-  -  -  -
Chapter One
The Deadly Encounter
by John Wainscott
-  -  -  -
Timeline - March 20, 3238; 1800 hours.
-  -  -  -

     "So, what do you wanna do?" Sonic lazily asked sitting under a tree.
Tails was sitting next to Sonic.
     "I dunno, what do you wanna to do?" Sonic only shrugged his shoulders.
"Hey, I got an idea," Tails said.
     "What?"
     "Since Packbell's dead, we can go back to Mobotropolis."
     "I know... we were planing on going there tomorrow morning."
     "Oh. Why didn't you tell me?" Sonic didn't say anything. "What's wrong?"
     "Sorry, Tails. But- I can't let you come with us yet. It's too
dangerous." Tails felt real bad that he wouldn't let him come with them. He
also got a little angry.
     "Why? I'm thirteen! I can handle it!"
     "I know, that's cool and everything, but Packbell still might be alive."
     "He isn't alive! Everybody knows that!" Sonic paused again and thought
about it.
     "Well, why don't you ask Sal?"
     "Why? You're the king."
     "You got me there, bud."
     "So..."
     "Sure, I guess you can tag along."
     "YES!" Tails yelled. He hugged Sonic and ran to his hut to get ready for
tomorrow.

-  -  -  -

     "Tails, you in here?" Felix asked as he opened the door to the hut.
Tails was on his bed packing his stuff for the trip to the castle.
     "Yeah, do you know where I'm going tomorrow?" Tails happily asked. Felix
scratched his chin.
     "Hmm... Mobotropolis?"
     "How did you know?"
     "Well, me, Sonic, Sally, and uh, Bunnie are going there too. Hey, I
thought Sally didn't want you to go."
     "Sonic said I could. What, did they already plan on going?" Tails asked
finishing his packing.
     "Yeah, we've planned this ever since Packbell and Brutus went swimming
last week." Tails smiled.
     "Why didn't anybody tell me?"
     "Sally didn't really want you to go. She thought it was too dangerous
for you."
     "Well, I'm going now!"

-  -  -  -
Timeline - March 21; the next morning.
-  -  -  -

     Reveille. Felix played it with pride this time. He, and every other
resident of Knothole, knew that this was the day of the reclaiming of
Mobotropolis. Everybody came out of their huts, and this time nobody was angry
when Felix played his trumpet. Sally walked to the center of the village and
everybody silenced to hear an announcement she was about to make.
     "Good morning, Freedom Fighters. As you already know, we are going to
Mobotropolis and reclaim what is rightfully ours!" The crowd cheered and she
continued. "Today, me, Sonic, Felix, Bunnie," Sally looked at Tails. "and
Tails are going there today to make sure everything's safe for our move over
there. If everything's clear and we make sure that Packbell's bots are
disabled, we may finally go back to out rightful homes." Sally returned to her
hut with her scouting party ready to leave. 
     "Got everything, Tails?" Bunnie asked. Tails nodded his head and opened
the door. They saw everybody lined up on each side of their path to
Mobotropolis.
     "Well Sonic," Bookshire said, "I never thought I'd live to see this
day."
     "Bookshire, I don't think anybody thought they'd live to see this day."
Bookshire smiled at Sonic, and everybody was on their way. Erin was standing
next to Bookshire and noticed that Bookshire didn't look as excited as
everybody else.
     "Is there anything wrong, Book?" Erin asked.
     "I've got a funny feeling about this." Bookshire turned around and
walked back to his hut.

     Just above the trees, all of them saw the thick clouds of pollution. It
almost even looked solid floating right above the canopies of the forest. But
none of the pollution bothered anybody because they were used to it and they
also knew it would be cleaned up soon.
     "When we move to Mobotropolis, can I pick my own room?" Tails asked.
Sonic and Sally smiled.
     "Of course you can, Tails. But I get first pick." Sally answered.
     "Hey, Sugar Hog." Bunnie asked. "How long do you think it'll take ta put
the city back together?"
     "We won't know until we get a better look at it. Hey, Sal. How long do
you think it'll take?"
     "Your guess is as good as mine. Packbell's pollution is extensive."
Sally replied. On their way to Mobotropolis, the castle ahead looked as bad as
it has always been. The factories have been disabled for some time, and there
was nothing but waste oil filling the once beautiful water fountain.
     "That fountain was a gift to my father when I was born." Sally
commented. Sonic walked up to her and put his arm around her shoulder.
     Outside the entrance to Packbell's holding cells, there were two bots
laying face-down in the dirt. There was no place to get more energy with
Packbell gone so they just died after a matter of time. In their hands were
their laser rifles. They still worked because they were never used. Tails was
the first one to notice. He grabbed one from the one of the disabled bots.
     "Aunt Sally! Sonic! Look what I found!" Tails blared holding up the
rifle. He felt good holding a fire arm almost as big as him.
     "Tails! Put that down!" Felix said.
     "Don't worry, Felix. It's on stun." Tails pointed the rifle at the bot
he got the gun from and fired at it. What Tails didn't know is that Packbell
broke off the fronts of all of the guns to make them more powerful. This threw
Tails five feet away.
     "Told ya." Felix laughed. Tails got up and rubbed his back side. Bunnie
dusted him off and Sonic picked up the gun. Sally got the other one and Felix
had his BB gun on him. He preferred bbs anyway.
     "Leave things alone. You'll get to play around later." Bunnie said.
     They made their way inside and saw that there were no lights. Tails
pulled out his flashlight and turned it on. He was the only one who brought
one and this made him feel good that he helped.
     "This is so creepy." Bunnie commented.
     "Well I'm not scared of anything!" Tails laughed.
     "I just hope that there's nothing to be scared of." Bunnie said to
herself.
     They turned around a corner and saw a light coming from a room down the
dark hallway.
     "Stay here." Sonic whispered. He quietly walked down the hallway and
approached the open door. He took a deep breath and jumped to the opening and
pointed the rifle at Ivo who was slowly being repaired by a robotic arm
extending from a panel on the wall. Sonic only smiled and motioned for the
others to come.
     Everyone walked inside and saw the mangled android on the table. Tails
jumped behind Bunnie and looked around her arm.
     "Scared of nothin', huh?" Bunnie giggled. Felix took his BB gun and
opened fire at Ivo for his own personal entertainment.
     "I think he's dead, Felix!" Sally yelled sarcastically. Felix stopped
firing and the corpse fell to pieces. Felix happily grinned and put his gun
up.
     "Let's go. There's work ta do." Bunnie said. Tails walked up to Ivo and
looked at him in the face.
     "Tough guy, huh?" He lifted his arm and punched him in the nose. Since
Ivo was torn up from the bbs, Tails cut the back of his hand on the twisted
metal.
     "Ow! My hand!" Tails cried. Sally took a small cloth from her backpack
and began wrapping his hand in it.
     "That what happens when you mess around."
     "I'm sorry."
     "Okay, lets go." It was only a scratch so it quickly stopped bleeding
and everybody continued their scouting. They left the room and continued
walking down the hallway until they saw another light around a corner. Again,
Sonic went ahead alone and looked inside. It was just a weapons room. He
called everybody over and went inside. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
There were just laser rifles with the ends cut off and roboticizer guns that
were used in the battle about a month ago.
     Bunnie picked up one of the roboticizer rifle and smashed it over a
table with all of her might. She gave the same smile of satisfaction Felix
gave a minute ago and dropped the remains of the gun. She felt refreshed, but
the gun had seen better days.
     There were still no lights on in the hallways except for lights in rooms
with open doors. Sonic continued and everybody else stayed behind. As he
jumped in front of the door and looked inside, he dropped his gun, backed up
and stopped at the wall behind him. He was scared stiff and everybody there
knew it. Somebody from inside the room picked up the laser rifle and pointed
it at Sonic. Only he knew who it was because he was the only one who could see
into the room.
     "No more games this time, rodent." The figure said and shot Sonic in the
face at point-blank range. Sonic fell to the ground and the figure let out an
evil laugh... it was Commander Packbell. He looked in each direction down the
hallways and then dragged Sonic inside the room by his leg. Fortunately, he
didn't see the other Freedom Fighters hiding in the shadows. Sally, Bunnie,
and Felix ran but Tails stood there looking down the hallway where Sonic used
to be. Tails had never experienced this kind of fear in his life before.
     "Tails! Get over here!" Felix quietly yelled. Tails just stood there
with a horrible expression of terror on his face. Sally ran back for him and
picked him up. She ran back for the exit with Felix and Bunnie behind them.
When they got outside, it had already began to rain.
     "He's dead! Sonic's dead!" Bunnie cried and buried her head on Felix's
shoulder. Sally put Tails down and all he did was lay on the ground trembling
and his eyes were glued wide open. All Sally could do is hold Tails in her
arms and cry in the rain with everybody else.

-  -  -  -

     The walk home was long and silent except for the rain landing on the
leaves and puddles. They were all drenched. Sally was a mess and Bunnie had
Tails in her arms. After they arrived in Knothole, Captain Waters and a small
crowd of soldiers circled them and saw that the mission was a complete
failure. 
     "Sonic's dead!" Bunnie cried. Bookshire was in his hut with Erin when
she heard something. Bookshire looked out of the window and saw that they have
returned so he went outside to greet them. Erin stayed behind to stay dry. She
looked outside the window and saw him approach the group. Seconds later, he
fell to his knees in a puddle crying. Felix walked over to Erin and informed
her of the king's death. He attempted to comfort her after he broke the news
to her.

-  -  -  -

     "Well, well, well. At last, poor Sonic, I win and you loose." Packbell
slowly stated in a cold voice. Sonic was laying motionless on the floor in
front of him. "You have made my life a severe inconvenience." Packbell lifted
his foot and kicked Sonic in his right leg with full force, breaking it. The
sound of Sonic's leg snapping pleased him "That was for the wasted time I
could have used to roboticize other innocent lives." He lifted his other leg
and kicked Sonic in the side of his chest breaking a few ribs. "And that was
for Ivo. He could have been useful. After all, he did invent the roboticizing
rifle." Packbell lifted his leg again and kicked him in the side of the head.
"And that... was for being a Freedom Fighter." Packbell picked Sonic up by the
neck and threw him down a garbage chute. "A proper burial, it's only fitting."

-  -  -  -

     The rest of the evening was silent except for the occasional cries heard
throughout the village resulting from the news of the recent death. Tails was
curled up in bed and hasn't even blinked since he saw what happened to his
good friend. He stared at the wall in front of him and didn't respond to
anything. He was suffering from extreme shock. Felix thought he was just not
talking, but after the first few hours, he realized it was much more serious.
He brought him to Bookshire's hut and told him what happened to Tails.

-  -  -  -
Chapter Two
The Day of Mourning
by John Wainscott
-  -  -  -
Timeline - March 22.
-  -  -  -

     The next morning the rain stopped but the skies remained grey. The wind
from the west blew most of the pollution from Robotropolis in to Knothole last
night. It was cold and miserable in the village. Almost like nature knew what
happened too. Tails still laid on a bed in Bookshire's hut and hasn't closed
his eyes since last night. Nina was sitting next to him and was patiently
waiting for him to do something. In Chuck's hut, he is sitting at his desk
with his head buried in his arms. Antoine was with Sally in her hut helping
her keep an eye on the kids. Miles and Julayla already began to miss their
father. Felix would have babysat for her, but he just couldn't do it. He was
sitting in front of his computer trying to keep his tears under control.
     "Computer," Felix said. "hypothetical question."
     "Ready." Felix's computer droned.
     "... What are the chances- of survival from a laser blast in the face
at- point-blank range-" His computer thought for a second and presented him
with the answer:
     "None." Felix quietly closed the screen and turned in the other
direction.

-  -  -  -

     All of the computers with a modem on Mobius displayed an 'Incoming Wide-
band Message' on their screens. A few seconds later, Packbell's cold face
appeared in millions of homes across the planet.
     "Citizens of Mobius, I'm sure all of you know me by now. My name's
Commander Packbell. I'm the one who has captured your relatives and turned
them into my mindless robotic slaves. But that's not important right now. The
reason I'm calling everyone right now is because I wanted to be the one to
break the news of King Sonic's death. Now I know that- you might be kind of
fond of the new king, but last night, he was trespassing on my property and I
wouldn't allow it. And Queen Sally, I know you're listening. Just to let you
know, I still know the location of Knothole, and you can't do anything about
it, except, enjoy the rest of your existence. Or you can abandon your kingdom
and stand a chance of living a life for just a little longer. I know why I
have failed in my battles with you, my bots are kind of ineffective, huh? So I
have devised a way for me to become invincible. You will be seeing me quite a
bit. I mean, more at once. Bye!" Packbell ended his transmission and the world
fell in deep sorrow for the dead king and soon-to-be-dead queen.
     Sally was watching Packbell's message from Nicole and found out that
she, and all of the residents of Knothole, and the planet, were about to die.
She gave up and accepted defeat. Sally was ready to die.

-  -  -  -

     It was still raining in Robotropolis and Sonic was still laying in a
trash pile soaking up the acid rain that has been falling on him since last
night. He strained to open his eyes but he could only open one because the
other was extremely swollen from the laser blast. The fall into the jagged
scrap metal pile only made his wounds worse. He looked up and some rain fell
into his open eye. His body was cut badly, and the pollution in the rain
tripled his pain. Most of his ribs were broken, he has a broken leg, and a
fractured skull. All from Packbell. He opened his good eye again and looked at
the path home and then the place where he had fallen from. To him, the path
seemed to extend for miles, but the only thing keeping him from giving up and
dying was the thought of Sally and his children. He rolled over and tumbled to
the ground five feet below. At this point, he had never felt so much pain in
his life and he wanted a power ring very badly, but he still tried to crawl
home.

-  -  -  -

     Bookshire, Erin, and Nina were sitting together in front of Tails. After
hearing the message that Packbell has sent world wide, Bookshire began to
think about something else. Five minutes later, he looked up and turned his
head towards his computer. He walked over very quietly and sat down in front
of it. After he turned it on, Erin asked him what he was doing.
     "Saving the world." The computer booted up and the main menu appeared. 
"Computer, access back door in Robotropolis network." Bookshire's computer did
it's work and soon accessed Packbell's computer.
     "What are you doing?" Nina asked.
     "Packbell said that we would be seeing more of him at once."
     "So?"
     "I think that means he's going to copy all of his own programming into
his bots. So there would be more of him." Bookshire only scared them even
more. "And in order for Packbell to transfer himself to all of his bots at
once, he has to be connected to the mainframe first. And when he does that, I
have full access to his data."
     "What if he's doing it one at a time?"
     "Too inefficient."
     "Won't he know you're doing something to him?"
     "No, because I made a program a long time ago that would let me have
access to his basic maintenance interrupts and he would just think that it's
his own programming working on him."
     "Then how come this is the first time you've used it?" Erin asked in an
angry tone.
     "There wasn't any way to his system. He's never been directly connected
to any of the communication ports before." Erin and Nina looked at each other
and had a little glimmer of hope in them. "Computer, where is Packbell's file
allocation tables?"
     "Searching...... specified data is located under hexadecimal address:
4A6F686E."
     "Who is the owner of those operations?"
     "5761696E73636F7474."
     "What was that?" Nina asked.
     "That is the hex identifier of the system using the data in that area
and that's Packbell's. Computer, wipe the boot record and the command
processor at that address." Bookshire nervously commanded.
     "All data on specified locations will be lost. Continue?"
     "Yes." Bookshire nervously stated. Seconds later, a percentage display
appeared on the bottom of his screen. Slowly, it made it's way to 10%.Not a
single sound could be heard, save for the occasional tick from the hard drive.
Twenty percent. Thirty percent. Then, just for a second, it stopped at twenty
nine percent. Everybody's heart dropped, but the computer started up again.
They all sighed in sync. Forty percent. Fifty percent. The blue bar that had
slowly been creeping across the screen jumped to seventy five percent, sending
Bookshire almost out of his skin. He chuckled a bit when he noticed everyone
was watching him.
     "Geez." Bookshire said, shaking almost uncontrollably. "You guys are so
tense." Eighty percent. Ninety percent. Then, it slowed down. It took nearly a
minute to crawl to ninety one.
     "Oh, no! He found us out!" Erin whispered.
     "No, no. Just wait. Just wait." Bookshire said, patting her on the
shoulder. Ninety two, ninety three, ninety four. 
     "I wonder if he knows what we're doing to him." Bookshire whispered. 
     "Oh, but I do." a voice said, whining out of the speaker from the
computer. It was the only time they heard Packbell sound... sad. "But I don't
know why I can't do anything about it..." Ninety five. Ninety six. 
     "Goodbye, everybody. It's been fun..." Ninety seven, ninety eight,
ninety nine.
     "Especially knocking off the king..." *BEEP* Format complete.
     "Well," Erin said, "you just saved the world." Bookshire didn't feel
satisfied. 
     "Computer, who is the owner of the operations that I have previously
requested?"
     "000000000000000000."
     "Packbell's dead." Bookshire said. For some reason, he didn't feel like
he just won a war. But he still wanted to tell everybody of what he just did.
First, he wanted to tell Sally. He stood up, and left his hut. He ran to
Sally's hut and knocked on the door. There was no answer but he opened the
door anyway. He saw Sally laying on her bed with her head buried in her arms
silently crying. The twins were quietly sleeping.
     "Oh, Bookshire." Sally whispered as she began to sit up. "We lost the
war. We're all going to die." Bookshire smiled and sat down next to her.
     "I have something to tell you." Sally looked up and wiped her eyes.
"Packbell's not coming." Sally looked in his eyes and said nothing. "Now
Packbell's dead this time, I hope."
     "What did you do?"
     "I formatted his memory."
     "How did you do that?" Bookshire explained everything to her, and even
told her that he wasn't really satisfied with it. The only reason he felt this
way is because he only saw a message on his computer, he didn't see Packbell
at the time of his death.
     "Bookshire, I need to inform everybody of this. Set up your computer."

     In Bookshire's hut, Sally was standing in front of a video camera in her
royal outfit. She looked at Bookshire and nodded her head. Bookshire pressed a
key on his computer and the transmitting light came on the screen.
     "People of Mobius, I have some news that might make you feel a little
better. A few minutes ago, Packbell has finally been defeated. Unfortunately,
no one witnessed his death so we can't be completely sure. But one thing we
are sure of, is my husband's death. We are sure of this because... I witnessed
it. Until we are absolutely sure that Packbell's dead, be prepared to evacuate
your cities at any time. I, or anyone else in Knothole will inform you any
changing situations. That is all." Sally took her crown off and it hung
loosely in her fingers. She walked out the door without saying anything else
to Bookshire.

-  -  -  -

     In Robotropolis, Packbell laid dead on the ground. This time he was
actually dead. All of his bots were in their usual places keeping watch and
awaiting his instructions, except for the ones in front of the prisoner cells.
     Sonic was about two hundred yards from where he started. Every move he
made was unbearably painful. He was crawling with his broken arm holding on
tightly to his side where Packbell injured him. Sonic was only a fraction of
the way back to Knothole, but he knew he had to return. He finally realized
what the word "slow" meant.
     Sally assembled a search party to look for Sonic's body. Bookshire,
Rotor, and Uncle Chuck volunteered to help look. They knew that there might be
a chance that Packbell is still alive, but they all took the chance anyway.
Bookshire brought a stretcher in case they did find Sonic. Tails was still in
bed with Erin watching over him. He still wasn't responding to anything and
they were really starting to worry about him because he hasn't eaten anything
since he left for Robotropolis. The search party was on their way and nobody
said anything except for Bookshire.
     "I'm sorry about Sonic's death. I know how much he meant to you and your
children. He'll never see his children grow up, and if Packbell's still alive,
I'll see to it that he suffers for this." Sally put her arm around Bookshire,
but said nothing. That was all that was said for now.

-  -  -  -
Chapter Three
Alive
by John Wainscott
-  -  -  -

     Twenty minutes later, Sonic was about to pass out from loss of blood.
Sally's search party was only fifty feet away when Rotor noticed Sonic on his
hands and knees on the ground ahead.
     "No way!" Rotor yelled.
     "What?" Sally asked.
     "Sonie! You're alive!" Charles yelled. He, Bookshire and Rotor ran to
Sonic. Sally fainted but nobody noticed her. They ran up to Sonic and picked
him up. He screamed in pain so Rotor and Bookshire laid him back down. There
was a thick trail of blood following him all the way from Robotropolis.
     "Sally?" Bookshire yelled. "Rotor, go get her." Rotor stood up and ran
to help Sally. Bookshire unfolded the stretcher and they loaded Sonic on it
and finally passed out just because he could. He was severely injured, but
they were happy to see him anyway. (Except for Sally at the time.) Bookshire
and Uncle Chuck carried Sonic back to Knothole and Rotor carried Sally home.
Within ten minutes of walking, Sally soon woke up and saw Sonic laying on the
stretcher.
     "Sonic! You're alive!"
     "Don't touch him!" Bookshire yelled before Sally hugged him. Sally
looked at him and felt upset all over again.
     "We're not out of the woods yet. We've got to get back to Knothole."
Uncle Chuck said. Sally walked home holding Sonic's bloody hand the entire
way.

-  -  -  -

     Bunnie was gathering flowers for Sonic's grave when she heard Sally's
voice pierce through the dense forest. She sounded much more excited than
anyone expected. Like a little girl with a new pet. Sally ran ahead to tell
everyone that Sonic wasn't dead. Bunnie stood up and approached the happy
queen. She knew exactly why she was so excited.
     "What? Is it about Sonic?" Bunnie asked.
     "He's not dead!"
     "Oh, my God!"
     "Packbell didn't kill him." Bunnie dropped the flowers when Sally
grabbed her hand and ran her back to the search party.
     "But... we saw..." Bunnie tried to blurt out but she couldn't say
anything else when she saw Sonic's injured body laying on the stretcher. "Oh
mah stars!" Bunnie ran to Sonic and touched his face. When she did that, Sonic
woke up and yelled in pain. Bunnie quickly stood back. She felt sick looking
at his mangled body.
     "We've got to get him back to my hut." Bookshire said and then everybody
proceeded to his hut.

     Inside, Sonic was in intense pain. Bookshire gave him a large volume of
pain killer and he soon passed out again. Erin was helping Bookshire with
anything he asked. Sally's body was shaking when she watched.
     Tails was across the room in a cot still in shock. He was facing Sonic,
but still didn't respond to his presence. Nobody knew when he would ever
recover. The rest of the day was spent in Bookshire's hut saving Sonic's life.

-  -  -  -

     That evening was just the opposite of the night everybody thought the
king was dead. The news of the condition of Sonic was reported by Sally
through the entire planet. There were parties and celebrations everywhere.
Within the hour, everybody in Mobius knew that Sonic was alive, except for one
person... Tails.
     Sonic was laying next to Tails in Bookshire's hut covered in bandages.
Sally finally had a good-night's rest that night.

     The next morning, Sally brought Miles and Julayla to see their father.
After all, they haven't seen him for a few days. Sonic was awake, but he
couldn't hold them. And because of this, Julayla began to cry.
     "I'm glad you're feeling better." Sally commented as she entered
Bookshire's hut.
     "Who said I was feeling any better?" Sonic replied. He was in a bad
mood.
     "You look better."
     "What happened to Tails?" Sonic asked.
     "He's in shock. He's been like this ever since he saw you're murder."
     "Is he gonna to be okay?" Sonic asked, he was starting to become more
concerned than grumpy.
     "I don't know. Bookshire said that he could be this way for a long
time." Julayla started to cry a little louder.
     "Okay, let me try." Sonic moaned. Sally gave her to Sonic and he cringed
in pain. Miles, being the easiest to entertain, laughed at the situation.
     "Well, at least he's in a good mood." Sally giggled.
     "Maybe I should hold him instead." Sonic tried his best to keep from
yelling. But Julayla began to quiet down.
     "Oh, I think you're doing just fine."
     "Hey! You remember broken bones are like!" Sonic playfully yelled.
     "Okay, I'll take her." Sally picked up Julayla and she started to cry
again. Sonic loosened up a bit more. "We think Packbell's dead now."
     "I've heard that one before." Sonic moaned.
     "I know, but this time we think he's actually dead. He was about to
attack Knothole but Bookshire erased his memory before he got a chance."
     "I'm not going back until I see his head on a stick. I want to stay
alive."
     "You're not going anywhere, you have to recover."
     "Yes, mother." Sonic said in a childish voice. 
     "I'm just glad you're alive."
     "...I'm glad I'm alive too. But what I don't understand is that I was
shot at point-blank range. Nobody could have lived through that."
     "Yes, I know. You should be dead right now." Sally commented. "You're
very lucky."
     "Luck? Me? I don't think so. I'm too cool for luck!" Sonic proudly
stated.
     "Well, you haven't changed a bit."
     "I'll never change."
     "Darn it." Sally said then kissed Sonic on the forehead and left.

-  -  -  -

     Lunch time. Bunnie and Rotor were working in the kitchen in the dining
hall arguing.
     "Just because you've never done them before, doesn't mean you can't do
them now." Rotor said. He wanted Bunnie to do the dishes.
     "Well, show me how to do them then." Bunnie said trying to back out of
washing.
     "No, you're going to learn. You're arm's not going to rust now. I
thought you wanted to put your new arm to good use."
     "I do, I just don't want to strain it."
     "Doing dishes!? Quit messing around. When are you going to learn?"
     "Soon."
     "Bunnie!" Uncle Chuck yelled across the hall. "I need to run some test
on your arm. Are you busy?" Bunnie said "no" and Rotor yelled "yes" at the
same time and Bunnie left. Rotor grumbled as he removed the engagement ring he
planted for Bunnie to find in the sink. He dried it off, placed it back in
it's box, and started washing the dishes.

     Nina, Jessica, Ziggy, and Mindy were sitting together eating lunch
leaving a seat for Tails even though they knew that he wasn't going to be
there today.
     "How long do you think Tails is going to be like this?" Nina asked.
     "I don't know. Could take weeks." Jessica replied.
     "Maybe months." Mindy added. That comment upset Nina a little so she
left to see Tails. Mindy realized that she probably shouldn't have made that
comment.
     "Good one, Mindy." Jessica said.
     "Five bucks says he's up in a week." Ziggy offered.
     "Are you making a bet!?" Jessica asked. Ziggy nodded his head. "That's
going to make Nina mad." Jessica said.
     "So, you don't want to bet?" Jessica and Mindy left to catch up to Nina.
"I guess not." Ziggy said to himself.

-  -  -  -

     "Nina?" Mindy whispered when she poked her head through Bookshire's
door. Sonic was asleep and they didn't want to wake him up. Nina was sitting
next to Tails holding his hand. His eyes were still open and looking straight
ahead. His face was filled with fear, resulting from the witnessing of his
friend, and mentor's death; from what Tails knows. Mindy and Jessica walked up
to her and Jessica put her hand on Nina's shoulder.
     "He's the only one who doesn't know Sonic's alive." Nina quietly said.
     "Tails is going to be okay. Bookshire said so." Mindy said trying to
comfort her.
     "I see you have faith in his recovery." Erin said entering from the
bedroom. Nina looked up at her and back down at Tails. "You know, I once had a
friend who witnessed the robotization of her father. She was in shock just
like Tails. She was escaping from Robotropolis when she saw her father through
a vent. He was being taken to the roboticizer and when Robotnick flipped the
switch, she saw it all."
     "How do you know that?" Nina asked.
     "I was with her."
     "Oh."
     "We were about to be roboticized ourselves. We found a way out and
started to escape. When we were about half way, I saw her look through a vent
ahead of me. I heard the roboticizer and then she turned stiff. She said
nothing. I tried to get her attention, but nothing worked. I didn't know what
happened to her until we got out. It was dark and I didn't see her face. I
kept pushing her through the vent ducts until we ended up outside."
     "How did you get back?"
     "It wasn't easy. I tried to carry her, but I was only a little girl
then. No stronger than you. So I pulled her to a big tree and put her in the
roots that were coming out of the ground. It was a perfect hiding place for
until I got back with some help. It took about three or four weeks for her to
come out of it. So don't worry about anything, Tails is going to be fine."
Erin stood up and left.
     "I hope Erin's right, Tails." Nina said. She put her hand over his face
and closed his eyes.

-  -  -  -

     "Just be sure to exercise and take your medication. Your new muscles
deteriorate ten percent faster than your other muscles when they're not used."
Uncle Chuck instructed.
     "What about you?"
     "I'll be fine."
     "You sure?" Bunnie asked in a concerned voice.
     "Don't worry."
     "Okay. That it?" Bunnie asked.
     "Yep, but I need to see you tomorrow though."
     "Sure thing, sugar hog. Thank you." Bunnie left Chuck's hut and returned
to the dining hall.
     "Rotor, honey? You still in here?"
     "What were you doing?" Rotor asked.
     "Uncle Chuck was checkin out my legs." Rotor's heart skipped a beat.
"Oh, you know what I mean, silly." Bunnie smiled and Rotor calmed back down.

-  -  -  -
Timeline: Three days later.
-  -  -  -

     "Any better today?" Sally asked Sonic. He was eating breakfast in bed.
     "I'm doing okay. My leg stopped hurting." Sonic replied.
     "That's good. How's your head?"
     "That still hurts. But the ringing in my ear stopped."
     "Great. I'm glad your feeling better." Without any warning, Tails jumped
up and ran out the door and towards the forest.
     "Tails!" Sally yelled. Tails was confused and dizzy and just kept
running. He thought he was still in Robotropolis the day he saw Sonic with
Packbell. His eyes were half way closed and everything was just a blur to him.
Sally caught up to him and he stopped.
     "Sonic's dead!" Tails yelled. "Sonic's dead!" Tails kept repeating.
     "Calm down! Sonic's not dead! He's in Bookshire's hut!" Tails tried to
fight Sally away. He saw her as Packbell.
     "He's dead!" Tails couldn't get the thought out of his mind. He was
still confused. Sally grabbed him and ended up dragging him back to the
village. Rotor was near by and saw hat was going on so he ran over to help.
     "What happened?" Rotor asked as he tried to grab on to Tails.
     "I don't know. He just got up and ran." Sally replied. Tails didn't stop
fighting until they got him back into the hut.
     "Tails! I'm okay. Packbell didn't kill me!" Sonic said after Tails
entered the room. Tails slowly walked up to him and looked at his face.
     "What happened to you?" He quietly asked.
     "Everything except get killed." Tails paused then jumped to hug Sonic.
He cringed in pain, but hugged Tails anyway.

-  -  -  -
Chapter Four
A Fresh Start
by John Wainscott
-  -  -  -

     Sally and Sonic explained everything to Tails and he understood
everything. Nina came by like she did every day and saw Tails standing next to
Sonic. She ran up behind him and tackled him to the ground.
     "You're okay! I missed you Tails!" Nina happily yelled.
     "Well, I'm not going to be okay if you do that again. And I miss you
too." Nina got up and helped Tails to his feet.
     "Want to go play?" Nina asked.
     "Sure. Is that okay, Aunt Sally?" Sally nodded her head and the two ran
off.
     "Let's go to the ring pool!" Nina yelled. Tails was running behind her
and fell to his knees. Nina turned around and saw Tails on the ground.
     "Tails! Are you okay?" Nina nervously asked.
     "Ow, my legs hurt." Tails complained. He also felt a little tired and
dizzy again.
     "Oh, I forgot to tell you that your legs are going to get tired easy."
Bookshire yelled from the window of his hut. "You haven't been up in a while
so your muscles are kind of weak." Bookshire said then chuckled to himself.
     "Here, I'll help you up." Nina offered. She grabbed his arm and helped
him up again. They were a bit angry at Bookshire for not warning him of any
side affects of long-term inactivity.

     At the ring pool, Mindy, Jessica, and Ziggy were there and Bunnie was
there getting ready to collect the power ring that was about to surface. They
were all excited to see Tails up, but Bunnie was the most excited out of the
entire group. She picked him up and hugged and kissed him. Tails' friends
asked him questions about what he saw when Sonic got shot by Packbell, but he
didn't want to talk about it.
     "Hey, Tails. Ziggy was betting money on how long it would take you to
wake up." Jessica blurted. Ziggy tried to cover her mouth, but he she was
taller than him.
     "What!?" Tails angrily asked.
     "Um, I wasn't really going to bet." Ziggy defended. Tails stared at
Ziggy and he got nervous, as if he told a really bad joke in front of his
parents. Tails grabbed Ziggy's arm and flew up above the ring pool. "Tails!
I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!" Ziggy was now hanging twenty feet above the
water and Bunnie was trying to convince Tails to come down, but Tails let go
of him and he dropped into the cold lake. Bunnie jumped into the lake to help
Ziggy to shore and the rest of the kids stood silent watching Tails fly back
to Knothole. Nina was amazed that he was that strong. Bunnie and Ziggy climbed
out of the lake and tried to shake themselves dry. In fact, their shivering
shook most of the water off any way. The power ring surfaced and Bunnie wasn't
there to catch it. She was too far away to run for it, and even if she did run
for it, she wouldn't catch it in time. As a result, the power ring sunk to the
bottom and had to be retrieved later.

     Tails was sitting in his hut crying on his bed. He was upset. He
couldn't believe how insensitive Ziggy could be. He stayed in his hut for the
rest of the day on his bed.

-  -  -  -

     In Robotropolis, a blank screen lit up with commands flashing
everywhere. Lights lit up on control panels and assembly bots entered the
room. They were carrying parts for a unique project that they were about to
perform. On the screen were displays of complex drawings of an artificial life
form. In bold text flashing on the top of the screen displayed the command
"RESTORE PACKBELL".

-  -  -  -
Chapter Five
It's About Time!
by John Wainscott
-  -  -  -

     It was five in the evening and Tails was sitting on his bed fiddling
with a tiny ball of lint on his blanket. There was a knock on his door and he
stood up to answered it. It was Ziggy. He came by to apologize, but he never
got the chance to at that moment because Tails hit him in his nose right when
he saw him.
     "Hey! What was that for?" Ziggy yelled from the ground grabbing his
nose.
     "Guess!" Tails replied and slammed the door as hard as he could.
     "Tails! I cabe by to say I'b sorry." Tails sat down in Felix's chair and
crossed his arms. "Tails! Cub on! I doe I should't have dud that. I'b sorry."
Tails didn't say anything and Ziggy left. He was just as angry as Tails.
     Ziggy slammed the door to Erin's hut open and stared at her.
     "What happened?" Erin asked looking at Ziggy's bloody nose.
     "Your idea did't work." Ziggy said. "He hates be."
     "No, he doesn't hate you. He's just a little upset."
     "You tell that to him." Erin sighed and began cleaning his nose off.

-  -  -  -

     "I'll make dinner tonight. I have something in mind." Rotor offered to
Bunnie.
     "Ooh, what is it?"
     "You'll see, it's a surprise."
     "I love surprises. And I love you."
     "I love you too, Bunnie." Rotor said then kissed her.
     About an hour later, Rotor made her favorite dish, salmon with seasoned
rice and peas and a lemon wedge on the side. He also had white wine poured for
them. But in Bunnie's glass, was the engagement ring he was going to surprise
her with.
     "Ready! Come and eat." Rotor called from the dining room. Bunnie didn't
come in so he called her again. "Bunnie?" Rotor walked into the living room
and saw Bunnie sleeping on the couch. Not because of  a long day or anything
like that, but because of the medication Uncle Chuck gave her earlier that
afternoon. He tried to wake her up, but she was out cold. Rotor carried her to
bed and cleaned up the kitchen. He looked at her wine glass and pulled the box
out of his pocket.
     "One of these days." Rotor said to himself. He retrieved the ring, dried
it off, and placed it back in it's box.

-  -  -  -

     The next day, Bookshire had nothing to do so he decided to check up on
Packbell. He hooked his computer up to Robotropolis and looked through the
files. A few minutes went by before he noticed updated files that were dated
just a couple of hours ago. At first, he thought it was just some normal
system maintenance. But just to be safe, he opened some of the files and
examined them. Most of them were just normal files that were constantly
updated, but there was one file that caught his eye. He immediately jumped out
of his seat, grabbed his cane, and ran to warn Sally. The file he saw was a
backup file named Packbell.

     Bookshire ran into Sally's hut without knocking or letting her know that
he would be coming. Sally was a little angered but figured that it was
probably important. She asked him what he wanted, but Bookshire fell to the
ground and tried to catch his breath.
     "Packbell!" Bookshire yelled. Sally's heart skipped a beat and she sat
down in front of him. "He's not dead!" Bookshire stated.
     "What- how do you know?" Bookshire kept breathing as fast as he could.
     "He had a backup, I should have known. It was too easy." Sally and
Bookshire went back to his hut and Sally looked at his computer.
     "Can't you delete it or something?" Sally asked.
     "No. You can't delete backup data." Bookshire sat down and ran his
fingers through his hair and began typing. Sally patiently watched Bookshire
tap away at the keys not knowing what he was doing, but she didn't want to
interrupt.
     Hours of typing went on after Sally fell asleep on the couch. Erin was
there and trying to help him with anything she can. Evening came and Sally was
shaken on her shoulder by Erin and they all soon found out the outcome of the
backup file. Packbell's cold face was looking at the three and then smiled.
     "So, you think your new cat friend can overcome me? Think again,
rodents. If I ever catch him here again, I'll see that his robotization will
be slow and painful!" Bookshire, Erin, and Sally's faces went blank and nobody
couldn't reply. Commander Packbell smashed his fist through the control panel
and the screen went blank. "Felix, huh?" Packbell hissed. "I'll teach him not
to cut me in half!" He took the bb out of a small box and carefully examined
it.

     "Why was he talking about Felix?" Erin asked. "And why did he say 'new'
friend?" Nobody said anything.

-  -  -  -

     That evening, Erin and Bunnie came over to Tails' hut to talk. Bunnie
knocked on his door and he answered it. They came in and sat down and he
started to talk right away.
     "Why did he have to do that? That was kinda stupid for him to bet on
something like that." Tails said starting to cry.
     "Ah'm sure he didn't mean it, honey. You know that he's kinda wild about
gambling." Bunnie said, trying to comfort him.
     "But that wasn't any reason to hit him." Erin continued.
     "I'm sorry." Tails quietly said looking down at the floor. "I was just
real mad."
     "Well, Tails, I know you were mad, and you know he didn't mean it, so
why don't you apologize?" Erin asked. Tails sniffled, wiped his eyes, and
looked back up at them.
     "Okay. But why does he get off so easy?"
     "Easy? You gave him a bloody nose!" Bunnie exclaimed.
     "Oh, yeah." Tails laughed cheering up a little.
     Ziggy was sitting at home playing a null modem card game with Rotor.
There was a knock at his door so he told Rotor that he would finish later. He
opened his door and Tails was standing there with Erin and Bunnie behind him.
     "Your not gunna hit me again, are you?" Ziggy nervously said and backed
up a little. "I said I was sorry!"
     "No, I guess that I should be the one apologizing." Tails said. "I
shouldn't have hit you, sorry."
     "I shouldn't have tried to make that bet. I'm sorry, Tails."
     "See? That wasn't hard, Tails." Erin said. Everything was settled
between Tails and Ziggy and they all went home. (Well, except for Ziggy, of
course. You know, because he was already home playing cards. So he didn't go
back home because he was already there. Um, yeah. I'm not rambling, am I?)

-  -  -  -

     Rotor looked at the clock and then at the computer Bunnie was writing
on.
     "I'll be back in about an hour, Bunnie." Rotor informed.
     "Okay. See ya later, sugar." Rotor kissed Bunnie and left the hut.
Bunnie continued writing her letter for a few minutes when the screen melted
away.
     "What on Mobius!?" A message faded onto the screen and she was relieved
that her work wasn't lost. It read: "Look in the oak trunk at the foot of our
bed." Just as she finished reading it, the original screen she was working on
came back like nothing happened. "Okay, Rote. What kind of joke are you gunna
pull on me?" Bunnie saved her letter and walked into the bedroom. She
inspected the latch and poked at it with a pencil to see if anything would
happen. She was just being safe. Bunnie slowly and carefully opened the trunk
and was ready for anything that was in the trunk, except a red rose with a
note attached to it. She immediately calmed back down and realized how silly
she was acting. "Oh, Rotor. You got me all jittery for nothin." She read the
note and it told her to go to the ring pool.
     About a minute later, she arrived at the ring pool and saw Nina standing
there waiting for the power ring to surface. It was her turn for the ring
collection.
     "Hi, Bunnie. Rotor wanted me to give this to you and tell you to go to
the dining hall." Nina handed Bunnie a red rose.
     "Oh, thank you." Bunnie walked all the way back to the village smelling
the two roses every step of the way. When she got there, she found another
rose and note tied to the door of the dining hall. "Oh, Rotor, you're so
sweet."
     Within the hour, Bunnie had a dozen roses filling her left arm and a
fist-full of notes in her hand. The last note was written in gold letters and
she had a feeling that this was the last stop that she was going to make. It
was in the large meadow that 'Capture the Flag' was played and she looked
around for Rotor. After about a half hour of waiting for Bunnie, Rotor finally
walked up to her from behind and tapped on her shoulder. Bunnie smiled and
turned around. She noticed that he had something behind his back.
     "Now I know you want me ta do something for you, or you wouldn't have
given me all of these roses."
     "Well, yes. But I think you'll like what I have in mind."
     "Then what do you want?" Rotor took her hand and started walking with
her.
     "The only thing that brought us together is what Robotnick did to you
many years ago."
     "Now what do you mean by many years ago?" Bunnie asked.
     "Okay, a few years ago." Rotor corrected himself.
     "That's better."
     "Being with you all that time when I was repairing your legs or
adjusting your arm made me want to be with you all the time. But just because
you're deroboticized now, doesn't mean I don't love you any more. And just to
prove that..." Rotor paused to kneel and present her with the ring he tried so
desperately to get to her. "I want to know if you'll marry me." Bunnie gave
him her free hand and he slipped the ring on her finger. She started to
shiver.
     "Oh, Rotor. I thought you'd never ask! Yes! I'll marry you!" Rotor stood
back up and kissed Bunnie, and as a result, all of the people of Knothole came
out of hiding and applauded as they circled the couple. "How long have you had
this planned?" Bunnie asked surprised from the large crowd around them.
     "Quite a long time." Rotor laughed and kissed Bunnie once again and
Sally took a picture of them. 

-  -  -  -
Chapter Six
That Evening
by John Wainscott
-  -  -  -

     It was about seven o' clock and the sun was just setting over the west
horizon of Mobius and Rotor and Bunnie met everyone in the dining hall to
discuss the wedding plans. On their way in, they were congratulated by
everyone they passed. Sonic was in a wheelchair and looked like he was getting
better every day. It took them over five minutes to reach the front of the
dining hall and Rotor and Bunnie stood on a table and everybody quieted down
to hear what they had to say.
     "I'm pretty sure that you all know that Bunnie and I are going to get
married because all of you were there when I proposed to her, and because I
forced you all there, too." Everyone laughed and quieted down again so he
could continue. "Now I guess that you all want to know when we're finally
gunna to get married and we've decided to do it the very day when we finally
reclaim Mobotropolis." The audience cheered and Bunnie wiped a tear off of her
eye.
     "Now why didn't we think of that?" Erin asked Bookshire.
     "And we all know that this might take years, but this is where we want
to be wed. And we plan on doing this the very day it happens, too."
     "Whose going to marry you two?" Captain Waters yelled from the back of
the room. With out anyone saying anything or doing anything, they all turned
and looked at Antoine who was leaning against the wall. The Captain only asked
to get a reaction from him.
     "Okay! I'll do eet! All you ad to do was ask! Shees!" Antoine yelled.
     "Now, let's see. Tails and Nina..." Bunnie continued.
     "We know!" Tails said.
     "I'm flower girl and he's ring bearer, right?" The crowd giggled a
little and Rotor nodded his head.
     "And Sonic..."
     "Best Man, I knew it. Sure, Rote. I'll do it." It was his ego talking
then.
     "Sally girl?"
     "Yes?"
     "Will you be my bride's maid?"
     "Of course I will."
     "I guess that just about does it, now let's party!" Rotor yelled then
everybody began dancing when Bookshire turned on some loud music. Sonic was
the only one not dancing, but that didn't keep him from having a good time. He
was the D.J. The evening turned into late night and the party began to slow
down a little. Tails and Nina was sitting together asleep just like when they
were at Sonic and Sally's wedding reception. Bunnie took a picture of them and
planned on making a scrap book with that picture being the third one in it.
The first picture in it is going to be the one where Tails was purple and the
second with the picture from this afternoon.

-  -  -  -

     The next morning, Sally scheduled a meeting for a discussion of the
condition of Packbell. Actually, it was about noon because everyone was worn
out from last night's party. Everyone gathered into the dining/meeting hall
and Sally, with a headache, stood up and asked if anybody knew why Packbell
asked about Felix like that.
     "Maybe there was an error in his programming?" Bookshire suggested.
     "That's a possibility, and we'll keep that in mind. But we also need to
know how he survived that system format."
     "Wait! I know why he's still alive!" Felix yelled. Every head turned to
him and silently waited for his explanation. "On my first mission before I was
a Freedom Fighter, I cut him in half and almost killed him that day. And when
he repaired himself, he backed up and worked from inside the computer!"
Chatter filled the room and everybody agreed with his hypothesis.
     "Nice work, Felix. I wouldn't have ever figured that out." Sally
remarked.
     "And I also know why Sonic lived through the laser blast from Packbell."
     "Now this I'd like to hear!" Sonic laughed.
     "You took the laser rifle from Tails that day. Right, Sonic?"
     "Uh huh."
     "And that was the gun that Packbell shot you with, right?"
     "Yeah. But how come it didn't kill me?"
     "Do you remember when Tails said that it was on stun?"
     "I can't believe it, Felix. You're amazing!" Erin laughed.
     "So that means he still thinks it's, what, nine months ago today." Felix
said.
     "I think I'm going to tell Packbell what day it is. Anyone want to
watch?" Sally asked. Laughter filled the hall and everyone flooded out behind
Sally to her hut. Rotor quickly hooked up a make-shift speaker system to her
computer so everybody could hear what was about to be said. About a minute
later, everybody circled around the hut waited quietly as she made the
connection to Robotropolis.
     "Hey, Packsmell! You there?" Sally yelled and the crowd giggled a little
followed by everyone trying to hush each other. "Do you have the time?" Felix
asked. The recovered Packbell appeared on the screen and smiled.
     "What in hell do you want, rodents? I'm busy trying to take over the
world."
     "We know something you don't!" Sally sang.
     "What are you trying to pull, Queenie?"
     "Don't you want to know what it is?"
     "No."
     "Oh, please?"
     "You are starting to irritate me."
     "Go ahead, ask me. Say 'pretty please'." Packbell stared at her as the
crowd outside tried to control their laughing. "With sugar on top?"
     "I am not amused."
     "Okay, I'll tell you anyway. Do you know what day it is?"
     "Your anniversary?" Packbell said in a rude voice trying to keep his
temper down.
     "No, silly! Guess again!"
     "If you must know, it's the seventh." Packbell could hear laughter from
outside her hut.
     "Nope guess again!"
     "You have nothing better to do, do you?"
     "Today is the twenty eighth... of March... thirty-two... thirty-eight!"
Sally said mocking him. Everyone outside exploded in laughter. "Check your
watch!"
     "I have no time for this, I've got work to do."
     "What? No time? You wasted nine months!" Sally yelled before the screen
went blank. "Oh, man! That felt good. I should do this more often."

     Packbell stood back up and went to continue building bots with his bare
hands.
     "I have better things to do than play with little animals." Packbell
hissed as he walked by a control panel on a wall and stopped after thinking
about it. He paused and turned around to look at it. At this point, he became
a little curious. He reached up to a button and just placed his finger on it,
but not pushing it. He looked down and thought for a second still holding his
finger on the button. "They can't be right." He paused again and looked back
up at the panel. He pushed the button and the clock read '12:28:55.13
03/20/38'. "This isn't right." Packbell walked to another panel down the hall
and looked at it's clock. "No. They just set them like this!" He ran back to
his computer and looked on the Global Network. "Impossible!"
     For the rest of the day, Commander Packbell looked at all of the clocks
in Robotropolis and became more and more frustrated each time he looked at
one.
     "I don't know what the hell you did to me, or how, but I'll see that you
suffer for this, hedgehog!"

-  -  -  -
Chapter Seven
Life Or Death?
by John Wainscott
-  -  -  -
Timeline - March 29, 3238. 9:00 am.
-  -  -  -

     "Hey, Sally! I need to talk to you for a sec." Felix yelled running to
catch up with her.
     "What do you need?"
     "I have an idea to take back Mobotropolis that just might work." Sally
started to notice that he was high on caffeine.
     "Felix, I wouldn't doubt it. You've figured out how Sonic and Packsmell
survived. I like that name, 'Packsmell'."
     "Well, shucks. Twern't nothin." Felix gloated.
     "So what do you have in mind?"
     "Can you call another meeting today? I'll explain it there."
     "Sure, but why can't you tell me right now?"
     "I just don't want to ruin the surprise."
     "Okay, see you at noon then."
     "Great, thanks." Felix ran back to his hut.

-  -  -  -

     Three hours later, everyone met back in the dining hall to discuss
Felix's plan. The same crowd joined the meeting to hear what he had to say.
They knew that it had to be good because of what he said before.
     "Okay, Felix. I'm sure everyone wants to know why you called them here."
Sally stated then sat down.
     "Thank you for calling this meeting, Sally. Now, I have a plan to
reclaim Mobotropolis. Tails and I want to volunteer to look for recruits for
battle against Packbell." Everyone in the room had mixed reactions about
Felix's proposal. At least most of them thought that it was a good idea.
     "Are you sure that's a good idea, Felix? I mean, lives will be lost in a
frontal attack." Sally questioned in a concerned voice.
     "Then how are we going to win a war without losing lives? I know that
it's a sacrifice, but Packbell is just going keep roboticizing or killing
people anyway. The only way to win a war is to fight."
     "He is right, Sall." Sonic commented. "This war's just gunna last
forever if we don't do anything about it." All eyes at that point were looking
at Sally and waiting for her decision.
     "I need some time to think about this. I'll try to have my decision by
tomorrow morning." Sally stood up and started to walk back to her hut. Felix's
request had left a hard day ahead of her and she knew it. For the rest of the
day, nobody bothered her for anything because they knew that the queen of
Mobius was thinking about a decision that could change the lives of everyone
on the planet.
     She was sitting in a chair in front of her desk in deep thought when she
noticed a small bug land on her keyboard. She watched it walk around and fall
between two keys. At that point, all it wanted to do was get out so it climbed
and slipped down and kept doing that for a while. It soon tried to look for
another way out so it walked around beneath the keys for a second and returned
knowing that it couldn't get out that way. Eventually, it finally got out and
flew away. When she was watching that bug, she thought about it's number one
priority: survival. That is also every organism's requirement of life. So she
put those thoughts with what she has to deal with. She looked at the clock and
noticed that she had been thinking for five hours.
     "Time flies when you're having fun." Sally muttered. "I guess that
there's just one thing to do." Sally pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and
started writing a letter.

Citizens of Mobius,
     I have decided that there is only one way to win a war, and that is to
attack. If nothing is done, Packbell is just going to keep killing. I am
looking for volunteers who would help fight. So I have sent a messenger from
Knothole who will inform you of what to do if you do decide to assist in out
charge with the Royal Mobian Army. With war, there comes sacrifice. I know
that lives will be lost, but even more will be lost if we don't attack.
     If we succeed in out efforts and defeat Commander Packbell, everyone who
served in the battle will be honored as Freedom Fighters and remembered as
heroes. But if we fail, you would still be remembered as a Freedom Fighter who
served in battle against Dr. Robotnick's monstrous creation. Please contribute
to the throne and help with our efforts

 Sincerely,
 Queen Sally Acorn.

     Sally reread the royal document and placed it in a long envelope. She
placed it on her desk and left to take a walk. The sunset was ugly. She looked
directly at the sun and it didn't even bother her eyes at all. It looked like
a red moon on a dark night. Then she realized that Packbell was not fully
prepared for attack. She made her decision, but still had to think about it to
find a better and safer alternative.
     After about a half hour later, she thought about how Bookshire found a
way to temporarily disable him. But the only reason he had a chance to do
that, was because Packbell was directly connected to his network server. So
another format would be impossible because Packbell now knows not to do that
again. After about another half hour of walking in the woods, she decided to
go back home and get in a hot bath and go to bed early because she planned on
a big day tomorrow. On her way back, she saw Bunnie walking back to her hut.
     "Sally? Where were you?" Bunnie asked when she walked up to her.
     "I was just out taking a walk."
     "Thinkin about Felix's idea?"
     "Yes, and I've come up with a decision."
     "I don't think I want ta know what it is." Bunnie said worried about the
situation.
     "I don't think I should tell anyone yet. But I'm still up for
suggestions."
     "Oh Sally girl, I wouldn't know. I know what you're goin through, but I
wouldn't be able ta handle makin any decisions like that. I really wish I can
do more for you, but- I'd really like to see this damn war come to an end."
     "I know you want this war over, and everyone else wants this war over
too, but I'm putting hundreds of lives at stake either way."
     "Well I just hope you make the right decision."
     "Thanks, Bunnie."
     "See you tomorrow." Sally walked into her hut and looked at the envelope
on the desk and thought about it.
     "Nobody ever said that being queen would be easy." Sally walked into the
bathroom and drew a bath. While she waited for it to fill up, she thought
about just sending the army that was ready. But it was still too dangerous.
There are hundreds of men ready for battle, but she still needed more people.

     After taking a long bath, she went to bed and found that she couldn't
sleep. All she could think about was the decision she made.
     "Should we fight now and catch Packbell off guard, risking all of the
small army? Or should we gather a larger force and take him on with a bigger
army?"

-  -  -  -
Chapter Eight
Wrong Answer
by John Wainscott
-  -  -  -

     It was early morning and still dark. Packbell was quietly approaching
Knothole followed by a swarm of bots behind him, and they all had either a
flame thrower or a roboticizer riffle. Except for Packbell. All he had was a
bb gun loaded with one bb, the one that was shot into his head months ago by
Felix. Obviously, it was just meant for one person, Felix Jinx.
     Bookshire's hut was the first buildings attacked. Within seconds, it was
engulfed in flames. Erin and Bookshire were running out together when they saw
the pack of robots surround them. They were immediately shot with roboticizer
riffles and slowly and painfully transformed. As soon as the roboticiation was
complete, they started walking to Robotropolis. That was the first command
they followed in their new programming.
     Sally was woken up by the light from the flames from Uncle Chuck's hut
across from her. She jumped up and ran outside and saw Bunnie and Rotor walk
past her. They were also roboticized. Knowing that they were under attack, the
first thing she thought of was to get her kids out so she ran back inside and
collected the twins. There was no way out except for the bathroom window. It
was just big enough for them to escape. Miles and Julayla were crying loudly
and attracting the bots. She squeezed through the window and pulled them
through behind her. When they were out of the hut, she ran into the woods and
looked back at the flaming village. Knowing that Sonic couldn't walk, she knew
that she had to rescue him so she placed the twins down between two roots from
a tree and tried to conceal them with dried leaves.
     "Please be here when I get back!" Sally pleaded then ran off to help. By
the time she returned, her hut was completely engulfed in flames. When she
looked around for Sonic, all she could find were newly roboticized Freedom
Fighters. When she ran to Bookshire's leveled hut, she couldn't find any sign
of Sonic.
     When she turned around to run for Robotropolis to see if Sonic was
roboticized, she felt an intense pain in her right leg and fell to the ground
screaming. She was shot with a roboticizer riffle at long range and her leg
was now metallic. Knowing that Sonic's life was in danger, she got up and
continued to run. But after the first few steps, she was hit again and found
herself being slowly transformed. She fell to the ground screaming again and
this time, the shot was at point blank from another gun. Bunnie rushed inside
her room and pulled the blankets off of Sally waking her up. When Sally looked
up she jumped out of bed and jumped in the corner crying.
     "Calm down, Sally girl! It was only a bad dream!" Bunnie yelled trying
to make her realize that she was awake. Sally knew that she wasn't dreaming
anymore, but continued to cry anyway.

-  -  -  -

     "Bunnie should be back by now." Erin said. "I sent her to get Sally five
minutes ago." The door opened and Bunnie came in without Sally. Questions
arose from the small crowd and she walked with the envelope in her hand up to
the head of the table where Sally would have been. Everyone quieted down again
and Bunnie spoke in place of Sally.
     "Sally wanted me ta tell you that she has decided ta attack. This
decision was hard for her to make, and she wants to be left alone for a couple
of days." Bunnie handed the envelope to Felix and he opened it and began to
read it. "She also wants you to present this letter to the town councils of
the villages you'll come across." Felix read the last of the letter and placed
it back in the envelope.
     "Tails and I will leave tomorrow. I'm sure she's made the right
decision."
     "I hope she did." Bunnie whispered to herself. Everyone quietly left the
dining hall and returned to their huts. Just by Bunnie's presence, they knew
how hurt Sally was. Bookshire and Erin noticed that Sally's hut was completely
closed up.
     "Can you imagine what she's going through, Book?" Erin asked.
     "I just hope she doesn't lock herself up for too long."

     "Let's get packin." Felix said to Tails in a depressed tone.
     "What's wrong? You thought that this was a great idea!" Tails said
wondering why Felix was in a bad mood.
     "Well, ever since I brought up the idea to attack, Sally's been upset
all of the time. I thought she would like that plan, but now I don't think I
should have even brought it up."
     "But you've got to figure that she is the one who has to decide. And
that's not easy for her." Felix thought about what Tails said and realized
that he was right. It isn't easy running a war, and it wasn't his fault that
Sally has been upset about making her decision. But he still felt bad that
Sally was upset. Packing supplies continued quietly until an hour later when
they finished.

-  -  -  -
Chapter Nine
A Small Family Reunion
-  -  -  -
Timeline - March 30.
-  -  -  -

     "I wish I could let you use my hover craft again, but I'm in the middle
of repairing it." Rotor said before Felix and Tails left Knothole.
     "That's okay, there's some places that it can't go where were going
anyway. Sally, we're going to be gone about a month or two. Is that okay?"
Felix asked.
     "Take as long as you need. I want everybody you can get." Sally said
sounding finally satisfied, but still curious about her decision. Nina walked
up to Tails and held his hand.
     "I'll miss you, Tails." Nina kissed Tails on the cheek and he blushed a
little. He gave her a long hug and gave his goodbyes to everyone else.
     "Take care, guys! See ya later!" Sonic yelled as Felix and Tails walked
off into the forest.
     "I wonder what kind of adventures they're going to have." Sally said to
Sonic.

     "Do you really think we're going to be gone two months, Felix?" Tails
asked in anticipation.
     "Maybe longer." Felix replied.
     "Where are we going first?"
     "Remember James?"
     "Who's James?"
     "Uh, remember when you two almost started a holy war?"
     "Oh." Tails groaned. He remembered James, and he also remembered how he
was admiring his second tail. And he hated that. "Do we have to go there?"
     "Don't worry, we won't be long and you don't have to come in if you
don't want to."
     "Good, I won't."
     After an hour and a half of walking and chatting about everything and
nothing, they finally arrived at a small white house that sat on the edge of a
town. Felix walked right up to the door and knocked loudly. Tails was waiting
about twenty yards away sitting under a tree. After a second, the bird
answered the door.
     "Felix! It's good to see you again!" The red bird joyfully greeted.
Felix was surprised James was more excited to see him than last time.
     "Hey, James---" Felix was interrupted when James took his arm and pulled
him inside.
     "I want to show you something!" James blurted out as fast as he could.
He pointed at a small test tube on his desk sitting next to his computer with
a somewhat interesting screen saver on it.
     "I'm sure we have some catching up to do, but I have something important
from Queen Sally."
     "Just one second. I wanted to show you my new form of data storage, the
Atomic Hard Drive. Computers store information with binary code, and I've
found a way to use atom positions to store that data! Do you know how much
data is stored in the bottom of that test tube?"
     "Um, no but-"
     "720.1 tera-gigs of space!" What Felix had to say was important, but
that number got his attention for a moment.
     "Really?"
     "Yes! And that's only one of a hundred and forty-four fragments, all of
the data on Mobius can be stored in two of those test tubes!"
     "Um, all of that is fascinating, but I have to tell you something."
Felix said grabbing his right wing. "We're going to battle against Packbell
and we need help." Felix handed him the letter and he read it slowly and
thoroughly. He slowed down and realized that Felix wasn't just over to visit
and chat. 
     "I- don't know." James said in deep thought.
     "You don't have to if you-"
     "No. I'll fight." James said unsure about his choice.
     "Well, here are some instructions to Knothole." Felix handed him a map
folded in half. "You can leave whenever you want." Felix had never seen a more
serious face on James' face before.
     "Thank you." Felix walked out of the house wondering why he felt like he
just sentenced him to death.
     "You done?" Tails asked coming out from the top of the tree he was
sitting in. Felix didn't answer. "Something wrong?"
     "We've got a long trip ahead of us."

-  -  -  -

     Back in Knothole, it was class time and all of the students were moved
to the dining hall so Uncle Chuck could manage Felix's students. It was about
twenty minutes until lunch and Jessica was very hungry. She forgot to eat
breakfast that morning so she tried to find ways to get out of class early.
She didn't want to wait for lunch. Looking around the room, she saw one of the
erasers from the portable chalk board and grabbed it. The clock was on the
wall just between her and Chuck. He was occupied by grading some papers.
Taking advantage of his unawareness, she tossed the eraser at the clock and it
moved the minute hand up a couple of minutes. The eraser bounced back into her
hand and Chuck didn't see anything. But as for the rest of the class, they saw
it all. Just for fun, nobody told on her and just watched. Apparently the rest
of the class wanted to leave early too. Again, she tossed the eraser at the
clock and it moved ahead another couple of minutes. Ziggy almost got the
teacher's attention by giggling a little bit. After about another five or six
tosses, time had just seemed to go by very quickly.
     "It's lunch time." Jessica said to Chuck. He looked at his watch and
figured that his watch was a little slow.
     "Okay, go ahead." Everybody stood up and walked to the lunch line
laughing to themselves. Uncle Chuck looked at his watch again and got his
lunch out from his desk.

     After lunch, everyone was given a pop quiz and asked to finish before
one o'clock. Jessica looked at the chalk board and noticed that the eraser was
gone. She looked around for it and realized that it was on the teacher's desk.
She knew she was busted, but didn't want to draw attention to it so she just
continued with her work.
     Chuck kept busy. He occupied his time by tossing the eraser at the
clock.

-  -  -  -

     "Remember this place, Tails?" Felix asked walking into a bar & grill.
     "Oh, don't remind me. This is where you almost got robbed." Tails
groaned. They walked over to the bar and handed the bartender the letter. He
read it and looked back at Felix.
     "Is this for real?" The large dog questioned.
     "Yep. I need you to make a copy of that and post it."
     "Okay, I'll be right back." He took the letter to the back room and
began making a copy. While Tails was waiting, he saw a bum having a drink that
had a familiar smell to it. It had whiskey, and a thick blue jell lining the
glass. It was called a "Robotnick". 
     "Lemmie see that real quick." Felix asked. He took a pen and noted that
he would be back two weeks to bring back the recruits to Knothole. The
bartender took the copy and Felix took back the original. They walked outside
and left.
     "Felix, did you see that one guy who was drinking that stuff?"
     "What stuff?"
     "Drogthol!"
     "Drondathol?"
     "Yeah. How can he drink that stuff?"
     "I guess you have to get used to it."
     "But isn't that stuff illegal?"
     "Yep."
     "Then why was he drinking it?"
     "Because there isn't anybody to enforce the law out here."
     "What about the Royal Army?"
     "It's too far away from Knothole. Besides, all it would be is a minor
felony."
     "But they're still breaking the law!"
     "I know. But there's nothing anybody can do about it."
     "Yes there is!" Tails yelled angered with Felix and started to walk off.
     "Look, Tails." Felix grabbed Tails' tails and stopped him. "I know that
you're a law abiding guy, but there is no such thing as perfect law
enforcement! I know it's wrong, and they know it too. But there are just some
things that cant be taken care of. Okay?" Tails crossed his arms and knew
Felix was right.
     "Okay." Tails groaned under his breath.
     "Great, now let's go. We have two more stops today then we can set up
camp.

-  -  -  -

     "Well, hello Sally. How are you today?" Sir Charles greeted when she
walked in to the dining hall.
     "Tired. I need some coffee. Is there any made?" Sally asked almost
mumbling.
     "Why are you so tired? Still thinking about your decision to attack?"
     "No. The twins were up, all night. They finally got to bed about five
minutes ago." Chuck pulled out the coffee pot and it was empty.
     "That's kids for you." He looked for more filters, but they were out.
"Oh, darn it. I guess I'll just have to reuse this one." Chuck carefully
pulled out the old coffee filter and slowly scraped out the grounds. "There we
go."
     "Chuck, how do you do it?" Sally asked.
     "What, the filter? You just have to pull it out without rip--"
     "No, I mean how do you manage all of these kids at once?"
     "Oh. Well, It's not easy. But they are older than babies, and they
listen. I know where they live." Chuck said in a stern voice and then smiled.
Sally smiled too and looked at the coffee pot waiting for it to start brewing.
     "Chuck?"
     "Yes?"
     "What was Sonic like when he was little? I know that he loved to run a
lot, but other than that." Chuck walked over to the table where Sally was
sitting and thought about her question.
     "Well, before I was roboticized, we spent each second of our lives
together. There was nothing that would separate us, except for Dr. Robotnick.
About three times a week, we'd go to his favorite playground and stay there
all day. His favorite place was the slide, but he never went down it. No, he'd
run up it. And every time he did that, he would land on Mrs. Johnson's roof.
Whenever he did that, she would come running out of her house and yell at me.
I'll never forget what she always said to me. "Get your crazy nephew off of my
roof, Charles, or I'll call the police!" I don't know why, but I wouldn't mind
hearing her again. Maybe because she reminds me of before the war." The coffee
maker finished and Sally poured herself a cup and sat back down.
     "Was he ever any trouble like any other kid his age?"
     "Oh, my! You wouldn't believe it, he would get in trouble all of the
time I wasn't around. Even before I invented the power ring, he was fast for
his age. He'd always run to other villages and make bets with other children
he'd never seen before. He would bet that he could do outrageous things with
his speed, and they would believe him, too! He raced kids running backwards
and run back to the starting line before his opponent could even finish."
     "How much money did he make?"
     "A lot. I never knew how much though, and he never told me either."
     "Then how did you know about the bets he was making?"
     "He told me about a few months before Robotnick took over."
     "I wonder why he never told me about this."
     "Maybe he just never brought it up."
     "Oh. What else did he do when he was little?"
     "Well, I really shouldn't tell you this..."
     "What?"
     "Before you and Sonic ever met, he had another girlfriend." Sally stood
up and spilled her coffee.
     "Who!?"
     "I knew I shouldn't have told you." Sally jumped up and grabbed his
shoulders and wouldn't let go until he told her.
     "Who was it!?"
     "Okay! Her name was Julie!" Bunnie walked in with Rotor and saw what was
going on.
     "Sally! What are you doing?" Rotor asked. Sally realized that she
shouldn't have done that so she got off of him and apologized.
     "I'm sorry. That was a long time ago."
     "What on Mobius is going on here, Sally girl?" Bunnie asked surprised at
Sally.
     "That didn't look good." Sally thought embarrassed with what she did.
     "You shouldn't overreact to things like that. You didn't know the whole
story." Charles said a little irritated. "But they were only kids then. They
didn't even kiss."
     "You're right." Sally said and then walked out. Bunnie and Rotor were
still wondering what just happened. Charles explained everything to them and
they understood.

-  -  -  -

     Tails and Felix were walking further away from Knothole and every mile
they went, seemed to look the same. They were in the far west side of the
Great Forest. They finally came across a village that had a small restaurant
in it.
     "Man, am I hungry!" Felix stated. "You wanna eat here?"
     "Sure. I'm tired of that stuff we brought." Felix and Tails walked
inside and seated themselves. They seemed a little out of place walking into a
nice restaurant wearing backpacks. While they waited for the waitress, Tails
looked around to see what kind of people lived in the village that they were
visiting in. In a second, Tails spotted someone that made him nervous. Felix
saw him and looked at what he was looking at, but couldn't see anything
special.
     "What's wrong?" Felix asked. Tails pointed at a woman across the room
and tried not to get her attention.
     "I think that's my mom!" Tails whispered. Felix looked again and looked
back at Tails.
     "Sarah? Are you sure?" Tails shook his head. "Why don't you go over
there?"
     "What if that isn't her? I'd look silly."
     "Do you want me to ask her for you?" Tails shook his head again. "Then
how are you going to tell if it's her of not?"
     "... I- don't know. Do something." Felix stood up and walked over to the
fox.
     "FELIX!" Tails whispered. Felix walked over to her and asked her
something. Tails couldn't tell from where he was. He continued to peek around
the booth that he was in. The question Felix asked her caught her off guard.
She followed Felix to the table and she saw Tails sitting in front of her.
     "Tails?" Sarah asked.
     "MOM!!!" Tails jumped up into her arms and gave her a long hug. "I
missed you! Where have you been!"
     "Looking for you and your dad! I finally found you!" Tails looked up at
his mother and a feeling of sadness came over him.
     "You don't know where dad is?" They all sat down.
     "Oh, Tails. Your dad and I was separated the day Robotnick attacked
Bluebrook. I'm so sorry." Tails hugged her and began to cry.
     "Tails, don't cry. Be glad you found me!"
     "I am, but I still don't know where he is."
     "Don't worry. You found me and we'll find him together." Tails continued
to cry and hug her mother. Tails's mom, still holding him, went to go get the
day off from her boss.
     "No way, kid. I need you today." The cat said, smoking a thin cigar.
     "Mike, this is my son!" She said. "I haven't seen him in years."
     "And I'm your boss. Get back to work."
     "Ah, the hell with you." The two stomped out.
     They left the restaurant without eating. They weren't hungry anymore
because there were other things to think about. They started to walk around
outside the village to talk.
     "What have you been doing since the attack, Tails?" Sarah asked.
     "Everything! Did you know I'm a Freedom Fighter?"
     "Really!? How did you do that?" Sarah asked in surprise.
     "Sonic and Sally rescued me. When we couldn't find you I had to live in
Knothole."
     "Isn't that where Princess Sally lives?"
     "Yeah. But she's queen now."
     "I've been out of touch. Whose the king?"
     "Sonic."
     "Sonic! You live in the same village as they? At least I know that
you've been in good hands. You've lived there ever since the attack?"
     "Uh huh."
     "Then what are you doing all the way out here?"
     "Sarah," Felix interrupted, "we were sent out to recruit an army to
fight Commander Packbell."
     "Who?"
     "You've never heard of Packbell, mom?"
     "No, I said I've been out of touch."
     "Packbell is an android who Robotnick created a few years ago and we're
going to attack when we get back."
     "Robotnick's dead?"
     "Yes." Tails was wondering how she got by without knowing anything about
the war.
     "Amazing! How did you end up being the one to recruit people?"
     "I volunteered."
     "You sound like you have had a great time in Knothole."
     "You wouldn't believe me if I told you everything that happened to me
there."
     "Oh, I don't know about that. Now that we're together again, you can
tell me all about it!"

-  -  -  -

     "Sonic, are you in here?" Sally asked when she walked into her hut.
     "In the bedroom." Sally walked in and sat on the bed. Sonic was playing
with the twins on the floor. He was still in his casts.
     "I see you're feeling better."
     "Well, thank you. Glad you noticed."
     "Hey, Sonic. Does the name Julie remind you of anybody?"
     "Should it?"
     "You tell me." Sally said and crossed her arms.
     "What's the matter, Sal? What'd I do?"
     "It's what you didn't do."
     "Huh?"
     "You didn't tell me about your girl friend before Robotnick took over."
     "Julie?! What made you think she was my girlfriend!"
     "Uncle Chuck told me a little while ago. How come you never told me
about her?"
     "Because she was never my girlfriend! She always thought I was her
boyfriend. She wouldn't leave me alone and told everyone that she was my
girlfriend, but she never was!"
     "She wasn't?"
     "No! Look, Sal, I think that you're gettin a little tense because of
this attack that we're gunna pull here pretty soon. Why don't you go somewhere
and cool off for a while? You look like you can use the rest." Sally kissed
Sonic on his forehead and quietly walked out. Sonic knew that she was just
stressed and didn't let the thought of her being upset get to him.

-  -  -  -

     Felix, Tails, and Sarah found a hotel to crash at for the night and
found themselves at home. Felix got in the shower and Tails and Sarah began to
talk about the things that they've missed together. Compared to Tails'
stories, Sarah's were boring, but Tails listened to everything that she had to
talk about. Tails has grown a lot since she had seen him last. When Felix
finished in the bathroom, Tails jumped in and Felix began chatting with her.
     When Tails was in the shower, all he could think about was his mother
and father. He was extremely happy that he found her, but he also felt a
little empty knowing that his father is still missing. Tails never felt this
way before. He didn't know what to think or do, except be happy that he found
his mother.
     Tails turned off the water after his shower and dried off. He walked out
of the bathroom and saw the two talking away. He walked up to her and gave her
a hug.
     "I miss you, mom."
     "I miss you too, Tails." Felix watched Tails and Sarah together and
thought about his mom. But Felix was a little better off because he knew that
his mother was still alive. Tails never knew what happened to his parents.
     "Bathroom's open." Tails said. Sarah gave Tails one last hug and walked
into the bathroom.
     "So, Tails... what do you plan on doing now that you found your mom?"
Felix asked. Tails sat on the couch across from Felix.
     "I'm never going to leave her, that's for sure." Felix smiled, Tails did
the same.

-  -  -  -

     The next morning, Felix signed out of the hotel and left with Tails and
Sarah to complete their volunteer hunt. They were almost done, they were only
about two or three days away from their scheduled arrival back at Knothole
with a small army.
     "Hey! I forgot!" Tails yelled.
     "Did you leave something at the hotel?" Sarah asked.
     "No, come here! I want to show you something!" Tails took off his
backpack and dug around for a second. He pulled out Sally's gift to him for
his missions; his communicator. Tails pushed a button and Sally's face came on
a couple seconds later.
     "Hi, Tails. How's it going with the scouting?" Tails gave her a big
smile and turned the communicator to Sarah so Sally could see her.
     "Look who I found, Aunt Sally!"
     "Aunt?!" Sarah said to herself. "The Queen?! I never had a sister!"
     "You're... Sarah Prower! I... I've heard so much about you! Sonic! Come
here!" Sarah felt like she was being treated like a queen, but also a little
confused about the 'aunt' part. She looked at Sonic in surprise. She was also
wondering why he was in bandages.
     "Sonic? It's really you!" Sally and Sonic looked at each other and
smiled.
     "Tails told you about me?" Sonic asked.
     "Yes, he has. 'Never call you Your Majesty'".
     "Wow, I guess it's catching on." Sonic laughed.
     "I can't believe it's really you! Come to Knothole, we have a lot of
catching up to do." Sally requested.
     "I'm coming by when Felix and Tails finishes with their mission. Is that
okay?"
     "Perfect. We'll see you then." Sally replied.
     "Great, goodbye!" Tails turned off his communicator and put it back in
his backpack. "Isn't he a little young to be a king, Tails?"
     "No."
     "...Okay."

     Nina was alone in her room and waiting for Tails to return. She never
liked it when Tails went on long trips like that. She wished she came along
with them, but knew that it was way too late for that. She felt lonely and
sometimes a little angry at him for not letting her know how everything's
going. Playing with Jessica and Mindy wasn't as fun as playing with Tails.
Since he was too busy to talk to her, maybe she can talk to him so she snuck
into Tails' hut and turned on his computer. After it booted up, she paged his
communicator.

     "What's that, Tails?" Sarah asked when she heard something beep in his
backpack.
     "It must be Aunt Sally. Maybe she forgot something." Sarah meant to ask
him about the 'aunt' part but forgot until just now. "Hello?"
     "Hi, Tails."
     "Oh. Hi, Nina."
     "Girlfriend?" Sarah asked Felix. He nodded his head and she smiled.
     "I can tell you've been pretty busy."
     "Well, not really. We're just jumping from town to town passing out
flyers." Nina felt a little more angry, but didn't let Tails know it. "But I
found my mom. Did anyone tell you?"
     "No one told me, but that's great! When did you find her?"
     "The other day in a restaurant."
     "Now how come you didn't tell me sooner, Tails?" Nina thought to
herself. A few blocks away, a fire broke out of a building and caught Felix's
attention. Tails saw him run towards it and figured he could help so he said a
quick goodbye and ended the transmission. At this point, Nina was very angry
at Tails. She left his hut and slammed the door on her way out. She stayed in
her hut for the rest of the day upset and angry at Tails.
     "Is anyone in there!?" Felix yelled through the window of the burning
house. There was no answer, but he went inside anyway because there was still
time to check inside before the entire house went up. Sarah looked the other
way and noticed a man running towards the forest. She knew that he was the
arsonist, but everyone was too busy with the fire to notice so she started to
run after him. Just before she ran out of sight, Tails saw her and wanted to
know where she's going. But what about Felix? But he remembered what he
promised to her; he wouldn't lose her again so he started to fly towards the
forest. When he looked through the trees, he couldn't see far, but knew that
he had to go inside.
     Felix jumped out of the window and let everyone know that there was no
one inside. When the local fire crew arrived, he brushed himself off and
started to look for Tails and Sarah. Before long, he was asking around to see
if anyone saw him, but nobody knew who he was talking about.
     Sarah was slowly catching up with the arsonist and could tell that he
was getting tired. After about another minute of running, he tripped and Sarah
caught up with him. The last thing she expected to happen, happened. The man
pulled out a gun from his pants and took aim at her.
     "How come I could never run faster than you?" He asked. Sarah was
scared, tired and confused.

-  -  -  -
Chapter Ten
For Nina
-  -  -  -

     Nina was upset because Tails wasn't paying much attention to her as much
as he did before. She tried to think of reasons why, but every answer she came
up with lead to him trying to avoid her. Tails had the time to talk to Sally
all of the time, but whenever she talks to him, he always had to do something
else. Sure, he only did it once, but this is what she felt.
     They've never been in any arguments, or had any disagreements, but Nina
was thinking of telling him that they should go their separate ways. It was
hard for her to think that, but it was also hard for her to ever talk to him
anymore. He was always out on scouting missions with Felix and those took
months to finish.
     It was a hard decision to think about, but she was still mostly
undecided. She knew that Bunnie was a good 'councilor' and gave advice to
anybody, so she went to talk to her about her situation.
     Before she reached Bunnie's door, she realized that she didn't know what
to exactly ask her. Nina stood outside her hut and thought of how to put her
question together. "I don't think our relationship is working out?" or "Am I
being to impulsive?". She couldn't really think straight, and she felt
nervous. 
     Nina took a deep breath and knocked on Bunnie's door. A few seconds
later the door opened and Bunnie looked at her and saw that she wasn't here
just to chat.
     "Bunnie, can we talk?" Nina asked just below the point of crying.
     "Yes. Come in, what's wrong, sugar?" Bunnie asked in a concerned voice.
Nina forgot how she was going to ask her about the situation, but did her best
putting together another one on the spot.
     "I have a little problem."
     "Oh. Don't worry, I'm a good problem solver." Bunnie said trying to
cheer her up, but didn't work.
     "I don't know if..." Nina started. Her eyes started to fill up with
tears. "if... Tails likes me anymore." Suddenly, Bunnie started to feel what
Nina was feeling. She was also thinking that Nina proved her wrong when she
said that she was a good problem solver.
     "Ah'm... I, why do you... feel this way towards him? He's such a sweet
kid." Nina's throat started to hurt from all of the tears she was trying to
hold back.
     "I don't know. I just don't think... I mean, do you have any advice?"
Bunnie was faced with a tough one. She was also hurt.
     "Well, one way... I decide if I love someone or not..." Bunnie tried to
continue, but couldn't think because she knows that they were made for each
other. "...is, would I care, or do anything if something happened to that
person?" Bunnie stated separating every couple of words. Nina tried to think
of what she would do if Tails got hurt, but couldn't decide because she was so
angry with him. She felt worse.
     "I don't know, Bunnie." Nina started to cry. Bunnie gave her some
tissues and tried to think of something while Nina was temporarily occupied.
     "Ah don't know what ta say. I've never had ta help anyone with this
kinda problem before." Bunnie actually thought that they were going to break
up. She looked at Nina and knew that she was very upset. "Is it somethin he's
done?" Nina nodded her head. "What did he do?"
     "He... I think he wants to ignore me."
     "No! That's not like Tails! I know that he doesn't want to ignore you.
There must be somethin else."
     "No. He hasn't talked to me once since he was gone. But when I called
him, he said he was too busy."
     "But what if he was busy?"
     "He had enough time to talk to Sally, and said that they were just
walking from town to town." Bunnie was starting to think that Nina was right,
but she's too nice to let anything like that happen.
     "Why don't ya just talk ta him about when he gets back?" There was no
answer from her, but she sensed that she would have said yes. She gave Bunnie
a long hug and started to feel a little better. Bunnie was about to say "Don't
get my arm all rusty." but, she almost forgot that she was deroboticized. And
she almost missed being partially roboticized.

-  -  -  -

     "Mom! Where are you!" Tails yelled while flying through the dense
forest. He was starting to feel scared. But he wouldn't accept the fact that
his mother might be missing again. It was starting to get dark and cold. He
didn't realize that he had been flying blindly through an unfamiliar forest
for almost three hours looking for her.
     After landing on a small open patch of grass he was almost about to give
up. He was too scared to cry, and he didn't really allow himself to. He was on
a mission and it wasn't over yet. It was one of his own little private
directives of being a Freedom Fighter. He took off his backpack and reached
inside for his compass. Naturally, the needle pointed north. He looked around
and realized that the compass wasn't of much use at that point. "Duh." Tails
said to himself and tossed the compass away knowing that he wasn't going to
need it anymore.
     He put his backpack back on and started walking because his tails were
getting tired. About ten feet away, there was a large spider web with a spider
the size of a walnut sitting in the middle of it. The sun was at a position
just to where the web was invisible... until he walked through it. In another
time or place, the sight of him running around swinging his arms like his
tails when they were in flight would be funny. But what really scared him was
when he felt something sharp prick his left arm, and he knew it was the
spider. He knocked it off and stepped on it making a disgusting pop. It was
almost like glue when he lifted his foot up from it.
     He rubbed his arm and nothing he could do could make it stop stinging. A
couple of seconds later, he was feeling dizzy.

     Nina was walking back to her hut with Bunnie and heard Sally through her
window begin to talk to Tails on his communicator. Nina started to cry again
and ran home with tears pouring out of her eyes. Bunnie felt even worse. She
thought she made matters harder on Nina so she let her be alone and went back
to her hut.

     "Sally! I'm lost in a forest and I got bit by a spider. I'm scared! Do
something!" Tails said in a weak voice.
     "Do you know what kind of spider it was, Tails?" Sally almost felt sick
from the shock of seeing Tails like this.
     "No."
     "Where is it? Let me see." Tails held the communicator in front of the
green and white smear on the ground. "That's really going to help me." Sally
thought to herself.
     "I'm tired, Aunt Sally." She was also getting scared because that wasn't
a good sign.
     "No, Tails! Stay awake!" Sally yelled. Tails fell to his knees and
started to feel hot. He started to cry.
     "Help me, please!" Tails voice was sounding weaker every time he spoke.
He was desperately trying to keep his eyes open.
     "Tails, there is a small red button on the back of your communicator.
That's a tracking device, turn it on!" Tails turned the communicator around
and pushed the button. That instant, his signal was picked up by Nicole and
she saw that he was in an uncharted part of the Tesniboic Forest, which was
almost out of Nicole's scanning range. "Sonic's going to be right there. And
stay awake! This is something you have to do!"
     "Okay, Sally."
     Sally ran for Sonic at Uncle Chuck's to tell him that Tails was in
serious trouble.
     "I never told her I loved her." Tails said to himself. Sonic was still
healing from his encounter with Packbell, but it didn't stop him from taking a
power ring and hauling to the location on Nicole's map.
     "Tails! Wake up!" Sally yelled when she saw Tails on the ground when she
ran back to her computer. "TAILS!"

     Sonic was almost flying towards Tails' location and the only thing
keeping his tears from blinding him was the wind in his face. After about five
minutes of running, he arrived at the edge of the forest. He couldn't run
through it, it was too dangerous. The forest was too dense and slowed Sonic
down as he ran. It was dark and the only thing that was giving light was the
beams of moonlight shining through the canopy giving the forest a feeling of
death. This only made him feel worse.
     Just as soon as the signal was picked up by Nicole, it was lost. A
figure stood over Tails' body. The gentle wind made it look like there were
fingers running through his fur.
     "Now how did you get all the way over here, Tails?" he asked as he put
the communicator in his pocket. He picked Tails up and saw that he was still
breathing. He walked about fifty feet away from the transmission so nobody
could find them. When he put him down, he pulled out a leather case that was
about the size of a book. He unzipped it and pulled out two test tubes, a
beaker, a couple of needles, a bottle of saline, a bottle of phenolthalene,
and a bottle of hydrochloric acid. He extracted about one fifth of a test tube
of blood from him and poured in about one eighth of a test tube of the
phenolthalene. It turned from red to pink. He then took the acid and counted
how many drops he put in until the blood turned red again. He then took the
saline and mixed some acid with it and injected it into his arm. He rubbed it
around for a minute and closed his case.
     He picked him back up and began walking again.

-  -  -  -

     His own breath on his arm woke him up. He opened his eyes and couldn't
see a thing. His head was in pain and his fingers were numb. But nothing
compared to the pain in his shoulder when he tried to roll over to see where
he was. Tails grabbed his arm and knew that it was swollen.
     His vision wasn't as blurry now and he sat up. The blood in his body
rushed to his lower half and felt like a vacuum on his brain. He leaned
forward and grabbed his head with his good hand.
     After another few minutes, he looked up and found that he was in a room
with only a cot and a light on a table. The room was made of a rock wall and
another wooden wall.
     He stood up and was very dazed and confused. He couldn't remember what
happened the night before, so naturally he didn't know where he was. Since he
was in a bed in a room without bars, the only logical thing to do was to open
the door in front of him and explore. When he pushed the door open. He saw a
long hallway with a door on each side and a door ten feet in front of him.
     The door straight ahead was already open so he chose door number two and
went inside. When he passed the frame of the door, the first thing he saw was
the refrigerator. And like magic, that refrigerator turned on a little switch
inside of him that made his stomach hurt with hunger. He staggered toward it
and opened it. He didn't care what was in it at the time. There could have
been a frozen rat inside of it and he would have eaten it. But to his
amazement, it was full of fresh fruit, soda, chocolate, and a pack of hot dogs
with a plastic bowl full of chili in it looking at him just as Tails looked at
it.

     The more hungry you are, the better food tastes, and with chili dogs, he
was in heaven. The only thing that broke this miracle was the sound of water
he didn't hear until it just now turned off. He stopped eating and froze.
There was somebody in the bathroom getting out of the shower. Tails swallowed
what was in his mouth and got up to see who it was. But he only walked toward
the door of the hallway.
     When the door opened to the bedroom, a human stepped out with a leather
case in his hand and walking to the room Tails was sleeping in the night
before. Tails ran to the other side of the kitchen looking for a way out. He
was terrified to see a human looking for him.
     There was no way out the kitchen only had one door. He could only look
for a place to hide. But there wasn't anything he could hide behind.
     "Tails?!" The human yelled. Two things hit Tails in the face when his
name was said. Why would he be looking for him, and why a human- with what
seems to be good intentions?
     The man found that he was now awake and roaming around. And picked door
number two. He saw that Tails was in there because of the chili dogs that were
left on the table.
     "Tails? Are you in here?" he asked.
     "What do you want!" Tails blurted. The man followed his voice around the
corner and saw Tails hiding on the other side.
     "Are you okay?" He saw his arm and his bloodshot eyes. Tails paused for
a second.
     "I'm fine." Tails said, but still not trusting this human.
     "If you only looked fine." He laughed.
     "Where am I? And how do you know my name?" The man held out his hand to
help Tails up. "Don't touch me!" Tails yelled, still backed in the corner.
     "Okay." he said and backed off. He pulled a chair from the table and sat
about four feet away from him. He leaned up against the back of the chair and
began talking. "I guess I owe you some information."
     "Where am I? And how do you know my name?" Tails asked again.
     "Well, you are pretty far from home, any you're in my home. I live
underground in this forest."
     "Who are you?" Tails was becoming military with his questions.
     "My name's John. And I know you don't remember me because..." John
looked at himself. "Well, you knew me as a fox." Tails didn't say anything. He
was expecting John to continue. "I've lived with your parents in Bluebrook
before you were born. And I was a fox then. It's just been a long time since
I've seen you. I'll be right back and show you. Just stay here."
     John stood up and went into his bedroom. And when he returned, he was a
fox. Tails was still to confused to realize what kind of occurrence just took
place.
     "Where did he go?" Tails asked.
     "I know it's hard for you to believe, but I'm a shapeshifter." John
began to demonstrate by becoming an exact duplicate of Tails. This is when the
full reality of the situation kicked him in the teeth. "I'm probably scaring
you more than I'm trying to help."
     "Change back!" Tails yelled. John returned to a fox.
     "Do you at least remember me this way?"
     "No."
     "Look, I know you're scared and everything, but you wouldn't be alive if
it wasn't for me. If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead a long time ago.
So there's nothing to be afraid of."
     "Then take me home."
     "Where do you live?"
     "In a village next to Robotropolis."
     "No name?"
     "I'm not allowed to tell."
     "Okay, do you want me to take you to Robotropolis?"
     "How are you going to get me there?"
     "I've got a hoverpad."
     "Wait!" Tails yelled.
     "What?"
     "I had a tracking device!"
     "Where is it?"
     "I don't know."
     "Do you want me to go and look for it?"
     "I still don't trust you."
     "Then what do you want me to do?"
     "I don't know."
     "Well, you have to think of something, because that spider bite's not
going to get any better if you don't do anything about it. You don't trust me,
so I know you won't let me do anything to you, and the only other person who
you would trust isn't here, and I can take you there. But you won't let me."
     "Where's Felix?"
     "Who?"
     "And my mom!"
     "What? I thought your mom was killed a long time ago."
     "No. She was with me yesterday."
     "Then I'll take you to them. She'll recognize me and you'll finally
trust me."
     "I don't know where they are."
     "Tails, if you won't let me take you home or take care of your arm, you
or something, you will die!!" Tails said nothing. He only grabbed his arm.
     "Where's the closest village from here?" Tails asked.
     "About two miles west from here."
     "I want to go there." Tails began to get up. But when he almost fell,
John was there to catch him. On their way out, John put Tails' communicator on
the table so where he wouldn't see it.

-  -  -  -

     "I can't believe he wasn't there. I looked everywhere!" Sonic cried.
     "Bookshire and I are going out to look for him right now." Sally
informed. Sonic only kept his head in his hands.

     Bookshire and Sally were on a stollen hoverpad from Robotropolis.
Bookshire carried with him only the necesities of emergency medical care.
Sally only carried Nicole with her. They both travled to the location last
detected by Nicole's tracking scanner.
     After a half an hour of flying at an altitude of two hunderd feet, they
arrived at the last tracable position of Tails. Sally lowered herself from a
rope and Bookshire followed.
     "Nicole, scan for any trace of Tails within a ten foot radius."
     "Scanning, Sally." Nicole searched for any fur, blood or skin that would
normally be untracable to the naked eye. "Blood trace found, Sally." Nicole
pointed a red laser crosshair on the ground pointing to a drop of his blood on
a blade of grass.
     "Another blood trace found, Sally." Nicole shone a second laser
crosshair on the dead spider that had bitten him.
     "Nicole, can you determine what kind of spider that is?"
     "Scanning, Sally." Nicole paused and examined the almost dried sample
with an array of devices. "Arachnid found to be called "Queen Archer" and
known to be very poisonus. With a simple poison composed mainly of sodium
hydroxide, and other minor toxins, the poison could be neutralized with an
acid with the same molarity. Preferably hydrogen chloride or any other acid
that would leave a similar and safe salele solution as sodium chloride.
Depending on the spider, which cannot be determined by this sample, the second
toxins in the poison cannot be altered or reversed to keep blood clotting at a
dangerous rate."
     "Is there any other fur or blood trace in this area?"
     "Scanning, Sally."
     "If we don't find him soon, Tails might not make it." Bookshire
commented.
     "But who else could have found him all the way out here?" Sally asked in
deep thought.
     "No other trace found, Sally." If Nicole was requested to a long range
scan for and blood, she would have found Sarah's about three hundred and fifty
feet away.
     "The only thing we could do is look for Felix." Sally said as she began
climbing the rope back to the hoverpad.

     "Okay. Here we are." John said as the hoverpad descended from the trees.
     "I was here yesterday."
     "I'm going to see where a hospital is. Stay here." John jumped off of
the pad and ran to a building to ask where he could find one. When Tails
looked in the oppisite direction, he saw a wanted poster. The picture didn't
look anything like him, but it said that the name was John Wainscott. Tails
didn't want to say anything because he knew that if he did, he was dead.
     If John was such a wanted person, how come he sounded like a great
person back in Bluebrook?
     "Tails, there's a hospital about a mile and a half from here. I'll take
you there and drop you off. From there, you can contact whoever you want at
home."
     "Okay." The two flew off and Tails kept his eyes fixed at the wanted
poster until it was out of sight. He wasn't scared anymore.
     When they arrived at the hospital, Tails got off the pad and began to
walk inside.
     "Don't worry, Tails. I didn't kill your mom, I just shot her in the
foot." John said and turned the hoverpad on. At that point, Tails was about to
explode in rage. But he only stood there; with his eyes filling up with tears.
John turned around and flew off to home.

-  -  -  -

     "Who is this?" Rotor asked.
     "This is Doctor Lea at Meiggs Hospital. I'm sorry to bother you, but
there's a young boy looking for the king or queen." She said. "His name is
Tails."
     "They found him!" Rotor yelled out the window. He was more excited than
he had ever been when he heard the news of Tails being okay. Doctor Lea knew
she found out the guardians of the lost boy.
     "Where is he?" Bunnie asked as she ran inside.
     "Yes, where is he?" Rotor repeated.
     "This is Meggs Hospital in Cedar City."
     "That's where Sally and Bookshire are at! Hold on, I'll patch you to
them." Rotor linked the communication to Nicole and instructed Bunnie to
inform Sonic of Tails' location and condition.

     "Queen Sally! It's such an honor..."
     "Where is he?!" Sally interrupted.
     "Uh, is your communicator equipped with a global positioning system?"
     "Yes. Send the quardenents to me." The doctor looked away from her
screen and began transmitting. At that moment, Sally disconnected and ruched
to the described location.

     "Tails? How are you feeling?" He didn't answer. "The queen is on her
way. She should be here in a little while." Tails still didn't reply. He was
torn up because of what happened to his mother, and how cruel John was to him
for making him trust him. Doctor Lea placed a glass of water and a candy bar
on the table next to him and walked off.
     Sarah was in a room one floor above his son, and she didn't even know
where he was. Sally was going to take him away soon and only time would tell
when they would meet again. Felix was still looking around the town for Sarah
or Tails. But with every building he tried, he never thought of checking the
hospital. The three were so close to each other, but millions of miles away.
     John was back home. He was wondering if Tails was doing okay. He still
had all of the stuff he picked up when he brought Tails home. He was going to
return them in about a week when everything cooled down.
     While Tails was sitting and waiting to be picked up, he was in mental
and physical pain. His arm was still swealing and there was nothing to stop
it. He was wondering why John saved his life when he was just going to be a
cruel beast to him.

     On Sally's way in the hospital, everybody who saw her bowed in her
presence. She kept her quick pace and despite Bookshire's limping, he kept up
with her. She walked up to the receptionist's desk and the nurse bowed when
she saw her.
     "Stop it!" The nurse looked up again. "Where's Tails!" The nurse began
typing at the computer.
     "Sally!" Tails yelled. Sally turned and ran towards him. She picked him
up and hugged him and cherished the moment that he was still alive. But she
knew that if nothing was done about his arm, she would never have that chance
to cherish that moment ever again.

-  -  -  -

     Back in Knothole, Bookshire began examining his arm. It was swollen and
some of his fur was falling out. He gave Tails some sedatives so he wouldn't
be in any more pain. Bookshire knew about this kind of spider bite and knew
that they are eficient killers.
     "What can we do?" Sally asked.
     "I don't know. The poison is made to clot blood where it is and block
any blood circulation. And if nothing can help him, I will have to amputate
his arm to save his life. A sudden shock hit Sally.
     "Youre going to cut his arm off?!" Sally yelled.
     "He's lucky that it doesn't spread past his arm." Bookshire was trying
to find any and all alternitaves that could help. "The only other thing I can
do is roboticize it."
     "What are the chances of later deroboticization?" There was a long
pause.
     "We have to ask Chuck about this."

     Bookshire and Sally went to Uncle Chuck's hut and asked if they could
come inside. When he was presented with the question brought up by Sally, the
expression on his face made the outcome look grim.
     "I'm sorry, Sally. But it would be impossible. I made the roboticizer to
make a somewhat of a backup copy of what it transforms. If his arm was
reconstructed after the process, it would change it back to what it was
before."
     "What about using his DNA to reconstruct it?" Bookshire inquired.
     "I've even thought about that. But it wouldn't work. The DNA doesn't
tell how old the person is."
     "Why would that make a difference?"
     "Because the machine wouldn't know how old of an arm to put back on him.
I know this is a hard decision, but I agree with Bookshire. You should
roboticize his arm."

-  -  -  -
Chapter Eleven
-  -  -  -

     Sally knew that she had to get Tails to Robotropolis to save his life,
but the only way to do that was to get Packbell out of the way. They had to go
to battle and it had to be either now or never because they just kept putting
it off. It was a victorious defeat with Robotnick, but they had the Droodhenge
Stones then, and they also had the help of the Wolf Pack, but they were never
seen after Robotnick's death. They were left with a bigger opponent with fewer
resources.

     Daybreak. Nobody sleped that night. Sonic insisted on being with Tails
last night and was still there now. Bookshire was reminded of the time where
he almost killed Tails with the drondathol. That was another reason he wanted
to save his life. Sally wasn't about to let Bookshire amputate Tails' arm and
the only thing that could save his life was a machine that was viewed by
everyone as evil. But because of the way Robotnick and Packbell used it,
everyone forgot what it was originally used for: to heal. Uncle Chuck was
studying his notes on his own work to re-learn how to use the roboticizer. It
had been years since he had even touched one.
     Sally felt at fault because the royal army could have been in battle
instead of Felix and Tails looking for more volunteers to fight with them. She
thought that there would be a better chance if she had more soldiers.

     Throughout the village everyone heard the fire bell rung by Sally and
gathered to see what she wanted. After everyone was there, including Sonic who
was still in bad condition. Everyone silenced and Sally spoke.
     "I know this is a little unplanned, but I have decided that we have to
attack today. I know that nobody's ready for anything like this, but it has to
be done. The lives of everyone depend on this attack... especially Tails..."
Sally and everyone else looked even more ready to kill Packbell when she
mentioned Tails' name. "So Captian Waters, I would like to see you in my hut
right now."
     "Yes, your magesty." Captian Waters replied. Sally, Sonic and Captian
Waters met in her hut and started to discuss plans for attack.

-  -  -  -

     Back in Robotropolis, things went on as usual. Packbell was still
working on reassembling everything with the help of some of the bots beside
him. Today, he was in a fairly good mood. He wasn't expecting anything from
the Freedom Fighters, and the repairs were ahead of schedule. Anybody with a
basic knowledge of computers know about multitasking, and Packbell put it to
use all of the time, thinking of ways to destroy the Freedom Fighters while he
worked.
     Just as he finished recompiling some of the software for the
surveillance equipment, one thought went through his head that he really
liked. It was so simple, effective and just so much fun. He couldn't believe
that Robotnick or even he didn't think of it sooner.

-  -  -  -

     Sally, Bookshire, Charles, Rotor and Bunnie was with Tails. Sally was
there as the leader of the group. Along with Bunnie, the two knew most about
Robotropolis and it's archetecture. And with Nicole with her, the location of
Packbell wouldn't be 100%, but it was a big help.
     Bookshire was there because obviously he was the doctor of the group. If
something went wrong before or after the roboticization, he would be there to
help.
     Charles was with them to run the roboticizer and make sure it would do
only what they wanted it to do; not what Packbell wanted it to do.
     Rotor was there so in case of an emergency, he could be a backup plan.
He was issued a laser riffle and was the protector of the group.
     Bunnie was along for a completely different reason. When she
volunteered, she said she wanted to be there for Tails and make sure he knew
someone was with him. She was there for that reason, but another reason was
kept from the rest of the Freedom Fighters. Ever since her arm and legs were
restored, she began to feel a little incomplete, like she wasn't important to
Knothole. She wanted the feeling of cold, solid metal a part of her again. But
she knew that would never happen again. The closest thing that would compare
is with Tails.

-  -  -  -
Chapter Twelve
Perspectives
-  -  -  -

     "How are you feeling now, Tails?" Bunnie asked.
     "I'm okay." Her replied in a solemn tone.
     "You're going to be a lot better after today."
     "I am?"
     "Sure are! Have you ever wanted to be as strong as I was?"
     "Yeah."
     "Well, you will be. Do you know what's going to happen?"
     "No."
     "We're making a trip to Robotropolis and fix your arm."
     "This is going to sting a little bit, Tails." Bookshire said to him.
"This is just going to make it go faster." Bookshire inserted a needle on the
inside of his arm. "When you wake up, you'll be all better." Bookshire took a
string and tied his right arm to the side of the stretcher.
     "Why the string?" Bunnie asked.
     "Well, about a few years back I had to give a blood transfusion. The guy
said "don't bend your arm" because of the needle."
     Tails' nose was starting to tingle. He rubbed it with his free arm. The
effects of the drugs were already taking effect. His head felt like it was
expaning every time his heart made a beat. What Bookshire was saying started
to become unclear. His nose itched again and he rubbed it again. His eyes felt
really heavy and watery. It felt strange when he closed his eyes. When he
opened his eyes again, he saw Bunnie, Bookshire and Sally stand around him
talking. He still couldn't comprehend what they were saying. His arm started
feeling a little better, but his nose was now bothering him. It had the same
feeling when you leg falls asleep when you sit on it wrong.
     He closed his eyes again, and when he opened them, the tingling in his
nose started to become less irritating. He was about to rub it again when he
realized that there was a robot about to grab him. He yelled and rolled off
the stretcher that was on the ground and tried to stand up. He didn't know
what was following him, but he did his best to try to get away. Every time he
got half way up, something pulled him back down.
     He found a wall and sat back against it. Finally, he realized that he
was the only person in the room. And the thing that was pulling him back down
was his own arm. It was now heavy steel. Tails was struck with amazement. He
had no idea what had just happened. But he now realized that the bot that was
trying to grab him was just himself.
     Tails now realized that he wasn't in Knothole anymore. He was in
Robotropolis. Just out of instinct, the only thing that came to mind was to
get out. He stood up and carried his arm toward the door that looked like it
had been kicked in by somebody. Without any warning, somebody just walked by
the door down the hallway like there was no danger of being there. A few
seconds later, another person went the other way down the hall.
     When he stepped out of the room, he looked down each end of the
coridoor. On his left, there were five soldiers sitting along the wall with
injuries of all kinds. Half of the people that were there he knew from
Knothole. It was a strange sight seing something like this in such a dangerous
place to be in.
     But now, there was obviously no danger. Tails left the room and began
looking around. There were injured people everywhere. He had no idea what had
just happened. Especially to his arm. He looked to his left and saw somebody.
He followed her. It was Bunnie. She had a cut that ran horizontally across her
ear and it looked painfull.
     "Bunnie!" Tails yelled across the hall. Bunnie stopped and turned
around. When he saw her face, he saw another cut above her eye.
     "Tails! How's yer arm?" He grabbed his metal albow and looked at it.
     "Okay, I guess. What happened to you?" Bunnie laughed a little.
     "Well, nothin', compared to what happened to Packbell."

-  -  -  -
Chapter Twelve
Perspectives
-  -  -  -

     "How are you feeling now, Tails?" Bunnie asked.
     "I'm okay." Her replied in a solemn tone.
     "You're going to be a lot better after today."
     "I am?"
     "Sure are! Have you ever wanted to be as strong as I was?"
     "Yeah."
     "Well, you will be. Do you know what's going to happen?"
     "No."
     "We're making a trip to Robotropolis and fix your arm."
     "This is going to sting a little bit, Tails." Bookshire said to him.
"This is just going to make it go faster." Bookshire inserted a needle on the
inside of his arm. "When you wake up, you'll be all better." Bookshire took a
string and tied his right arm to the side of the stretcher.
     "Why the string?" Bunnie asked.
     "Well, about a few years back I had to give a blood transfusion. The guy
said "don't bend your arm" because of the needle." He looked at Tails as he
rubbed his nose. "Well, after about ten minutes, I forgot about the needle
bacause it didn't hurt any more. When my nose itched, I scratched it, and boy
did that hurt! I had a bruse that ran about three inches."
     Tails rubbed his nose again.
     "See? Well, let's get ready."

     All of Knothole was ready for the attack. Captian Waters and the army
was with their weapons ready to go. Earlier, they had to be tested because
they haven't been used scince Robotnick ordered the army to patrol Los Altos
Mountains before the coup. Antoine Joined them and was in his uniform (as
usual). Sonic took Miles and Julayla over to Namrock with Erin so they
wouldn't be harmed if the attack was a failure. (Five minute trip.) As for
everyone else, they were behind the army with make-shift weapons of their own
ready for any kind of combat. All of the children were in Blue Brook Village.
All of the buildings were still the way they were from it's destruction and
that would be that last place Packbell would loof if Knothole was defeated.

     "This is it." Sally said slowly pacing down the rows of soldiers
standing at attention. "None of you have witnessed the destruction of the
Doomsday project, and nothing is whe way it was before Robotnick's takeover,
so everything's going to be unfamilliar to you. Sonic is going to go ahead of
us to make sure that there isn't any new developments in repairs of weaponry
or defence. When he returns... we fight."

-  -  -  -

     "Where are you now, Sonie?" Uncle Chuck asked over the radio.
     "I'm inside of the vents. Hey, I think I hear Packsmell."
     "What's he doing?"
     "I dunno. I'm goin in closer to scope out where he is."
     "Ok, be careful."
     "It's cool." Sonic quietly continued down the vent to the room Packbell
was in. As he turned the corner, he saw him under him through the opening and
saw him pulling out an oil drum out of a storage room filled with something.
Sonic didn't know what it was and didn't really care. "Everything's all hunky
dorry with him. I'm gunna go check on the roboticizer now."
     "Good. Glad you thought of it."
     "I'm cool. You know it."
     "Now's not the time to let you'r ego take over, Sonie."
     "Aw, c'mon. That's what I live for, Unc."
     "Not when Tails is about to die." Chuck stated in a tern voice. Sonic
stopped and realized that he was right. He shouldn't let his ego take over in
important situations. Sonic wasn't going into battle for freedom, but for his
closest friend. So he quickly but quietly walked down the vent making sure he
didn't draw any attention.

-  -  -  -

     "What is taking him so long?" Sally asked under her breath. "He should
be back by now." Everyone was still standing at attention and getting tired.
Sally walked over to Tails and looked at his arm. It was swollen and made her
sick just to look at it. The drugs given to him by Bookshire put him out like
a light.
     "He's gunna miss the whole darn thing." Bunnie said to her. "And he's
the center of attention." Sally smiled a little bit but it didn't stay long.
Sally kissed Tails on the forehead and left.

     Out of nowhere, a sonic boom roared through the air almost blowing
everyone away. Sonic was back. Just then for some strange reason, the army
didn't feel tired anymore from standing at attention for twenty minutes. They
were ready, and there wasn't any time to feel tired.
     "So, Captian. Ready for war?" Sally asked in a solemn voice.
     "I will not stop fighting until Packbell or I die." He replied in the
same tone.

-  -  -  -

     Packbell was walking out of Robotropolis accompanied by a single bot who
was carying the oil drum Sonic noticed earlier. Packbell seemed to be in a
very good mood. He was just strolling along taking his time. Today, he was
smoking a cigar. He obviously couldn't taste anything, but it was one of those
cigars you smoke after an enormous victory, and he was smoking it with pride.
He was having a good day.
     As he reached his destination, the edge of the forest, he took out his
lazer riffle and gave it a quick inspection.
     "Can you please stand right over there?" Packbell asked in a pollite
manner pointing to a tree. Naturally, the bot walked over to the tree still
holding the drum. "Just a little bit more." He said waving his hand to the
left just a little bit. "There." Packbell said then took aim and shot the oil
drum making a very large explosion. The shock wave threw him back about ten
feet but he didn't care, he just set the Great Forest on fire. He looked for
the cigar that fell out of his mouth and picked it back up. He brushed it off
and relit it, laughing all the way back home.
     Before he had gotten far, he heard a faint noise that he had never heard
before. It sounded a little like a heard of wild animals approaching him. He
turned around to see what it was. His cigar fell out of his mouth like he'd
forgot about it and his mouth dropped. Before he knew it, he was being charged
by the entire Mobian Army. It looked something like what his bots would do
durring an attack on a village, but that's what it was... Only the other way
around. He was almost about to command his army on them, but he realized that
he didn't have one. Nobody has ever seen Packbell run like he was doing right
now, it almost looked funny.
     Robotnick programmed him with all of the basic human emotions, but this
is the first time he had experienced fear.

-  -  -  -

     The Great Forest was now ablaze and there were hundresd of men charging
towards the city. Packbell ran inside and locked the entrance. As he ran down
the hallway to the weapons room, he heard the Freedom Fighters begin to pound
on the door behind him.
     He entered the weapons room and was presented with a varity of guns and
ammo. He chose three weapons: one, a roboticizer riffle. It would come in
handy as his first choice. The first person he sees, becomes his servant and
begins fighting on his side. Second, one of the powerful laser riffles. In
case the first weapon doesn't do it's job completely, it could be taken care
of this way. The third was a pistol. If the other two failed, the pistol, with
it's quick reloading, would be a good choice to use against his opponents. The
fourth was a simple blade. If worse comes to worst, he would take other people
with him of he died.
     Packbell armed himself to the teeth, but there was still more. Hand
grenades. An excelent deturant. He took two grenades back to the door and
placed them right next to it. He pulled the pins on both of them and began
running away from the army.
     When the door finally gave way, an angry mob of soldiers began running
down the hall. To Packbell's amazement, the grenades didn't go off. They only
sat there next to the open door with everybody passing them by without
noticing. Packbell ripped off his eye patch because he thought his second eye
might be usefull in these matters.

     "He's running away from the roboticizer!" Sally yelled. "Let's go!"
Everybody in the small group proceeded towards the jails. When they walked
inside, it was the most scariest place they've been in. In a place like this,
they were expecting Packbell to be standing right in front of them waiting to
kill them. But they all knew that he was preoccupied with other matters. This
was a time of geting things done this second, but for one moment, they all
stood and looked at the roboticizer. It was a strange feeling. They were going
to use a tool that was commonly used by their worst enemy, on one of thier
own.
     Charles lifted the glass cylinder and Rotor laid Tails inside the
machine. It was hard for unconsious bodies to be paced in the machine because
it was made to transform standing people. They both got him inside the glass
tube to where the roboticizer could do it's work without error. Charles began
working on the controll panel and adjusting it so where it would only change
the fourteen percent of his body.
     While the machine began it's process, Bunnie couldn't keep her eye's off
of Tails. She had lived a long time with an unnatural body, but she's never
seen what it was really like for this process to take place.
     "Don't look at it when it's on." Charles said. Bunnie ignored him and
kept looking at Tails. The machine was turned on and the light from it burned
her eyes, but she continued to watch anyway. It was a horrible, yet an amazing
sight. It looked like he was being shoved around by a hundred people as the
process took place. She had never seen this side of what she went through when
this happened to her. The metal was being constructed from his arm. The
pressure that was built up from the swelling in his arm slpashed blood onto
the pad and glass during the short time the metal wasn't covering the bone and
muscle. When the process was completed, the screen displayed "sucessful
operation". Bunnie grabbed her eyes and rubbed them hard. The rest of the
group moved him back to the stretcher.
     "Do you know of anywhere we could put him until he wakes up?" Bookshire
asked.
     "Yes. Follow me." Sally instructed. Bunnie had a hard time following.
She was almost blind from looking at the roboticizer, but nobody found out
that she was watching Tails the whole time.

     The fighting continued. Packbell only ran. He was too afraid to get
close enough to get even one shot off with his first choice of weapons. The
entire building now was full of soldiers. Soon there was no place for Packbell
to run. Captian Waters was leading everybody and chased Packbell down every
hallway and every room. With the long trail of soldiers, Packbell would have
to leave Robotropolis to live. But the only time he would run from a fight, is
when Sonic and Sally is dead. He knew he couldn't leave.
     Packbell turned around and looked down the round hallway. He couldn't
see them comming, but he heard them comming. He was ready to fire at the first
person he saw. Both weapons were in his hands and he stood waiting for them.
The sound of their charging feet was geting louder every second.
     Captain Waters was the first in line. When he saw Packbell and Packbell
saw him, triggers were pulled. Captain Waters was shot in the neck with the
laser. He dropped his gun and grabbed his neck. Two other soldiers came to his
aid and everybody else was firing at Packbell.
     Captain Waters couldn't breathe or scream. There was blood everywhere.
The two other soldiers tried to stop the bleeding, but they both knew that he
would soon die either way. Captain Waters was shaking and kicking his legs. He
couldn't believe that he was a failure to the crown. He thought of this as a
dishonerable death. The last thing he saw was all of his soldiers running
after Packbell, then he died.
     When Packbell let off his first shot, he knew that he had already been
shot by thirteen other people, but he kept running. The only place left to run
was area seven on the second level. His last hope of surviving was to try to
destroy the wall that made the dead end and jump out of the building. As he
turned the corner, he saw the wall that would decide his fate. He began
shooting at it, but only minor damage was done to it. He tried kicking it
down, but there was still no major damage to the wall.
     "I'm not leting you off that easy!" Packbell yelled. He grabbed his
blade and took his laser riffle and began running along the path that he
already took. Two seconds later, he came head-on with the army. He plowed
through the first eleven, killing four on the spot and injuring everybody
else. When he came to a stop, he was bombarded with laser blasts and was being
torn apart by them. Everybody that was with Tails was in the room next to the
battle. The door was knocked down by all of the confusion and everybody began
pouring inside. Bunnie was shot in the ear and it almost came completely off.
She screamed in pain as Sally tried to help. More people kept flooding inside
and both Sally and Bunnie were burried under ten people. Bookshire and Rotor
tried to help. Tails was safe and sleeping in the corner of the room.

     Packbell was now dead, but the Great Forest was still on fire. Knothole
was safe because of an emergency sprinkler system ran through vines all around
the village and two hundred feet past it. It used the stream as it's supply.
And it used everything the stream gave it. In Bluebrook, all of the children
with a handful of supervisors were safe because they were located next to the
canyon. The Great Forest will be destroyed by within two or three days. Nobody
will be killed because of village and city fire drills. Only one village was
burned to the ground, and that was Bluebrook.

-  -  -  -

     Packbell's head was on a pole, as requested by Sonic earlier that week.
It was a gift to him from one of the soldiers. Sally and Bunnie have had
better days. Bunnie's ear was cut half way through and in intense pain. She
had a cut under her eye and a bruied jaw. Sally was lucky, she only had a cut
lip. The two were sleeping next to Tails in the room with the kicked-down
door. Bookshire and Rotor were helping the wounded, and some of the soldiers
were tending to the dead, including Antoine who was tending to Captian Waters.
Sonic was nowhere near any of this. He would never had made it through the
battle. The trip through the almost uncharted forest for Tails took a lot out
of him. But Felix missed everything.
     Sonic went inside the same room where Tails, Bunnie and Sally were and
laid down between them. All four of them looked like they've been to hell and
back, but they were all sleeping peacefully, dreaming of what to do next in
Mobotropolis.

-  -  -  -
Chapter -uh, I'll get back to you on the chapter number.
New Beginings
-  -  -  -

     The room was still dark, but you could see if you looked hard enough.
Sonic was awake now. He was happy that he and Sally were still alive and
Mobotropolis was now theirs again. He put his hand on Sally's neck and rubbed
his hand down her back (with no sexual intent). But when his hand touched her
tail, something was different. It was a cottontail. He opened his eyes only to
see Bunnie getting up and swinging at his jaw. Sonic fell back and grabbed the
side of his face. She just gave him another contribution to his collections of
cuts, scrapes and bruises. Bunnie was angry at her rude awakening, and so was
Sonic. But Bunnie was whe one who deserved the appology.
     "I thought you were Sally!" Sonic groaned.
     "Who was doin the thinkin for you? Your brains or your balls?" Bunnie
asked in a grouchy temper.
     "I wasn't comming on to you! I have a wife and two kids!" Bunnie only
got up and left, somewhere where she could finish sleeping. Sonic got up and
followed her to try to appologise and get in his side of the story. He kept
rubbing his jaw. Bunnie was just in a really bad mood. Her head was in pain
and she didn't want to talk to anybody. "Can't I at least talk to you?" Bunnie
ignored him and kept walking. Sonic grabbed her shoulder and turned her
around. "I'm sorry! And this isn't just one of my small screw-up appologies,
this is one where I really mean it."
     "I'm sorry I hit ya." Bunnie finally said. They both began slowly
walking back.
     "I really thought you were Sally."
     "Well, I believe you. I'm just cranky. If you wern't married, and I
wasn't engaged, I'd go out with you any day." Sonic blushed. There was a short
pause and Sonic was trying to look for something to say. He looked at her and
noticed her ear and the cut under her eye.
     "Oh, I forgot to ask. Are you and everybody okay?"
     "No. Tails is going to flip out when he wakes up. Sally and I got our
butts kicked. And we lost a few people."
     "How many?"
     "I don't know. I couldn't count. I had to leave the room, but I think
there's about ten or fifteen."
     "Where's the captain?" Bunnie knew that her answer would hurt Sonic a
lot.
     "He was one of them." Sonic felt like he was punched in the chest. He
turned around and kicked the wall. "It could have been worse, we could have
lost this battle. But Packbell's finally dead now. We can start over now."
     "I know. He meant a lot to the army." Bunnie grabbed his arm.
     "Let's get some coffee."

     Bookshire and Erin was with packbell's head and body. They were
examining it to see if there would be any use of his parts or information. The
first thing that came to mind was obviously the data storage units.
     "Is it safe?" Erin asked Bookshire.
     "The interface is on it's own independent system, so if there was a
breech, there would still be no danger." Bookshire replied.
     "Where do you want to start?"
     "Let's look at his ROM tables. This'll show us Robotnick's programming."
Bookshire accessed the deepest programming possible. After they both read
everything, they had a deeper understanging of what kind of lunitic Robotnick
was. They continued down to his r/w programming to see what Packbell
programmed himself with. And after they read the first few lines, they
realized why he hated Robotnick so much. The very first thing that he was
programmed with was mainly hate and destruction. Robotnick was a sloppy, but
also a tallented programmer. He made Packbell an efficent killer, but there is
nothing that one man could create that would eliminate all life on an entire
plannet; or is there?

     Sally was awake now and Tails was still asleep. She got up and left the
room to help the wounded. One of the injured men died overnight. Sally tried
to keep from throwing up from the smell of all of the blood that was spilled
in the battle. She had to step outside. The fire was still going and she knew
she couldn't do anything about it.
     From the opposite end of the forest, Felix came racing down the beaten
path to the city on a motorcycle. When he reached the front of the castle. He
saw Sally sitting on the edge of the fountain.
     "Sally! They said Tails was here! Is he okay?" Felix tried to ask as
quickly as possible.
     "Yes! He's fine now. He's going to be okay."
     "I couldn't find him. Where was he?"
     "He was at a hospital in Cedar City."
     "Oh, God!" Felix yelled. "That was the last place I checked for him."
     "Don't worry. You did what you could. How did you get sperated anyway?"
     "There was a fire in a house so I went inside to see if anybody was
inside. That was the last I saw of him." Sally looked behind Felix and saw his
bike.
     "Where did you get that?" Felix looked behind him at it.
     "Oh, that? Um, you really don't want to know. It was an emergency."
Sally rolled her eyes.
     "Just return it with some money left on it later."
     "Okay." There was another long period of silence. Sally looked inside
the fountain she was sitting on.
     "Have you ever seen this when it was working?"
     "No."
     "It's so beautiful when it's running."
     "I bet it is."
     "I wonder if it'll still work after these past few years."
     "That would be nice if it does. Do you want to work on it tomorrow? I'll
help you with it."
     "Sure."
     "Oh, I completely forgot. How was the battle?"
     "It could have been better."
     "Is everybody okay?"
     "Not really. We lost a few, including the captain."
     "I wish I could have been there." Felix stood up. "I'm going to see how
everything's going. I'll see you later."
     "Bye." Felix walked inside the castle and saw all of the people laying
on the floor against the walls in the hallway. It was worse than Felix
thought. The smell of blood was terrible. He looked in all of the rooms and
they were filled with other people trying to help the wounded on the floor.
     "Felix!" Sonic yelled. "Where have you been!" Felix turned around.
     "Oh, sorry. Did I miss aything?"
     "Of course, you little puke!" Sonic scolded in good humor.
     "Hey, where's Tails? I want to see him."
     "Uh, I think he's still asleep. Come on, I'll show you where he is
though." Sonic began walking down the hallway and up the stairs. "I don't know
how long he's going to be out, but I'm pretty sure he'll be up by this
evening." Sonic and Felix walked into the room and Felix's heart skipped a
beat when he saw him. He never really realized what he would look like with an
arm like this.
     "Oh, man. I didn't think it'd be this bad."
     "Come on, I'll fill you in on what you missed."

-  -  -  -

     "Well, I don't think you remember or not..." Bunnie said as she ran her
finger across the lip of her coffee mug.
     "Remember what?" Rotor asked. He took a sip of his coffee.
     "We planned to get married the same day we won the war." Rotor was a
little stunned.
     "Don't take this the wrong way. I love you, but I think we should, well,
reschedule for a better time to do this."
     "I understand, but I just wanted to have our annaversery on the same day
as the annaversary of the coup d'‚tat."
     "Well, that's what I wanted too, but how are we going to do this?"
     "We don't have to go all out. I don't even have a wedding dress." Bunnie
and Rotor giggled a little. Then there was a short moment of silence.
     "I'll get Antoine." Rotor quietly stated.

     "In the lower level of the castle in a room lit only by two candles,
Antoine stood before Rotor and Bunnie who were kneeling before him. Sonic and
Sally were next to them and they were all silent, except Antoine who was
reciting a prayer.
     This was the only time they felt real peace in this castle for a very
long time.
     "You may now kees ze bride." Antoine said and they both embraced in the
long awaited kiss.

     Bookshire and Erin were still tinkering with Packbell. Erin has been
gaining experience in programming these last few hours. They both recieved a
good scare when Packbell's programming took over the computer and tried to
communicate to them. They only gave a laugh of relief knowing that nothing
would happen. Bookshire was about to deactivate the system, but Erin stopped
him.
     "I'm disappointed, Packbell. I thought you could do better." Bookshire
said.
     "You have no idea what you are dealing with right now." Packbell hissed.
     "Well, on the conterary, I think I do."
     "I don't think you know this or not, but we won." Erin stated as if this
entire war was just a game.
     "I don't think you understand, you poor misguided soul."
     "I think this is where bribery comes in." Bookshire whispered to Erin.
"What would I possibly want from you?"
     "The secret of the Void."