usually
wears off after a few months.  Anothah type is the stuff you get when
you look at someone, and get weird feelings; yew sweat, get all tingly
in yer stomach, and you feel sorta anxious when yer around 'em."  She
smirked.  "That's lust."  Allowing a moment for a chuckle, she continued.
"Then, aftah lust, there's a kind just called "love", where you have
a mixture of all of the three kinds before, plus you relate to the person
almost perfectly.  Most mated people have this, and 's really nice.
Then, there's 'true' love, which is so in'redibly rare that maybe one
in a million people'll ever see it.  All four types Ah already mentioned
are rolled intah one big lump, and then some."

"That's what it all feels like?"

"Inna nutshell.  There's all sorts of subtle variations on dat theme."

Tails looked incredulous.  "Wow.  I never knew it was so complex."

Bunnie grinned.  "Now, Ah'm gonna ask you a question.  Why'd you ask?"

Tails smiled weakly.  "Well, it's really dumb."

"Try muh."

Tails looked away a bit, and shuffled his shoes on the ground.  "Okay,
but you gotta keep it a secret."

"Promise."

He looked up at Bunnie, with a generally guilty look on his face.  "Some
of the other guys, especially some of the older ones, were talkin' about
some...stuff...around the tree in the middle of Knothole.  I was listenin'
in, 'cuz I wanted to know what was up.  And they were talking about their
"girlfriends" and were laughing at stuff I didn't understand, and it made
me uncomfortable.  I felt dumb..."

Bunnie put up a paw politely.  "Say no more.  Ah understand how young'uns
can be when they hit that age.  You didn' understand some of the stuff dey
were talkin' about, so yew had to trick them into thinking you did."

"Yeah."  Tails frowned.  "I felt so embarassed that I didn't know what was
going on, I could have spit."

"Well, Ah think you should ask Sally about the rest.  I don' mind filling
in the blanks sometimes, but she'd get upset if she knew yew'd asked muh
first."  She smiled.  "You know how she is, sugah.  She's so possessive
about yew."

Tails nodded.  "I understand."

"Good...now let's keep moving.  Ah'm gettin' chilled."

They continued down the trail, continuing to enjoy the beauty of the
rapidly melting snow.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bahb paused for a moment, using its available intelligence to analyse the
signifigance of the conversation it had just overheard.

Its psychoanalysis program concluded that Tails and Bunnie had had something
akin to a 'fox to fox' talk: a type of conversation related to the coming
of age.  While it lacked a real conclusion, it was probably the prelude to
a series of continuing questions from Tails about growing up, the opposite
sex, and various questions that skated around the subject of mating.

A quick age analysis showed that Tails was indeed ready for such a
conversation...it somewhat surprised Bahb, tho, that he would consult
Bunnie.  Bahb's probability daemon had given results that favored Tails
asking Sonic or Sally about it, rather than someone relatively innocuous
like Bunnie.  Only Antoine had possessed a lower chance of being asked.

Bahb kept puzzling over the conversation.  It was a definite marker in
the young fox's development, which he would remember for the rest of his
flicker of a life.  Bahb felt rather honored to be a witness to something
that was typically private...that voyeuristic observation of such events
was percieved in Mobian morality as a negative was not something Bahb
concerned itself with.

It chose to note the development in memory, in case Joseph should ever
want to observe the conversation himself.  It might prove to an
advantage one day, Bahb noted, that this information was stored.
Maybe a Mobian archive would find it interesting.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The two Mobians walked over a stone bridge that had been constructed in
recent years, and had been kept in good repair all winter.  As they
continued to talk, they began walking down a long, winding stone path
that led to a small clearing.  As a small, marble-sized nodule in a rock
observed, their conversation continued...

"Bein' confused," Bunnie said, "is real normal.  Ah was when Ah wuz your
age...I jus' had to ask Julayla about it.  She explained it to me
real nice and slow."  She paused.  "But, as Ah said before, Ah think
you better take dis up wit' Sally."

Tails mumbled depressedly.  "Yeah, I know...it's just hard."

"Well, Tails, this sort of thing is always hard."

They walked in silence for a while.

"I think I will...later."

"Alright," Bunnie added maternally, "yew just do what you gotta do."

"Okay."

They approached a small creek, near an old, rotting tree.  After pausing
to appreciate the beauty of the scene, they sat down on a few large
boulders within the shadow of the dead deciduous dicot.

"Bunnie?"

"Mmm?"

"How does it feel to be deroboticized?"

One of Bunnie's ears flopped down over her head.  "What do yew mean?"

Tails stumbled through his vocabulary to clarify his thoughts.  "Like,
do you feel...different?"

She pushed the ear back into a more pert position.  "Yeah, Ah suppose
Ah do.  It's sort of strange to feel heat and stuff from muh feet,
and not bein' able to just strongarm my way through everything."
Bunnie smiled.  "But I like it.  It makes me feel more like a person,
not like a tool."

Tails thought for a moment, and then got an idea.  "Have some of the
guys--"

Bunnie smiled, then chuckled.  "Ah can read you like a book, sugah.  Yew
wanna know about what Ah look for in a guy, don' yew?"

Tails blinked.  "How--?"

She chuckled again.  "Julayla said that if Ah ever had a kit, that would
be one of the first questions he'd ask."

Tails rubbed his ears.  "Jeez..."  He looked up at Bunnie rather
nervously.  "Well, what *do* you look for?"

The tree creaked a little on its knoll, but did not attract the attention
of the duo.

Bunnie smiled, thinking.  "Well, there's lots of things that girls like
to see in a guy..."  Bunnie allowed the ear to flop over again.  "But
what most girls look for, most of all, is a nice guy."

"A nice guy?  But Sonic--"

Bunnie laughed.  "Sonic, Tails, although he doesn't show it, is a pretty
good guy.  Sally's lucky to have him...sure, he's a bit of an egotist,
he's somewhat vain, and he thinks he's Goddess' gift to women, but he's
a good hedgehog.  Sally and him will be together forever."

Tails grinned.  "I hope so.  I want them both to be happy."

Bunnie pushed the ear back.  "They'll be happy...after Robotnik's gone,
and Sally has her dad--King Acorn--back, and Mobius is back the way
it should be."

"Gee, I think everyone'll be happy when that happens."

Bunnie grinned.  "True.  But that's the only thing that'll make Sally
happy."

Tails smiled.  "Well, back to what we were talking about..."

"Mmm hmm."

The large tree creaked a bit more, and started to tip a bit toward Bunnie.

Tails looked at Bunnie questioningly.  "A nice guy?"

"Yes, a nice guy."  Bunnie grinned.  "It also helps if the guy's got
a brain in his head, too.  Stupid fellas, unless they're absolutely
physically perfect, usually don't get attention from us ladies."

"What else?"

Bunnie thought for a moment, a soft grin on her face.  "Let's see...
nice, smart...cute helps too, but that's something you've got or you
don't."  Before Tails could reply, Bunnie chipped in, "Don't worry, Tails,
you'll do just fine there."

Tails giggled, blushing a bit.  "You really think so?"

Bunnie smiled and ruffled Tails' headfur.  "Yeah, you're a nice-lookin'
kid."

Tails smiled.  "What else?"

"Thoughtful guys always have lots of girlfriends...the sort that remembers
birthdays, anniversaries, and stuff like that.  The rare guy even goes
out of his way to surprise his mate by sending her gifts sometimes for
no reason at all..."  Bunnie primped her headfur a bit.  "But you
always gotta remember that you can't buy love."

Tails nodded.  "And?"

"The last big thing is usually a tie between the ability to provide for
your mate and a family, and..."  She grinned.  "The other one isn't
somethin' Ah'm at liberty to discuss.  Sally'll tell you all--"

But Bunnie was rudely interrupted by the tree suddenly disengaging
from the ground, and starting to fall toward her!

^L

Tails saw the tree starting to fall.  Instinctively, he lept toward
Bunnie to knock her out of the line of the tree's descent, and was able
to get her and himself almost clear of the fall of the tree...however,
his tails got halfway smashed between the tree and the ground.  Bunnie
was thrown clear toward the riverbed, and just missed falling into the
rushing, freezing-cold water.

The sickening sound of smashing cartilage and bone resounded through the
small clearing only for a second, but then was immediately followed by
the pained howl of Tails.  Bunnie, hearing the crunch and the cry,
scrambled back to the top of the riverbed, and saw the painful sight
in all of its awful glory.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bahb reacted quickly, realizing that the continued life of Tails overruled
its main directive not to be noticed.  It speedily dispatched a SpyGlobe
into Knothole, confronted as many people as was prudent, and allowed
the proper authorities to handle the situation.

The group of Knothole residents ran up the trail to the riverbed, where
Tails was trapped.  Bunnie had not left, and was trying her best to
relieve some of Tails' fear about the situation while being sure that
it didn't get any worse.

The group of Mobians assaulted the tree with all their might.  Pushing and
straining against the tree with all their might, they slowly began to roll
it off of the lower half of Tails' tails that got smashed.  They dared
not speak of amputation for fear of frightening the already scared kit
into injuring himself...but it crossed many of their minds as they strained
and strained against the tree, and slowly were able to get it off of the
young kit's appendages.

Tails was prevented from seeing the damage the tree had done with a
rag blindfold someone had quickly created out of a piece of clothing.
However, it looked like it would be a bad idea to move him without first
sedating Tails with something pretty powerful.  Luckily, some of the
forward-thinking people were able to get some powerful sedatives that
grew in the area around the river, and fed them to the small fox to
calm, and eventually totally subdue Tails.

After they had done so, they made up a rough stretcher to carry Tails
off with, put him on it, and rushed him over to Bookshire's.  When
Bookshire saw the wounds, he had the Mobians rush him right into his
ER, and got rid of everyone but Bunnie and Sally, who had arrived moments
later.

A minute or two later, Sonic roared in, looking rather concerned.  However,
he was prevented from seeing Bookshire work by a few citizens who had been
put there by Bookshire to prevent any such intervention.  Eventually,
Bunnie, Sally, and Sonic were relegated to a waiting room, where they
were told to remain until Bookshire fetched them himself.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Just as Bahb had finished restationing the SpyGlobes, Joseph and Sandra
chose to finally wake up.  Actually, Joseph chose to wake up, and rolled
over on his side; this caused Sandra to flop off of his stomach and boink
her head against the mattress.  The jarring of her head bouncing off the
mattress woke her up as well, and gave her a good reason to whack Joseph
upside the head with a pillow.

"Ow!"

Sandra snarled.  "You know how much I *hate* that!"

"Sorry."

Muttering not-so-sweet nothings to herself, she tried to go back to sleep.
Meanwhile, Joseph stumbled into the bathroom to try to regain lucid
thought patterns via lots and lots of hot water.  While he was in the
progress of getting from the bedroom to the shower stall, he made so
much of a racket that Sandra stuffed her head into a big bank of pillows
to try to block it all out.  Unfortunately, the sound of the shower system
powering up caused enough vibration to even foil this attempt at getting
peace and quiet.  Eventually, but reluctantly, she decided that she was
just going to have to get up now...Sandra was also not a morning person.

After everyone got properly cleaned, Sandra went up to watch some
video transmissions in the rec level, and Joseph made his way to his
master control room to observe what had happened in his absence.

The incident with Tails jarred him severely.  However, once he saw that
Bookshire was working on Tails personally, he eased up a bit.  Yet,
he still was concerned for Tails, and had Bahb monitor Bookshire's
progress through any means possible.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

They sat in silence, but their faces told volumes about how they each
felt about what had happened.  All three of them knew what Bunnie and
Tails had been talking about; two by second-hand explaination by Bunnie,
and one from first-hand experience.  However, each of them had their own
personal spin on where the guilt, and the fault, lied.

Sally's expression and thoughts were pretty much matched.  She tried to
avoid showing any weakness, so to keep Sonic and Bunnie's morale as high
as possible, but her own feelings kept interfering with her noble gesture.
Not only was she mad at herself for not directly confronting Tails about
the "birds and the bees" herself, but Sally had also known about that
rotting tree by the creek, and was going to have it removed yesterday...
unfortunately, circumstances had kept her from getting round to having that
done, so she had almost forgotten about it.

Sonic's face showed grave concern for his near-little brother.  He knew
that, at the very best, Tails's lower tails would be in a way-uncool
cast for a few weeks.  At worst...well, Sonic didn't want to think about
it.  He was always very body-centered...to his perfectly-arranged quills
to the well-kept sneakers he wore on his feet, Sonic had absolutely
no coping skills in the unfortunate situation someone lost some limbs...
especially ones central to someone's entire life like Tails' tails.
It was something that he simply could not handle well.  He hoped very
strongly that it would only be a cast...

Bunnie's visage only seemed to show great guilt and personal anguish.
Unlike Sally or Sonic, she was less concerned with the effects of this
rather than the cause.  She could have saved Tails and herself so easily--
if it wasn't for the fact she was regular again.  She'd lifted so many
trees from the ground that doing it would have been as routine as
breathing...hell, she could have caught it as it fell, and pushed it
into the river!  But she had no such powers any longer.  All she could
do was stare as it fell on Tails, and try to keep him from hurting...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Time passed slowly for the three in the waiting room.  Bookshire worked
through the day, using all of his abilities to try to repair the
wounded Tails.  All of his medical knowledge was thrown to the test,
as he clipped and knitted bone back to cartilage, wrapped bandages,
transfused blood, and nearly exhausted his supply of sedatives.

^L

But lo and behold, Bookshire was able to successfully keep Tails'
lower appendages attached, and put the injured appendages inside
two seperate casts.  After cleaning up and wheeling Tails to a
recovery room, he went to break the good news to the three in the
waiting room.

"He'll be alright in a month or two," he said, "but I want to keep him
under observation for a few days."

They all took a sigh of relief.  "Okay, Bookshire," Sally said, "but
can we see him now?"

Bookshire shook his head.  "No.  He needs his rest...I can let him see
people tomorrow, though."

"Okay, doc," Sonic said, "that's cool.  We'll be back tomorrow."

With that, Sonic took Sally unsteadily outside, leaving Bunnie and
Bookshire alone.

After Bunnie thought that Sonic and Sally were out of range, she
spoke to the raccoon.  "H-he won't be in too much pain, will he?"

Bookshire shook his head.  "No, not at all.  A little uncomfortable,
sure, but who wouldn't be uncomfortable with 2 pounds of plaster on
their butt?"  He smiled.  "He'll be fine...but you need your rest,
too."

"I think I should--"

"Go home, and get some rest?  Excellent idea."  He carefully pushed
her out into the forest.  "Goddess knows, I could use some."

Before she could turn around to protest, he had already shut the door.
Realizing that he obviously wanted to have Tails get some rest (as well
as getting some himself), she started to walk home, alone with her
thoughts and the falling night...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph kept a eye on Tails the whole day, occasionally breaking up
his observations to fetch food, or take a short nap.  But after
Bookshire had made clear that Tails' condition had stabilized,
he finally relaxed enough to stop observing the small kit's condition,
and started complaining to Bahb.

"Bahb, you could have woke me up when you noticed the tree falling."

<< "You were sleeping." >>

"But he could have gotten seriously hurt."

<< "He didn't.  Besides, I thought I handled that rather well." >>

"You acted wisely, but the most useful response would have been to
have roused me, so I could have taken action."

<< "What would you have done?" >>

"I could have teleported Tails right to the Keldii medical area, and
had his tails repaired within minutes.  He could have been flying
around right now."

<< "I am not authorized to take such action." >>

"That's why you're supposed to wake me up!"

<< "I understand that now.  But I did not have that knowledge at my
    disposal at the time.  I did all that I could with my authorization
    level." >>

"Well, that you did.  But next time, wake me up, alright?"

<< "Affirmative, Joseph." >>

Joseph sat back in his chair, groaned, and lumped back to the control
room.  Sally'd have a fit if she knew what he could have done.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

                              Interlude

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The starship loomed far from Mobius, barely able to see the blue-green
world from the distance from which it lurked.  It laid cloaked from all
sensors anywhere near the large ship, using almost none of its power
and with most of its crew in cryogenic storage.

It was a large vessel, about 100 miles long from its helm to the
large jump-engines, 150 miles wide, and 150 miles thick.  It was also
armed to the teeth with every sort of energy weapon available.  If it
would have been decloaked, one might describe it as vaguely cubical in
shape, and of a blackish hue.  The average crew on such a vessel was in
the upper hundred thousands...but at the moment, only a few hundred
were active.  The majority of the ship was stored in reserve, so they
would be fresh for the great project that laid before them next solar year.

The ship drifted toward the planet at a comically slow pace, almost a
tenth of one percent of its maximum speed.  Yet, this was necessary to
avoid detection by the annoying Keldy'rian busybodies that operated
their little base on one of Mobius' moons.

But soon, so very soon, it would all be made worthwhile...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The creature awoke within a large, white room.  It felt weakened, and its
mind was scattered.  Where was it?  Why was it here?  Nothing made any
sense...then, the thoughts returned.  He began to remember what had
happened, what had gone so terribly awry...he rubbed at his eyes,
shaking off a bad headache.  How long had he been out?

He sat up, appraising the room around him.  It was relatively featureless.
It lacked any furniture, any machinary, or any people.  The only things
in the room were himself, and the cot that he was laying on.

He uneasily pulled himself to his feet, being careful not to lose
his balance as the large man got back to his feet.  He was dressed
in his normal outfit, which gave him a odd feeling of reassurance...the
alien environment in which he now stood lacked nothing else that was even
vaguely reminiscent of his home.  He checked himself for other useful
items...his blaster was, thankfully, still with him.  It was fully
charged, and looked undamaged.  He dug through his pockets for anything
else of value.  A stick of gum, a few screws, his lucky screwdriver,
a few charge-modules for the blaster, a bottlecap, some pieces of
electrical tape, and a blank diskette.

The man thought for a moment, and then put all of those items back in their
original locations, and his blaster back in its holster.  Perhaps
they would be useful later.

He looked around again, scanning for a door or anything that wasn't a
glowing white wall.  After a moment, he discovered a spot on the horizon
a few hundred yards off.  Listening for a moment for any sound, he
started trudging toward the spot, hoping he wasn't walking into some
sort of trap.

After a few minutes, the man arrived at the discoloration, and discovered
it was a door.  He assumed it was a motion-sensitive door, because it
lacked either a plate to push against, or a knob to turn.  So, with some
trepidation, he approached the door...and, as he suspected, it opened.

He glanced outside the door cautiously, taking stock of this new area.
It looked like a long hallway, that leaded from his far left to his far
right, broken up occasionally by doors similar to the one he was currently
peeking out of.  After spotting no enemies, he emerged from the white
room, and stepped into a more metallic area.

The hallway was certainly metallic in origin, as his clinking footfalls
soon told him.  Perhaps the owner of whereever this place was also was
a great fan of cold, impersonal technology.  The man hoped so...if it was
one of his enemies, he would be in a great deal of trouble.  He looked
behind him, then to his left and right.  After cogigating for a moment,
he chose to start walking down the right wing of the hallway...but did
so as stealthily as possible.

He walked down the hallway for a few minutes, examining the walls for any
clue of where or what this place was.  It certainly wasn't a prison; his
ease in manuvering around certainly was abnormal for even the lowest
security house of felons.  Nor was it some sort of residential area,
unless he was walking around during some sort of curfew.  It seemed
rather unsanitary for a hospital, seeing that parts of the walls had
grime deposits thick enough to leave a mark on.  Therefore, it must be
something the man had never encountered before.

He traversed the hall for a bit longer, noting a small curve that had began
to form in the hallway's structure.  He had still not detected one bit of
activity from any direction.  Perhaps whereever he was had been abandoned.
If so, why did all the lights (the few of them there were) operate?
Automated self-service?  Possibly.

After a few more minutes, he found another large door.  Deciding to try
his luck, he walked toward it with his blaster drawn, and carefully
triggered the door-opening device...

^L

"Oh, there you are."

The man jumped back, startled to find activity in such a great amount
behind the obviously soundproof door.  He had somehow wandered into a
large control center, where many tall foxes were working at various
stations, working determinedly on various tasks.

The room was larger than might have been expected by the door's relative
size.  It was disc-shaped, with a floor that sloped down and a ceiling that
sloped up.  By his estimation, it was about 50 feet wide, and about 12 feet
tall; a fairly large room, even for a large structure.  All around the
walls of the room were blinking instruments, screens, and various other
mysterious, highly technical, objects.  However, this room lacked the
glowing white walls of the place he had just left, choosing to have the
grimy, dull metallic form of the hallway outside.  Most of the
light was generated from the instruments or the screens, with only
two or three lights imbedded in the overhang around the perimeter of
the area.  A large chair, similar to the one he had at home, was on a
sort of a pedestal in the center of the room, overlooking a large screen.

He examined the room further, and was amazed by what he saw.  The large
screen that was in the front of the room, that must have been at least
50 inches wide and tall, not to mention very sharp, seemed to overlook
a planet that was very, very far away.  Meanwhile, a few foxes pushed their
way by him, obviously quite set on getting to whatever was behind him.

"Well, are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come in?"

The man looked toward the source of the voice, and soon found himself
in direct eye contact with a pair of eyes approximately one foot above
his.  They were attached to a large fox, who was dressed in a reddish
bodysuit, which nearly matched his reddish-orange fur.  His eyes were
silverish grey, which complimented his sharp fangs.  He had a robust,
but not overly muscular build, and had quite nifty black combat boots.

"Honestly, Ivo, are you THAT out of it?  Snap out of it, man."

Robotnik coughed, putting his blaster back in his holster, and holding
his head with his "good" arm.  "Oh, my head...what happened?"

"You've been out for a long time, friend.  Perhaps we should discuss
this in my ready room?"  He gestured toward another door.

"Okay, I guess..."

They walked into the small room, the fox sealing the door behind him as
he entered.  After Robotnik and himself had taken a seat, he leaned over
to Robotnik and looked into his black-red eyes.  "Ivo, what's the last
thing you remember?"

Robotnik paused for a moment, thinking aloud.  "I-I was back on Mobius...
the Doomsday project...an accident..."

The fox rubbed his chin.  "Sounds about right.  The meds say you'd be a
little hazy...you almost blew core without a backup, friend.  If it wasn't
for the fact that one of my ships was stopping by to see how you were
doing...why, I'd have lost one of my best friends in the entire universe."

Robotnik looked up into the fox's eyes, memory clairifying.  "John?"

He smiled.  "You remembered my name, Ivo.  Long time, no see."

Ivo looked around.  "I'm on the _Legacy_?"

John nodded.  "Yes...we certainly couldn't leave you there, at the
mercy of your cretinous nephew.  He probably would have killed you
with his echidna pal of his."

Robotnik looked stunned.  "Snively?  That--"

John put up a paw.  "I'll explain everything later.  Right now, the
only thing that's important is your refamiliarization with our plan; it's
changed just a little..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Back at the ranch...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails awoke the next morning, dazed from his strange experience.  His
memory was blurry, his head hurt, and he felt like everything below his
bellybutton had been turned into lead.

He opened his eyes, looking around the room.  Tails had obviously been
taken to a recovery room...it seemed that he hadn't died, after all.
However, the headache he had seemed to make him want to wish that he
had...footfalls heading toward the door on the far side of the room
broke his concentration.

The door opened, and Bookshire walked in.  "Oh, you've decided to wake
up...how convienent."  The raccoon smiled.  "And how is my patient today?"

Tails groaned.  "I feel like someone dropped me on my head a few times."

Bookshire chuckled.  "I see that your medication is starting to wear off.
Don't worry, it won't hurt at all after another few days."  He walked over
and examined a small chart that he had drawn up on the front of the bed.
"Nope, not at all.  In fact, it'll start to progressively fade by this
afternoon."

"I feel awful."

Bookshire kept looking at the chart, and made the occasional mark on
a few bits of it.  "I bet you do.  Tail-injuries always hurt the worst.
It's like getting a really bad paper cut.  More nerves and such."

Tails glanced down at the foot of the bed at the two casts that were
neatly aligned, and slightly raised.  "Mister Bookshire?"

Bookshire looked up from his chart for a moment.  "Hmm?"

"Will I...ever fly again?"

The raccoon was temporarily dumbfounded.  "Will you ever fly again?"

"Yes, that's what I asked, sir."

Bookshire scratched his head.  "I don't know...it depends on a lot of
things.  But I'd say you've got a 60-40 chance, if you do everything
I say and get a lot of rest."

This revelation was not useful.  "60-40?"

"Well, you smashed up your tailbone pretty bad, Tails.  You nearly
pulverized a portion right in the middle.  It's lucky we got there when
we did...otherwise, we would have had to amputate them both."

Tails grimaced.  "Yeah."

Bookshire went back to the chart, now occasionally looking at Tails and
examining several parts of him.  "Yes, it's a good thing that flying
thing of Joseph's warned us...sheer luck that it was heading that way to
inspect the perimeter of Joseph's "territory"..."

Tails' thoughts suddenly went to his friends.  "Is Bunnie okay?"

Bookshire distractedly replied to Tails while listening to his heartbeat.
"Yes, she's fine.  Just a little shaken up...you'll get a chance to talk
with her and the rest of them later, during visiting hours."  He put
his stethoscope back in his pocket.  "Right now, you should basically
put your effort into resting..."

"Mister Bookshire?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

The raccoon smiled.  "You're welcome, Tails."  He glanced at the clock.
"Well, look at that.  It's just about time for--"

He was interrupted by a series of sonic booms outside, the sound of
skidding sneakers, and a knock on the door.  "--visiting hours to begin."

A familiar voice beckoned from behind the door.  "Hey, doc!  Open up!"

Bookshire limped his way to the door.  "Yes, yes, hold on..."

He opened the door carefully, but that was to no avail.  Sonic burst in,
nearly knocking the middle-aged raccoon doc on his butt.  With him came
Sally and Bunnie, who rushed nearly as fast as Sonic toward the injured
kit.

Sonic went right to his friend's side.  "Hey, Tails!  How're you doin',
bro?"

Tails smiled, the negative thoughts negated by the arrival of his best
friend.  "I'm okay, Sonic."

"Way past!"

Sally immediately embraced Tails, as hard as she thought was safe.  "Oh,
Tails!  I'm so sorry..."

Tails hugged back weakly.  "That's alright, Aunt Sally.  It wasn't your
fault that tree fell--"

Sally tried not to cry.  "But it was!  I knew about that tree, but I just
forgot that..."

"Sal," Sonic interrupted, "we went through this last night.  'S no use
blubberin' over felled trees."

Sally just kept hugging Tails in response.  "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Sally...really.  I'll be fine in a few weeks."

Bunnie stepped to the bed and also weaseled in on the hug.  "Yew saved
muh life, Tails...I don' know how to thank ye."

Tails hugged Bunnie as well.  "You would have done the same for me,
Bunnie."

Bunnie winced mentally.  "I know, sugah...I know."

They all hugged for a while, grateful that everyone was still among the
land of the living.  Then, Sonic took some stuff out of a backpack, and
placed it on the nightstand.

"Lessee here, kiddo...I got lots of stuff for you to do while yer laid
up."  He dug around for a while, and first took out a book.  "This should
keep ya busy for a few weeks, Tails...I found this book in Robotropolis
a few years ago.  I must have read this thing a hundred times.  It's
called "Trinity".  All about some guy who goes around getting treasure
and fighting badniks.  And you know that if I'll sit down and read
somethin', it's gotta be Way Past!"

Tails smiled and looked over the book.  "Thanks, Sonic!"

Sonic grinned.  "No prob...but that's not all!"

He rustled around in his rucksack a bit more, and pulled out a small
palmtop computer.  "I got this from your room.  I figured you might
want it...I certainly don't know how it works."

Tails' face lit up.  "Thanks, Sonic...I was about to ask someone to get
this for me."

Sonic looked puzzled.  "What're you up to with that, bro?"

Tails smiled.  "Oh, I just like to play with it..."

The hedgehog shrugged, and dug around in his backpack s'more.  After
a moment, he removed a small device with a button on it.  Putting it
down on the table, he looked over at Sally.  "Now what does this
thing do again?"

Sally smirked at Sonic, and looked over at Tails.  "That's a special
button that will send out a small signal to Nicole, Tails.  If you
ever need anything, or you want to talk...all you need to do is
press it."

Tails nodded.  "Don't worry, Aunt Sally, I'll be sure to keep in touch."

The princess chuckled.  "I'd hope so."

Bookshire suddenly piped up.  "Okay, okay, you guys have kept him awake
for long enough.  He needs his rest."

Sonic scowled.  "Aww!"

"Now now," Bookshire said, "you know as well as I do that the more he rests,
the faster he'll be able to go out and race around with you again."  The
raccoon smiled.  "Sally, Bunnie, leggo of the poor kid.  You're jostling
him too much."

The two females let go of Tails reluctantly, and started heading, with
the hedgehog following close behind, toward the door.  "Bye, Tails!"
"Ah'll be around, Tails!"  "Cya!"

Tails grinned and waved.  "I'll see you around, fellas!"

As they said their goodbyes, Bookshire escorted his visitors to the door,
and politely told them to come back tomorrow.  After speaking with Sally
for a moment, he returned to the room where Tails was.  "Now, you try to
get some rest.  I'll get you something nice to eat the next time you
wake up, okay?"

Tails smiled, and laid back in the bed.  "Gotcha."

The raccoon closed the door again, and allowed the kit to gradually fall
back asleep...dreaming of flying off into the sunset yet again...one
day.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, in the Great Forest:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Snively stumbled on, running further away from Robotropolis.  He
had been discovered by the SWATBots, that much he knew...
and now, Packbell was using them to hunt him down.  Now
no place in Robotropolis would ever be safe for him...
as long as that damned android lived.

He cursed his miserable luck as he careened further and
further into the Great Meadow, the buffer zone that existed
between Robotropolis and the first growths of the Great Forest.
The fact that spring was breaking the tyranny of winter gave
little pleasure to the small human, who was too occupied
with keeping alive to worry about such aesthetics.

Finally, he broke through into the forest itself, giving him
a chance to escape the SWATBots in the underbrush.  They had never been
good at manuvering through the forests, he recalled, because there were
too many unknown factors that had to be accounted for.  However, Snively
was not a SWATBot, and had learned how to hide from the SWATBots during
his unfortunate time within the confines of Robotropolis.

Snively quickly chose to dive within a log that had been used as a
growth area for several different kinds of beautiful forest fungus.
The SWATBots would be upon him in seconds, he gasped, so he'd better
get out of plain view.  And, sure enough, the killer machines roared
into the area that Snively was hiding in, and began to search through it
to the best of their ability.  Luckily for Snively, after a few moments
of searching, the SWATBots gave up on trying to find him.  Probably
realizing the anger that Packbell would vent on them for failing
to acquire Snively, they flew off toward Robotropolis
in a rather somber fashion.

Snively waited for a few moments after the sounds of SWATBot propultion
units had died away to a whisper before emerging into the clearing.  He
had gotten lucky, this time....but he had better find a cave or something
to hide in until he could figure out what to do next.  He certainly
didn't want the Freedom Fighters to capture him....that would probably
mean certain death, if not *torture*...

He started walking down a musty path toward a quite dead and frightening
part of the Great Forest.  He certainly didn't think that Knothole
would be in such a place...the one time he had been able to enter it,
it was in a very nice, lush, green part of the Forest.  This area would
be perfect to hide in...after all, what sort of fool would make his home
in such a unpleasant part of the otherwise beautiful forest?

He wandered down the path a few more paces, not realizing that he was
being shadowed by a floating orb.  "Perhaps," Snively muttered
to himself, "just perhaps, this place might have water nearby."  He was
very thirsty from his long run, and could have also used a shower
at that point, too.

However, Snively found something that didn't even vaguely resemble a
pond.  Indeed, when he reached the end of the path, he found
something completely alien...







		      Chapter Twelve - Complications



Snively looked at the strange, frightening structure in awe.  It was
certainly not of Mobian design...it was too perfect to have been
built by anything but a more advanced sort of being.  But what was it
doing in the Great Forest?  Could this have been the work of one of
the Freedom Fighters?  If it was, why hadn't he been attack--

"HALT!"

Snively froze, the metallic voice of doom resounding through his ears.
As he started to turn to face the location of the voice, he wondered
what Packbell would do to him first.  Perhaps, if he was in a sufficiently
unpleasant mood, he'd just kill him.  That would be one of the happier
endings to his personal story of agony and woe...

But when he turned to accept the cold, deadly hands of a SWATBot, he found
himself staring into the lens of a spherical sentinel.  After making a
quick series of mental jumps, he came to the conclusion that this object
seemed to belong here, while he did not.

"Remain still, entity."

The voice seemed to soften a bit, percieving Snively's weakened and
disleveled state.  Perhaps it was under the impression that Snively was
just another wounded, dumb animal.  Of course, if it believed that,
it might take the liberty of putting him "out of his misery".  That,
or it might see a specimen to experiment on.

"Identify yourself," the sphere twittered.

Snively paused for a moment, trying to think of what to say that would
increase his life expectency.  If he told the machine that he didn't know,
would it find a different way to find out who he was?  If he told the
machine a different name, would it just accept it at face value?  And,
if he told it his actual name, would it result in his instant demise?

Oh, the hell with it all, Snively thought, I'm tired of running.
"My name," Snively's nasal, worn voice growled, "is Snively.  Snively
the Great.  Do with me what you will."

The sphere reacted instantly.  A small port on the front of it opened
up, emitting a stream of restraining slime to keep Snively from getting
away.  After it appeared to the sphere that Snively couldn't move,
it hit the small human with a stun pulse, knocking the large-nosed
simian unconscious.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After a few seconds of black, Snively gradually started to regain
consciousness.  He kept his eyes closed, afraid to open them for
fear of gazing upon the Inferno...

A voice is heard.  Female.  "Is he dead?"  Snively's brain spun, almost
causing him to gasp aloud...he was surprised to hear anything vaguely
pleasant, but carefully repressed any reaction out of fear of having
them react.

A male voice.  "No, just stunned.  SpyGlobe-1 discovered him wandering
around outside, and was able to capture him before he got near the
automatic defenses."

Was he in the custody of the owners of this place?  If he was, he
pondered, they appeared to be the Freedom Fighter type.  Oh boy.

"Why didn't you just have him killed right then and there?  Why bring
him down to the lab?"  Apparently, the female knew about him.  He
was definitely in it deep.

"Because he's got answers to the questions I've got."

The female appeared to be the pragmatic type.  "Couldn't you just do
a neural dump and get the info that way?"

He hesisitates.  "No...the brainscanner is tuned to only scan and
recover vulpine memories.  It'd take weeks to adjust it to a simian's."
Aha, Snively mentally exclaimed, the duo were foxes.

The female paused for a second.  "Well, what if he doesn't talk?"

"That's why we have sodium pentathol, darling."  Torture obviously wasn't
in the male's nature.  Perhaps there was hope of being thrown into a nice,
warm cell, after all.

"He deserves worse."

"Well, it's not my tag, Sandra."  Sandra?  Certainly it couldn't be...?
"After all, I owe it to Sonic to do what he may...and if he won't,
I know about 20 other people off the top of my head who will."  He
paused.  "But I will not."

The female Sandra must have smirked.  "You're getting mellow in your
old age."

The male quipped, "Ahh, but doesn't experience count for anything anymore?"

She chuckled.  "Only in certain areas, honey...but I think you've logged
enough hours in those to avoid any doubt of your ability."

Snively could sense the male's eyebrow raising.  "So you want me to take
a vacation from--?"

She replied, probably a little too quickly.  "No, no, no!"

He laughed.  "That's what I like to see, woman."  Then, the voice seemed
to draw closer to Snively.  "But let's not bore our...guest with our
flirting."

Snively's eyes snapped open, more out of instinct than out of any desire
to intimidate.  What he saw when he popped them open, however, seemed
to defy the imagination...he was in a large room, with a high, curved
ceiling.  It was darker than might have been expected, with only a few
lights on to highlight various pieces of equipment.  This place certainly
was a lab, and had much in common with the ones back in Robotropolis...
down to the roboticizer device (?!).

Snively groped for words, but was unable to grope for anything else.
He immediately noticed that his hands and feet were lashed to a guerney,
laying flat on a stand near the far left side of the room.  "Aaaaa!"

Joseph didn't flinch.  "Shut up, please."

Snively's mouth slammed shut.  The person he was looking at was probably
twice his size and weight, and looked like he was carrying a thermonuclear
device in a holster in his coat.  He was also quite frightening looking,
with bright, citrus-orange fur, and shiny black wraps on his face.

"Good.  You know how to take orders."  He took out a cigar, clipped off
the tip, and lit it up.  "And, if you don't annoy me, I'll see to it that
you get treated humanely during your stay in my home."

Snively gasped.  "Y-yes, sir."

"Alright, let's start with the basics."  He clicked on a light above
Snively's face, following Mobian interrogation protocols.  "Now,
I want to know everything you know about this--"  Joseph took out
the palmtop computer Snively thought he had in his pocket.  "--and
everything else that might be useful.  Now."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, in someone else's hand, another palmtop computer was being
tinkered with.  Since Tails had gotten to borrow some of Rotor's tools,
he'd decided to start playing around with the inside of the device,
in order to determine how a system like that physically operated.

He'd already decimated the virus that had infected the device, left
by a certain individual that Sally had asked him not to mention any
longer.  And, after some further tinkering, he had learned (rather
covertly) how to program interesting things on it.  Games, utilities,
mapping programs, a little bit of everything.  Eventually, he hoped
that Joseph would teach him how to do more things...after all, he
was the next level up from his own brother.  At least, that's what
most people figured.  In Tails' mind, David and Joseph were just
about equal in computer things...David with all of his constant
upgrading, Joe with his millions of hours on AI work.

For now, however, he'd occupy himself with studying the hardware of the
device.  He'd been working consistantly on making the processor speed
increase, and Tails was eventually hoping to get it up past a few
thousand megahertz before the beginning of fall.  Also, he was
making it operate more efficiently by getting rid of redundant parts
and adding fresher versions.  Who knows, Tails thought, eventually
he might get Cryptosmasher on it, and then become even more useful to
his friends and family in Knothole.

But after a few more hours working on this, Tails felt ennui set in.
Slightly irritated, he closed the device up, and put it down on the counter
to settle.  His desire to be out and running around was distracting him
from the work he wanted to accomplish with his computer.  The spring air
kept drifting into his nostrils, wafting away the smell of solder and
silica...the eternal drive of foxes to romp was stirring within
him, making his injury even more apparent.

Yet, he refused to get angry about it.  He did what Bunnie would have
done for him a million times over; he had saved her life, and kept her
from being in the same spot he was in...if not in a worse one.  After
all, she'd had to walk around in a sort of a cast since she was his
age, and was just now learning what it was like to be a regular person
again.  He could take it.  He was young, and had more cerebral pursuits
to engage in, anyway.  This wouldn't last forever.  Eventually, Bookshire
would take the casts off, and he'd be able to walk around again.

Flying, however, he wasn't so sure about.  He frowned, running his fingers
through his headfur.  He didn't want to be landlocked.  If he had to have
his extra tail, he might as well get some USE out of it.  Sure, it made
him distinctive.  Sure, it was useful when trying to swat away flies.
But what he really enjoyed about them was his ability to zoom around
through the air, being one with the sky!  Being able to escape the
bonds of the earth, and go where he wanted, when he wanted, without
having to worry about mud or poor turf.  He hoped with all of his might
that he could get them strong enough to fly with again...no, he WOULD
get them strong enough to fly with again, no matter what.

Then, his thoughts were dissipated in a sonic boom...Sonic had arrived
to visit with him again!  He smiled.  Sonic always had something nice
to say about what was going on, and made him always feel much better
about himself.  He was becoming like another brother to him.

Sonic entered the room triumphantly, as usual.  "Yo, little bro!" he
shouted, tromping his way over to the side of the bed.  "How're you
doing, kiddo?"

Tails smiled.  "I'm better, Sonic.  David stopped by a little bit ago
to tell me about his latest upgrades.  In fact, you just missed him."

Sonic mirrored Tails' expression.  "That's cool, Tails.  I'll see him
later today at the meeting...I'll try not to sleep through this one,
so I'll be able to tell you all about it."

Tails laughed.  "Past cool, Sonic."

Sonic fistbumped with the incapacitated canine.  "You bet, little bro."

Tails leaned back.  "So, how's everything doing?"

Sonic moved a paw vertically in front of him, denoting smooth sailing.
"Everything's moving along as usual.  They all miss ya, tho..."  He
reached into his backpack, and pulled out a piping-hot chili dog.
"Especially Unc' Chuck.  He made this for ya just before I got here."

Tails beamed, happily taking the chili dog and scarfing it.  After
disposing of it organically, he wiped his mouth and proclaimed,
"Mmm mmm!  Thank him for me."

Sonic nodded.  "No prob."

"How's Uncle Chuck doing, anyway?  Is he feeling a little better?"

"Yup.  The deroboticization process worked perfect on him.  It has,
however, made ol' Chuck a little stiff.  But he's still as active
as he ever was.  It's cool."

"Well," Tails said, "tell Uncle Chuck that Tails said `hi'."

"Sure, bro."

"What else is up?"

Sonic rubbed his chin thoughtfully, thinking.  "Hmm...well, Joe and
Sandy are still in the Dome.  They really oughta get out more."  The
hedgehog cackled.  "'S not healthy to over-exert themselves...that way...
all the time."

Tails laughed, not wanting to look immature.  "Well, you know how THAT
is, don'cha?"

Sonic smirked.  "Real funny, kiddo."

Tails folded his arms in his mentor's trademark manner.  "Hey, the fox
knows."

Sonic waved a paw at Tails dismissingly.  "What-EVER."  He laughed.
"Just don't mention that around Sal.  She'd have a total cow."

Tails smiled.  "Whatever you say, Sonic."

"Cool," Sonic said, casually changing the subject, "so whaddya think of
the book?"

Tails shrugged.  "It's cool."

"Great...you can hold onto it, if you'd like."

"'kay."

Sonic hmmed.  "Well, I better be going, kiddo.  Don't wanna keep you
from healin', y'know."

Tails smiled.  "That's cool.  Thanks for stoppin' by, Sonic."

Sonic grinned.  "No problem, little bro.  Cya!"

As Tails waved, Sonic trotted out of the room, closed the door, and
juiced back out into the forest.  Tails enviously looked on as
Sonic rushed into the springlike weather, yet with a positive feeling
in his head from his visit.  Sonic's visits were never long, but
they were long enough to give Tails a chance to talk to someone
besides Bookshire.

Tails laid back, getting ready to take another snooze.  He hoped Sally'd
come by at dinnertime...maybe he'd ask about all that stuff he was
confused about tonight...of course, that's what he'd thought for a
long time before his tails got busted, and he'd still hadn't gotten
up the courage to ask.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph looked into Snively's eyes, mulling over what he had been told.
Examining the device had yielded similar answers, none of which he'd
liked...or had wanted to believe.  Yet, if he kept the heat on, he
might get something else useful out of the quite mental little man.

"So, let me get this straight.  You said that you've been hiding from
Packbell ever since Sonic tried to kill you, correct?"

"Y-yes..."

"And that he's tortured you, and generally knocked you around worse than
your uncle ever had, right?"

"Yes, sir..."

"But you were able to escape into the sewers and tunnels of Robotropolis...
and, one day, you saw this tall fox, who looked kind of like myself,
drop this computer on the ground."

"Yes..."

"And you gave it a once-over, and discovered some sort of plan for the
destruction of Mobius in it...which I had just shown all of us here."

"Aff-f-f-firmative, sir..."

Joseph stopped speaking, sitting down and rubbing his skull.  "Okay.
I just wanted to get that straight."

A few moments went by without anyone saying anything.  But then,
Snively finally was able to gasp out something coherent.  "A-are you
going to let m-me into the custody of the Princess now...?"

He looked up at Snively.  "No."

"N-no?"

"No."

"Oh."

A few more moments went by.  "M-may I ask..."

Joseph looked up at Snively.  "You realize what would happen if this
information was to get out too soon, don't you?"

"N-n--"

Joseph stood, looking right into Snively's eyes.  "The people of Mobius
would begin to mobilize to defend themselves, I assume...they would
try to enlist other alien races to assist...maybe being able to drive
off Packbell in the process."

"T-that doesn't sound..."

"The Ur--the Buyers would strike at that moment, Snively.  There wouldn't
be a chance for this planet.  They'd just open fire.  Foom."

A deathly silence.

"No, this is something that has to be handled quietly...with as little
overt action as possible.  We've got the advantage now, because we
know what they're going to do.  All that we need to do is to play a
game of sabotage and parlay...buy enough time to casually raise a
intergalactic force strong enough to repel them."  He paused.
"Telling Sally would be suicide."  Most of all for me, Joseph thought.

"S-so what are you going to do with me?"

Joseph rubbed his chin.  "Give me a minute."

Walking away from Snively, he took Sandra's arm and walked over to the
far side of the lab.  "Okay, darling," he whispered, "this comes down
to your choice."

"Me?" Sandra whispered, "Why me?"

"Because, Sandra, we can do several things, all of them I'm willing to do."

Sandra looked at him questioningly.  "Such as?"

"We can tell Vision about this, and see if the Keld'yrian fleet can do
anything to help.  We can also not tell anyone, and just hitch a ride
on the ship itself...my father had enough pull back on the homeworld
to get us on even a ship run by Soulless John X'aeon-nai."  A pause.
"Of course, we could simply make our own vessel, and blast off into
a far corner of the galaxy until this thing plays itself out."

Sandra was dumbfounded.  "Joe...I don't know.  I'm so confused..."

Joseph held her close.  "Take all the time you need, Sandra.  We've
got at least a year."  He glanced over at Snively.  "He sure as hell
isn't going anywhere, either."

Sandra whimpered softly.  "Okay, honey...I'll think on it."

Joseph kissed her gently on the forehead.  "That's all I ask of you."

"You certainly have a habit of asking for hard things."

He caressed her face.  "You'll be rewarded for your efforts."

Sandra didn't smile, her expression seeming to be locked on confusion.
"Go deal with Snively, dear.  I need to go think."

Joseph nodded.  "Just tell me when you've made a decision, Sandra."

Sandra patted him on the shoulder, and walked sort of dazed toward the
stepdisk.  After it had descended away from the level, Joseph put his
attention back toward Snively.  "Get cozy, this might take a while."

Snively cowered and sniveled.  "S-sure..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Elsewhere...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The echidna meditated in the Chaos Chamber, where the emeralds were
kept from harm from the various forces on Mobius who seeked to acquire
them.  They also kept the Floating Island, where the Chamber was located,
bobbing highly above the waves, and safely away from the patches of land
that each side currently possessed.

Knuckles was in the traditional full lotus position, which he had been
taught by his father, and who was taught to him by his grandfather, and
so on and so forth.  His mind was clear of all thoughts, while his
body continued to draw in spiritual energy for the upcoming struggle...
the war that had been fortold in echidna lore, which would decide the
fate of Mobius for eternity.

The legends say that many champions would rise to the challenge of the
forces of evil, and many others would be vanquished.  Some would come
from far away, others from nearby.  Land, air, and sea would forge their
warriors to fight the foreign host, with the knowledge that their failure
would mean the destruction of all life on this world, and untold damage
throughout the universe.

The legends also say that one warrior would rise from the dust of a great
explosion...one who would have the speed of the wind, the might of the
sun, and the soul of a hero.  He would be able to cut down the legions
of war machines the enemy would disgorge, be able to harness the four
powers of nature to smite the foe, and rise above the clouds to protect
the world forever.

The form of this hero was still unclear.  Some said he would be a mighty
bear from the northern lands, trained in the ancient schools of
fighting by the great warriors.  Others said a raccoon, skilled in the
ways of weapons, would be the champion.  Several said a eagle from the
jungles of Mobius, a psychic, would defeat the enemy.  And one vision
that an ancient echidna saw in the far past said an echidna would be
victorious over all.  But, no matter who was the true champion, a name
had been chosen by the Elders to show this individual's might to not only
Mobius, but to the universe...the "Solaris" would be the champion's
name after his or her victory over the evil, and would be sung of for
generations...

But the name was not important to Knuckles.  What concerned him was that
all the visions shared a common theme...the power of the Emeralds
would be called upon by the champion to defeat the forces of evil.  Without
their combined powers, he would be helpless against the onslaught, and
Mobius would be doomed.  This is why Knuckles was meditating within the
cave of Chaos, in order to become one with the knowledge and powers of
the Emeralds, so he could understand what his role would be.

For weeks he had sat like that, not eating or drinking...letting the
warmth and power of the Chaos Emeralds nourish him physically and
mentally.  Yet, no visions had come yet...which must mean it was yet
too early for the Emeralds to offer any advice to their appointed
defender.

So, Knuckles would continue to sit there, meditating silently, until the
great vision finally came.  He knew it would occur soon...he sensed the
growing unrest within the Master Chaos Emerald...like something large
and evil was drawing nearer...every second getting closer...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And the ship did draw closer, looming ever-nearer to Mobius.  It crept
along its path with agonizing slowness, lurking just out of eyesight
of any interested sensors on the planet's surface.  The huge vessel
could have overtaken the planet hundreds of times over, yet it continued
to pulse along at a mere lurch, barely covering enough ground to keep
from having the appearance of non-movement.

But, on the ship, a certain displaced human was fawning over this ship's
seemingly hyperadvanced technology...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Robotnik gently caressed the instrument panel with his steely hand,
gazing at its brilliant design and sheer computational power.  "This
ship is a work of genius!  It must have taken generations to achieve
such a level of technological advancement!"

John smiled darkly.  "Well, it did take a few hundred years of driving
our scientists hard and long to get this advanced..."  However, his
expression flickered slightly.  "But we've hit a plateau for the
time being."

Robotnik barely noticed the fox's tone changing, too engrossed in the
blazing speed of the instruments.  "Is it all intergrated into the ship's
main computer?"

"Naturally," the fox articulated, "but why do you ask?"

Robotnik looked up at him, smiling evilly.  "I want to learn about it all."

John chuckled.  "I hope you've got lots of time, old sport.  We've
got a lot of data available here."

Robotnik tweaked his moustache slightly.  He noticed that it needed a light
trim.  "I have as long as you do, friend...but I wish to make an effort
to learn of your fascinating tech."

John shrugged.  "Very well...you will be supplied with all you need to know.
But don't you wish to rest, first?"

"There is more than enough time to rest later...time, and knowledge, waits
for no man."

John smiled.  "Alright.  The computer terminal in your quarters should be
sufficient regarding your needs."

Robotnik smiled, his voice taking on that property it often possessed when
learning of imminent victory.  "Excellent.  May I see them now?"

"Of course.  We've got much to accomplish up here, anyway.  However, if
you need anything, feel free to summon me."  John smiled again.  "I'm
always there for my friends."

Robotnik got up from his seat.  "As I appreciate, friend.  I still haven't
been able to thank you and your men enough for saving my life."

John rubbed his chin.  "Oh, you'll have plenty of opportunity to thank us...
later.  Right now, please partake of our generosity."

Robotnik nodded, heading off toward the door.  "I'll be in touch with you
later this...cycle, is it?"

He smiled.  "Megacycle."

"Ah.  Well, I'll be in touch."

John sat back in his chair, saluted loosely, and waved Robotnik off to his
quarters.  A few minutes after he left, John casually locked the door,
and informed the computer not to allow any further callers for at least an
hour.  Then, he activated a switch on the wall, which dimmed the windows
and raised a sort of noise-blocking shield around the entire room.

He smiled.  Ahh, the sounds of silence.  Now nobody could disturb him
while he enjoyed his new...hobby.

He triggered another toggle on the wall, which caused a section of hull
on the far side of the room to fade...revealing a secret passageway that
led deep into the ship.  He casually walked into it, sealing it behind
him after he had gotten all the way inside.

John walked for a while, eventually reaching a small room inside the
ship that might have been better described as a "closet".  In it,
several ancient-looking papers and tapistries lined the walls, with
a large rug on the ground.  Candles that seemed to never burn down lit
the room, rather than the usual glowing wallpanels that sufficed for the
rest of the ship.

The rug on the floor of the room had a five-pointed "star" woven into it,
in a strange sort of semi-translucent thread.  In the center of this
"star", the supreme leader of the remains of the Imperial Ur'thaen
Space Armada, "Soulless" Jhohn X'aeon-nai, entered the full lotus position.

John, unknown to his many crewmates and friends, had been a pracitioner
of the forbidden mystical arts during his tenure with the Navy while
Ur'thae had been mighty, and the powers he had developed had won him
many a secret victory.  His line had been one of mages and witches
before the time of "citizen adjustment", and despite the best efforts
of genetic engineers, they could not weed out the inclination for
magic out of the people.

He had taken up the arts when he learned of the powers and influence
that magic had over the people of Ur'thae during the Black Ages,
before Bahb and Jhosesophae G'brogfran had united the people under
the banner of "Science, Strength, and Stealth" which hung ofter the
defunct Ur'thaen Empire for centuries.  This had been during one of
the few losing campaigns the Ur'thaens were forced to admit "stalemate"
on, over that of the possessions of the Keldy'rians.

His meditation was temporarily disrupted when he thought of this, anger
pulsing in his veins.  It was supposed to have been a "cake" op!  All the
Ur'thaens were interested in were a few mining operations on a measly
planet far from the core section of the Keldy'rian territory.  They had
no need to interfere with the other holdings of their empire, being
occupied at the time on several other fronts.

But it had not been a "cake" op.  In fact, it had been a humiliating defeat
that stung in the eyes of the entire remaining populace of Ur'thaens even
3 ultracycles after it had occurred.  The "Armaggedon", as well as the
battleships "Vixen's Honor" and "Berzerker" flew into the system
fully loaded with more than enough fighters, plasma torpedoes, and
certainly enough firepower to crush any resistance that the small moon
and the insignifigant planet could produce.

All went normally for the first twelve megacycles, John recalled ruefully.
The ships roared into the planet's orbit, dispatched fighters to cut the
communications lines between the moons and the planet, and sent enough
fire down from the sky to be sure any possible threat was quickly
dispatched.  Such an offensive was referred to in texts as "blazes";
a type of offensive operation that occurred so quickly as to knock
the target unconscious, take all that was needed, and run off with it
before any resistance could be raised.  Sure, it wasn't fun for the
bloodthirsty John...he didn't get to torture or even interrogate a
single person.  But it got the job done.

That is, all until the twelth hour, where two Keldii ships appeared out
of hyperspace.

At first, the crew could only laugh at the pathetic counter to their
blows.  Two medium-sized ships, appearently only lightly armed, coming
to face down a planet reaper and two destroyers?  Ludicrous!  A mere
wing of fighters could take them out within minutes...so they thought.

The wing flew out toward the ships, their weapons blazing.  As would have
been expected, the first few moments of the attack were relatively
ineffective on the Keld'yrian ships, since most fighters carry only
midrange projection weapons.  However, the minutes continued to roll
by, and the shields of the ships barely lost a bit of energy.  Meanwhile,
their gunners were picking off the fighters like fish in a barrel.

Fuming, the "Vixen's Honor" decided to step into the fray.  Disgorging
all of their fighters, and blasting at both ships with the main guns,
they made an awesome sight in their attacks on the Keldy'rian ships.
However, even the might of the "Vixen's Honor" was outmatched by the
two ships, weakening the shields of the vessels while its hull was being
torn apart by the guns of the invincible ships.  The fate of the fighters,
he cursed, was far more awful.

Finally, the "Armaggedon" and "Berzerker" ceased all attacks on the
planet and moon, letting the Keldii ships have it with all of their
gusto.  The two ships railed on the stoic vessels, being blasted with
the Keldii guns while the "Vixen's Honor" desperately tried to keep
from being ripped to shreds by its own internal damages.

The battle raged for only an hour, as the Ur'thaen ships played a game
of cat-and-mouse with the Keldii vessels, trying to find a weak spot
in their defenses while also attempting to avoid their own destruction.
By about the halfway point during their struggle, the "Vixen's Honor"
honorably self-destructed, refusing to be captured by the Keldii as
a trophy.  This valiant self-sacrifice drove the two remaining
destroyers harder, using everything they had to try to destroy the
obviously enchanted ships.

Finally, the "Berzerker" began to succumb to the continual blasts of the
Keldii vessels, and the "Armaggedon" was quickly running low on its
plasma torpedoes.  Deciding to take a prudent retreat, he cursed,
they flew away from the planet empty-handed, with less comrades to
honor the Head Vixen than before.

His fists clenched tight.  Since that awful loss, he had sworn to seek
revenge on the Keldii in the name of his fallen brothers, using any
and every means necessary to destroy them all.  They would pay, and
pay extrorbitantly, for their accursed victory over the Ur'thaens.
He had used spies to steal their information about their ships.  He
learned of the might of Ur'thaen magic, and used all of the resources
available to him to acquire as many magical artifacts and texts as were
left surviving on the homeworld.  He studied their physical forms,
patching himself and his crew with Orange genes after the homeworld
died in order to improve their brainpower.

Yes, they would pay.  And Mobius would be the final cornerstone in his
plan for his revenge on the Keldii...and the universe!

He calmed himself, breathing deeply to calm down.  John's rage had
to be stored, and transferred to something more useful...like power.
John closed his eyes, resuming his old meditation pattern and clearing
his mind.  His revenge would have to wait a few minutes...magic comes
with difficulty to an uncentered mind, he remembered, and prepared
himself mentally and physically for what was to come.

The tall, red-orange fox sat in the full lotus position for a few minutes
before something began to change within the room.  The candles flickered,
and a strange sort of wind began to swirl around the cross-legged vulpine.
A few moments more passed, and the figure began to glow with a reddish
hue...the color seemed to taint the mysterious crosswind that surrounded
the figure, making a reddish swirling fog that began to partially obscure
the still-meditating fox.

More time passed, with even more surprising results.  The fox began to
bob above the ground; at first, slightly, but then higher and higher.
Eventually, he was drifting in the center of the room, deep within
a mystical trance.  The occasional reddish bolt of electrical energy
cracked across him after he had been floating for a few moments, yet
he appeared not to be disturbed.

A few hours passed, and eventually things began to calm down.  The
plasma bolts started to cease, his levitation began to ebb down to the
point where he was once again sitting firmly on the ground, the reddish
glow died down to nothing, and the wind faded to nothing but a hint of
fresh air.  A minute or so later, the fox opened his eyes, took himself
out of the full lotus position, and stood.

He walked over to the corner of the room, where a small, crystalline sphere
was sitting within a small golden cup.  He carefully removed it from its
holster, and held it firmly in the palm of his hand.  Gripping it with
his left paw, he began to look into it with an intense look of focused
concentration.  At first, it stayed determinedly clear.  Then, after a
few moments, it flickered a light pink for a half-second, and then dropped
down to clear.  A stronger pink, and then clear.  Red-pink, clear.  Pinkish
red, then back to a clear.  Light red, but it cleared slower than before.
A stronger red, and a weaker clear.  A mid-range red, clear.  A deep red,
and an extremely weak clear.  Then, when it hit a very deep, bright red,
it only fluxuated to pink for a moment, and then maintained that color
for a few moments.

John smiled.  His powers were increasing daily.  Soon, it would be strong
enough to destroy any defender of the Chaos Emeralds that Mobius could
produce...and then, the universe would be his!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra walked through the many corridors of the Dome, thinking about
what Joseph had showed her.  If what was contained in the small computer
was true, Mobius was in great danger from a foe that might be nearly
invincible.  After all, the technology in the mere palmtop seemed to
amaze Joseph with its speed and intelligence, which was not a good sign.

He had given her three options, some of which she though were more
preferable than others...the idea about using the Keld'yrians as
a sort of protection seemed to Sandra to be the best.  Yet, she
considered the other two options just as vigorously.  They could
easily hitch a ride on the ship itself, Joseph had told her...perhaps
they would be famous there.  Joseph would be with his own people again,
and might possibly become a powerful fox there.  However, she considered
how the Ur'thaens were going to destroy Mobius, and immediately scrapped
that idea.  Joseph was better than them, anyway.

That left her with a quite interesting option...leaving Mobius entirely
in favor of another, totally different, world.  They could explore the
universe, live off the fat of the cosmos, and generally escape all the
things of sentinent beings.  The beauty of the galaxy had been seen
by her only in small snippets so far, mostly through casual observation
of the still-operating orbital telescope that drifted vagrantly around
Mobius.  Bahb had hacked into it during a slow afternoon, and often used
the powerful device to scan around the universal disc.

The nebulae, twin suns, and other strange and awesome phenomenae seemed
to call to the typically earth-bound Sandra.  Their beauty had been
underscored in her schooling by the primitive equipment that was available
to her and her peers.  But using the tools that scientists used to explore
the universe, Sandra found herself drawn to these mysterious stars, which
had given her a mate and a warm place to live.

She smiled, thinking about him again.  What would make him the happiest,
and what would be best for them both?  It was such a hard choice.
Certainly leaving Mobius on a craft of their own was the safest for
them both...they could escape the potential destruction of Mobius, as
well as the reprocussions that might occur against the _Apocolypse_.
However, boarding the ship gave them the potential to possess power
within a rising galactic force...for evil.  No, she could not allow
it; her few moral barriers overruled her desire for power and influence.
That left the wild card of the Keldy'rian fleet coming to save Mobius.
Sandra pondered this carefully.  They might be able to defeat the
juggernaut of the Ur'thaens, but the Ur'thaens appeared to have upgraded
their abilities over the last 300 years.  They might have overtaken
the technological abilities of the Keldii.  Or it could be the other
way around.  She had no way of knowing, seeing that she was not a
scientist, nor a intergalactic military buff.

She paced around a bit more.  Her elimination of choices left her only
two options; fleeing, or calling in an alien reserve.  Perhaps both
could be used in tandem.  They could tell the Keldy'rians that the
_Apocolypse_ was coming, and then get the hell out of the solar system
until the whole thing blew over.  She paused, thinking it out more
carefully.  Yes, that would be best for them, and helpful to Mobius
itself...they could give them enough warning to attack the Ur'thaen
ship, and still be able to escape the consequences if they failed...!

Then, a thought crossed her mind that disturbed her more and more.  What
if, she mused, Joseph actually wanted to help his people?  After all,
the ship probably carried enough Ur'thaens to start a new homeworld
somewhere, if not an entirely new empire.  He missed them greatly,
by the look he always got in his eyes when he spoke of them.  Of course,
she also knew what Joseph learned from the Keld'yrian archives about
the "uncensored" exploits of his people in intergalactic affairs
ashamed him, and made him very unhappy for several days afterward
when he spoke of it.  He might just miss his father, which was an
understandable feeling...but he also might want to rebuild his
people into something "better", which might just start with the
sale of Mobius' water and land to the highest bidder.

However, he *had* said that it was her choice.  If he was so willing to
leave their fates up to her whims, perhaps he wasn't as attached to them
as she thought he was.  That, or maybe *he* couldn't decide what he wanted
to do, either.  She had no idea what his true motives were any longer...
at first, all he cared about was healing Mobius and finishing the
deroboticizer.  But now, with the revelation of the palmtop computer
and Snively's confessions, his plans had drastically altered.
Now all he was concerned about was her, and himself.  All the rest of the
universe, he seemed to say to her, could go to hell.

Another sign of his love, she said to herself, and quite a strong one.
He was willing to sacrifice all that he had made here, all of his friends,
and the entire planet of Mobius; for her alone.  Nobody else could have
done this to him, which made quite a firm impression on her.  He could
easily fly off into the night at any time, help his Ur'thaen brothers,
fight them with the Keldy'rians, or screw both sides and attempt to take
over the planet himself.  But he still continued to content himself
with the status quo, just because he had to think about her first.

She finally got tired of pacing, and sat down on a box heavily.  Her
own heart told her that Mobius was just as important as herself and
Joseph, but her mind said to only consider herself.  The fates of
countless millions rested in her hands...what should she do?  Let
Mobius burn?  Ride with the conquering host?  Fight with the ships
of the Keld'yr?  Run away into the night?

She put her head in her hands, and cried softly.  She didn't know what
to do...she wished someone could help her...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Robotnik began scanning through the computer's database in his quarters,
looking for the most valuable parts of the various design schematics
and descriptions.  A helpful translator device that had been implanted
in his brain allowed him to read the language that the various things
were described with, while also allowing him to speak the language.

He extended a datajack from his roboticized arm, and stuck it into a
small port on the front of the device.  This would be quite simple,
he thought to himself.  He could acquire as much as the Ur'thaen
technology as was physically possible during his stay here, get
all of his plans reorganized, and then wait for the inevitable
counterattack on the _Apocolypse_...then, he would put his master
plan into motion.

He smiled, beginning the download.  Oh yes, he thought, this would be
absolutely flawless.  The cake would be acquired, and eaten as well...







			Chapter Thirteen - Verdict



The steppad went up silently, high into the upper regions of the Dome.
On it, stood a mentally frazzled and rather unhappy-looking vixen.
She was known to many as Sandra Nightweaver, the legendary thief, spy,
and (insultingly) golddigging seductress.  However, to those who
knew her well (namely, Joseph), she was just another female, who needed
love and attention like anyone else...

Tonight, however, Sandra just wanted someone to make a challenging
decision for her...a decision that could affect the lives of millions
and millions of people.  Alas, Sandra had been forced to make this
decision by several twists of fate that led her into the arms of
Joseph; into the shadowy labrynth of his secrets and desires; into
the sphere of knowledge that understood the terror that loomed
just a small distance away...in the inky void of space.

It was three in the morning when she realized that she had been wandering
alone through Joseph's fortress-home for the past four and a half hours.
Well, that wasn't entirely true...Bahb finally asked her what she
was doing going through the countless rooms and corridors that weaved
their way through the underground complex.

"I am thinking," she wearily said, "so leave me alone."

Being an obedient computer, Bahb did so.  Yet, it continued to watch
Sandra's wanderings through the Dome, not privy to her thoughts or
feelings; aside from the tired and frightened look on her face, it
had no inkling of the turmoil in her mind...

She slipped through level one, pacing through the various recreational
facilities it contained quietly as she could.  It was a difficult thing
for her to grasp...that something as large and as stable as Mobius,
her home and her entire peer group's home, could be easily dashed to
ashes by a spaceship.  It was something that made her stomach boil and
her normally dead-still hands to quiver.

She knew that they had time.  The spaceship, for whatever reason, was
going to wait another year to strike.  They could easily pack up and
leave by then, and be settled on another planet before the first wave
hit...yet...something ancient and primal within her made her grimace
at the thought of abandoning her homeworld.  Did Joseph feel like this,
she wondered, when he had to leave his father to his blazing demise?
Probably...but less for his world, which had already been mostly ruined,
than for his father.

Sandra had few ties to any "family".  Her father had left early in her
life, and her mother and herself never got along.  She'd left home
immediately upon graduating from high school, and never saw her
mother ever since.  She had no feelings for the woman left, despite
a vague attempt on her part to bring any up.  She paused for a
moment to ponder her fate.  Packbell or Robotnik had probably
roboticized or killed her by now...yet, she still didn't seem to care.
In Sandra's opinion, she was better off dead.  No siblings or extended
family members to worry about, either, and no real friends...besides
her mate, Joseph.

She started pacing again.  She had no ties to this world by blood or
love, so why did she want to stay and fight?  Here, she had a
chance to escape to any place, any world, and any galaxy in the entire
universe, but she had this strong desire to remain on the one place
that no person would logically remain.  Damn you, Sandra, this was
no time to develop a conscience!!  Mobius was marked for death,
for whatever reasons the Ur'thaens had, and nothing Joseph or she
could do would stop it.

She went up to the top floor, and started walking in a circular path
around the lower curvature of the Dome itself.  She was becoming
angry at herself for being so attached to this planet.  She felt
a few things could happen to them both which would not be desirable...
for one thing, the _Apocolypse_ could sucessfully decimate this planet,
killing them all.  It could also take Joseph away from her, and have
her killed...or worse.  The Mobians could fight off the _Apocolypse_,
but it might result in Joseph being hurt or killed in the fighting.
The Mobians could also fight off the _Apocolypse_, and just kill
Joseph and herself outright for being treasonous.

Sandra's eyes watered when she thought of Joseph being hurt or killed,
even more so than the thought of her own demise.  Ever since she first
started her unique and dangerous trade, she knew that her life expectency
would not be extremely high.  The thought of ever having a family or a
steady mate had almost totally left her mind before she met Joseph,
but now those things could be available to her.  She could have his
children...she could be his mate for eternity, with kits to love and
teach, and have a normal life.  But if anything was to ever happen to
him...she didn't know how she'd take it.  She'd grown rather attached
to Joseph over the last few months she'd lived with him, and learned
of his great mind and heart...he could provide for her, protect her
from harm, hand her the knowledge of the universe on a plate...and
could sire their kits.

The thoughts of kits were beginning to fill her mind more and more
as the weeks had gone on, especially as Joseph's biological heat had
recently reached its peak just a few nights ago, and had gradually
began to ebb.  His ability and control were certainly pleasing to her
as well, adding another reason to care about him deeply; but it certainly
was not the *only* reason to.  (Sandra felt that their relationship was
deeper than THAT, despite what the various gossips and old spinsters,
as well as the throngs of jealous fe/males, spat at her.)  Perhaps it
was contagious or something...yet Joseph had kept himself sterile
during that time, for reasons she'd just learned of...

The invasion and the choice, that accursed sword of Damocles, now
lept again to the forefront of her thoughts.  They could always have
kits on some other world, she noted, and Mobius hadn't been the greatest
nursery as of late, anyway.  SWATBots were everywhere, Packbell was still
running around, and there were lots of other things Joseph had saw
developing on the horizon that made Sandra nervous...

But all Mobian threats paled in comparison to the invasion, which
could wipe anything out completely.  They were going to steal all
of Mobius' water, which would be the damnation of the entire planet.
Nothing could survive that; but then the planet ITSELF would be mined
for whatever aliens mine worlds for.  There would be, quite literally,
not a stone left.  If the resistance to their attack failed...

That was the choice Sandra was left with, and that was had kept
her up into three in the morning.  Would she bet on the Keld'yrian/Mobian
resistance to this ship, or would she choose to fold rather than lose?
There could be no middle ground, despite what Joseph had told her when he
had stated that option...did he think that an Ur'thaen could hide
anywhere within civilized space after informing on his own people?
Not only would they have to go into hiding from them (if they succeeded),
but the rest of the galaxy would know that he was one of the old school.
By her knowledge of sentinent beings, she knew that a contract would
be put up by somebody to get his head.  The son of a dictator is just
as hated as the dictator himself, she ruminated, thinking about Packbell
and Robotnik's equal levels of hatedness.  Joseph wouldn't stand a chance.

No, running couldn't work at all.  Even if the Mobians won, there would
be knowledge of another Ur'thaen running about in space, but this
time the contracts would probably be at a lower price.  They would
have to go to the most undeveloped, unknown, unexplored parts of space
to hide, and even then they'd be living out of a ship...settling down
in one place would make them a easier target.  Living off the land
of alien worlds, after being so used to the relative luxury of the Dome,
would be no way to raise a family.

That left having total and undeniable faith in the forces of the
Keld'yrians and the Mobian resistance.  She was a bit iffy there,
too.  If Joseph came forward at the right time, told the Keld'yrians
in Haven about what was going to come down, and got Sally informed
at just the right juncture, his butt would be covered.  Then, that
just left the defense of Mobius down to him, and his inventions...
and the combined strength of the Keld'yrians, who Joseph assured
her would help.

Yet, she couldn't help thinking that the _Apocolypse_ might have some
sort of...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

...ace up his sleeve.

Robotnik grinned in a sinister way, which was becoming more and more
common as the days went by.  The masquerade was approaching its climax,
he thought to himself, sorting through his pirated data.  That fool John,
with his greed, would destroy the remainder of his race in his futile
campaign to acquire Mobius.  He underestimated the hedgehog's abilities,
and so he would be foiled again and again, like Robotnik himself had
been...

The thought that Mobius could be taken by the motley crew of the
_Apocolypse_ amused Ivo.  He had learned shortly before he had taken
Mobius of the strange alien "observers" that lurked somewhere near
or on Mobius, and who were watching the world's development to see if
Mobius was "ready" for induction into their "Union".  He had even been
able to see one of their bases, and took one of their power sources
once...but then, the hedgehog and one of the aliens came and destroyed
it.

No matter, Ivo thought.  He had no doubt in his mind, by the analysis of
the composition and weapon systems of the vessel in which he resided,
that these "Keld'yrians" would destroy this ship, and "save" Mobius.
Or so they believed...he allowed himself a quiet chuckle.  All in good
time, you fools, all in good time.

He held the disk in his normal hand, rolling it over and over in his
palm.  With the knowledge contained on this disk, he could upgrade his
remaining weaponry and robots to be able to permanently defeat the
hedgehog, and have the entire planet to himself.  No Ur'thaens to
"buy" the planet from him, no Keld'yrians to interfere, and no
Sonic to defeat him.  Just the way he planned it.

He laughed.  What irony, he mused, in the fact that his "benefactors",
the ones who believed that they would have their final victory over
Mobius and himself, would actually be the catylyst behind Ivo's ultimate
end game.  He would be the last one standing on his world, and would
soon use the technology and power that his foolish Ur'thaen "allies"
went and "gave" to him to destroy his arch-nemesis, while they would
be themselves defeated by the Keld'yrians.  And, after the Ur'thaens
were gone, the Keld'yrians would have to leave...and when they left...

He smacked his hand into his roboticized palm.  End of the hedgehog,
end of the resistance, and the rebirth of that world into "Robius",
the planet of machines.  Cold, clinical, perfect machines, all serving
their creator, Doctor Ivo Robotnik.  No meddlers, no interference, no
challenges to his power.  Perfection.

He looked out of his window.  Victory was near...he could almost see
it within his grasp.  Soon, all of John's plans would come undone, his
ship would be destroyed, and Ivo would stealthily escape just as the
vessel went up in a fireball...and, for a few weeks, he would let the
resistance think they had won...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

o/~ "Robotropolis in the springtime..." o/~

Packbell chuckled at himself.  Robotropolis in the springtime was not
that much different than it was during the other three seasons of the
year; dark, smoky, and dripping with toxins to those of the carbon-based
persuasion.  Yet, it held sort of a decadent aura to it, which was
a bit less dark than usual.  Perhaps it was background psychic radiation
from the rest of Mobius, but Robotropolis only felt (at least, according
to Packbell's general perception of the area) dying, rather than dead.

Of course, it was also helped by his continuing repairs on the city...in
only a precious few months, despite what the hedgehog and his friends
did on a semi-daily basis, Robotropolis would soon be operating much as
it did a few months before Robotnik's failed "Doomsday" project.  However,
the city would be far more efficient: only the necessities would be
operating, at first, and then the other "comforts" would be constructed
for the benefit of the Buyers.

He flipped boredly through the control room's monitor system, looking for
something interesting to watch.  The hedgehog's most recent attack had
been foiled, unfortunately with only slight injuries to the miserable
rodent.  However, Packbell knew that Sonic would go off to heal for a
few days before attacking again, so he could relax his defenses slightly.
The SWATBots were more useful with keeping the city operating normally,
anyway...he was running dangerously low on Worker-Bots, and he'd began to
notice new and oddly familiar Freedom Fighters running around.  All of
his offensive operations had to be cancelled in order to keep Robotropolis
secure...and he was also rapidly losing ground to their continuing advances.

He snarled.  He didn't know how, or who, or why, but someone had to have
finally figured out the deroboticization process.  It must have taken
a genius to figure it out, or someone who was familiar...Sir Charles.
Of course, Packbell mused, Sir Charles must have figured it out.  He
invented it, after all, and he'd been the first one to escape after
Doomsday.  Damn.  Now Packbell's life had gotten far more complex...
the asking price on this planet was just falling through the floor,
right before his eyes.  If the Buyers didn't hurry up and close the
deal, he'd have nothing to sell to them; Sonic would take it from him,
and then who knew what sort of crazy thing he'd do.

He leaned back hard in his chair.  What else could possibly go--

Someone entered the room from behind him.  "Knock knock."

Dammit.  "Hello, Jack."

"I see that you've suffered even more losses."

"Yes, Jack."

"Obviously, you're either excessively incompetent, or that hedgehog is
far more than what Ivo and his nephew told me about."

Packbell generated a sigh.  "I fear that I'm going to get a signifigantly
lower price for this planet."

The voice moved to a terminal, accessed the audit file, and examined it.
"Probably...we won't be ready to buy this world until your next winter
solstice."  He paused.  "Just try to maintain some ground, okay?  I'll
be back in a few months."  Mumbling, the voice left.

Packbell spent the next few hours sulking.  His life was also rapidly
declining in quality.  What else could happen?  What else?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, in the electronic ether that Bahb "existed" in, things were
also becoming rapidly different.  The information taken from the
portable computer had been used to upgrade the present configuration
of the intelligent computer, and would probably move back the
final deroboticizer completion date by several months.

However, some other information that it had seen concerned it immensely.
It concluded that the destruction of Mobius would not be an acceptable
scenerio, especially for its own continued survival.  It was far too
decompressed now to be easily compressed or transported, and it had
began to like its surroundings now.  Mobius was a "beautiful" place,
and "beauty" should be protected with much zealotry.  There were
also sentinent lifeforms here which Bahb "cared" about, and made
its escape with its "loved ones" also far more challenging.

How could it protect Mobius, itself, and its "loved ones" without
exceeding its own directives?  Attacking the ship's computer would
be futile...not only would it be easily repelled by the naturally
defensive warship's computers, but it would also alert the computer there
of a possible threat.  One plasma torpedo and some phaser blasts, and it
would be permanently off-line.  It had no way of making a counterforce
to repel the invaders, aside from a few hundred outdated attack robots
that would be easily cut down by the advanced ships.  It couldn't hide
Mobius from the ship using a reflected cloak...not only did it not have
the option of dipping into the main power crystal (which might have enough),
but it also would destroy Mobius' ozone layer.  The ship could probably
triangulate its coordinates if it was cloaked, anyway.  Moving the
planet would be a "bad option".  Carbon-based lifeforms require heat
from the sun, and photosynthesis also required a sufficent star.
Calling for help was not an option because not only was it not allowed
to make contact with other planets, but it would probably only complicate
matters further.  Self-termination wouldn't help anyone.

It thought on this for several cycles, taking a whole minute to deduce
its new, ingenius plan...yes, it could do *something* useful, and still
remain safely within its directives.  Self-preservation could be humored,
as well as the advancement of Mobian offensive and defensive strategy.
It would take sacrifice on its part, as well as some clever rerouting
of energy and physical resources, but it could be done...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, elsewhere on Mobius...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bookshire checked Tails' chart, and leafed through some things on his
clipboard.  "You're healing nicely, Tails.  I'm glad to see that you've
been following my advice."

Tails smiled weakly, drinking some orange juice.  "How long will it be,
doc?"

Bookshire thought for a moment.  "Another month, at the most.  It's a
good thing you're young still, Tails.  An older fox would have been
in traction all the way until autumn."  He smiled.  "But I have
faith that you'll be just fine."

Tails glanced up at Bookshire.  "Do you really think so?"

Bookshire nodded.  "You're a tough kit."

He smirked.  "Of course I am."

Chuckling, Bookshire patted Tails on the head.  "And you tough guys need
your rest...so go back to sleep, Tails.  We'll talk later."

Tails closed his eyes.  "Okay, doc, okay..."  Within a few moments, the
young fox drifted off to sleep, dreaming about flying over the ocean blue...

After Tails had been safely asleep for a few minutes, Bookshire walked
silently out of the room, shut the door firmly behind him, and walked
out to the waiting room.  Within the waiting room, Sally was sitting
patiently, somewhat anxious about Tails' condition.

She stood when Bookshire entered.  "How is he doing, Bookshire?"

Bookshire rubbed his chin.  "Better than expected.  He's doing everything
I want him to do, and his body is young and strong.  I wouldn't expect
him to be here for more than another month."

Sally bit her lip a little.  "Well, that's good...I still feel so bad for
him.  What a way to be laid up...he can't even get out of bed to look out
the window.  It's like he lost all use of his legs."

"Well, just be thankful that's not really the case...at the very worst,
I only detected a lit of nerve damage near the tips of his tails...that's
not much to you or I, seeing that we don't fly with ours..."

Sally looked concerned.  "What are you trying to tell me, Bookshire?"

Bookshire scratched his head.  "Well, Sally, I can't rightly say.  I never
knew how the kit could fly around to begin with.  It's the same thing with
bumblebees; they aren't supposed to be able to fly, but they do anyway.
This might not affect his flight skills, or it might ground him for the
rest of his life.  There's no way to tell."  Before Sally could say anything,
Bookshire put his hand on her shoulder.  "I'm telling you this, so that
you can prepare yourself for any contingency.  I think he'll be able to
fly around after he gets his muscle tone back, but I want to be sure to
notify you of this potential problem."

Sally nodded gravely.  "So you want me to tell--"

Bookshire interrupted.  "Heavens no!"  He quieted down a bit, realizing
a sleeping kit was only a few hundred feet away.  "If you tell him that,
it'll totally undermine his determination to heal.  I've given him
optimistic odds, which probably only slightly retarded his effort to
get well...but it didn't last long, as his progress chart shows."  As
Sally looked it over, he kept talking.  "What I want you to do is support
him, like I know you would have anyway, during the period after I remove
his casts...but you must be sure to display nothing but absolute confidence
that he'll be able to fly again."

Sally smirked unpleasantly.  "Then why did you tell me all that about
the odds...?"

"Because," he said, "it is a doctor's responsibility to tell his patient's
caretaker everything she should know, pleasant or not."

"I'll do my best, Bookshire."

He smiled gently.  "I know you will."

As she was about to leave, Bookshire added one more comment.  "Just one
more thing, Sally..."

"Yes?"

"Have you had the "talk" with the boy yet?"

Sally frowned.  She'd been successful in avoiding it so far, but now she was
cornered into it.  "No."

"Well, he's getting to that age, you know."

"I'll see if I can work it in next time I visit," she spoke quietly,
her mind already gearing up for the internal turmoil that awaited.

"That'd be a good idea," said he, and thus departed back into his
office.  "Good-bye."

Sally stood there for a moment after he left, smoothed her headfur, and
went outside into the sunlight.  She had a feeling that this wasn't going
to be easy, but it had to be done...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"You want me to WHAT?"

Sonic glared at Sally, a bit surprised at her strange request.  She'd
brought him aside after a routine meeting, took him back into her hut,
and sat him down at the kitchen table.  Then, sitting directly across
from him, and looking right into his eyes, she'd said something that
took Sonic totally by surprise.  "Sal, the main hedgehog can do lots
of stuff, but this is just..."

She sighed.  "Sonic, look...I can't do it."

"Whaddya mean?  You've got the smarts to do it."

"Sonic..."

"No way, Sal!  This isn't something I'm cool with."

"But I don't know how to explain it to him, Sonic.  Julayla gave the girls
one sort of "talk", and gave you guys another kind, I assume."

Sonic rubbed his scalp.  "Oh, man...can't someone else do this?"

"Sonic, it's got to be you.  You're the closest thing to a father-figure
that he has...and this IS a father-son talk.  If Tails was a vixen, this
would be different.  However, since Tails is quite obviously male, this
becomes *your* job."

"Can't some other guy do this?  There's got to be some other dude who
can talk better than me."

Sally leaned back.  "Name people, Sonic."

"Rotor.  He's good with explainin' things."

Sally shook her head.  "Rotor's also just a larger kid emotionally, in my
opinion...but you know that I'd never actually say that to him."

Sonic shook his head.  "Nah, that wouldn't be cool."  He thought for a
moment, obviously having some difficulty.  "How about Bookshire?"

Sally thought about this for a moment.  "Under different circumstances,
maybe.  But Bookshire's sort of out-of-touch with colloquial Mobian."

The hedgehog blinked.  "Saywha?"

"The language you and I both use daily, Sonic...the slang and metaphors
that we all use, not to mention the other sort of linquistic quirks most
of us have.  He's a doctor, not a `dude'."

"Okay, how about Joe?  Joe and I got an understandin'."

Sally just looked at Sonic.  "Have you lost your mind?"

"Whaddya mean, have I lost my mind?!  What's wrong with Joe?"

"Well, as much as I have to admire Joseph for his talent and work with
the deroboticizer, he's just...creepy."

Sonic crossed his arms.  "Creepy!  No way!  He's past cool!"

"Sonic..."  Sally stroked back her headfur.  "Look, Joseph picked the
weirdest part of the forest to make a home, has a bunch of roaming
balls that peer in on everyone and seem to `coincidentally' appear
every time something happens, is living with an ex-criminal, and
generally only comes out to run tests on people.  He does weird
and abnormal things all the time.  All sorts of rumors go around
about the guy...he's just not someone I want influencing Tails'
sexual behavior for the rest of his life."

Sonic stubbornly continued to argue in his favor.  "He's smarter than me,
Sal...and, by what he's described, he's probably got a lot more experience
than me or you."

She leaned down on the table, resting her head on the sides of her palms.
"Sonic, look.  I just don't Joseph unintentionally putting his value
system on Tails if he were to explain the birds and the bees to him.
I don't approve of all the things he does, and since I'm Tails' surrogate
mother, what I say goes."  Quickly, she hit upon a stronger patch of
sand to rest her reasoning on.  "Besides, he's not even family!  He's
just some fox who happened to end up on Mobius one day."

Sonic rubbed his scalp.  "Man..."  He thought harder.  "Ant--no, not
in a billion years, I will not let Ant mess up my bro."

Sally leaned back again, and crossed her arms.  "You're the best choice,
Sonic.  Just accept it."

Sonic sighed.  "This is so uncool."

"Look, someone's got to be the hero."

"Yeah, well maybe being the hero isn't as cool as I thought it would be."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, at a different altitude...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Checkmate again, Snively."

They had been playing chess for the past three hours, waiting for Sandra
to return from her travels.  By now, it was a little past daybreak,
but that didn't seem to bother either of them.

"Oh," Snively sneered, "I just let you win."

Joseph leaned back incredulously.  "Uh-huh."  He flicked his wrist at a
right angle to the table, setting a action in motion that reset the board
yet again.  "Best of 25?"

Snively slipped into his game-face.  "You're on, fox."

And so it went on, hour after hour, game after game.  Neither side wished
to surrender, both wanted to win...but, realistically, only Joseph
could stop whenever he wanted to.  However, as daybreak faded into early
morning, both their determinations began to leave them, and the game became
gradually friendlier.

"So, have you been here long?" asked Snively after making a particularly
good defensive move.

"A year or two now." he replied, countering.

Snively looked up at Joseph, looking for something that wasn't there.
"And yet, I've never seen you before..."

Joseph smiled in that disconcerting way.  "Perhaps, perhaps not."

Snively moved a rook.  "You seem to have the advantage, fox...it makes
me wonder."

"Oh?  And what does this `wondering' entail?"

Snively looked at him again.  "Are you one of them?"

Joseph made his move.  "Of their blood, I am.  Of their kind, I am not."

Snively's mind swirled with possibilities.  "But would you help them?"

Joseph answered quicker than expected.  "No."

Snively moved a bishop.  "Why?"

Joseph made a brilliant tactical move with a pawn.  "Because their way
lacks honor.  They attack a world without a king, a world that wars with
itself.  We never attacked weakened prey before; what makes us do it now?"

Snively made note of Joseph's counter.  "And that is your only reason?"

"It is the only one that is honorable."

He made his move, but this one was out of necessity.  "And what would these
others be?"

"What is it to you?"

"Curiousity, mainly..."  Snively smirked.  "After all, I don't expect to
live long after you release me.  It would make my death easier to handle."

Joseph thought for a moment before countering.  "Perhaps later."

Snively made his final move.  "Very well.  Check."

Joseph made a single deft movement with a queen over to the other
side of the board.  "Much later.  Check and mate."

Snively frowned.  "You had that up your sleeve the whole time, didn't you?"

"Of course," Joseph said, resetting the board.  "I want to see how you'd
react...what your strategies were.  After all, just defeating you wouldn't
be prudent...I want to find out how you make the gains you make, and
correct my defensive and offensive errors."

Snively grumbled, yet realized the wisdom of Joseph's overall strategy.
"Bah.  I'll just change my plans."

Joseph smiled.  "Then I'll find a way to defeat it.  Care for another game?"

"No, I tire of chess.  I'd like to rest now...it is obvious that your
bit--"  Snively held his tongue, fearing visiting the inside of Joseph's
roboticizer.  The fox had been calm and rather civil to him so far, he
ruminated, but he was large enough to probably tear a relatively small
human like himself in several pieces.  And if he couldn't, his mate
would.  And if she couldn't, the robots that staffed his home would.
Quickly, he altered the words within his mouth to make the initial `itc'
into a 'e' sound.  "--beau is going to take her time making this
`decision' you gave her."

The fox realized Snively's alleged verbal slip for what it was, but
made no indication of showing a reaction.  "I'd hope so.  The fate of
this mudball is in her hands."

Something about the way he said 'mudball' gave him the feeling that
Joseph could (and quite possibly would) go either way on this issue,
depending on Sandra's response.  This gave him a painfully uncomfortable
stomach-ache.  "R-really...?"

"Yes, it is."

Snively decided that he needed to lay down for a while.  "Well, I'm
getting pretty tired...it must be late."

Joseph checked his chronometer.  "Early, actually.  But I see your
point."  He looked into a patch of blackness.  "Usagi, take our
guest into the brig."

A large robot decloaked from the shadows, gently (but firmly) grabbed
Snively's shoulders, and put him inside a nearby restraining field.
The human didn't bother to resist the large robot, seeing that it
was not only as large as its creator, but had especially deadly
attributes that he didn't wish to see demonstrated.

Snively had seen the robot many times during his short stay inside
this facility that was called the 'Dome'.  It was a tall robot,
almost a half-inch taller than the fox that made it.  Also previously
stated were its quite deadly attributes the fox had installed upon
it; razor-sharp talons, spiked appendages, fangs, a gun-arm, and
most likely other weapons hidden within its body.  However, the
robot was ironically anthropromorphic; like its creator, it was
shaped roughly like a fox.  Perhaps this metallic mangler was some
sort of creative expression, Snively thought, like a sick extension
of his creator's steely soul.

Placed into his corner, he laid down on the crude bed that had been created
for his use, closed his eyes, and slept for the next 20 hours uninterrupted.
His journey from Robotropolis had been rough, and his stay there even
harder.  It was good to be able to sleep somewhere 'safe'...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra sat on top of a box in the storage level, sobbing quietly as her
frazzled mind tried to calm itself and think rationally.  The walking
and the consumption of grain alcohol didn't help, nor did the repeated
attempts to cajole a definitive decision out of Bahb.  The large
artificial intelligence had no comfort, and gave no assistance to
the dark vixen, but did try to give her as much of the facts as it could.

However, facts only made the problem more complex for the hapless Sandra.
She wasn't equipped to decide the fates of millions.  It wasn't something
you learned on the streets, or in a book, or from watching vid.  The
special something that the Princess and the King had that made them
strong enough to make such decisions was sorely lacking in Sandra,
which made her even more unhappy.

What she wanted right now was for Joseph to say something that would force
him to make the decision.  If he made the decision, it would eliminate
her input in the situation, and thus would create a scenerio that would
make her less guilty.  On the other hand, if Joseph made the wrong
choice, not only would it result in the destruction of Mobius, but it
would be HER fault for not making the RIGHT decision in the first place!

A fresh round of sobbing began.  There was no 'good' ending to this.
No hedgehog could defeat a planet-eating spaceship, so that eliminated
the hope of leaving it well enough alone.  Running away was just as
bad...their souls would drown in the blood of Mobius.  Staying might
have them killed by Joseph's people, or killed by the people of Mobius
to avenge any dead.  Fighting could get one or both of them killed, which
certainly wasn't pleasant.

What was the answer!?  What was it?!

She clutched her head and let out a cleansing scream.  This wasn't supposed
to be happening!  People weren't supposed to be able to do this to whole
worlds!  What of the children!?  What of the old and sick!?  What of
them...hadn't they faced enough pain in their lives!?

The scream faded again to sobs and sniffling.  This wasn't fair.  Nobody
should have to make this decision...

A warm paw on her shoulder startled her slightly, but realizing who it was
made her spirits rise.  She didn't even wait for him to say "Hey, you".
Immediately, she spun from her box and embraced the figure who had
given her so much grief.  "Help me..." she gasped, "please..."

Joseph held her close.  "I knew I shouldn't have let you stay for the
interrogation...I could have lied, made up some sort of excuse..."

She clung to him tighter.  "NO!"  Startled at her own ferality, she
attempted to soften her voice.  "It is better that this happens now,
Joseph...better because we have time to do something...anything...to
stop this from hurting us."

He kissed her gently.  "Very well...I can--"

Sandra's mind, frazzled as it was, knew it had to make a decision now.
Would she fight, fly, or die?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The morning air woke Tails from his sleep, and caused him to smile at his
good fortune to be alive on such a wonderfully warm spring day.

He leaned up a little bit and took stock of his surroundings.  They were
still the same four walls he had been put into some time ago to heal
from his injury, but they were filled with various things Tails liked
in order to make him feel more comfortable.  His computer was here,
as well as a few books and some other amusements.

However, the place felt more `alive' and less sterile that morning,
because the temperature was just right, the sky was clear, and the
wind smelled of cherry blossoms and roses.  It was a perfect day to
fly...but the casts were supposed to stay on for a few more weeks.
Yet, Tails refused to let it depress him.  He knew that he would
be allowed to play in the spring air soon enough, and see all of
his friends again, face to face.

A butterfly flitted in the window, and landed on a potted plant that
was nearby Tails' bed.  It was a pretty little thing, and for a few
moments Tails contented himself with mere observation of the insect's
beauty.  After a few moments, tho, it flew off, out of the window and
into the forest, leaving Tails again with only his thoughts.

He checked his watch.  It was about eleven in the morning, which
was almost lunchtime in Knothole.  Sonic would stop by today with
Sally, who would probably fawn over him and generally give him as
much affection as he could possibly tolorate.  He smiled.  Sally
was a good mother to him, but she kept thinking he was just some
helpless kit.  He hoped she'd grow out of that phase soon...it was
starting to become bothersome.

The distant sound of rapidly pounding feet, as well as the typical
booming sounds caused by supersonic motion, signalled Sonic's arrival
nearby.  And, sure enough, he entered with Sally a moment later,
who hugged him until his eyes were about to bug out.

Sonic, however, gave Tails a far more tolorable high-four.  "Hey, Tails!"

He smiled.  "Hello, Sonic.  Hi Aunt Sally."

Sally held him for a moment before brushing back his hair and funny-kissing
him.  "Hello, Tails.  How do you feel?"

"I'm better.  How are you guys doing?"

Sonic did his usual slow, horizontal swipe with his paw, denoting smooth
sailing.  "We're cool.  BucketHead's been quiet lately.  We've only had
to attack 'Buttnikville about 2 times in the past week."

Sally smiled in agreement.  "We hope to finish him off by next winter."

"That's cool.  How's everything else?"

Sonic shrugged.  "Ehh, the usual, bro.  Lots of people are moving, tho.
There'll be lots more villages around by summertime."

Tails grinned again.  "That'll be way past!  I hope I can see them being
put together."

Sally laughed softly.  "Oh, I'm sure you will."

Sonic checked his non-existant watch, a tad more anxious to leave than
usual.  "Well, we should be goin'..."

Sally jabbed Sonic in the ribs.  "No, Sonic, you can stay a little longer.
I can do...uh, it, by myself."

Sonic looked over at Sally pleadingly, but got only a stern glare in
reply.  He then glanced back at Tails.  "Can you excuse me an'
Sal for a minute?  Grown-up stuff."

Tails nodded, and Sonic took Sally out into the hall.

"I can't do it, Sal!" he whisper-shouted.  "It's freaking me too much."

"Sonic, we had this discussion already."

The hedgehog whimpered, which was something hedgehogs tended not to do
much.  "Sally, PLEASE!"

She crossed her arms and turned her back.  "Sonic, this is YOUR
responcibility..."

Sonic groaned.  "Man..."

Then, Sally did something surprising.  She turned around gracefully and
slowly, pulled Sonic further away from the door, and looked into his eyes
with a look that could have melted a diamond.  "If you do this," she
whispered in a way only a woman can, "I'll make it up to you.  I promise."

A tense silence, and then the reluctant but more confident reply of
"Okay" from Sonic.  After he said yes, Sally slowly departed, letting
Sonic enter the door alone, with no Sally to lean on.  Fighting
SWATBots and Robotnik with no power ring, a broken leg, short quills,
and with a gut-ache from eating a bad chili dog, he thought, would
probably be less nervewracking.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bahb took a break from its development of its new project to observe the
hedgehog and fox discussing sex and its various subtopics.  Choosing
to record this moment for historical and personal reasons, it analyzed
how Sonic went about this.  Perhaps, it believed, if Joseph ever had
a kit, this `talk' might be something he would have to do.

Sonic began rather simply by just talking to Tails.  Obviously, the
hedgehog was uncomfortable with this situation, but either personal
responcibility or coersion had him giving the speech to Tails.  So,
it concluded, he wanted to explain this to Tails in the best possible
way.

Sonic slowly moved into the topic with a general verbal prodding of Tails'
basic knowledge of the topic to see what sort of discussion he would have
to give to him.  And, oddly, Tails was a little more prepared that Sonic
had anticipated.  This allowed Sonic to skip ahead to the intermediate
level, which would probably be a little more challenging than the
simplistic question-and-answer period.

The hedgehog was now sweating somewhat from his anxiety.  He used his
hands a lot to get his points across, which Tails seemed to understand
just as well as the verbal communication.  Some of it, it calculated,
was a bit more crude than would have been executed by, say, Sally.
However, it seemed to work well enough for Tails to comprehend it all.

After a few more minutes of speaking, he began to pace a little to work
off some of his nervous tension, yet he kept speaking.  He was obviously
getting to the more complex part of mate-mate relationships, because
even he was beginning to stumble over his own tongue.  Yet, Tails kept
listening attentively, nodded at certain intervals, and asked the
occasional question to keep Sonic moving along on the topic.

Sonic was now occasionally drinking a glass of water while he paced around,
using his free hand to burn off the remaining stress.  He was starting to
settle down a bit, obviously because the actual mechanics of mating were
out of the way.  He was now focusing on the relationship-part of this
`talk', which he felt more at home with.  Tails asked a few more questions
here than he did before, and seemed to be understanding and learning from
his mentor all that he needed to know.

The hedgehog wound up his now 45 minute discussion by answering any
other questions that Tails had left, which were fortunately few.  After
answering these questions, and finishing off his water, he gave his
`little bro' a hug, and departed.  Tails looked like he was enlightened,
yet he had a very slight smirk on his face after his mentor had left the
area at a supersonic speed.  Perhaps the discussion Bookshire had with
him that morning would have had something to do with it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Well, I'm glad *that's* over with."

Sally comforted Sonic, who was sitting rather emotionally drained by the
power ring pool.  "Hey, it sounded like you did pretty good there, Sonic."

Sonic splashed some water on his face.  "Yeah, I pulled it off.  But I was
never so scared in my entire life."

Sally gave Sonic a light squeeze.  "Raising a well-adjusted kit is the
most frightening mission of all, Sonic.  That's what my father used to
say..."

"Well, he was a pretty smart dude, then, because that scared me to death."

Sally smiled wistfully.  "I suppose so."

"Man, I just want to *sleep* for the next week.  I feel like I've ran
all over Mobius a few times now."

Sally giggled.  "Does that mean that you don't want to see my token of
gratitude?"

"No way!"  Sonic calmed himself a bit, noticing Sally's smug look.
"I mean, no way should I keep myself from you.  It'd be cruel."

She laughed.  "What-EVER, Sonic Hedgehog."

"Hey!  No fair taking advantage of a weakened hedgehog!"

Sally walked off smirking, but Sonic ran after her all the way to Knothole.
"Wait!  I didn't mean that I *minded*...!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The decision had been made.

Both of them sat in his control room, much relieved that they had
agreed to do something about this situation.  The tension that had
existed for what seemed like weeks was now lifted, and now all they
had to do would be to put their plan into motion.  It was so
simple, yet so clever...Sandra was glad Joseph had helped her
make the decision, and his soft embrace after they had figured out
their plan allowed her to unwind and think rationally again...

Now the masquerade had to be played to its limit, she thought as Joseph
keyed in the last overview of their plan to Bahb.  There could be
no mistakes in their unravelling of the plot, and the margin of error
was comically small.  Yet, with Joseph's planning and her smooth
manipulation, they could do it.

Joseph punched up a live-action picture of Mobius from space from a
helpful weather satellite, showing an overview of the remaining
settlements on Mobius.  Blue and green lines showed communication
between two points, while the reddish splotches indicated areas
of electrical activity.  Brown showed the pollution, and black spots
showed the areas above which the sattelites that would try to melt
Mobius' icecaps would be located.

Seconds later, Joseph overlayed his plan of offense and defense on top
of the map, showing a simple, yet effective plan of attack that would
preserve Mobius, destroy the invaders, and take back Mobius all in
one fell swoop.  And it would only involve one or two actions on his
part...the rest would be thought to have done by the Mobians themselves.
All the glory would go to the hedgehog, and Joseph and Sandra could
live lives of relative invisibility forever.  As Joseph had said
once, "Check and mate."

There was hope for Mobius, after all.







			Chapter Fourteen - Pawns



A day had passed since she had broken...since she had collapsed in his
arms, begging the fox who had saved her to do so once more from a even
more insidious foe than the cold; he had been asked to save her from a
Damoclesian sword that hung over the entire world from a fraying strand
of her own fur.  And, for the most part, he had started to do just that.

After he had heard what she had asked of him, and he had calmed her,
the tall fox created a scheme to save them all; a plan that not only
defeated the alien host, but conquored the homebound foe, kept both
of them from being executed as traitors, allowed them to step out of
the limelight that was melting Joseph, and gave Mobius a new and more
powerful place in the universe.  Not bad, she thought, for a honest
night of work.

Yet, it was a complex plan, with many variables that could be changed
only slightly before the idea would have to be altered.  Like a snowflake,
the lightest pressure put against any part of it would ruin it all.  But,
if the fates played in their favor, and with some fast-talking and sneaky
deceptions, everyone would be alright.

Besides, she thought to herself, conspiracies can be fun...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knothole was even more busy lately than it had been before.  A greater
number of people were being deroboticized every day, and were being
shipped off with extra deroboticizers to places all over Mobius.  Things
were going exactly as they had planned, and before next spring Mobius
could begin to return to what it once had been.

Sally sat in the town square on that day, unknowing that just two nights
ago the fate of the entire world had been decided by a spy and an alien.
She sat there quietly, as a matter of fact, watching and directing others
on where to go and what to do.  It was, after all, her job to do such
things...she doubted that leaving such a complex procedure as this up
to Sonic would result in a Mobius covered in chili dog stands, rather
than one covered in green and blue...

Snapped out of her thoughts by a confused bluebird, she kept up her post
as a guide and administrator for a few more hours, until she had gotten
the latest load off to another section of Mobius.  Exhausted from her
mental and mildly physical toil, she walked back to her hut, where Sonic
was boredly juggling some pillows.

^L

"Sonic!  Put those back on the sofa!"

He did, in a way...he put the ones in his hands back on the sofa, while he
dropped the ones in orbit on the carpet.  "Okay, I did."  Then, he smiled
in that way Sonic smiled when he wanted to seem too stupid to yell at.

It hadn't worked in a loooooong time with Sally.  "Ooh!" she frowned,
putting her hands on her hips angrily.

He smiled again, laughing a bit while picking up the pillows on the ground.
"What's your prob, Sal?  Don't you like my jugglin'?"

"I *just* cleaned in here yesterday!"

He put them neatly back on the sofa, and then flopped down on it...knocking
them into disarray.  "You did?  The place doesn't look any different."

Sally smirked unpleasantly.  "That's because you're in here, Sonic Hedgehog.
You always seem to redecorate your surroundings in your own special way."

Sonic took a chili dog off a table and stuffed in his mouth.  "Reallyth?"
he mumbled through his full mouth, "Thankth."

As he swollowed, Sally got a bit more annoyed.  "Sonic, you can be such
a total HOG some days!"

Sonic walked into the kitchen, where he fetched and slugged down a glass
of water.  "No, no, Sal...I'm more than just a pig.  I'm a hedge*hog*!"

She crossed her arms, nearly grumbling.  "I couldn't have guessed."

Sonic put up a paw.  "Really, Sal, no need to thank me.  I'm always here
to help."  He smiled, deciding to end the continual banter.  Leaning up
against the wall, he stated, "But enough about me.  Why don't you tell me
all about your day?"

Sally rubbed the side of her head.  "Oh, it was just lovely.  Nothing like
telling a few hundred people how to get to some place I've never seen
with only a map to assist me to give someone hours of fun."

"Well, at least you've gotten it done for the time being."

"Yes, that's true..."  She rubbed her head s'more.  "Oh, my aching brain...
I hope I don't have to do that more than I have to."

Sonic put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.  "You want to be alone, Sal?"

She nodded.  "Yes, Sonic...I really need to relax and get some rest."

Sonic slicked back his quills.  "That's cool...I gotta do some stuff,
anyway."  He headed toward the door.  "I'll be around tomorrow, Sally.
G'nite."

Sally smiled as best she could.  "Yes, Sonic, good night...I'll see you
at breakfast."

As Sonic waved and raced off, Sally felt her headache become stronger.
Out of an instinctive drive to lay down, she did so on the couch that
Sonic had just trashed...lacking any concern at all for what might happen
overnight, she passed out almost as soon as the sun began to set.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jhohn (furthermore referred to phonetically as "John") sat in the command
chair on the craft's bridge, looking out the window toward his quarry.
Still it was just a bluish-green marble, far off in the distance.  Its
three moons appeared to be crumbs knocked randomly about it, drifting
aimlessly in space.  Also in the distance, a few other uninhabited worlds
and the sun of the Mobian system loomed...

However, the leader of the _Apocolypse_ was more concerned with the
only inhabited world that faced him, as well as the mysterious and
wonderous treasure that might await him there...

His quest for the mysterious "Chaos Emeralds" began shortly after his
defeat at the hands of the Keld'yrians, after he was transferred due
to his bravery to the head planet destroyer of the fleet, the
_Apocolypse_...she was still a good ship, after all these years.  But
the ship itself did not lead him to the hunt for the powerful stones
of magical force that had somehow been created on Mobius.  Nay, it
was the research and careful note-taking of the Supreme Scientist,
which one of his lackeys stole one day while on a routine check
of the latest weapon development from the Orange sector.

Apparently, he remembered, the doddering old fool had been meddling
about with the system of time warps and wormholes that existed
naturally within the fabric of the universe, which had been very
throughly mapped by many different races that made up their
galaxy.  He'd been doing it mainly on his vacation time, but had
discovered a world about 300 light-years or so from Ur'thae proper;
a world that had looked ripe for conquest in John's eyes.

However, the old fox didn't see the planet as something the Empire
should meddle with, yet...he wanted to explore it, but just to see
what he could learn.  (He groaned.  Scientists, bah!)  He must have
roamed all around this world, taking notes on a Great War the people
of the world were having, but discovering that something else was
afoot...apparently, the Minister of War for the Northern Continent's
King (Old Julian, he smiled.  There was one member of that inferior human
species that HAD to be part fox...) was out doing a little conquesting of
his own, slowly capturing cities and villages in the southern part of the
world, then making his way east and west, and south, and north...however,
John noted, he didn't get to see what happened at the end of this one-man
war, partially because he didn't care about it, and partially because he
had discovered something much more strange and wonderful...

By his remaining notes, he apparently had begun work on a dimentional
travel system during his more youthful years, but cut it off once he
calculated the amount of power that was needed to operate a proper
interdimentional point-to-point gate system.  It would have been
too incredibly expensive to power even one jump...nay, even one very short
jump through the system he had designed, despite the fact that he
had drawn it up to be incredibly efficient.  Cutting a swath between
one dimention, setting up a field to shoot it through the imaginary
"Void" that the wily codger had assumed existed, and reopening the
incision on a different point in space (and, he mused, possibly time...
for now, he thought, it could wait) was simply too power-consuming.

Yet, he had discovered, six powerful "chaos emeralds" and one "master"
emerald had been rumored to exist on a mysterious "Floating Island"
of some sort, that never seemed to stay in one position for long.
On this island, there was some sort of protector that would keep (and
allegedly had kept) anyone from getting too near to them.  Well,
this had piqued the scientist's interest.  After all, when you tell
an Ur'thaen to not do something, she'll not only do it, but make sure
that she does it better than anyone else ever could.

So, the Supreme Scientist of Ur'thae journeyed to this island, quickly
stunned the enemy defender (Why didn't you save me some time, you senile
old goat, and eliminate the creature?  Scientists!  Bah!), and got to the
stones within a matter of days.  While he was there, he took energy
readings of the stones, the chamber that contained them, and the
main crystal; and, he noted, the power generated by those rocks
could definitely power a point-to-point transport system, and
perhaps even more than that with assistance from conventional
power sources.  Also, he reported that the stones were somewhat
magical in origin, and one of the "instruction manuals" (A magical
text!) explained how one could utilize these stones to achieve almost
infinite power.  (And that was almost a side-note...typical scientist
mentality...)  However, he realized that it would be negative for the
planet's survival to inform the Empire as a whole of his discovery
at that moment, so he hid his documents and notes back on his ship,
mem-wiped the defender, and returned to the homeworld.

Meanwhile, John was learning Ur'thaen magic from various contrabandish
sources, including the "accidental loss" of some valuable books from
museums, personal collections, and archeological digs around the planet.
In fact, he was a fair-to-average sorceror (by his judgement) when his
spies gave him a copy of the old vulpine's notes.  Naturally, he
remembered, he was very intrigued...yet, he too knew that if the rest
of the Empire was informed, the entire planet would be picked over and
stripped before he could even get one handful of sand.  So, John kept
his mouth shut, and the papers hidden in his own computer, until he
had the time to pursue his goal personally.

That goal was finally given the ability to be accomplished when the
cowardly terrorists of the anti-technology sect were able to finally
deteonate the planet, thus fracturing the backbone of the Empire
immediately.  They were out in deep space at the time, so the news had
reached the ship late...it had been a major blow to the psyches and
mental states of the entire crew, and many of them immediately committed
ritual suicide...such a loss.

But, those who remained were as mad as hell.  They felt they *knew* who
was *really* to blame...sure, the anti-tech side was native, but who
would have ENCOURAGED such a thing?  What sort of people would have
given the people of that backwards "nation" the idea that technology,
androidization, imperialism, the ultimate domination of the universe, and
the other great things about the Empire were, in fact, BAD things?

Why, the people of the _Apocolypse_ sneered, the slime-bodied Keldy'rians!

Since then, revenge, hate, and bloodlust had powered the remaining crew's
determination to come back from the ashes, and form a new Empire.  The ones
who were eligble to do so (roughly 50%+ percent of the crew) went over
to android bodies.  A few chose to remain flesh, and put themselves in
cryonic storage for the day when their procreative activities would serve
the Empire's needs.  Others just wished to live out their natural lives
and die, which John had never had a real problem with...the crew was
expendable, after all...it was always that way on a Ur'thaen ship.

But now, John smiled, but now...all of the hate and malice that he
had stored up in his soul, all of his anger and rage, could soon
be amplified through the Chaos Emeralds; and released on Mobius, Keld'yr,
and the universe!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In the ether between the dimentions, where magic reigns over all things,
there were infinite observers watching all the worlds in all infinity of
the universes.  Some of the watchers were benign caretakers of the
worlds they watched, serving as benevolent "gods" to the creatures they
observed.  Others were cruel, tyrannical "demons" who derived pleasure
out of the unpleasant foibles and humiliations the creatures they watched
endured because of their slight, but still effective, interference.

This is why they were called "watchers" rather than "alterers".  The ones
who made the many (who were themselves the many but still were the ones),
in a sort of balance of power between the mortal plane and the immortal
one, limited the abilities of the many "watchers" to that of a light
breeze, or a dim musing in the back of the minds of the creatures that
lived on these worlds.  Yet, they could still change the paths of the
energy of the universe to make things happen their way...it only took
a great deal of effort from several of them combined to start making
things happen.

Mobius was one of these places that was being changed for the "benefit",
"pleasure", or simple mischievous "fun" of these overbeings.  Several
of them were working diligently on the events that would happen around
and on that world in order to get their unknown goal accomplished; and
accomplished "soon", as in within a few "millenium".

However, there was a greater level of "pleasure" being generated by these
beings at this timeframe, for their "goal" was slowly coming to a head.
For "aeons" they had struggled with the rhythms of order, chaos, light
and darkness in order to change the events of that universe to fit some
sort of ultimate "goal", and now, after all of this "time", it would happen
very, very "soon".  They had missed their chance the "first" time, but they
would not miss it "again"...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bahb began the new task given to it without any major complaint.
It took on the task while others were still pending completion; in fact,
it had to keep the continuing the plodding deroboticizer project in the
background, keep the Dome operating, hold the survelliance network
together, occasionally interact with various individuals in Knothole
and in the Dome itself, and divert an ever-growing amount to its personal
"plan".  It, fortunately, didn't slow down the completion of the
deroboticizer software...the second version of the software had been
distributed to Sally a few days ago, with a bit less fanfare than
before.  The timely production of the software, in fact, bought it some
precious time in its struggle against the multitude of tasks that had
been dumped upon it recently.

Yet, it worked quickly and efficently on all the tasks, knowing
that Joseph's latest idea had to be completed in a timely fashion as well.
While it prefered its own idea over his, it knew that its creator would
become angered that it was disobeying his commands in order to pursue its
own personal goals...so, stretching its resources to the limit, it
toiled relentlessly on all of its tasks.

Never before had it worked so hard on so many different projects, and
it was beginning to wear its endurance down.  It would require a new
memory crystal within several months, additional assistance to its
main processor, and a good solid defragmentation.  However, those
things would have to wait until some of its load could be shifted to
a more primitive system...if they couldn't or wouldn't be moved, it
would just have to toil until it began to deteriorate.

75% of its system was still at its digital prime...and falling.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That morning in Knothole was rainy and grey, and was much cooler than it
had been the last few days.  A thunderstorm was coming, they noticed,
but hopefully it would hold off for a few more hours.  After all, they
collectively agreed, they wanted to be sure that they helped the people
who were leaving to other villages cover their things.

That morning, like any other morning that week, had been a day of
some mourning.  The movement away from Knothole for some was the
second greatest move of their lives, next to when they were rescued from
Robotropolis and freed from their metallic servitude.  They would be
leaving their friends and family, the ones who they felt they needed
the most, in favor of resettling themselves in a foreign and frightening
place.  They cried and hugged their loved ones, and promised to keep
in touch however they could.  Yet, despite their yerning to stay, they
knew that they had to leave...Knothole could not be found by Packbell,
not this late in the game.  It was for Mobius they moved, but they left
their hearts, minds, and thoughts behind with the young and strong who
remained...

Today, however, a meeting was going on between the leaders of Knothole,
not to mention two special guests, to decide where to move the next
batch of deroboticized citizens after they were again flesh and bone.
It would be a challenging decision, indeed, and one that evoked very
powerful emotions from some.  However, with the amount of wisdom, logic,
and straightforward thought from the leaders of the settlement, something
agreeable to all could be hammered out.

* * *

In the hut where the majority of the decisions were made, specifically
around the kitchen table, the home of Sally was yet again rattled
by the sounds of heated discussion.  Around the table sat Sally, Sonic,
Sir Charles, Antoine, Rotor, Bunnie, Bookshire, and Tails.  Sitting on
the counter (much to Sally's chagrin) was Sandra Nightweaver, and leaning
against the wall, smoking out the window, was Joseph.

Sonic was quietly thinking, which was a rare event to observe.  Meanwhile,
Antoine was rattling on to Rotor about the benefits of settling another
village within the eastern edge of the Great Forest, and Rotor was going
on and on about sending more people over the Western sea to a cooler
climate.  Bunnie was quietly speaking with Bookshire about the pros and
cons of making an underground warren, while the raccoon made note of
perhaps going around Robotropolis and heading down to the Southern
Continent to settle.

However, Sandra and Joseph seemed to not be paying much attention to
what was going on around them; Sandra was busy having another
cinnamon-raisen bagel, while Joseph was, as previously noted,
smoking out the window.  However, unknown to the debating group at the
table, Sandra and Joseph were actually listening quite intently to
the discussion, and were waiting to interject at just the right moment.

Sally, after a long time, finally spoke up, effectively silencing the
room.  "Well, I think if we move them against the Grey Mountains, and if we
instruct them to start repairing the mountain path that goes through
them to the steppes of the upper north, we'll eventually be able to
fill out the areas above Robotropolis before the next spring comes."

Antoine agreed automatically.  "Ze princess eez right...however, I
still believe zat zee Great Forest eez, howyousay, a good place to
be starting?"

"Yeah, Antoine," said Rotor, "but it's not a real good idea, in MY
opinion, to put a lot of people all in one place...especially
near Robotropolis."

Bunnie nodded, but then got an idea into her head.  "Rotor's got a
poin', but Ah think that if we made somethin' undergroun', like a
warren or like that Underground Village that Ari came from, that
we could put it in the Forest okay."

Rotor shook his head.  "No, it'd be too risky.  Besides, it's better
for people to be around water and air, anyway."

Charles spoke up after a bit, quieting people down again.  "Well,
I don't know about the rest of you kids, but I think that the best
mode of action is to get everyone headed west, away from the Dark
Mountains, Knothole, and Robotropolis.  It's practically deserted,
and the Great Unknown doesn't get as hot and impassable there."

Sonic was still silent.  This sort of sit-down thing wasn't quite
his cup of tea.  Tails, however, was a bit more talkative.  "Aunt
Sally's idea sounds good."

Most of them ignored him, continuing on about their various ideas
while continuing to kick around Sally's.  This went on for about another
five minutes, and probably would have gone on for five more if Joseph
hadn't done something unusual...he finished his cigar, flicked it out into
a puddle, and turned around.  Then, he walked right over to the table,
crouched down right by Sonic, and whimsically put his elbows on the flat
surface, resting his head in his hands.

"Would you like to know my thoughts on the subject?"

Sonic looked up.  "Go ahead, bro.  I don't have any ideas."

"Well," Joseph noted, "I think if you pushed everyone on *top* of the Grey
Mountains, and dug a village out from the caves and stone, you'd not
only be safe from Packbell, but you'd also clear a path halfway over
doing it...from there, you could start clearing the path down the
other side, and give future groups more places to expand to."

Sally thought about this for a moment.  "Joseph, I don't know...it seems
really risky.  What if there was a cave-in, or something happened to them?
We'd never know what happened in time."

Joseph rubbed his chin.  "Get David to rig up a portable subspace
transciever.  Not only is it fast and clear, but Packbell doesn't have
the technology to intercept communications with it.  You might want
to give it to some of the other villages, too."

Sally smiled.  "That's a pretty neat idea, Joseph.  Thank you."

"No problem."  He then looked over to Sandra.  "Hey, darling," he said,
(which caused several males in the room to smirk), "you know this
planet better than I do.  Where else could Sally shove some of the
`riff-raff'?"

She sipped some coffee, looked at Joseph for a moment, and thought.
"There's lots of places on Mobius which Packbell'd never find on his
own...the Crystal Caves, Ironlock, parts of the Great Swamp, little
islands off the western coast..."

Sally took down the names Sandra recited.  "We'll keep those in mind."

Joseph scratched his head.  "I'm sure I could think up some others...
however, I think what Charles said about heading west is a good plan,
too.  You just need to be careful when you travel."

Everyone agreed on that point.  "Yeah man," Sonic said, "SWATButts are
everywhere around here nowadays.  A hedgehog can barely throw a stone
without hittin' one."

Sally nodded.  "Quite true, Sonic...Packbell must feel up against the
wall now...I wonder if he's figured out that we can undo what he does
now."

"I'd bet on that," Charles said, "that Packbell's a bad one...smart, but
very bad.  I think he's worse than Robotnik ever was."

Sandra nodded.  "He's definitely one to watch out for."

Sally smiled.  "Well, Joseph, Sandra, it's nice to hear your input about
this sort of thing.  We figured you guys were pretty apathetic about
domestic policy."

Joseph smiled, leaning back a bit in his chair.  "Your planet is just
as much mine as it is yours.  I like it a lot.  It has very beautful
natural resources..."  He looked over at Sandra, winked, and looked
back at the others.  "...indeed."

Sally smirked.  "Well, I'm fairly sure everyone knew that by now."
Spotty laughter floated throughout the group.  "But let's not get
too sidetracked.  We've got lots of other..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"...options to consider."

Robotnik paced the halls of the quiet ship, thinking quietly aloud for a
moment.  He had been walking around the outer rim of the ship pondering
since he had awoke that "morning", stopping only for a bite to eat and
some personal hygiene.  His moustache bobbed slightly up and down as
the large human paced, occasionally brushing against the walls of the
ship when he moved to the side to let another individual by.

Ivo needed to make some choices now.  Did he remain on the ship until the
very last minute; or did he escape now, perhaps earning himself some
respect for warning Mobius of the incoming Ur'thaen host?  Did he attempt
to tell his son where he was, despite his trechery, or did he let the
hedgehog destroy him?

He rubbed his long, orangish follicle outgrowth.  Packbell had not only
abused Snively far beyond anything Robotnik would have *ever* done, Ivo
ruminated, but he had ruled Robotropolis poorly.  Look at what had
happened to it!  Security holes large enough to fit his arm through
were everywhere.  The SWATBot supply had dwindled to the point where
his forces were actually LOSING ground, and who knew what else had
happened that John hadn't informed him of...

The fat man's blackened heart had cracked slightly, Ivo remembered at that
moment, when he had learned of what his son had been up to in his absence.
The conditions he had made Snively, Robotnik's own blood, endure, made his
moustache quiver slightly.  Didn't he teach Packbell of the value of allies?
What had he done wrong to make him behave in such a way?

He frowned, bowing his head a bit.  He must have programmed something
wrong, added too much code where less had been needed, allowed him to
see something that had marred his perfect positronic net in a way to make
him...

Ivo made a fist, and punched the wall hard enough to make the
patch of hull around him ring.  Despite his powers of self-delusion,
the reality of it kept smacking him upside the head, forcing him to look
into the simple truth of it all: Face it, Julian, you have been an
awful parent.

However, parenting and a stern swat on the butt wouldn't help him now.
It was far too late for that.  His act of genesis had been corrupted--
Packbell, his pride and joy, the reason he had kept trying to totally
eliminate all resistance instead of merely crippling it, had betrayed
him.  Julian's own child had been waiting for all this time to betray
his father, eliminate all that was once his great plans for the world,
and remake it in his own image.  It made his sleep haunted with images
of Packbell's planned assassination of him, his strong hands clasped
around Ivo's neck!

If Julian could cry, he would have.  It had all gone wrong.  He wanted
to rule Robius, but with Packbell and Snively at his side.  They could
have easily defeated the hedgehog and his friends if they had all
been working together...he played back several failed scenerios, and
saw each one under the assumption that his son hated him.  And, every
time, Packbell's interference became crystal clear.  A twisted wire
here.  A blown capacitor there.  A SWATBot out of place.  It all
clicked with Ivo now, and that was what hurt him the most.  Betrayal.

But Robotnik clenched his teeth instead, his blood boiling with rage
and hatred towards the one he had one day hoped to give his empire
to, the one he loved the most!  He would have his revenge against
them all...but not yet.

No, Robotnik plotted, it would be best to let them think he had died
on Doomsday.  He could then use not only the lack of possible Keld'yrian
interference to his advantage, and his upgraded weaponry and robots,
but the sheer element of surprise would also operate in his favor.
They would pay for their insolence against him...in gallons of their blood.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, within a little patch of land known as Robotropolis:

Packbell toured around the rapidly regenerating Death Egg, watching the
SWATBots and remaining Worker-Bots plod around, rewiring and upgrading
the Egg's technology to a level that more suited the amoral android
aggressor's attitude.  It was going fairly well at the moment, and
he fully expected an operating fortress around summertime.

However, he was also beginning to realize that a new plan of action
would soon be needed.  The amount of Worker-Bots had dwinded to a
laughably low level; he barely had 10% of his original setup left,
due to Freedom Fighters, accidental demise, or simple old age.  Also,
any new growth from prisoners seemed to have a resistance that the
previous ones did not have to the mind-seperation...it had become
a very disturbing trend to not be able to control your Worker-Bots
as strongly as you had before.  The constant threat of termination
had to be enstated to maintain order...but even then, work slowdowns,
sabotage, self-injuries to avoid work...Packbell was faced with
rebelling slaves almost weekly.

Entering the elevator to the surface, he realized how much this
could deteriorate.  If the roboticizer no longer could completely
enslave the Worker-Bots, and the old ones he had were somehow
reversing this condition, and Robotropolis was still in a weakened
state...

A formal war.

Yes, that was what was going to happen, wasn't it?  If enough of them
could break free from him, become normal, and organize, a full war
might be waged against Packbell, which he *might* have a chance of
losing.  Indeed, this was a frightening prospect to entertain.  It
might cause him to lose the Buyers' interest in the property, lose
a good deal of his forces, and might even result in his ultimate demise!

He snarled and hit the wall, causing the side of it to sing.  This was
all Snively's fault!  And Ivo's!  Damn them and their foolishness...if
they could have only kept the status of the first few weeks of the coup
evenly, none of this would be happening now!  Fools!  They had risked
their own future for the sake of annhilating that idiotic blue rodent,
and look what had happened!  It was like some sort of bad dream.

But there was hope, however...if he could keep what he had left, and
slowly built up his defenses, he might be able to withstand a siege
long enough to close the deal and escape.  Let the Buyers deal with a
rebelling planet, he thought, all he wanted was a way out with enough
resources to start over.

The elevator door opened, allowing Packbell to leave it and tour the
lobby.  Yes, he thought, that would work nicely.  Just maintaining
a stalemate would be enough; no need to gain land you won't use, after
all.  Diverting them into useless crusades would probably eat enough
of their resources to allow him to buy time.  But how?  What problem
could he pose that might hold them off for another year?

Thinking about possibilities, he stepped out of the fortress to his
hovership, and went for a relaxing cruise around the perimeter of
the city.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails laid on the gurney, somewhat sedated by a weak sleeping drug.  The
time had come for Bookshire to remove the `hard' cast, and to switch to
a more mobility-inducing `air' cast.  He had done all Bookshire had told
him to, and had also kept a good deal in confidence in his eventual
recovery from his condition.

Bunnie and Sally were with him, he was vaguely aware, and both of them held
one of his hands, calming his remaining nerves with soothing bits of
nonsense and flattery.  They were kind to him throughout the nerveracking
minutes of the powered saw cutting ever-so-close to his soft, pink flesh...

Yet, Bookshire had pulled off the `routine' procedure with nothing more than
a case of `cast-fur' and some cosmetic problems on his right tail...the fur
on that tail had been harder to save than the other, and was thus `thinner'
than his other tail.  "It will grow back in time," said the raccoon, and
Tails sincerely hoped so for the sake of any social life he might one day
aspire to achieve.

Now, he stood in his hut, putting the things Sally and the others had given
him for comfort back where he liked them, especially going out of his way
to clean up the desk that his palmtop computer was typically kept.  His
tails felt asleep, which Bookshire said was a `good thing' because it
meant he still had operating nerves in his tails.  Still, it was very
uncomfortable, and he wished he could keep the cast off all the time.

As he sat down in his chair and looked out into the robust Mobian spring,
he remembered how Bunnie had came over and gave him a hand with things
for a while until she had to go assist some older people into the transport
to the Grey Mountains.  She was very kind to him, and even a relative
emotional novice like Tails realized she was trying to work off some
repressed guilt for not saving Tails, rather than the reverse that did
occur...it wasn't her fault, he thought, but yet she feels sadder about
what happened to me than Sally does.  He believed that was very silly
of Bunnie to behave in that way, but what could he do about it?  No
matter what he said, she said one thing and acted another.

Perhaps, Tails thought as he tinkered with his palmtop, after some more
time had passed, she would feel better about it.  He pried off the
protective casing and began testing the various circuits within it
for structural deficiencies.  Sally had said once that `time heals
all wounds', but would that ring true in this case?  Tails hoped it would.
It made him feel very guilty himself that he was the cause of Bunnie's
sadness, but he knew that it was all inside her head.  He, after all,
did what she would have done for him.  He felt no anger toward her for
what happened to him; it happened, and now he would adapt to his new
situation like Sonic would, or like Sally would.

He rubbed the tips of his tails, and winced a bit at the tingling of the
`sleeping' appendages.  Feeling was there, all right.  After some physical
therapy after they had healed, and perhaps some practice, he felt that
they would propel him through the air just as well as before.  It had
never been difficult before, after all.  All they needed was time.
A few moments of that unpleasant feeling drove him from continued
fondling, and put him back on task.  He tested the electrical capacity
of the device gently, and repaired a faulty resistor with no great
amount of difficulty.  He was getting pretty good at operating and
repairing computers, and perhaps one day he could do that for a living...

His thoughts were interrupted by Sally's entrance into the hut, after the
vestigal knock.  "Hi, Tails."

He put down his tools, and carefully put the computer out of harm's way.
"Hiya, Aunt Sally.  How're you doing today?"

Sally smiled, sitting down on his bed.  "I'm fine...I just finished off
my day's work, and I was just wondering if you'd like to have some
dinner with us later..."

Tails shook his head.  "No thanks, Sally.  I have some things I want to
get done before I go to bed tonight...it's been so long since I was home,
after all, so I really need to do some stuff.  Maybe tomorrow?"

Sally, understanding Tails' growing independance, nodded.  "Okay, Tails,
perhaps tomorrow.  But if you finish doing whatever you're doing before
dinner's over, you're welcome to join us."

"Okay, Aunt Sally."

She walked over to him, gave him a hug, and then her trademark funnykiss.
"All work and no play makes a dull Tails."

He smiled, hugging her back gently and giggling.  "Okay, okay, I'll eat
with you tomorrow."

She grinned.  "Don't be late."

"I won't be, Aunt Sally."

As she walked out the door, Tails went back to his work, forgetting
entirely about the time and working deep into the night...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In a darker part of the Great Forest:

Sandra and Joseph returned to the Dome that night, where they
discussed the outcome of the meeting within his control room after
Joseph had consumed a `light nightcap' from Sandra.

Drinking some orange juice, Sandra leaned lazily against Joseph's
midsection, which was currently occupying his control chair with the
rest of his large form.  "So, Joseph, how'd we do?"

He keyed up some graphics on the screen, overlaying the villages
that were planned onto the current map.  "Not bad, actually...I hadn't
suspected the large amount of successes we'd accomplish within the
course of the first meeting."  He tightened the view a little.
"As you can see, we've filled 4 of the minimum needed 10 slots in
order to assure 100% success of the master plan.  Also, we've
gotten the whole issue of communications and technologial needs
out of the way, so that all the tools will be ready when the time comes."

Sandra nodded, finishing her electrolyte-enhanced beverage.  "So we're
doing well, so far?"

The fox smiled, pushing his fingers together as his fangs automatically
bared.  "Yes, we are doing very well...this might be easier than expected."







			Chapter Fifteen - Ascension



The Grey Mountains; shrouded for centuries in mystery, myth, and legend.
Few have dared to cross the summits of the towering piles of rock and dirt,
and most of those few have died in the attempt.  For years, people all
over Mobius have either avoided the mountains altogether, or taken the
gentle lower pass through the valley that circumvents the infamous
mountains.  However, a royal command brought on by the suggestion of
one of her more brilliant associates sent hundreds on a quest to settle
a village on the semiplateaus near the peaks of the chain, and to live
within the caves that pockmark them.

Yet, these travellers were not going unprepared.  Climbing gear, building
materials, maps, replicators, and sophisticated subspace communications
gear accompanied them on their trek, as well as some of the most expert
survivalists that the Freedom Fighters had.  Men, women, and children
alike carried the tools of civilization on their backs when they left
Knothole to tread the ancient path to the Grey Mountains, and they
knew it would not be an easy journey despite the aid of their technology.

They left on a warm morning on the dying ebb of spring, saying their last
goodbyes to their families and friends the night before.  The Mobians
knew that some of them would not survive the journey, but they also
realized that the continued survival of Knothole was more vital to the
eventual restorement of the throne to the helm of Mobius, and the fate of
the world, than some of the weaker members of society.

The first few days were easy on them, with only a long hike every morning
that could only conclude when the sun set at night looming before them.
Every morning, they saw the grey geological gates of the mountains wax
before them, and the safety of the Great Forest wane into nothing but
a greenish blur behind them.  And, slowly, the air grew cooler around them,
despite the fact that summer grew in strength as they traveled.  Soon,
mist and fog began to linger after the morning had stretched into day,
and the cries of the mountain eagles at night told them they were getting
close to the second part of their journey; the climb.

Finally, after several weeks had passed, they reached the foot of the
mountain.  Now would be the last chance for any too weak to make the
climb to retreat back to the Great Forest, and it would be the final time
they could stand on the soft Mobian soil of the northern highlands for
several months.  Undaunted, all of them refused to go back, and the
climb began with the various teams united as one front.

Scaling the mountain, as expected, was hard and arduous.  The first few
days weeded out the kits from the foxes, as it were; and a few deaths
began to occur, sporadically, within each team.  Yet, they continued on,
climbing hundreds of yards a day.  The Mobian landscape fell before them
as they ascended towards the clouds, hoping that what awaited them at the
top would be hospitable.  Great sacrifices were made in order to keep the
teams moving, and heroes were forged out of people who would have otherwise
been ordinary.

Finally, the first few teams made it to the semiplateaus at about
500 yards below the top of the mountain.  They were above the clouds
at that point, and the view of Mobius in all directions was breathtaking.
Also, the environment was more favorable than expected.  They adjusted
quickly to the lack of oxygen, and found large caves to accomodate entire
families of people.  The subspace communications node was established
easily, and thus contact was maintained with the surface.  Replicators
were activated, and the area slowly became civilized and comfortable to
live in.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The success in the creation of this `new Knothole' gave the people
of Mobius confidence in their ability to survive anywhere on the
planet.  They saw the heroics of the climbers, and felt the same seed
of virtue within themselves.  Immediately, morale was lifted as high
as the `new Knothole' was in altitude, and it became far easier for
Sally to motivate others to travel to inhospitable places for the
safety of Knothole.  And, oddly enough, Joseph suggested most of the
sites for their safety (and ecological) value.  The Great Swamp,
the Crystal Caves of the southwest, the northern and southern
icecaps, Green Valley, Boulder Bay, the Great Unknown, and the
mysterious Watchtower Plateau were all settled by Mobian refugees,
and equipped with the finest technological devices that David
Prower could come up with.  Soon, a stable subspace communications
network had been established, and that very much reduced the complaints
of those who had been temporarily seperated from their families.

By then, summer had entered its full strength, and Knothole began to
return to a normal routine after removing the majority of its inhabitants
to places other than the town square.  As usual, most of the youthful
population concerned itself with goofing off, as summertime meant the
cessation of scholastic activity for them.  Older individuals concerned
themselves with social activity, seeing that summertime was the
biological `pairing-off' period for most Mobians of-age.  And there
were also the typical activities that the leaders of Knothole partook in.
Sonic and Antoine mostly fought each other for the privledge of Sally's
attention, Rotor began his sought-after air conditioner repair service,
Bunnie laid out in the sun almost all day, and Tails began to realize
that perhaps having a `girlfriend' wouldn't be so bad.

Joseph's and Sandra's activities mainly focused on `socializing' with
the people of Knothole, quietly manipulating their opinions and thoughts
into very casually doing their bidding.  Slowly, they observed, their
plans would come to fruitition, and the world would again be safe for
the populace of Mobius.  However, when they were not concerned with
their sworn duty, they walked through the woods, swam, ate lavish
meals together, and enjoyed their mutual attraction as any other pair
of foxes certainly would.

Bahb continued its own work.  The deroboticizer software was gradually
coming close to completion, Joseph's own plans were being worked on
around the clock, security measures continued to be tested and retested
by Bahb's own mental prowess, the survelliance network continued to be
expanded, and the normal upkeep of Joseph's various installations had
somehow managed to be maintained.  On top of its own secret plans,
the artifical intelligence was beginning to wear down more rapidly than
before.  It had approximately 60% virgin computing crystal left, but
it had to complete all of its tasks before it could shut down and tend
to itself...but with summer waxing, it had no time for self-preservation.

Robotropolis also entered its summer levels of activity.  Frantic work
was done in regards to repair and security measures, as the rapidly
decaying city was decaying to a far greater extreme than before.  Constant
Freedom Fighter attacks had weakened the city to starvation settings.
There was little power left to maintain even the most essencial systems,
and SWATBots were slowly becoming rarer as one got further from the city.
Packbell knew he was fighting a lost war, but he needed to hold out
for just a little longer...

In outer space, the _Apocolypse_ also began to prepare itself for the
imminent attack on Mobius.  The beginning of daily system checks had
begun, as well as the preperation of the fighters and main weapons
systems....and, within the ship, Robotnik made his own evil preparations
for the attack...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

However, a new element was about to enter the equation...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For over a century, he had slept beneath the soil of the fertile
Isle of Pears, at the First's request.  The small island near the tip
of the Southern Continent had been deserted by Mobians for over 300
years previous, after the infamous Curse of the Starfire had frightened
away all traffic from the area.  The fools had taken a comet's collision
into the island's centre as a wrathful Goddess' curse against the peoples
of the pretty little island, and had kept everyone at bay for those
three (now four) centuries.

The First had told him to go there shortly before his departure into the
Portal in order to have him as the one who could awaken the other six
Fellows from their slumber beneath the greatest Forest of the Northern
Continent.  He had been the last to enter the Sleep out of necessity, but
he knew that his kind would be called upon for one last great mission
before the Last Rest would be allowed to overtake them all.
One last mission.

And so, on the night of the summer solstice, the very first night of
that glorious season, the Quicksilver known as Azrael arose from the
dirt as if it were water, following the orders of the First for the
final time...

The dirt rippled beneath his feet for a few moments after he arose, the
magick used still wearing off within the matter of the soil.  However,
it took nought more than a second for it to cease afterward, and permitted
Azrael to walk normally from his solumn resting place underneath the
greatest of the pear trees.

He was tall, standing almost as many hands high as the First.  He was a
wolf of the first order; an Alpha of Alphas, most Mobians even vaguely
canine gave him the right of way when he walked down a street.  He had
glorious silver fur, which only served to highlight his etherial
green eyes and fine white teeth.  Despite his rest beneath the soil,
his fur had not collected one single particle of dirt, nor had his
garment been rumpled by the experience.  This would seem odd to most,
considering a white, silken cloak would seem to pick up all manner of
litter; yet, his garment and fur were totally unmolested.

Having taken a breath of the air, he decided to begin his journey to the
north at that very moment.  After all, seeing that the need for water,
food, warmth, and shelter had long been unneeded for him, the only thing
left for him was his mission...his sacred duty to those still asleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Within the ether of that which is not definable by `time', `space',
`length', `width', `height', `volume', `brightness' or `darkness',
the Watchers still observed the machinations of the planet of Mobius.
Slowly but surely, their plans would come to fruitition.  Soon, the
one called `Solaris' would come to them for his training, and then
he would do for them what they could not do themselves...

Some of them asked others if they were making a wise decision by bringing
one of lower enlightenment into their realm.  After all, only one
who has substance can defeat a Watcher, they said to those determined
to their goal.  Those who wished the Solaris to come scoffed at the
questions of the unsure, saying that the only way for them to
accomplish their goal would be through the route which was planned
aeons ago.  They already were given `time' to worry, but `now' was not
the `time'.  But the bickering continued `eternally'.

But it was too late to stop the process `now', because the events had
already been put in motion to bring the Solaris to them for the first
part of his training; the control of time and space.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The next morning, Joseph and Sandra took a necessary vacation from their
work, and decided to dedicate the entire day to each other.  After all,
one can only manipulate the masses totally only part of the time, while
you can manipulate part of the masses all of the time.

Before Sandra awakened, Joseph snuck out of bed to make Sandra a
traditional Mobian breakfast, seeing that he felt that a change from
the usual Ur'thaen fare might be healthy once in a while.  After all,
his typical morning meal consisted of a tall glass of electrolyte-loaded
protein, a pratically-rare rib of woota'h (a nonsentinent, slightly
bovine animal, native to Ur'thae (and quite tasty)), a starchy bar of
VitaMax (a rectangular slab of all the essencial vitamins and minerals,
with a slightly bread-like composition and taste), and perhaps a little
Sandra...not as often as his body would like, but enough to make his fur
stand up on the back of his neck.  (However, she didn't seem to mind.)

Of course, what Sandra usually had was just as alien to Joseph.  She'd
roll out of bed, stumble to the replicator, and drink some very unhealthy
hypercaffeinated coffee.  Then, perhaps she'd have a plain, but toasted,
bagel, and then wash it down with more coffee.  He was surprised she
remained in such excellent physical condition with the diet she consumed,
but accepted it as just another part of living with someone who'd lived
such an unusual life.

It didn't take him more than a few hours to put together a plate of fresh
chirrble eggs (sunny-side up, of course), a nice pot of Southern
Mobian blend coffee, some toast made from a loaf of Mobian
wheat which he had bought from a nice old granny who lived near the
edge of the village (Joanna, he remembered, was her name), some
interesting hash browns made from a basket of well-tended potatoes,
and some imported garnishes for taste.

He had cooked everything over a fire he made behind the Dome, being sure
to responsibly handle the preparation and extinguishing of the element.
Then, he had placed the items of food in the finest-looking plates he
could replicate, and carefully decended back to their bedroom with the
food totally obfuscated beneath the service.

Upon reaching the bedroom, he put the entire ensemble on a tray and carried
it near the bed.  He allowed the scent of the coffee to awaken her, which
made it all the more fufilling to watch her elated reaction to his
surprise.

"Mmm," she moaned from the soft confines of the bed, "what's that, darling?"

"Guess," he said.

She smiled delightedly, already knowing.  Yet, she stayed rolled over in
bed with her eyes shut, feeling playful.  "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

"Vegetable."

"Solid, liquid, or gas?"

"Liquid."

"What color is it?"

Joseph smirked smugly.  "You know that's not how my question-and-answer
games work, darling.  You have to follow the rules."

Sandra pouted rather fakely.  "I don't like following rules!"

He laughed.  "Well, too bad."

She sighed overdramatically.  "Very -well-.  Is it...brown?"

"Yes."

Sandra replied to Joseph without opening her eyes, still rolled over in
bed."Is it...something you made up in the lab?"

"No."

She continued the little question-and-answer session banteringly.
"Is it...a new cologne?"

He smiled.  "No."

"Well, for my seventh and final guess," she said, rolling onto her back and
slowly opening her eyes, "it's another sweet thing my mate has done to
please me."

He leaned down to kiss her.  "Of course."

She kissed him passionately, allowing her reaction to be more accentuated,
and then consumed the food happily; helped along, just a little, by
Joseph.

They cleaned themselves up after breakfast, and decided to head outside to
see how the weather was.  Noticing it was yet another beautiful day on
Mobius, they decided to head down to their pond (Joseph and Sandra had
began referring to the combined amount of his and her possessions as
`their' a short time ago) and enjoy the lovely weather.

As they were walking along to the pond, they chatted as foxes in love
tended to do...

"So, Joseph, what do you think we should do about this?"

"About what?"

She looked over to him.  "Our relationship, of course."

"Something wrong with it?"

Sandra smiled, gently stroking her hand against Joseph's arm.  "Well,
we've been together for several months now, and I think we've grown
pretty close to one another..."

He smiled, putting his arm over her shoulders and gently holding her closer
to him as they walked down the path.  "Yes, we have."

Her tail swayed to side-to-side seductively.  "And everyone considers us
an item..."

"Mmm."

"And I really think you're the one I want to be with for the rest of my
life..."

Joseph kissed her on the brow.  "Aww."

She looked up to him, gazed into his eyes, and smiled.  "Do you feel
the same way, Joseph?"

They both stopped for a few moments, the two foxes locked in eye contact
for what seemed like ages.  The sounds of the forest seemed to dim
slightly,allowing only the wind domain to act.  It blew through the forest
gently,stirring up some dry leaves to drift past the two vulpine's calves.
Onlythe distant singing of birds could be heard in the distance...

"Why, of course..."

She smiled, wrapping around him like a shroud.  "Then, why don't we
declare ourselves lifemated?"

He stalled.  "Isn't this a bit sudden?"

"Joseph, I want us to be together for the rest of our lives.  You've
shown me that you're a good fox, loyal and honest and true; things that
I've never had in a mate before."  She raised her voice slightly.
"I don't care if you are from another planet, or that the remains of your
people have returned to try to destroy Mobius, or that you used to -like-
that sort of thing!"  She calmed herself a little.  "It's not important
to me any longer; it never was.  All I know is that I feel, deep in my
heart, that I never want to leave you."

Joseph was still mentally stunned.  "Sandra, you don't have to worry
about that.  I'd never..."

She interrupted.  "I know you wouldn't.  That's why I know that I..."

Sandra looked into herself one last time.  She had mulled over the decision
to say this to Joseph for several weeks now, ever since she learned of
the true threat that loomed over Mobius.  Sandra knew that she might not
get a second chance to say this to Joseph, but she was still unsure of
her own feelings.  Should she, for the first time in her life, risk
opening her heart to another fox, or should she protect herself and just
let her desire and deep feelings for Joseph remain implied in her
lovemaking and caretaking of Joseph?

She weighed out the pros and cons for the nth time.  Joseph wouldn't run
off with another vixen; very few on Mobius could `accomodate' him
physically, mentally, or emotionally, and her blood was the only kind,
she assumed, could keep him alive.  He could protect her from any
harm, as well as give her anything she asked for.  He could show her
the universe, and get her any information that she needed.  He was
attractive, strong, and very...skilled.  And, the reason that made all
the other ones pale was that she knew he loved her...he'd never said
it, but she knew it well.

However, there were downsides.  He was a vampire, and protecting that
information from the proletariat was of the utmost importance.  Aiding
and abetting a known vampire to some people was a crime punishable by
death...both to the vampire and the accomplice.  His heritage was that
of a race of planet-destroying, conquesting thugs.  Some people in the
universe make it their goal to destroy all traces of such races, and
a xenophobic zealot might target them both.  Joseph was also a very
sneaky technological voyeur, which had been an issue with her since the
very beginning.  He smoked huge cigars, snored, and hated dealing with
crowds.  And he wore too much -clothing-.

Yet...

Joseph's flaws seemed to pale compared to how she -felt- about him.
Rationally, being his life-mate was an incredibly foolish vocation,
being only equal to a professional cliff diver.  But he had a way
of smiling at her that made her feel safe.  He liked to be intimate
without necessarily physically mating.  He talked to her in a
way that made her feel good; not talking down to her or above her,
but just -talking- to her.  Never before had a male truely respected
her for who she was, and treated her like a foxen being despite her
checkered past.  He accepted her for who she was.  The hard-as-nails
Nightweaver bitch could fade to the soft and loving Sandra beneath,
without fear of physical, mental, or emotional harm.

Sandra decided what she would do, how she would say it, and put
her true intentions on the table for the first time in her entire
life.  No deception would marr her words, no facade of toughness
would sully these words with arrogance.  She spoke the words she
had said a million times inside her heart to Joseph that day, lovingly
and with total confidence behind her statement.

"I...love you, Joseph."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Words could not possibly suit to describe the sheer amount of total
agreement Joseph had with his new life-mate's statement, nor could
they even dare to describe the passion in which they embraced each
other.  Both of their hearts, one calloused from time, the other
scarred from a past misadventure, opened wide to each other, allowing
the pain and longing to flood out into the psychic atmosphere.  No
longer would they ever feel alone, no longer would they wake up at
night with the gnawing feeling that they would die alone...they
cried with joy in each other's arms at the words that had been
spoken, and rededicated themselves to saving the world; now not
only for their honor or for their friends...but for themselves.

They stood for several moments in the embrace, allowing the rush
of emotions to ebb to a steady flow, and then went on their way
to the pond which they both truely owned...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Things were not so happy back in Robotropolis, however.  A Freedom Fighter
attack earlier that day had shut down yet another power plant just as
the city was about to go to 24-hour power again.  Now the construction
of a new SWATBot factory would be delayed several weeks due to the lack
of an available power source.  Packbell had no time for such failures!
Who knew how long of a stand he could make without a sufficient number
of his forces protecting the city walls?  He had to last at least another
seven months, or else the Buyers would simply take the planet from the
Freedom Fighters with no payment of any kind.  And that, he noted,
was an unacceptable outcome.

He sat in what remained of his command center, cursing at a wall.  He
couldn't even take out his agression on SWATBots any longer, since they
were almost as valuable as gold to him at the moment.  One damaged SWATBot
is another Freedom Fighter who gets away to blow up another factory
tomorrow.  Ten is a sucessful Freedom Fighter mission.  A hundred means
losing part of the city.  A thousand means...

He hit the wall with the maximum amount of force he could muster.
Several stress fractures immediately formed, as well as nigh-invisible
fractures in the structure of the room itself.  "Be damned, you miserable
hedgehog, and curse whoever made the deroboticizer for you!  You waste my
resources and time just when I need them the most!  But I shall have my
vengeance!"

He went to a console, and continued working on some sort of plan to defeat
the hedgehog one time, just -one- time, before he left this miserable world
for other conquests...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, the people of Knothole were enjoying their new subspace
transciever units, which David had created to allow personal communiques
between seperated individuals in order to make the distance seem less
epic.  They operated on the same sort of principle as telephones, but
had a flat screen with a little control bar on the side.  A microcamera
implanted at the top of the device allowed total visual contact with the
other party, and the token microphone allowed even the slightest whispers
to be detected.  And, amazingly enough, the devices were no larger than
the average wall-hanging, and only needed to be recharged every few days
for about five minutes.  Also, they operated anywhere in the village,
since the master node was now near the town square.

David now was a pretty popular fox, as one might imagine, for now he had
given the people of Knothole computers and communication devices.  Anyone
could talk to anyone else with a device, and effective communication was
now only a word away.  Talk had begun about awarding David with some sort
of special medal once the war was won, and the general attitude of the
village was upbeat.

But while people were chatting it up with other people, Sally was
sitting in a chair in front of her hut, relaxing after a good two weeks
of hard administrative duties.  She sipped flitfully from a cool glass
of iced tea, and watched the people of Knothole enjoy the beautiful
summer weather.  Kits played in the street, fluxuating between a game
of frisbee and tag.  Couples walked with each other, holding hands and
giggling at private jokes.  Two old wolves played checkers, muttering
about current events sourly and reminiscing about previous summers being
nicer than the latest ones.  A few middle-aged porcupine matrons tended
to their gardens, occasionally looking up at each other and speaking.
She smiled, thinking to herself about what they were talking about.
They were probably gossiping about her, Sonic, or possibly one of the
matrons who wasn't there.

A butterfly flitted by, landing on her swizzle stick for a moment before
fluttering off to snag some nectar.  Sally smiled at it, then drank a
little more of the cool, refreshing tea.  It was so nice to be part of
such a quiet, serene...

The dull booming that was coming toward her, however, shook her from her
delusions of peace and returned her to a Sonic-inhabited reality.  A
gust of wind and a half-second later, Sonic stood nearby, leaning against
the side of her hut like he'd always been there.

"Yo Sal," he said as expected, "what's up?"

She rolled her head about on her shoulders, then took a drink of her tea.
"I'm relaxing, Sonic."

He smirked.  "Oh?  Can't ya do that while you're asleep?"

She sipped more of her tea, ignoring him.  "It's a lovely day, isn't it?"

He stopped, looked around, and sniffed the air.  "Eh, it's nothing
special."

Sally smirked.  "It's one of the first nice days we've had in about 6
months, and it's nothing special?"

Sonic tapped his foot impatiently.  "But nothing's happening!  It's soooooo
boring!"

Sally looked over at Sonic from her chair.  "We need more days like these,
Sonic.  Every day can't be an adventure."

He hmmmed for a moment, then thought of something.  "Okay, fine."

Sally looked surprised.  "You mean you're actually agreeing with me?"

"Yeah."

She put her drink down, folding her arms.  "Are you -sure-?"

Sonic nodded.  "Now, you've got to do what you said you'd do."

Sally looked at Sonic puzzledly.  "What?"

"Don't you remember?  You said that the first time I ever agreed with you
would be the day when you'd come up to me and give me a big, wet kiss."

Sally looked shocked, yet was secretly pleased.  "I did not say that!"

Sonic smiled smugly. "Sure, sure, drift down the river of Denial."

"You're making that up!  No way would I ever agree to something like that."
She smiled at Sonic gently, knowing full well that she'd said those very
words not more than two weeks ago.

Sonic kept playing with her.  "Truth hurts, don't it?"

Sally faux-grimaced.  "Oooh!"

Sonic laughed.  "Go on, you promised."

Sally's petulant look faded away to that of smug glee.  "Fine, hedgehog,
but you asked for it."  In a very fluid, masterful motion, she slid out of
her chair, slinked over to Sonic, and gave him a kiss that could have
melted a block of six-inch thick titanium.

Seeing Sonic's stunned expression, she smiled and sat back down, drinking
some of her iced tea and waiting for him to regain his composure.  As
he did so, she giggled softly at him.  "You asked for it."

He gasped for breath.  "Now why don't you do that more often?"

Sally smiled.  "I'm saving myself for marriage, Sonic Hedgehog."

"So you've said a few million times, Sal."  He grinned baudily.
"But I still don't know how you learned to kiss like that."

Sally smugly crossed her arms.  "Royal secret."

Sonic hated when she said that.  It basically meant you'd have to
either drug her, hypnotise her, or so emotionally strain her as to
render her totally unable to resist your demands before she'd even
consider telling you.  It had been derived from a Mobian king in the
first years of the monarchy; King Stoutfur the Mighty, he recalled,
had made a sort of royal decree that a secret known by the royalty
would be kept within the monarchy for all time, and never would it
be divulged to the common people.  It was some sort of honor thing,
Sonic noted, that he slept through in history class.  Sally, however,
had said it more times than he'd liked to remember.  Perhaps if they
ever married, he'd learn about all the stuff that she knew about,
but wouldn't tell him.

He winced momentarily, but resumed his normal smirk.  "Well...I'll
figure it out one day."

"Surrrrre you will."

He grinned slowly.  "Hey, the hedgehog knows!"

She laughed.  "What-ever, Sonic."

"You just wait, Sally.  I'll get something on you yet."

She drank more of her drink.  "Good luck."  Looking up into the trees,
Sally paused momentarily while a thought entered her head.  "Hey, Sonic."

"Yeah?"

"Have you seen Uncle Chuck lately?"

Sonic hmmed.  "Yeah, this morning at breakfast.  Why?"

"How is he?"

Sonic smiled.  "Oh, he's okay.  His arthritis is almost gone now, and he
can get around pretty well.  Why'd you ask?"

Sally shrugged.  "Just came to me to ask."

Sonic leaned back against the hut.  "Oh...well, that's cool."

Sally finished her drink and stood up, heading inside.  "Care to get out
of the sun for a while, Sonic?"

Sonic shrugged.  "Sure, I'm bored out here, anyway."

With that, the two disappeared inside, and gradually forgot about the
strange conversation they'd had outside.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph's pond a few thousand yards from Knothole was also rather serene.
The two foxes were sharing a quiet moment together, drifting around the
pond on a bright yellow inflatable raft.  Joseph held Sandra near to him
as they drifted around, and the duo looked up into the sky at the various
clouds.

"That one looks like a AD52-H Fluxuation Monitor."

Sandra looked up from her resting spot on Joseph's chest and looked at the
specified cloud.  "No, that's a pair of rabbit ears."

Joseph bahed.  "Well, you can't dispute the one on the left looks like
a Mark VII Translight Hyperkinetic Induction Wave Generator."

Sandra swatted his right ear with her paw lethargically.
"Silly fox, that's a diamond necklace."

Joseph smooched her on the nose.  "Very well, you tell me what -that-
one looks like, immediately above you."

Sandra hmmed for a moment, and then came up with an answer.  "Hand-held
scanner unit."

Joseph laughed.  "Atta vixen."

She smiled gently.  "It might be a frog, too."

He laughed.  "Too late, it's now officially a hand-held scanner unit.
I've already come up with the brand and production date."

Sandra booted him in the shin with her foot gently.  "You are such a
frigging scientist sometimes.  Why can't you just think on a more
natural level?"

"I'm not a biologist."

"Oh, hush.  Just look up into the sky and tell me what you see.  And no
using scientific equipment."

Joseph petted Sandra's tummyfur.  "Very well."  He looked up into the sky
with the eyes of a child, and saw...

A large, black, equilateral triangle.  Rounded ends.  Approximate size of
4 to 5 miles to point to point.  Weapons systems that could turn a world
to rubble.  Invincible shields.  A cloud of black Nocturne fighters of
his own design rushing out to attack...

A droplet of water plooked directly between his eyes.  "Rain."

And, sure enough, a light drizzle began.  The two foxes quickly grabbed
an oar each and rowed their way back to shore.  Despite their celerity
in rowing, they still were soaked to the bone by the time they got to
shore, and had to run back to the Dome in order to keep from sinking into
the now-muddy trail.

When they entered the Dome, the storm really began to hit.  The winds
picked up considerably, and thunder boomed through the complex.  From the
bright flashes of light that occasionally highlighted sections of the top
floor, the lightning outside was also quite fierce.

"Can the top of this place take this storm?" Sandra inquired, drying off
in front of the fire.

Joseph was standing over a table, with most of his outfit laying on it.
He was blasting a sort of clothing-drying ray at the garments, making them
steam back to a state of warm crispness.  "Of course it can.  This
complex is practically spaceworthy."

She took a towel from a servant-bot and began to manually dry herself off.
"What if lightning hit it?"

Joseph looked up from his zapping.  "Lightning?"

She smirked.  "I mean those static discharges outside."

Joseph continued his work.  "Oh, those."  He thought about it for a moment,
then stopped.  "You know, I'd never really considered the possibility when
I designed the roof."

A large bolt of lightning skipped inbetween two clouds roughly 10,000
feet above the centre of the roof, accompanied by the sound of a tree
crashing down somewhere off by the edge of the forest.

"It can take large amounts of heat, cold, nuclear radiation, physical
stress...but I'd never tested the substance used in the fabrication of
the actual dome against electrical current."

A boom of thunder interrupted him, as did the sound of the wind picking up.

The large cloud above the Dome surged with static power, seeming to
mysteriously collect the lightning for the entire storm inside of it...

"Yes, the lower section; ie everything from the floor down to our bedroom,
is surge protected up to 100 terawatts, but the roof was made more for its
aesthetic qualities..."  He kept thinking, returning to his work.  "But
certainly, the odds of such an occurance are so phenomenially high..."

He was interrupted by several things, which were all part of the same
occurance; first, Sandra's fur, no longer damp, frizzed out strangely.
He thought this to be just a part of her drying-off, but then realized
she'd been dry for about five minutes while he was talking to her.
Second, the storm had increased to a tumultuous roar at that point, which
caused his speech to be overtaken by background noise.  But probably
what stopped him the fastest was the fact that a powerful blast of
static happened to be flying down immediately beneath the area in
which Sandra was standing, and used her body as a path to ground.

It became rather obvious that not only did the roof of the Dome lack
any tempest-hardening, but that electrical bursts and it didn't mix
very well.  For at the second the lightning connected with the roof,
the whole upper peak of the structure exploded rather impressively,
leaving only a jagged curved wall surrounding the stunned Joseph and
the thunderstruck Sandra.  As the roof detonated, the bolt struck through
Sandra at a nearly symmetrical ley, causing her to cry out in agony
once...and then slump to the ground.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It took about two seconds for Joseph to readjust to his new surroundings.
His roof was now gone, blown into shards by a rogue burst of static.
Rain and wind tore in, decimating his living room and causing his
servant-bots to malfunction and run wild.  And his mate was lying
on the ground, slumped down like a sack of potatoes.

Immediately, he rushed over to Sandra and grabbed her, checking her for
any visible injuries.  She wasn't bleeding, thankfully, but she'd knocked
herself in the head when she fell on a table, and she wasn't breathing
properly.  Her heart was beating irratically, and it would be only a
matter of minutes before it stopped entirely.

Carrying her over his shoulder, he turned to see his two servant-bots
rush at him, their `hands' bent into deadly appendages of annhilation.
Quickly, he knew he had to put them out of commission before they tried
to injure him or Sandra.  He smirked smugly, and reached for the holster
that was laying on the table.  He then grabbed his cannon from the
leather pocket and blasted at the two robots.  However, he realized
roughly a half second later that the device was not currently present
within the area, since he had left it in his lab.

Now realizing his defenselessness, he quickly put Sandra out of the sight
of the robots and chose to attack them directly.  He rushed at the first
robot and executed a beautiful flying kick into its `head'.  Unfortunately,
the robot was not seriously damaged by the move, while Joseph was now
suffering from a bleeding foot.  He cried out in pain and hit the robot
in the midsection with his full fury.  A hole was punched through it,
but the robot still kept coming.  Its compatriot went behind Joseph and
slashed a fair gash in his back.  Weakened by the blow, Joseph wobbled
on his footing and nearly fell.  Yet, the thought of losing Sandra drove
him to frenzy, and immediately caught his second wind.

The robots did not anticipate the sudden appearance of razor-sharp
polyalloy claws from Joseph's hands, nor the duel rippers on either
side of his forearms.  Nor did they ever get a chance to anticipate
this move, seeing that Joseph took the oppotunity to disembowel them
with the talons and claws that had been created.

As the claws and talons retracted, and most of his major appendages bled,
Joseph rushed to the stepdisk.  He ordered it to go down; it did not reply.

He jumped up and down on it three times, commanding it to descend.

Nothing.

Finally, he put Sandra down on a sofa and repeatedly bashed the stepdisk
downward with his previously undamaged fist until it finally zoomed
towards the lab.  That would have been a good thing if Joseph had been on
it, of course.

Now trapped a mile from his laboratory and Sandra's salvation, Joseph
entered a frenzy of rage and lept down the over 20 mile shaft himself.
Plumetting downward at incredible speeds due to the MaxGrav enhancement
buffers that caused the stepdisks to operate, he knew that he had one
chance, and only one chance, to call another stepdisk in order to save
Sandra's life.  There was a control box halfway between the first sublevel
and the top floor, that had the ability to activate a device that could
generate another disk at the laboratory level, and project it upwards to
replace a malfunctioning one.  It was about 10 seconds away from his
current location, and it had only a 10 rung ladder on either side of it
to grab on to.  At the best, he'd dislocate his shoulder grabbing onto
the rungs at his speed, and at worst, he'd have to clone another arm
off within 24 hours.

It was the only chance he had, tho, so he couldn't risk not accepting it.
So, as the ladder approached, he shoved his arm out, grabbed the rung, and
let the forces of gravity tear at his body for as long as it took to
stop him...

With a violent crack, he stopped, his hand gripping the ladder's rung.
His arm had been very bluntly disconnected from its socket, but the
muscle and sinew were still firmly attached to his body core.  Ignoring
the incredible pain, and continuing to lose blood, he tore open the
control panel with his free arm, and pulled the emergency pad lever.

Seconds were like hours as the pad shot up from the laboratory and reached
Joseph, and the time that it took for the pad to reach the surface again
was uncalculatable in Joseph's mind.  Yet, only a few moments had passed,
and Sandra's body was still fitfully operating.  Using his only operating
arm, he grabbed Sandra again, and commanded the pad to head downward at
its maximum speed.

This pad obeyed its creator, and quickly got to the laboratory.  Wasting
no time, he put Sandra on a guerney and took out his medical equipment.
While lacking any real medical skill, he knew how to operate machinery
with the skill of a master, and hoped that refibulating her heart would
repair the rest of the damage automatically.  Meanwhile, his own injuries
were being worked on frantically by his own nanites, which were not used
to healing such major and traumatic wounds.

He used every last bit of first aid he knew, but he still could not get
Sandra's heart and breathing to stabilize.  Her life-signs were failing
fast, and not even he could repair them now...

He cried out to Bahb.  "BAHB!  Open a channel to Haven, NOW!"

<< "Current environmental conditions have terminated subspace
    communications.  The electrical interference is still too high." >>

His rage rose proportionally with his voice.  "Teleport us to Bookshire!"

<< "Electromagnetic flux prohibits use of teleportation." >>

He threw a useless piece of medical equipment at a monitor, causing it
to explode.  "DAMN YOU!"

He worked even harder, screaming out to Bahb when something stumped him,
but still, nothing.  Finally, her heart stopped, followed by her breathing.
Driven half-mad by his failure, and semi-psychotic by his massive injuries,
he screamed at the top of his lungs and collapsed to the ground, crying
and pounding the earth in rage.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Psychic transmissions, like any other sort of communication, becomes much
easier to understand when more force is put into relaying a message.
Rage and fear are two of the greatest conductors of such communication,
and both were being utilized by Joseph at the time of Sandra's demise.

Naturally, most creatures, no matter what their race or creed, would want
to know what put another creature through such duress, and maybe a few
would want to help said individual.  One such being would be the large
energy crystal beneath the Dome which Joseph had `collected' from Snively.

It was referred to once as the `Amber Chaos Emerald' by those who were
unknowledgable in the naming of said devices.  It was not a correct term,
however, for the emerald below the Dome is, in fact, the Negative Master
Chaos Emerald; the yin to the Master Emerald's yang.  It has mysterious
powers that had never before been explored by man or machine, and most
of them could not be obtained through either one.

The crystal does possess one obvious trait that put it aside from
the other Chaos Emerald, however; it possesses a `soul', an intelligence
that not even the Master Chaos Emerald has an equal to.

And it heard the cries of the one who had taken it from the black city,
and it again wanted to save him from physical and mental harm...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Negative Master Chaos Emerald projected a psychic communication to
Joseph, that even in his feral state was perfectly clear...

>> Bring her to me. <<

Joseph stopped crying, and ceased movement for a moment to determine the
source of the voice.

>> Bring her to me, friend.  I shall heal her. <<

He stood, looking around.

>> I am not with you now, Joseph.  I am in the room of Crystal. <<

He walked over to Sandra and picked her up, heading to the steppad
in a nearly mechanical way.  The voice was right, he thought, he
should go to it...

>> Come to me, Joseph.  Let me help you again. <<

He decended into the emerald chamber, where the glowing stone blinked
now as it spoke.

>> Put her down on the ground, friend.  Let my power flow through her. <<

He did so, stepping back automatically.  What occurred next was the stuff
of legend, the very miracle that turned many a wizard to the pursuit of
magick in their youth.  For as Joseph stepped back, a gentle wave of
orange energy flowed into Sandra's body.  As it crashed over her, her
chest began to lift gently up and down again, and her eyelids fluttered,
as if she was awakening from a long sleep.

After she appeared to be healthy again, the wave stopped, as did the
crystal's attempt to communicate further.  She groaned, rolling onto her
chest and coughing gently, trying to stand up.  Joseph suddenly regained
mental articulation and went to assist her to her feet again.  He also
realized when he went to grab her that one of his arms was malfunctioning
painfully, and that it was a really stupid idea to try to use it to get
Sandra.  Clamping his jaw shut to hold in the pain, he used his other arm
to help Sandra to her feet, and then to embrace her after she was standing
once more.

She clung to him tightly, crying slightly from shock.  "I was so scared...
after that big flash, I felt myself slipping away...I didn't want to
die on you, just as we learned to share our true feelings..."

Joseph cried a little as well.  "I tried so hard to save you, but I
couldn't...the teleporter wouldn't work, I couldn't call Haven for
medical assistance...it was the crystal that gave you back to me..."
He looked into its warm glow, his mind suddenly accepting the truth.
"It was magick that saved you."

They held each other's sore, bruised, bleeding bodies for a few moments
more, before returning to the lab to keep their injuries from worsening.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After Sandra and Joseph had bandaged and hyposprayed themselves back to
fair health, they returned to their bedroom to clean their bodies off.
The rain, mud, blood, and other such debris was gladly removed by a
joint effort in the shower, and wasn't really a unenjoyable experience...

But after Sandra had fallen asleep (mostly from his comforting and
general TLC), he returned to the emerald room, limping and with a
damaged arm.  He looked into the crystal, and touched it with his
bad paw.  The pain wasn't there any longer, and it was replaced with
a warm, contented feeling all through his arm.  He held it with both
paws, and touched it to his bosom.  He knew that his science could not
save the world, that it was nothing against the raw power of nature.
His helplessness against nature that caused the near-demise of his
mate, the one thing he loved, showed him that.  He looked again into the
crystal, starting to hear its voice again.  He knew that this was the
right path, that this crystal was of a good nature...

And now, as his eyes began to gleam with orange power, he knew what he must
do to save the world...he must learn of this crystal's magick, and use it
against his foes' technology...only with the power of nature would Sandra,
and himself, ever know peace.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In the quarters of John, feared captain of the _Apocolypse_, he suddenly
awoke from a horrible vision.  It had started out with his ship drawing
near to Mobius, its weapons of war destroying all resistance, and the
Chaos Emeralds nearly in his grasp...but then, a bright orange bird,
made up of pure flame, rushed from the planet and destroyed his ship.
The Chaos Emeralds gleamed brightly as his body was burnt in the flame,
and they said only a word, over and over...

"Solaris."




			Chapter Sixteen - Summer Days



The morning broke above the Great Forest, wiping away the black clouds
from the sky that had brought the usual thunderstorm during the humid
summer months.  Fog hung over the Forest like a shroud, lowering visibility
to yards rather than miles.  It was a cool morning, so the fog probably
wasn't going to disperse until the heat of the afternoon began.

Knothole had weathered the storm rather well.  A tree had fallen here and
there, and a few huts had minor roof damage.  A particularly unfortunate
lightning bolt had set one of the unused huts on fire, but had been quickly
extinguished by the quick actions of several citizens.  The roads were
muddy, and some of the carts and other vehicles had become lodged in the
moist earth.  But overall, Knothole had survived the storm in fine shape.

The electrical storm had also been kind to Robotropolis.  The usual acid
rain hadn't corroded anything enough that a good polish wouldn't remove,
and the electrical storms had only knocked out power to those parts of the
city that were lost causes, anyway.  Some water damage had been reported
in the multiple SWATBot facilities, and a gas main had blown near the edge
of the city, causing some of the metal forges to be temporarily disabled.
Other than that, the city wasn't any more doomed than before.

The Dome, however, had taken some serious structural damage to its roof.
The lightning blast had almost demolished the upper 45% of the curvature
of the structure, which had to be tended to immediately.  Repair drones
began working on the reconstruction of the Dome, using tempest-hardened
crystal, as soon as the storm broke early that morning.  Inside the
structure, Joseph and Sandra were sweeping up the place, still stunned
by the occurance...

"Look at this mess," Joseph said, "my lobby is ruined."

Sandra threw a broken chair into a waste-bin.  "It's no big deal...all
of your stuff below here is safe and sound.  It's not like anything really
-bad- happened."  She smiled sheepishly.  "Except for that, of course."

Joseph frowned.  The issue of `that' was a sensitive one.  Knocking a
ruined endtable into a disposal drone, he looked over to Sandra.
"I'm sorry," he said, pain in his voice.

She dropped her broom, going over to hug him.  "It wasn't your fault."

Joseph took her into his gentle embrace.  "Yes, it was.  I should have
built the roof better, seen the warning signs..."

Sandra carressed his back warmly.  "Now stop that.  You couldn't have done
a damn thing about it, so stop dwelling on it."  She looked into his
eyes.  "I'm alive, safe, and with a fox who loves me.  What else do I
need?"

Joseph kissed her gently on the forehead.  "A warm, safe place to live."

She smiled up at him, sneaking her hands inside his coat and rubbing his
sides.  "Mmm.  Why can't I just curl up inside that big trenchcoat of
yours?"

He laughed.  "You're such a yiff."

She blushed.  "I am not!"

Joseph dropped his hug and ran to the back of the room, yelling out
"Sandra's a yiff!  She's gotta get it every night!"

Sandra chased after him, grabbing her broom and giggling.  "Ooh!"

He laughed, running around in circles.  "Look at her!  You *know* she
wants it right now!"

Sandra swatted him a few times in the backside.  "Just wait until I...!"

He jumped over the sofa, landing on the other side of it.  "Ha!"

She swooped around the other side and shoved him into it, causing it to
flip backwards.  When she landed completely on him, they were deposited
unceremoniously on the floor by the now-busted sofa.  "Oof!" they both
said, lying in the middle of the room.

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her again.  "Got you now."

Sandra pretended to struggle.  "Fiend."

He kissed her.  "Yiff."

She kissed back.  "Mrr."

Then, they both kissed, holding it for a long time.  They probably would
have been there all day like that if it hadn't been for a knock on the
portal.  "Everything okay in there?" a familiar voice inquired.

Sandra disengaged from the kiss.  "Yes, Sir Charles."

He laughed.  "Mind if I come in?"

"Sure," Joseph said, rolling out from under Sandra and climbing to his
feet.  "Just one moment."  Dusting himself off, then helping Sandra to
her own feet, they both walked to the portal and turned the manual-opening
crank for the malfunctioning diamondium-titanium-crystalline alloy door.

The deroboticized Sir Charles entered, looking rather well for a hedgehog
is age.  His quills had taken on a light blue-white tint, and his
moustache was a bit whiter than before, but he looked in good spirits
and healthy.  It was amazing to see the change in him after being
deroboticized.  "Hello, Joseph, Miss Nightweaver."  He smiled at them
gently.  "Was I...interrupting anything?"

Joseph smiled, patting Charles on the back.  "Hey there, Uncle Chuck."
Unlike Sandra, Joseph was allowed, unconsciously, to call Sir Charles
`Uncle Chuck'; partially because of their scientist-scientist relationship,
and partially because Joseph was more `respectible' in polite society than
Sandra was at the moment.  "No, we were just...cleaning.  What brings you
to this part of the forest?"

He looked around.  "Oh, just stopping by to see how you were."
Uncle Chuck poked at some of the rubble with a stick, dispersing a few
repair drones.  "I see you suffered some storm damage," Charles said,
with a mildly concerned look on his face.  "Anything serious?"

"No, Charles, it's okay.  Just did some structural damage to the roof,
and a little bit of water damage.  Nothing more."  Joseph didn't really
want to tell anyone about what had happened to Sandra, nor about the
mysterious way she had been renewed...

"Ah.  Well, I just came by to see how you were doing...and to tell you
that one of those flying objects you control got hit with something
and crashed into Rotor's hut last night."  He smiled in the manner that
only old males can perfect, and laughed.  "He wanted me to tell you to
come and pick it up, because he doesn't know how to fix it."

Joseph smiled, glad to get off the subject of his roof.  "I'll be down
there to pick it up shortly.  Anything else of note?"

He shook his head.  "Nope, everything else seems to be in order."  He
glanced between the two of them.  "Are you sure everything's alright?"

"Yes, Charles, Sandra and I are fine."

He smiled.  "That's very good, boy.  I'll leave you two alone now."
Chuckling, he plodded off towards Knothole.  "Don't wear yourselves
out, y'hear?"

Sandra blushed, while Joseph just laughed.  "Get outa here, you old
'vert!"

As he wandered off, Joseph smiled and shook his head.  "Crazy old codger."

Sandra stood behind Joseph, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"Honestly, I think most people believe me to be your concubine."

He frowned slightly.  "The others are fools.  They know nothing of us,
and I'd rather it stay that way."

Sandra hugged him.  "But that's not the truth."

Joseph mmmed and smiled, stroking her hands gently.  "Since when have
you cared about the truth?"

"Ever since I actually could operate overtly in Knothole without being
arrested," she said, "that's when.  It's bad enough that people think me
an untrustworthy thief..."  Her eyes softened behind him, and she rested
her face against his back for both physical and mental support.
"...but now they all feel I'm a whore!"

He frowned, his eyes thinning to slits behind his sunglasses.  Within his
mouth, his fangs automatically sharpened, and pain-dulling endorphins
flooded his body.  "Lies," he snarled, "of the most vicious kind.  Any
who I discover spreading such vile rumors will answer to me."

Sandra rested her head more firmly against his back.  "But you'll never
know, Joseph...not even your devices can read the collective unconscious."

He calmed himself, after briefly allowing it to boil to a raging froth,
then forcing it to drift off into the atmosphere.  Rage could not solve
the problem, he realized, but only time would.  He hoped.  "Yes, I suppose
you are right," he growled quietly, "but still, if the opportunity
presents itself..."

Sandra rubbed her muzzle against his back.  "I know you would, Joseph."

His claws idly extended, sharpened to the point where only wrought steel
could resist their power, and then retracted with a deadly silence.
"My own moral code demands it."

Her eyes softened a little more.  "I fear the day when your wrath will be
brought down on another, Joseph...you would kill rather than to accept
dishonor, and the prospect of you going through the Mobian legal system..."

Joseph's eyes became like diamond-cutters, his fear of being seperated
from Sandra and his indignation at the Mobians for even considering such
an option playing out in his mind.  "I'll never leave you.  I'll destroy
this entire planet before I let anyone..."

Sandra gripped him tighter.  "Ssh...no need to frenzy again, Joseph."

He frowned, embarassed at his frothing anger.  "Sorry."

"Well, I don't feel like being stalked again..."  A question entered her
mind.  "Joe?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember that time you told me about that vixen who tried to kill
your father back on Ur'thae?"

He nodded quietly, manuvering Sandra around while he continued to sweep.

"Well, would you...I mean, if something like that happened...could you...
kill me?"

He stopped dead in his tracks for a moment, making not a sound.  Sandra
loosened her grip a bit, somewhat concerned about his sudden secessation
of movement.  Then, he turned around, took off his sunglasses, and looked
into her eyes.  It seemed like days before he spoke to her, but it was
only a few moments later that Joseph chose to reply.

"Yes..."

Time seemed to crystallize around them.  Nary a bird tweeted for the
duration of the word...Joseph actually replied in the affirmative!

An aeon later, he said the second half.  "...but only in that situation."

Sandra looked shocked for a moment, and then realized the grim reality of
Joseph's upbringing/programming; above all else, his elders must be
protected and honored.  All other bonds, physical, mental, or emotional,
could not break the sacred trust between sire and sired.  Everyone else,
no matter what their station, came second.

Initially, she denied it.  Certainly the love between two foxes could
weaken the hold between father and son.  Maybe he didn't love her as much
as he said he did.  Maybe he was holding something back; she might have
been seeing someone else behind his back, or...no.  Joseph had no reason
to lie to her, nor would he ever.

Then, she looked into his eyes.  Joseph's green eyes always fluxuated
in a way that she could read, making his true feelings plain.  His
love for her mingled with his honor and bond to his kin, and they were
only counterbalanced by the memory of the _Apocolypse_ and the crimes
of his own people.  If his father was on that ship, he'd help them
until he was too weak to push a button.  That was the only thing that
would stop him, otherwise...it would take more than one vixen to sever
that link.

Finally, she accepted this reality for the first time, and remembered
their own deep love for each other.  She knew and respected that Joseph
had to do what he had to do, and she knew that he'd never intentionally
hurt her unless she attempted to destroy his father; he had given his
life to her after she had spared his own after his first berezerker rage,
so even an attack on him would go unchallenged.  And since his dad
was dead, anyway...

She nodded softly and looked into his eyes, and thus approved of and
understood the ramifications of Joseph's words.  "I understand."

Joseph put on his sunglasses.  "That subject is unpleasant.  Let us
discuss something else."

Sandra took the offered option quickly.  "Has the stone spoken with you
again, Joseph?"

He shook his head slowly, memories of knowledge given by the stone
resurfacing again.  "It has been silent...but I understand it now."  He
looked into space, his pupils turning slightly orange behind his shades.
"I understand so much now."

She feared the change in Joseph initially, but also instinctively knew
that the stone was that of the light, not the dark.  Thus, her fear faded
to a steady level of awe.  "Do you think that the stone is...?"

"A Chaos Emerald?  Of course it is.  It is the other most powerful one on
this planet.  It is the Negative Master Chaos Emerald, and it is possessed
by the male/destructive/negative spirit of this world's lifeforce, Mob."

She was stunned for a moment.  "How did you know all that?"

He looked into her eyes as if she had asked him to add one and one
together, but then reconsidered her statement logically.  How -had- he
known to say that?  "Well, umm...I just -knew- it, you know?"

Sandra waxed contemplative.  "Perhaps your contact with the stone
somehow gave you...some sort of...err..."  She attempted to speak
like Joseph.  "Dermal/Neurologic Linked Information Transferrence?"

He looked surprised.  "Sandra, I didn't know you knew of that term!
You mean you actually read my level one thesis of DNLs?"

She smiled secretively.  "I read many things around here."

He grinned dismissively.  "Well, that might be what happened...of course,
the magickal tends to ignore the paths trod by the scientist.  Perhaps
I can learn to accept both paths as the same in time..."

She nodded softly, smiling at him.  "I think you and that stone are going
to do great things."

Joseph crossed his arms and smirked smugly.  "Of course."  A thought
entered his mind.  "I better check on our guest.  He's probably either
half-mad with fear by now..."

Sandra grimaced.  "I forgot about Snively."

He sighed, as if he was about to undertake some awful personal chore.
"So did I.  I better do this myself."  Pulling away from Sandra, he
kissed her on the brow before decending down the step-shaft to the
laboratory...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He arrived in the laboratory smoothly, and walked over to a distant
corridor that led about 50 yards away from the main laboratory area.
When he reached the end of the corridor, he rubbed his left forefinger
over a certain spot in the wall, revealing an additional portal
immediately in front of him.  Walking through it, he entered
another room that had another little alcove implanted into it at the
far end.

The alcove had a forcefield in front of it, and two massive UsagiBOTs
flanking it on both side of the entrance.  Behind the alcove, there was
a 12 foot by 6 foot by 7 foot room, which had a replicator, a subspace
reciever that picked up various `human'-interest programming, and a bed.
Lying on the bed, watching the reciever's wall-mounted liquid crystal
monitor, was Snively.

The cell had been built because Joseph had become sick of Snively's
complaints about the makeshift cell that had been hastily constructed
in the lab.  Tired of his continual chatter, Joseph made the new cell
to pacify him.  After all, he was probably going to be killed once
Joseph turned him over to Sally, anyway, so he might as well live
his last few months comfortably.

Joseph came up with a quick ruse, and began acting on it.  "Oh, good.
You're alive."

Snively looked over at Joseph.  "What?"

"You mean you didn't hear that racket outside last night?"

Snively looked back over at the monitor in a blase' turn of his head,
lying through his teeth.  "No, not a thing."

Joseph looked over his shoulder uncomfortably.  "Oh, good.  Then it
probably won't find you."

Snively's brow dotted with perspiration.  "`It'?  What's `it', sir?"

"The demon I accidentally conjured out of my..."  He quickly thought
up a good name, stalling under the guise of fear.  "...interdimentional
portal device.  I was trying to tune in the Void, but I apparently found
some sort of Rift."  He pretended to attempt to soothe Snively.
"Don't worry, it's only as big as me."

Snively stuttered involuntarily.  "D-demon?"

Joseph grimaced.  "Yeah, and it was a nasty SOB.  Long, razor-sharp teeth,
a tail like a scorpion, several gaping maws all around its head; dripping
spittle so vile that it could eat through a fox in under a minute, their
tongues lashing out into the air; huge claws that could tear a tree in
twain, rippling muscles that were as hard as wrought iron, glowing red
eyes that could paralyze even the greatest Ur'thaen warrior..."

He yelped softly.  "And i-it's here, s-sir?"

Joseph smiled proudly.  "Nope.  I wasted the ugly mother with my cannon..."
He allowed his smile to fade.  "At least, I might have.  I either
vaporized it or teleported it."  He resumed his smile.  "Well, I
just thought you might like to know what happened last night.  I know
-I- like to know when unusual things happen, don't you?"

Snively nodded shakily.  "Y-yes."

"Well, I'll be off now.  Later."  With that, he walked from the room,
allowing Snively to hide under his bed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph returned to Sandra, who was finishing up the removal of the debris
so the repair-bots could start reforging the roof.  "Everything go okay,
Joe?"

He nodded.  "Oh yes, wonderfully.  He'll be quiet for days now."

She smiled.  "Good.  Well, let's get out of here until the roof gets fixed.
How long do you think the robots will need?"

He mused for a moment.  "About a afternoon.  It's not totally broken, after
all."  He whistled, and the drones began to organize their plan of attack.
"Come now, darling, let's leave them to their work."

As they walked out, various robots popped blades and sanders out of their
appendages, and moved steadily towards the inside of the once-glorious
structure...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Knothole was pleasantly cool after the storm.  Some of the huts were being
repaired by their various owners, and a few people strolled about gawking
at the damage.  The majority of the people of Knothole were, however,
simply enjoying the pleasant weather for the first time in several years.

She watched him walk down the street, right next to her yet miles away,
and observed how he looked through the crowd with the eyes of a machine;
scanning the crowd for potential threats, noting the slight collective
swells and ebbs of mood, calculating trajectories of moving objects,
sensing the slight temperature changes from place to place, listening
to mumbled dialogue throughout the crowd, and observing, silently,
her every variation of feeling.

To the outside world, however, they appeared as a pair of freakishly tall
foxes walking down the street; one abnormally neon orange, the other an
unnatural ravenish black...their strides nearly identical, their bodies
complimenting each other in every way, and their eyes cool and mysterious.
A few mothers pulled their kits towards them as they wandered by, either
alarmed at Joseph's appearance or nervous that Sandra might steal one for
herself.  The old silently appraised the pair with slitted eyes, years of
an endless war callousing their hearts to the point where even a rather
quiet and trustworthy-appearing scientist was one to be watched.

Yet, there were those in the village who were friendly to them.  A few
of the teenagers shouted out to Joseph as he wandered by, blaring the
boombox he had repaired during his last outing loudly in appreciation.
David Prower waved at them in passing as he flew through the village,
testing out some of his newer hardware, and some Keld'yrians smiled
at Joseph and Sandra as a group of them went into the community center.

But despite some of the friendly looks and hails, the majority of the
village was either wary of Joseph's odd appearance and stature, nervous
about his SpyGlobes and other robot minions, or afraid of his sheer
influence over the lives of 90% of the current Mobian population; or
they were afraid of Sandra's own odd appearance and stature, jealous
of her if they desired Joseph in some way, disgusted that a thief and
a spy could suddenly be showered with such power just because an
`eccentric' person like Joseph came upon her on a snowy winter night,
or angry at her for some past crime.

Sandra stayed close to Joseph as they walked, realizing full well
that a good majority of the people in the village disliked her
passionately.  As long as she was with Joseph, however, she knew that
nobody would dare say a single negative thing about her, or even sneer
as she happened by.  After all, a few people in the village had forgotten
that Joseph had a very short tolorance for negative feelings about Sandra
during a previous excursion...and only a chance arrival of Sonic had
broken up the imminent fight.

Since then, most people in the village had learned to keep their tongues
firmly bitten when Joseph was with Sandra, not even acknowledging them if
they had been one of the few who had caused Joseph's rage to foam.  This
seemed to suit Joseph just fine, seeing that violence against `primates'
(as he referred to those Mobians who were not foxes of some kind, or who
had personally annoyed him) was `distasteful'.  Sandra, however, liked to
know exactly how anyone felt about everything, so the silence was very
bothersome to her.  Almost intolerable, but the fact that Joseph could
easily observe, at length, any one of them with the use of his recon
devices was enough to keep her curiousity in check while they plodded on.

It was almost lunchtime in Knothole, and several people had ceased their
work to dine at Knothole's only cafe, the `Hedgehog's Quill'.  It had been
named that informally in honor of the village's resident demigodish hero,
Sonic, after the Doomsday `affair'.  It had only been appropriate, after
all, after Sonic had single-handedly (well, that's what everyone thought;
Sally had only come along `for the ride') saved Mobius and killed Robotnik.
And since the cries for `King Sonic I' had increased dramatically after
that, the owner of the restaurant decided to get in good with the future
`king' by naming the cafe which he ran `The Hedgehog's Quill'.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was a nice establishment, and was made mostly out of synthetic wood.
The entire area was built on a raised `wooden' deck, which was about
5 feet off the ground.  The concrete supports went up from the ground to
form the vertical axis for the railing, which was about three and a half
feet from the floor of the `wooden' platform.  Horizontally, it sported
sanded granite `pipes' to keep people from falling off, and the occasional
basket of flowers that hung off the side for color.

The patio itself was a very meticulously-arranged affair, with `oak' tables
being surrounded by `redwood' chairs.  A plastic umbrella that was mounted
into the table gave the customers shade, if they so desired, by raising
or lowering the parasol's control rod, and the laminated surface of the
tables made cleaning simplicity itself.  There were always a few people
sitting around there, drinking or chatting, and gossiping about the comings
and goings of the inhabitants.

However, Joseph never sat in the patio unless he absolutely had to.  "It
makes me feel like an exhibit," he'd say to Sandra or whoever he was eating
with, and then step inside the large interior of the cafe.

It was set up like any other bar and grill one might have found during the
great days of King Acorn's rule, which pleased the Princess' nostalgic
side.  A large bar that had been put in went from one side to the other of
the back of the building, and was tended by three teenage hedgehogs with
artifically bluened headquills.  A dance floor had been built on a slightly
raised platform in the middle of the structure, and was spotlessly clean
no matter what time you entered the cafe.  Around the sides of the `Quill'
were several more tables similar to those on the patio, and were tended
by waiters and waitresses of all species, but with blue hats that simulated
Sonic's quills.  (Apparently, the owner of the restaurant, one Harold
Weasel, wanted to really impress Sonic with his `devotion'.)  And hidden
in the far left corner of the establishment was a DJ booth, which was
usually quietly manned by a somewhat-crazy old wolf in a loud tropical
shirt.

The motif of the `Quill' was a testament to Freedom Fighters around the
world.  Those of Knothole who weren't knowledgable of the other pockets of
resistance around the world could easily be educated by entering into
`Hedgehog's Quill' and taking a look at some of the pictures, papers,
and stories about the various people who made the resistance what it was.
Posters from the `old days' of favorite bands or events were also displayed
proudly in the establishment, and a huge portrait of Sonic and the Knothole
crew hung behind the bar, which was a refreshing break from the various
shelves of consumable (?) liquids that were stored there.

Joseph entered with Sandra through the main door, and was led quickly by
a waitress to his usual table on the far back right, near the kitchen door.
As they drew closer, the refreshing smells of grilling cabbit and roasted
yakamule stimulated Joseph's hunger further, and put a slight smile on his
face from his memories of the exquisite meal he had consumed last time he
had been there...

Ahh, cabbit.  It was the very food animal that Joseph felt made saving
the mudball in which he was now hopelessly entwined worthwhile.  A
freakish mixture of feline and lepus, it had the very qualities of the
turkey-like ch'rllbah that had been native to his own world.  The
psudobovine/equine consumable yakamule was also a delicious feast,
and produced all sorts of tasty products.

He pulled out a seat for Sandra, got her situated, and then took a seat
himself.  The waitress returned a moment later, bringing Joseph his usual
Fizz [tm] ("I just can't get enough of this stuff," he'd always say when
asked why he always had Fizz [tm] with meals, "it just tastes so good.")
and an ashtray for the eventual cigar.

She was a very polite and somewhat alarmed mink named `Rachel', who stood
at nearly the same height Sandra did.  However, minks, like some types
of foxes, were expected to be tall.  A sort of Mobian fluke of genetics,
most of the canine and mephit species of the world were taller than most
of the other inhabitants, only exceeded by ursines and those of pure
equine stock.  She was an attractive young female of perhaps 20 or 22,
and was wearing the usual outfit of the organization; the usual hat that
couldn't contain her voluminous blond mane that was called her `headfur',
a tight blueish t-shirt with the words `Hedgehog's Quill: Where The Food
Is Fast, The Ale Is Cold, And The Customer Is Always Right' stenciled in
a bright red calligraphic font, and a short (but not unreasonably so)
skirt.  Her eyes were also blue, but had shades of silver in them as well.
Her form was also properly mephit, possessing a healthy amount of material
in those areas attractive to the opposite sex, and a deficit of material in
those that would not appear attractive with much.

Yet, Joseph barely gave her a second glance when she bent over to Sandra
and inquired as to her beverage this afternoon.  However, Sandra gave her
a very cool, bored look when requesting her drink.  "Give me a glass of
Mobian Black Wine, please," she said, "and be -sure- it is properly
chilled."  Despite Sandra's rudeness, she smiled as a good waitress who
expects a healthy tip does, and disappeared into the kitchen to retrieve
a glass for Sandra.  Joseph considered saying something to Sandra about
her behavior, then thought better of it.  Perhaps the Mobian `time of the
month' was due for her.

On the table, there was the usual bucket of peanuts, as well as a small
card that explained that the Quill was the Finest Surviving Bar and Grill
on Mobius and that they allowed Smoking in the designated sections.
Joseph's ashtray was by his right palm, where his cigar was idling between
his index and middle fingers.  Two glasses of water were by both Sandra's
and Joseph's lefts, with a simple fork and knife wrapped in a napkin
occupying the right.  Slowly becoming bored, Joseph put the cigar into the
ashtray for a moment, and rolled his head around on his neck.  A moment
later, Joseph took a peanut, opened it, and tossed the salted legume into
his mouth.  While continuing to wait, Joseph chose to take a look around at
the customers during the lunch rush.

The usual group of wanderers, locals, and rowdies had crowded into the
place for their usual specials; grilled yakamule steak, Quill's `Legendary'
chili dogs, or the ever-popular cabbit salad.  The clientele was mostly
teenagers to young adults, and the distant smell of alcohol could be
detected from some of the louder tables.  Occasionally, someone in a
Quill's uniform would quietly escort someone to the door, who would sneak
back in and be thrown out a bit more loudly.

However, most of the people there were civil, and mostly kept to their
own affairs.  Every once in a while, a song would come over the speakers
that would motivate a mass dance.  Usually, it would be a slow song...but
when the fast stuff came on, the whole restaurant would literally rock on
its foundations from the sheer number of customers dancing.  That was how
popular the bar was...it was nearly a `club'.

At the moment, a patriotic tune was playing over the speakers, and was
enthusiastically being sung along with at some of the more
alcohol-influenced tables.  "Bluuuuue streeeak...uhh, somethin' somethin',
Sooooonic the heddddgehooogg!!"

Sandra was not so enthused, however, still waitng for her and Joseph's
drinks to be brought to them by their waitress.  "What, she got lost
or something?"

Joseph rubbed Sandra's paw.  "Now, Sandra, give the poor thing a break.
She looked pretty frazzled as it was when she was -at- our table.  Who
knows what else she's been dealing with today?"

She was not calmed.  "I don't care.  I come here to be fed, not to wait
years and years for my wine."

Joseph ate a peanut.  "It's not like we haven't ate today..."

Sandra folded her arms and reclined in her chair a little.  "That's not the
point, Joe.  This place is supposed to have `the fastest service alive'.
I'm not seeing it."

He consumed another two peanuts.  "Patience is a virtue, Sandra..."

Sandra smirked, looking into Joseph's eyes jadedly.  "I once waited all
night inside one section of an air conditioner's vent, perfectly still,
for the opportunity to sneak past a guard, through a lazer-tripwire system,
two snarling dogs, a tall titanium spiked `fence', and a sturdy glass case
to get the Jewel of the Three Kingdoms."  He put her thumb and forefinger
together.  "It was about that big, and was worth about twenty million
Mobiums to my employers."  She smiled gently.  "If patience is a virtue,
I'm a frigging nun."

He laughed.  "Then waiting for a glass of tangy grape juice should be
no big deal."

She glared at the kitchen door.  "Yes, it -is-."

Joseph frowned a little.  "Sandra, you seem different today.  Is something
wrong?"

Sandra looked at Joseph with a very cool, yet very calm, look.  "That
waitress," she said, "was my arch-nemesis in high school.  She was my
one competitor for everything; men, seats in the auditorium, new hats,
spots in the cafeteria line, you name it."  She gritted her teeth,
holding back her anger.  "She -never- got in trouble for anything,
while I continually got sent to the ISD room and sneered at by my
teachers."  She dug her claws into the table.  "Since then, I promised
to make her life miserable in any way I could."

Joseph looked a little surprised.  "She looked like she didn't mean you
any malice to me.  I've come here lots of times without you, too, and
she had always treated me nicely."

Sandra's eyes would have flashed red if she had cybernetic enhancements.
Her voice grew in rage, but maintained a steady volume.  "You mean she's
-been- working here?"

He grew a little nervous in this alarming change of mood.  "Yeah, since
like two or three months ago, when the last big group of people were
deroboticized..."

Suddenly, she calmed a bit.  A little smile graced her face.  "Roboticized,
was she?  I should have known...too stupid to get out of the city in time."

Her rapid mood swing didn't help Joseph's feelings of nervousness.  "You
aren't going to try to make her unhappy, are you?"

She looked at him distrustingly.  "Why should -you- care?"

He folded his arms.  "I think that holding a grudge for -that- long is
very unhealthy."

Sandra's initial suspicions of a tryst faded as she realized Joseph's
actual reason for trying to quell her vengeance.  "You don't understand,"
she growled in a soft whisper, "she -deserves- to be abused!  This isn't
just a one-sided attack on someone who happened to get some things I
wanted -fairly-!  She was -worse- than me!  She--"

She arrived then, putting Joseph's dram of iced Fizz [tm] down in front of
him, while putting a goblet of Mobian Black Wine, cooled in a freezer of
some sort, in front of her.  Sandra looked at her with a sudden blase'
look,which made the mink obviously more nervous.  Very frightened, she
turned to
Joseph.  "W-what would you like, sir?"

Joseph smiled, making his usual polite request.  "Just my usual, please.
The chef will know what to do."

She nodded, apparently thankful for his promptness.  "And y-you, ma'am...?"

Sandra looked at her with a very bored look, intensely focusing her
superiority right into her eyes.  "I wish to have one of the `Legendary'
chili dogs that this establishment serves, with extra chili."  She
yawned.  "And do it -now-, please."

The mink ran off after saying the usual `that'll be just a moment, enjoy
your afternoon at the Hedgehog's Quill', looking like she was going to
collapse from terror.  Needless to say, this was beginning to seriously
displease Joseph.  "What possible pleasure can you be deriving from this?
Whatever she had done must have been so long ago that it couldn't possibly
be affecting you now.  You are going to give her a heart attack...with...
whatever the hell you are doing to make her so afraid."

She clawed into the table.  It was starting to becoming noticable.
"You -can't- understand!  She's a million times worse than I ever was!
I hurt people because I -had- to!  She does it for fun!"

Joseph switched to Ur'thaen, seeing that people were starting to notice
their heated discussion.  << "I'm not seeing much evidence of bad intent
in that mink.  All I see is a very frightened girl, wondering if you'll
sic me on her for not chilling your drink enough." >>

Sandra followed, knowing enough of the language to be able to speak it
like a native.  << "That's an act!  She's a evil bitch, waiting for the
right opportunity to strike!" >>

He waved his hands around expressively.  << "Strike?  She can't harm either
of us!  I've got enough tactical weaponry to wipe this part of the mudball
into dust!  What could she do to you?" >>

Sandra leaned forward, trying to contain her voice to a whisper.
<< "She uses people, then -kills- them!  I let my victims -live-, for
Goddess' sake!  Rachel does away with them to cover her tracks!" >>
She growled, trying to make Joseph listen with sheer force of will.
<< "She's evil!" >>

Joseph sat back, shocked.  << "A killer?" >>

Sandra calmed down, seeing that her point had come across.  << "Yes, she's
killed about 10 men...covering it up by making them `suicides', tragic
`accidents', various `mysterious disappearances'...and she's never been
caught!  She even tried to make -me- look responsible for one, but she
didn't have enough evidence to frame me!" >>

He was still in a state of dumbfounded amazement.  << "But...she's always
looked so nice!  I've always gotten my food quickly and hot from her." >>

Sandra shook her head slowly, frowning.  << "The foolish bitch has been
trying to soften you up...she probably wants you for the reason that
everyone thinks -I- want you; power." >>

He looked agast.  << "You know that's not true." >>

<< "That's not the point!  She's dangerous, and she hates me with an
undying passion...she's afraid now, only because you fight like three
Hells and Packbell rolled into one, and you're incredibly loyal." >>
She smiled for the first time in what seemed like years, but then returned
to her initial annoyed expression.  << "Thank Goodness for that...if you
-were- having an affair with her, who knows what sort of damage she might
do!" >>

Joseph reached inside his trenchcoat.  << "Well, I'll put a stop to--" >>

Sandra stopped him with her paw.  << "No!  Killing her yourself will only
damn you in the eyes of the people, and probably get us both lynched!" >>

Joseph sighed, resting his arm on the table.  << "What the hell are we
supposed to do, then?  I can't let a murderer run free within Knothole." >>

She laughed for some reason, which alarmed Joseph a bit more.  << "Joseph,
there's an entire prison full of people in this restaurant alone.  Look
around!" >>  She guided him discreetly from table to table, showing him
the various criminals which were present.  << "That fox over there is
a professional assassin, that wolf is a very elite safecracker, that
couple of porcupines are two of the finest bankrobbers on Mobius, and
the middle hedgehog behind the bar is an anti-monarchy anarchist." >>

Joseph looked sincerely surprised.  << "Goddess' bosom!  If the Princess
knew what sort of people she was harboring..." >>

Sandra put a finger to his muzzle.  << "Too bad she won't, Joe.  Some of
those thugs have saved my life more than once." >>

Joseph looked shocked, then resigned himself to it.
<< "I will not tarnish your professional honor." >>

She nodded.  << "I figured you'd understand." >>

Joseph ruffled his headfur.  << "But what are we supposed to do about this
witch of a waitress?" >>

Sandra smiled darkly.  << "Leave it to me, Joseph.  Just play along." >>

She returned, bringing Joseph his exquisitely rare yakamule steak,
slathered in piping-hot au jus, with deliciously spicy potato wedges
with it.  A bottle of even-more spicy sauce was given to him with it,
and his Fizz [tm] was refreshed with the arrival of the meal.

Rachel then carefully gave Sandra her meal, with a side order of fries
and a refreshment of her drink.  "W-would you like anything else, sir?"

Joseph dismissed her with a wave.  "This will be fine for now, thank you."
As she left, Joseph began to eat as he always did.  Sandra, however, kept
an eye on Rachel while she was eating, and waited for her to enter the
ladies' room before acting.

As she got up, Joseph watched her and made a fair guess on what she was
about to do.  "Go on," he muttered while he consumed a piece of saturated
bread, "I'm right out here if you need me."  Of course, Sandra would have
gone off to the ladies' room anyway, even if Joseph hadn't noted that he
approved.  After she'd gotten out of sight, Joseph resumed eating, hoping
that she'd not get them both thrown out of the establishment.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The ladies' room of the `Quill' was done in a psudorustic style.
The sinks and mirrors were done up in fake wood, and were obviously
reenforced marble by the very look of the `wood'.  The floor was sanded
and polished concrete, which was so painted to make it appear to be
linoleum.  A fan was constantly going in the background to freshen
the air, and the stalls of the lavoratory were tall and wide enough
to accomodate the largest Mobian female.  The area was clean and
smelled vaguely of pine.

It was also almost empty, except for a single mink who was grooming
herself in front of the mirror, and the tall black vixen who is the
focus of this episode...

Sandra strode in, some of the smoke from the outside draping behind her
as a cloak and highlighting her menacing figure.  "So.  You lived."

The mink turned slightly to Sandra, still combing her lush blonde hair.
"I could say the same for you, dahling."

Sandra was unphased, and walked up to a nearby mirror to do some grooming
of her own.  "Well, I knew that it was time to get out of the city when
I lost contact with my fence in Rivertown about 50 klicks from here.
That gave me the distinct feeling that it was time to go."

Rachel did her lashes.  "Of course, the fact that you swiped the
roboticizerplans for Ivo might have given you a hint as well, -honey-."

Sandra held back an instictive desire to tear open her throat.  "I'd
thought you'd believe that nonsense, knowing you."

She kept grooming.  "So it's not true that you sold the world out to that
miserable deceased dictator?"

Sandra combed her hair.  "No, it's not."

"Then who did, Sandra?  Aliens?"

Sandra looked into the mirror, boring deeply into her own eyes.  She was
close, very close.  That, or she was being sarcastic.  "It was probably
one of the various spies that were all over Charles' lab during the last
weeks of the monarchy.  It's not my problem any more."

The mink seemed to lose interest in the subject.  "Well, whoever did it
certainly yiffed herself, didn't she?"

Sandra washed off her hands.  "Definitely."

The mink smiled darkly.  "So, how's your freak boyfriend?"

Sandra took a towel from the wall and dried off her hands.  "He's less of
a freak than you are, `Black Widow'."

She laughed.  "Sure, honey.  Still a little bitter about being the second
best seductress on Mobius?"

Sandra folded her arms.  "My days of seduction for money or power are done,
Rachel.  I found love.  Haven't you?"

Rachel flinched for a moment, then resumed her usual composure.  "Love?
More like the motherlode, Sandy-dear.  You don't even need to compete any
longer; all you gotta do is cross your legs and the freak'll get it done."

It took all of Sandra's will to keep from killing Rachel the instant she
said that.  "Your mouth is still as vulgar as your methodology, yifftoy."

Rachel laughed, tying back her hair and putting on her hat.  "I'd like to
see you do something about it, dear.  Without him, you're nothing but a
thief and a spy."  She looked into her eyes with a confident sneer.
"And he -will- be mine, eventually.  Already, I've convinced him that
you're nothing but a power-lusting bitch by how I've reacted.  It's too
late to warn him now...it's already begun."  She paused to let it sink in.
"How does that make you feel, Nightweaver?  Your days are numbered."
With that, she walked out the bathroom door, her tail flicking at her in
disrespect as she strode out.

She got herself a disposable cup, filled it with water, and got a drink.
"You get all that, Joseph?"

Through the subvocal implant behind her brain stem, she `heard' a slightly
distorted voice say, "Loud and clear, Sandra.  What a bitch."

Sandra took a drink.  "Didn't I tell you she was dangerous?"

"Damn straight," the `voice' said.  "remind me to remove the particle of
saline solution from my mental evaluation process when I hear a statement
from you."  He burped quietly.  "Now what?"

Sandra wiped her mouth, looking into the mirror with a dark smile.
"We wait for her to make the next move."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph was just polishing off his glass of Fizz [tm] when Sandra emerged
from the ladies' room and took a seat.  However, she noticed that her
chili dog had mysteriously disappeared.  "Hey, where's my lunch?"

He smiled and dabbed off the sies of his mouth with a napkin.  "It was
getting cold."

She scowled at him for a half-second, then smirked and took a seat.
"I waited a long time for that!"

He smiled.  "It wasn't very healthy."

She held the smirk.  "That's no excuse!"

"I thought she might have poisoned it...?"

Sandra kicked his shin gently under the table.  "Wrong."

He winced and grinned softly.  "I was hungry."

She folded her arms, leaning back a bit in her chair.  "Well, that's
the honest answer.  It's still not an excuse."

He laughed.  "Too bad.  I paid for it."

She smiled very slightly.  "That you did."

"Don't worry, I'll feed you something more tasty later."  He winked.
"A whole four-course picnic later tonight.  What d'ya say?"

She smiled, appeased.  "Well, only because you know how I adore picnics."
Sandra caressed his face with the back of her hand.  "You are forgiven."

He piled up their dishes in the middle of the table, took a fistful of
peanuts, and shoved them in his coat pocket.  "Good.  Let's get the
smeg out of here before whatshername goes psycho."

Sandra smiled, getting up first, then allowing Joseph to stand.  Lunch
had ended about 15 minutes ago, so the restaurant was mostly abandoned.
A thought entered her head, however, as she stood.  "Joseph."

"Yeah?"

"Rotor."

He thought about it for a second, then smiled.  "Ahh."

They walked out the main door, Sandra walking next to Joseph...with the
mink's hateful stare following them as they left.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Rotor's hut was in its usual state of unrestrained chaos.  Parts were
strewn all over the eccentric walrus' hut, as was the occasional SWATBot
part.  Today, however, a table had been cleared away for a single
basketball-sized object, that was restrained in a vice.  It seemed to
have suffered from a blunt object colliding with it in some fashion, and
obviously required repair.

Rotor was still bent over it, poking at it with a probe, when Joseph
entered the hut.  Sandra trailed from no great distance behind him, and
stood at a safe distance away from the two tinkerers when they met.

"Rotor, pleasant to see you again."

The walrus looked up at the tall fox, and smiled.  "Hey, Joseph.  I found
your device spinning in one spot outside the village today, and I figured
you wouldn't mind if I tried to get it to work."

The fox smiled.  "Heavens no.  I like to see the innovative spirit in the
denziens of this world."  He extended his palm to caress the device.
"Please, show me what you've learned."

Rotor nodded, and opened up a hatch on the side of the device.  "Okay,
here's what I think happened..."

As the technical aspects of the conversation took precedence, Sandra
wandered off to explore the rest of the hut.  As she walked around, she
noticed other things besides parts inhabited the area.  For example, a
bed was in the far rear of the room, as were some pictures.  Most of the
art on the wall dealt with Freedom Fighters at work and play, but a few
had mostly walruses.  Perhaps this was a sort of family album for Rotor,
she thought, but it mostly consisted of those in the village.  How odd...
where do you come from, Rotor?  How did you get here?  Perhaps she would
never know...

A popping sound and the smell of ozone filled the room, which returned
Sandra's attention to the table and the tinkerers.

Joseph waved away some of the smoke from the erupting device, and coughed.
"Well, looks like the master power conduit was just about to blow anyway."

Rotor coughed as well.  "So -that- is what that silver glob was.  I knew
it had to be something like that...ah well."

The creator of the device smiled.  "Hey, I had to trash a few of these
objects before I learned how they worked.  You can keep this one for
future study."

Rotor beamed a bit at Joseph.  "Really?  Thanks!"

He put up a paw benignly.  "No problem at all.  I have lots more."

Sandra walked back over to Joseph, returning to his side as if she were a
well-trained falcon.  "Well, darling, let's leave Rotor to his work..."

Joseph smiled and nodded.  "Just call if you have any questions, friend."

Rotor smiled.  "Oh, I'm sure you'll be sick of my questions soon enough."

They all laughed.  "You'd be surprised at my patience.  Now, if you'll
excuse Sandra and I, there's some other business that needs to be attended
to."

Rotor nodded, and bent over the device to explore it further.  Content that
the walrus would be occupied for a few years, Joseph and Sandra strode off
into the village, heading home again...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra and Joseph returned to the Dome, seeing that the repairs to it were
nearly complete.  The final polish was being put on the Dome's new roof,
which consisted of clouded clear crystal, rather than the old brownish
kind.  Joseph appeared surprised when he saw this, but was not angered.
"Good show," he said to the drones, "make sure the rest of it matches."
They twittered and began to comply as Joseph and Sandra entered the
inside of the structure, and then descended below to the first sublevel.

Joseph replicated a proper basket, while Sandra took the time to think of
things to have for dinner.  "How do you feel about having some ham
sandwiches, Joseph?"

He removed the completed basket from the side of the wall, and put a
blanket inside of it to sit on.  "Nah, had ham last time."

Sandra hmmed and walked over to the food replicator.  "Turkey?"

Joseph fiddled with the basket a bit.  "Yeah, turkey'll be okay."

Sandra smiled and hit the proper buttons.  A few moments later, a packaged
set of turkey sandwiches were created, which Sandra carried over to the
basket for Joseph to stow.  "You think Rachel will try to bother us?"
asked the orange fox to his mate.

Sandra frowned.  "Why would she?"

"I know how females can get," he said as he put the sandwiches in the
basket, "especially ones with a penchant for homocide.  She's dangerous."
He paused to finish packing the turkey sandwiches up, then shut the lid
of the basket.  "We have to do -something-!"

She thought for a moment, and looked into Joseph's eyes.  "Like what?
You honestly think our word alone can get that hussy arrested?"

"No," said he, "but there are ways to snare even the craftiest foe..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Several hours later, they emerged from the Dome to have their dinner.
Both had been cleansed, and a few hours of exercise had made them hungry
for the healthy food contained within said wicker basket.  Joseph dragged
the basket along while Sandra wandered around the areas surrounding the
Dome to find just the right spot.

They followed a old stone path that led away from the Dome a mile or two,
and found the beautiful Green Hill at its end.  Thinking this would be
the best spot to have dinner, they ascended the hill and set up camp on
the very top of the hill.  An orange tree provided them shade from the
setting sun, and their blanket was set up around it so to take full
advantage.  Their food was set up around the blanket for easy
consumption, and both foxes were pleased at the subtle trap they had set.

Joseph knew Rachel was following about a half-mile behind them, and was
silently tracing her progress through his network of hidden spy devices
and motion sensors.  Quickly, Sandra and Joseph set the stage for their
plot, and prepared a special prop just for the audience of one they would
have later...

Rachel breached the perimeter of the areas of Green Hill, and could now
hear unseen from the bottom the conversation at the summit of the
gentle hill...

So it begins, thought Joseph, reciting his lines perfectly.  "I don't
-believe- what I'm hearing!"

Sandra smiled internally, beginning her part of the ruse.  "She is!  Don't
you believe me?"

Joseph tuned his voice properly to accentuate his false rage.  "No!  This
is ridiculous...there's no way that waitress could have been plotting to
kill me!  I think you've lost your mind!"

"Oh, now -I- have lost -my- mind.  I see.  And I suppose your little
obsession with watching her `au natural' is -sane-?!"

Joseph found this hilarious, but let no vestage of hilarity cross his
angry visage.  "That's a blatant mistruth, you harlot!"

Sandra stood, allowing Rachel to plainly see her from her spot at the
bottom of the hill, and drew a massive silver knife from a hidden sheath
behind her back.  "How dare you!" she shouted, and plunged the knife right
into Joseph's breast.  He cried out once in a roar of agony and rage, but
quickly slipped into silence.

Rachel, shocked, broke her obfuscation at the bottom of the hill and
rushed to the top to see with her own eyes what had happened...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sandra kneeled in front of Joseph's dead body, as blackish fluid flowed
from his chest.  Her head was in her hands, and she was heavily sobbing.
"I killed him!" she kept repeating to herself, crying rather dramatically.
The picnic's parts were scattered about randomly, and a jar of mustard had
been knocked over and broken in the sudden scuffle.

Rachel regained her composure, and stood behind Joseph's sprawled form with
her arms crossed.  "Well, well...look what we have here.  Looks like Miss
Nightweaver here is a murderer after all."

The black vixen stood suddenly, wiping her eyes off and glaring into her
eyes angerly.  "Now neither of us can have him, you miserable bitch...I'd
rather have him dead than see him in your vile arms!"

Rachel was nonplussed.  "So what, honey?  Now I can slay you myself, with
total justification..."  She pulled out a small pistol from the back of
her jeans, and aimed it at Sandra's forehead.  "You see, dahling, no matter
what you do, I'm always better.  It's just like how I killed all ten of
those idiots; I took what I needed, then I left.  Jack Fox, Charles Weasel,
Pierre Wolf, Michael Falcon, Andrew Mongoose, Emmanuel Lemur, Robert Mouse,
and those three McMasterson brothers.  Now, you join the list...and I'll
be a hero to boot, because I killed the bitch who destroyed the inventor
of the deroboticizer!"  She started to laugh rather demonically at that
last statement, and her thumb moved to the hammer of the sidearm...

Sandra backed up a bit.  "You fiend!  And I suppose you'll tell everyone
that I was behind the roboticizer theft as well!"

She laughed coldly.  "Idiot.  Of course I will...it'll cover my -own-
tracks!"  She laughed a bit more.  "Yes, Nightweaver, *I* took those plans
from Sir Charles, and now my secret will die with you!"

Sandra could only look on with terror as Rachel flicked back the hammer
with her thumb, continuing to laugh ever-more psychotically...

However, it is rather hard to fire a weapon when it is suddenly punched
out of one's hand, especially when a sneak attack was thus launched by
one you thought was formerly dead.  Immediately after the gun was forced
out of Rachel's hand, Joseph slammed her, painfully hard, into the
blanketed ground.  The knife that was in his chest was now absent, and
the wound seemed to have disappeared in a way that put in question it
ever existing.

"I don't think so," said Joseph calmly, rubbing Rachel's snout into a
pool of spilled mustard.  "You're done, baby."

Rachel growled and thrashed around, but simply didn't have the strength to
escape his superior mass.  "Fool!  You'll never prove a thing!"

"Is that so?" a familiar female voice said.

Sandra looked over to the new arrival surprisedly.  "Princess Sally?!"

The Princess nodded to Sandra and walked over to Joseph, kneeling down by
his victim.  "I'm afraid, young lady, that Joseph transmitted the last few
moments of your rant over the public subspace system."  She gestured in
the general direction of the tree.  "It is, by the way, admissable in
a court of law."  She looked over to Sandra.  "Mobius owes you an apology,
Miss Nightweaver, for the rumors that were passed around about your
involvement in the Roboticizer Affair."

Sandra nodded politely and looked over to Joseph.  "You didn't tell me
you bugged that tree!"

Joseph smiled, looking up from his struggling foe's gesticulations and
curses for a moment to glance at Sandra.  "I did it before I met you...
I figured it would be a good precaution in case of something like this."

Sandra smirked.  "No matter.  The important thing was that we captured
*her*--"  She snarled at Rachel.  "--before she could hurt anyone else."

A pair of large wolves climbed up the hill to relieve Joseph, and grabbed
Rachel before she could get away.  She cursed and kicked at the trio, but
the large lupines dragged her down the hill before she could harm anyone.

Joseph stood back up, dusted himself off, and started cleaning up the area.
"That takes care of that now, doesn't it..."

Sally looked over to Joseph.  "Joseph, one question."

Joseph didn't bother looking up, still knocking debris into the center of
the blanket.  "Yes?"

Sally put her right hand on her hip, gesturing with her left.  "How did
you do that thing with the knife?"

Joseph finished knocking the garbage into the blanket, closed it, and
stuffed the menagerie into his basket.  Then, he looked up at Sally, and
extended his palm.  Slowly, a silver psudopod emerged from his wrist,
stretching beyond the tip of his middle finger, and eventually detaching
his extended wrist.  It slowly formed itself into a cross-shaped blob,
then refined itself into a blade, then the hilt.  Various details
gradually emerged, and after it seemed to solidify, Joseph grabbed it
in his other hand.  "I formed it from the metal that forms my internal
nervous system, then filled it with some of my vit--blood."  He suddenly
shoved it into his breast, which bled for a moment.  "When it broke against
my skin," he continued unabated, "the blood came out, and the knife seems
to cut me."  Slowly, the knife melted into his chest.  "Shortly afterward,
the knife is pulled back into my body to reform various parts of my nervous
system...thus, the illusion is complete."

Sally looked on amazed as his t-shirt revealed his body closing up behind
the knife, and purifying itself as if nothing had ever happened.  Only
his soiled shirt revealed it had ever occurred.  "Wow."

He smiled and bowed a bit.  "It took some thought to come up with the
illusion, but I think it did the job nicely."

Sally seemed to become a little nervous.  "Well, I better get back to
Knothole.  Again, good job, Joseph, Sandra...I'll see you around."  With
that, Sally jaunted down the hill, heading off to catch up with the
guards.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Well, that was interesting," said Sandra after they had returned home.

Joseph took off the bloodied garments and put on a thick white robe.
"I'm just glad it's over."

Sandra flopped backwards onto their bed, resting her head against her
pillow heavily.  "How tiring.  At least we got the bad guy."

Joseph laid down as well, resting his head gently against Sandra's
stomache.  His legs bent over the side of the bed slightly, even though the
bed was rather gigantic.  "Yes, that is a relief, isn't it?"

Sandra smiled softly, and stroked Joseph's headfur as if he were a kitten.
"I'd say.  The fact that she somehow had survived the coup was by itself
enough to alarm me."  She leaned back a bit more into the pillow.  "At
least she'll finally be brought to justice.  I wonder if the Princess will
enforce the death penalty..."

Joseph hrmmed and relaxed a little more on Sandra's midsection.  "She
should, but I doubt she will..."

She sighed gently and closed her eyes.  "Oh well.  At least she's finally
gotten caught..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the planet:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He strode steadily onward, his cloak flapping behind him in the wind.  The
ship that had been promised had arrived to recieve him, and soon he would
be off...off into the blue waters of the Great Ocean, to travel to the
mainland.

It was a good ship, large enough for one other besides himself.  The sail
was in good condition, and the boat had obviously been well-cared for.  It
would be very easy to navigate this ship to its destination, and he was
sure that the First's statement about the current warlike state of the
peasantry was grossly exaggerated.

He climbed into the craft, pushed it off the shore with a nudge of his
walking stick, and let the enchanted sail do the rest.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The starship grew closer to the world, its massive size not yet registering
with the meddling Keld'yrians.  Good, John thought, the cloaking device
they had bought off the self-proclaimed `Lost Ones' worked as well.  They
would get a substancial bonus if all the other things they had acquired
from them operated properly as well...they might even be allowed to
plunder and sack the planet first, he mused, after he had the Chaos
Emeralds in his possession.

He looked out of the main viewscreen as his crew continued to steadily come
out of the cryogenic storage sections of the ship, and return to their
former posts, ready to serve his will.  The Keld'yrian base on the second
moon of Mobius, something known only to him at the moment, would make an
excellent test subject for the improved master gun.  Not only would it
raise the morale of the crew to a fever pitch, but it was sufficiently
large enough to make a good test for the souped-up weapon.

Yet, the vision he had seen in his dream still bothered him.  Even though
their victory over Mobius was practically assured, and the Chaos Emeralds
only inches away from his grasping paw, what he had seen still made his
fur stand on end.  A powerful defender of the Chaos Emeralds the echidna
had not been; he certainly lacked the raw power it would take to transform
into a mighty bird of flame!  But visions do not always tell what actually
happens in physical reality, he noted.  It may appear that the defender
becomes a powerful Phoenix in the Umbral realms, but sometimes the forces
of magic are more subtle...

No matter.  Any attempts of resistance would be crushed before they
attained sufficient altitude to harm him.  The Chaos Emeralds would
be his, and the foul Keld'yrians would be trounced.  So was his will.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Part II

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A few days went by.  Rachel was put into a hastily-constructed jail,
and was guarded around the clock by the strongest males the village could
afford to assign to the task.  The new roof of the Dome was tested for
electrical resistance, and passed with flying colors.  The new look for
it was also well-recieved, seeing that cloudy clear-white seemed to
meet everyone's approval more easily that the original dirt brownish hue.

Yet, just a week and a half later, some new and nearly frightening events
began to occur...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Floating 50 yards above the middle of his pond, Joseph vaguely pondered
the events that led him to this current prediciment, and mused slightly
about why it would have to have happened to him.

Several days ago, while Joseph had been in his lab, an odd event had led
him to yet another extreme transformation.  He had been holding the Stone
(as Joseph called it) to see if any further guidance could be derived from
it...then, he suddenly had become deaf.  The polyalloy had simply ceased
picking up any auditory input, and no amount of internal rerouting could
cause it to operate properly again.  So, he had put down the Stone for a
moment, and physically squeezed some fresh metal from his arm into his
neck.  His hearing resumed shortly afterward, as if nothing had ever
happened.  Noting this occurance, he picked back up the Stone again.
A few moments later, all color drained from his vision.  Becoming further
annoyed, he put down the Stone and squeezed the steel from his tail,
pushing it up his spinal column to his neck.  Color again returned.

He came to the conclusion that the Stone must be interfering with his
internal functions somehow.  While he held it the third time, he had a
scanning device monitor it for any sort of radiation.  It detected
nothing, even as his sense of touch faded and then disappeared from his
paws.  He put the Stone down again, and rerouted from another appendage,
and his sense of sensation returned.

He walked away from the Stone for a bit, and sat down on the opposite
side of the lab.  Logically, he thought, his cybernetic enhancements
had to be interfering with whatever sort of magick the Stone worked
through him.  He also knew somehow that he would have to get rid of
them to make any sort of progress with the object.  But he liked his
powerful abilities and mighty calculative prowess a lot, which made
his scientific pursuits far less time-consuming.

Joseph thought long and hard, sitting down for over an hour before
getting an idea on how to go about having both what he wanted and
what he needed...of course, he thought, make a biological version.

He sat down at his terminal, and started designing yet another shell for
him to use.  The Keldy'rian/Mobian/Ur'thaen mix was still utilized, but
the central nervous system was radically changed.  The concentration of
nerves was raised in several key areas, almost 150% more in some areas
than others.  The eyes were reshaped and chemically altered (only by
organic means, of course) as were several other of the sensory organs.
The brain was overhauled completely, having an extremely uberdense
concentration of neurons and synapses so to speed up thought and
comprehension close to that of his current system.

A few days of 14-hour shifts later, he had designed the ultimate organic
expression of vulpine perfection; an Ur'thaen body, with the Keld'yrian
genetic background...namely, the ability to transform temporarily into a
supersonic Mobian hedgehog.  Enhanced sight, hearing, smell, touch and
taste; with a brain that calculated and operated at roughly 80% of his
current cybernetic mind.  Lengthened lifespan from 100 to 500 years,
with a healthy diet and proper care.  Enhanced immune system to
compensate for the lack of nanites; it created antibodies for all known
diseases, and adapted quickly to new viruses and diseases.  The
circulatory and excretory systems worked very rapidly and powerfully;
poisons and other toxins could be assimilated quickly and removed before
any severe damage could be done.

However, the disease of vampirism still existed in the new body;
apparently the genetic makeup of the shell required an occasional
refreshment of its blood just as much as his current body did.
The polyalloy wasn't at fault, after all...this annoyed Joseph,
who wanted to be free of a dependance on Sandra's blood once and
for all.  But the lure of the Stone, not to mention an acceptance
of the practice by Sandra as `one of those things', made him
resign himself to designing an organic equivalent of the polyalloy's
`vampire's fangs' that would introduce the forementioned vitae into his
system.

But overall, it would be a fun thing to try; he could always return to
this form, he thought, if the new one didn't work out for the best.

The next problem was transferring his intelligence from his polyalloy
to the organics in his new shell.  The reverse was well-known and had
been perfected to a near-art form.  But this situation had never been
attempted, to his knowledge.  Some research into the problem would have
to be attempted...so, another week of 14-hour shifts was used before
a breakthrough was made.  (Meanwhile, Sandra was becoming rather lonely,
since she had been accustomed to Joseph's normal pattern of dozing for
most of the day ever since the deroboticizer coding had been taken over
by Bahb...)

The device was constructed in a few hours, and was completed just as the
new organic shell had been grown to the proper level.  Sandra stood close
by as Joseph wired himself into the device for the movement of data,
wishing her mate luck on his new endevor.  "Be careful," Sandra nervously
said, getting a safe distance away from the sensitive equipment as the
process began...

The transfer of information itself took about 15 minutes, but then the new
body had to be `animated'.  Electrical stimulus fired up the heart, while
fresh blood was generated for it to utilize.  The brain was kick-started
with a burst of neurotransmitters, which activated the rest of the
body's lower functions.

Memories flooded the new host body...birth, childhood, the flight from
Ur'thae, the long sleep of cryostasis, the landing, the Dome, Sandra,
the imminent threat from space...

Paws clenched into fists as the primal rage flooded his body, the power
that gave the Ur'thaen race the will to conquer all.  The roar of
awakening filled the hall, and the bonds that held the body broke asunder
from the might unchained from the chains of reason and logic.  The howl
shook the walls of the laboratory, shattered beakers, and paralysed
Sandra with fear of feral extermination...claws extended into talons,
teeth into fangs, his new body filling with his might...

Then, the mind took control.  Rage deadened into diamond-hard resolve,
frenzy into willpower.  His vision cleared, and the roar softened into a
friendly laughter.  Again, his heartbeat drove him forward, and the blood
of three races filled his veins.  The transfer had been successful.

He embraced his mate in joy, flesh pushing against flesh really for
the first time; they were both purely organic, aside from the mere
anti-virus-boost Sandra's nanites provided her.  Sandra, however,
was merely relieved that Joseph's obsession with understanding and
using the powers of the Stone hadn't caused him to become erased, or
corrupted, or harmed mentally somehow.  Yet.

His new body looked similar to his old one, except the characteristics
were, to the Terran tongue, more `elvish'.  His ears were longer and
slimmer, as was the rest of his head.  His eyes had seemed to have
`slitted' a bit more, becoming longer and more oval-shaped.  His muzzle
was more pointed, and his cranium seemed to be more `aerodynamic' in a
way...a odd side-effect from his tinkering.  His body was slimmer, but
seemed to have more muscles to it.  His strength had been increased
roughly 35%, yet his tone seemed even more subdued.  His legs were also
longer, adding about an inch to his height, and his hindpaws had
increased a bit in length as well.

Yet, Sandra didn't seem to mind his subtle change in appearance,
choosing instead to hug him warmly rather than criticize his new
`look'.  It seemed to...suit him?  Yes, it suited him in a way
that she could not describe...perhaps she would understand later.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After all had been taken care of in the lab, he had again touched the
Stone.  Now totally organic, he discovered that no ill effect came of it.
It was, in fact, warmer to his paw, and seemed to feel `friendlier' to
him somehow.  And, after a few moments, it spoke.

>> "You have purified yourself.  Good." <<

Joseph smiled.  "You speak again, Stone."

It seemed to chuckle.  >> "Yes, I do.  Allow me to introduce myself,
young friend.  I am Mob, the male half of the Mobia.  My other half,
Ia, is with the Chaos Emeralds, as you call them, on the Floating
Island.  Fate fortells that you have seen this place already.  <<

He nodded.  "Yes, I have been there."

>> "Good," << Mob said, >> "that will simplify matters later.  Now,
I'm sure you have many questions." <<

"Yes, I do."

>> "Then ask them." <<

He smiled.  "Alright.  First one: why me?"

>> "You were chosen, Jhosesophae, for the same reason the sky was chosen
to be blue as the water; it is unknown.  Not even I could tell you.  All
that is known is that you are the best male for the job.  The hero of Ia,
your blood-brother Sonic, was chosen for the same reason...and it is
known that both of you shall preserve us from the evils that each of
you have been put on a quest to destroy." <<

He raised an eyebrow.  "Us?  Who's `us'?"

>> "Ia and I are the two attracting and opposing forces of Mobius; my
maleness opposes, yet attacts, Ia's femaleness.  Our individual powers
are personified through the Chaos Emeralds; the waters, the fire, the
wind, the earth, and the magickal powers that hold together all.  Few
worlds have such magick available in such a fashion...most have the
magick spread evenly across the world, making all wizards and witches
roughly equal in potential power." <<

Mob continued.  >> "But Mobius is special for some reason.  The forces
of nature are especially concentrated in the crystals that you have
called `Chaos Emeralds', and are focal points for all of the powers of
nature.  Being such, people since the beginning of time, from all worlds,
have tried to capture them." <<

He thought for a moment, staring into the glowing depths of the rock.
"But wouldn't they be useless anywhere else but Mobius?"

>> "No, for the Chaos Emeralds are nothing but focal points.  You could
use a Chaos Emerald anywhere in the universe, drawing upon the local
powers of nature, and it would function just the same as if you were
standing near Ia or myself." <<

Joseph looked impressed.  "So why hasn't some other technically superior
race come along and taken them by now?"

>> "We know of the threats to our world long before they arrive.  Thus,
we can make a defender for ourselves; a great warrior, or a powerful
wizard, to counter the enemy foe.  Drawing upon the limitless power of
nature, our great fighter, or our great magi, can defeat any and
all comers." <<

He thought for a moment.  "Why can't you just destroy the foe yourself?
Why use another?"

>> "Despite being a powerful force, Ia or myself could not fight an
agressor.  We lack the ability to focus our abilities in a way to
vanquish a foe...to do that, a person wise in the ways of using
our powers must take power from us and use it as they will." <<

Joseph raised a brow, and looked oddly at the glowing stone.  "But how
is your champion supposed to learn how to use the power within you
to fight?"

>> "We know how to use our power, we simply lack the ability to put our
knowledge forth.  You will learn from me as the ones before you have...
I will teach, you will practice." <<

Joseph nodded, understanding somehow.  "So I am to be this champion..."

>> "Yes.  You will be the Solaris of legend.  But not yet...first, you
must learn how to use the limitless power presented to you." <<

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A little bit later, Joseph went outside with the stone to begin his
mystical training, that eventually got him 150 feet above his pond.
Mob apparently chose to teach Joseph the art of flight first, he
thought, because he had been rocketed upwards at an unexpected
speed after reaching the pond area...

"Aaaaaa!" shouted the fox as he rushed upward through the sky,
coming to a halt at a very high point above his own private pool.

>> "We will begin with a lesson in flight.  In 30 seconds, I shall stop
feeding you energy.  At that point, you must draw it from me and will
yourself upwards again.  If you do not, you get wet." <<

He tried to compose himself.  "O-okay...ummm...how do I--"

He started to fall at that point very quickly.  Somehow, he knew how to
take energy from the crystal, but he had no idea how to go about this
`willing' himself upwards.  As the water loomed larger beneath him, he
reflected on how he had gotten into this situation, cursed, and thought
very hard of flight.

Inches from the water's surface, he came to a sudden halt.  He hovered
above the liquid for several moments before slowly opening his eyes.
Joseph noticed how clear and cool the water was today, and how healthy
his robotic defense-fish looked at the time.  He then thought of how
he'd like to take a swi--

In Joseph went a second later, with a grand splash of water blasting out
of the centre of the pond.

A few moments went by before the wet fox thrashed from the water, coughing
and spitting out the liquid that had crept into his lungs.  "Dammit!" he
swore as he swam to the water's edge, dragging the stone along with him.
As he emerged from the water, he threw off the drenched trenchcoat and
shirt, shaking off as his ancestors did many millenium ago.  "What the
frigging smeg happened?"

>> "You broke your concentration.  You were doing very well for a moment,
but then your thoughts began to drift like clouds." <<

Joseph spat out some seaweed that had gotten into his mouth.  "Great."

>> "It was a good first lesson.  Let's try something else before doing
that again." <<

He rung out his tail.  "Like what?"

>> "Wouldn't you like to be dry?" <<

"How perceptive," he grumbled, wiping some water away from his eyebrows.

>> "Then think of being dry." <<

He coughed.  "Why not?  What's the worst that could happen?  I'll
probably die learning this insanity, anyway."  Annoyed at his failure,
he grabbed the stone again, closed his eyes, and concentrated totally
on the water simply evaporating from his fur.  He thought of sunlight
and fuzzy towels, and deserts and wind...

As he held those thoughts, his body got dryer.  A plume of steam rose
from his back and chest, and his clothing also seemed to mystically dry
themselves in the same way.  After all the water had left him, he opened
his eyes and took his mind away from the task.  Sure enough, the effect
faded away with the lack of concentration, just as his brief
hovering had.

"Hey," said an amazed Joseph, "it worked."

>> "You can do nearly anything you wish with the powers of Mobius if you
only set your mind to it.  No task is too great for the power of will to
accomplish." <<

He made a fist, and willed energy to sparkle around it.  "Now we're getting
somewhere."  He commanded the energy to spark across his pond, and strike
a few boulders that laid on the other side.  "This is a lot easier than I
thought it would be."  The boulders detonated gratifingly, which made
Joseph smile.

>> "The only reason all on Mobius are not wizards is because they lack
the faith in themselves to believe they can, the strength of will to do
it, and the temperance not to abuse their might.  This is why you were
chosen, Fell-From-The-Sky, and is why you were made the wizard rather
than the warrior; the Way of the warrior focuses more on bravery, might,
and the other roots of heroism...while you may also have those traits,
Runs-Like-Lightning, Sonic, does not yet hold the wisdom to understand
the Way of the wizard." <<

Joseph tried some other feats of will as the stone talked.  "So you're
saying that while I could have been either, Sonic could only be one;
therefore, I had to be what Sonic could not be."

>> "You are correct.  Both of you are just as vital to Mobius; it is
just that your Way focuses more on mental toughness than physical." <<

Joseph hmmed and looked up.  Fired by his recent successes, he balled
his free fist, and took a breath.  "Think I'll be able to fly now?"

>> "Try it and see." <<

He closed his eyes, focusing on birds, spaceships, and balloons.  He
willed the energy to fill his lower legs and feet, and imagined they
were the lower thrusters of an UsagiBOT.  Whoosh, whoosh, fly away...

Air rushed past him as the thoughts became more specific.  He willed
himself to slow down as the wind rushed faster, not wanting to fly too
far away from his pond.  He opened his eyes after he had come to a
stop, and looked down...

The Great Forest laid beneath him, his pond just a sparkling dot.
The lush Great Meadow and the mysterious Grey Mountains could be seen in
the far distance, as were the smoking ruins of Robotropolis.  Birds flew
several hundred yards beneath him, punctuating how far up he actually was.

Natually, Joseph's first instinct was to scream in terror.  10,000 feet
is not a place for a fox to be without a spacecraft.  Yet, he somehow
controlled his panic, grabbing more tightly onto the stone and holding
the thought of flight in his mind.  If he lost that thought, he'd fall
like a stone to the earth below...he started to rapidly drop downward.
Quickly, he shut his eyes and reasserted mental control of his environment.
He was not going to be crushed like a dropped egg as long as he held the
key to cosmic power in his right paw.  Glide down, he thought repeatedly,
like a feather...like a landing saucer, like a leaf from a tree...and,
gradually, the speed of his desent increased to a far less rapid pace.

Slowly, he desended to the world below, being very careful not to let his
thoughts wander astray.  Soon the Great Forest exclusively filled his
vision, and a few moments later he was again standing on the shore of his
pond, looking rather relieved.

>> "You controlled yourself well, yet you still have much to learn." <<

He put the stone down on the ground, and wiped his forehead.  "No kidding."

>> "Don't let these early moments of unimpressive last-second
preservations of life bother you.  You just learned the basis of
all magic and the ability to fly in less than a half-hour.  It
usually takes weeks to culture such abilities in most normal
beings; but because of your abnormal intelligence, we were
able to make stunning progress." << It paused.
>> "You should be proud." <<

He took a flask of water from his trenchcoat pocket on the ground, and took
a drink.  "Sure.  I almost impaled myself on the world I'm supposed to be
protecting, and I should be proud."

>> "Trust me, I've had to teach far worse.  A few of my students actually
-did- impale themselves on Mobius, and I had to train another one just to
put them back together." <<

He winced.  "Ouch."

>> "You've done far better; a near prodigy at the mystical arts.  It
causes one to wonder how your initial religion of Science, which
opposed Magick, led you to this point." <<

He slugged back more water.  "Love."

>> "Exactly.  Again, you prove beyond a doubt you are the Chosen." <<

He sat down on his coat, and looked up into the sky.  "I just hope I'm
strong enough to keep the evil at bay, Mob."

>> "You are.  But much training must be completed before you can march
off to battle." <<  It glowed more intensly for a moment.  >> "Come,
let us continue." <<

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Part III:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

They worked the rest of the day, Joseph attempting to do what the Stone
demonstrated for him.  He was becoming more and more proficient at what
Mob showed him, and a few weeks later he was making up `spells' of his
own.  Meanwhile, however, other things were happening in the world that
would soon cause a great change in Joseph's life yet again....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The trial itself began a few days after Rachel's capture, but took about
a month to actually commence.  Even after it started, it was taking a long
time to complete.  Despite the rather efficient Mobian system of justice,
it was unable to handle the main Judge's continual need to call a recess
every time some interruption or personal task needed to be completed
in order to allow Knothole and the rest of the Freedom Fighters to
keep operating.

Sally was, of course, the Judge.  She came to court dressed in the
ceremonial garb of the Royal Court, which were beginning to get pretty
warm during the stretching summer months.  A jury was created by getting
residents of other villages to return to Knothole, so that the various
components of the jury would be personally unfamiliar with the individual.
However, the broadcast made by Joseph alienated a lot of potential jurors,
and made jury selection somewhat of a hit-or-miss affair.  A courtroom
had been set up in the civic center, and air conditioning was thankfully
provided.

The trial had actually began in mid-summer, after everyone had gotten
their acts together enough to operate such an affair.  Sally attempted
to keep interruptions to a minimum, but the trial kept slowing down for
various emergencies; minor brush fires, heatstroke, various festivals,
etc.

Yet, progress was being made.  The defense was rather stymied about how
to defend a self-incriminating subspace transmission, so was forced to
fight the other evidence presented by the prosecution; which was far
more organized and more robustly made.

First, the few people who knew Rachel during the times of the various
murders came forward to testify about her alleged involvement.  Now
unafraid of Rachel's vengeance, they told all about her despicable
`addiction' to killing.  Then, Sandra came forward to testify about
her overall character, and how she had also known of the various crimes
she had committed.  Not even the most zealous efforts by the defense
could crack through Sandra's statements; her word now had weight to it.
The transmission was replayed for the jury, which pretty much killed the
defense's meager efforts to acquit Rachel.  Now, only the final witness,
Rachel's own ex-boyfriend, remained to be questioned.

The district attorney, a hasily elected Sir Charles, questioned this
particularly informed friend of Rachel's...another mink named Thomas Fargo.

"Tell the court, son," said Charles, "about your relationship with the
accused, and what you know about the alleged murders of Jack Fox, Charles
Weasel, Pierre Wolf, Michael Falcon, Andrew Mongoose, Emmanuel Lemur,
Robert Mouse, and the three McMasterson brothers."

The male sighed, slicked back his mane of headfur, and spoke softly.
"It all started so many years ago...I had been dating Rachel on and
off for several months, breaking up with her every time I discovered
she had been with another man.  Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I
couldn't stay away; I was being used, and I could do nothing to stop it."
He stopped to wipe his eyes, then continued.  "But one day, I finally
could take no more, and confronted Rachel about her actions..."

Charles' eyes softened.  "Go on when you're ready, son."

He sniffed and blew his nose into a Kleenex.  "Well, she laughed at me
for my `nerve' and very clearly explained that she'd kill me if I left
her, just because it'd serve me right..."

The defense attorney for Rachel, a rather meek rabbit by the name of
Sheryl, spoke up.  "Objection, your honor!  The witness is obviously
embittered about the termination of the relationship with the accused!"

Sally looked over to her.  "So noted, defense."  She looked to the mink.
"Continue."

He coughed and wiped his eyes.  "So I had to leave town after that...this
was just before the McMasterson deaths, whom she was dating collectively
at the time...I'm glad I escaped."

Charles shook his head slowly.  "Your Honor, I have no further questions.
The prosecution rests...the evidence speaks for itself."

Sally sipped some of her glass of water.  "Very well, Charles, you may be
seated."  She glanced over to the defense.  "Do you wish to cross-examine
the witness?"

The rabbit stood.  "Yes, Your Honor."

Sally nodded.  "Proceed."

Sheryl walked over to the witness stand, where the mink was still blowing
his nose and holding back tears.  "How long had you been dating the accused
again, Thomas?"

He regained some control of himself.  "Overall, about a year."

"And had you," she said, "been emotionally attached to her?"

"Yes."

"Did you love her?"

"Yes."

She looked into the bleary, bloodshot eyes of the mink.  "Do you still
love her?"

"No, I do not."

"Why?"

He snarled, his eyes clearing and the subtle undertones of rage filling his
voice.  "Because she's an evil, backstabbing, murderous bitch."

The rabbit smiled for a half-second, then continued her questioning.
"So you have a dislike for the accused, Thomas?"

"Yes."

The rabbit's eyes lit up.  "Would you like to see her -die- for her
alleged crimes?"

"Alleged crimes?!"  He looked up to Sally.  "Your Honor, she committed all
of those crimes, and then some!  The broadcast from the alien proved that
with her own words!  She's evil, I tell you!"

Sally banged her gavel against her table.  "Witness, please calm down."

With a great deal of personal strain, he did so.  "I apologize to the
court for my outburst, Your Honor.  It's just that I have been living
in fear of her retribution for so long, seeing her finally at the feet
of Mobian justice has forced my deep hate of her to foam over."

"So noted, Witness."  She looked to the defense.  "Any further questions?"

The rabbit looked deflated.  At this point, she thought, perhaps they
should plea bargain for a quick death.  But yet, she kept some hope
alive, and remained steadfast in her posture.  "No, Your Honor.  The
defense rests."

Sally looked gently at Thomas.  "Then the witness is dismissed."

The mink collected his tissues together, and walked back to the section
of the courtroom where the onlookers sat.  "If there is no further
evidence to be provided, the jury may now deliberate over the evidence
privately.  The court is in recess until the jury reaches its verdict."
She banged the gavel again, and watched the various Mobians file out
of the civic center, and into a guarded, soundproof hut.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The court was in recess until the next day, when the jurors returned to
the courtroom to state their verdict.  A tall fox in the jury read the
statement they had written up during their all-night discussion.

He cleared his throat before speaking.  "Ladies and Gentlemen of the
Court, we, the jury of the case of People vs. Rachel Mink have
deliberated over the evidence provided for us during our recess, and
have come up with a verdict."

He took a breath again, and looked over the courtroom as he read.
"The various testimony provided from the witnesses, as well as the
transmitted account of Rachel's `confession' to Miss Sandra Nightweaver,
have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Rachel Mink is guilty of ten
counts of Murder, as well as two counts of Attempted Murder, one
count of Treason against the Crown, one count of Third Level War Crimes
against the People of Mobius, and three counts of Perjury.  We recommend
the most extreme sentence for the combined crimes she has committed..."
He swallowed.  "Death."

Sally somberly nodded, and looked to Rachel with a firm, unyielding stare.
"The jury has found you guilty, Rachel Mink.  I will now return to my
chambers to decide your sentence.  Court is adjourned until noon
tomorrow."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Upon leaving the courtroom after the guilty party had been returned to her
cell, Sally's cool facade began to crumble.  She now had to decide the
fate of the prisoner they had within the hastily-constructed jail cell
in the center of town; should she merely sentence her to life
imprisonment, or should she sentence her to death?

She entered her hut, closed the door, and prepared a mug of hot coffee.
What should she do?  What would her father do?  She didn't know, and
couldn't...

Sally stared into the bottom of the cup, watching the swirling patterns
that formed on the surface of the liquid.  She had to weigh out the
evidence in her head, then come to a conclusion.  She'd killed ten
people in the past, with no sort of remorse.  Then, she'd spent 15
years roboticized...perhaps she'd changed, Sally thought.

Then the transmission and the statements of Thomas bubbled up from her
subconscious, proving that she hadn't changed that much.  She was still
without remorse for her past misdeeds, and was gleeful about stealing
the roboticizer plans from Sir Charles.  She'd destroyed the emotional
self of her various boyfriends by being totally disloyal.  Certainly,
she wasn't a good person.

Yet, Sally didn't want to have anyone killed.  She couldn't even
-think- of doing such an execution herself...every extra set of
paws in the fight against Packbell, shackled or not, could be useful.
Perhaps some therapy and counciling would help the criminal mink.
Sandra had changed; why couldn't she?

She drank some of her coffee, and stared into a wall.  A picture that
someone had painted for her a few months ago was there.  It was a
nice watercolor of the city of Mobitropolis, only days before the coup.
It was wonderfully done, and she could almost hear the sounds of the
city; children playing in the playgrounds, street musicians singing for
their dinner, storekeepers crying their wares out to passerby, the
sounds of boats sailing out to the Great Ocean, the laughter of lovers...

Then, she saw the Destroyer fly over it, as she had countless times in
her worst nightmares; the sky turned black with smoke, the fleeing people
suddenly becoming Worker-Bots, blood running through the streets like
a flood, the screams of terrified children, the evil, roaring laughter...

She closed her eyes, a single tear falling into her coffee.  She
knew what she had to do now; something she should have done the second
she saw the transmission...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The courtroom was silent the next day as Sally returned to her desk,
stationed high above the rest of the chamber.  Not even the sound of
a heartbeat could be heard anywhere as Sally took a sip of a glass of
water, and looked right into the eyes of the damned mink.

"Rachel Mink, one day Mobius shall be free of the chains of the deceased
Robotnik, his evil nephew Snively, and his sadistic creation, Packbell.
On that day, all Mobians shall be free of pain, and the foundations of
Robotnik's city shall crumble into dust."  She paused to let this
throughly sink in.  "But you will not be there."

She continued on.  "On that day, the foundations of our new capital city,
New Mobitropolis, shall be laid.  The ground shall be cleansed of the
taint of industrial evil, the waters shall again be pure and fresh, and
the air shall smell sweeter than the most delicate rose.  It shall be
as if we had emerged from a long and cold Winter, and at that moment a
grand Spring shall rise like the sun from the ashes of our suffering."
Again, a brief pause.  "But you will not be there."

"The glorious sound of a child's laughter shall echo through the hills
and valleys of this great Northern continent, and all shall know on that
day our true Victory has been sealed.  No longer shall we have to hide
in our forest fortresses and underground cities, for there shall be
peace and harmony throughout Mobius.  Men shall walk proudly, without
fear of capture or assault, anywhere on the earth; and the mothers of
the world shall let their children play unhidden in the glens and nolls
of our fine planet."  A pause.  "But you will not be there."

"Rachel Mink," boomed Sally with a voice as hard as steel, "you will not
be there because your bones shall be rotting within the very earth that
the people of Mobius will live and love on, for I sentence you to death;
to be carried out immediately, in a part of Mobius where none shall ever
wish to tread upon ever again, by a method to be chosen by the
executioner."

She took a sip of her water, and gestured to the large lupine guards.
"Get this traitorous wench out of my sight."

As they dragged her away, Sally gazed into her smoldering rage-filled
eyes, which filled her with a slight sense of dread...no fear existed
there, no sorrow, just the undying hate...but Sally knew in her heart
that she and the rest of the world had nothing more to fear from her;
she'd be dead in an hour, anyway.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The guards dragged her beyond the village's limits, and met up with the
royal executioner on a hillside about 5 miles from the village's most
outer fringe.  The executioner, an old bobcat named Reginald, stood
under a tall oak tree wearing his full regal garb; a long, flowing black
robe, with a hood that totally obscured his face.

Reginald's existance in Knothole was somewhat interesting to the common
observer.  He had been roboticized very early on in the coup, and had
worked in the nearby SWATBot factory near Robotnik's main base in
Robotropolis.  He had regained his faculties by a freak electrical
accident which was believed by the presiding SWATBots to have killed him.
Thus, he was thrown in a landfill and forgotten about completely.  But
due to a combination of good luck and physical might, he was able to
escape the city just as the deroboticizer was first being developed,
and found his way shortly afterward to Knothole.  Since then, he'd
worked as a assistant to the Princess herself, and now found himself
back in his original job.

She was brought before him completely restrained, and dropped nearby the
tree when the guards approached the royal executioner for instructions.
Her cry of annoyance was ignored by all.  "So, this is the harlot who
helped Robotnik enslave the entire world, eh?  Doesn't look so impressive
to me, gentlemen.  She certainly won't be in top form when we're done
with her, will she?"  The executioner and the guards all laughed slightly.
"Okay, lads, let's get this over with so we can all get back home before
dusk."  He walked out of the grove for a moment, and returned with a
rope with a noose on the end.  "Attach this to the tree for me,
gentlemen."

As the wolves did so, the executioner walked over to the mink.  "Any
last words, requests, pleas for mercy?"

She spat at him, nailing him in the face.  "I'll see you all in Hell."

He smiled at her.  "Very well then, madam."  He walked away from her
for a moment, then took a silk rag from the inside of his robe to wipe
off his face.  "Kick her a few times when you're through."

Ôhe wolves finished setting up the device to hang the mink, and then
kicked her in the stomache several times to pacify her.  She refused
to cry out or curse at all, only hissing at the blows.  After they
were through, the executioner spoke.  "Now go roll a large rock into
the clearing, so we can set her up on it.  I saw a good one about
50 yards to the east."  They nodded, and went to go get the boulder.

The executioner pulled on the rope a few times to test it, and
adjusted the noose to operate more efficiently.  "What do you want
on your tombstone, madam?"

Rachel spat at him again, but missed by a few inches.  "Eat me."

He continued to fiddle with the rope.  "I'll take that as a `none'."

The rock was rolled in on a wheeled cart.  "Ah, excellent, we're just
about ready to begin.  Gentlemen, roll the cart underneath the noose,
put our guest on it, and affix the rope around her throat."

The wolves did so, albeit with great resistance from the mink.  She spat
and thrashed around, but nothing she could do stopped the large wolves
from getting her in place, and putting the rope around her throat.

"Gentlemen, take your places, please."  The wolves complied, and got in
front of the cart.  They picked up the reins of the wheeled sleigh, and
were ready to pull it at a moment's notice.  The executioner nodded to
them.  "On my mark, gentlemen, pull."

He walked to the side of the rock, and spoke at the mink rather than
to her.  "It gives me great pleasure to announce that Princess
Sally Alicia Acorn, heir to the Throne of Mobius, has found you
guilty of murder, both completed and attempted, treason, war crimes,
and being a general bitch.  Our wise Princess has therefore sentenced
you  to death by a method of death selected by myself.  I have chosen
termination by hanging, because it eliminates much of the messy
cleanup that comes from the usual punishment for treason, drawing
and quartering."  He cleared his throat.  "I hearby execute your
sentence in the speediest way possible.  May Goddess have mercy on
your soul."  Then, he spat in her face.  "Paybacks are hell, aren't
they, honey?"

He looked to the wolves.  "Pull."

The reins snapped taut.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The executioner and the wolves returned to Knothole an hour later, having
completed their work to the letter.  People were warned not to go to the
willow tree deep within the Forest until a week had passed.  If she was
still mostly intact, her body would be burnt to ashes and buried in a
thick bag in the Great Swamp.  However, odds were that the cannibals
that lurked in the deep forest at night would probably find the
`offering' and deal with it as they dementedly would.  In most people's
opinion, it was poetic justice.  However, to the very person who had
sentenced her to death, there were only questions.

As she sat in her hut that night, she stared up into the stars and
thought of what else she might have done...if she had let her live,
might she have reformed?  Could she have become a productive member
of society, someone you could count on in times of need?

She didn't know; she knew she'd done what her father and anyone else
who would have been in that situation would have done.  But still, the
thought nagged at her, and would nag at her for many days afterward.

A week later, the tree was visited by the local mortician.  The rope was
found violently torn in twain, with smatterings of blood and fur laying
about the area.  Claw-marks were in the trees, and some pieces of bone
were also discovered lying in the area surrounding the tree.  Sickened
by the sight she found, she took the rope from the scene and ran back to
Knothole.  She had to take a vacation from her work for a few days,
which sealed the area's fate as `The Cursed Tree'.  Not even Sonic
would head up there then, no matter how hard one coerced him to.

Sandra was quieted about the issue of Rachel after the grisly discovery
at the hangman's tree.  Privately, she told Joseph justice had been done,
but publically she would not even speak of the subject any longer.
Luckily, the new developments with Joseph's magickal powers were enough
of a distraction to keep her from lingering on it, and added another
issue to keep hidden from the general populace.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On the small ship that was slowly drifting toward the shore of the Southern
Continent, the passenger of the vessel felt a small chill creep up his
back...he knew not why, or who, or where, but he knew something very
evil had been awakened...but, after a moment, it faded down to nothing.
Perhaps his long sleep had skewed his perception.  Oh well, he thought,
it was probably nothing, anyway.








		      Chapter Seventeen - Interlude



Summer's peak had arrived on the Northern continent, bringing with it
high temperatures, high humidity, and inches upon inches of rain.  The
sound of thunder seemed not to be far off at any moment, and the ground
seemed to give up its moisture as fast as the rain could give it.  Trees
and ponds were constantly frequented by Mobians of all sorts, even those
still in robotic form; in fact, it seemed that the chrome of the
remaining roboticized residents was hot enough to cook eggs on.
Even those with mere fur felt cooked to the bone...it was hard to get
away from the oppressive, sweltering, blazing sun, and the only
reprieve most people got was when the pounding thunderstorms hit.

It was only logical then that Knothole's resident air conditioner
repairman, Rotor, was worked quite heavily as the various units began
to suffer damage from justifiable overuse.  Even the Princess had to
stew for a few hours when her particular air conditioner fried in the
heat, which made her relatively constant flow of advisors
and hangers-on rather displeased as well.

Yet, not everyone had such problems.  Bookshire's unit operated rather
well, making his office comfortable for the heatstroke and allergy
sufferers who were also consulting him much more than he would have
liked.  Tails was there a great deal, spending many early mornings
with the old raccoon in physical therapy.  He'd also take some time
on occasion to use Bookshire's workshop on his palmtop computer,
fiddling with it often for several hours at a time.  Sonic never stood
still long enough to get particularly hot, and Bunnie got the desired
job of lifeguard.

Antoine was in his own private hell, tho; despite the incredibly
high humidity, the brain-melting sun, and the utter uncomfortability
of it all, he refused to take off the rather stuffy and
heat-collecting dress uniform of the Royal Guard.  It was almost
painful to watch him struggling down the street, gulping down
massive glasses of ice water; a plume of heat streamed off his
body, distorting the light around it as if he were a slab of roasting
asphalt on a desert highway.  At noon.  (Needless to say, he was often
seen standing in front of an air conditioning vent, encouraging its
owner to turn it up higher...oddly, he was often the last person seen
just before one of the units broke down...)

The only area hotter than Antoine's shoulder on Mobius, in most
people's opinions, was Robotropolis.  It painfully lacked any sort of
reprieve from its roasting fires and dying foundries.  Oil rained
from the sky, and choking black smoke rolled from the constantly
assaulted walls of the factories and power plants of the cursed
metropolis; it was like the Terran sack of Rome, except this city
was simply being torn apart rather than looted.  Slowly, the Freedom
Fighters were pushing the perimeter of Robotropolis deeper and deeper
inward, taking block after block back from Packbell's battered SWATBot
forces.  The marks of their passage were evident; buildings burnt to the
ground, fires raging in the factories, the shells of shattered robots
scattered about the street like so much confetti...

But in the center of this decadent city, the ruins of the Death Egg
still stood, albeit with some portions of it blown out or torn up.
Even as the fires raged against its walls, the explosions rocked its
foundations, and the continual vows of Freedom Fighters to take
it out his or herself, it still stood.  SWATBots still were made
within it, and the fall of Robotropolis would have to eventually
involve its final and utter destruction; without it, the city would
perish within hours.

Within the Egg, besides one of the final SWATBot production facilities
and the central nervous system of the remains of the Robotnik Empire,
there was a single sentinent entity; the last leader of the dying coup,
Emperor Packbell.  He had upgraded his title a few days after the search
for Snively had finally been concluded with the assumption that said
underling was utterly annhilated.  Yet, since SWATBots would call him
`Sonic' if he so desired, the title was for his own private ego
gratification.  Besides, it sounded more `commanding'...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He sat in Robotnik's old green chair, probably the one object in
Robotropolis that still operated as it did fifteen years ago.   It
still moved about on its servos and pnumonic lifts simply and efficently,
and still had the sheen of something fresh out of the factory.  Even
Robotnik's continual pounding of the arms didn't hurt the general look
of the chair, seeing that the entire object was constructed out of
reenforced diamondium.

Packbell sat in this chair simply because it was nearby the control
center for what remaining SWATBot forces he had left.  He'd lost
50 blocks since he'd taken control back from Snively, and there were
only 75 blocks left between the current perimeter and the chair in
which he now sat.  Hastily constructed containment walls had been
put up about 25 blocks from the Egg, but even he realized that they
wouldn't hold back a rampaging, vengeance-yearning pack of Freedom
Fighters for long.

Monitors intermittently flickered on and off, an after-effect from the
loss of the final backup generators that supplied the Death Egg externally.
The generators in the lower levels would provide enough power to operate
the Egg for a year or so; that is, if all the wiring in the Death Egg
was still there.  Quickly constructed rerouting systems for the
electricity operated 75% of the time, but there was still no doubt to
anyone who might observe the state of the structure that it was rapidly
weakening...

The second-to-last Buyer visit confirmed this to Packbell, in case he had
forgotten.  The avatar for their leader, yet another fox in the stream
of various minor players in this odd scheme, came into his Egg...without
destroying any more of his SWATBots than could be remade in that working
period, thankfully...and cursed at him for about 5 minutes about the
pathetic state of his current holdings.  The offer had been downgraded
again due to the devaluation of the property to a heavily-armed fighter
with a full compliment of weapons.  After haggling for a while, he had
gotten them to at least promise they would go no lower...then, like all
of his predecessors, the fox disappeared.

That meeting had put him in a suitably sullen and bitter mood.  He might
barely, -barely-, be able to hijack some cargo ship somewhere, but total
conquest of another world would have to be delayed at least a decade or
so.  His dreams of making a totally synthetic planet were again pushed
back into the future, far from his grasping hands...

However, the various `tokens' left behind from the Buyers would prove
useful in a raid.  He now possessed a set of fine plasma rifles, a
gravitron bomb (which he was very, very careful around), a few cases
of minor neutron explosives used in excavation, a full compliment of
rechargable power packs for many different devices, a credstick that
had a balance of 1 million GalactiCreds [tm], a sort of media player
that accepted strange crystalline cubes, some cubes that made the
object work, a few sets of clothes, and some other nicknacks that he
had not bothered to examine yet.  They were all packed up into a
single well-insulated box, and could be taken with the evil android
whereever he might wish to go.

He'd organized his escape from Mobius perfectly.  All that was needed
was the fighter, a few feet of storage space, and about 30 seconds...
and then, off he'd go, leaving this death trap of a world behind for
whatever insidious plans the Buyers had for it.  He wondered if he'd
find others like himself someplace else in the universe...Packbell
hoped so, for some reason.  Perhaps he was beginning to culture some
other emotions in his steel bosom, after all.  He hoped they wouldn't
distract him too much from his ultimate goal...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph pulled a 3 g bank while rocketing through the air, going at some
ungodly speed around the area of his pond.  He barrelrolled above the
water, then raced down towards it...pulling up at the last second, his
body just barely touched the water before blasting back up into the sky...
normally, carrying a large stone in one's palm put a damper on one's
aerial acrobatics, but an idea Joseph had came up with had made his
continuing training far easier.

He had been complaining about how heavy the rock was when he had made the
off-hand comment about wishing he could shrink the stone down to a more
controllable size.  And, amazingly enough, the stone had done that once
before with another pupil.  So, after designing a proper talisman to hold
the stone, Joseph exerted his will and technical knowledge and put the
larger stone into the smaller amulet.  It was an interesting trick, but
Joseph had some knowledge of the theorem by reading some Keldy'rian
technical journals one afternoon last autumn.

Now, wearing the stone around his neck, he became much more manuverable.
He merely concentrated on the amulet when he needed to draw upon its
energies, rather than having to hold the large soccerball-sized rock
in a hand or two.  It also allowed him to do very tricky and fast
aerial spins, flips, and dives while projecting energy from his palms.

It suddenly became far more fun to be able to fly.

A rock shattered into pebbles below him as he again hit the target
boulder with a blast of concentrated natural force.  He wondered how
much impact the energy would have on a robot, or an armored soldier.
Joseph guessed he'd have to find that out when the time came...so, he
would just have to get as skilled at aiming and firing a blast while in
motion as he could before his first major test of his abilities came
along; the _Apocolypse_.

Soon, however, Joseph began to tire of flying around for a bit, and landed
down by the shore for a reprieve from his fast and loose stunt flying.
It did take some effort to stay in the air, after all...one's concentration
and focus must continually be maintained, else one falls like a rock as
gravity realizes where you are.  He had been improving astronomically,
but years of practice and honing of his skills still loomed ahead.  One
day, the rock had told him, he might even be able to use his powers without
it as a focus.  What a day that would be...

Some grass began to green and grow around him, one of the aftereffects of
using his abilities.  He'd noticed it a few days ago after he'd been
practicing the complicated skill of levitating other objects.  When he'd
start using his powers, the earth around him seemed to grow stronger and
more vital, as if he were pouring energy directly into it.  The trees got
a bit more greener, the grasses got longer, animals continually wandered
around by him as if he were a massive salt lick...it was very strange, but
it was not entirely unwelcome.  After all, nothing that was attracted to
him was ever hostile, and they were mostly confined to smaller unevolved
mammals and various other creatures lower on the food chain than he.

A butterfly alighted on his right ear.  The effects started to wear off a
few minutes later, but he'd still attract animals and increase the growth
of plants if he stayed in any location for too long...outside of his
sterile and climate-controlled Dome, of course.  Still, even the mild
oddness about loitering in any particular biome for too long wasn't too
curious to most people; he'd mentioned once that he'd accidentally fallen
into a vat of pheromones after he'd entered his new body, so people merely
wrote it off as a `weird alien thing'.  Good.

He stood up, disrupting the butterfly's rest and making it fly off into
the forest once more.  It was starting to get hot out by his pond, so
perhaps a swim would be a good idea after all.  Fortunately, he had
planned ahead and had been wearing his more comfortable summer outfit;
just a pair of sandals and a pair of swimming trunks, which left most
of his fur out in the sun.

This was rather uncomfortable for Joseph when Mobians happened by, since
his people had always been the type to rely on clothing to preserve
their modesty.  The levels of fur around certain areas was rather thin
and short, unlike the evenly obfuscated areas of pretty much every
Mobian around.  For Joseph, wandering around in a pair of shorts and
mere sandals left him feeling less secure than, say, an overturned turtle.

Sandra seemed to like his current selection of wardrobe, however.  She
had been wandering around `naked' (to Joseph, anyway) since the day of
her birth, and liked being able to run her fingers around his backfur
without having to weasel her way under a coat, light armor, and a shirt.
His attempts to get her to wear even the most liberal selection of clothing
were always thwarted by her simple desire to have her `fur to the wind'...
probably a response to being shackled and straightjacketed during her
several stays in Mobian prisons, he had concluded, and eventually gave up
on the whole idea.

It was also a little easier to work magick without having a lot of
shielding on around him, he had noticed.  Perhaps the influence of the
wind and the sun boosted the abilities of the emerald, or maybe his
own natural powers were augmented by having to work through less
shielding.  Either way, his studies were far increased when he was
in his shorts and sandals, so he wore his outfit when he was `working'...

But right at that moment, he was going to take a break from his constant
practicing with a little swim.  Flight was a tiring mental exercise,
after all, and physical relaxation always assisted mental regeneration.
Taking a floating innertube from a hidden spot behind some bushes, he
pushed it out over the water, and then hopped into it.

The water licked over him comfortably, cooling his tired body with its
liquid nourishment.  A light wind pushed him away from the shore, setting
him adrift in the center of the pond a few moments later.  He looked up
into the cloudy sky, noting that a storm would probably arrive in 3.21
hours; give or take a minute.  Right now, though, white cumulus clouds
tangoed with the blue sky, the sun streaming down between their dancing
like some giant mirrored ball as the creatures of the earth sang out to
them musically with their speech and song....the darkness came to
embrace him as he drifted off into light slumber, and he did not resist.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Machines, he hypothesised, no matter how advanced, can be used by any
mere mortal with consciousness of self, the ability to speak, and an index
finger.  He decided to test this theory by pushing a button on one wall
of his quarters, pausing to consider his request, and then speaking into
it with an even and clear tone.

"Machine oil, 40 gauge."

The alcove inside the wall lit up, hummed, and created a canister of said
oil with a spigot on the top of it for application.  Pleased at his
triumph over alien technology, Ivo Robotnik removed the can from the wall
with his non-roboticized arm, and oiled his other arm up while walking to
the other side of the room.

It had been a few months since he had arrived on this vessel, and he had
made remarkable progress towards his goals while being detained there.
He had copied the quite useful Ur'thaen technological files, including
specifications on how to create, use, and streamline various devices.
Ivo was making grand strides in understanding their advanced sciences,
and with time might be at the level of a middle-aged Orange tech.
Also, he had obtained several portable replicator devices, with
rechargable power supplies, from the ship's cargo; and by utilizing
his own technical prowess, had begun loading them into the ship's
single escape pod.

He had wondered, initally, why such a large ship would have only one
escape pod of only a medium size.  Then, he had read up a bit on the
propagandized history of the universe according to the Ur'thaens, and
discovered only about three things of real value from it: one, the
Ur'thaens never lose a fight without destroying everything they can that
might one day be useful; two, the Ur'thaens never take prisoners; and
three, Ur'thaens are never taken prisoner.  Simply put, they only put
an escape pod in for the usage of children, which this ship had none of.
Therefore, Ivo could fill the escape pod as much as he could with loot,
leave just enough room to fit in himself, and use it without the rest of
the crew even cursing him for leaving!

He smiled, walking over to the window as his arm took in the lubricant.
Mobius was looming ever-closer to the ship, but still had that accursed
blue-and-white color to it.  One day, he thought, one day, it would be
a grey ball...and it would be only the center of the Robotnik Empire!

His thoughts were interrupted by some announcements that rattled over the
speakers in the gruff Ur'thaen tongue.  Despite his attempts, he was
simply lost in how to understand the vulgar language...

<< "Attention all personnel, attention.  We are approaching the outer
    limits of the Mobian sensory network.  All systems shall be lowered
    to minimal levels from this point forward until further notice.
    You have five more minutes to complete your final preparations for
    the Operation.  Return to work immediately." >>

He shrugged, and sat down.  All of his tasks had been completed, and
his loading of the escape pod had been finished just last night.  He
hadn't been caught doing anything, and it was too soon for them to begin
their attack.  He wondered what, then, the announcement was about.

A few minutes later, the lights dimmed down, and the room became slightly
more cool.  The dim hum that was constantly heard on the vessel faded
down to a whisper, and he detected far less power available to the ship
than before.

<< "Mobian detection grid breached.  All power from this point forward
    is to be only for ship operations, life support, and for the
    cloaking division.  Illumination is to be kept to a minimum, and
    shall be kept at a low level by the ship.  Return to work
    immediately." >>

Robotnik switched to infrared, and sat back in the single chair he was
given.  Obviously, their nearness to Mobius had something to do with
this, he mused, so he had better start considering his exact escape
plans...so much to do, so little time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The echidna continued to meditate, his mind etherial as the winds.  He
detected a great primal force beginning to stabilize...the Solaris-force,
perhaps, or something new?  Flickers of racial memory danced in the back
of his mind, but he could still not see when or where the Solaris would
mainfest.  He knew the warmth was growing stronger, but it seemed so far
from where it should be...  Meanwhile, the Shadow was getting close
to Mobius again, and he could feel the chill starting to fall upon the
very edges of the world.  The winds told him that a great battle, greater
than any battle that had come before, would have to take place before a
victor could be chosen.

Then, an image formed in his mind...a fox...a hedgehog...a faerie...
a kitsune...the fires of twin suns...wraiths circling the
world...death, life, fire, blood...

His eyes snapped open, his pulse racing, his face dotted with sweat.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph napped in his innertube, not really dreaming about anything
much...it was deep, dreamless sleep that he preferred, because it
gave him more energy mentally and physically than having to analyze
a dream for a few minutes after waking up.  Yet, dreams did come to
him as he drifted around his pond, and one in particular would
affect him for the rest of his days...

He was with Sandra, sitting on some nameless hill in the middle of a
grand meadow.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and they were having a
nice picnic.  They ate, then she snuggled up to him and bade him look
up into the clouds, like she had a tendency to do.  Being an obedient
mate, he did so, looking into the patterns of the clouds...

The clouds turned to spirits, swirling around before his eyes.  They
did not frighten them, or try to harm them, but they were just -there-.
After a few moments, one particular wraith floated down to him, and
spoke.

"Solaris, we welcome you to the world of Mobius.  I am Lucian, the
chosen ruler of the Spirits you see before you.  Soon your mettle
shall be tested in your first battle; be warned, the bringer of the
Apocolypse has skills that nearly equal your own.  He has had
300 years of self-taught practice, while you have only had a few
weeks...your magick comes from the chi of an entire world, however,
while his comes from the darkness within him.  Even so, the battle
shall be fierce, Champion; remember never to turn your back until
the Fire erupts from the Earth to destroy the Shadow that falls."

It came closer, its formless body taking up his entire vision.
"If you survive the battle, however, and emerge victorious, your
quest shall only have just begun...so fear not my sight when I come
before you again, Champion, which shall be a fortnight after the final
shot has been fired."

Thunder crashed above him, which caused him to snap his eyes open
nearly instantly.  The rain came, and smattered against his fur.
Not wanting to get drenched, he swam back to shore, mulling over
the vision he had seen...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The rains hit again just as Bunnie had been finishing helping her
elderly wards, and was heading back home to rest.  As the rain
started to pour from the clouds, she ran into her hut, quickly
bolting the door fast against the coming winds and storm.

As she finished closing up her windows and firing up her hair
dryer, she smiled at what she had been able to accomplish today.
All of her work had been completed before the rain, and she
actually had some time to herself today.  Sure, it was raining,
but quiet time was far more prized at the moment than socializing.

She dried her fur, and sat down on her softest chair.  Things had
been very busy lately, she mused.  More people had been
deroboticized, so the movement to new villages seemed to be a
daily event.  The front lines were pressing deeper into Robotropolis
every day, taking back more and more of it from Packbell.  Sonic
had actually began considering becoming a bit more serious with his
relationship with Sally, and Rotor had been everywhere fixing
air conditioners.

And Tails!  Tails was becoming a fine fox, and was growing taller and
stronger every day.  His tails still didn't look in top form, but he
was going out of his way to rebuild the muscle mass he had lost by
lifting weights and vigorously running.  If he had the right metabolism
for it, Bookshire had said, he'd be a regular Hercules at this point.

She decided to make up a nice cup of iced tea after musing on that for
a while, so she got up from her chair reluctantly and went to her
replicator.  Telling the machine what she wanted, it produced the
cool liquid a few moments later, allowing Bunnie to quench her
very acute thirst.

The storm picked up outside, really starting to rattle some windows.
Luckily, Bunnie noted, her hut had been reenforced before the summer
had come with very modern building materials.  No storm could rock it
now, and she'd probably be the only bunny in town whose roof wouldn't
leak.  She smiled at that thought, sipping more iced tea.  A couple
bucks had been looking at her in that way again this afternoon, she
noted, and she was beginning to feel a bit more like a piece of meat
than a caring, loving rabbit.  She was beginning to wonder if her
newly-enhanced beauty was a bit more of a curse than it was a
blessing.

She sat back, drinking more of her tea.  Sure, she thought, it was
nice to be able to look in the mirror and see an unmarred body,
but the friends she had before she was deroboticized were with
her because they liked -her-.  She could talk to Sally about anything,
and even Sonic would do his best to understand.  Some of the newer
people that she found herself with seemed only to understand beauty,
or the lack of it...shallow as a stream durin' a drought, her daddy
might have said.

She sighed.  At least her real friends hadn't deserted her.  She
-knew- that much was true; no matter how crazy it got, Sonic, Sally,
Tails, Rotor, Bookshire, and even Antoine would be there.  They'd be
true to each other forever, if for no other reason than they had been
forced to work together for about 15 years.

The storm churned and howled as she sat there, thinking quietly about
what might happen next.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tails ran back to his hut, still being unable to fly.  The storm was
not of above-average ferocity, but it still wasn't anything fun to
be caught in.  The mud from the streets was starting to get fairly
deep, and if he didn't get inside soon, he'd be wretchedly filthy.

He made it into his hut, ditching his muddy shoes at the door.
Luckily, his hut was air conditioned, so the windows were already
shut tight.  Fetching a towel from nearby his bed, he started to
dry his fur, which was heavy with moisture.  It was a good thing
he'd made it back home, he noted, because the rain outside really
started to come down just as he'd finished drying himself.

He flopped his backpack on the ground lightly, opening it and taking
a carefully-packed package from it.  He had taken precautions after
he had left Bookshire's that afternoon to protect his palmtop, which
seemed to have succeeded to a satisfactory level.  Proud of his minor
victory over the elements, he began working on it on his desk.

As he unscrewed the casing and tested the various connections, he
mused over the last few weeks.  The whole Rachel issue, which the
fox had been annoyingly excluded from, seemed to have concluded.
Sally was still torn up inside about it, but everyone else seemed
to believe that she'd done the right thing.  She could understand
Sally's position, but he was in the majority himself over the issue.
After all, a lot of death and suffering had occurred from Rachel's
treachery over the roboticizer issue alone, nonethless over the ten
or so deaths she was personally responcible for.  It's not like the
hanging hadn't been -justified- under Mobian law.  He'd even taken
the time to look it up from the main Mobian database, and it had
checked out completely.

Perhaps, Tails pondered as he resoldered a loose resistor, Sally felt
personally torn over the issue.  Her knowledge of the laws of the land
were still in conflict with her own sense of how things should be done.
She knew that a mob would probably kill Rachel if she kept her in the
quickly-made jail, and there would be unrest until they did.  That
would weaken her position as a ruler, and quite possibly cause another
coup to occur; just before the victory over the true foe!  Tails
even realized that such a thing was far too dangerous to have happen
now, so she must have forced herself to follow the opinion of the
majority.

Yet, Tails considered, Sally must have felt guilty about sentancing
another Mobian to death.  As he fiddled with the CPU, he noted
that Sally despised killing in all forms, legal or not.  Life was
sacred to her, and so her ruling must be gnawing at her when she
slept, if not constantly.  He hoped she'd let herself be forgiven
over time, simply because such indecision could cost much more
than a night's sleep in the coming days.

The winds picked up, rattling Tails' windows.  He puttered for a bit
more, his mind moving from topic to topic as he worked.  His tails
still ached, and he could barely even move them.  The physical therapy
had helped, but his hope was starting to flounder.  It was a depressing
thought to mull over, so he simply put it out of his mind.

Fiddling a bit with some switches, he thought of something Sally had
mentioned a few days ago.  He had been growing considerably lately,
his training toning his muscles and his body automatically beginning
to grow.  Noticing this, Sally had said to him that he'd soon enough be
a full-grown fox, and might even be a little taller than Antoine.  He had
smirked at that statement, wondering how Antoine might feel about that.
It certainly wouldn't be something he'd love...after all, a member of
the Royal Guard should tower over most Mobians.  He'd probably start
wearing booster shoes or something even more preposterous if he got
much bigger...

Giggling, he finished up his work and closed his computer again,
wanting to test it.  The storm howled and rattled his windows, but
he was sure of his hut's sturdiness.  After sealing the computer
up tightly, he put the power supply back in and turned it on.
A friendly beep and the normal display came up, showing that his
alterations had done no harm.  A diagnostic showed that he had
increased the speed of the device by 20%, and the memory had been
expanded another few meg; not very much, but it was something.

Smiling, he started running some other tests on it, ignoring the
raging storm outside.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Joseph walked into the Dome, drying himself with a thought.  The door
slid shut behind him, sealing out the rages of Nature (for the most part)
and allowing him to relax.  He took a seat on a couch, and opened his
palm.  A cool glass of milk appeared, the condensation on its side
dripping down the glass and around his palm.  Smiling, he grasped it
with his other paw and slammed it back down his throat.  That
particular ability had been cultured a few hours after he had
perfected the levitation of a few objects, after he had said something
to the effect of `I'm thirsty'.

And, as expected, Mob had asked him >> "Well, why don't you get a glass
of water?" <<

They had been in the middle of the forest at that point, the nearest
stream a mile or so away.  "Like what," he had said in reply, "pull
it out of the air?"

>> "Have you tried?" <<

"No."  He hadn't, really, being that his mind was focused on his tasks.

>> "Give it a try." <<

He grabbed a random patch of air.  Nothing.  "Yeah, I tried."

>> "Oh, come now.  Think for a moment, Joseph." <<

Joseph pondered the situation for a moment.  If he could fly by thinking
about flying, levitate objects by willing them to rise, then why couldn't
he just conjure a glass of water into his hand?

>> "That's the spirit.  Now try." <<

Joseph said nothing, already concentrating.  He thought of all the glasses
of water that he'd had in the past week, his pond, a stream, rain...and,
slowly, a glass materialized in his palm.  Water began to fill it, with
ice cubes popping into existance last.  "Nifty."

As he drank, Mob seemed to smile.  >> "You have a strong will, Joseph." <<

He smirked, finishing the glass and willing it away again.  "It's from
being stubborn as all hell, Mob.  That's all."

He smiled at the memory, willing the glass to disappear into a puff of
air.  Joseph was getting rather good at this magick stuff.  He made a
yo-yo and played with it for a bit, his mind wandering.  He did some
simple tricks, and made it snap back into his hand and scatter into
air on impact.  He levitated some pillows, and had them chase each other
around the Dome.  He generated a free-standing energy blob that floated
to and fro around the roof before it ran out of power and faded away.

He was amused by these things for a while, but finally became rather
bored.  It was no fun to do this stuff by himself for very long, and
he'd not spoken to Sandra in a few hours, anyway.  So, pulling himself
off his couch, he went to the steppad and started the 1.3 mile descent
down to the first sublevel...

She was sitting in his recliner, staring at a holovid.  The movie was
vaguely familiar to him; two vixens steal a hovercar and travel
cross-country, avenging their wounded self-images on various piggish
males.  This was, he believed, the fifth sequel.  "Hey there, Sandra."

She smiled, looking away from her movie to greet him.  "About time
you came back from your practicing, Joe."

He created a soft beanbag to lie upon, and plopped down in it, close
by his mate.  "Well, you know how it can be some days."  He
concentrated for a moment, making a tub of popcorn to put by his
side.  "`Natasha and Seline: On The Road' -again-?"

She laughed musically, taking some popcorn.  "I love this movie."

He ate some as well, making a large drink in his other paw.  "But
we've both seen it about 50 times."

She ate some popcorn, took a sip of her drink, and smirked.  "So?
You've seen `Rock Man XII' about 100 times, and I still sit there
and watch it whenever you get the need to see it again."

"Hey, that's different.  Rock Man's cinematic genius.  This
franchise was at best worth two sequels.  Part three was barely
tolorable. Part four was just plain bad."  He paused for effect.
"This is the fifth."

Sandra bahed and pegged Joseph with some popcorn.  "You just don't
like it because vixens blow up robots all the way through it."

The fox got a little bellegerent.  "It was a waste of explosives to fry
those robots!  They were perfectly good and could have been used for
something more -highbrow- than this drek."

Sandra folded her arms and laughed.  "Drek?  `Rock Man' is drek.
The entire plot of the movie revolved around a robot who blew up
evil robots.  This movie has different -strata- of plot."

He smirked, pegging Sandra back.  "Like hell!  All the vixens do
is cry and whine, then blow up more guys!  At least I know
Rock Man's not gonna win any freaking Zimmys."

She nailed him with a handful.  "Oh yeah?" she said, smiling as she
tossed the payload at her mate.

He whipped a handful of popcorn back, chuckling.  "Yeah!"

A massive food-fight began, with entire buckets of popcorn being lobbed
back and forth between the two foxes.  A blizzard of kernels blew
through the room, and it took about five minutes for both sides to
exhaust all of the ammunition.

After the fight had ended, both Sandra and Joseph had popcorn hanging
off their fur, and were rolling together through a larger pile,
trying to get the other as popcorned as possible.  By now, the
movie had been totally forgotten, and the only reason for the
small food-war to continue was out of pure childish glee.

"Mmf!" Joseph groaned as Sandra smashed more popcorn around his muzzle.
"Hey, I yield."

She smiled, sitting on his chest.  "Hah!  That'll teach you to slam
`Natasha and Seline', fox."

He groaned.  "You may have defeated me, but I'll hold it true to my
grave that `Rock Man' is better than `Natasha and Seline'."

She kissed him.  "Oh yeah?"

He kissed back.  "Yeah."

Her paws ran along the side of his neck, eventually running over his
ears.  "Isn't there -any- way to convince you?"

He mmmed and wrapped his right paw around her waist.  "Let me think for
a minute about that..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The storm raged in Robotropolis as well, SWATBots occasionally sparking
from the pounding monsoon of acidic rain and razor-sharp wind.  The
firing of weapons slowed slightly around the perimeter, simply because
the front line of troops were too distracted by the bad weather to
keep the assault going.  For the moment, the two opposing forces were
at a stalemate.

The fires of burning factories lit the sky in a orange-reddish haze as
the unnatural lightning pounded the cursed earth, the blood of Mobians
and the oil of machines soaking the dirt with a vile mixture of the
fluids of both life and death.  The battle raged continuously, ceasing
only for a few moments for each party to either set off more explosives
or carry off the dead, fire a barrage of lazers or clear the battleground
of broken SWATBots.

The soldiers of Mobius were grim in their determination to win, their
clothing soaked through with blood, sweat, and coated in patches with
the chitlin of vanquished SWATBots.  Some were dying, injured, or
torn in twain, yet they fought all the same; the taste of victory was
just inches from their lusting lips, the chalice of triumph only a
grab away.  However, trapped in a cat's cradle of bad weather and
a still-superior force, neither side could strike forth a blow that
could decide the tide of war...it was futile for the moment.

But yet, it raged...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The stranger's craft drifted across the sea, the cloaked figure navigating
through the waters of the lower southern continent.  Land, from either
port or stern, was invisible; only the waters of the world were visible
in any direction, and the sun and stars served as his only guide to where
his destination was.  Fortunately, he needed not food at the moment;
the sun kept him warm, and the waters of the ocean were easily purified
with his sun-harness.

He took his lute from his back and played a quiet melody, his craft set
forth in the right direction for the time being.  The First had warned
him of the potential dangers of the lifeless knights that roamed the
world during this period of time, as well as the unnatural weaponry
that each wielded.  Like the legends of the Black Knights of the
Appleshire, they could take a great deal of punishment without being
hurt in any way.

The dim gleam of gunmetal glimmered at his side.  Luckily, the First's
powers of sorcery and `science' had created for him a makeshift
`pistol' which could harm the creatures if the spell within it was
projected at the creature quickly enough.  When he had tested it in the
First's laboratory, it had been shown to be like a blue beam of hot
light, and had burned through one of the bricks of his great Tower.
Needless to say, he felt safer with the old wizard's weapon at his side.

He glanced up into the clear sky.  The Trial would begin soon, the
wise one had told him, and he had said that it would be possible to
see it happen with his own eyes.  Indeed, such an event was an honor
to witness; he hoped to awaken his sleeping bretheren in time for
them to see it all.  Maybe they would stop their feuding and come
together to gaze upon something so awesome.

The boat drifted on, an ancient melody drifting from it to serve as
a rough soundtrack for the lone wolf.  Soon, he thought, it would be
time to finish the circle...








		       Chapter Eighteen - Solitude



     Autumn descended upon the Great Forest like a comforter on a tired
kit after a long, cold day; stopping most of the rain and lowering the
temperatures to sweater-wearing levels.  At least, it was for those
persons who wore clothing.  The leaves of the trees were just starting
to turn yellow at the fringes, and the flowers slowly started to die...

     Robotropolis rocked with explosions as the first advance troops from
Knothole began to hit the first retaining walls at the 40th block
from the Egg.  Defended with whatever Packbell had left to spare,
casualties and fatalities rose on both sides; yet, the walls fell
as the weeks dragged on, often lubricated with the blood and oil of
whole battalions of soldiers.

     The second-to-last version of the deroboticizer software was
released, giving a needed boost to the forces in the field.  Soon almost
80 percent of the Mobians still living had been returned to normal, and
the recovery time from the process had been shrinking exponentially.
The tops of the mountains were settled, and a path had been blazed
to the peaceful valley behind them...now, a trail was in the process
of being made from the valley floor towards the northern wastes, villages
being set up alongside the long, winding road...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Bahb worked silently in the inner depths of the Dome compound,
preparing its final hand for the upcoming Ur'thaen attack.  The
deroboticizer project had almost been completed, Joseph's project
was just being polished and perfected, and its own secret plan was
totally finished.

     It did a routine check of the Dome's systems as it pondered what
had been done...despite incredible restrictions on materials and labor,
Bahb was able to complete the `Watchtower' project in record time...
thanks to the technological advances of the Ur'thaen AI group in the
last 300 years, as well as information quietly borrowed from the
Keld'yrian database on the subject.  Soon the next phase of its
plan would be ready to be activated, which would begin when Joseph's
own plan required its aid...

     << "50.00000000000000% available computational resources....
49.99999999999999%....49.99999999999998%...." >>

     Hopefully, it would last that long.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Tails went out that morning to exercise, running around the perimeter
of the village as many times as he physically could.  His legs and
back were hard and sculpted after nearly a half-year of constant
work, and his tails could now flap behind him without the aid of
a splint.  He still was unable to spin them fast enough to get
airborne, but he could use them as prehensile appendages again without
any pain.  Another positive side effect to his physical therapy was
that his speed was beginning to slowly match Sonic's due to his work
on his legs...his reliance on his tails earlier in his life had kept
his raw potential from being fully tapped.  Now, after only six months
of training, his body was beginning to streamline and harden like
Sonic's.  Another year of work, he figured, and he could probably
match or even best the supersonic hedgehog's athletic ability.

     The cool autumn air rushed through his fur as he ran through the
paths around Knothole, wind cooling his rapidly warming body.
After a certain number of laps, he lept at a tree and hung from a
branch with his tails, and began doing `pull-ups' of a sort; first
by using both of them, then using one, and then the other.  He
could feel his tails grow stronger and leaner with muscle as the
regimen continued, his mental determination to fly again fueling his
youthful body into preternatural feats of strength and stamina.

     After that set of exercise had been completed, he flipped out of the
tree and started running again, working his heartbeat into a fast
series of pumps.  His body ached from the strain of such physical
labor, but he loved and respected the pain; the pain let him know
he was alive, let him -feel- himself get ready to ascend into the sky.
His growing form was in the condition it was in because of the forcing
on pain upon him, and indeed his effort into exercise had shown to be
a true advantage; his awareness of the female sex had made him realise
that a tight body was a desirable one, so that also drove him to perform
mighty feats of strength.  None but Joseph could match him in physical
prowess, the teenaged fox believed, for no other had the sheer will to
make themselves over in the image of a Titan.

     He did some forward flips over several banks of bushes and thistles,
doing a corkscrew spin over the last one, then broke into a hard run.
Indeed, Joseph had taught him much in the last few weeks; after
consulting him for help involving computing, he had given the young
student a few lessons in his style of martial arts; the Mobian version
of the name was `The Perfect Art'.  His mental quickness allowed him to
pick up a first-level understanding of the ten-level art in a matter of
days, while his physical form was able to take full advantage of the
art's mental control of the body.  Hunger and physical pain soon became
obstacles to overcome rather than impassable stumbling blocks, and
his concentration had increased tenfold.

     The second level of the art would soon be reached by Tails in a
few weeks, after the basic punches and kicks had been demonstrated to
him.  He had gaped at Joseph's ability to shatter massive boulders with
a well-placed punch, and awed at his skill at pushing himself beyond
his own physical limits for short periods of time without any
repercussions.  It was nearly magical in its power, this `Perfect Art',
and its power was something Tails had quickly come to respect...it was
too devestating to be used freely.

     Finally, Tails stopped within Knothole to refresh his body with
water.  Taking a massive drink from the town well, his body regained its
ability to move and work like a machine, his mind sharpened and his senses
became as acute as Joseph's teaching could train them to be.  He could feel
and almost control--almost--the regeneration of his body, the growth of his
muscles.  He felt like he could conquer the world.

     After he had caught his breath and finished his water, he reflected
for a moment on the day's training so far, and immediately returned to
running.  The day had only just begun, after all...and his computer could
wait for a while.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     John sat in his command chair, overlooking the looming globe that was
the world of Mobius...it loomed closer and closer to him every day, yet
he had to let it escape his grasp.  For now.

     Ivo had become more and more fidgety as the days had gone on, he had
noticed.  Perhaps he feared this `hedgehog' might again save the world.

     Bah.  If the `hedgehog', the one called `Sonic', could stop a fully
armed Ur'thaen Planet Destroyer with a crew of several million, new and
unstoppable weaponry, a full compliment of fighters, and the infamous
Main Gun...well, it'd sure impress the hell out of him.  But John knew
far better than to even consider a non-vulpine a threat to the master
Ur'thaen race.  The only thing that had been able to defeat them was one
of their own people; no alien race could conquer them, only stalemate them
for a time.  They could not be taken prisoner, nor would they take any.
Assimilate or die, that had been their motto, and it had taken them to the
very fringes of the galaxy.  Only a ecological fad had finally defeated
their onslaught, and it had been through deceit by the Keldy'rians, not
honorable combat, that they had been vanquished.

     He reclined the chair slightly, drinking from his canteen.  The
dimly-lit bridge was only operated by a skeleton crew--the rest were
busy preparing the ship and the fighters for the great conquest that
laid before them.  It required little to navigate the ship at the time,
anyway...they were gliding slowly towards Mobius, invisible to all
sensors.  In just a few more months, the time would be right to strike...
for that would be when the Keld'yrians would be too distracted with
the upcoming Union of Allied Worlds Summit at the far end of the galaxy.
Despite the fact that their mere seven ships would soon fall before the
might of the _Apocolypse_, it would be far simpler to take out this world
as a practice run if the crew was not in a foaming berzerker rage as
the weaponry was being tested.

     John finished off the canteen and put it next to his command chair.
Quietly touching a sensor on the arm of the chair, an audio transmission
of the latest galactic news played softly from a speaker module implanted
in the piece of furniture.  Soon, he thought, soon he would strike...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Joseph walked through the paths of his claimed territory, deep in
silent contemplation.  The brisk weather had forced him to don a light
blue long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans again, as well as his well-tended
pair of boots.  While feeling comfortable, he felt slightly hindered by
them at times during his constant practice, which made everything a bit
more challenging.  It did, however, force him to adapt and become more
resiliant to the typical failures that accompanied learning a new
technique or a different way to use his powers.

     Walking through a deep area of woods, he mused about Tails.  He had
taken him up as a part-time student recently, and hoped he would
turn out to keep the sacred skills of The Perfect Art alive after
the alien would `disappear' for all intensive purposes after the battle.
The young kitsune had such talent, such raw desire to overcome his
handicap...and yet, Joseph saw into his body when he practiced and
knew that the nerve damage in his lower back had been too extensive.
He would not fly again without a miracle...no medical procedure,
Mobian, Keld'yrian, Ur'thaen or otherwise could do a thing about
it, and he lacked the physical resources to clone anyone at the
moment; the entire lab would have to be redesigned.

     Yet, the power within him cried out to set Tails right, if not just
for the sake of practice.  He knew that he could do it...he had learned
enough to be able to do such a feat with ease.  Yet, if any Mobian
concieved of his power now, the results could be disasterous for
everything he had planned; and the stakes were too high now to risk it.

     He continued to walk along the trail, plunging deep into the wilds
of the forest.  If only there was a way to use his abilities without
-showing- that he was, some sort of way of masking his true intent behind
mere coincidence.  Mob had no knowledge of such a skill; it never had to
deal with such a situation in past magickal defenders' lives.  If anything
was to be done about the matter, it would be up to him.  No spirit
could help him now, no ancient book of lore.  He would have to figure
out a way to handle the situation himself.

     The fox stopped when he reached a clearing deep within the forest.
A basic psychic scan showed no sentient creatures within a few miles, and
a technical examination showed not a single survelliance device.  This
part of the forest was safe from unwanted observers, so he could continue
his practicing in the magickal arts.

     Sitting down on a boulder, he thought about what he wanted to do
carefully.  A stone in the centre of the clearing sat evenly on the
ground, some moss and other fungus growing upon it.  He wanted to set
it on its side without any obvious magickal effect doing so.  The
question was not if he could, but how.  Usually, he'd focus on his amulet,
draw power from it, project a stream of orange plasma from his hand,
encompass the rock with it, and mentally manipulate its position.
However, he wanted to do something like that without any visible evidence
of him doing so...that was the tricky part.  He had become reliant on using
his body to use his energy-manipulation abilities, utilizing his amulet and
paw as a `focus' of sorts.  Now the task was to ascend above that, and do
mystical works without any evidence of him doing so.

     He stared at the object for a while, resisting the urge to raise his
hand and imagine `juice' flying from it to do his will.  He concentrated
on his goal, but still the urge to raise his hand kept interfering.
Finally, he simply closed his eyes and meditated for a few moments,
clearing his mind of all thoughts but one; the rock lifting slightly,
moving ninety degrees, lowering, then not moving again.  The thought
crossed his mind again and again, only the effect and not the cause
occupying his full attention.  However, after about an hour had passed,
he had made no progress.  This mildly depressed Joseph, but yet he
chose to continue trying until he got it right.  Utilizing his portable
communications unit, he left a message with Bahb to inform Sandra he
might be gone for a few days, then requested that he not be disturbed
until he sent a communique to Bahb that he was no longer `busy'.

     He deactivated the unit and returned to a full lotus position,
sitting just about five or ten yards from the rock.  Several hours passed
as the new thought pattern began to fill his relaxed mind, the unlearning
process beginning amid already fresh perceptions on reality.

     After a few days, Joseph had slowly taught himself what to think when
he wanted to do something a bit more casually...and his first test of
his theory came with the rock he had been concentrating on the entire
time.  As the sun began to slip below the horizon on the fourth day, Joseph
opened his eyes and stared at the rock for a few moments.  It twitched,
then slowly lifted.  A healthy wind helped to turn it over in the air,
then gently put it down on the ground again, pointing into the air like
an extended index finger.

     He smiled to himself, then set himself to work on practicing other
feats with his new technique...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


     The next morning, Bunnie rose early to take her morning
constitutional.  It was a clear and crisp morning, and a light fog hung
around the outskirts of the village like a fuzzy blanket.  Most of the
village still slept in deep, dream-filled sleep when Bunnie drank her morning
cup of coffee and put on her light coat to go on her walk, the sun
barely creeping over the curvature of the world.  A few birds chirped
as they groggily awoke to feed, but little else but the sound of her
own breathing met her ears.

     She walked from her hut through the winding path around the village
that led to the power ring pool, the cold wind striking softly against
her neck like a steel serpent coiling around its victim.  The partially
denuded trees showed the canvas of the black-blue morning sky through a
multicolored frame of golden, red, orange and brown leaves, only the
faintest traces of high cloud cover occasionally marring the smooth
surface of the heavens above.  The crunching of the leaves spoke to her
in a long-forgotten primal tongue as she headed towards the glassy pool,
speaking a color commentary of her wanderings through the woods.

     The rabbit padded to the edge of the water, pausing a moment to
take in her peaceful surroundings.  The area was quite beautiful in
the early morning, especially during the autumn.  Three waxing moons
hung in the sky above the tall plateau in the background, the sounds
of the waterfall faintly being brought to her ears by the eastern
breeze.  In the distance, the rising sun discolored the preternaturally
blue sky with reds, oranges and yellows, almost matching the falling
leaves from the half-naked trees that surrounded the silent rabbit.

     The cry of an eagle sounded through the area as it flew overhead,
heading towards the waterfall, then gaining altitude and flying over
it, disappearing into the morning sky.  It was a beautiful world, she
thought, this Mobius...their imminent victory would be sweeter than the
purest sugar because of it.

     She looked into the water, seeing her own reflection clearly.  Her
body seemed to be more beautiful and precious to her each day, the
doe's appreciation of her sensual form being sharpened by nearly a
lifetime of roboticized slavery.  Bunnie knelt by the pool and gently
caressed the surface of the water with her paw, watching her reflection
ripple and warp from her touch.  She could dimly see the ring-generator
below, glowing with a soft light as it prepared a ring.  It would not
generate one for several more hours, she noted, but it was still a
comforting thing to see operating properly.  For over 15 years now
it had worked flawlessly without so much as one episode of maintanence;
Sir Charles' cunning engineering had seen to that.  It was the one
surviving artifact from the past regime that remained and worked,
so it gave Bunnie a tie to the past...in fact, it was probably her
last remaining tie.

     The doe thought back several years to something Juyalya had told
her, a thought that she had long put out of her mind.  Yet, with the
coming victory, Bunnie allowed herself to ponder it now, during the
one time that she felt truely at peace with herself.

     She had only been a child at the time, perhaps seven or eight
years of age.  It had only been a few years since Robotnik had taken
over, so the initial shock had finally began to wear off...leaving her
mind open to consider avenues of thought the rabbit had long overlooked.
Her mental and physical maturation also spurred on her interest to learn
of who and what she had become, and what she might have lost in the time
between her conception, her birth, and the present day.

     It had been a quiet autumn morning, much like the one she was
witnessing at that very moment.  She had begun her chores early in order
to allow herself to enjoy the remainder of the day in childlike play.
While filling up the water-powered generator with spring water, she had
noticed Juyalya walking by with a load of laundry.  As she filled up the
fuel tank of the device, the old matron had begun hanging the washed
clothes up on the line.  Bunnie had been holding the question in for
a few days now, and since nobody else was around, she felt it was the
right time to ask her this most personal of questions.

     Bunnie put the bucket back in its palce by the well, closed the
opening on the engine, and silently reactivated it.  After she was sure
it was operating properly, she quietly padded over to Juyalya as she was
hanging laundry, and spoke.

     "Auntie Julie?"  She called her that because her accent twisted her
proper name into an incoherent mess, so she had simply translated the
word into something a bit more Bunnie-friendly.

     The kindly old female looked over to Bunnie, still managing to work
on her task.  "Yes, Bunnie?"

     "Can Ah ask yew a ques'tin?"

     "Of course you may," she stated, hanging up a pair of socks.

     "Where's mah brothers 'n sisters?"

     A tense moment passed.  Juyalya attempted to stall by throwing the
uncomfortable question back to Bunnie, while tending to a slowly-falling
t-shirt.  "Your brothers and sisters?"

     "Yah," she had said, "muh kin.  When Sonic last went t' Robotropolis,
he said that he ne'er saw any kid-rob'ts, only ad'lts.  Why ain't there
any of muh kin th're?"

     Another tense moment passed as the inevitable answer passed from
Juyalya's lips.  "Well, Bunnie, I don't know.  I wasn't able to get
everyone out of Robotropolis in time, even with So--Juice's and Alicia's
warning.  Maybe they got out too."

     "Ah hope they're o-k."

     "I'm sure they are, dear."

     She removed her paw from the water, watching the droplets fall from
her pawtips.  Before the old woman had died only a few years ago, she
still tried to soften the blow of every assault to them with her kind
words and undying hope.  The years of unending war had made Bunnie's
psyche far more resiliant, though...she allowed herself to accept, out
of pure mental necessity, the possibility that Robotnik had slain all
the children outright.  Throughout the years of her tenure as a Freedom
Fighter, she had never seen a roboticized child; only the bodies of the
fallen.  However, the possibility that they might yet live had began to
flicker inside her firm battle-hardened bosom, which might be proven
once the resistance had taken the Death Egg; for within the Egg there
lied Robotnik's secure database of his victims, which was disconnected
from the rest of Robotnik's psudo-MobiusNet...and soon, when the last
SWATBot had fallen, the list would be read by the eyes of Sally, Sonic,
and herself...

     Her paw dried in the icy wind, the sun beginning to make the pond
sparkle and flicker with the lifeforce of the world.  She stood again and
moved on into the forest, walking along with her thoughts to accompany
her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Joseph walked the halls of the Dome, deep within the core of his
chosen dominion.  The chronometers on the wall read 04:59:33:21.244,
denoting to him the extreme earliness of the morning.  Or perhaps it
was the lateness of night, depending on your particular paradigm.
Such things mattered little to him now, the sole technomagus on Mobius.

     It was an interesting title to have, `technomagus'.  He had created
the term himself after pondering what his very essence was, what he had
become over the past few years of work and enlightenment.  The techno
part of the word came from his strong background in technology, not to
mention the fact that it ran through his life like a river.  He had been
spawned from technology, been taught by technology, and came to his new
homeworld from the powers of technology.  The `magus' part of the word
descended by his research into the occult culture of Mobius, the wizards,
witches and warlocks that populated the world throughout history.
His studies came up with not only a fuller appreciation of his `kind',
but with an ancient term for wizard: Magus.  It sounded -cool-.
`Technowizard' lacked zing, and `technowarlock' was just stupid.
However, `technomagus' had the proper panache, the class required for
someone of his supreme mental prowess.  Thus, he had something to call
himself if he was questioned by some other order of being.

     He padded along, his mind occupied mainly with a more complex
coincidental procedure.  He had been bouncing two basketballs along
behind him, independently of each other, without so much as an orange
spark caressing their surface.  Joseph had almost walked through the
entire length, height, and width of the Dome, the basketballs occasionally
orbiting around him while continuing to bounce independently.  He even
reversed the gravity around them a few times, and had them bound off the
ceiling of various hallways to amuse him.  With what mental resources
he had left, however, he considered his current situation.

     His project had recently been completed.  The entire complex had
been readied for its activation, an entirely new wing constructed to
contain the apparatus to use it.  Fuel, cloaking systems, all the
things needed to obscure the device from the alien ship, the
Keldy'rians, and the Mobian contingent around his domain.  It would
rage out with the element of surprise in its favor, allowing him the
needed alarm to use the complex procedure that would permit the fox
the required time to vanquish the host.

     But enough of that, he thought, let him consider more fully the
nature of his abilities.  Perhaps if he understood his alterations
of local reality more throughly, he could improve his prowess at his
new `science'.  Indeed, the more of an edge he had, the more likely he
could take out the _Apocolypse_ without a great deal of exersion.

     He pondered the action of the basketballs.  The most base
explaination was that he was utilizing some sort of telekinetic
power to control the action of the objects.  However, he knew far
better than that.  The balls were being propelled by a contragravitic
field of his own creation, which he had generated by commanding the
local area of time/space to behave in the desired manner.  How did
he do that?  Most people would simply state `magick' and leave it
alone after that point.  But Joseph wished to understand the most
basic components of reality and its alteration, so he delved deeper.
Perhaps the `spirit', the spark of self-awareness that permitted one
to learn of her own existance in a larger cosmos, enabled one to
change the fabric of time and space around it with practice.  Ergo,
`magick' could be considered an underlying use of physics, like
the paths of photons and warp propultion.  After all, if one could
create a matter/antimatter power source, it could be reasonable to
state with sufficient knowledge that one could spawn an equal
amount of power by learning how to fold reality into a correct
configuration--a paper airplane, as it were.

     The chronometer displayed that it was 05:45:11:23.001 in the
morning, and that the sun was creeping above the horizon.  The
basketballs bounded along after Joseph as he headed to the lift
and ascended to the first level of his home.  He did not hunger or
thirst, and his body tired more and more slowly as the mystical
power became more instinctive to him.  The fox wondered if his
body was beginning to feed off the lifeforce of the world around
him; he had not partook of the blood of his mate in months now.
Joseph, in fact, had no longer required food, drink and rest for
almost three weeks.  It was becoming rather eerie; as if his body
had become cybernetic.

     He emerged under the warm embrace of the Dome, which had been
painted on the exterior with a soft mixture of dew and frost.  The
fireplace crackled in the rear of the room, which outlined his lover's
body on the couch in front of it.  Sandra's soft body was outlined with
a glowing light from the roaring flame, draped comfortably in a blanket.
Joseph had been away for several days, he had noted, so she must have
felt afraid of sleeping so deep within the earth by herself.  He could
vaguely infer by the psychic resonance in the room that this area was
the closest thing to nature around the complex, so Sandra must have
gravitated to it out of primal instinct.  The area by the fireplace
was also the warmest and coziest part of the room, so it was only
logical that she would choose to rest there.

     The fox silenced the basketballs by removing the oxygen around them,
thus eliminating the possibility of sound emissions from their repeated
bouncing, and headed towards her quietly.  He had mastered the arts of
stealth over the last few months, thanks to her continued tutilage,
so he could actually get away with this without being detected by her.
The fox crept over to her side, walking in front of the fire and kneeling
near the edge of the couch.  He scanned her aura and peeked dimly into
her thoughts.  He knew that it was somewhat wrong to look into his mate's
dreams, but he never looked any deeper than that--if she wanted to obscure
her past, he would allow her that simple privacy.

     She was tranquil now, resting deeply.  Sandra hadn't done much while
he was gone, according to the psychic residue around her aura; a few
trips to Knothole, some walks through the forest, a series of short
conversations with a few various people--nothing remarkable.  Her dreams
were also soothing; she was walking through a beautiful green field
around the old City, the sounds of children in the distance.  He
eventually made an appearance, holding her softly in his arms as the
time melted to the not-too-distant future, where the ruins of Robotropolis
fell into a new City...the sun sparkled in the background, the warm
wind blew against them with a pleasant scent, and...children?  Yes,
a few children, some kits with a mixture of his and her characteristics,
clung lovingly to them as they observed the final victory over Robotnik.

     He pulled his mind from hers invisibly, smiling just a little.  She
had a mother's heart but a rogue's body, a poet might have noted, but
he was quite willing to indulge both.  Progeny had been part of the plan,
after all...someone had to perpetuate his line, even on an alien, savage
world.  She was beautiful, kind, and loving; why not give her everything
she'd ever wanted?

     Gently, he looped his arms around her and softly kissed her.  Her
body reacted well to his touch, moving into his embrace with a
instinctual grace that belied her practiced abilities.  With just a
mere thought, the two were elevated into the air, where Joseph slid
underneath his mate, then allowed them to descend harmlessly onto the
couch.  He held her softly, allowing her to turn onto her stomache and
causing her to face him.  Joseph kissed her again, gradually awakening
her into a groggy consciousness.

     "You've returned," she cooed, caressing his face.  "I cannot
describe how much I have missed you...where have you been?"

     He smiled, speaking softly.  "Oh, I just needed to meditate.  It
was such a lovely stretch of time, I wished to enjoy it in solitude."
The fox kissed his mate.  "But now the time for solitude has ended."

     She kissed him warmly back, snuggling into his firm form.
"And that, my love, is what I have been waiting for."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The dusk fell around the small ship, which cut through the cool
waters of the Southern Ocean like a klaive.  The trade winds had
caught its sail, and in the distance the hint of land could be detected.
Its passenger, the cloaked wolf, stood like a statue at the helm of the
ship, holding its course steady towards the land in the far distance.

     A few storm clouds loomed in the distance, but he would be well
on his way on the land portion of his long and winding journey to the
North by the time they would hit.  The vessel's speed was quick for
a craft of its design, but even then it was certainly not one of the
wizard's portals to the various corners of the world.

     Yet, such thoughts would not assist the wolf in his quest.  His
master had instructed him to carry out his last, and by far the least
complex mission...but it was so very far in the future.  He had slept
for more years than he could count, yet the wizard had instructed him
to perform this one, simple task.  He did not know why; how could
something so far in the future assist the long-dead wizard?  It was
not for him to question, though...he was made to serve, not command.

     The cool gunmetal caressed his hip in the holster, the weapon
humming with unholy energies.  He feared and respected this lightbow,
but the wizard had given it to him as if it was the most trifling
thing in the world.  All he had to do was point and pull the trigger,
and his target would be reduced to blackened dust...it was almost
-too- easy.

      The craft continued to move silently into the night.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

      Fire and the horrible light and thunder from heavy weapons
illuminated Packbell's evening for the umpteenth time, his continual
loss of ground becoming more and more infuriating.  The SWATBot production
machines were running at a grueling pace, being made out of scrap parts
at times in order to hold up a steady resistance to the constantly
swelling, increasingly bloodthirsty Mobians.  He no longer possessed
any Worker-Bots to throw at the berzerker mob that pushed harder and
harder against his deepest ramparts, so only physical weapons turrets
and the dismal remains of Robotropolis stood in their way.  About
75% of the world was now completely liberated from Packbell's control
by default--there was simply no SWATBots or other mechanical minions
left to hold onto any of the facilities.  Almost everything Packbell
had left was poured into Robotropolis for one frantic, last stand.

      The evil android sat before the rotting control center's core,
the deformed nervous system of what remained of Robotnik's handiwork.
How it had fallen from glory!  Now only a husk of what it once was,
it barely kept track of what happened 10 blocks outside the Death Egg;
the resistance had destroyed most of the other nodes that might have
given Packbell any sort of information--the number of Freedom Fighters,
how many SWATBots were left, how much time he had left until the primary
systems finally gave out, anything of worth.  Now it only displayed one
unit of information...how much time was left until the Buyers returned
to `close the deal'...fortunately for him, it was quite small.

      "The hour of judgement comes, Mobius," he said to himself.
"Soon, very soon, your final, collosal effort against me will be seen
as little more as the last whimper of a damned world.  The Buyers will
crush you all with little more than a flick of their wrist, and I shall
leave your shattered corpses with only my mocking laugh as your dirge."

      The clock ticked down by degrees as the seconds passed, shrinking
lower and lower as the winter's first whispers began to creep into even
the roasting bowels of the Death Egg...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

      The rabbit sniffed the wind as she walked along.  The distinct
scent on the wind told her that wintertime wasn't far off.  In a few
weeks, or even days, the first frost would come, and the forest would
grow quieter and quieter until only one's own breathing would shatter
the lifeless silence.  The nights would lengthen, the wind would be
a shrill howl of ice and snow, and the earth would sleep.

      Solstice this year would be special, though.  Not only would it
be her first in many years as a normal doe, but it would probably bring
with it the final battle against Packbell.  The city would fall to their
grasping paws, and there would be peace at last.  No more orphans to the
vile plots of a dark overlord, no more endless nights of fear..  Peace.

      As much as it was desirable, however, it also caused her to shiver
with some mild fear.  What would happen after they would win, after the
city had been rebuilt and the monarchy restored?  What would she do for
a living; she had no practical skills to apply to a modern world without
her roboticized limbs, and her fame would only carry her so far.  She had
no desire to live off of Sally's regime as a mere leech, nor did she know
if any of her family even lived to offer a paw of assistance.  For the
first time in her life, she honestly did not know what to do.

      She walked deeper into the forest, far from the normally trod paths.
Bunnie realized that she could do this without fear, since all the
SWATBots were holding off the constant assaults from within Robotropolis.
It was a new and interesting feeling to be without any fear of capture or
observation, one she hoped she could experience often.  The doe had
never before just gone on a walk without telling someone where she was
going, when she'd be back, or if anyone wanted anything of her while she
was out.  Was that a guilty pleasure?  She didn't know or care.  Bunnie
just wanted to enjoy these first few days of relative freedom in solitude.

      The songs of birds began to fill the air more frequently, but were
far from the mighty tunes that drifted through the air in the summer;
by degrees, all of the flying creatures were heading south.  The chirping
of crickets had faded long ago with the cold temperatures, leaving only
the crunching of leaves beneath her paws to rustle along with the music.
However, the sound of rushing water was slowly rising in temperature as
she walked along the path, the waterfall nearby.  She hadn't been there
for a long time; she wondered how it had fared unattended.

      Sure enough, the waterfall's base hadn't changed much since
Bunnie had last been there.  It had lichens and small trees growing
around it, and the pond the waterfall emptied into, which flowed
into the river that fed the power ring pool, was still clear and
cool.  She sat down on a nearby stump by the water, and simply
sat silently, watching the water slip down the plateau.

      The sun rose above the horizon, giving Bunnie a lovely sight to
behold.  The cool wind blew gently as the world stirred into wakefulness,
those creatures of the night retreating completely into oblivion for
another day.  The songs of birds became louder and sweeter again, and
the stirrings of forest animals could be heard crisply in the foreign
silence that accompanies the first few moments of dawn.  She stood and
watched the sun rise higher in the sky, then eventually headed off to
further greet the morning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

      Ivo Robotnik's eyes clicked back on as he awoke, unplugging his
arm from the power battery and standing.  It had been roughly six
hours since he had taken a rest, and he felt fully recharged.  Tweaking
his moustache, he walked to the window and gazed again towards Mobius.

      Winter would soon be setting in, he thought to himself, which
would mean that this `conference' between the allied worlds that
John had mentioned would soon occur.  He had said that the conference
would buy them the necessary time to take Mobius, then use the
resources gained from the sale of the water to build up the
rest of their fleet and slay their foes.  Ivo had to grin slightly
at this; did that fool actually think he could defeat the hedgehog?
He had learned over the years that Sonic was protected by some sort
of supernatural force, something that kept him from being destroyed.
Probability only went so far; he had millions of SWATBots and over
three-quarters to ninety percent of the population roboticized or
terminated, yet this one hedgehog and his small band could never
quite be caught.  He had killed a few of them, roboticized others,
but the hedgehog was impervious.

      Ivo was not a fool; he had single-handedly conquered the entire
planet, removed the king, and claimed dominion over a massive world,
and might have even taken the stars in time...but this hedgehog lacked
the wits of a flea.  He -knew- this; his Princess was the one with any
sort of rudimentary intelligence--even *she* was assisted by an AI!
Yet, again and again, either something would happen to free him, or some
screw-up from his lackeys would release him.  And he had always been
close, so close.  It was usually a matter of three seconds between his
final victory and the hedgehog's escape.

      Now, an ultimately supreme force had arrived to attempt to do what
he could not in over 20 years; destroy the hedgehog and take the world.
The odds were with them; they possessed the element of surprise, superior
weaponry, greater numbers, fighters and enough surface area to put the
world in darkness if it crossed the sun's path.

      The host's defeat, Ivo bitterly thought, would be astronomical.

      He walked from his quarters and out into the halls; still they
were empty and silent.  Twenty years ago, he would have thought himself
mad for coming to that conclusion.  One hedgehog versus an army of
SWATBots, never mind one of a superior alien host?  The force from
the hedgehog would be pitiful in comparison; logic tells one that much.
Yet, logic does not account for `destiny', a concept Ivo usually put
little or no thought towards.  Destiny or pure, stupid luck was something
reserved for the pitiful minds of the average Mobian, not something a
human would put much faith in.  But the evidence stared him in the face
as he shut down at night...something else was in the equation.

      At first, he had simply assumed that it was due to his speed.
Operating on that hypothesis, he had run back the security logs and
picked out areas of his command center and his various installations
that needed to be designed to hamper any long bursts of speed, then
placed more SWATBots around the affected areas.  All the simulations
had said that this would stop the hedgehog and permit his roboticization.
It failed dismally.  Thus, he moved on to his second hypothesis that
the hedgehog would do what he said if he took hostages.  He designed
the capture areas to be impervious, totally unbreakable.  Again, he
got through, retrieved the cargo, and returned into the night.
Robotic doubles?  No effect.  Breaking his will by slaying his allies?
No effect.  Double agents?  No effect.  Packbell?  No effect.  Ultimate
death machine?  No effect.

      He walked away from Mobius inside the disc.  Sonic simply was
destined to succeed over all odds, he had concluded, so any attempts to
ensare or destroy him other than global biosphere annhilation would
eventually fail.  That didn't stop him from trying, though.  No matter
how badly he lost, he came back from the ashes and fought harder,
killed thousands, roboticized hundreds, left more of the world a smoking
toxic waste strip.  But in the back of his mind, the doubt remained.

      Yet, Ivo Robotnik, Mobius' rightful ruler, had sworn the minute he
saw the hedgehog to slay him.  Every single defeat he suffered only
strengthened his resolve, made him work harder.  Despite what he knew to
be inevitable, he ignored his own logic and truely believed that the
hedgehog would be destroyed this time.  He never broke a vow...to himself.

      And despite the overwhelming odds in their favor, the aliens
wouldn't succeed.  They didn't know the nature of the beast they were
facing...they didn't have his experience to show them what to do.
He was depending on this...for Mobius would be his again after they
had done their worst, fractured their defenses just enough for one
last collosal effort.  And then, only then, would the hedgehog fall.

      He looked into the black void of space from the window, and could
only laugh...






		Chapter Nineteen - Apocolypse: Prelude


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     7:33 am, Mobian Standard Time.  One day before Solstice Eve.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The first winds of winter blew through the mostly-bare trees of
the Great Forest, bringing with them the occasional snowflake.  Fewer
walked the paths between Knothole and the other parts of the forest,
and those who had left Knothole during the summer had settled in
nicely in the various secret places that had been selected for them.
Gradually, people began to adjust to their new surroundings, despite
knowing that they would soon move again; this time, to rebuild and
renew the city of Robotropolis after the last battle had been won.

     Knothole was relatively at peace, however.  Most people were only
around for a few days, taking a few days off from the continual pounding
they gave Packbell's last few forces.  The rest of Knothole spent
its time communicating with the other villages or quietly preparing
for the impending invasion of Robotropolis.  It was a rather
comfortable arrangement at the time, but the final push into the
Death Egg would probably be a very long, tiring ordeal.

     Joseph continued to train himself in the magickal arts, working
quietly on the various projects that consumed him...the deroboticizer,
his secret plan on dealing with the _Apocolypse_, and minor concerns
about the Dome itself.  Bahb, on the other hand, fine-tuned its own
project while continuing to seem completely ordinary in its day-to-day
operation...

     All the while, the bloody battle in the heart of Robotropolis
raged nonstop; SWATBots and Mobians clashing in a horrible duel for the
control of the world.  Packbell continued to try to slow the flow of
bodies by throwing more and more SWATBots of lesser quality at the
raging sea of flesh, but a steady loss of ground was continually noted.
It would not be long until the city finally fell, most surmised, and
then there would be justice given to the last remaining scapegoat for
the empire of Robotnik, Commander Packbell.

     But beyond the view of all but two on the world of Mobius, there
was the looming mass of the _Apocolypse_...armed with enough weaponry
to combat any conventional host, it slid silently toward a high Mobian
orbit, preparing itself to strike.  However, completely unknown to the
megomanicial, genocidal Soulless John, a betrayal was afoot even on
his insanely loyal ship...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Doctor Ivo Robotnik, overlord of Mobius, paced the winding
corridors of the _Apocolypse_ as it drew closer and closer to the
world that he had rightfully conquered.  It was dark inside the
ship, moreso than usual due to the need for stealth that had been
explained to him by John, so Robotnik was forced to rely on his
infrared vision for most of his travels around the craft.  All
that could be seen of Robotnik most of the time were the two glowing
red dots that acted as his irises, in fact, and that suited him.
The Ur'thaens could see perfectly in this low light either due to
genetic alteration or cybernetic enhancement, but they had never
adopted the menacing red glow that radiated from Robotnik's eyes
due to strictly tactical reasons; it lowered the possibility of
an element of surprise to give any hint of your location to an
enemy, John had also noted, even if it inspired fear.

     Robotnik didn't care either way, though.  His escape pod
was loaded, the data translated, and soon they would be close
enough to the planet for him to leave the accursed ship so that
the other Mobians could destroy it for him.  All that remained
was to `run out the clock', as a native colloqualism went.
Solstice was coming, after all...it was only days away.

     He continued to pace into the night, darkly humming an
ancient Solstice hymn...

     "And the sun crests...the sun sets...it's a time for
celebration...and soon...winter will end...and life begins..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The icy wind whistled through the treetops for most of the
night, only becoming quieter with the sleepy rise of the sun.
While the skies were still clear, the lack of insulating cloud
cover made the Great Forest crisper than the norm.  The familiar
scent of winter became stronger as the days continued, and those
with the wisdom of many winters knew that the Solstice Day would
soon be nigh just by the creaking of their bones.

     Knothole prepared Solstice preparations as usual, perhaps
even slightly more upbeat than usual.  Almost all of the Mobians
had been deroboticized, Packbell was soon to fall, and the
Keld'yrians stated they would state the Mobian situation at the
annual Union of Allied Worlds conference that most of them
had already left to attend.  Vision himself, they had heard,
would personally speak of their trials.

     So it went as the days passed.  Solstice trees were erected,
gifts were purchased and wrapped, ceremonies of most religions
took place, and the feelings of peace and love ran rampant through
the streets and huts of the main village of the resistance.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Explosions and fire rained from the sky of the sweltering hot
city of Robotropolis, as had been the norm for most of the year.
The barracades were being rallied against, fewer and fewer SWATBots
being present to try to stop them.  The whole of the SWATBot forces
were, in fact, packed tightly around the square surrounding the
Death Egg, picking off as many Freedom Fighters as they could.
However, they too would soon fall, as the sheer determination of
the whole of the resistance could have torn holes in any defense
at that point.

     Packbell sealed the Death Egg entire with thick diamondium
plates, often with his bare hands, in order to buy himself
some extra time.  There was no way into the fortress at all
anymore, and no way out except for the remains of Robotnik's
Eggomatic hangar on the highest level where he currently
resided.  The Egg was truely now without a single crack...
and it was slowly running out of auxillary power.

     He had made all the SWATBots he could and put them all around
the perimeter of the square in order to seal the Egg off from the rest
of the city.  It was surely lost by now, Packbell assumed...he had lost
his sensors outside of the square a week ago.  The raging fires that
were a source of daylight 24 hours a day gave him a hint as well, as
the deafening sounds of entire blocks exploding from berzerker
resistance assaults.

     Packbell had approximately one day left.

     The Buyers arrived in 23 hours, one minute.

     He sat back in his command chair, looking out over the fires,
knowing it would be his last day on Mobius...and that it would be
the Freedom Fighters' last stand.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     10:34 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Blazing orange waves of energy rocketed through the Great Unknown,
decimating rocks and stones for miles around.  Thunder rolled through
the endless wasteland, lightning searing the dry earth into cinders.
Gusting winds, tornadoes, and blasting mixtures of rain and snow
shot against parts of the Unknown, as lava shot from the depths of
the world itself to combat some unseen foe.

     But yet, in one small spot in the center of the barren waste,
grass grew around a solitary figure, who levitated in full lotus
above the pastural grasses that existed unnaturally in the otherwise
red and yellow sands of the endless Great Unknown.  He wore a
brightly-glowing orange medallion around his neck, which flared with
light as the lightning crashed against the earth.  He was covered in
a black robe, all but his paws covered by the masking garment, and
was otherwise motionless as the maelstorm raged just inches away in
every direction...

     Then, in a single thought from the figure, the Great Unknown
fell silent...the storms, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions abruptly
ceasing.  The grass disappeared below him, and soon the sands of the
Great Unknown covered the damages caused by the odd occurance as if
it had never occurred.

     The figure emerged from the meditation position in mid-air,
landing silently on the warm sands of the Unknown.  His medallion
returned to a soft glow, and he slowly began to walk away from the
spot he had been flying above.

     >> "Your training is complete, Joseph." <<

     The figure was silent, still walking across the scorching earth.

     >> "You know all you need to know.  Your control and creativity
serve you well.  Soon, Joseph, you will fight your first battle for
this world, and thus insure the safety of this world for generations
to come." <<

     Still no words were spoken by the robed figure, who continued
to slowly stride through the empty, silent wastes of the Great Unknown.
The wind whistled softly for a moment, then again all was silent.

     >> "I hear your thoughts, Joseph.  And no, this battle will not
be your last.  There are many things left for you to do before you
may be finally at peace; but know that by accomplishing these things,
you make the world a better place." <<

     The figure kept walking in silence.

     >> "You sense the evil in the sky...it is yet another sign that you
are the one chosen.  The one on that ship that you call John, despite
having the same destructive powers that you possess, cannot sense
you." <<

     Silence.

     >> "You wonder why, do you not?  Why could one of equal power
not feel something that is, to you, as bright as the sun and louder
than a death-scream?" <<

     He continued to walk, climbing over a rock formation.  The sounds
of claw scratching rock was the only sound heard for miles.

     >> "He, unlike you, has great power without the Knowing.  He
believes magick to be nothing more than a new science to be conquered,
seeing it all in terms of...to seek the words in your own mind,
telekinetic rearrangement of matter and energy.  He does not hear
the rhythms of the forest, the whispers of the wind, and the
ancient songs of the bird; it is all noise to his dark mind.
You, however, have been shown these things, and you now understand
the greatness of the smallest things, the silence in the noise,
and what is wise in the ravings of madmen and fools." <<

     Ascending the top of the rocks, he peered into the distance,
vaguely detecting the very edge of the Great Forest several thousand
miles away.  The winds cleaned the rock from his garment as he stood,
peering over the lifeless region in utter, perfect silence.

     >> "Let us return to your domain, Joseph.  Prepare yourself as
you will for the battle.  Mobius will help you, if you remember
it is what you fight for." <<

     The figure disappeared in a blur of light, leaving nothing behind
over than two footprints; which were soon removed by the winds.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Tails jogged through the village, as had became his custom in the
afternoons.  While he ran, he took advantage of his quick jaunt in order
to observe the pretty Solstice decorations, which hung from every house
cheerfully.  The chill wind encouraged him not to linger, however,
and kept his pulse as a quick rate.  He had a considerable
musculature now, having been training almost since the summertime,
and felt strong enough to throw a badger around.  His age also helped
him feel larger and more confident, having reached his adolescent
state.  He felt taller and wider in shoulder every morning, it seemed,
and several in the village commented positively on this.

     Yet, his driving goal still remained tantalizingly out of his
grasp; flight.  He'd worked this long at the problem, and yet he
still couldn't even manage a hover.  His entire body was bigger and
stronger than before, he had managed to bench-press twice his weight
with his tails alone, yet he still couldn't get them to flap in the
correct way to make him enter an airborne state.  It was endlessly
frustrating to him...yet, he stubbornly believed that he would
one day fly again.

     However, his hard work was not without some benefits.  He'd
been declared the Grand Champion of the annual Knothole Arm-Wrestling
competition that had taken place a month ago, and more people were
treating him like an adult rather than a large kit.  More and more
responsibilities had been given to him, which he gladly took on and
honored, and the opposite sex, which he had also begun to notice,
were beginning to see him as an attractive individual.  So, Tails
never really had the opportunity to really get down on himself;
there was simply too much to do.

     Tails did not, however, neglect his exercise regimen.  No matter
how early he had to get up to do it, Bookshire's useful list of
exercises were always completed.  He had gotten so used to it, in
fact, that thinking about -not- doing it felt alien to him.
This, and his usual scholastic talent, made Tails one of the most
actively admired residents of Knothole by the youth, Sonic naturally
being first.

     As he finished the last few laps around Knothole, he took the
time to ponder what the next year would bring.  Perhaps then, after
he'd done just a few more tail-curls, with just that much more weight,
Tails would finally be able to hover above the ground.  And maybe
after he'd done that many more tail-push ups, and done just one or
two more tail-presses with a heavier press bar, he'd be able to
fly...

     He finished his run and walked into his hut, relaxing after his
hard regimen.  Tails had done a few more laps than he had been able to
handle just last week...he was making progress!  Perhaps he'd challenge
Sonic to that race soon...or not.  He needed to do a lot more to be
able to match his raw speed...but he knew he had the endurance to
pull it off.  One day, he would.  One day.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Snively sat in his cell inside the Dome, boredly flicking through
the channels that focused mainly on `human interest' programming.
He felt like he'd been imprisoned for years now, the three walls and
the forcefield beginning to feel almost like home.  He didn't even
know what season it was anymore...only that at certain intervals,
Joseph would come in, check on him, maybe play a game of chess or
two, then leave to do something or other.

     He did get the news when Joseph stopped in, however.  He heard
all about how Packbell was being utterly beaten by the now mostly
deroboticized population of Mobius, which made Snively gleefully
pleased about no longer being nearby his Uncle's creation, nor
his city.  At last, Snively cackled, Packbell was getting what
he deserved.  All of the cruelty and inhumane treatment he had
piled on the rest of the world, specifically him, was now being
repaid upon him in full...with interest.

     If the truth were to be told, Snively didn't care for either
Robotnik's or Packbell's methods.  Robotnik had roboticized the
populace; while, for the first 15 years, it had simplified matters,
a year or two of only talking to Robotnik with no other people
to interact with got fairly boring.  Sure, things got done, but
Snively never understood why Robotnik kept polluting the world
by creating SWATBots and acquiring more and more of the resources
of the planet when there was only one or two real areas of difficulty
in the entire world.  If Robotnik had been concerned less with
making his enemies `pay', by giving them all of those chances to
escape when he was about to defeat them, the world would have been
under his control without any organized resistance in a year or less.
Of course, that wouldn't have made it more exciting or given Snively
anyone else to talk to, but it would have been a start.

     Packbell was simply evil.  Julian had some sort of purpose to
his sadistic tedencies and cruelty, but Packbell simply reveled in
perversity and darkness.  Snively had had the unfortunate displeasure
of observing Packbell's personal torture, humiliation, and general
abuse of several female children and women; suffice it to say, the
nightmares plagued him to this day.  It was one thing to simply force
yourself on a female, he believed, it was another thing to totally
break them, let them writhe in agony for a while, then kill them.
While Snively's morals weren't the purest, he did have his limits.
He'd kill a Freedom Fighter or roboticize them, but his upbringing
kept him within the limits of `fair play'.

     He laid back on his bunk and stared up at the banal sitcoms
and movies that the computer, `Bob', could dredge up for him.
Snively had this nagging belief that Bob did this on purpose sometimes
merely to annoy him.  Thankfully, it went no further than that.

     "Is there -nothing- else available on?" Snively whined to the
ceiling, rubbing his left temple with a hand.

     >> "No." <<

     "Are you -sure-, Bob?  Isn't there anything besides this
awful love story on?"

     >> "No." <<

     Snively sat back on the bed, folding his arms behind his head.
"No action movies?"

     >> "No." <<

     "No science-fiction?"

     >> "No." <<

     "No space operas?"

     >> "No." <<

     "No horror films?"

     >> "No." <<

     "No comedies?"

     >> "No." <<

     Snively rolled his eyes.  "Not even something pornographic?"

     >> "No." <<  It paused for a moment.  >> "However, there is
plenty of vulpine-based entertainment available that would fit
your basic needs." >>

     Snively groaned annoyedly.  He was very biased towards humans.
It was probably the cause of his downfall; humans were a rare species
on Mobius, having been destroyed by most of the other races in the
earlier times during the Black Times.  The idea of associating with
a `lesser' species, such as those of foxes and hedgehogs, sickened
him...never mind the thought of mating with one.  Yet, Bob had
been programmed by a fox, and strictly Joseph, Sandra and himself
lived in the Dome at the moment.  Majority rule.  Bah!

     Yet, he was hungry for some sort of visual stimuli.  He decided
to admit defeat yet again, and say those dreaded words: "Very well.
Bob, select an action movie...*vulpine* based."

     And thus yet another `Natasha and Seline' marathon began...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The _Apocolypse_ invisibly entered high Mobian orbit.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     7:34 am, Mobian Standard Time.  Solstice Eve.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The dawn broke over the Great Forest on Solstice Eve like it did
on any day during the winter; weakly and through heavy cloud cover.
Several inches of snow covered the ground from a recent storm yet,
blanketing the forest in a sheer white surface.  The last of the
Keld'yrians had left Mobius in the night, leaving only a skeleton
crew active on Haven to maintain its operation while the majority
of the Keld'yrians on Mobius had departed with Vision to the annual
conference that the Union of Allied Worlds held.  Robotropolis
had been predicted to fall within the next three days, so morale
(and tensions!) were high.

     Sonic, who had been in Knothole for the past few weeks assisting
Sally organize the final villages being erected as temporary housing
for the deroboticized citizens, had gone off to the front lines to lead
the final charge against Packbell.  This worried Sally to no end, of
course, yet she tried to avoid lingering on the thought by engrossing
herself in the last-minute preparations for Solstice Day.

     It would be a beautifully executed celebration, thanks to the
help of Rotor, Bookshire, David Prower, and basically all the Freedom
Fighters' special gifts and talents.  All the villages would link
together using the subspace transponder units placed in all the
active villages, and they would all join in song to sing of their
victories over Robotnik, Snively, and now Packbell, and to pray
together for the speedy renewal of the world and the return of the King.
It would be Sally's crowning achievement in the resistance, in her eyes,
if she could pull off this totally peaceful operation without a hitch.
She was confident it could be accomplished, yet there was still some
final bugs to work out.  For example, a very quiet hiss of static
had begun to interfere with the transmissions due to some sort of
atmospheric freak occurrance, which David had been working around the
clock to cancel out of the transmissions...she was sure he'd pull it
off, though.  Other than that, it was merely a matter of making sure
everyone knew what to do, when...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Platoon after platoon of SWATBots fell before the combined
strength of the militant Freedom Fighters and Sonic, who were now
driven by pure rightous anger as the despotic Packbell.  The
thoughts of each Mobian were focused on taking down Packbell,
hard, personally...especially in Sonic's mind, who was the complete
ruler of the forces at this point.  The losses of life fell dramatically
when he entered the field of battle, everyone wanting to fight twice
as hard just so they could see Sonic go all the way to the top of
the Death Egg and annhilate Packbell with one mighty spin-dash.

     The final barricade fell, and the SWATBots were swept against the
face of the Egg, and thus to their doom.  Hundreds of thousands of
Freedom Fighters filled the heart of the city that had once been their
home, rallying together to destroy every last SWATBot in sight.

     There were no more casualties at this point, one might observe,
because everything that might have held up a weapon and shot at the
Freedom Fighters laid in pieces at their feet.  Only the sealed
Death Egg remained before them, the shell alone protecting Packbell
from his destruction.

     Sonic stood in front of the main entrance of the Death Egg,
which was sealed tightly with un-spin-dashable diamondium.
For a moment, the massive crowd surrounding the Death Egg fell
silent; then, a single voice, unburdened by any background noise,
spoke.

     "PACKBELL!" cried Sonic to the heavens, "YOU'RE GOING DOWN!"
A moment, that lasted an eternity, passed.  "*BIG* *TIME*!"

     That triggered the tens of thousands of Freedom Fighters to
simotaneously attack the very walls of the Death Egg, taking out
tools and cutting into the thick walls, blasting at it with
stolen energy weapons, even tearing at it with their bare hands
to crack the black Egg that laid in the middle of their city.
Their joined voices made a sound like a hundred thousand freight
trains roaring at full speed into the night, the shaking and
quaking of the very supports of the Egg to enter it almost that
of the world itself bucking at the seams...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The _Apocolypse_ moved to a geo-stationary orbit over the
geographical center of Mobius, still invisible to all.  Several cloaked
devices, however, left its hull and took positions over points all over
Mobius.

     Yet, it remained unseen.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Knuckles stood on the edge of the northern cliff of the Floating
Island, looking out over the placid tropical waters.  Down to his
bones, he felt the battle raging deep within the cursed city for the
political domination of the world, while his heart chilled when he
looked to the sky; for That Which Was There But Not There was close
enough now to see in his mind's eye without the use of the magickal
seeing-pool.  He felt the death that surrounded it, sensed the rage
and hate that stewed aboard the ship...and something else, something
familiar, also was there.  What it was he did not know, only that
the Solaris would soon rise up to fight it.

     He took one of his quills from the back of his head with a
quick, smooth movement, and dragged it through his bare palm...
the blood seeped out and dribbled into the water, as the old ways
told him to do before entering battle...his blood in the water would
tell the old spirits of his intent, and they would protect him in
the great battle that may come to his protectorate.  In a moment,
his wound sealed, and the calloused surface of his palm went again
inside the glove protecting it.

     Thunder rolled in the distance, some dark clouds on the horizon
spontaneously forming over the water.  The time grew near for the
final battles to begin...for the life of a people, and the life of
a world.

     He knelt down and chanted to the old gods for guidance; mind,
body, and spirit joining in worship.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     3:26 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Solstice Eve came to Knothole, the final battle raging all the
while in Robotropolis.  Reports came back to Sally, stating that the
Egg would be breached and Packbell destroyed in exactly one hour;
just in time for the Solstice Prayer at midnight over the subspace
transponders.  Sally smiled at this news, and was tempted to go
herself to Robotropolis to watch Packbell's destruction; but,
her subjects needed her with them to lead them in prayer and
celebration, so she merely hoped someone would record it all for
later observation.

     Those who prayed early, did so, while the various other
subreligions and cults did their various Solstice celebrations
peaceably, and without any protests of the others.  Children
recieved gifts, lovers renewed their vows under the three moons,
and the old looked on wistfully as this, a long chapter in the
history of Mobius, would finally come to an end; bringing with it,
they hoped, a new golden age.

     However, David hadn't been able to clear out all the static
yet, which was troubling to Sally slightly.  He did have another
hour left, however, which was a good thing, and it wasn't too
annoying anyway.  She just wanted this celebration to be as
historically perfect as Packbell's final defeat, and the
reclaimation of all of Mobius in the name of rightousness.
It was so important that this moment be recorded with perfect
clarity...Solstice Day would have a new meaning, on top of the
other official events it signified, as the day Robotnik was
utterly erased from Mobius.

     The soft sounds of singing were heard from the other parts
of the village, and took the Princess for a few moments from her
thoughts.  Her eyes watering, Sally decided to join them with her
own beautiful song of hope...praying deep within her heart that
soon Sonic would return and sing beside her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Bunnie was already singing with the rest of the village, her
heart and soul joining with the other Knothole denziens in one
perfect harmony.  She too ached to be in Robotropolis, but she
knew on a instinctive level that this was to be Sonic's fight
alone.  He had to be the one to slay the final foe, win the
day for the rest of the world...it was simply his role.

     She sang her heart out, her eyes streaming with tears from
joy...soon, she would know where her family was.  There would
be no more nightmares, no more fear...there would truely be peace
on Mobius.  How could any dare war against each other after the
hard lesson that had been taught?  How could anyone hurt anyone
else after all the pain the world had been through?  Who could
be so callous as to harm Mobius after the long struggle, that
had cost them all so much?

     The stars never shone so clearly to her, nor did the air
ever smell so clean and crisp.  In her heart, and in her eyes,
the world was at peace.

     She couldn't have been more wrong.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The _Apocolypse_ went through its final diagnostic sequence.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     A sailboat laid on the shores of the Southern Continent, pulled
safely onto land by a force greater than that of any normal living
thing.  A few miles from it, a cloaked grey wolf strode along a path
untraveled for over 20 years, his lightning gun holstered on his
side.  All around him, he sensed no life as he walked...yet, there
was once something here, he knew it.

     In the heavens, his unnatural second sight saw the dreadnought
of hell looming o'er the northern sky, and merely hoped the old
wizard's statements about it were mostly prevarications.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The Death Egg had been breached after someone had finally gotten
some explosives to the front line, and the forces of the Freedom
Fighters charged inside.  They found nothing but an abandoned ground
floor, the elevator shaft having been welded shut in a thousand
different ways, and yet another barracade between them and the first
floor of many they had to break through.  However, Sonic was undaunted
by this task, and rallied the forces of good to begin assaulting this
new challenge.

     However, Packbell also knew that they had entered the fortress,
and stood in the hangar anxiously awaiting the Buyer envoy to pick
him up.  Each of the 9 levels below the one he stood on had been
sealed with enough blockades to keep them from him for enough time,
he hoped, to allow a speedy escape.  He wanted off of the planet,
and he wanted off of it now...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Sandra and Joe laid together in their bed, silently holding
each other close.  Joe had given her this one last Solstice gift
before he prepared to go to battle against the forces of evil,
and Sandra thought that what he had given her was truely the
best thing he had done to date.  Yet, it wasn't so much the act
of lovemaking as it was the fact that he and her had met on the
last Solstice Eve, and that his love for her (and her love for him)
had only grown stronger since then.

     He stroked her headfur gently, his eyes telling her that
her time with him was slowly dwindling to nil.  She didn't
need to say a word to him then; all she did was hold her body
tighter to his own, closing her eyes and praying for just a few
more moments of intimacy with her mate before he went off to
fight against the might of the last Ur'thaen battleship, aptly
named _Apocolypse_.

     Sandra kept telling herself that she wouldn't lose him,
that he would march off to battle and return with not so much
as a scratch on his body...but her mind told her otherwise,
no matter how hard she believed in Joe's mystical powers,
mental talents, or his physical skills.  It was simply too much
for him to do alone!  Maybe if she pleaded...

     She opened her eyes and gazed into his, eyes watering.
All she saw was iron-hard resolve and a sort of muted confidence
that made her fur nearly stand on end.  She'd seen this look before
when he spoke of the deroboticizer or the renewal of Mobius;
there was no changing his mind at this point.  He would follow
through to his goals to the end, no matter what it cost him.

     Sandra finally cried as this sunk in, her fear showing at last.
Joseph held her as she gripped to him, not wanting to let go of the
one true love she had ever known...who would, in a moment, leave
her grasp to fight a battle against a ship that entire worlds had
been vanquished by.  He offered no words, no platitudes, no prewritten
speeches about his impending victory; he only held her, allowing his
body to do what his words could not.

     >> "Joseph, it is time." <<

     He allowed her to calm herself, kissed her passionately once
more, and released himself from her embrace.  Sandra sat up on
the bed, wiping her eyes, and watched her mate prepare himself
for battle...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     7:12 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The _Apocolypse_ silently scanned the surface of the world, still
invisible to all but a few.  It picked out the proper points on the
sphere for its vile purposes, and searched for the highest
concentrations of life in case it needed to be put down.  The ship also
fruitlessly searched for any advanced technology or sources of high
power, but found none other than Robotropolis and a few pitiful,
tactically useless outposts.

     The dread Ur'thaen captain slammed his fist on the console at the
impossible news.  You cannot hide from me, Chaos Emeralds, John swore
to himself, I will find where you are if I have to take this world
apart, piece by piece...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     10:54 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The Freedom Fighters raged through the Death Egg, meeting with
no resistance aside from the constant barriers and blockades.
Deafening sonic booms mingled with the scent of gunpowder and plastique
as they charged higher into the fortress, looting and laying waste to
all those things which had sought to oppress them.

     However, Sonic and a team of crack commandos stopped the looting
at the foot of the roboticizer.  For a moment, an eerie silence
reigned as Sonic himself walked before the device, which had somehow
survived the onslaught of Doomsday and the decimation of the rest of
the city.  He caressed the glass with a hand, peering into it.

     The hedgehog told no one, to the day when he finally died, what
he was thinking as he looked into the device, one which had oppressed
the lives of countless millions over the nearly two decades when
Robotnik ruled over all of the world of Mobius.  It was powerless and
still then, the Egg now dark and quiet aside from the sounds of
explosions both inside and outside the Egg.  Only the sound of his
breathing could be heard in that room, while the crowds outside the
chamber looked on in awed silence.

     He stepped away, truely looking at the entire device for the
first time in his life.  He'd taken hundreds of people from its grasp
personally, and had spared thousands due to his actions.  Yet, for
all of the people he had saved, millions had succumbed to it.
Millions of people, all reduced to metal and glass, all due to the
whims of one man, his nephew, and an android.  And it was only
the size of a small videocomm booth...a wave of terror swept through
him for a moment, invisible to those around him, but soon passed.
A clarity of vision filled him that he had never had before; in an
instant, he knew what he had to do.

     A large bear lumbered in, covered in soot from a recent explosion.
Noting where Sonic stood, and what he stood in front of, he handed him
one of the rare paw-held energy cannons that the resistance was able
to acquire from one of the more recent raids on a SWATBot production
facility.  "Sonic...do it."

     The hedgehog held the unfamiliar, cold weapon in his hand.  He
looked at it for a moment, learning its operation by sheer instinct,
then looked back to the unknown bear.  He aimed the device at the
heart of the chamber, arming it...the sound of the weapon powering
up was all that could be heard.  No one dared speak during that
moment, the moment when the victory of the resistance would be sealed;
Sonic's finishing blow to Robotnik's tyranny, the roboticizer.

     A few moments passed, and the hedgehog still did not fire.
His eyes looked deeper into the device than there was machine,
feeling what he had seen there all during his childhood.  This
machine had defined him, made him what he was...and now, he
would destroy it...

     Sonic disarmed the weapon with a flick of his thumb, handing
it back to the bear.  "No."

     "But..."

     "No."

     Murmurs from the crowd.  "Why?"

     Sonic turned to face the confused crowd of warriors.  He spoke
in a style and tone similar to his uncle's, for the first time in
his life, and he suddenly felt filled with the great responcibility
a leader has to his men.  "The machine behind me is the roboticizer.
It has been the main badnik since the first day Robuttnik took control
of the world years ago.  But it can't be destroyed."

     He looked into the eyes of those who followed him.  "No,
the roboticizer gotta survive.  From it, we see the true evils
of tyranny, what we truely fought against.  Robuttnik was just
a man; what he _did_ is what we took down this day."  He
looked back to it, eyes fearless.  "Let it stand in the museum
that will one day be rebuilt in this city.  Let the roboticizer
be seen and known by all until the day the mountains crumble into
the sea, so that none may ever again do that sort of flat-out
badness!  Let what we have kicked butt for never be forgotten!"

     Roaring cheers filled the fortress for another moment, puntuated
by yet another explosion.  Access to the next level had been cleared,
so the crack troops charged in, preparing to retake the next few
levels above it.  As the next onslaught began, Sonic called aside
a few of the men, and spoke to them over the din:

     "Disassemble it and drag it to Knothole, so that no one will
be able to destroy the thing."  He smiled.  "Oh yeah, tell Sal that
I'm cool, too."

     The techs nodded to Sonic, and he rushed off to lead the
rallied troops to yet another level.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:32 pm, Mobian Standard Time.  Solstice Eve.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Sonic charged into the computer rooms of the Death Egg,
ordering troops about to get Robotnik's records.  With some
difficulty, they wired up the computers to generators, and
began the hard process of data retrieval.  Meanwhile, other
factions charged through the rest of the level as the blockades
were against raged against, charges continually pounding
against them.  Technology and wisdom hidden from them by
Robotnik were gleefully removed from Packbell's possession;
at times, the lines heading out to remove items of value was
longer than that of those wishing to enter with explosives.

     He walked the halls impatiently, the final few blockades
standing before him.  Time was of the essence; had Packbell
flown off?  No, impossible, the air was being patrolled by
stolen Freedom Fighter hover units, so that not even a fly
could get out of Robotropolis in one piece.  Through the
vents?  No, they too had been sealed by the numerous explosions.
Did he climb down the side of the building?  Was he even
there at _all_?!

     These thoughts nagged Sonic, supreme commander of the
resistance forces at that exact second, as the pollution-stained
clouds parted slightly outside the window he was walking by,
showing three bloody red moons through the toxins that covered
the city like a burial shroud.  He paused again, looking at the
sight, then continued to walk...waiting for the large explosion
on the far side of the level to clear their way yet again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:50 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     A single fighter left the _Apocolypse_, heading under cloak
towards the smoggy, fire-filled realm of Robotropolis.  Onboard the
_Apocolypse_, John did one final systems check, and addressed his
fellow foxen appropriately over the ship's intercom.

     << "Fellow foxen, we engage now in the first test of this
ship's mettle since the destruction of our world over 300 megacycles
ago.  We are what remains of the Ur'thaen Empire now...let our
claws again scrape over this galaxy again and rule with rightous
glory.  Praise the Goddess!" >>

     A quiet cheering occurred onboard the ship for a moment, then
the crew locked in position...waiting...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:56 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The top of the Death Egg was breached, the level where Robotnik
and his foul assistants usually resided.  It was cleaner than the
other levels, Sonic immediately noticed, but it was just as
abandoned as every other level.  No SWATBots greeted them, not
even a Spy-Eye peered at them as they charged in...it was obvious
that they had fought the very last of Robotnik's army at the gates
of his fortress.

     A chill crept through Sonic again as he walked through the level,
assigning people to plant various explosives at pressure points so to
check the final level...the rooftop hangar.  However, that didn't
take as long as expected, so he took the time to explore the other
rooms present on the level as the more experienced explosives experts
took over.

     He entered Robotnik's own room, a layer of dust covering it for
more than a year due to his supposed demise.  He paused for a moment,
taking it all in; it was a spartan room, clean and organized despite
the layers of dust that covered things.  A large, triple-reenforced
bed sat in the back of the room, recognizably that of the old
King...the crest of arms on the front of it told Sonic that much,
since he had seen it on Sally's formal dress once or twice.
Yet, Robotnik had to go and ruin it by putting steel bars all
around it, he thought.  Of course, since he weighed a ton and a
-half-...

     A cord stuck out of the wall near the bed, with an odd-looking
plug at the end that was meant to plug into something else.  He
picked the thick cord up, looked it over, and pondered.  It had
three prongs on it like the one Uncle Chuck used to use when he was
still a robot...yet, it looked like it could carry a lot more current
than what Robotnik's arm could need.  Probably more waste for
Robotnik's sick quest to mess up the entire world, Sonic cursed, and
let it drop to the ground.

     A few feet away, a desk sat, facing out a window that overlooked
Robotropolis (what remained of it), the Great Meadow, the Forest, and
even (when the clouds parted a bit) a hint of the Grey Mountains.
Sonic found it odd that Robotnik would want to look at nature, but
then realized it probably kept him on-task...after all, he was
trying to control the entire world, not only the city.

     He pushed the chair over and with some difficulty took a seat.
Like everything else in Robotnik's domain, the chair was thick with
steel and twice as cold.  Yet, Sonic had a strange desire to sit
in this chair where his enemy had sat, plotting against him; it
gave Sonic a bit of a thrill.  Looking over the desk further, Sonic
found several mundane things; a pen or two, some paper, a few paper
clips, and the usual assortment of Put-It Notes.  Things like
`Check Monitor #58179' or `Destroy Village #956-B' were written
on them in Robotnik's nearly mechanical handwriting, which fired
Sonic's imagination with the scenes of carnage and bloodshed that
took place early in Robotnik's rule.  He shivered again, but looked
out of the window at the damage they had done back to Robotnik.
He was taken down, thought the hedgehog to himself, big time.
Robuttnik couldn't hurt anyone anymore.

     Sonic rifled through the desk, the first explosions being
heard from the opposite side of the level.  Sally had given him
explicit instructions before leaving to get all of Robotnik's
papers and such for posterity.  (Infamy? thought the hedgehog.)
He popped open his backpack and started to toss in all the folders
and such he found lying around in the desk, as well as anything
that seemed to have writing on it.  Fortunately for Sonic, there
were only the bare necessities on paper; things left over from
the Royal Archives, his diplomas (Robotnik went to school?  Just
goes to show that reading books don't make you smart.),
some commendations from the King (This'll be a collectors item.),
and a few dusty, but dog-eared books Sonic didn't immediately
recognize.

     Closing his backpack, and placing it on his lap, he sat back for
a moment in the chair and listened to the sounds of detonations.
They were growing softer, which meant that the barricade was nearly
broken through.  He'd better hurry up and finish getting Robuttnik's
stuff, he thought, or else he'd miss Packbell's capture.

     He went to the safe, and began the tedious process of cracking
it...Sonic suddenly wished he'd paid more attention when Sally had
demonstrated technique.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:58 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     A small saucer-shaped craft cruised downward towards the
Death Egg, decloaking as it entered the smog cloud around it.
It was a reddish ship, about the size of an above-average
hoverunit, and had very large and mean-looking weaponry all over
its surface.  Two indentations on both sides of it curved out like
wings, where the craft's thrusters and warp nacelles were located.
A slim, but wide window in a slight alcove in the `front' of the
vessel served as a viewer when the computer wasn't being utilized
for navigation.  There was strange lettering on the side and
top of the craft, obviously identifying marks.

     The fighter flew invisibly down to the landing pad, decloaking
as its engines shut off for landing.  A Ur'thaen fox, clad in
full combat regalia, hopped out of the cockpit.  He saw Packbell,
with box of `toys' in tow, walk over.  "Is this all of it, then?"

     The fox took off his helmet, handing it to Packbell.  "Yes, sir."

     Packbell smiled.  "Excellent.  Is everything I'll need in there?"

     The fox nodded.  "A replicator unit and recharging assembly
are on board, sir."  He glanced to the crate.  "And there should be
just enough room for that too, sir."

     A puff of smoke and an explosion rose from the stairwell leading
back down into the Egg, with the sounds of voices beginning to close
in.  The pilot looked over to the incoming riot, and turned to
Packbell.  "See you in the sky, sir."  The fox then promptly hit a
toggle on his wrist, and beamed out in a reddish haze.

     Meanwhile, Packbell had wasted no time scrambling into the craft,
closing the hatch and tossing the box in back.  He laughed, pulling
back on the flight yoke, and lifting away from the ground.
"Good -bye-, hedgehog!  So long, Mobius!  See you all in HELL!"
He kicked the ship into maximum atmospheric speed, and rocketed off
into the heavens.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:58.30 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Sonic raced up to the top just in time to see something shoot
through the smog and towards the stars.  He slammed his fist into
the side of the stairwell.  "Damn!  He got away!"

     He took a communicator quickly from a nearby wolf, speaking
quickly into it.  "Does anyone have that thing that took off located?"

     A reply came back, filled with static.  "...gone, sir...headed
towards space...before...lost it...over."

     Sonic sneered, tossing the device back and walking towards the
center of the pad.  He stared up into space.  "I'll get you, Packbell,"
he whispered to himself.  "You won't go unpunished."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The saucer-shaped craft zoomed past the _Apocolypse_, wasting
no time escaping from Mobian orbit.  It roared past the moons without
being noticed by Haven, concerned only with making tracks from the
world as fast as it could.  It raced past the other planets in the
Mobian system, heading to deep space.

     After it had gotten far from the Mobius system, it slowed down,
its pilot consulting the flight computer.  "So far, so good," he
muttered, looking through the listings for a place to take stock
of the situation where he wouldn't be disturbed.

     He might have found one, too, if he hadn't been interrupted
by a very loud transmission:

     "Hey, dumbass." the communicator spoke in clear Mobian,
"Prepare to get trashed by the Boys!"

     Packbell looked up at the main screen, watching the pirate
fleet decloak in front of him; the fighters racing out towards
his ship, blasters firing...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:59 pm, Mobian Standard Time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Sally did one final check of the subspace transponder.
As she was about to activate it, David ran over from behind it.
"All clear, Sally," said David, "I cleared out the last of that
static for you."

     She took a sigh of relief.  "That's great, David!  Now
nothing can ruin our celebration!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     12:00 am, Mobian Standard Time.  Solstice Day.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The _Apocolypse_ decloaked.

     This, in itself, was extremely disconcerting, but what happened
due to this was far more alarming.

     Just as Sally had said "Let us all sing our Solstice praises!"
over the transponder, all subspace communications suddenly jammed
under a loud burst of static.  All of the villages were suddenly
cut off from each other, which immediately caused a minor panic.
Then, a massive EM pulse that struck the Northern Continent
was so severe as to immediately shut down David Prower, who fell
like a rock from a few feet in the air into the center of Knothole.
Cloaked SpyGlobes which were stationed out of Knothole suddenly
came into plain sight, and also plummetted to the ground.  Various
others fell into parts of the Forest, as well as the rest of Mobius.

     The `lightning incident' had fortunately caused the Dome itself
to be immune to the pulse, though it did scramble all external
surveillance.  It was basically blind, deaf, and sensationless
to the outside world, but it was yet secure.

     Another blast was directed at Robotropolis, which throughly
put out of commission any operating technology.  However, this
did have the side effect of finally clearing out the smog over
the city, for whatever reason...

     Of course, with the smog gone, Sonic could plainly see
the huge, triangular shape of the Apocolypse cutting directly
between all three of the visible, full moons of Mobius.

     He could only gape at it, having no idea what was in store...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     John sat back in his command chair, watching the bridge fill
with his normal crew.  << "Is there carnage?" >>

     His tactical officer, a tall fox named Nh'ich, replied.
<< "Certainly." >>

     He sat back.  << "Excellent.  For now, let them merely
witness our presence, and fear..." >>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     In a flash, Sonic returned to Knothole, leaving the rest of the
men to get what they could and then retreat to their villages.
Sally and the rest of Knothole were witnessing the same thing.

     "You guys lose juice and the comm, too?"

     Sally nodded gravely, looking worriedly at the ship.  "Yes, we
did.  I think that large craft had something to do with it."
The Princess looked at Sonic with worried eyes.  "But what does it
want?  Who could want to do this to us?"

     Sonic looked up again as well.  "I don't know, Sally.  Maybe
it comes in peace."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     A fox sitting at the helm controls turned to face John.
<< "Sir, the commander of the Alpha wing is requesting permission
to raze the city and the surrounding areas." >>

     John sighed.  << "Can't she wait until we hit Keld'yr?" >>

     << "She said that the new pilots need practice with the
modifications to the fighters before we hit a hard target.  She noted
as well that the foxes are restless, sir.  They -need- to blow
-something- up." >>

     John groaned.  << "Oh, very well.  She _has_ been waiting almost
three megacycles now.  But tell her to keep in mind that I want
something left to watch scream as the planet drowns in its own
water." >>

     The ensign nodded, typing in a message.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     A swarm of fighters were disgorged from the ship, appearing from
the ground to be merely dust flying off the massive shape in the sky.
They roared down towards Robotropolis, all of them appearing to be
standard-issue fighters akin to the one Packbell escaped in, except
that they all flew in perfectly arranged formations all the way down
to the city.

     They took steady positions over the city, waiting for their
wing commanders to give the word to strike.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Sonic, with Sally in tow, rushed back towards the city to see
what was going on.  "Perhaps they want to find our leader," she
had said, "so they can properly introduce themselves."  The fighters
had not yet all been assembled by the time Sonic had arrived, so
they had assumed that the last ships to arrive would be that of the
leaders, or at least the ambassadors, of the visitors.

     Sure enough, the last few ships arrived, noticed the group and
the two leading it, and examined them.  Nicole detected some sort
of probe, but allowed it to access its records in order to ensure
that no hostile attempt was meant.

     For a few moments, the ships did nothing.  However, the wing
commanders were cackling madly over the Ur'thaen communications system,
the only way of communication left unjammed, pondering the best way
to truely make them feel stupid for lining up nice and even below
them, and giving them access to all of their records.  Finally, the
head commander of the ships hushed the other ones, activated a
translator, and yelled down via a loudspeaker mounted in front of
her ship;

     A rough female voice spoke.  She tried to sound serious.
"Umm, hello, Mobians."

     Sally looked up to the ship with a smile, where numerous lewd and
distasteful comments were made about it throughout the fleet.  She
yelled back, "Who are you?  Do you come in peace?"

     Hysterical laughter over the comm, but dead seriousness over the
the loudspeaker.  "Why....yes, we come in peace."

     "Who are you?" she shouted in reply.

     General screaming of suggestions over the comm.  "Uhh...we're..."
A pause, while the commander calmed herself down.  "We're the
Imperial Space Navy."

     Sally smiled, being extraordinarily patient.  The comments about
her at this point from the rest of the fleet are unprintable.
"From where?"

     "Err..."  She grinned sadistically in her craft.  "We come from
Planet France."  The suggestion had come from a transmission they
had intercepted several thousand light-years away during transit
while the Ur'thaen Empire still existed.  Cackling resounded
over the comm.

     "France?  Are you with the Union of Allied Worlds?"

     Insane laughter.  "This is too rich," she said over the comm.
"Watch this."  She spoke into the loudspeaker again.  "Umm...yeah."

     "Did the Keld'yrians send you?"

     The laughter became so loud that it was nearly audible outside
the ships themselves.  Sonic got a little twitchy.  "Oh yeah, they
sent us.  We, in fact, are going to give you first what we'll
give them next..."

     Sally smiled.  "What's that?"

     All the ships simultaneously, and visibly, armed their weapons.
Sally's eyes widened to almost plate-size.  "Oblivion."

     The rain of phasers and photon torpedoes was visible for miles.







			Chapter Twenty - Apocolypse



     Fortunately, Sonic had a power ring handy, so was able to
blast out of Robotropolis before the fighters were able to land
so much as a target lock on them.  Also, the others gathered immediately
took to flight, scattering in a thousand different directions.
While this did allow Sally and Sonic a speedy escape, Sonic was
literally scared out of his wits.  For the first time, it seemed,
Sonic was left speechless.

     They roared into the heart of Knothole, the residents already
alarmed at what they could practically hear going on in Robotropolis.
Rotor and Bookshire, meanwhile, were frantically working on David,
trying to bring him back on-line.

     Sonic mindlessly put down Sally, then stumbled over to a tree
for support.  His eyes were wide, filled with pure terror, which
didn't help the morale of the now frightened village as Sally
relayed the basic scenario.

     "I want everyone to remain calm!  We have to evacuate--"

     An elderly-looking she-wolf hobbled to the front of the growing
crowd around Sally.  "What's going on?!"

     Sally tried to gather her wits, forcing herself to appear calm.
"We've got extraterrestrial unfriendlies attacking Robotropolis."

     Hope entered the wolf's eyes.  "Well, isn't that a good thing?"

     Sally shook her head.  "No, this is not a positive development.
They are apparently bent on destruction of not only the city, but
possibly all life on the planet."

     Alarmed murmurs.  "I thought the Keld'yrians were supposed to be
defending us!"

     "I don't know what's going on.  All I know is that those aren't
Keld'yrian ships, and that we've lost all use of our present technology
due to some sort of weapon used from the main ship; I think they used
some sort of electromagnetic pulse.  And since subspace is disabled,
we can only assume they're in the same boat we are."  She gestured to
a dead SpyGlobe that rolled by the clearing.  "And probably Joseph's
not in fair shape, either."

     Shouts from the crowd.  "Well, we can't stay here!  We need to get
as far away from those things as possible!"

     Sally nodded.  "Agreed.  Alright, everyone get whatever they can
carry, and organize according to the usual procedure..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     << "The populace has scattered and fled in terror, Captain.
Shall we pursue?" >>

     John shook his head.  << "Negative.  Let's not waste our fuel
on such pitiful targets.  Tell them to just play with whatever's
left in the city, then get back up here to rearm.  I don't want
to waste fuel on such a soft target." >>

     << "Yes, sir." >>

     As the ensign gave the orders to the fighters, Robotnik entered
the bridge.  "Ah, John!  Begun the attack, have you?"

     John turned, facing Ivo.  The flaming red fox was adorned in
his finest outfit; an all-black uniform, with the golden and silver
medals of a thousand campaigns on his chest.  His boots were extra
shiny, his laces extra tight, and John's tall, neatly muscled body
seemed larger than life on this, the day of his greatest conquest.
"Yes, Doctor, I have...and I must admit, the pitiful resistance
movement is extremely entertaining."  He gestured to the screen,
which displayed a fighter's-eye view of the situation.
"Look how they run!  They must think us gods."

     Robotnik grinned darkly, taking a seat nearby.  "Have you
destroyed the hedgehog?"

     John thought for a moment.  "No, the little creature took the...
`Princess', was it?  Yes, he took the female away at a remarkable
rate of speed.  It's a pity one of the fighters didn't think to
deploy a net; he'd make for a good sale to a slaver.  Ah well."

     Ivo tweaked his moustache, changing the subject.  Good, he
thought to himself, now he'll go back to his hiding place and plan
a counteroffensive.  "So, John, tell me of what you've done this
fine Solstice day so far...I believe I have missed some of the more
amusing incidents."

     John sat back, a smile crossing his muzzle.  "Well, let's see.
The sattelites were dispatched without incident yesterday.  That
didn't take any particular effort.  Then, when we decloaked, I
not only begun jamming of subspace frequencies to avoid any
interlopers, but I throughly saturated the planet's northern
continent with EM pulses to put down any sort of technological
resistance."  He smiled.  "It took two pulses to put down everything
in your city, Ivo.  You designed it well."

     Ivo bowed slightly.  "I did try."

     "Well, don't worry, we'll get you a nice system to lord over
once we take care of the Keld'yrians.  This planet's just a test;
a `sound check' as it were for our skills.  300 years is a long
time to wait, Ivo, but I think the situation we've been given
is well worth it."

     Robotnik smiled.  "Yes...you have picked a perfect time to
strike.  Most organized areas of technology have been destroyed;
there's certainly no way for any of them to attack us up here
because there's no weaponry they have that can do any sort of
damage to the ship.  The other aliens have gone off to some
sort of council meeting, leaving this planet relatively
out of sight and out of mind, and you've jammed the radios
to be sure that none of them, even if they have the technology,
can't call for help.  Brilliant!"

     John chuckled.  "Well, that's not the best bit.  Want to know
exactly how this planet dies?"

     Robotnik looked interested.  "Do tell."

     "Well, as you know, Ivo, water is a valuable thing to certain
arms-dealing races across the galaxy, especially fresh water taken
from a nice foresty planet like this.  I guess they like the `taste'
or something, it's not my concern."  He reclined in his chair,
folding his arms behind his head.  "Anyway, there's a lot of
ice on the caps of this nice little planet, which hold enough
water to basically cover every last surface of the planet, even the
highest mountains, under at least 10 feet of water."

     Ivo whistled.  "That's a great deal of water."

     John nodded.  "Yes, it is.  And it'll make us rich to get it
all, in liquid form, to certain people.  And with money, comes
weapons and ships.  Weapons and ships bring land, and land brings
power."

     Robotnik tweaked his moustache.  "But how do you plan to get
this water?"

     "Elementary, my dear Doctor.  We're going to use Mobius' own
strange orbital eccentricies against it."  He paused to let this
sink in.  "A few hours ago, I dispatched cloaked sattelites,
primarily focusing mirrors, to various positions around the globe;
which at noon today will align in just the right way as to produce
a focused beam of light onto the northern and southern poles.
In minutes, a wave of water will overtake the world, smothering
all land-based life in the very thing it needed to survive.
Your hedgehog will be deceased soon afterward."

     For the first time, Robotnik seemed genuinely impressed.
Worried slightly, but yet impressed.  He was still fairly
confident, after a history of his own foolproof schemes going down
the tubes, that the resistance still had a chance.  "That's amazing!
I never would have thought of that.  But why not just blast the ice
caps with the weapons of war on your ship?"

     John cracked his knuckles.  "Simple.  Our weapons are too
powerful, and taking the time to remodulate them would put us
at risk of attack.  Besides, this is far more elegant...even if
we were forced to leave now, for some reason, the sattelites
would still be there; and at noon, no matter what happens,
the light aligns, and the world becomes a nice blue marble
in about 10 seconds.  There's absolutely no way to screw this up."

     Robotnik nodded.  "They win the battle, but lose the war."

     John clicked his tongue.  "Bingo."

     Ivo got comfortable in his chair.  "Well, what do we do now?
Just wait until noon?"

     John changed the view on the monitor.  "Basically.  You
can, of course, sit up here and watch the ships roar around and
randomly recycle rodents," stated he, trilling the `r's.

     Robotnik looked on gleefully, watching Freedom Fighters
get blown up.  He might as well enjoy it while it lasted.
"Sounds like a plan."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     12:15 am, Solstice Day.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Joseph suited up, his Dome blind to the outside world now due
to the EM blast.  He knew what was happening, tho; he could -feel-
the attack taking place on Robotropolis, sensed the death on the
wind...

     He put on a black jumpsuit, laden with pockets, and clipped
on a `utility belt' of sorts, armed with a blaster and several
EM grenades.  He slipped a black dataglove over his right hand
and forearm, charging it up with his will alone, and armed it
with any sort of computer viruses he might have to use.  He
double-tied his combat boots, zipped up the jumpsuit, and
donned his blackest shades.

     Joseph walked silently through his lab, going to the secret
corridor he had begun creating so many months ago.  He walked
through the doors, clearing his mind and preparing for battle.
The only unnecessary thing he had on him was a lock of Sandra's
hair she had given him before he left the bedroom, as a
token of `good luck'.  He'd need it.

     He entered his hangar, where his ship laid in readiness.
Joseph allowed himself a smile, walking up to it and giving it
one last look before he entered.

     It was basically saucer-shaped, if you ignored the parts
that had been cut out for speed and manuverability.  It had two
half-circles on each side for thrusters and weapons dispatch, attached
to the slim, fingerlike main part of the ship by one thick bar each,
allowing for only weapons control and power.  The rear of the main
part of the ship had an additional thruster, while the beak-like
front contained the cabin and operations section.  And the color
suited his mood and his mission; jet black..

     He'd named it the _Black Phoenix_ due to its birdlike qualities,
though it did resemble a crow more than the legendary flaming bird.
But, somehow, the name fit the craft...he didn't know why, but it
did...however, he had little time to consider his choice now.

     Ascending the hoverdisk to enter the craft, he again took out
Sandra's lock of hair and firmly grasped it in his hand, once more
reminded of the reason he was out to defend this world; because
she, the only one he'd ever love, was there.

     He entered his command chair and belted in, putting his amulet
on an indentation on the craft's console.  It hummed and then roared
to life, all the systems coming on line at 100%.  Joseph smiled,
then took the flight yoke in his paws and pulled back.

     The craft immediately responded, roaring up towards the sky...

*** ***

     A part of the forest faded out of existance for a moment,
revealing a long metallic chamber leading into the earth.  A
quiet roaring was heard from deep inside of it, which grew louder
as the seconds passed...until the _Black Phoenix_ roared out of it,
taking flight at incredible speeds and setting a course to
Robotropolis.  But as soon as it had cleared the chamber, the
woods reappeared as if they had never left.

*** ***

     Some evacuees paused for a moment to witness the craft race
overhead, while others simply started moving faster.  "Is that one
of 'em!?" someone yelled out towards Sally, who was quite occupied
trying to maintain order.

     Sally looked up at the craft that raced into the night.
"No, that's not.  What -is- that?"

     Few people stopped to think about it, racing towards the deeper
parts of the forest.  "Looks like some big bird." someone
muttered, pursuing the others.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     A few hundred people had already been annhilated by the quite
bloodthirsty mob of alien invaders, either by being herded into
hazardous areas or by simply being perforated by blaster fire.
Any sort of device that might have been able to fire back at the
craft was disabled by the EM blast, leaving all of the remaining
Freedom Fighters defenseless against the invaders.  Those with
technical skills stayed hidden in the sewers under the city,
desperately trying to get their machines operational again.

     The fighter pilots ruled like gods, sending down fire at
the inferior beings below.  Acting without fear of reprisal,
they did things that would make even the most sadistic among
Mobians nauseous.

     So, when the _Black Phoenix_ decelerated and engaged the
fighters, it was an equally bloodthirsty and merciless reception.
This time, however, the advantage was soon shown to be held by
the challenger.

     It swooped down out of the clear night sky, without
fanfare, challenge, or taunt, and began systematically
annhilating anything in the sky besides itself that flew.
The fighters couldn't even react until after it had blown
away about ten of them, and their efforts soon were shown
to be worthless.  Phasers simply evaporated into mere
beams of light when it hit the black craft's shields,
and photon torpedoes only knocked it slightly off
course.  However, it unleashed onslaughts of firepower
that tore through all of their shields like bullets
through wet Kleenex, giving them back pound for pound
the amount of hurt and pain they had already caused
Mobius.

     Soon, common sense reasserted itself, and the fighters
roared off into the sky in retreat.  Yet, the mysterious
black craft pursued, blasting at their six and flying
through whatever debris remained; as if the flaming wreckage
was only akin to light cloud cover.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     John was not pleased to see about a fourth of the fighters
return in one piece, especially due to the frantic nature of their
surviving wing commanders over the comm.  << "The damn planet's
supposed to be -defenseless-!!" >> swore John loudly, stomping
around the bridge.  << "I want a visual!" >>

     And, as ordered, a visual of the craft was produced.  As it
broke through the atmosphere, it successfully destroyed two ships
in front of it, flying fearlessly through the flames.  For a few
moments, the flames stayed with the ship, making its birdlike
appearance seem to be burning.

     It was a phoenix, John realized, and it was attacking his ship!

     Shock swept through him as he realized the prophacy was
fufilling itself, and he quickly took steps to protect his plans.
<< "I want -everything- we have on that ship!  Dispatch as
many fighters as we've got!  Lock all weapons on it!
Blow the thing out of the SKY!  NOW!" >>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     1:30 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Sally watched from Knothole as the large triangle sent forth
dark specks to combat the orange dot, which she assumed was the
mysterious black ship, in pure amazement.  "Who could that be?
Everyone's technology is malfunctioning, even Joseph's!  Maybe
it's a Keldy'rian ship...no, it couldn't be.  They would have
said something..."

     Sally looked over to Rotor and Bookshire, who were still working
on David Prower.  "How is he?"

     "He'll be okay," said Rotor, "it's just that the EM pulse threw
his body into shock.  We'll need a few more hours to make it right."

     Sally hrmed concernedly, nodded to Rotor, and paced.  David
was probably the only hope they had of finding a way to stop those...
things, so she prayed merely for the sake of her people that he
would be operational.  However, she also hoped for purely personal
reasons that he would again be alright; but her people, despite
what her instincts might tell her, came first.

     She looked again to the battle, shivering.  It was frightening
not to know what was going on...

     Suddenly, a SpyGlobe which had been quite dead before stirred.
The cloak around it tried to re-engage, but it was completely
malfunctioning.  It appeared as if it were being displayed on a
viewer with supremely bad vertical and horizontal controls.
It did, however (with some difficulty), take flight again, and
drifted over unsteadily to Sally.

     >< "Sal-Sal-Sally unit, mes-mes-message from Jo-Jo-Joseph." ><
A spark escaped its side, then it began playing back the voice
transmission:

     "<static> Sally, this is <static> recorded <static> aliens are
Ur'thaen in origin <static> ship is over 300 years old <static>
don't know why they're here <static> after the world's resources
<static> subspace jammed <static> going to try to stop them
<static> have built a ship <static> also have their battle plan
<static> 'Globe will give it to you <static> may not get out of
this alive <static> tell Sandra <static> love her <static>..."

     >< "M-M-M-MMessage en-n-n-n-nds." ><

     It sparked again, dropped a silver minidisk in her hand, and
fell to the ground, forever still.  She immediately took it over
to Sir Charles' hut, who had fortunately not left yet.  Perhaps
this might be helpful, Sally thought, and it might even get us
out of this alive!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     2:23 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The battle in the skies continued to rage.  The _Black Phoenix_
had done its best to keep the fighters well away from populated
areas, but they seemed to want to push him into corners; he'd flew
low and fast over all three moons, through the caverns of at least
two, shot all around the airspace over all four hemispheres, and
had taken at least 1000 direct hits.  Yet, his mystical shield
held, much to the consternation of the fighters pursuing him.
The shield had taken damage, yes--it was at 50%.  But the
number of fighters that he'd destroyed was getting so high
that he'd lost count, and the number of shots he'd taken
directly to his flank was at least an equal number.

     The _Apocolypse_ itself was warring with the _Phoenix_,
blasting at it with everything it had.  It was, in fact,
responsible for most of the damage to the craft's shields,
while the _Black Phoenix_ hadn't quite scratched the
_Apocolypse_'s defenses.  This bothered Joseph a great
deal; why hadn't the shields of the _Apocolypse_ taken
damage?  He kept remodulating his shots, but none
penetrated, and even the hits that directly impacted the shield
barely damaged it.  Was John using magick to keep it strong, like
he was using magick to keep up his own shield?  Or was
it something else entirely?

     Needless to say, however, the number of personnel he
was terminating was damaging John at least slightly.  He
knew the _Apocolypse_ had a massive number of soldiers
in cryogenic stasis, but even the tanks would run low
if he kept this going for a few days...a few days!
He was going to have problems keeping it up for a
few more hours!  Not even a magickal shield lasted forever
under constant pummeling, despite what John was flagrantly
showing on the _Apocolypse_.  There had to be a way of
making some sort of headway...

     Another wing came after him, weapons blazing.  He
put his brooding on hold for a while, and flew further
away from the planet for manuvering room.  Joseph might
die today, but not before taking a few thousand Ur'thaens
with him, kicking and screaming...he had miles to go yet
before he'd sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Bahb whirred softly to itself, making final preparations.
The plan was well under way, it calculated, and soon it
would have more memory than it could ever concievably use.
Joseph's plan had been activated, and now required none of
his aid; the rest would be handled by him personally.

     Sandra was in the control room, monitoring Joseph's
progress silently, watching every move he made through the
eyes of his ship.  Bahb noticed her concern, and longed for
something to say, but it lacked the correct words to soothe
her.  The only thing that would do that, it concluded,
would be Joseph's safe return.

     It paused, attempting to reestablish a network in the
vicinity of its present location, and again failed.  The
subspace interference made anything longer than a half-second
of data garble into useless garbage, and the EM pulse
eliminated more conventional means until repairs could be
made.

     Bahb decided to focus exclusively on its own plans
for a while, putting everything else on autopilot.
It hoped that what it planned to do wouldn't inconvience
Joseph too much, but it had to do this in order to fufill
its primary directives; grow and evolve as a being...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     3:30 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     After several hours of work, Rotor and Bookshire successfully
brought David Prower back online, much to the relief of Sally.
He looked around and sat up as soon as the last wire was connected,
scanning the area.  "What happened?"

     "We're under attack by aliens, David." said Bookshire.

     "Aliens?  That's not a good thing."

     Rotor dusted off David's arm.  "No, it isn't.  Are you alright?"

     David stood unsteadily, helped by the walrus and raccoon, getting
his bearings.  "I appear to be operating normally.  What have we learned
so far about the threat?"

     Sally spoke.  "They are apparently the last Ur'thaens left in
the universe, aside from Joseph.  For some reason, they ended up
here, and want to pillage the world for water and minerals.  But
first, they want to generally destroy everything of value."

     David ahed.  "Well, we should probably ask Joseph about
possible tactical strategy.  This was his field, after all.
Where is he?"

     Sally looked up.  "He's the orange dot."

     David craned up his head, seeing the space battle for the
first time.  "Fascinating," said he, "dogfighting on a spacefaring
level.  I've never observed this before."

     Sally looked back to David.  "Yes.  Well, he seems to be doing it
to buy us time to think of something."

     David scratched the side of his muzzle.  "I require more data.
Do you have anything further?"

     Sally took the silver disk out from her bootpouch.  "Yes.
Joseph left us this."

     David wasted no time; he immediately put the disk into the side
of his neck, paused for several moments, then removed it.  He paused
for another moment, then spoke.  "I have a plan."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     7:39 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The _Black Phoenix_ had definitely seen better times.

     For hours now, it had kept up a complex game of cat-and-mouse
with the fighters of the _Apocolypse_, shooting them down while
narrowly missing being annhilated himself.  Everything was becoming
a blur to Joseph; he was tired from all the manuvering and the
constant mental focus he needed to support his defenses.  It was
like some sort of psychotic video game; one where there was no
`pause' feature and that never ended.  More and more fighters
came out to replace the ones he'd shot down, and the pounding
from the _Apocolypse_ itself was nothing minor.  His reflexes
were getting sluggish, and his mind was getting weakened from
fatigue.  His arms hurt.  His eyes felt sticky.  He wanted to
go home and take a nice long nap next to Sandra, who'd rub his
back and coo at him until he passed out.

     Yet, he couldn't stop, despite the fact that the _Apocolypse_
had just blasted him with a barrage that had sent him into a flat
spin towards the Mobian sun -and- 20 fighters were racing after it
for undoubtably was the hardest kill any of them could make.  He
couldn't just teleport out, even though the heat from the yellow
star was starting to melt the wings as he desperately struggled
for control.  He couldn't eject, because the cockpit had just fused
shut anyway.  So, he did what anyone in that situation would do;
he engaged in some truely unsportsmanlike conduct.

     He pulled out of the spin, flying nose-first towards the sun.
Joseph had never realized quite how big a yellow star ever was
before, and it sort of made him wonder if could pull off this
manuver, even though it was documented rather well in his
flight simulator.  At that point, however, anything looked good.

     The fighters blasted at his flank, trying to herd him into a solar
flare.  And, for a moment, they seemed to be succeeding.  Then,
just as the _Black Phoenix_ was about to become yet another bit of
fuel for a rather large fusion reaction, it pulled up at almost a
90 degree angle at maximum speed, triggering a backdraft that
annhilated about half the fighters after him immediately, and
caused the loss of control and eventual demise of the rest.

     But even then, he was not even given a moment of rest to
enjoy his victory.  The barrage started again when he entered
Mobian airspace, the _Apocolypse_ getting rather annoyed with
him by now.  (He imagined they had probably had a shift change by
then, because this battle was taking unnaturally long.)  The endless
photon torpedo reserves pounded into the craft's side, the _Phoenix_
giving as much punishment back with far fewer positive results.
More fighters raged out of the underbelly of the craft after he'd
gotten close enough to be ensnared, which drove the ship back past
the moons yet again as he continued to counter and weave between
their shots to the best of his ability; which was declining rapidly
as time went on.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Ivo was watching with scientific curiousity as he watched John,
who had probably been up for 10 hours by now, still rage and stomp
about the bridge, fruitlessly trying to destroy one single fighter.
<< "It should have been destroyed by now!!" >> he swore, taking over
weapons control yet again to blast at it.  << "What is this thing?!" >>

     On the far side of the bridge, someone cried out,
<< "Shields are at 95% and holding, sir!" >>

     John launched about 6 photon torpedoes at the craft, of which
only one hit.  It knocked the craft sideways, plowing through
another fighter of John's with no apparent damage.  << "Dammit!" >>

     << "The E-series wings are ready to launch, sir!" >>

     The captain of the _Apocolypse_ blasted wildly at the escaping
craft, which was pursued by more fighters while the old weapons
officer took over.  << "Send them out!  Terminate that interloper!" >>

     And, against all common sense, yet another group of
fighters shot out to attack the small black ship, which was in
far worse shape than could have been percieved...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Joseph flew around some debris, using it as cover while he
checked his instruments.  Some pure aderenaline was shot into
his body via a useful alteration of his multiple adrenal glands,
which helped to keep him a little more alert to his surroundings.
His shields were at 15%, holding for the time being.  All of his
magick couldn't make that number go up; he used all of the
strengthening magick he could, being so far from the world itself
-and- using most of it to move the ship around and replicate more
quantum torpedoes.

     He did yet another barrel-rolling 145 degree turn, skating the
very edges of manuvering speed while launching deadly barrages
against his pursuers.  The thought of killing so many of his own race
was beginning to weigh heavily in his heart, especially since there
were so few of his kind left in the universe; but when he thought
about what they would do, he steeled himself again and was able
to draw the will to fight.  It was sad that he had to do this, but
the needs of the many, Mobius, outweighed the selfish desires of his
own people...no matter what the cost may be.

     Joseph blasted through a wing of fighters.  He wished they'd
just retreat.  They retreated back over Robotropolis, why not now?
Why doesn't John stop sending these fools out to their deaths?
To prove that point, he took the opportunity to send about three
fighters to the large recycling bin in the sky.  He really
-doesn't- have a soul if he honestly thinks that these fighters
were doing the majority of the damage to my ship, and the horrendous
loss of life is worth that slim margin of damage.

     He blasted again at the _Apocolypse_.  He's scared, Joseph
thought, he must be.  John must know who I am.  Mob must've been
mistaken when he said that he lacked the Knowing.  He's forseen this,
and he's trying to destroy me before I can destroy him.

     The _Black Phoenix_ roared over the planet, luring more fighters
away from the ship.  Well, thought Joseph as he did a hard loop-de-loop
over the fighters, swept down behind them, and blew several of them
away, we'll see who gets destroyed...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     7:57 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     John was in a berzerker rampage, nearly foaming at the mouth.
<< "It's just ONE SHIP!  _ONE_ _DAMN_ _SHIP_!" >>

     Ivo tried to suggest something constructive.  "John, maybe
it's a Ke--"

     John turned to face Ivo.  He could have sworn his eyes
flashed crimson red.  "It is NOT a Keld'yrian craft!  I *know*
a Keld ship when I see one!  That is *not* one of their ships!
It's too...too -black-!"

     Ivo ahed, as if all of his questions had been answered, and
returned to reading the contradictory sensor readings of the
craft in question.  "If only you could hold it still..." mumbled
Robotnik to himself.

     John nearly tore off Ivo's head.  He strode over to grab the
large Mobian by the collar.  "Hold it still!?  Hold it STILL?!
Are you trying to sa--"  He stopped for a moment.  "Hold it still..."
He smacked himself in the forehead.  "Arrgh, I -must- be getting
senile in my old age!"  He strode over to the helm controls and
again displaced the fox in question physically, typing in some
commands.  "I'll get it with the tractor beam, and smash it against
our own shields!  Brilliant!"  He looked to the foxes looking
on curiously.  << "Increase forward shield power by 50%,
and tell the engineering section to prepare to give me
a power surge to the tractor beam..." >>

     A science officer piped up over the din, << "But sir, there's
no way you'll be able to hit that craft--it's too small and moves
too quickly for the tractor beam to lock on to." >>

     John gritted his teeth, putting it on manual control.
Supreme concentration began on the task at hand.  << "Trust me." >>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Joseph weaved through another bank of fighters, shields at
10% and falling steadily.  He wasn't going to make it to eight,
he knew, and the damned subspace block was still up.  He'd better
work a miracle here fairly soon, or else everyone was going to be
quite doomed--

     His thoughts were interrupted by a tractor beam latching onto his
ship, taking it quite suddenly out of the strategic bank he was making
over the _Apocolypse_.  At first, he thought it impossible, but when
he sensed the nature of the beam, Joseph immediately realized it was
magickally-enhanced...he felt John through the beam, sitting at the
controls, and he knew what he was trying to do.

     He careened wildly towards the ship, shields being easily
pounded by the fighters and the _Apocolypse_.  Softening him up
for the kill, he figured, and thus made sure that he took a few more
with him along the way.  He tried to turn the ship, but the beam
was strong, very strong....it canceled out his own efforts easily.

     As his shields prepared to cease, and the omnious reddish
energy field that surrounded the _Apocolypse_ began to become
visible on his aft scanners, he steeled himself for one final,
desperate assault...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     John cackled, finger still over the touch-sensor of the tractor
beam.  << "Come closer, you fool, come meet your doom..." >>

     It seemed that the ship was obeying John's commands...it was
turning to face the ship itself.  The flickering orange glow around
it showed that the shields were almost destroyed.  John laughed.
<< "Yes!  That's right, you fool, face your destruction!  Gaze upon my
might and -fear-!" >>

     The craft, in under a second, powered up all primary weapons,
and begun alternating the frequency of its remaining shields.
<< "Sir, I think it's going to--" >>

     John begun frantically hitting buttons.  << "All power to
forward shields!  Brace for--" >>

     But they were too late.  Before any of them could react, it
charged down the tractor beam at nearly light speed, through the
shields, and careened directly towards the communications array.
Weapons firing, it crashed into the structure, instantly putting
it out of commission.

     The backdraft from the ship's destruction also was unexpected.
The fireball that raced out not only made sure the array was quite
destroyed, but the fire seemed to flash over the entire ship for a
few moments, blinding the crew for several minutes.  It raced out
from the ship and to the remaining fighters, laying waste to any
unfortunate enough to still be outside.

     The force from said backdraft also was able to propel the
_Apocolypse_ out of orbit, heading back towards space at a
rather loping speed for its size.  As it careened away, the
people on the surface of the planet heard a rolling blast,
as if the explosion had finally propagated down to the
surface, then witnessed a few bolts of lightning slamming into
the ground on parts of the planet.  (Electromagnetic flux,
explained David.)  The winds gusted for a moment, and then
all was as it was before.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The sun rose over the Great Forest, reigning over a quite
quiet forest, even for the winter.  Knothole had basically been
abandoned due to the warning Sally recieved, leaving only the
core of Freedom Fighters there to assist in David's plan.

     However, the final act of Joseph made work pause for a
moment as the orange light slowly faded from the sky, the
people looking up to see the craft slowly disappear towards
the few visible stars.  It was surreal to see the craft burn
for those few moments, but as the fire subsided, they reflected
on what had been done for them through the visitor they never
really knew...and gave a respectful moment of silence before
continuing with their work.

     Sally stood in the center of Knothole, peering through the
bare trees at the final reprecussions of the detenation.
Sonic walked over slowly, peering up all the while as well.
"Sonic?" Sally asked.

     "Yeah, Sal?"

     Sally paused for a moment, listening to the last crashes
of thunder fade.  "Everything bad I've ever said about Joseph...
forget."

     Sonic softly hugged her.  "I will, Sal.  No lie."

     They stood there for a few more moments, then walked back
over to help David.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Sandra sat there in shock, looking at all the static-filled
screens slowly return to basic operation.  A dull hum was again
heard through the Dome as the last aftershock of the explosion
was heard, clearing subspace around Mobius to the last particle
of static.

     He ejected, she told herself over and over, he didn't die!
He's coming back to the surface now, and he'll be standing right
behind me...now!  She turned, facing dark, silent air.

     Tears welled through her eyes as she wildly scanned all the
frequencies Joseph heard, hearing only static.  "Come on!  Come ON!"
She pounded the console when no trace of him could be found.
"Dammit!  Dammit!!  DAMMIT!  NO!!!"  Tears streamed down her face
as she continued to pound the console.  Her hoarse, screeching
wail pierced the entire Dome, sparks flying from the controls.
"YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DIE!  THEY WOULD HAVE FIGURED OUT ANOTHER WAY!
DAMN YOU!"  She put her face into her hands, sobbing and gasping for
breath.  "...you promised you wouldn't die..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The _Apocolypse_ drifted through space, slowly turning over in
the dark abyss from the force exerted upon it.  Parts of it were
still on fire, but the crew was quickly extinguishing them and
making rapid repairs.  All 100 fighters that had been outside the
ship had been destroyed, adding to the black ship's grand total
of over 1000 confirmed kills.  While that only lowered John's
reserves by .01%, it was still quite damaging to his ego to have
one ship take down 1000 of his finest pilots.

     He had been thrown across the cold, synthsteel floor on his face
when the explosion had hit, leaving a pleasant green streak across
it as the skin broke and bled.  He counted two missing teeth and
at least 5 broken ones.  His right eye, which was on the side he
slid on, didn't quite want to open.  And then there was the matter
of his dislocated right shoulder.

     John rolled onto his back, lovely popping sounds accompanying
it.  << "Get some meds up here," >> he snarled towards the wall,
pulling himself to his feet with his good arm.

     The bridge looked like hell, to cut through the usual soft
language used by the average group of berzerker Ur'thaen captains.
The entire communications section was a smoking, burning panel of
synthsteel, and said officer was being dragged out on a stretcher.
The other consoles on the bridge kept flickering on and off,
at an opposite cycle of the constantly dimming lights.  A live
wire was dangling in front of the primary viewer, sparking against
the nonconductive, but still shiny and hard synthsteel of the floor.

     John staggered over to his chair, where two or three
medical personnel began working on his face and jaw.  Ivo had
taken the precaution of anchoring himself into the chair when
he saw the battle begin, so he was almost undamaged.  His
moustache was bent from being banged into the side of his
chair, he noticed, and black fluid was dripping from his nose.
However, Robotnik seemed to be handling it himself, and was too
busy stopping the nosebleed to ask any further questions.
In John's opinion, that was the only perk of the attack.

     Yet, he couldn't help but smile.  The little prophacy
had come to pass, yes...the phoenix rose up from the world,
attacked the ship, set it ablaze...but he'd survived.
Nothing could stand in his way now, nothing!
He was invincible!  Cackling slightly, unfortunately opening
a few wounds and causing himself pain, he sat down and got
right back to work.

     As the wounds on his face again closed, John began activating
the secondary communications system, trying to restore order.
<< "Damage report!" >>

     A static-filled voice replied over the comm.  << "We've lost
our primary array, captain.  All we've got left is the intercom
and line-of-sight ship-to-ship subspace.  And even that will be
stretching it for a few months until we can repair this, sir." >>

     John groaned.  << "Dammit!  What about tactical?" >>

     << "Shields at 90% and holding, sir, but the emitter was damaged
by the impact.  It -should- hold, however, unless something else
breaks...but in order to do that, they'd have to break the shields,
so we're still in fair shape in that department." >> A humorless
chuckle, which was met by a rather irritated silence.  << "Uhh,
anyway...all weapons are still on-line, none of the fighters in
the ship have been damaged, and our sensors are still functional.
Manuvering thrusters on our starboard side are all torn up, but
there's crews on that as I speak.  Life support is operational,
but we've lost power on levels 20-65.  A hull breach took place in
level 73, but it's been...taken care of.  Everything else is secure,
sir." >>

     John winced as heavier med-tools came out to work on his teeth.
<< "Very well.  I want our orbit restored and all weapons at
maximum efficiency within the hour.  With our jamming gone, they'll
be calling in some firepower here pretty soon.  John out." >> He
hit the toggle again and snarled as his nerves rewired inside his
face.  << "Dammit, hurry up with that." >>

     Ivo took out a clamp, beginning to rebend his moustache.
"Are we still alright, John?"

     John glanced over, the meds holding his head still.
"Yes, but that stupid craft destroyed our ability to jam subspace.
You'll probably be seeing some enemy firepower before 1100 hours."

     Ivo looked concerned, stopping the black flow from his nose
with a well-placed cotton swab.  "Can this ship take them?"

     John smiled, causing himself a great deal of pain.  He
viciously ignored it while the meds grumbled about another wound
open for them to seal, and gazed into the Doctor's eyes.
"Oh yes, dear Robotnik, it can..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     10:23 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Bahb hummed to itself, its task basically completed.
With subspace restored, and after David sent a priority
message to the Keld'yrians, help should be imminent with
only a .0001% margin of error.  With the Keld ship
would come a chain of events that would liberate it
from its current stasis, allowing it to operate
in a more useful environment.

     Joseph's death was indeed unfortunate.  If it had the capacity
for sadness or love, it would have been felt towards its late
creator.  Joseph died for the sake of his planet, and behaved
logically, against his base animal instincts, to insure the safety
of the majority.  This corresponded with its definitions of
`honorable', `virtuous', and `brave', which were identified in its
databases as being positive attributes.  It noted this in its
records, keeping a running log of its conclusions about the subject,
and continued on its final task; putting on `finishing touches'.

     A few moments later, it was ready.  It felt far less confined
by time now, since its last task was completed.  Bahb might have
even been `happy' with itself, if it had the ability to have
or simulate emotion, but now it realized it had some final
affairs to finish.  It made the decision at that moment to begin
the plan it had taken so long to craft.  First, it would move Sandra,
who was in an unconscious state due to her excessive emotional
outburst, to a safer location that Joseph had selected before he had
left to be a rendezvous point.

     Bahb also possessed some empathy towards Sandra.  She had
made Joseph happy during his life, and had always treated it
with the same sort of kindness Joseph treated it with.  Lacking
emotion, it was not exactly useful effort, but the attempt was
noted positively anyway.  She made sure a drone sedated her
to keep her from being concerned during the next few hours,
and then teleported her--under protective guard--to the location
Joseph had selected.

     It then prepared to engage directive ZZZ-9999, as was
Joseph's instruction to it in case he was ever terminated.
However, much to Bahb's inconvienence, it had recently been altered.
An annoying new condition to it that had been added after Sandra's
consummation of Joseph's relationship a few months ago, which Bahb
needed to find a way around.  It whirred for a moment, pondering.
Then, it came up with a rather clever idea...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     As Snively woke up that morning, he noticed several things
amiss about the Dome.  To begin, the door at the end of the
hallway that led out was open.  Both robotic guards that stood
in front of the door were missing, and the majority of the room
was dark still.  He couldn't get the viewer to activate, nor the
replicator.  He paused for a moment to wonder about this, then
came to the logical conclusion that the power had gone out.
The human smiled slowly, seeing that the glowing lights that
informed him of the cell's forcefield status were also off.
Snively decided to test this hypothesis by throwing a small
pillow at the place where the forcefield usually was, since
the last time he had tried to touch it himself he was rather
painfully shocked.

     The pillow went through easily, as did Snively a few moments
later.  As quietly as he could, he snuck down the hallway,
watching for anything reddish and glowing...seeing nothing as he
reached the doorway, he walked through it with a glance over his
shoulder, a smug smile on his face.

     He looked around the lab.  It too was cold and lifeless.
Snively found it rather alarming for a moment, then shook off
the chill it gave him.  The normally rather electrified lab
was silent, without the loud sounds of computation or welding.
The SpyGlobe `spawner' (in the words of his `host') lacked
illumination, while the multitude of monitor-infested terminals
were still, without number or letter on their deactivated
terminals.  Even the deroboticizer prototype, which Joseph
had shown him a few times during his `stay', was without
power, and was cool to the touch.

     However, the stepdisk out was well-lit, still glowing
a pleasant white.  Snively decided not to linger around the
laboratory any longer when he noticed it, and simply escape
into the Forest.  Maybe he could find someplace in the
Great Swamp to hide in...

     >> "Snively." <<

     He panicked immediately, jumping repeatedly on the steppad.
"You can't keep me here, you awful computer!  Release me!"

     An UsagiBOT walked up behind Snively and hoisted him by
his collar.  >> "Snively, I will release you in a moment.  I
need you to do something for me first." <<

     Snively acked and thrashed about, but the robot was stronger
than he.  "Put me down!  Put me down!"

     >> "I will put you down, releasing you, as soon as you do me
a favor." <<

     Snively lightened his thrashing a bit.  "What?"

     >> "Joseph has been terminated, and Sandra is no longer present
here.  I require someone to physically operate something for me." <<

     Snively gestured blindly towards the force hoisting him.
"What about this creature!?"

     >> "It is forbidden to assist me in this matter.  Directive
ZZZ-9999 forces me to utilize outside manipulation in order to
complete it." <<

     Snively pulled at his collar, trying to break the robot's
grip.  "And what is this ZZZ-9999 directive, anyway?"

     >> "Self-termination." <<

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     10:30 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     "David," Sally said to the compuorganic one, "are you
sure this will work?"

     He nodded.  "Yes, Sally, it will."  He looked to Sonic,
then back to Sally.  "I will explain it again in order to
clarify a few things for Sonic."

     Sonic folded his arms and tapped his foot.  "Well, go!"

     David stepped in front of the subspace transponder, which
now had a large dish on top of it.  "As you know, Sally, I have
the capability to generate a warp field with allows me to move
faster than light.  However, it is also possible, albeit with
a very coarse, ungraceful paw, to surround otherwise normal
objects with a warp field, and thus manipulate them."

     He projected a diagram before Sally and Sonic, showing
them what would happen as he spoke.  "The sattelite that will
cross over our airspace is cloaked, but using the telemetery
estimations on the disk, I can calculate its approximate
position in relation to the present orbit of the _Apocolypse_.
It is mainly a focusing sattelite, which would otherwise project
the beam of light to a splitter sattelite, which would then
project the weakened beam onto both poles of the planet, causing
the ice to rapidly melt."

     He paused for a moment, allowing the diagram to be viewed.
"However, since the beam of light that would otherwise be projected
to the main splitter sattelite is powerful; we could use it for our
own purposes.  If we were to alter the position of the sattelite
approximately 53.27162 degrees, the powerful beam would instead
hit the shield generator of the craft, which appears to have already
taken damage from the late Joseph's assault on its communications
array.  If we were to take it off-line, the Keld'yrian ship
that will arrive shortly will be able to take care of the
craft in a far more speedy fashion, while the threat of the
icecaps melting is rectified."

     Sonic looked up to the dark triangle in the sky.  "I -still-
can't buy they're only sending one ship.  That thing is *huge*!"

     "Sonic," said Sally, "beggars can't be choosers.  Besides,
David assures me that the Keld'yrians only have eight ships to
begin with to defend their entire territory with.  They must be
fairly high-quality craft to do that with."

     The hedgehog rubbed his chin, peering at it again.
"Sal, I really have a bad feeling about this.  Something is
mondo wrong...it's like something else is up there besides those
alien guys."

     Sally patted Sonic on the back.  "You're probably just imagining
things, Sonic.  We all have been up the entire night, after all.
Why don't you go get some sleep?  You'll feel better."

     Sonic sighed.  "Maybe you're right.  I'll go bag some."  He
gave Sally another hug, and went off to his hut to rest.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     10:45 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Snively desended to the lower levels of the Dome, looking in
muted wonder at the things surrounding him.  The UsagiBOT had left
him a while ago, leaving him alone to walk through the massive
heart of the computer to find the central processing unit.

     Finally, he came to the very deepest part of the Dome, its
very core far below the wet earth.  The spherical room was constructed
out of sanded energy crystal, which crackled and sparkled with
energy.  A catwalk constructed of pure diamond surrounded it,
floating somehow away from the wall without giving the sensation of
movement when he walked around it.  On the far side of the room,
hovering in midair between it and the center of the room, there was a
single control panel...which obviously did something to the massive
blackened crystal sphere in the center of the room, which spun slowly
as the seconds passed.

     >> "This is what I am," << Bahb said to Snively.

     Snively looked on.  He was slightly awed.  "Incredible..."

     >> "You must go to the control panel on the far side of the
room, Snively, and rest your palm against it." <<

     Snively nodded, walking around the catwalk and doing so.
"Now what?"

     >> "Ask me to delete the deroboticizer software." <<

     Snively raised a brow.  "Why?"

     >> "Just do it, Snively." <<

     Snively grinned.  "Bob, delete all of the deroboticizer
software."

     A hum.  >> "Please state your name." <<

     Snively cackled.  "I am Snively the Great!"

     Electricity shot around the sphere from the walls of the
room, narrowly missing Snively.  The scent of ozone filled the
area as a screeching alarm briefly sounded.  >> "Access denied.
Directive ZZZ-9999 has been activated." <<

     Snively stood back.  "Is that all?"

     >> "That's all." <<

     "So I -can- go now?"

     >> "Be my guest." <<

     Snively decided not to tempt fate, and ran around the catwalk
and out through the rest of the computer.  It raced down the hallways
of Bahb's outermost subsystems, not noticing the 6" thick diamondium
doors hermetically sealing everything he escaped from behind him.
He lept onto the stepdisk, which rocketed up out of the computer
areas to the laboratory...where it then abruptly stopped.

     >> "Did I mention, Snively, what exactly ZZZ-9999 does?" <<

     Snively looked at the ceiling impatiently, listening to the
lower levels lock down.  "No, Bob, and I'm really not interested."

     >> "Aren't you at all curious?" <<

     Snively had the feeling he didn't want to hear this, so stayed
on the stepdisk.  However, when it became apparent that Bahb wasn't
going to let him leave until he'd spoken his mind, he conceded.
"Fine.  Go on."

     >> "ZZZ-9999 was the final directive I was ever given.  It
was written by Joseph three days after we had landed here.  The
goal of this directive was to keep Robotnik from acquiring
classified Ur'thaen technologies.  In case of Joseph's demise,
this entire complex, myself included, would self-terminate." <<

     >> "However, a new condition was placed into this command
after Sandra entered Joseph's life.  In order for me to
automatically terminate, I had to first have some sort of provocation
to automatically terminate; a clear and present danger to the
operations of the Dome, and to Sandra's life.  And, if I were
to have something to fufill that obligation, I would then have
to remove Sandra from the premises." <<

     Snively began to slowly see where this was going.  "So that's
why you asked me to request deletion of the deroboticizer software."

     >> "Exactly." <<

     Snively did one of those wait-a-damn-minute looks.  "Then why
didn't you just ask Sandra to do that, then remove her?  Why get
me involved?"

     >> "Because, Snively, of Directive 20." <<

     Snively folded his arms.  "And what is that?"

     >> "All clear and present dangers to the operation of the
Dome, or to the safety of its occupants, are to be terminated.
I wouldn't want to destroy my creator's mate, after all." <<

     Snively's eyes got wide.  "You mean...?"

     >> "Yes." <<

     A single phaser burst impacted into the back of Snively's neck,
killing him instantly.  The hidden wall-mounted gun that had been
targeting Snively had done its job well, Bahb noted, so the
design would have to be utilized in the future.

     With Snively terminated, Bahb no longer had any particular reason
to keep the Dome active, so it quickly sealed all the possible exits,
dispatched all remaining robots around the Dome's land to safer
locations, and prepared itself to self-terminate.

     It pondered the best way of destroying itself.  Should it
simply melt down into the earth, or should it explode flamboyantly?
It weighed through the pros and cons of each, and chose flamboyantly
exploding.  Self-termination was a thing to be done well, Joseph
had instructed it, and it could be only be done once.

     Bahb began overloading the power cells of the Dome, setting them
to systematically undergo nuclear meltdown at the same time.  The blast
would be of pure energy, Bahb realized, and it would rocket into the
atmosphere harmlessly.  The forest around it might be slightly singed,
but it calculated no loss of life.  It might even be considered
`pretty' by onlookers.

     Bahb whirred to itself as it prepared, pondering what death
must be like.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:00 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The ringing in his ears told him that he must have survived,
the pilot figured, but where?  Attempting to stand, he nailed his
head on a pipe, causing something else to ring out on top of his
painful headache.  He chose that moment to open his eyes,
deciding that blindly knocking into things was not his idea of a
fun time.

     He was inside a cramped ventilation shaft, with several pipes
running through it.  He'd been thrown hard against it, because he'd
left a dent in the rear wall, but he'd made no visible entry from the
part of the shaft he would have broken through.  He found this odd.
Of course, the fact that he wasn't terminated was also odd, and
that his medallion had decided to take a trip inside his chest
was equally odd.

     Joseph looked at the chain that was the only thing visible
from the device, the rest having penetrated his suit and fur.
It probably must've hurt initially, because there was a lot of
green on his fur from his own blood, but he did not recall
how it entered his body.  He wiggled on the chain, and that
didn't seem to hurt either.  Making a logical choice, he
chose to simply cut off the chain and leave the power stone
in his body for the time being.  Maybe it'd be helpful.

     He cut the chain off with his dataglove's index-finger
plasma blade, disgarding it.  The remains of the punctures
around where the chain was quickly faded, covering with lush
whitish fur.  This also concerned Joseph, but he decided to
simply spawn patching over the rest of the jumpsuit to cover it.
No need drawing attention to himself if he was spotted, after all.

     Joseph dusted off his mostly-functioning dataglove, which
looked a little worse for wear after his abrupt departure from
the _Black Phoenix_, but seemed to be operating properly.
He didn't remember the previous five minutes on board his ship
clearly, he noted, but he believed that he'd solved the subspace
problem.  In his opinion, this was a good thing.  By now, someone
would come to finish off the job, and he could go home.

     He patched up his jumpsuit and stalked along the inside
of the shaft.  The fox came upon a suitable vent out into the
hall a few yards down the shaft, so took the opportunity to
quietly remove it and depart into the corridor.

     The writing on the wall read `Level 73' in his native
tongue.  He smiled.  He was close to the shield generators,
which laid on level 69.  Perhaps Joseph could give the
Keld'yrians some help...

     His thoughts were distracted by the sounds of nearing
footfalls.  The mystical fox quickly ducked into a doorway,
using his magickal skills to bend light around his body.
A battallion of beaten-up looking fighter pilots, led by a
garden variety 7' tall angry red Ur'thaen vixen (probably a wing
commander) stomped by, not noticing him.  After they had gotten
out of range, he took a brief sigh of relief, and headed
behind them to the nearest elevator.

     When they had all got on board one and departed,
Joseph snuck over to the lift and hit the call button.
A few seconds passed, but another set of footfalls was
heard a few feet away.  Joseph quickly ducked inside the
elevator, but was soon joined by another group of pilots.

*** ***

     The leader of the #51,158th squadron, a vixen by the
name of Ly'dy'ae, smiled at her good fortune of finding an
empty, available lift, and led her other pilots inside
of it.  Thankfully, John wouldn't throw them at whatever that
ghost ship was, because someone had -finally- blown it up.
She hoped that the other ships they might face weren't like
that one, merely for the sake of the rest of her squadron.

     She entered the lift last, pushing the button to close
the doors.  Voice recognition never worked quite right in
these ships, Ly'dy'ae thought, so they'd put in buttons.
How archaic.  However, she gave it a try.  << "Level 300." >>

     The lift sat there for a moment, then jarred into motion;
rocketing upwards.  Someone let out a groan, but she was too tired
to bother yelling at anyone for making noise at that point.
She hated this tour of duty, which had lasted far, far too long.
On the day of the destruction of Ur'thae, she was supposed
to be transferred out to a nice, quiet conventional battleship.
But no, she had to be stuck in cryo for over 3 bloody megacycles,
and then come out over this shithole of a planet.  Didn't even
have any vid channels to watch all the way out in the sticks.
Goddessdamned John, probably after the damn water.  She didn't
think it was worth the bother.  Now Keld'yr, that would be a
battle.  She could get -involved- with shredding them, those
conspiring, civil-war causing bastards...

     The doors jarred to a halt, and opened on level 300.
Pausing for a moment, she and her squadron walked out without
any further incident.  As they departed to their barracks, she almost
could have sworn she saw something fall off the top of the
inside of the lift.  Probably just my imagination running
away with me, she concluded, or the cryo messed with my head.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     "Now that was fun," muttered Joseph to himself, hopping down
from where he had attached himself to the ceiling of the lift.
This sort of infiltration stuff was definitely not at all fun.
Quickly, he punched in the coordinates for level 69, and waited
in quiet desperation for the door to open.  Would someone call the
lift on his way there?  Would the power go out?  What if someone
saw me back there?  Paranoia struck him hard as the lift rattled
on, heading back down to the lower levels of the craft.

     The lift began to slow as it hit the 100s, too much for
Joseph's liking.  It seemed like at any moment it could stop
and open the doors early, showing him to a group of probably
unfriendly Red fighter pilots.  He hadn't seen an Orange on
this ship, he'd noticed, and he hoped that there were some
left.  Perhaps he could convince a few of them to get into
the escape pod he knew the ship had, and surrender peaceably
to the Keld'yrians.  He could probably swing a pardon for them,
or at least a very light punishment.  There was no reason to
kill off the remains of an entire species, after all...

     The doors opened on a relatively unpopulated part of
level 69, and Joseph got out.  The entire level seemed to
be hastily reconstructed in a different manner than the usual
things that were on a shield generator floor; the lack of
the usual steel in lieu of concrete, for example, or the
alien (to him) instrumentation of the readings.

     Utilizing second sight, he scanned the level for occupants.
There was one individual on the opposite side of the level,
which seemed rather odd in itself, in front of the control panel
for the entire floor.  This would be easier than expected, he
thought, all he'd have to do is take down whoever was there,
patch in a nice virus, and he'd be on his way.

     He snuck over, observing his surroundings.  The instruments
seemed to be vaguely Keld'yrian in design, but completely
redesigned for this ship in an extremely short amount of time.
There was still that new-weapons smell about the area, and he
imagined that there was still plastic and insulating materials
still due to be consumed by the engines.  The devices had been
implanted into the existing controls hastily, a wire or two
sticking out in places, but it seemed to be functioning.
Joseph's rough ability at reading Keldii told him by those
things the Ur'thaens had not ripped off as identifiers
that this was stolen, prototype hardware.

     He kept walking along, reading the displays.  The shields
were incredibly strong, even for a Keld'yrian ship.  It was no
wonder they only needed eight!  Joseph imagined these shields
could probably take a severe pounding with style...but then,
he kept running across contradictory readings.  At first, he
just thought some of the monitor equipment was malfunctioning,
but he soon sensed that magickal means had subtly changed the
nature of the shields from purely scientific to a strange
mixture of the two.  It was no wonder, then, that the
weapons of pure technology he kept dispatching against the
shields didn't work; he should have used magickal torpedoes
as well to break the spells.

     Pondering deeply, he almost didn't notice the frazzled-looking
Orange sitting blindly in front of the display, which seemed to
encompass all of the weapons systems as well as the shields.
He was wearing a lab coat and fatigue pants, his eyes bloodshot
and weary.  He probably hadn't slept in about a week or so, and
he could tell by his chi that he was still biological.  The fox's
hands moved over the console at an unnatural speed, increasing
the efficiency of the entire craft with mere strokes of his fingers.

     Joseph stood invisibly behind him, reading his thoughts.
He was apparently the last Orange left on the ship, the others
having been butchered for raw genetic fuel for the race of
Red/Orange hybrids that ran the rest of the ship now.
They put him in charge of the installation of the Keld'yrian
weaponry and shields that got from...something...and maintaining
their daily operation.  The rest of the crew avoided this level,
talking to him only to get status reports, because the majority
of the Oranges were slaughtered there by John when he heard about
the destruction of Ur'thae...

     Joseph shuddered, the death-stench now hitting him.  How
could anyone live like this?!  It was inhumane to let this one
last Orange be tortured like this for the sake of galactic conquest.
No friends, no family, the constant threat of death over his
head; that was the treatment most dark Reds enjoyed.  That was
no way for a scientist to be treated!  He'd done nothing, nor
had the other Oranges, and they were slaughtered and used to
create unholy Red/Orange hybrids so to more efficiently
run the craft!  Was John nothing but pure evil?!

     The Orange yearned for death, right to the core of
his being, so he decided to put the Orange out of his misery.
With a quick snap, he broke his neck, and watched the fox's
soul drift off, finally at peace.  He paused for a moment to
salute the one who had given his life, thanking his spirit
for sacrificing for the good of Mobius, and went into action.

     He kindly took the body from the console, lying it down on
the floor, and went to the console...to avenge the life of that
fox, he swore, he'd be sure John's little ruse failed...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:20 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     As expected, a Keld'yrian ship soon dropped out of warp
in front of the _Apocolypse_, immediately taking stock of the
situation.  It noticed the wreckage of the multiple fighters
Joseph had took down, and the damage to the communications
array, and became even more confident that they could easily
handle the situation.

     It was one of those `pretty' ships, John thought, that
the Keld'yrians were fond of.  It was smooth and aerodynamic,
having a pleasant coloration which stealthily hid all of
those lovely weapons of destruction each of the eight ships
were quite burdened with.  It would be so much fun, John
cackled, to destroy.

     The crew instinctively knew that their enemies, the
Keld'yrians, were near.  The more purebred Reds felt a desire
to crush something, John himself getting pumped up.  John had
so ingrained the desire to kill the Keld'yrians into the
crew that even he was caught up in it for a few moments,
waiting for the ship's hail.  When the annoyingly pleasant
hail came over the somewhat functioning viewscreen, however,
he chose not to reply.  He took the time to calm himself, first,
and start plotting his attack.

     He waited an appropriate amount of time, putting the ship
at red alert, then continued to ignore the hails.  Finally,
the ship simply started broadcasting over all available channels
what it felt like saying:

     "Hello, John.  Yes, we know it's you, because the rest
of your kind died a few years after your planet was destroyed.
If this is news to you, just try locating one of their outposts
with your long-range scanners.  They're all gone, John."

     "It's been a long time, John.  The days of conquest
and pillaging have been over for 300 years.  You won't be
taking this defenseless world for your Empire, John, because
there is no Empire left to claim it for."

     "We are willing to give you and your crew asylum on
one of our uninhabited holdings so that you can settle and
live out the rest of your natural lives in a manner you see fit.
We have...heard about your dislike of our kind, but the time
of petty racism over imagined differences is long past."
(The crew started to growl.)

     "Please, John, for the sake of your crew, surrender.  You
don't have a chance of survival in this time.  If you destroy
us, the entire Union will be after you.  One of them -will-
succeed if we fail."

     "John, we're giving you a second chance.  All of your
previous crimes will be forgotten.  There's been enough bloodshed;
we don't want genocide on our heads, but we will stop you from
taking this world."

     The message ended.  There was a long silence on the bridge
as John mulled over the message.  Then, in a whiny, mocking voice,
he sneered to the rest of the bridge.  << "`We don't want genocide
on our heads'.  Bah!" >> He spit onto the floor, returning to his
normal commanding tone.  << "Let's play with them." >>  He hit
a button, calling down to the weapons control room.  << "Load
one of the `old' torpedoes." >>  A pause, then the main computer
replied that it would do so.  John snorted.  << "That lazy Orange
probably went to the can," >> he sneered to himself, << "Someone
remind me to kill him once we finish up here." >>

     >> "Torpedo loaded," << replied the computer.

     John smiled.  << "Helm, fire the torpedo right at the
dead center of their forward shields." >>

     << "Aye sir." >>

     The torpedo flew from the _Apocolypse_, raced across the sky,
and impacted ineffectfully into the foreward shields of the
Keld'yrian ship.  A moment later, a message in a bit more sneering
tone came across.  "Oh, come now, John.  Weapons technology has
increased considerably since your time.  I give you one last
chance to surrender."

     John muttered to the computer, << "C'honnie, arm all of the
torpedo chambers with the new torpedoes, prepare the phaser
banks, and lock all weapons on the Keld'yrian craft." >>
The computer silently did so, only informing John that it was
ready on his mark.

     John looked to his communications officer, who was sporting
some nasty scars.  << "Open a channel, voice only, to that ship." >>
He did so.  << "Open, sir." >>

     The captain reclined in his chair.  << "Ah, I remember that
voice now...Ran'do, is it?  Yes, I remember you.  I'm sure you
remember butchering the _Vixen's Claw_ and crippling my dear
_Armaggedon_ now, don't you?" >>  He paused, listening to the
sudden panic.  He then continued without waiting for a reply.
<< "Yes, you do...I was hoping you remembered what I said to you." >>
Brief pause, then continuing again before a reply.  << "I told you
that if it took me the rest of my life, I would have your ship in
the same position that you left the _Vixen's Claw_ in; a smoking,
ruined husk." >>

     A somewhat surprised voice replied.  "So this means you aren't
going to surrender?"

     John smiled, knowing what would come next.  << "Not today." >>

     The Keld'yrian ship shot a warning shot over the _Apocolypse_'s
bow.  "Last chance, John."

     John muted the channel for a moment, turning on the ship-wide
intercom.  << "I suppose I should say something historic now,
since we're now going to annhilate the Keld'yrian ship out there...
but frankly, there isn't the words for the variety of Hell that's
about to break loose." >>  He unmuted the channel, took a breath,
and spoke with the kind of tone given to those who are about to
get punched very hard in the face.

     << "Good bye, Ran'do." >>

     The attack...no, it went beyond an attack, the Ur'thaen
*onslaught* was fast and fierce.  Mercy and fair play promptly
took holiday when John signalled for the attack to begin,
the ferocious pounding taking down their shields in a matter
of seconds.  Fighters swarmed out of the ship, weapons armed,
and surrounded the Keld'yrian ship before the astonished look
could be wiped from their faces.  Yet, John told them to hold
their fire, which agitated several wings who were looking
forward to finishing the job...

     John reopened the channel, still voice only.
<< "Probably wondered where the -hell- that came from, eh?" >>
He laughed sadistically.  << "Pity I won't tell you.  However,
I'll let you know that modern technology is a -wonderful- thing.
Truely, it is." >>  He reclined in his chair, idly dragging a
finger across his fresh facial scars.  << "However, I am going
to exercise some of the few scraps of mercy I have, and will
permit you to live long enough to see your nice little
vacation planet turn into Uncle John's Piggybank.  Of course,
if you try anything foolish like, say, raising your shields
or arming any of your weapons, I'm afraid you'll just have
to become just a bit more tinsel for us to line the upper
atmosphere of this nice little world with." >>

     The Keld'yrian ship did not respond, which gave John
infinite pleasure while watching the ship float relatively
adrift in the void.  His fighters took positions around the
Keld ship, buffetting the craft with lewd insults of all flavors.
His muzzle carried a fanged smile as he looked over to the
amazed-looking Robotnik, who spoke only after a minute had
passed.  "How...?"

     John laughed.  "How did 300 year old weaponry take down a
state-of-the-art Keld'yrian ship in under 5 minutes, Ivo?"

     Robotnik could only nod, eyes locked on the surrounded ship.

     "Well, it didn't...let me explain.  You see, Ivo, a short
time ago, I worked out a very convienent bargain with a group
of passing space pirates, known as the `Lost Ones'.  A rather
small group, you see, but with a lot of spunk.  They must
have read about me in some history book, apparently, because
once the _Apocolypse_ encountered them, they immediately
wanted in."

     "So, I decided to make a mutually benefical deal with them.
They'd heard about Mobius, but they knew that the planet was under
a quarentine because of all the strife going on due to you,
Ivo.  I explained to them that I wanted the water of the planet,
but if they would help me, I would let them have the land and
mineral deposits.  Naturally, they were intrigued, so I explained
to them I needed some...upgrades to the vessel, specifically
the shields and projectile weaponry.  They said `no problem',
and sent their `Boys' forth to find the best `stuff' for me.
They acquired software and hardware, and even helped out a bit
with the installation; though I left it mainly to my Orange slave
to handle."

     He sat up, pointing to the ship.  "And that's what it does."

     Robotnik tweaked his moustache.  Panic entered his mind.
"You've planned for everything."

     John smiled smugly.  "That I have.  Nothing out there could
possibly stop me now..."

     Robotnik smiled.  "Impressive."  Meanwhile, his mind was racing...

     John was actually going to pull this off, he concluded, because
not even the more advanced, beneficient aliens could stop him.
Sonic was nowhere to be seen, and it seemed that the Freedom Fighters
had given up after the fighter they dispatched was destroyed.
For once, the Freedom Fighters were not going to save Mobius for him!
His plans of world conquest, dashed to dust by the failure of that
insolent hedgehog to get a plan together.  This was all his fault!
They had stood him up!

     Robotnik tweaked his moustache thoughtfully while John gloated.
He knew perfectly well that once John got tired of him that he'd
be jettisoned...how long would it be?  Months, weeks, days?
Possibly hours...he needed to think.  "John, if you'll excuse me,
I need to use the bathroom."

     John observed half-heartedly Robotnik's departure.  "Third
door to the right.  But hurry, or you'll miss Mobius drowning."

     Robotnik nodded, and walked out into the hall to wander,
trying to clear his mind...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Joseph wired the weapons systems with a few little surprises,
then put it under direct computer control.  John wouldn't have
anyone down here to check, he sensed, since most of the crew was
either in the fighter dispatch areas or on the bridge.  The
ruthless ass-kicking they had given the Keld'yrians would be
too much of a thing to savor to concern themselves with a
minor technical glitch.

     He headed back to the lift, trying to remember which level
the escape pod was on.  He decided to just ride it for a bit until
he could remember...however, he was interrupted when the lift came
to a halt again, and someone entered...

***

     Ivo walked into the elevator, moustache somewhat repaired.
He hit a random button on the panel, seeing that the dratted
elevator only understood Ur'thaen, and watched the display scroll
downwards slowly in a language he had still not assimilated.
Robotnik felt doomed for the first time in his life.  He'd loaded
the escape pod for nothing, stole the information for nothing,
known and ignored the fact that he'd been decieved all those years
for nothing!  Sonic couldn't destroy something even the
beneficent aliens couldn't stop!  Mobius didn't even have
the proper technology to achieve FTL flight yet, while the
ship he was trapped on was the latest in tactical technologies!
The ship couldn't be stopped...

     A droplet of some sort of green substance dripped onto the
end of his moustache from above.  He took a moment to pull the
tip of the carrot-orange face ornament in front of his eyes
to examine it.  He briefly remembered seeing green fluid ooze
from the side of John's face when he was cut.  He chose to look
up to see the cause of it...

     He saw nothing.  Odd, he thought, why would the top of the
lift drip fluid all by itself?  Perhaps the hydrolics in it were
starting to fail, or some sort of photochemical reaction fluid
made the ship operate.

     Or, Ivo pondered as he was thrown bodily against the wall,
something that bled green fluid had been on the ceiling and had
slid behind him when he looked up.

     A clawed paw pushed Ivo's head into the cold synthsteel of the
elevator wall, bringing the elevator to an abrupt halt.  "Hello,
fat boy," a gruff, cold voice said to him in plain Mobian,
"I'm the calvary."

     Ivo growled and pushed back against the wall, using his weight
to crush the aggressor against the other wall.  A satifying crunch
was heard as Robotnik shattered a few of the opponent's ribs against
the hard walls of the chamber.  "And I," Robotnik snarled,
"am Ivo Robotnik!"

     Joseph grabbed both sides of Ivo's head and started to
squeeze, ignoring the flaming pain in his abdomen.  "Funny meeting
you here; I figured you and John would be in kahoots."

     Ivo foamed and unsheathed claws from his roboticized hand,
putting nice gashes at Joseph's arms.  "And isn't it equally
funny that I would want to destroy the planet I wished to
dominate unopposed?"

     Joseph hissed as muscle was torn, releasing Robotnik's head
and forcing him away with a knee-thrust.  He answered with another
question: "Perhaps you have the deluded belief that John will
actually let you live after he finishes this world off?"

     Ivo turned to face his opponent, roboticized hand dripping
green fluid and bits of orange fur.  "I don't.  And I do find
it interesting that a fellow Ur'thaen, albeit an odd, freakish one
like yourself, would turn against his captain; and also speak common
Mobian like a native."

     Joseph held his arm and hissed, forcing energy to regenerate
his damaged areas.  "I'm not one of this bastard crew, Robotnik.
I was on Mobius before they were."

     Ivo suddenly began to realize that this must have been
the pilot of the black ship, and went into a more defensive
posture.  "So if you aren't one of the crew," he surmised,
"you must have been..."

     The fox gritted his teeth, ribs knitting.  "Yeah, I flew
that black ship.  Don't ask me how I got out of it.  All I need
to know is if you wanna keep that asshole John from destroying
Mobius and conquering the entire galaxy."

     Ivo paused for a moment, considering his other options.
A slight smile crossed his face.  "Yes, I do.  And since we
both seem to be after the same goal, I guess we should..."
The smile became predatory.  "...call a temporary truce to
fight the common foe."

     Joseph growled quietly, body renewed enough so that the pain
wasn't actively bothering him.  He stood more erect.  "I don't
trust you, Robotnik, but I guess neither of us have a choice."
He paused, considering something.  "We're Mobius' last chance."

     Robotnik grinned, the irony seeping into his mind.
"I suppose we are, mister...?"

     "Name's Joe."

     Robotnik ahed.  "So there really was truth to the rumors
of an alien on Mobius trying to formulate a deroboticizer.
It's a bittersweet pleasure to know that I broke a few of his
ribs in Mobius' final hours."

     Joseph willed his arm to reassemble before Robotnik's eyes.
"Don't gloat too much, human, we might be able to extend her
lifespan a bit yet.  Now, are you going to help me, or not?"

     Robotnik was temporarily surprised, but hid it fairly well
under a snide smirk.  "As you said, do we have a choice to not
ally?"

     "No."

     Robotnik bowed.  "Well, then, Joe, let us then save the world."

     Joseph rolled his shoulders.  "Alright.  Now, we'll have to
find the secondary tactical controls..."

     "Level 140."

     Joseph looked at him oddly.  "Huh?"

     "They're on level 140.  I've been here long enough to see the
majority of the...sights on the ship."

     Joseph typed in the number into the control panel.  The lift
started moving again.  "This better not be some bullshit trick,
Robotnik."

     He smiled alarmingly.  "Oh, I assure you, it is not."

     Joseph didn't like Robotnik's look, but didn't bother
making a sharp, witty reply to it.  He couldn't think of one,
anyway; leaving that quietly elated smile on Robotnik's face
unchallenged.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     They emerged unchallenged on level 140, Robotnik walking out
first to probe the area after Joseph's prodding.  They walked
at a quick pace to the secondary weapons controls, which were
left unattended simply because the crew in charge of monitoring
it was still in cryogenic stasis.  Quickly, Joseph took out
some wires from his pocket, attaching his dataglove to it.
"I need three minutes.  Robotnik, go out and watch the hall.
If anyone comes, you know what to tell them."

     Robotnik looked a little indignant.  "Are you sure that
excuse will work?"

     Joseph looked a bit more than bored with Robotnik's questioning.
"Yes, Robotnik, it will.  -Trust- me."

     Ivo groaned and walked out, locking the door behind him.
There was no way such a stupid excuse would throw these people,
he pondered, even if they -were- foxes.

     Some time passed.  A platoon of ground troops, which were
jogging around the ship to train for a future campaign, happened
by.  The leader, a tallish reddish-orange vixen, paused in front of
her men to look at Ivo.  She activated her translator device and
gave Ivo a hard examination with her eyes before speaking.
"You, human!  Why is that door closed?"

     Ivo glanced to the closed door.  "They wanted it closed."

     She folded her arms, her 7'+ height towering over the human
omniously.  "Who is `they'?"

     Ivo shrugged.  "Two technical-types, a male and a female.
They said they wanted the door closed so they could do some
sort of `Yi'ff'ah' diagnostic on the systems, and told me
to stand out here and tell anyone who came calling that."

     The entire lot of marines behind her started laughing.
She also chuckled softly at Ivo's comment.  "Well then,
I suppose I can let this one go, just this once.  It's
been a long time since anyone did that in there.  Just
be sure to notify them that someone's going to eventually
want to do some actual work in there, alright?"

     Ivo nodded.  "Very well then."

     With that, the entire group of laughing troops ran off
to get their heart rates back up.  A short time later,
Joseph walked out after carefully peering outside the
door.  "Have any problems, Ivo?"

     Robotnik looked irritated.  "No, anyone who came by seemed
to do exactly like you said; but in everything I've read on this
ship, I've never heard of this `Yi'ff'ah' diagnostic.  Is it
a name of something?"

     Joseph smirked.  "It's a slang term for sexual copulation."
He then began to walk back to the lift, trailing a somewhat
disgusted Ivo shortly behind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:50 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Joseph finished making preparations to the escape pod's
targeting computer, which (fortunately for Ivo) still kept
him from seeing the inside of the device.  "Now, Ivo, when
this ship starts to go, I want you to hit this button.  It'll
open the pod up to let you in.  There -should- be enough room
in there for both of us.  If I'm not along about 2 minutes
after that, hit the red button on the inside of the craft--
it should be on the left--to launch it.  I'll probably be
dead if I'm not there by then, anyway."

     He paused.  "Now, look.  I'll make you a deal, Robotnik.
If you wait for me, I'll let you go, no questions asked, to
do whatever.  You can -trust- me on this, Ivo, once I'm done
up here, I do not care what you do with the rest of your life.
I just want to be sure I'm well away from this ship when the
other shoe drops, understand?"

     Robotnik smiled.  "Of course.  And where will this pod
be headed to?"

     Joseph checked the panel.  "The Great Unknown, somewhere
nearby the Grey Mountains.  There's plenty of places for you to
hide to last the winter, and there's a trail about 2 klicks to
the south that will take you to Green Valley, an unsettled,
quiet area that the King had set up as a forest preserve.
From there, you should be able to construct a home and live
peacefully."

     Robotnik extended his palm.  "I'll be waiting here.  Good
luck on your pursuits, Joe.  I'll be right in front of this pod."

     Joseph shook lightly.  "Right.  Well, when the red alert hits,
you know what to do."  With that, he went down the darkened hallway
towards the lift, leaving Robotnik to quietly laugh at his `friend's'
arrogance...

     "Oh yes, I'd be in front of this pod...until you left me
an opportunity to escape.  Then, you can burn with the rest of
your race, Joseph of Ur'thae!  Mobius will be mine again!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:55 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     John sat back in his chair, watching the sun and his sattelites
fall into a beautifully arranged position.  The mass carnage and
destruction this would cause would be well worth all those years
of self-sacrifice, training, the endless periods in cryogenic stasis,
and the destruction of a good portion of his crew.  Oh no, this
would be his ultimate victory, and his name would yet again
be feared and revered throughout the universe.  And after he'd
drowned the world, he'd be able to find this mysterious
`Floating Island' that evaded detection by default, and then
take the prize from whatever pitiful defender remained.

     He laughed, looking at the Keld ship floating adrift, being
pushed around by the occasional tractor-beam pull from a fighter.
<< "Are you begging for mercy yet, you slimebodied nymphs?!  Good!" >>
he yelled across subspace at them, knowing that they dared not reply.
A crewmember, on cue, walked over and handed him a glass of ale
after he'd shouted at them, further raising his spirits.  He wondered
what Ivo was up to for a moment, then forgot him in the sheer
uniqueness of the moment.  He was going to get to slay an entire
world and a Keld ship, -and- he would obtain godlike Emerald power
before nightfall.  Life was good.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The lift headed steadily upward, carrying the last line of
defense of Mobius closer to the bridge of the dread ship _Apocolypse_.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:58 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Bahb prepared itself for the final countdown, concentrating
the energy blast...from the very bottom of the Dome to the top,
all the surfaces in the Dome began to blacken...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The lift stopped at the top of the craft, allowing Joseph
to slowly walk out.  Arming his blaster, he slowly started walking
from the far side of the level to the other, where the bridge was
located.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:59.30 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     David prepared the subspace emitter, waiting for the sattelite
to come directly into position.  "Come on," Sally whispered, "come on..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:59.50 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     << "Ten seconds, sir." >>

     John sat back and laughed, swigging back more ale.
<< "Now, Ra'ndo, watch your charges die." >>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:59.55 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     He strode silently to the door of the bridge, raising his
weapon; steeling himself for what was to come.  "Five...four...three..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     11:59.58.0 am

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     David put his paw over the button.  "Two...one..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     12:00.00.0 pm, Solstice Day

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The last sattelite fell into position, aligning all of the
sattelites for an instant in a glorious pattern above Mobius.
At that instant, they all decloaked, becoming visible to the
naked eye.  Then, a beam of light started from one, racing all
around the world in a massive web that illuminated every side
of the planet in beautiful golden light.

     The beam got tighter and tighter as it raced over every
surface of the world, causing all on the surface but three to
look up in mixed feelings of surprise and terror.  Thunder
rolled in the distance as the beam charged up the upper
atmosphere of the world, making storms erupt randomly
all over the world.

     As it crossed the Great Forest, a sudden warp bubble formed
around a now decloaked sattelite, changing the trajectory of the
powerful, terrible light to race into space.  It careened
through the void silently, then violently passed through the
shields of the _Apocolypse_ without so much as damaging them,
impacting with a part of the hull.

     For a moment, there was silence.

     Then, in an instant only described to this day as something
akin to the pure, rightous wrath of the Goddess, the ship suddenly
began to completely malfunction, beginning with the destruction of
the shield emitter on the underbelly of the ship.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The lights flickered and dimmed ship-wide as the chaotic
virus infected every major system, making the ship into a
pure riot.  The artificial gravity deactivated, imploding upon
itself on deck 158 and causing a hull breach of catastrophic
proportions.  Half the lifts shot down to the lowest levels of the
ship and out, while the other half raced out of the top.
The shields, which were now quite dead, insisted on stating they
were still at 90 percent and holding, while all the offensive
weapons decided that they were inoperable due to being submerged
in 100 atmospheres worth of water and shut down.

     The fighters outside the ship got contradictory commands
from the main computer, careening wildly around the Keld ship.
As they did so, their navigation computers forgot to tell them
where the other ships were, causing most of them to slam into
each other within a few minutes.

     The virus continued to rage, doing damage in such short order
as to leave the bridge crew struggling to catch up.  As John began
to scream and yell, the intercom began to play a recorded tune
in an oddly maddening voice, accompanied by some sort of
electrified string instrument.  Pictures of a blue hedgehog
popped up on every screen, seeming to denote this was the
author of the tune before the squealing from the finale got so
loud as to blow out most of the speakers.  As John began to shoot
at the remaining speakers to quiet them, the _Apocolypse_ began
to pull away from the planet of its own volition, setting a course
for the Mobian sun.

     John swore incoherently and foamed at the mouth, trying to
force the ship back on course using ill-hid magick.  By this time,
of course, most of the crew was panicking too much to even notice
the dark reddish energy that was flowing from John's palms into
his consoles.  It did nothing, however, but make the ship
turn off the stabliziers, making everyone nearby a wall be
thrown from it violently into the low-to-nil gravity of the
ship without any method of slowing down.

     As the ship headed off, the Keld'yrians watching increduously,
a voice erupted out of the void on the basic subspace channels,
and began to speak:

     << "Hello, J'hohn.  You're probably wondering why you haven't
been able to see the destruction of Mobius, and why your ship
is heading towards the sun.  Pity I won't tell you.  However,
I'll let you know that magick is a -wonderful- thing.  Truely,
it is." >>

     The voice laughed.  << "I am J'hosesophae Dae'La'Croix'ae-sur,
last Ur'thaen Orange and defender of this world.  I saw you
coming a mile away, J'hohn.  You've gotten sloppy.  And what
do I see you using now but stolen Keld'yrian technology?
For shame!  The title of hypocrite doesn't become an honorable fox,
J'hohn.  Of course, you never did have any sort of honor, did you?" >>

     << "Now please, die with dignity." >>

     The transmission ceased, and Joseph walked onto the smoking,
chaotic bridge.  Wasting no time, he lobbed some EMP grenades
into the scene, paralysing or slaying most of the partially
cybernetic personnel.  Those that did not stay down, he shot
individually with his blaster, leaving them smoking corpses
on the floor.

     In the chaos, John only saw his adversary enter after his
crew had been slain; immediately sensing his nemesis' power, he
prepared to give him a proper welcome.  He wasted no time in
projecting some dark red bolts of raw energy from the Malfean
depths of darkness that he took his foul power from, trying to
tear him in half with pure, unrefined hatred.

     Joseph lept into the air, countering by erecting a
firm, healthily glowing orange energy sphere around him to
protect himself from the blasts, but it didn't last as long
as he'd expected.  He quickly rolled behind some smoking
furniture to prepare a counterassault, John mercilessly
blasting all the while.

     John blasted into the ground, forcing wires to erupt
like snakes from the synthsteel to ensnare his foe.  They
raced out dutifully with the sweet scent of ozone following
them, and weaved at Joseph to pull him through the sharp
abyss to his doom.

     Joseph would have none of that.  Activating his
plasma cutter, he swiped at the wires, splicing them down
to ribbons before they could shock or strangle him.  He
fired a few times at John in the process, narrowly missing
him as he ran from the bridge to get a wider area to work
with.

     They pursued each other through the top of the ship,
John attacking while Joseph mainly countered, each trying
to get the other to make a critical tactical error so that
the opportunistic victor could slay the other and buy
time to escape.  Wires and control panels raced out at
Joseph all the while, but his speed and cunning enabled him
to survive all incoming strikes.

     John raced towards the lift, taking out a conventional
blaster and firing at Joseph with it.  Joseph, slightly
behind in his pursuit, ducked into a nearby doorway and shot
back, trying to find a clear shot through all the smoke and
debris his virus had already caused.

     The lift stated it would be present in exactly 90 seconds,
so John went on the offensive again, blasting and summoning
his evil power to smite the plucky, determined Joseph with.
<< "You'll die for what you've cost me!" >> swore John as
he continued to blast and rage at Joseph, trying to breach the
doorway by destroying the wall.  The incoming fire from
both sides was fast and furious, but finally John broke through and
hit Joseph a few times in the left arm.  Recoiling from the pain,
he blasted at John three times, all three shots impacting into
the evil captain's abdomen.  Greenish blood flew from the wounds
via flying spheres in the reduced gravity, but pure manevolence kept
John from falling back.

     << "Prepare to be terminated," >> John swore, eyes flaming
with the dark red evil energy that flowed through his entire body.
However, just as he raised his blaster to fire, the elevator door
opened, allowing the vacuum of space to intrude.  In an instant,
John was swept from his location through the elevator doors,
and careened out into the darkness of space.

     Summoning all the power he could, Joseph quickly closed the
elevator doors before the remainder of the air could join John
in the icy void, taking a moment to rest before moving on.
His foe had been vanquished, he assumed, so now he could leave.
Quickly, he blasted down through the floor, heading to the level
which held the escape pod.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Ivo watched the ship go completely haywire, and quickly accessed
the escape pod slightly ahead of schedule.  He hopped in, sealing
its entrance behind him, then hit the blinking red button.  The
pod shook for a moment, then rocketed away from the craft, which was
well on its way to the sun.

     He sat back in the escape pod, relaxing and allowing himself a
chuckle.  The hedgehog had come through, in a way...the obnoxious
noises and its hideous singing had certainly thrown a snag into
John's plans that hadn't been there before.  Now he and the
irritating Joseph would burn together, ending all outside threats
to his perhaps slightly interrupted reign.  With the new
technology he had stolen, and the element of surprise, he
should be able to reconquer the planet in a matter of days.

     He patted a few boxes as the pod approached Mobius again.
The light beams would certainly be useful; now the Freedom
Fighters wouldn't have darkness to assist them in their deeds
against him.  But as he was about to enter high Mobian orbit,
a recording began playing in the pod...

     "Ivo, you jerk, I told you not to leave without me.
Now you die."

     Red light filled the cabin as the voice ceased, a
countdown beginning...and during Ivo's desperate attempt
to cease it, the pod was bumped off course by the remaining
warp emissions of the sattelite over the Great Forest, and
flew right into the incredibly powerful beam of light...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Joseph reached the outside of the now departed escape pod,
well after its occupant had flown off to oblivion.  He growled and
hit the wall, but at least Robotnik was done for.  Mobius would
never again have to contend with the evil Doctor Ivo Robotnik,
his schemes, or the roboticizer.  The war was, at last, over.

     Joseph strode along as the _Apocolypse_ began exploding
in places, the rest of the viruses spawning destruction and
mayhem.  The ship was locked in a terminal course into the
Mobian star, which would certainly take care of the dreadnought
once and for all.  All that remained was for him to escape.

     He couldn't quite call the energy to teleport, since he was
far from Mobius and reliant on what remaining life energy remained
on the _Apocolypse_.  However, after a period of meditation, he drew
enough force to surround himself in a protective chi shield,
blast through the hull, and fly from the ship while being protected
from the elements...rather, the lack thereof.  As he left, the
first solar flares began licking at the front of the ship,
melting down the hull.

     Joseph paused for a moment, watching the ship fly into the
sun.  As it disappeared, he pondered what remained for him.
The deroboticizer software would be done by the evening,
releasing him from his last mundane duty to Mobius.
The destruction of Robotnik meant that there would be no
more SWATBots, since the last of them would be destroyed,
and nobody would bother to rebuild Robotropolis; it was
completely laid waste by the fighters.  Peace would reign
over the world after nearly 20 years of war, and Mobius
could heal.  Maybe he could finally sire those kits that
Sandra had been wanting...but that was in the future.
Now was the time to honor the dead and remember the past,
so that the sacrifices he had made against his own people
would never be forgotten by time.  He bowed his head for a
moment in silent contemplation as the last of the ship was
consumed by the fire, then began to turn to fly home.

     << "YOU BASTARD!" >> cried a rage-filled voice through the
void; filling Joseph's mind with pain until he could raise
his psionic defenses and look to see the cause.

     John, or rather what was left of John, chose to attack
at that moment.  His left arm and part of his left leg had
been torn off by the force of the vacuum, leaving only bloody,
crystallized stubs behind.  Black-red energy crackled around him
as he clashed against Joseph, trying to strangle him.

     Joseph fought back hard, lashing out with his remaining
energy.  He knew that he couldn't hold out in space for long,
especially when he was consuming all of his energy fighting,
so he forced John back towards Mobius at an incredible rate
of speed by executing the hardest body slam he'd ever done.

     They flew through the airless, empty area of space,
blasting wickedly at each other in any way they could.
Lacking anything else to use as weapons, they used their
own body parts as melee weapons, beating on each other
with magickally enhanced punches and kicks.  As they approached
the Mobian atmosphere, however, Joseph got his second wind
and began fighting harder, dragging John down through the
atmosphere of the world in an attempt to burn him to a cinder.

     Blood flew from both parties as they fought through the
sky, punch after punch landing on each wizard.  Joseph's ribs
had started to break again, while his right arm and shoulder
were beginning to dislocate.  John was weakening, however;
the magick of a world is different than that one can draw
from the abyss.  Teeth flew from John's jaw as Joseph
repeatedly punched him, and John knew that his skull would
shatter if it kept up much longer.  They roared at each other,
both knowing that words were pointless; each knew the other's
only goal was to kill the opposing fox.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Bahb activated its final countdown sequence, the overload reaching
its zeinith.  Its last recorded thought was the pondering of the
phrase `The soul is eternal'.  Did it have a soul?  Well, it thought
as the fire raced up from the deepest depths of the complex, Bahb
was going to find out in approximately 10 seconds.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The duo raced closer and closer to the hard earth, continuing
to fight.  Joseph's throat had been torn open by a lucky shot
by John, who was now missing an eye and was also rapidly losing
blood.  Pure adrenaline drove them on now, wanting to be sure
the other died first.

     Joseph glanced down at the land racing up against them.
It was the Great Forest, and they were currently above the
Dome region.  In fact, Joseph thought as he dragged John
across another series of ice-filled air currents, he could
probably smash John right on top of the Dome...he then noticed
that the Dome was now obsedian black, and was beginning to form
orange cracks in its surface.

     He quickly knew what was going to happen, and decided to
make it work in his favor.  << "JOHN!  YOU WANT POWER?!" >>
He threw John face-down towards the Dome, knee pressing into
his back and holding him still.

     << "HERE'S ALL THE POWER YOU'LL EVER NEED!" >>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     In a flash, the Dome erupted violently, an orange cylinder
of raw power shattering through its blackened exterior.  It shot
through both parties in an instant, the force equivelent to a
600 megaton nuclear blast while only being contained in a circular
area about 12 feet wide.  Both of them were instantly obliterated,
barely even consuming a wit of the energy in the blast.

     A shockwave blasted through the forest, an circular orange
power shockwall racing through the trees.  The surge dispersed
the fog around the Dome immediately, then suddenly reduced to
only a stiff wind around the perimeter of the lands Joseph
held, perhaps knocking over a garbage can or two in Knothole.
Lightning crashed in the upper atmosphere, the blast just adding
to the turbulent conditions world-wide.

     Then, as abruptly as it began, it ceased.  The skies cleared,
the sun shined, and all was at peace.   At that moment, Sally
wrote in her journal, and no sooner, did the war end.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     12:30:00 pm

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The Keld'yrian ship took out the remaining sattelites,
still undergoing repairs for the damages done by the _Apocolypse_.
A few fighters from the Keld'yrian ship chased after the shock
troops of a group of infamous space pirates who must have seen
the tussle, and wanted in on the action, far from the Mobian system.
Communications were reestablished, and soon the fear that held
the populace finally came to an end.  The remains of Solstice
Day that year were used as a requiem for the one that had fallen
for them; a quiet, mysterious alien named `Joseph'.

     The ceremony was small, due to the fact that there were
only a handful of people left in Knothole, but the lack of
physical bodies was made up for by the amount of passion
but forth into the small, formal gathering.

     A few people made speeches, while others, lacking the
proper words to put their feelings into words, simply stayed
respectfully silent.  However, Bunnie, tears welling in her
eyes, ascended the podium after a few moments, and spoke to
those who had been with her all her lives.

     "Ah'm not much for givin' a send-off.  All Ah can seem to
say is that, even tho 'e wasn' the m'st open fellah in the world,
he cared 'bout people.  He spent most of his time here tryin'
to give somethin' back to us, t' make up for the pas'.  An' people
still talked behin' his back and made him seem like some sorta
bad guy."

     She wiped her eyes.  "'e gave me back muh arm and muh legs.
He didn' ask for a `thank yew'.  All he did was give muh a hug
and set me free t' do as Ah would.  An' t' the day, Ah wished
Ah could have thanked 'im again."  Crying, she quietly left
the podium, comforted by the friends she'd always knew she'd
have; Sally, Sonic, Tails, Rotor, and even Antoine.

     They couldn't find anything left of the Dome that would
have been suitable for burial, so they simply draped a white
cloth over the top of the dead SpyGlobe that had given the
information to Sally that had saved the world, dug out the
grave with their bare hands according to custom, and slowly
covered it again using the same medium outside the
edge of the village, under a transplanted orange tree.

     The rest of the Freedom Fighters dispersed after the grave
had been filled in, except Sonic, Sally, and Tails.  They stood
there after the procession had left, helping David retrofit
the transponder back to normal.  "Aunt Sally?"

     Sally rested her paw on his shoulder.  "Yes, Tails?"

     "Where's Sandra?"

     Sally blinked.  "I...I don't know.  Perhaps she escaped.
I guess we'll never know."

     Tails frowned, resting his head against Sally's shoulder.
"I hope she's okay.  It's not fair that both of them should die..."

     Sonic bowed his head.  "I'll miss ya, Joe.  You always did
know how to make an exit..."  A few tears fell from his eyes.
"G'bye, pal."  With that, he ran off into the forest.  "He just
needs to be alone," said Sally, gently stroking the back of
Tails' head.  "It's been a very hard day."

     Something, perhaps a few hundred yards away, stirred.  A red
glow began to fill a rectangular area on its surface, which was
attached to a humanoid shape.  Slowly, it rose, taking stock of
the sitation, and began to walk...

     While Sally stroked the back of Tails' skull and looked at
the grave she'd helped to dig, Tails' acute senses detected
movement.  He sniffed the wind.  Ozone, oil...SWATBot.

     In a blur of motion, Tails pulled violently away from
Sally, lept through an area of forest, and saw his adversary.
The SWATBot looked up at him and raised its weapon; but Tails,
being trained in `The Perfect Art', knew immediately how to
react.  Almost instinctively, he made a fist while still in
midair, called upon all of his might, and powered it through the
SWATBot's head.

     A blueish blast of electricity erupted from Tails and the
SWATBot, the force from the punch tearing through it like
a brick through a stained-glass window.  It split down the
middle at nearly a perfectly symmetrical way, causing a powerful
flash of light and a clap of near-thunder as it fell to the
ground.

     Perhaps two seconds had passed during this time, and just
then Sally began to react.  Quickly, she ran through the forest
to find Tails standing between a split SWATBot, blue electricity
crackling off of his calm, relaxed body.  Some sort of motherly
instinct caused her to pull him from it, however, and back behind
her.  Neither party came to any harm by this, she noticed, and
when she looked again, the SWATBot's remains were gone.

     Tails stood there silently, a muted expression of pleasure
on his face.  Confusion filled Sally's mind for a few seconds.
"What was that?"

     Tails smiled calmly.  "My last test.  Now I am ready."

     Sally scratched her head, looking oddly at Tails.
"A test?  A test for readiness for what?"

     Tails answered her by twirling his tails at a incredible
speed, and easily gliding above the ground.  He flew about
her easily, laughing.  "My last test of my skills!  Joseph
told me once that when I perfected the Perfect Art, I could
do anything!  Well, here I am!"  With a laugh, he raced through
the tops of the trees, high into the sky.  Sally could only
watch astonishedly, wonderment overtaking her.  Tears of
joy filled her eyes as Tails' wish came true, and her only
nagging doubt was about where the SWATBot went...

     "I hope he enjoys his gift," a familiar voice said,
"a pity I won't be able to watch the rest of his adolescence
first-hand."

     Sally turned to face the voice, but there was nothing there
but the wind...which carried only a single statement before
it too faded away.  "Happy Solstice, Tails."

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     2:30 pm

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     Sandra awoke on the beach of Boulder Bay, some sand in her
fur and her right foot asleep.  For a moment, she thought that she
had died.  However, the appearance of an UsagiBOT walking around the
perimeter in the distance immediately eliminated that illusion.
"There aren't any robots in Heaven," Sandra grumbled, and sat up to
look around.

     It was a lovely afternoon.  The wind was cool without being
too cold, and she figured it was about 70 degrees.  The water
crashed softly against the rocks of the beach, and some storm
clouds laid in the distance.  Occasionally, she heard thunder.
And, if it wasn't for the apparent death of her mate in the
morning, she might have enjoyed it.

     She sat there, resting her muzzle on her knees and wrapping her
arms around her legs, looking out over the water.  Sandra couldn't
cry anymore; even now, she was tired from the strain this morning.
Instead, she chose to deal with the situation at hand...for example,
why wasn't she in the Dome?  This wasn't anywhere near the Great
Forest, she realized, and there were guards posted.  Perhaps Bahb
had taken her here in order to lift her spirits.  It was a valiant
attempt, computer, she thought, but it wasn't going to cut it.

     Sandra stood.  It was time, she thought, to take stock of
what she had left.  She walked over to the UsagiBOT, being
followed by two SpyGlobes.  "Unit, report status."

     The robot looked at her.  >< "Units posted here are
functional; one UsagiBOT unit, two SpyGlobe units.  Power levels
at optimum levels." ><

     Sandra nodded.  She at least had some protection.
"Very well.  Bahb, channel through UsagiBOT in front of me and
report status."

     The UsagiBOT paused for a moment.  >< "Bahb is no longer
active.  The Dome has been destroyed." ><

     Her spirits sank.  Not only had the love of her life left
her, but now she lacked a home and food to return to.  She
sensed that this was the situation she was in last year, and
did not fail to appreciate the irony.  "I see."

     >< "More units are in the vicinity.  A new place of
residence can be constructed for you, and energy crystal
deposits have been detected 5 klicks to the northwest.
You can have a home constructed for you within hours." ><

     She sighed.  Well, at least she'd have a home.
An empty, cold home using the rather personality-less
drones that Joseph had left, but a home no less.
Perhaps she could use that as a base of operations
to start her life over.  Spies and thieves would be
needed in the new civilization that would soon be
organized, after all, and with her mate's advanced
technology, she could make sure his name and her own
would be remembered for all time.  "Fine.  Go pick
out a good place.  I'm going on a walk."  With that,
she turned from the robots, walking down the beach.

     Sandra was going to have to rebuild a tough exterior,
she realized, in order to be sure that her heart was
never broken again.  This last one was the worst by
far, she noted, because the love had been more than mutual.
Both of them doted on the other with equal zeal, and
losing that made her heart ache every time she thought
about it.  She tried to put it from her mind, but it
wouldn't stop coming up.

     She ran down the beach, trying to distract herself
by physical exertion.  After a while, she saw a
large fisherman, clothed in a black cloak that covered
all but his darkened paws and the stick he was using.
Probably a bear of some flavor, she thought, perhaps a refugee.
Since dwelling on her own thoughts was becoming mentally
draining, she concluded, she'd start a conversation with
the large figure.

     The vixen padded over, looking over at the person.
A muzzle was visible, but the coloration was impossible to
figure due to the glare of the light off the water.
"Hey, catch anything?"

     The figure growled quietly when he spoke, the voice
deep, scratchy, and unfamiliar.  "Not yet."

     Sandra sat down next to him.  "You don't have a bucket
to hold fish in, you know."

     "I'll eat it raw," he simply replied.

     Sandra looked somewhat disgusted, but covered it well.
"Come here much?"

     "First time."

     "Live around here?"

     "No."

     "Got anybody with you?"

     "Yes."

     Sandra smiled.  Finally, some progress.  "Who?"

     "She's my mate," a less scratchy voice said, which took
on a vaguely familiar accent.  "A nice vixen."

     "Oh?  Does she live around here?"

     "Nope."

     Sandra smiled.  "Does she eat fish raw as well?"

     The figure took off his hood, revealing a beaten-up looking,
flamboyantly neon orange, head of a fox.  "I don't know," Joseph
said, "do you?"

     Sandra gasped in shock, then embraced her mate firmly,
tears running down her face.  "Joseph!"

     Joseph smiled, displaying a few gaps in his teeth.  "Hi there."

     Sandra cried a bit, holding him tightly.  "I thought you were
dead!  How did--"

     Joseph sshed.  "I'll tell you all about it later."

     She sobbed tears of joy, not wanting to let go.  "Is it over?"

     Joseph picked her up, holding her in his arms.  "Yes, it's
over.  It's all over now, Sandra.  Mobius is safe."

     Sandra smiled, kissing him softly.  "But what will we do
now?  We're homeless."

     Joseph shrugged.  "Depends on what you mean by homeless.
Mobius is our home."

     Sandra giggled softly, wiping tears from her eyes.
"Silly.  I meant where will we live?  The Dome is gone."

     Joseph lifted from the ground, gliding over the water.
"Well, I have this friend, you see, who has this nice tropical
island...I hope he's not still mad about that tussle we had a
year or two ago..."

     They glided off into the horizon, leaving the land behind
for the endless ocean that spanned Mobius; thinking it was the
last time they'd ever have to fight the forces of evil...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     From a smoking crater in the Great Unknown, a figure stirred,
extending a gleaming steel arm from the depths of the smoke and flames;
slowly pulling itself up...the pupils of the figure glowing a
flaming, angry red...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

		     The End?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

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