Destroyed

by MistressAli

'I dreamt your heart was safe behind your ribs,

that I could stop this war - that I could save her!

That I was just a dream, returning to the deep.'

---Thoushaltnot 'A Dream'

This was how the world was destroyed, with a deliberate betrayal, with a sword swift to the back, with a false smile, and with simple, blatant brutality.

Sally was dragged down marbled halls by a tall robot, a PEACEbot which was not living up to its name. Around her was destruction. Castle walls blown apart, people had been screaming, running. She'd seen them gunned down by the formerly peaceful police-bots and she'd seen Daddy dragged away to fate unknown.

Her 5-year old mind was overwhelmed, cycling from worries (where were her friends, were they safe? How had things gone so wrong? How could the admittedly creepy, but certainly not -evil- Warlord Julian do such wicked things?) to memories. She remembered her father's smile, how yesterday Sonic had eaten way more than his fair share of chili-dogs!

She flashed back to days before. She'd been freed from studies on account of Julayla attending some royal event or another. On a secret mission, Sally had gone to the Overlander wing of the castle (walking when she'd draw attention, running gleefully when it would not). Warlord Julian lived there, but she had no interest in the strange, red-eyed 'hero' of the Kingdom. She'd entered the Overlander's workshop, finding her mission there – the nephew of the Warlord. Brilliant boy, odd little Overlander with the funny name... Snively Kintobor. Her friends... Sonic... did not approve of him, and were quick to poke fun at the pointed nose, the odd accent and voice.

She'd watched him from the doorway, on the floor surrounded by a dissembled PEACEbot, prying at its wrist gauntlet with a screwdriver. Cursing in frustration, and offering no apology or cover-up for it when he saw her. She loved that. She was an equal, not a child. She loved, when he took a look at her thick, disheveled plait of auburn hair, and remarked that 'her crowning glory was in disarray.' And she loved that he expected her to understand his vocabulary and had the forethought to KNOW she would.

'What are you doing?' she'd asked.

'Oh, just some upgrades,' he'd answered. A look, strangely guilty and abashed, came to him, and he'd pushed aside the robot parts with one foot. 'But that's not interesting, is it?'

The warm smell of baked goods was in the air; Snively had turned to a small oven in the corner of the room, opening it and grasping the heat-repelling handle of a pan, pulled it out. Banana bread rose over the sides, and together they sat down at a table messy with spare parts and tools. Over bread and coffee they had talked. It was a special thing, this secret friendship. She who valued learning, knew it to be relevant and important to her core, to befriend and share the value of an outcast, shining soul such as he. They were both different from others, but while she was valued for it, he was mocked. She wanted him to know she valued him, to feel the love that she felt.

She'd been bemused by his goodbye that day; he'd patted her shoulder and bade her goodbye with slightly watery eyes, his smile quivering at the edges. He just loved her, was all, he appreciated her. Despite the protests her father and Sonic would give about this friendship...she knew it was right.

And now, where was he? Lost, captured, or dead, along with the rest of her friends? Tears came to her eyes and she struggled hard, knowing it was no use. Her cheek already bled from earlier attempts to escape, her silk-clothed knees were torn and scraped.

Now the tall robot had brought her to a vast room, an area of the castle where she had rarely been, though the name piqued her interest – the Mobian science center. A huge room, bare of most everything but a row of strange glass tubes. A line of Mobians were chained to the floor at the far side of the wall, weeping and shouting. Before the tubes stood shining robots the exact likeness of Mobians. Her stomach crawled as the robot touched her leg, putting a metal band upon her foot, And she was set down, finally, the metal band connecting to a magnetic post on the floor. Her ankle was drawn to it and held fast.

'Prisoner captured, Doctor Robotnik,' the former PEACEbot intoned.

Then she saw him, a massive figure of red, with cloak of swirling yellow. The Warlord, his red-on-black eyes malevolent. Not just creepy. EVIL. Waves of it, undulating with certainty. She was smart, so how could she not have seen this before?

'Well, well, well, if it isn't the royal princess? The little heir herself. The throne is open to you, I must admit, seeing how dear old Maximilian is preoccupied at the moment... but I must deprive you of your inheritance, I'm afraid.'

She barely heard him. It was too much to comprehend. Too big, too far-reaching into the future. Her taking the throne, her being queen, at five years old? Her daddy not being there... it was too many tragic things crammed into too few sentences. It needed days, years, to digest that amount of loss. So she focused on a simpler concept.

Betrayal. The sting of knowing a lie had been believed from a mouth that had been trusted. From a boy who had been... LOVED. Her eyes, wide with horror, were drawn to the figure beside Robotnik. He was not chained. He was not weeping. He was there, clearly, of his own will.

Slender, clad in a fetching uniform of green and gray, tall boots, red militia armband, chestnut hair stuck to a sweaty forehead. Oh, his lip was quivering and his eyes locked momentarily with hers, then looked away as if he couldn't stand the sight of his Princess. Behind her stood the PEACEbot, silent and menacing. He had been upgrading them... to this.

Robotnik laughed and gloated, unheard by her. She stared down Snively, at five years old, she knew what it was like to make a grievous mistake, she knew the sting of the knife on her spine, and the world-shattering, horrible tearing of a heart cleanly broken.

******

Oh hell, this was how the world was destroyed. It started with a betrayal, with a spear driven into the heart to spill out all the lies that harbored there. He'd believed HIM. He'd believed it!

Julian had come to him, his volcanic eyes so... frightening. Madness and glory, an unhinged desire. He'd ruined Snively's future in one sentence. The boy was pulled off his feet by the collar of his shirt, choking, drawn up to his uncle's face. Words and spittle landing upon his soft, teenage cheek: 'From now on, you call me SIR!'

“Yes, sir.'

What else could he say? He was too far in.

'I'm just a kid,' he wanted to scream at the people in the room who glared at him, who screamed he was a traitor, that he was scum, that his entire kind were beasts and heartless and damned. 'I don't want to hurt you,' he wanted to implore the women who were shoved, crying, into Sir Charles's roboticizer machine.

But he wasn't just a kid, he was 'special', he had long known of his differences to his peers. His age group hated him, he was too precise, too bloody self-righteous, too damn SMART. Too strange, with a weird face and voice, with eyes that gave them chills, with a demeanor that suggested a simultaneous desperation for friends, and yet, a contempt for those who tried to be one. It made no difference moving from the war-torn Overlander city to the Mobian capitol. He was an alien to his kind, he was an alien to -their- kind. Only Julian loved and appreciated him. Only Julian could open the doors that would lead to a bright future.

But...there was the other. The girl. She was a sparkling gem, a rarity in his already-jaded world. He hadn't known she was the Princess when she'd first approached him. She'd greeted him, her smile sweet, her eyes warm. When he spoke, she hadn't laughed. When he'd said his name, she'd accepted it without question or mocking. With the delightful air of youthful intelligence and wonder, she had taken his hand in hers to study his skin. Sally understood his precise vocabulary...she seemed to relish it.

'They always talk to me like I'm... dumb...' she said. “I like how you talk. I want to talk to you some more. If that's all right.'

It was all right. She had visited him when she could get away from her tutor, and her boisterous blue friend. When she entered the room, it was with a halo of light about her, with jewel-like eyes of reverence and awe he valued more than any gem. As she bent over his current mechanical hobbies, eager to assist, her hair would fall down onto the floor, frequently landing upon greasy parts. She'd laugh and shove it away.

'You should take better care of that... your crowning glory,' he had said.

“I wish I could wear it as a crown. Instead of my real one...that hurts my head.

He'd shaken his head in wonder. She was the Princess, the one daddy Acorn was careful to keep out of public affairs and political arguments, the oft-spoke of 'golden child'. And she was his... best friend. He, who had never meant more than a punching bag, or a cockroach to step upon, to every other child in the world. Best friends was he, with a Princess, and a war hero, his celebrated Uncle.

With those friends, how could his life go wrong? How could he not rise above the petty judgments of others, to shine, to reach his true potential?

Betrayal was how. World's end was how. He would not rule the world, after all.

Because this is how a world is ruled. With betrayal, with the one who can rise above and squash all others underneath him, with the one with the biggest boots to kick everyone else down. Benevolence and generations of peace didn't matter – King Acorn was a testament to that now. Friends didn't matter squat, enemies even less.

It was hard to believe his heart, so torn up and weeping red, could possibly hurt anymore right now. He watched people turn to metal. He watched Julian laugh. He'd felt a hand slap his cheek when he'd made some noise of protest. Ruling the world wasn't supposed to be this hateful and violent – he hadn't signed up for this. But now he had no choice.

His heart was destined for the grave today, the shine of his soul turning to tarnish. A little girl stared at him with blue doe-eyes, while her crowning glory of auburn and turquoise ribbons spilled over a bleeding cheek. So young, so beautiful... so betrayed, so bloody RUINED... all ruined.

'No,' he wanted to say, but it made no difference. She was lost to him, forever. In her eyes, in her sob of anguish, was the ending and beginning of the world.