All characters are copywrite Sega, and other media companies responsible for the international Sonic franchises (including DiC and Archie). This applies to all 'Glint' stories.

Story is by: M.C. Griffin (unless otherwise stated... I guess.)
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You walked the vast fields beyond the limits of Knothole village. Your home. Your haven. You took one look back at the forest. You were unattended. You clasped firmly on the straps that came over your shoulders. You had everything you needed in your pack.

Why were you leaving?

You came to the vast, dry, valley. The wounds you acquired when you hit the tree had long since healed. You and Bunny were still doing fine, and the entire village, more or less, had come to realize your relationship but they still never talked about it. You could stick your tongue down her throat right in front of their children and they'd probably just nod their heads and smile.

What were you doing?

You reached the dark desert looking onto the huge cliff that lead straight down. You'll never know how Miles would grow with his new knowledge of his good aunt. Antoine never did try and kill himself again. Sonic... you weren't sure how you felt about Sonic. The only thing you know is that for the first time ever, the two of you may truly be friends as oppose to potential lovers.

Where were you going?

You looked further ahead of yourself. Past the cliff. Past the darkness. Past the ominous black clouds, where it always seemed like night.

My city.

Robotropolis.

You looked around you at the miles and miles of open desert.

You reached back into your back pack. If you died this day, they'd be telling your dead body 'I told you so'. You felt it with your hand for a moment. Cold. Like Bunny.

You pulled it out and it shown brightly in the hot sun.

A power ring.

All was silent. Nothing around for miles. Aside from a hot wind, no activity.

You held the ring in the air.

You put it down again.

What if they were right? What if Sonic was the only one who could do this? What if you exploded? What if you melted? What if you disintegrated? What if you reached speeds that no other living creature than the hedgehog could ever dream of and you reached a whole new, life changing level of enlightenment?

Aye, there's the rub.

You held the ring in the air. You squeezed it tightly and pumped every muscle in your body.

You heard a loud, nondescript boom sound as a feeling resembling that of an electric shock went through your body. Every muscle tightened. It was so intense. It was so... uncomfortable. Your muscles were constricting so much it felt like your face was going to spit your eyes out. Tighter. Tighter.

Finally, it dawned on you. RUN STUPID!!!

You ran. It felt like taking a shit that had been waiting a little too long for departure, if you know what I mean.

These were speeds that you couldn't even conceive. The surrounding desert passed before you so quickly you could barely make out what where you were going, besides a straight path. You decided to turn, and you did. Amazing. You decided to pivot in the other direction, and aside from some sliding, you did it with ease, without losing any speed. You tried to jump. Now that was amazing. The height, the distance, the hang time. You hit the ground running.

Now you knew what it was to be him.

That machine gun sound of your feet hitting the ground was like music to your ears. You looked be hind you to see two streams of dust, twice your height, flying into the sky in your wake.

Now you were closer to being his equal.

You began to slow down. You were under your own power now, still running, trying to stop yourself in spite of the momentum. You finally, with all your strength, planted your feet down. When you finally stopped, you fell face forward from the still present momentum.

You looked about you. You had run, what must've been a mile, in a minute. Dust was falling to the ground all around you, and your deep footprints were everywhere. You stood on your feet and checked yourself for balance as you stumbled a bit. You were dizzy and disoriented. You looked at the ring. It had become brown and brittle like the big pretzels they used to have back at Mobotropolis.

You looked around. In spite of the fact that no one else was there, you gave a triumphant holler.

"Yes"

You didn't know how, you didn't know why, but somehow you used a power ring. In spite of all the really good reasons why you shouldn't have been able to use a power ring, you used a power ring.

It didn't make sense, but it was good.

You walked back down the valley feeling more confidence than ever. Anything bothering you before now seemed, for the moment, stupid and petty.

You found there was now more bounce in your step. You just had the greatest workout of your life without the physical exertion that would normally take its tole. That was what Chuck's rings were for, so Sonic could be all that he could be. They were supposed to be coded to his DNA though. You concluded that the machine at the bottom of the well's DNA key system must have stopped working allowing the rings to be made at their default setting.

You confirmed this when you pulled it out of the well and took a look at it.

Thief.

Rotor may have been the house technician but everyone knew that "Sal can fix anything." You remembered back to Sonic's patronizing tone when he told everyone that. He should have credited Rotor. Rotor always was the most humble of the group. Nothing could ever bring him down, it seemed.

You thought about all of this as you took apart the ring generator.

There it was.

The DNA key system. Fried. Sizzling.

Yes!

Sonic's record. His genes. His helix. His DNA, was now no longer a gift. Aside from his speed, he was normal now. The power of the rings could belong to everyone.

Everyone?

No, bad idea. You needed to keep using them without Sonic knowing that they didn't only work for him anymore. If all the villagers started to dash around the village slamming into huts at high speeds than he would definitely have found out. After a long enough amount of time they would have to shut down the machine forever. No one can be trusted with the kind of responsibility that the rings brought. Obviously, not even you.

As you put the generator back together you tried not to feel too guilty, but it was hard.

Hard not to feel guilty about taking the ring.

Hard not to feel guilty about leaving the village in secret.

Hard not to feel guilty about using the 'forbidden' power ring.

Hard not to feel guilty about taking the generator out of the well.

Hard not to feel guilty about taking it apart to assess the damage.

Hard not to feel guilty about hacking into its data base and changing Chuck's code, allowing the rings to work for both you and Sonic.

Guilt. You've been feeling that a lot lately.

You remembered Sonic's words out on the docks. You were corrupting yourself and it was right out in front of everybody. You had become something far different than what you were before. The princess you were would never go off with another girl. The princess you were would never drive an officer to suicide. The princess you knew would never tell a child of such corruptive ideas like homosexuality. The princess you knew could never be happy.

That was it. Although you were in a good deal of bad situations, you were oddly pleased about it all. For the first time in your life you felt like you were being the leader you were supposed to be.

Harsh.

Cold.

Like something familiar you could only identify as leadership.

Corrupt.

No. You weren't all bad. Were you? No. Bunny loved you for the good in you. Sonic accepted you because he knew you were still the same girl he grew up with. Miles tried to understand you because he knew you still loved him.

What about Antoine?

You were comfortable with Antoine's new distaste for you. He couldn't accept and that was his problem.

Something you knew about Antoine, that really everyone knew but no one acknowledged, was that he was not a real general. His father was. He was a pretender. A fake. Parading around in his father's cum stained uniform.

Proud. From a proud city.

Noble. From a noble city.

Cum stained. From a cum stained city. Not literally of coarse, before anyone misunderstands.

Even I knew of Antoine and his valiant father. He was a great fighter, but could never attain my greatness. He crumbled under my shadow, as they all did.

Small. Weak. No one could ever beat me. Not even the hedgehog.

I will give Antoine's father credit though. He fought more valiantly than any warrior I've seen in a long, long time. He broke like anyone else though.

The day I graced Mobotropolis, Antoine's father was one of the first to fight, and last to fall. Little Antoine saw his father, battered and broken, lying and bleeding. His father pleaded Antoine to get help, to find a medic. Antoine just stared.

As blood started pooling around his father, still begging his son for help, Antoine pulled off his father's jacket and put it on himself. As his father desperately asked his son what he was doing, Antoine picked up his oil soaked sword.

He left his father defenseless and dying as he walked off. The jacket around his ankles. The sword dragging on the ground behind him. He betrayed his father at age six.

This, only I and Antoine's father know about. And he isn't telling anybody.

When I walked through the battle torn city, I saw him lying there. He must've crawled great distances to where I found him. The blood trail was very long. I was right on time, he had found what he was looking for. He grabbed a gun from one of my fallen warriors, and rolled onto his back pointing it at his own head. I just watched.

It had been twenty minutes and he still hadn't pulled the trigger. Sweat and blood poured from his body as he contemplated the whole idea. He looked in my direction. He knew who I was, of coarse. We worked with each other. We acted as friends.

He pointed the gun at me.

"You! You are zis country's enemy now! And you of all people know what 'appens to our enemies!!"

"Weren't you in the middle of doing something?" I smiled at him.

He clenched the gun as if holding it tighter would help him bring up the nerve. But he couldn't pull the trigger. He couldn't have ever shot me. He knew I was better, invincible, even though he could've killed me there.

In zoos, giraffes are kept in their boundaries by a deep ditch dug around them. When they are born, they can't step over the ditch with their enfant legs. They grow up fearing this ditch as a pit of death. The line they can never cross. When they grow older, their legs grow longer. Long enough to step over the ditch, but they don't. Fear is permanent.

I was that ditch. Antoine's father didn't have the neural capacity to kill me.

To step over the ditch.

He looked away as tears rolled down his eyes.

He stuck the gun in his mouth this time.

He pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

The gun wasn't loaded.

As I pulled him out of his pool of blood, sweat and tears all I could hear over the sound of gunfire and explosions was his whimpering.

Antoine's whimper.

I found one of my POW carts that we used to escort people to the roboticizer. I threw him in the cage of wounded or unconscious prisoners. He looked up to see the familiar dark blue of his jacket.

The last thing Antoine's father ever knew of his son was the jacket that he was wearing.

As he attempted to pry it off of his unconscious son he passed out.

No good bye.

No I love you.

Now Antoine's father is of a greater nation, with a greater army. But he is no general. He shovels coal in one of my many mines, but he'll never know the difference.

Antoine never told anyone of that day, but every so often, while he would strut around the village so proud of himself, he'd look down on himself and see the blue jacket. The blue, stained jacket. No good memories could ever come with the jacket's pride, but he wore it proudly still.

No one but I seem to have any fond memories of that day. Well, you did too, even though you could never admit it to the ones you love.

You tread quietly through the village, darkened by night, to the well. If anyone were to come out of their hut in time to see you what could you possibly tell them? You approached the well and dropped the generator in.

SPLASH

You were startled. 'Idiot!' you thought to yourself, 'What was I thinking!?'

You realized no one had heard it. And if they did, why would they care?

You sat down at the base of the well and looked up to the starry sky. It was a half moon that night. The luminescent symbol of night floated in the sky over the tree tops. Symbols. You were a symbol. A symbol is something which represents something out of a simple image. To every other freedom fighter you symbolized one of two things at all times. Half the time you symbolized leadership and royalty. The only royalty these people's world had left. The rest of the time you were 'the girl'. The only female freedom fighter. Oh sure, Bunny was a girl but she already represented every robot out there.

You were the jeweled crown.

You were the person on the lady's restroom.

You were the royal shield.

You were O+.

What could come of this existence? Certainly nothing good. Antoine had said it himself, death or roboticization, I had left no other options.

Unless...

Why fight? Why not just leave the village? Why not just move on and stop trying to reclaim your stupid city? It would be a lot better than dying.

You pondered these concepts with your back to the hard, brick well.

"Okay, here's the plan."

You were in the strategy room, where Rotor showed you various maps and strategy books. It was in this room that Antoine tried to end himself after you got angry with him once. You looked up from the map drawn on crude, ripped parchment to the walrus. He met your eyes with his usual fond smile.

"Did you ever wonder why Robotnik stopped trying to route us out?"

Because ratings were dropping and we needed a new gimmick?

"Never crossed my mind, but you're right, he hasn't been attacking much. Why?"

"He's found somewhere better."

"Better?"

"Better."

"Better like how?"

"Resources, location, you name it."

"Hmm..."

"Not to mention, the people there aren't blowing stuff up in his city."

"How do we know all this?"

"Well..."

You heard the soft sound of the vine door being spread open. Bunny stepped in.

"I'll let Bunny explain it."

You looked at Bunny, awaiting her response.

"Well, first of all, the platoon of 'bots located on the outskirts of the great forest is missing."

"Ya, I could have told you that." you replied, "I still don't know how you know Robotnik is gone."

"Well, Princess," Rotor chimed in, "the point isn't that he has gone, but that he seems to not even care about us anymore."

"Okay..."

Bunny spoke up. "Also, our radio interceptor, it's how we get the very few leads we ever get. Sometimes we can pick up orders from Robotnik to his different SWAT Bots."

Rotor cut in. "Lately, orders haven't been coming from Robotnik at all, they've been coming from Snively."

Bunny spoke again. "Also, Lupe sent a message to us that several air crafts had flown over, and beyond their territory. I know you know all of this already, hon. We are only now putting it all together."

Rotor took his turn. "If you want, we can head down to the science hut. I've got some readings in, showing a decrees of radio activity in Robotropolis by half. This all but proofs that Robotnik has mobilized his troops and went some place else, leaving the rest of his 'bots under Snively's control."

You began to become frustrated with their tag-team explanation. "So, I still don't know what the plan is."

"Okay. Check this out." Rotor began to tell you the plan.

It had something to do about Snively still having to tend to other things in my absence, in spite of his new responsibilities. He said something about waiting for Snively to tend to the output stats in the SWAT Bot factory. There was mention of having Sonic take out the guards guarding the control room in Snively's absence, and Bunny rigging their bodies to work like bombs like Rotor showed her. Where it got kind of interesting was when it got to the whole, detonating them in the control room thus negating my control on my own city, bit.

You liked the way that last one sounded. Ending this war would be nice, and that seemed like a bit more of a permanent solution. But then you had another idea.

"Any questions Princess?" Rotor asked. "Suggestions?"

"Ya, just one. What if we didn't, and took his moving onto new territory and leaving us alone as his surrender. Then we can live the rest of our lives in peace and never have to worry about him, his army, that city, or our pasts ever again? What do you think? Would that work?"

Rotor stared at you for a moment.

Bunny looked at you with the most concern that you've ever seen on her face before. She pressed her lips and raised her eyes to look at you in an expression you could only recognize as disappointed understanding.

"No, I don't think it would..." Rotor started. "Are you feeling alright, Princess?"

Bunny put her hand on Rotor's shoulder. "I'll see ya later sugar."

Rotor looked confused, as Bunny led you out of the room. "Okay... I guess."

The two of you sat down on a log sitting outside of the nearby eatery. The smell of roasted meat filled your nostrils as you sat down by Bunny, knowing exactly what she was going to say.

"Sally, I'm worried about you." You practically mouthed the words.

"Bunny, I know how I've been acting, and..." Not even you could make sense out of your actions. You finally arranged some words that you thought could do a good enough job at explaining your feelings. "Lately, it seems like all the things we've been fighting for aren't worth anything, and that most of our problems we make by fighting."

Bunny let your head rest on her shoulder. "But at the same time, I still want to be part of the resistance."

"Then, what was with your suggestion?"

"Just a suggestion. Maybe I liked the idea of giving up on this whole stupid thing. Letting our past go."

"But you do feel that way?"

"At first it sounds good. No more hurt. No more deaths. No more roboticization. But then... where would we be without the resistance?"

"Hm... What do you mean by that?"

"Well... what would be left for us to do?"

"Ah, yes. But, if we still fought, we might win and then what would we do?"

"Hey! What side of this discussion are you on? It sounds like your trying to defend what I said back there."

"Well, I somewhat agreed."

"But...?"

"But nobody said Robotnik was going to leave us alone for good."

She almost said it reassuringly. Like you should be happy that he comes back.

Then, it dawned on you. The reason why you, and everyone else in the village insisted on fighting.

This was the village of lost children. Teenagers and younger. Very few adults. An entire generation of orphans, abandoned and without that authority needed to raise a child. An entire village looking for that father figure to tell them no. But you, and everyone else had found a father figure. He would try to control you. He would try to teach you. You would disobey and he would try to punish you. But he never cared about you. You only disobeyed for his attention. You thought you wanted to inherit what he had so you all became little nuisances to get it. To inherit your father's fortune. But no, you were only destroying it. Destroying the inheritance that you claimed to be fighting for. You were campaigning for his attention, and now he had another bunch of little kids to tend to. He didn't want you anymore, but you all were still throwing your little tantrums to get his attention.

You shuttered at this thought. You had been delving into your own mind a lot lately. You were learning to accept these thoughts of worldly understanding and self assessment.

You looked into Bunny's eyes and thought about telling her your new father figure theory, but then realized that she would only worry about you more. Alternative thinking seemed to be out of place in this revolution.

You leaned in for a kiss. Bunny smiled on contact of your lips as she pulled you in. You parted and got up to leave with her to wherever.

'No more outbursts' You thought. 'Keep those opinions to yourself and you won't hurt anybody's feelings.'

You saw Antoine trying not to look at the two of you holding hands from across the path.

'Stop trying to be the leader that you want to be. Be the leader they want you to be'

As you were led by Bunny further to wherever, you could hear a sonic boom blast from the other side of town.

'Start trying to be the hero that he is, instead of the figurehead that you are'