MORE THAN THERE SEEMS

A Sonic SatAM story by:

Tristan Palmgren

A. MistressAli

Ealain Vangogh

J.R. Grant

Dominic Smith

Roland "Jim Doe" Lowery

 

Post 21:

J.R. Grant

 

 

Nayr woke up. It was night, somewhere a little after zero hour by the look of the skies. That was one thing he learned from the echidnas... science. The echidnas were the only race he knew of that were highly advanced in the field of science. That was after the big war, though... not the Great War that happened so recently, but one even bigger than that.

 

Nayr couldn't help but have a flashback to the conflict of millennia past. It was not just a bloody war, it was downright sickening. It started when a power source had been found... the stones of power. There were many of them at that time, the most powerful being the only stones that had never been carved into the emerald cut. He believed that they were called the power rocks... or something like that. Maybe it was the deep stones... It really didn't matter, the echidnas and sadosii wanted control of it for the purpose of analyzing them and figuring out what made them work. The mages could care less about this and seeked the help of the dragons to bring them into power. All the dragons asked for was a share of the power and they set off on their slaughter. The dragons known as protectors set out and used their mastery of the various elements to

destroy the sadosii and echidnas. The echidnas later double-crossed the sadosii and joined the mages in fear. The entire sadosii race was thus killed off by the tortursome use of magic. Sadosii exploded into flames and slowly burnt to death. Others were frozen solid and shattered into shards of ice. Some were taken apart cell at a time by magic.

 

One sadosii, however, managed to survive all of this. Through the use of a sword that he managed to power using the emerald of fire, he was able to stop many of the spells that were used against him and was able to deflect the cool ice that came from the protectors. The dragons were stupid. They were merely the slaves of the mages and deserved to die... even more so than the mages did. Nayr would not rest until he killed every last dragon on Mobius... except maybe one. Yes, he would leave just one to wander aimlessly. Maybe figure out a way to give it immortality so it could wander Mobius endlessly with the knowledge that there is no longer anyone from it's race on the planet.

 

The mages had already wiped themselves out with their power. They did the same to most of the echidnas, too. The mages double-crossed everyone. They were the only ones that won in the end. Then slowly their own power destroyed them and the stones of power were lost in memory. There was only one mage left that Nayr knew of, and that mage was named Lazaar. The leader and destroyer of the line of mages. Evil to the core he was. Nayr would torture him to death if he had the chance, but did not know Lazaar's final resting place.

 

Nayr was now more determined than ever to get to Dragonsnest. He had to kill every last of those idiotic dragons... Nayr got to his feet and ran quickly towards Dragonsnest. It was a ways away, but could be seen blotting out the stars of the night. That didn't really matter. He was fast. Probably the fastest thing in the world... almost capable of breaking the speed of sound! (OOC: Obviously didn't know about Sonic yet, did he? ) The normally hot desert like plain was quite cool at night, but the running did a lot to cause thirst. Nayr ignored this sensation and kept running across the unchanging terrain.

 

It wasn't long before he reached the front door of Dragonsnest. There was no possible way to open that door without making a creaking sound that could wake the dead. If only noise could wake the dead he might have some way to continue his species other than his sole survival. It was the only generosity ever shown him, and it was by mages. That was the only plus that their species had in his book. A faction of them gave a piece of the emerald of all. It would grant his deepest desire, which at the time was to allow his species to not go extinct. To this day, it was more of a curse than a gift, but he could only die if he tried his hardest first. Perhaps this was the day he would finally be put to rest. If it was, may he shed dragon blood first...

 

Nayr kicked open the gates and dashed in, pulling in a huge cloud of dust and sand to guard his entrance. This acted as somewhat of a hindrance to him, though and he lost his bearings. Fortunately, this had caught a dragon off guard. The dragon let out a breath of flame in surprise, revealing that is (fortunately) was not a protector. Of course, it could just be a different initial reaction... Nayr didn't want to find out. The fire fused the some of the sand into glass. The small amount of sand fell to the ground as small pieces of glass. The dragon stared at Nayr in a state of shock.

 

"A sados?! It can't be!" the dragon yelled. Nayr smiled.

 

"May your race rue the day the became the slave of a mage!!!" Nayr yelled and shot a bolt of fire from the tip of his katana. The sword glowed in flame; the perfect weapon against a dragon. The dragon barely missed the flame as it struck the ground leaving a nice, clean burn mark.

 

"We have vowed never to join sides in a war again unless our race's survival is at stake! You must believe this, sados." the dragon protested. This would do no use to Nayr's ears. His lack of trust and deep hatred of all the races that had betrayed him was too great for the supposed vows of the enemy to get to him.

 

"I'll believe you as soon as another sados draws breath, bitch!" Nayr yelled and sliced at the dragon. The dragon retreated up the stairs towards the outer doors.

 

"Then I pity the death you will cause because of the mistakes that my ancestors made." the dragon replied. The words were getting to Nayr and this upset him more than anything. His telekinetic powers got out of hand and destroyed everything that was in the near vicinity. He psychically knocked the dragon through the outer doors. In rage, Nayr ran up the corridor and met a stream of icy wind. It was a protector. Nayr held up his sword, but didn't block all the ice. Nayr was burnt coldly all over and was on the verge of unconsciousness. He lifted his sword and, using the advantage over the dragon's shock of the deflection of the ice attack, sent it straight through the dragon's chest. Nayr let the fire of the sword burn deep into the dragon's soul. He then weakly pulled it out.

 

"See... you... in... hell..." Nayr gasped. He turned around and staggered out of the doors. As he left, he heard the dying words of the dragon he had slayed.

 

"You'll be there alone, Sados..." the dragon said and died. These words and the dragons previous ones echoed in Nayr's mind. Nayr knocked the outer doors closed and the front doors closed. At this point, Nayr had spent all the energy he could. The burns were too great and the damage to his own body too much to bear. Nayr fell off the stairs unconsciously and hit the ground with a soft thud caused by the firm foundation of the castle. As Nayr lay in swirls of unconsciousness the words of the dragon echoed in his head, mixed in with colors and sounds...

 

* * *

 

Nayr finally came to. It was because of some unfamiliar sounds entering his blurred sense of reality that was unconsciousness. Nayr focused in on the open front doors. Nayr could have sworn he had closed them. It was no matter, it was most likely part of the dream that he had. What had just happened? Slowly, in somewhat of a spiral of pieces, the events of the previous hours came into his mind.

 

Nayr then heard the distinct sound of someone vomiting. It was a sound he dreaded more than anything. It drove him crazy when he heard it... his brother, Cihr, died from vomiting. A spell cast by a mage. His brother continued to vomit over and over, dying from both suffocation and

the fact that he vomited up some of his internal organs. His brother was only two years old and he was an adolescent of five (OOC: Sados have a very short life span, so this makes sense...). Nayr's own name was the last word of Cihr's lips. Nayr slowly ascended the steps, very much weary from the fight with the dragon and in no shape to defend himself. He would have to give the impression that he was in better shape, though. Nayr picked up the sword, which had not fallen with him from the steps. Nayr saw the figure of a koala kneeling in front of the dragon... could he be in league with them?! A Mobian in league with such a hateful race was almost unbearable. Nayr held his sword in front of him in a fighting position, but it was more than apparent that he was in no shape for battle. With any luck, neither was this koala.

 

"I am Nayr T'nargh, last of the sadosii. What brings a Mobian to the gathering place of dragons?" Nayr asked in a weak, but stern raspy voice. Nayr didn't know how much more of his current pain he could bear, as the cold was blistering all over his body and he was bleeding from several areas. Nayr stood in apprehension and anxiety for the

koala's reply...

 

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Post 22:

Tristan Palmgren

 

The stench of death was still rich in his nostrils, even once he'd flooded them with dry desert air.

 

The heaves had only stopped a few minutes ago; he'd probably drunk more from his water supply than he should have, but that wasn't the highest priority on his mind right now.

 

He took one of the sheets from his backpack, and threw it over the pathetic remains. He could make do without one of the blankets. It'd be put to better use here than as bedding, anyway: if he didn't cover the corpse soon, Derek wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to sleep again.

 

Derek was beginning to think that the cloying smell would never leave him. He would certainly never forget it. Nor would the sight that lay before him ever abandon his memories or dreams. He knew that the slain dragon would stay alive forever in his nightmares. The only life the dragon would ever have now was as a shade left to torment the living.

 

There were several holes in the ancient walls, through which sunlight shone in and sky was visible. Derek turned his eyes to those momentarily. For an instant, he thought he saw a speck move across the sky, as if another flying creature were approaching Dragonsnest from the desert air. But then it was gone. He dismissed it as an illusion, and quickly forgot about it.

 

Before he'd cast the sheet over the body, he'd had a chance to recheck the age of the wounds. The slashes that had killed the dragon had been made fairly recently. Too recently for comfort, actually. The wounds were old enough to no longer be bleeding, but just barely.

 

The poor creature must have been majestic when it had been alive. The dragon's wingspan was quite vast. It must have flown quite beautifully.

 

If there was any value to be cherished in this world, six long years of running and hiding had taught him that it was life itself. And here he had just seen its sanctity defiled in the most repugnant, malicious way possible.

 

Derek felt a sudden surge of resentment boil in his veins. He *hated* whoever had done this. Despised them with a passion. For as long as he'd been alive, the dragons had been a peaceful, solitary species. He couldn't imagine any of them ever doing anything to deserve a fate like this. Only Robotnik could be capable of such barbarism, such *cruelty*!

 

Their victim had died too recently for the area to be entirely safe. If this butchery had been committed by Robotnik's robots, there was still a good chance that they could still be lurking around Dragonsnest. Derek knew that he should get out of here as soon as possible. But also knew that he needed to do some scouting first. He made up his mind to go to the pinnacle of the Dragonsnest tower, and use the advantage of height to get a feel for the surrounding terrain.

 

He sat down for a moment, and took a deep breath. His respiration was still ragged from the discovery of the dragon's corpse.

 

A voice penetrated the gloom.

 

"I am Nayr T'nargh, last of the sadosii. What brings a Mobian to the gathering place of dragons?"

 

Derek's muscles tensed before the first syllable registered on him. The voice came from behind him. It sounded... *hideous*. It was tired, it was stern and angry, but more noticeably, behind it there was an inflection that Derek had never heard come from the lips of any person. The rasp sounded as though it could never have either mammalian or draconic vocal cords.

 

As the final word fell across his ears, Derek knew immediately that the person talking to him was the same one who had committed the murder. The voice spoke the word 'dragons' with such disdain as to eliminate any doubt.

 

Anger, and then fury, boiled in his veins. Derek was so enraged that it *hurt*.

 

Was this how the real heroes felt? Was this the kind of pain that prompted them to do incredible things? Was this the kind of impassioned hatred that made them something more than human, the kind of sensation that rallied souls? Derek barely had time to reflect on the questions before his muscles were already acting, without prompting.

 

He dropped to his knees and spun around. Adrenaline and endorphins made him feel more spry and athletic than he'd ever felt in his life. Even as he spun to face the voice, his hand had already reached his weapon holster. With a single, smooth movement, he whipped it out and leveled it directly at the intruder.

 

It was too dark to see the other person clearly. He could only make out a large, muscular body. There was also a sword, drawn and held by the hilt.

 

The sword's blade was stained with a dragon's blood.

 

The last piece of evidence he needed.

 

Derek's jaw quivered as he shouted his command. "Drop it, you murdering son of a bitch!"

 

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Post 23:

A.    MistressAli

 

 

He spent most of the hovercraft ride staring blankly out the windshield, lost in thought, or rather, trying to evade thought. He wanted to drift away from the pressures laid upon him by Julian, at least for a little while.

 

So, for a little while, he did. The trees sped below them in a blur of dark green and black, until finally they reached the rough ground at the foot of the mountains. The earth was littered with large boulders and trees, of course, were everywhere, but a landing site had already been cleared earlier for the freighter.

 

The bot next to him did an excellent job in landing, but Snively hardly noticed. His brief escape was over and he was thrust back into the seriousness of the job. The freighter had to be found and fixed, and the oil drilled, which in itself, wasn't much of a big deal; it was the time involved in doing so that mattered. Julian was not the patient type.

 

"They've gotten away...?" He fumed at the news of the Mobian's escape. The SWATbots looked unconcerned. He ground his teeth, then sighed. Well...at least Julian hadn't known about them. Or so he hoped.

 

He still wanted them. Not that he cared to roboticize them...he just wanted them. As a prize, as a bonus for Julian. The fat man would appreciate that, eh, his thoughtfulness in capturing two hapless Mobians? Unconsciously his fingernails dug into his palms...and his scowl deepened, his impatience and anger...and darker unnamed feelings... clutching him, making him tremble.

 

He had two choices with the freighter, the bots said. He opted for the one that consumed less time; chasing down the damn thing. It sounded unpleasant; having to run through this forest, through tangling leaves and darkness, strange night creatures and unfamiliar ground underfoot... it made his skin prickle.

 

The Commander bot launched itself into the air to survey the terrain; he watched with a slight scowl that deepened into a full infuriated frown. Look at the fool thing! Obviously it was still malfunctioning, the way it was careening all over the sky!

It almost looked like it was enjoying itself...

 

Suspicion tinged his gaze and he once again had to remind himself, like a mental hand shaking and slapping his mind, that this *was a robot*.

 

The bot landed a bit more steadily than it had risen, and spoke in its monotone voice. That put him slightly more at ease. Yeah, the Mobians had gotten away, but they'd get them. Maybe. It didn't really matter, as long as that damn freighter was brought back here and put to work, and soon, before He called, before...

 

"Julian?"

 

No.

 

He misheard it.

 

His eyes, bitterly cold, locked on the Commander's face. Probing deep, trying to find something there...he shivered...the Commander's eyes were so lucid, thick gold, warm almost, not like a normal robot's eyes...

 

"Julian...?" He repeated.

 

It *is* a robot, Snively!

 

The bots weren't programmed to say Julian.

 

No, it's a malfunction. The damn thing's been doing it all night.

 

But sudden fear gripped him; shocking as a plunge into cold water. Dead men didn't come back! No... but still his feet propelled him backwards, his back hitting the rough surface of a tree. His hand clasped at his belt; at the laser pistol holstered there.

 

Stop being stupid, you fucking idiot. It's a malfunction. God damn you, you look like a fool.

 

He stood there, breathing skitterish with his hand hovering over the gun, just waiting for his idiotic behavior to be confirmed when this... this Commander would speak again, monotone and unfeeling, like a true robot.

 

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Post 24:

J.R. Grant

 

The koala spun around and glared at him in rage. This was not the reaction he was hoping for in his current state. A plasma gun was pointed directly at Nayr. This would not be a problem to block... normally.

 

"Drop it, you murdering son of a bitch!" the koala yelled. So much for introductions... he must have been working with the dragons. He would try to play it safe for the time being, though. This was one time he didn't want to fight...

 

"Murdering? You don't know the meaning of the word. Murder is the reason I'm the last of the sadosii. Haven't you studied your history? Or have the mages and dragons destroyed the truth of the very first of the great wars? I'm repaying the dragons for the death and destruction that they created. Dragons are fierce beasts that are easily manipulated for the use of evil. Dragons caused more than half of the deaths of the sadosii including my parents!!! I will not rest until they pay for what they have caused. I'm dealing justice, not murder." Nayr replied, hoping that he would be able to avoid any conflict...

 

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Post 25:

Ealain VanGogh

 

Poor Snively. He was the personification of fear. If only it didn't matter so much to Sprocket to protect the furries Snively was chasing, something he knew would be jeopardized if he were found out; if only he could divulge his newfound consciousness, his newfound ethics, to his once-friend, easing his paranoia, offering his psyche a reassuring pat on the shoulder. This thought blockaded the more appropriate self-concern he ought to be feeling at the sight of the human's quivering fingers caressing the pistol in his belt. Did he even know how to use that thing? Either way, he would try if provoked; Snively had always been an exemplary figure of the Fight or Flight theory, surrendering and sputtering with putrid terror to a danger or putting up a most formidable battle, clawing and biting and hissing with an unearthly frenzy. Yes, Sprocket remembered well some of the more colorful exchanges between Snively and his vindictive father, Colin, when taking a belt to the boy's derriere for every punishment, usually reducing Snively effectively to a simpering, helpless child, suddenly had made the younger Kintobar explode with verbal and physical retaliation. Thus surviving.

 

Oh yes, he'd draw that pistol and make a hole in his "buddy's" head if indeed feeling threatened.

 

Because Snively was also the personification of self-preservation. And selfishness.

 

So Sprocket made efforts to put the human's mind at ease. He arched his back and lurched to one side, then straightened, murmuring some excessively technical babble about yet another malfunction (he was sure even Snively wouldn't bother to comprehend such detail when in such an impatient mood) and watched as his master's body oozed back into a comfortably sulky slouch. It didn't take long before Snively had barked the appropriate orders and they were well on their way to the Great Unknown, where the freighter was sure to be waiting.

 

In his databank, as they flew, Sprocket discovered evidence of a previous indigenous civilization of flying reptiles--oh, of course . . . dragons. Beautiful, lyrical creatures, with a flight pattern like no bird ever to grace the planet. They relished flying--it was like breathing. He had always wanted to fly like that; now, it seemed, he was only enabled through the barter of his very soul. His heart burned with remorse, his face crumpled with fleeting pain--he had indeed been instrumental in the roboticization of the Matriarch. Though the cold, concise files in the computer with which he'd been endowed did not include the names of Robotnik's victims, he remembered her--her name had been Sabina. Had been . . . now she was but a memory, as good as dead. He vaguely recalled that she had had a child . . . but perhaps that was his mind -playing tricks on him, helping him to cope with the guilt of his inadvertent actions.

 

You weren't aware . . . you were as good as not there . . . you are innocent of these crimes.

 

Why did these thoughts not soothe him?

 

As they hissed to the earth outside the great tower called Dragonsnest, the geographical defiance to Robotnik's tyranny, approximately a quarter mile from where the freighter had wandered, glanced at Snively ,who had finally dozed off in his commander's seat. How can he sleep, knowing what he did . . . knowing he has no excuse? Knowing he's already dead? Or is he? Sprocket sighed.

 

His eyes, great grieving pools of gold, grew introspective, his chest heavy with the weight of an approaching burden, a coming anxiety. Boy oh boy, Snively. The time is coming soon when you and I are going to have a heart to heart talk.

 

He tapped the human on the shoulder lightly, watching him jump awake, jaw savagely jutted and eyes snapping wide open. "Arriving at destination, master." If adrenaline were present in circuitry, his head would be swimming with it right now.

 

He awaited his orders.

 

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Post 26:

Tristan Palmgren

 

Derek backed away slowly, nervously, unsure of what to make of anything. He had demanded that the person standing in front of him drop his weapon, and instead he had gotten a life story.

 

Not only did he get an unasked-for story, but what this creature had said didn't make any sense. He spoke of dragons as though they were fierce, warlike beasts, when Derek knew by heart that they weren't. Not in his lifetime, anyway. The contradictions were immediately obvious: this person stood over the corpse of a dragon that he had just butchered, with blood still staining the edge of his sword, and at the same time was proclaiming that he was on the side of right.

 

This 'sadosii' was either a madman, a criminal, or a liar, and none of those left Derek in a very tenable position. He continued backing away.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a grand, dragon-sized staircase leading upwards. It was the only exit that wasn't blocked by the dragon-slayer.

 

The confidence induced by the adrenaline was starting to fade underneath the fog of confusion. There was no manual he could refer to for a situation like this. He could remember no story in which the main character had been placed in a similar situation. The only thing he was sure of was that he had to act, quickly. The situation was already bad enough, and it promised to quickly degenerate if he didn't do anything.

 

He kept the laser pistol aimed directly at the 'sadosii', taking slow but sure steps backwards toward the staircase.

 

As much as Derek didn't consider himself the best judge of character, nevertheless he thought he detected a note of conviction, and truth, in the creature's voice. For a moment, he wondered if it was even possible that he could have been telling the truth, or at least some warped version of it. Then he remembered Nack, and the mistake he had made in trusting the weasel. Derek gritted his teeth. He wouldn't lower his weapon. Not this time. He would shoot first, if it came to that.

 

But at the same time, Derek was still strongly opposed to acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Even after spending six years fighting for survival, he was still convinced that was wrong, under any circumstances. He would be just as bad as the 'sadosii' if he did something as heinous as that.

 

The unmistakable hiss of hover unit engines intruded on his thoughts.

 

The noise was coming from just outside Dragonsnest's massive doors. Derek's heart leapt. It was the same sound he'd heard when he'd been chased by the oil freighter. One of Robotnik's ships had tracked him here, and had landed outside. Undoubtedly, he would be captured if he tried to leave the tower. He was trapped inside.

 

The 'sadosii' was apparently caught by surprise by the noise, too, because he spun around to face the doors.

 

Derek didn't waste any more time. He wanted out, and the only way to do that was to make a distraction, and run, quick. He aimed his laser pistol up at the ceiling just above the 'sadosii', and squeezed the trigger. The razor-sharp laser beam slammed into the fragile stonework masonry, and burst into a rapidly-expanding cloud of dust and rubble.

 

A shower of debris fell towards the sadosii.

 

He didn't see what happened next; he was too busy running up the staircase. The door he'd came through was blocked by both the dragon-slayer and Robotnik's airship, so the only way left to go was up.

 

He ran up staircase after staircase, barely paying attention to the growing ache of exhaustion in his legs. The only things he could think of were the sadosii he'd left behind, and airship parked outside the Dragonsnest tower. His thoughts were constantly on the imperative that he had to get as far away from both of them as possible. Going up was the only way to do that, as unsatisfactory as that route might ultimately prove. Still, for now, the endless tracts of staircases kept him busy.

 

There was no sign of pursuit. As he got higher and higher, he risked a glance down to the flights below him, and could see nothing moving. The entrance hall was cloaked in darkness far below him. A sudden wave of vertigo nearly made him slip. He hadn't thought he was this high. Taking a deep breath, steeled himself again, and kept plunging upwards.

 

When Derek reached the pinnacle of the tower, he was exhausted to the point of collapse. He kicked open the doors on the roof of Dragonsnest, and staggered out into the open daylight. The desert heat beat down upon him.

 

Again, wondering what to do next, he reeled over closer to the edges of the roof, and took stock of the landscape around him. The Great Unknown was laid out before him, spread flat, almost like a map. Not since his stay in the mountains had he seen anything from this high up. The canyon system that surrounded Dragonsnest seemed very small from up here.

 

To the north, he could just barely see the warm blue of a sea: the ocean where the island of Nimbus was no doubt waiting. On the very edge of the eastern horizon, he could see a dark smudge stretched across the land. Though it was still very far away, Derek could see that it had a green, almost organic tint to it. The Great Forest.

 

He glanced down, towards the ground closest to the roots of Dragonsnest. Just as he had thought, one of Robotnik's airships was parked near the base of the tower. Definitely a military model of some kind. He could see the dim gray specks of robots begin to spread out around the tower, surrounding it.

 

More worryingly, the airship's engines still glowed with a faint blue light. It was ready to take off and give chase to anything at a moment's notice.

 

Derek glanced up, and froze. His exhaustion seemed to vanished, buried under piles of yet more worry.

 

There was a dragon, a small one, approaching the tower from the air. There was something indefinably erratic about its flying. It was definitely heading for a landing at Dragonsnest: it was already clear of the closest dunes. In just a few moments, it would be visible to everything on the ground... including the Robotropolis airship. It probably couldn't see the airship from where it was.

 

The dragon was unwittingly flying to its own doom.

 

There had to be some way of getting a warning across to the dragon. Attract its attention, make it fly faster - fast enough to outrun the airship. Make something happen. The dragon was going to come into the airship's line of sight soon enough; there was nothing Derek could do about that. Maybe if he could call the dragon here, he could give it warning to get out of here before the airship could take off.

 

And maybe, Derek thought, not unselfishly, he could even persuade it to let him hitch a ride out of here.

 

He shook his head. This was insane.

 

If only Ari were here, he'd know what to do.

 

Derek placed two of his fingers to his lips, and let out a shrill, earsplitting whistle.

 

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Post 27:

A.    MistressAli

 

He'd been having an odd dream... something like drowning; he was surrounded in pale yellow with his lungs cramping in his chest and floating, paralyzed, down through shades of canary and then rich gold and finally blackness, and just when he thought he'd die something touched him and...

 

He jolted awake. Commander Apollo was looking over at him. "Arriving at destination, master."

 

He blinked the sleep from his eyes, wishing he could drift off again, but that would have to wait till later. Blurry-eyed he stared through the windshield. They were on a stretch of flat terrain; a large plateau apparently. Dust and sand had billowed up upon their landing and clouded the air outside. 'Almost like being back home', he thought with a wry smirk, and then he slid out of his seat and shot a curt command for Apollo to follow.

 

They, along with the accompanying SWATbots, halted outside the hovercraft. He coughed a little, waving the dust away. Fortunately most of it was settling back onto the dry earth, leaving his vision free to gaze upon the tower of Dragonsnest.

 

Even if caught up in his most hateful mood, he would never be able to deny the absolute wonder of the Tower. Beautifully carved stone rose up for miles, it seemed, like a fabled stairway to heaven. On the pinnacle, the entire planet was probably visible!

 

He stood eyeing it for a few moments, and then shook himself out of admiration and turned to Apollo. "Alright, Commander, I want you to find the freighter, and get the damn thing headed back to the Great Mountains."

 

He pivoted sharply about to face the SWATbots. "Activate heat sensors...do a full sweep of this place." A devious smile touched his face. "If any life forms are detected, I want them captured."

 

"Yes, sir." intoned the SWATs and then they set out with their arms extended, shining the heat sensing beams onto the tower and the dry ground around it.

 

He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest, once more turning his eye onto the majesty of the Tower. He wondered if Julian would destroy it. Maybe someday. He shivered at the thought of Uncle...at least the fat man hadn't called him yet. He would hate to tell Julian how far away the freighter had strayed...hell, he'd hate to tell him the freighter had strayed at all. Maybe he'd get lucky this time and things would start going his way.

 

Yeah right.

 

"Sir," several of the SWATs reported at once. "We are detecting a lifeform - inside the tower."

 

Huge doors marked the entrance. They were slightly opened. Inside was stifling darkness. Who would live in that? Maybe some species they hadn't encountered yet. Dragons, unlikely. Robotnik had made great efforts to capture them soon after the Coup.

 

It didn't matter who, or what, it was. Living free was a crime these days.

 

"Capture them," he said.

 

**

 

Whew! She panted. Coasting in the sky was much cooler and less exhausting than walking, but still, Dulcy was getting tired and thirsty.

 

She looked down, seeing her shadow hurtle over winding canyons - like a maze surrounding Dragonest. She imagined the canyon grounds were full of ancient traps to keep out earthdwellers; than shrugged the thought away. That was silly. Her mother had never been against those outside the dragon species; Dulcy couldn't imagine any dragon being that way.

 

She drew closer, her breath ripped away by wind and awe...the tower was amazing...it was like a beacon, shining, like a lighthouse to a storm swept ship...the promise of a safe haven. The promise of friends...

 

"I'm coming..." she whispered, eh!, the wind was playing tricks with her, drawing water from her eyes. She blinked it away.

 

Her sharp ears caught a noise, something high-pitched, whistling.

 

The wind?

 

Her breathing grew quicker, Gods her wings were getting quite sore now. It would be good to land and rest them for a bit.

 

Her eyes widened. Someone was on top of the tower!! She saw a motion; they were waving an arm at her and the whistle came again, shrill and desperate.

 

"Ok, whoever you are, I'm coming in for a landing!" she called, her voice getting whipped away by the wind. It was doubtful they heard her, but she hoped they'd clear out of the way. This was, after all, her first landing.

 

She banked sharply, circling the pinnacle of the tower.

 

She drew in a deep breath.

Well, here goes.

 

She swooped down to land...

 

**

 

He thought he heard something. A whistle, maybe.

 

"Sir..." One of the SWATbots directed his attention to the sky.

 

The small human smirked.

 

Well well...

So one still remained free...

A dragon was coming home to Dragonsnest...

 

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

 

Post 28:

Ealain VanGogh

 

(Sally Acorn)

She liked to come here to ponder. "Ponder"-it was the latest word Rosie had instructed her to capture in her mind's myriad of knowledge, to make her own. There was nothing she loved more than learning, cultivating, absorbing-growing closer to the infinity that was the universe, far beyond the constraints of this imprisoned planet. Here she could; here the whispered wind, caressing the ancient oaks and maple guardians of lost souls, told softly the stories of the exodus of her people from the land and freedom of their birthright, reminding her of their endurance. Here, floating on her back in the tiny lagoon behind their makeshift village, their drifter's haven, she could become one with the stars blazing in the cool, deep, silken night sky, reflected all around her in the crystalline water. Here in the Knothole "Ring Pool," as Sir Charles had hastily termed it for Rosie on the eve of their flight from Mobotropolis, from . . . from that . . . that man.

 

That man, that monstrous, big. . . well, she would have to ask Rosie a more precise word to describe Him. Yes, "Him." it was the only title of reference to the man ruling the burned, deformed remnants of her city. It was forbidden to say His name in the presence of the other refugees. It was far too disturbing; yet she said it in private, to her peers-that name, "Robotnik"--because they understood her thirst to know, acknowledge, and express the truth of all matters, however painful that truth might be. Because they felt the same way-they, the generation of Exile.

 

"Bean." She awoke with a start, almost convincing herself she'd heard the nickname of her toddler years in the breath of the crisp night air. But, no. That was impossible.

 

Daddy was gone.

 

The aquamarine eyes of Princess Sally Acorn focused, grew vicious with the angry tempest of the bereaved, her auburn hair spread out at the water's surface in damp, flame-like tendrils. She fingered her forehead, void, unoccupied where a crown should be resting-a crown that would have enabled her to exact justice and peace to her destroyed world. Would have. She was eleven-eleven-but age had no consequence in the matters of betrayal, and in the violation of trust and security. Her fury was every bit as seasoned, as unchecked, as legitimate, as that of her nanny, who tried to hide it with forced smiles and hidden tears, as that of her father, plain on his face, locked in a grimace of bloodthirst in the last moment before he'd vanished behind the palace room doors with two metal men and His skinny nephew (who himself looked as frightened as any of the prisoners of the coup). Her father's last words had been for his betrayer, not for his child. They had never even been able to say goodbye. Because of Him.

 

No one knew about Sally's secret anguish; she had learned well to keep her emotions subservient to her intellect-it was a matter of survival. No one realized, except maybe the one friend whom she knew would be late to her secret meeting tonight, the one friend who had always known her to inexplicable depths. Even though he had a particular talent for haste, and impatience, of all kinds.

 

Sally emerged from the ring pool, seizing her small blue towel (no, she would not accept "little-girl" pink, it was a stereotypical gender constriction, something she despised) and rubbed her tawny fur dry. She turned and peered down into the pool. Soon it would glow warm with an ethereal, otherworldly, comforting kind of light, and out from it would also emerge a large glistening gold ring, pulsating with what seemed to be a source of raw energy-like that of His "electrical" creations of metal, only somehow lacking the manufactured, wicked, sinister departure from nature. And Sally would look on, mesmerized. Unfortunately, Sir Charles had not had the time to explain why he had installed the mysterious device at the bottom of the body of water, or what it might do to enable them to restore the kingdom . . . and find her father. A dream, indeed, but one yet to be discouraged-never to be broken.

 

Tonight's meeting was precisely tailor-made to address this question-to formulate a mission to the city to somehow find Sir Charles, wherever he might be, and derive from him the mysterious knowledge. To refuse to accept the theories of an Overlander of ancient study, who had called himself "Darwin."

 

Sally sat on a boulder and awaited her constituents. Gradually they emerged from the underbrush, giggling at the mischief of stealing out of their huts: First came Bunnie the trailblazer, a prematurely curvaceous female rabbit of eleven years, taking bold strides and lulling her head back with the exhilaration of the fresh evening wind. Next came Miles, an inquisitive, six year old ruddy fox, generally gawking at every shadow in sight, his wonder of life yet unspoiled; were it daytime, he might have easily swallowed a congenial cumulous cloud passing by the sky. There was one more distinctive factor about the child, one of which few, considering his sensitivity, cared to speak-he had two tails. Then there was Antoine. Dear Antoine. The son of her father's Captain of the Guard. She'd always had a soft spot for the young Francophone coyote, even though his predilection for panic attacks were, at best, annoying. With every crack of a branch or toe-stub over a rock, the boy uttered oaths of doom, terror, and despair, crashing into the clearing rather unceremoniously. If that didn't set Rosie's hut window light ablaze, nothing would. Finally came 11-year old Boomer, or, as he preferred to be called lately, "Rotor," a walrus, wholesomely rotund, introverted, and shy as ever, sporting his askew yellow ballcap, his eyes dreamy and whimsical as those of all curious young innovators. At the moment, he was supporting Antoine, who was in the middle of a swoon, with his strong arms, a mixture of nonchalant incomprehension, polite concern, and utter bewilderment, on his features. He licked his tusks confusedly.

 

They all took their seats around the boulder. Sally acknowledged nothing but the bushes from which they'd come, glaring ferociously and sighing. I knew it. He's late again. "Where is Sonic?" she hissed out loud.

 

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

 

Post 29:

J.R. Grant

 

Well, that went well. The koala seemed scared as ever and slowly backed away with that laser pistol glued at him. It seemed a lot had been twisted around since he had last interacted with society (other than miscellaneous exchanges with a black market of sorts). The look of disbelief and the possibility of truthfulness turned the look of the koala into pure confusion. That was when there was a very noticeable sound of engines. Nayr spun around in surprise, letting his guard down. That was a stupid mistake. Nayr heard a blast and tensed expecting the laser to go through his head or something and then be in for a sickening adventure as he waited for the wound to heal all the while being in excruciating pain... why did he have to fight to the death to die? Why had he accepted that "gift"? Well, the blast never went through him. Instead, he heard it strike stone above him. Nayr looked up and saw stone falling straight on top of him. Nayr jumped back through the door, not after the koala, but near the entrance. He somersaulted straight off the stairway again. The second time for today. Even better, he brought one of the huge boulders in his flip that fell right above him. Nayr, acting quickly, shoved off the wall near him to avoid getting hit directly by the stone and landed on the stone ground, belly side down. This was not his day. Things could not get worse. At this point, Nayr was not entirely conscious. Closer to be fatigued. He just laid on the ground eyes closed thinking. Mainly, it was the dragon's words and the koala's surprised... had something happened between the first of the great wars and now? It was quite possible now that he actually took time to think about it. Possibly there was another dragon he could get the story from. At this point, something spoke to him. Nayr opened his eyes slowly and saw a robot pointing a laser gun at him.

 

"Surrender Mobian, you are under arrest by the dictator and ruler of Mobius, Ivo Robotnik." it droned. Nayr sighed. Things got worse. Nayr psychically pushed it away. The robot over-reacted and fell on the ground, shattering. Nayr blinked. How could a dictator of the world have robots that were THAT crappy? Nayr stood up and went to the doors where he glanced through and saw another one of the crappy robots point to the sky. A little midgety... white sados? Strange... he had never seen that species before. It made no matter at this point. Pointing at the sky meant three things at this point:

 

1) the koala was at the top of the tower

2) a dragon was in the sky

 

or

 

3) both

 

the odds were not in his favor... Nayr stayed still watching from the doorway for what would happen next.

 

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

Post 30:

Tristan Palmgren

 

It was a landing completely unlike anything Derek had expected.

 

Though there was still something undeniably regal about the way the dragon flew, the sense of majesty faded as she drew closer. The thing that surprised Derek that most was the dragon's size. Though she was still larger than any bipedal mammal he had ever known, she was still incredibly small for a dragon. She couldn't have been more than a child.

 

The expression on her face heightened that impression: a bizarre mixture of trepidation, concentration, and, oddly enough, more than a little awe. As if she was doing something that she'd never done before. Considering the erratic way the dragon child soared through the air, that thing might have been flying.

 

Derek hoped she wasn't a novice at flying. He really hoped she wasn't.

 

That hope was dispelled when the dragon tried to land on the roof of the tower. The only thing that saved Derek from a head-on collision with the flying lizard was a quick duck to the left. The dragon hit the rooftop belly-first, with a heavy, painful *SLAM*. The crash landing wasn't over yet, though. The first crash hadn't eliminated all of her considerable momentum. Derek winced, and resisted the impulse to cover his eyes, as he saw her skid across the rest of the roof. He knew that dragon scales were thick and tough enough to protect against most kinds of accidents, but against this kind of friction... it was undoubtedly painful no matter what species she was.

 

The dragon barely avoided careening into the open staircase doors, sliding to a halt just as she reached their threshold. Dazed, her head looked around as if confused or dizzy, and finally crashed to the ground, chin-first.

 

Derek managed to recover enough of his senses to rush over to the fallen dragon child. She didn't respond as he placed a hand on her forehead. He didn't know what the hand was supposed to do, besides just be reassuring. He hoped she wasn't seriously hurt. He knew a little about medical care, but next to nothing about dragon physiology.

 

Fortunately, she raised her head within a few moments, but her eyes were still unfocused, as if she was staring someplace else entirely.

 

More questions troubled him. He hadn't expected just a lone child to come here. What was she doing out this far? Were her wings even developed enough to offer an him an escape route? What if she saw the corpse of the dragon downstairs - Derek really wasn't sure how a child would be able to handle such a gruesome sight.

 

Derek took a deep breath. Better to try and explain everything at once, then just wait for Robotnik's goons to come up here and capture them.

 

"We need to get away from here as soon as possible!" he insisted. The dragon's eyes were still unfocused; her mind clearly elsewhere. The crash had done something to her, but Derek wasn't sure what. He felt panic well up in his voice. "Robotnik's sent a military airship here! They're just below us! They've seen you! Please, we have to leave before they send robots to capture us!"

 

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

 

Post 31:

Ealain VanGogh

 

 

Sprocket tried to open his senses to as many elements of the surrounding as possible. suddenly unable to meet his superior officer's eyes, they were so hungry for conquest through the means of pain, so foreign to him. he was greeted with little better than that.

 

The desolation of the sky, the sour-sweet smell of dust and mildew from inside the tower's doors, mixed with a rankness, a decay, that would have made his skin crawl were it apt, bombarding his attempt at a pokerface, the forlorn shriek of the wind across the barren landscape . . .wait, that wasn't the wind. it was a deliberate, soon aborted noise. A whistle.

 

From above. Fearfully, not for himself but rather for the whistler, he looked up. He craned his neck--it was difficult, like trying to peer into the very opening in heaven itself--but sure enough, there was a Mobian--a koala--gesturing frenziedly at something on the horizon. He darted about in place, searching ,scanning--no. Oh no. A dragon.

 

God, but she was young. A baby, for all he could tell, green flecked and unsteady in flight, relishing her rebirth, her soul's cleansing, in the air, until she saw her home--filth-ridden, destroyed. He glanced at Snively, whose murderous electric glare was fixated on the reeling airborne figure. He was sneering. Nastily. Yeah, sometimes home was not just a place, but a person, a friend. And when it was found wrecked it could really taint a person's joy pretty quickly.

 

No, Snively. She's a baby. A baby! no, more than that--she's alive. That alone is enough a reason to stop this. She's alive.

 

Time to act.

 

Somewhat--or rather, entirely--without regarding the consequences, Sprocket seized Snively by the back of his uniform collar and lunged him into the hovercraft. "Securing commander in safe location," he explained, although in retrospect he realized that his voice had been coated with adrenaline, that only a complete ass wouldn't realize the emotion charging his voice, his every act. He'd already sealed his doom.

 

But he didn't care. He just didn't. If he couldn't ever come home again, at least he could make sure somebody else could.

 

Over Snively's confused sputtering of curses and half-incoherent protests, he sharply recalled the three SWATs within hearing range and ordered them to "guard" the human, obviously assembling further hindrance to the Overlander�s path of capture and conquest.

 

"Apprehending prisoners," he shouted in vain at Snively, whose eyes took in everything--eyes of pure, icicle-spawned hate. Whether he knew or just felt the impersonal urge to kill Sprocket for his rakish behavior, the canine could not discern, but he knew either way it looked bleak for him. Still, up he shot, his jets belching out flames which burned the tips of his superior's fingers-- Snively had wasted no time in darting to his feet and squeezing through the SWATs at the hovercraft door, reaching out the soon-to-be-singed hands and screaming orders at Sprocket: Priority One orders that should override the neuro circuits of any bot, no matter how malfunctioning, and send it rushing to its master's bidding. But Sprocket ignored Snively, and the growls of pain the jet flames extracted form the human's lips. Straight up he shot, to the very spire of Dragonsnest.

 

Withholding the urge to vomit, induced by the vertigo of the pressure change, he flew right in the dragon's landing path and flailed his limbs at her. She wasn't stopping.

 

So he lurched to one side, allowing her to careen to the spire's ground, near the similarly fleeing koala, fully convinced she didn't even see him, and followed. Amazing how quickly one could learn to do difficult feats, like flying, in an emergency.

 

He didn't wait for either Mobian to recover from the dragon's landing which, under other circumstances, might actually have seemed comical. He just took four great strides across the tower spire and roared at them both, "Get up! Now! We have to get you out of here!"

 

He didn't realize, until he was nose to nose with the koala, that the refugee was armed--and that his weapon was pointed at the robotic good samaritan's nose, breathing ragged, face stunned. His own gaze grew wide, imploring a bridge of communication, as he realized that , to these young creatures, he was not only an instigator of immediate fear, but also that of sorrow, loss, and betrayal. They did not realize that he was as much a victim as they. "Please," he breathed, gently now, "please, friend, you must trust me. He's not going to be held off for long."

 

He reached a hand out slowly. "Trust me. . . I can help." He hoped the verity in his soul would shine through his eyes. "Please."

 

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

 

Post 32:

A.    MistressAli

 

 

Dead men didn't come back.

 

So Apollo wasn't...hadn't been...dead.

 

The dragon was careening in for a landing, looking majestic from where he stood. Beautiful, even. Two things Robotnik loved to corrupt. Maybe he thought if he corrupted all life, destroyed all splendor, he wouldn't feel so ugly in comparison.

 

He didn't care why Julian did it. It only mattered that Julian would want her. He opened his mouth, ready to scream for her capture.

 

Dead men didn't come back so...

 

Had Apollo been in there this entire time? Could he see everything? Like a spy without the intent of spying, like an eavesdropper, had he been silently watching Snively for years? God, his skin was crawling with something akin to horror...

 

...Because Commander Apollo had moved...

swiftly, gracefully, a motion not of robots. Robots didn't have grace. They didn't have feeling!

...and grabbed him by the collar, and Snively gagging and swearing, swung in the robot's grip with widened eyes, realizing all this...realizing that

 

Dead men didn't come back but roboticized ones did. Could. Would...?

 

Apollo claimed to be 'apprehending prisoners'. His voice, trembling and tense and strung with fierce conviction spoke differently.

 

Snively sprang to his feet. His tiny body came in handy now; he squeezed through the SWATs that had come rushing in to guard him on Apollo's orders. He reached out, howling commands for the Commander to cease, still not wanting to believe the boy...the boy had come back... but the robot didn't respond...it lifted upwards and he grabbed futilely, but only managed in getting his hands singed in the jet flame.

 

He let out a scream as the dog-bot soared upwards; not so much pain (although his hands were clasped to his chest and tears in his eyes) as in anger, pure and unbridled, nearly choking him in its intensity. He wanted to KILL him. For real this time.

 

"Sir..." The SWATs were crowding him. "You must get to a safe location."

 

"OUT OF MY WAY!!" He screamed, shoving at them. "Disregard Apollo's' orders!"

 

Good... they backed off. He tried to calm down, but couldn't... he was shaking and his breath was erratic, nearly hyperventilating. ""You..." he gestured wildly at a group of the bots. "Go in the tower, try to apprehend them up top."

 

'Affirmative'. They raced into the blackness of the Tower entrance.

 

"The rest of you, come with me," he ran back to the hovercraft, with the remaining bots on his heels.

 

Julian never let Snively fly his personal hovercraft. "I think not, nephew, I don't fancy an early death," he said. So Snively had flown the lower grade models alone in his spare time, finding that he was quite adept at the skill.

 

He flung himself into the seat. He could hardly focus with the rage shaking him, making his head scream and his body quiver and he clutched the steering stick with his reddened hands, grimacing from the pain.

 

Damn that Apollo! How dare he...

Come back... how dare he reclaim life after all these years dead. Dead and somewhat buried in the human's conscience. How dare he come back, making him think about it again. He didn't want to think about it. He feared the thoughts...and he feared the fright, and the fear made him furious.

 

So destroy him. The 'out of sight, out of mind' concept had always been quite useful for Snively. Out of existence, out of his thoughts, out of his nightmares even, if he got lucky.

 

Yes. Destroy him. Capture the dragon, reroute the freighter. Keep the goals in stark emotionless terms and don't think of the darker, bloody parts of them...the parts that killed him inside.

 

With singed hands shaking, he lifted the hovercraft from the ground.

 

The chase was on!

 

**

 

If the koala hadn't expected her landing to be rough, Dulcy was even more surprised. She thought it'd be easy...just put one foot down and she'd come to a nice neat stop. Wrong...

 

She slammed down hard, skidding across the rock surface of the tower. Pain tore through her belly. It felt like scales were being ripped away. She flailed with her hands, trying to grab ahold of something, but the ground was flat and smooth.

 

Finally she came to a stop. Her entire underbelly was on fire, like rug burn. But worse. Tears squeezed from underneath her closed lids. She heard footsteps and tried to look at the one who'd summoned her here...but her vision was so blurry and she couldn't breathe. All air had been knocked from her.

 

There was a hand on her forehead; strangely soothing. She sucked air in, nosily, lungs greedy for sustenance.

 

"...They've seen you! Please, we have to leave before they send robots to capture us!"

 

It was a boy. He sounded scared.

 

She blinked, still feeling dizzy. Her arm hurt; maybe she'd landed on it.

 

And then the boy next to her gasped and she shook her head, trying to clear her vision.

 

She might've gasped as well, if she hadn't been busy sucking up air...there was a robot there, and the boy next to her...she could see him clearly now, a white furred koala, was training a gun on the robot.

 

The bot was reaching out his hand. He gleamed bright silver, making her squint. There was some kind of insignia on his chest... Robotnik's forces. A hand of fear gripped her, making her already labored breathing more difficult.

 

The koala backed up, crowding closer to her.

 

And then the robot spoke and the hand of fear shattered.

 

"Trust me. . . I can help."

 

She pushed herself up, wincing at the pain in her arm.

 

This was no enemy...No...robots didn't talk like this. Not the ones that had tried to capture Ma. They had spoken with dead, hollow voices, adhering to their orders to capture and bring pain. They didn't care...they didn't have emotions.

 

This one's voice was charged with feeling, his eyes rich, warm, swimming in horrible anxiety, flooded with pain and guilt.

 

No robot had eyes like that.

 

"He..." her voice was breathless, but firm, "He isn't bad..."

 

She turned her eyes on the koala and his pointing gun. "...Don't shoot him!"

 

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

 

Post 33:

Tristan Palmgren

 

In all the stories Derek had ever read, or in all the old movies he'd ever seen, whenever the hero came to a point like this, the world had always seemed to freeze around them, to give the protagonist enough time to consider their options.

 

No such luck, here.

 

There was no time to consider any options. It seemed that the second he decided on a course of action, something new happened that changed the situation entirely. Compassionate robots hadn't been in his original plan. This sympathetic enemy soldier - this walking, flying contradiction in terms - had been precisely the last thing he had anticipated. And there was no time to make sense of anything. Things were happening far too quickly to sort out in his mind. He knew that he had to make some kind of decision, and soon, but he didn't have an inkling of what it would be.

 

Far below, he heard the airship's military-grade engines roar mightily. When the drives were being gunned like that, it could only mean that the ship was about to take off.

 

One of the few things he usually prided himself on was his ability to take things slow; to take the time to make the smart decision. Now his best trait was working against him. He couldn't do things fast enough.

 

The only things that had served him well thus far were his adrenaline-laced reflexes. Derek was surprised, and secretly somewhat pleased, by the speed of his reaction to the robot. He couldn't even recall drawing his sidearm. The weapon had seemingly just leapt to his palm, just in time for him to level it directly at the cold metal nose of the interloper.

 

"Get up!" the canine robot bellowed at them. "Now! We have to get you out of here!"

 

The sheer volume of the robot's voice was incredibly intimidating. Derek nearly pulled the trigger then and there, but something stayed his shaking trigger finger. Before he even had time to realize what the canine was actually saying, he realized that there was an inflection in the voice that he'd never heard from any robot before.

 

The most confusing thing of all was the realization that the robot actually seemed to have both Derek's and the dragon child's best interests in mind. There had been none of the usual threats of roboticization, or demands for surrender, but rather an order for them to save themselves.

 

The canine halted when he saw that the pistol was still pointed steadily at his face. Impossibly enough... his eyes were warm, and wet. Derek had no idea that robots even had tear ducts. The roboticized canine appeared to consider something for a moment, and then lowered his voice to a soft plea. "Please," he whispered, "please, friend, you must trust me. He's not going to be held off for long."

 

There were too many things going on here for Derek to have any idea of how he related to all of them. He felt like an intruder in some kind of grand drama -- a hapless audience member who'd suddenly found himself center stage and in the spotlight. People were whirling all about him, and expecting him to know what to do, when really he couldn't even begin to guess at what his lines were supposed to be. It was the worst case of stage fright imaginable.

 

"Trust me," the roboticized canine said, offering a hand. "I can help."

 

Derek did his best to keep his pistol aim steady. Embarrassingly, though, his arm was starting to shiver anyway, as if even his muscles were rejecting his overwhelming flood of panic.

 

The dragon child suddenly stirred beside him. Derek couldn't spare any attention from the roboticized canine, but, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her push herself up. A flood of relief surged through his veins: he was glad that the crash hadn't caused her any serious injury. At least something was going right.

 

"He- he isn't bad!" the dragon insisted, her voice surprisingly firm. "Don't shoot him!"

 

Derek came very close to just obeying the dragon's command. He started lowering his sidearm, but reconsidered just in time. The pistol came back up to bear against the robot's face again. If there was one thing his encounter with Nack the weasel had taught him, it was to *never* lower his weapon first. He kept the pistol raised and somewhat steady.

 

His breathing was still ragged. The run up the stairs had been a long and difficult one, and he hadn't had a chance to recover from it before this new panic attack had set in. His lungs burned with the strain of it all - his throat was dry and scratchy.

 

The roboticized canine kept his eyes on the laser pistol, wearing what could almost be called a resigned expression. If it was an act, Derek at least gave it the credit of being a very convincing one. He had never seen a robot act so... alive... before. He admitted that Robotnik could have made gigantic strides forward in artificial intelligence technology since the coup, but an advancement of this scale strained credibility. Maybe... he was telling the truth.

 

At the same time, though, the symbol of Robotnik's armada gleamed proudly on the robot canine's chest. He didn't know what to believe. And the sound of the airship engines was getting louder.

 

At last, Derek took a step backwards, and kneeled down to put a protective arm around the dragon child. Her scales were comfortingly warm: the one firm anchor he'd ever found in all this madness. "If y-you're telling the truth," he stammered, "You'll step back and let us go. We were just about to run anyway."

 

For a moment, there was no further movement, as the roboticized canine seemed to consider this. The winds whipped around the pinnacle of the Dragonsnest tower, tossing Derek's pearl-white fur from side to side. Then the dragon glanced back up at Derek.

 

"We were?" she asked, startled. "But- but how are you going to get down? I dunno know if I can even fly again, let alone carry-!"

 

Derek was about to answer that he'd been hoping to catch a ride with her, but just then spared a glance down at her, and examined the dragon child more carefully. Though she was actually larger than Derek himself, she was still quite small for a dragon, and her wings looked terribly underdeveloped. She looked as though she'd have trouble carrying her own mass through the air, let alone a Mobian passenger.

 

"Oh, no..." he breathed silently.

 

There was no escape to be found that way.

 

He squeezed the dragon's shoulders gently. If it came down to it, he'd tell the dragon to just flee herself, and not worry about what happened to him or anybody else. Derek was nearly an adult; he'd known that his mission might end in capture or death. He deserved to be captured; the child didn't. He'd sacrifice himself to save her.

 

At that moment, alarms went off in Derek's head. He snapped his attention back to the roboticized canine, immediately ashamed for letting his concentration falter for even a second. Fortunately, the canine had made no moves towards them in that brief time.

 

This surprised Derek more than anything so far. If the canine really had been nothing more than a servant of the tyrant Robotnik, it wouldn't have hesitated to take advantage of that brief lapse. This was the strongest evidence he'd seen yet that the canine wasn't just another soldier/slave, that even though he'd been roboticized he had somehow managed to hold onto his free will. This was no ordinary robot.

 

What finally convinced him, though, was the way the canine carried himself. The robot was leaning forward with his knees slightly bent, with one hand to his chest, as though he were exhausted and trying to catch his breath. Robots didn't need to breathe, though! Even though the canine didn't need any air at all - he was probably just mentally exhausted - some instinct had made him assume that posture. Only real Mobians had instincts. Robots only had reactions. If this was a fake, it was the most convincing fake ever made. His ears even twitched in the breeze!

 

Maybe he was for real, after all. Maybe there was still some hope of escape.

 

Slowly, cautiously, he lowered the pistol. He kept a wary on the canine all the while, but, just like last time, there were no hostile moves. He hoped he was making the right decision. At this point he didn't seem to have much choice but to trust the canine. He slowly pulled his protective arm away from the dragon child, and stood up.

 

"I believe you... for now."

 

The canine nodded, relieved, but otherwise Derek didn't give him a chance to say much. He turned towards the dragon, and said to her, "We need to fly away from here as fast as possible. Do you think you can handle that?"

 

She nodded. "Yeah, I think, but I can't take anyone else with me." She looked at Derek, and then at the canine. "What are you two gonna do?"

 

"Don't worry about us," the canine said. If there was any doubt left in Derek that he wasn't genuine, it was eliminated by the tone of honesty and selflessness in his voice. "Child, you *have* to save yourself first!"

 

"Just fly as far as you can to the east," Derek continued the canine's train of thought. He waved in the general direction of the Great Forest, in case the child wasn't sure what direction he'd meant. "We'll be right behind you, I think. We'll try to catch up to you."

 

The top of the airship began to become visible from the highest edges of the Dragonsnest tower. There was only a few seconds left before everything and everyone on the roof would be in the airship's weapon range.

 

Derek eyed the jet propulsion gear on the robot canine's feet. The instinct for self-preservation sent yet more adrenaline pumping through his body.

 

"I think," Derek said, "I'm gonna need someone else to give me a lift."

 

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

 

Post 34:

Ealain VanGogh

 

Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!"--Alexander the Great, on his deathbed

 

Sprocket appreciated the dragon child's instinctual faith in him to a depth that only fueled his conviction to advocate the moral outcome of the predicament, to tempt fate. The thickness of a remembered feeling of comradery and gratitude rushed to his throat, making him nearly choke on a sob of relief. At least she would make his efforts at heroism, later, when he would most likely be lying dead in an abyss somewhere with laser holes through his head at the hands of his once friend, worth it. At least his epitaph could justifiably read, for lack of more elegant prose, "Here lies Sprocket, who tried."

 

"I think I'm going to need a lift." It was uttered with a grim sense of endurance, from a face that was vulnerably trusting. The koala, too, must have possessed some intuition that could sense sincerity, that could smell anxiety, of which the canine most likely reeked. Sprocket was filled to the brim of his nuts and bolts and levers and gears with the cold electric drive of purpose--of survival. It reminded him of the day his parents had been shot down by Overlander troops, by Snively's father--Snively.... Despite the impending danger, he'd almost impersonalized the villain of the situation, whom he'd stupidly tossed like a sack of dead fish out of his path, whose face had, at last glance, been afflicted with the tight-lipped, chalk-skinned expression of fury.

 

He'd almost forgotten it was his buddy who was trying to kill them.

 

Sprocket lashed around and glared at the desert floor--yes, indeed, the Hovercraft was swiftly ascending--lurching--towards them. He wanted to utter an oath, but he really couldn't conceive of one that would sufficiently express his terror.

 

Oh, yes. Snively was pissed. And when Snively threw a tantrum... Sprocket shuddered. He remembered his friend, in their very young childhood together--he couldn't have been older than eight-- decapitating a teddy bear with a knife, spilling its cotton guts into a pile of wood, and then burning them, at what was supposed to be a cheerful autumn campout in the woods.... Because his father had spanked and grounded him that afternoon.

 

Yeah, it was time to get out of there.

 

 

He smiled crookedly at the koala; the dragon, it seemed, had feebly managed to get airborne, in the direction of the Great Forest, but the white-furred marsupial still stood tensely awaiting his escape route, at the hands of a robot, no less. Man, this kid was brave. He busied himself revving his engines, gauging his speed upon takeoff, pushing buttons on his badge's control panel. He decided it best to partake of some hasty, essential introductions, while the koala's bright eyes were still keenly, and faithfully, fixed on him. "The name's Sprocket, friend. Although I'd surmise you refugees know me, if at all, as Commander Apollo. The fact that I am not complying with my master's commands probably, at the very least, bewilders you, but I'm afraid explanations regarding that will have to wait, because I myself have no clue as to how I regained my free will after being roboticized. All I know is I have it, and I'm not wasting it. So what can I call you?"

 

The koala was compelled to offer a reluctant smile, but his eyes had begun to stray in the direction of the rising hovercraft. "Derek," he divulged tersely.

 

Sprocket nodded, gesturing at the koala to approach. "Okay, good, Derek. I don't want you to get squeamish on me, but I'm afraid the only way we can follow your scaled friend without my thrusters burning you to a crisp is for you to climb on my back and hold tight."

 

Obedience was instant. Derek flew to Sprocket's side and seized his metallic shoulders, clinging to them as if they comprised his very soul. "Okay, go," the koala ordered through gritted teeth. Sprocket, tossing wind-tousled hair out of his own grieving eyes, almost chuckled at the refugee's bravado. It was refreshing, hopeful. He ignited his thrusters.

 

The hovercraft leered before them the very second he felt himself beginning to levitate from the dusty surface of Dragonsnest. Faint dismay seized him; at least, the Fatalist in him thought, we've distracted him from the child for the moment. Maybe she'll get away.

 

But then the koala's voice, trembling ever so slightly, whispered in his ear, in a tone not far from that of a child itself, an idle question to mask his horror. "Oh....oh....well. Who is piloting that thing?"

 

Sprocket licked his lips, knees bowing for a split second; but then he supported the koala, who was beginning to slip, with one free arm, and forgot his own distress. He leveled a primal glare at the hollow, pale face inside the craft, the demonic face screaming obscenities at him through the glass. And this, somehow, made Sprocket strong again. "It's Snively Kintobar," he said flatly, astounded at the numbness in his voice that aptly veiled his intense, defiant rage. "An old . . . friend . . . of mine." The subsequent gasp of surprise from the koala was muffled by the wind from the craft, blasting their faces with dust and debris. Its headlights forced his pupils to contract painfully; he shielded his eyes, apparently still sensitive to the stimulants of an organic furry. But he was unafraid.

 

"Don't worry, Freedom Fighter," he said, suddenly remembering what Snively had mockingly called the refugees while issuing orders in the Great Mountains, and, yes, suddenly, so very certain that this was the perfect title for such creatures of enduring strength. Davids to an iron Goliath. "Don't worry. You will survive this. That's my promise."

 

 

And he took off. Straight up. The speed was incredible; the laser shots from the hovercraft failed even to graze him, or his charge. The koala gulped audibly; it was a hiccupping noise, either a sob, a scream, or a whoop of glee, he couldn't tell, but regardless, it affirmed that he was still safely clinging to Sprocket's arms.

 

Then Sprocket's weaker, darker side, the one that indulged in vengeance, got the better of him, and he veered to the left, to the craft's pilot window, out of its frontal weapon range, and stuck his head straight in at Snively. Ah, relishing the human's nearly apoplectic state of being. He could hear the koala hyperventilating behind him, but somehow he had to say this, to utter the question that had been gnawing a hole in his spirit since the moment he emerged from the blackness of unconscious slavery. No, farther back. Since Snively and his uncle had pushed the button on the machine reeling him into that blackness. Somehow it had to be asked, not just for him, but also for every other soul lost six years ago, for paradise lost.

 

And especially for the survivors, the forlorn, like the one strapped to his back that very instant.

 

We are in a prison, all of us, of the spirit or the body or both, and we cannot escape, Sprocket imagined himself spitting at Snively and Julian, because of you two despotic dreamers. And you're prisoners too. You've even damned yourselves.

 

"So, Snively, friend," he breathed out loud, leaning in so far that he was nose-to-nose with the wispy Overlander, yet somehow unable to shout, too far possessed of fury to remember how, "was it as easy as it looked . . . when you did this to me?" Then something unexpected happened . . . his eyes flooded with moisture, and, before he could even witness the human's reaction, he darted off behind the craft, easily avoiding it.

 

But it was, admittedly, awfully easy, considering it took ten strangely long seconds before the hovercraft's pilot felt the urge to fire at him again.

 

Could it be...

 

No.

 

Snively was incapable of remorse. He knew that now. Didn't he?

 

Sprocket shook his head, clearing his vision, and accelerated, feeling gravity bowing to his whim as he zipped towards the forest. "If we can only get past his stretch of clearing, Derek, I'll have you home free," he called over his shoulder at the koala, who seemed to have composed himself since they began to make distance between themselves and the craft. "I only hope your dragon has landed a bit less bumpily down there this time."

 

"I have a question."

 

"Shoot."

 

"How . . . are you so well acquainted with . . . with . . ." The koala's voice trailed; he seemed to have suddenly become aware of his intrusive query.

 

Sprocket severed the inquiry where it stood, albeit reluctantly, for he wanted so badly to confide his pain in someone, but it would be unsafe. It might violate the boy's trust. "A story for another day," he mumbled, and they shot on through the sky in silence. It was just as well, for the chaos following then in the form of the hovercraft would not be detained for long.

 

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

 

Post 35:

Tristan Palmgren

 

Rosie's voice was soft and subdued -- the sort of sad tone she reserved only for use talking to herself.

 

Of course, if any of the children had overheard her, they wouldn't have been able to tell much difference from her normal tone of voice. She had forced herself to stay with the same cheerful tone - and most of the time managed to actually be cheerful - for so long that she couldn't even leave it even when she tried. But it felt sad to her. It felt defeatist and fatalistic, and it was a tone she found herself using more and more as the years wore on.

 

"Nicole."

 

"STANDING BY, ROSIE."

 

Rosie was alone in her room. There weren't many lights on in her cabin. Darkness seemed to stream in from the nighttime air outside. She had just made sure that the children had gone off to bed a few minutes ago. This late at night was the only time she dared confront the depression that had been growing steadily inside her for the past several months. She would never let her charges see her this devoid of hope.

 

Her right boot heel felt empty. The clip on its side, where she usually kept King Acorn's gift, was vacant. Its usual passenger, the palm-sized semi-sentient computer Nicole, was resting on the desk in front of her. A hologram map of the local region wavered in the air in front of her. Mobotropolis was at the very center of the map, surrounded completely by polluted land, and then the edges of the Great Forest. To the north there was a sea, to the west a desert, and at the far west edge was a sizable mountain range.

 

Rosie gazed at the map, and sighed. She had asked these questions a thousand times before, and knew exactly what the answer would be.

 

"Display the last known pre-coup positions of all Royal Army bases and personnel."

 

The map flickered and unfocused momentarily. When clarity returned, the map was dotted with a large number of red specks. The highest concentrations of them were around the city at the center of the map, but there were still a fair number of them in the desert canyons to the west.

 

"Modify the map. Erase all bases that we know for a fact have been destroyed during or after the coup."

 

When the map reappeared, the area around Robotropolis was almost entirely devoid of the red specks.

 

"Erase all bases that we can conjecture are gone, based on a lack of activity or attacks on Robotnik's resources."

 

This time, the map looked almost exactly as it had the first time Rosie had pulled it up. Except for the general geographic features of the area, the map was blank; there were nearly no red specks at all. There were a few regions of dim crimson color near the very fringes of the map. It was those that now held Rosie's attention.

 

"Nicole," Rosie began, and then hesitated. She took a deep breath, and did her best to keep herself composed. "Out of all of the bases that still remain, which one has the highest probability of still existing today?"

 

"THIRD ARMY SUPPLY DEPOT 36A, SOUTHEAST GREAT UNKNOWN."

 

A remote supply shed. Even during the glory days of Mobotropolis, when the Royal Army had been at its most strong, it wouldn't have had much more than one or two soldiers on duty at any time. Likely only kept a few tanks of water, or maybe a laser rifle or two. "And what is that probability?" she went on.

 

"SEVENTEEN POINT SIX PERCENT."

 

That number kept shrinking every time she asked Nicole for an estimate. When she had checked only two months ago, it had been over twenty percent. She shook her head clear of the clouds of depression. The next question, she knew, would be the hardest of all. "What is the probability that the remnants of the Royal Army will be able to regroup and recapture Mobotropolis?"

 

"TWO POINT EIGHT FIVE PERCENT."

 

When Rosie had taken the children from the smoldering remains of their former home, and run to this place, the Royal Army had been their last hope.

 

For years after the coup, Rosie had been convinced that Knothole was only a temporary shelter. She had told the children over and over again that they'd only have to stay here until the Royal Army managed to regroup, and had time to take back their city. She'd told them that they'd be able to see their families just as soon as the heroes of the Great War had time to return to the home front. No matter how many travelers she'd heard tell of the destruction of the Royal Army, no matter how little evidence she had of the Army's continued existence, her one simple faith had refused to die. She had to believe, for the sake of the children entrusted to her care.

 

Robotnik had dealt everyone a serious blow, but for the longest time, she just couldn't bring herself to believe that her entire civilization was gone.

 

She'd had dreams - beautiful dreams - of suddenly seeing lights in the sky. An entire Navy advancing on Robotropolis. Other times she'd dreamt of hover units landing in the center of Knothole, and King Acorn stepping out of one of them, alive and well.

 

Still, the years wore longer and longer, and there was still no sign at all that Robotnik's reign was in any danger. There was no sign of the Royal Army. If Nicole was right, there probably never would be, either.

 

In all the years that she'd possessed Nicole, Rosie had never known her estimates to be anything but accurate.

 

She sighed, and tried to think of a question she'd never asked before. It wasn't an easy task. Her eyes fell on the salt water sea to the far north of Robotropolis.

 

"What about the Nimbus Island Airbase?" Rosie asked. "There were plenty of Royal Army airships there before the coup. Could any of them could have survived this long?"

 

"UNLIKELY," Nicole answered frankly. "NIMBUS ISLAND WAS THE TARGET OF A MASSIVE AIR RAID ONLY TWO MONTHS AFTER THE COUP. THE ISLAND'S INHABITANTS WERE EVACUATED OR DESTROYED, AND ALL KNOWN AIRSHIP HANGARS WERE FLATTENED BY SATURATION BOMBING."

 

"Can you be sure?" Rosie asked, feeling a brief glimmer a hope light inside her. "Robotnik may have been the head of the war effort before the coup, but I doubt that even he knows where all the hidden bunkers were. Could some of them still be waiting there?"

 

"INSUFFICIENT DATA," Nicole replied. "BUT PROBABILITY ANALYSIS SUGGESTS THAT NO AIRSHIPS SURVIVED AT ALL."

 

Just like before, her hopes were quashed flat, just like the Nimbus Island airbases.

 

Rosie was getting weary of this life. Not as long as the children survived would she give up all hope, but... the subconscious tide of defeatism was becoming too strong a pull to fight for much longer. It was on nights like this, confronted by the ill odds of any kind of rescue ever reaching Knothole, she felt the worst. She felt as though she was preparing the children for nothing more than lives as slaves to the dark power of Robotropolis.

 

The hopelessness was always worst at nighttime.

 

Rosie gazed at Nicole's hologram map a moment longer before turning it off. She slipped the computer back into her boot, and extinguished the last of the lights in her cabin.

 

She walked over to the open window, and gazed out into the darkness of the forest. She could just barely see the outlines of the other buildings in the night. The other cabins were, as she expected them to be, dark and silent. Her charges were probably deep in slumber. She leaned against the windowsill, and tried to let the thought of them comfort her.

 

That thought was shattered by the sound of a door creaking slowly open, and then shut again.

 

Rosie straightened, suddenly wide awake, and squinted out into the darkness. For a moment, there was no other sound. Then the sound of softly crunching dirt, like quiet footsteps, reached her ears. After the quiet of the village at night, the noise was terribly loud.

 

She saw a familiar outline creep between two buildings. Its footsteps moved in tandem with the noise she heard.

 

"Sonic?" Rosie asked aloud, her voice piercing the gloom.

 

The silhouette straightened. "Uh, oh..."

 

It was unmistakably Sonic's voice. Then, with a rush of wind, it was gone. She saw the shape streak off towards the ring pool. In a moment, Rosie was out of her cabin, and running after him.

 

The last thing she needed now was that boisterous hedgehog running off to commit some nocturnal mischief.

 

"Sonic!" she called out to the trees. "Get back here at once!"

 

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

 

Post 36:

Ealain VanGogh

 

A muffled, ashamed reply greeted Sally's pricked ears, twitching in the breeze, tossing her hair like flames licking her cherub face. She groaned. He was still in his hut, thus the weak bumbling attempts of her friends to cover for him, to ease the blow of his lax efforts to fight this war. Didn't he understand/ Didn't he know that every tick of the clock could mean a drop of blood spilled form her father's head, somewhere in some abyss, some forsaken prison? Oh, if only Rosie knew the depth of Sally's imagination, and the recesses to which it could plummet.

 

Rosie . . . she knew this would disturb her nanny, this attempt at adulthood so premature, yet so necessary. She would be furious, furious to hide her grief. She thought she had hidden it for so long with those plastered smiles, those plucky tones, but Sally knew that the very necessity for over-compensated cheer meant that something was irrevocably wrong. Perhaps it was Sally's rite of passage into maturity of spirit that Rosie was trying to deny, to shove to the back of her mind and heart, when she relentlessly dressed Sally in pastels and forced her to repose in her hut on too hot and humid afternoons, as though an Acorn were ever made of porcelain rather than rock. Didn't she know Sally had already grown up six years ago?

 

No, this tardiness could not be excused any longer. Too many hearts and souls, like that of Rosie, were being spread across the butcher's table for these sacrifices. She knew her friends would stare at her, gape openly when she chastises Sonic, the boy to whom she whispered her dearest secrets and delights since practically the womb; but this intimacy with him was why she was so harsh--he, her most trusted companion, ought to understand. To understand everything. The others thought she was too high-strung, on the verge of becoming jaded at eleven, but they conveniently forgot that attitude reflected leadership, and that come the end of time, posterity would remember the dying flame of freedom not under their names, but hers.

 

No, dying? No! The darkness was making her think morbid thoughts.

 

I wish Sonic were here.

 

A sound. An awkward rambling through the foliage, hardly the sound of a spry young hedgehog with a knack for sound barrier breaking speed. But there he stood, suddenly, his cheeks uncharacteristically flushed, his bright intense dark eyes cast downward, and instantly Sally knew something was amiss.

 

She opened her mouth to sharply question him, but was compelled to silence by a barely audible whisper above the shuffling of his red-sneakered feet. "Sorry, Sal." And then louder in his typical brassy tenor, beginning to crack with puberty, "Aw, Sal, lay off, I tripped over somethin...'

 

And she looked up, for she noticed the way he cringed away from something hovering above him. Not malevolently, but rather, with loving concern.

 

From the bushes, firmly clasping the boy's arm, was Rosie. Her face was pale and drawn, and to Sally, strikingly weary. The wrinkles of age and stress were beginning to take their toll on her elegant features, she saw, even in the soft moonlight. "Oh, Sally," she breathed, as if struggling between rage and sorrow; her face twisted into a fierce scowl. A quiver was in her voice. And then her eyebrows and mouth clutched to their typical resigned sweetness. "What do you think you're trying to do this late at night? Don't you know it's ...' she struggled for a way to sugar coat the facts. There was none. Perhaps it was time the truth was reconciled with their reality. "It's really not safe . .. in the dark?"

 

Sally's heart sank like an anchor to her churning bowels while a lump rose in her throat. I love you, she wanted to cry. I am trying to help you, to help all of us. Don't deny me that catharsis. Don't punish me by not allowing me to right the wrongs done to those I love....

 

I can handle this. I can.

 

Out loud, unable to look at Sonic for fear of shattering, she squeaked, "Just talking about .... Math homework...."

 

Rotor jumped in rigidly, and with uncharacteristic loudness. 'Boy, yeah, those differentials, gotta love them--but it takes some late-night pondering ya know."

 

Antoine's reedy voice broke the relief that was beginning, reluctantly, to materialize on Rosie's face. "But we are not doing ze differ-pen-pals until next week, non? Is it not ze fractions ce soir?"

 

Bunnie elbowed him and shot him a venomous glare mid-babble. "Oh . .. oui," he stammered, with a nervous giggle. Rosie sighed.

 

"Sally, this newfound predilection for 'freedom missions' has got to end." The harshness in her voice stunned the children, except for Sonic, who jerked free of her grasp with a disgruntled growl and found his seat next to the princess, whose face had tightened like a prune.

 

"Rosie, I'm doing this for you. For all of us."

 

"You're eleven."

 

The child was undaunted. "You want us to rot here. To accept fate. Daddy wouldn't have done that, Rosie."

 

"Sally."

 

Sally shouted on. She was like a volcano, too long fermenting, finally exploding with emotion. "What's that? Is that shiny thing in your hand, that . .. that 'computer...' just any old device, or is it your attempt to do just what I'm doing Rosie? To deny this, this death?"

 

Her friends gaped. She sounded like an insane vagrant preaching on the Apocalypse, despite the pink bow in her hair, despite her sweet round face.

 

"Sally Elisha." The nanny�s voice bordered on soft frenzy now. A soft but formidable warning. Her entire frame shook with the effort of restraining her anger born of fear.

 

"Sally, let's take a walk. Just the two of us." She advanced without asking again, into the forest path, and Sally followed, her eyes on the contraption in her tutor's hand. It had a welcoming glow, like the power rings. What they didn't see was Sonic tiptoeing after them.

 

Followed by the other children.

 

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

 

Post 37:

J.R. Grant

 

Nayr was still uncertain about the situation. He could tell an audible thud from way up above. Only a dragon could make such a loud sound when landing, of course, most dragon's landings weren't that loud. It must have been something else... Nayr didn't want to think about it being a dragon.

 

�All this time he had been slaying dragons and thought nothing of it. They rarely spoke, the only words that they usually said were "stop" or some other kind of protest before engaging in battle and losing. The firmity in which the dragon muttered its last words were frightening. The dragon knew of his condemnation.

 

�It had often been said dragon's couldn't lie, but Nayr knew otherwise. This, however, wasn't a lie. He could somehow sense the truth in it. The koala knew it as if it were common knowledge.

 

Nayr was split between heading back upstairs and meeting an unfortunate situation or just remaining where he was in ignorance. The decision was soon made for him as the midget outside yelled something and more of the cheesy robots came into the tower.

 

Nayr snickered and stood back. The robots all entered. As they clanged up the steps, Nayr psychically knocked them all down, watching them clumsily disassemble themselves as they fell down the hard stone steps. Nayr chuckled to himself. The small figure in this small amount of time had clambered into the vessel that he had arrived in.

 

�Whatever was on the top was important.

 

The vessel took off. Nayr could soon hear what sounded like another set of blasters. It was time to leave the protection and comfort of the shadows to get the whole picture.

 

He ran out into the sun where he looked reluctantly to the sky. At this point, his worst fears were confirmed. He saw a dragon... a baby in fact heading off into the distance closely followed by a robotic replica of some species (they were too far out to tell clearly, especially with the sunlight inhibiting his vision).

 

In hot pursuit was a hovercraft firing at the robot.

 

Holy shit that little white sados was a hideously bad aim. It hurt to watch how bad he was. The robot pulled a u-turn in midair and flew to the side where the white sados was. Then the robot stopped as the plane turned sharply and flew towards the robot, not firing.

 

It was at this point that Nayr finally noticed something on the robot's back. Most likely the koala. Finally, the ship began firing again as the robot made for the Small Tree Gathering (known to the Mobians as the Great Forest). From where Nayr stood, it didn't seem so small anymore. He had heard much about this forest, but the current maps he had seen made it look small.

 

Nayr ran forward following the chase. It wasn't long, however, before the ship stopped confused as to where the robot had gone to. Things were going on and Nayr needed answers. He didn't want to bother with the white sados. If he built those shitty robots, then he wouldn't be any help.

 

�Instead, Nayr ran blindly forward until he heard the much more silent sound of boosters and followed the sound quickly and silently. Night would soon approach and then he would be able to make total sense of the situation...

 

* * *

 

 

Sonic crept out of his room. The others may not have seen the danger, but her certainly could. If Rosie caught them then there would BE no meeting. Of course, the real reason behind his tardiness was all the chili dogs that he had for dinner, but that wouldn't go over well with Sal in the least... Sonic crept silently out and was on the verge of being out of sight when a familiar voice called out.

 

"Sonic?" it asked in a speaking volume that shattered the silence. Sonic's eyes went wide.

 

"Uh, oh..." Sonic moaned. He had to get out of there. Perhaps Rosie wouldn't find where they were, but he would have to hurry to make his tracks untraceable. As Sonic took off he couldn't faintly hear Rosie's voice in the background, but didn't bother to try to decipher it. Through all this thought, Sonic tripped over something in the dark. That was the problem with thinking. All it brought while running was trouble. Sonic didn't bother finding out what he tripped over, but got right back on his feet to continue running. Finally he reached the site where the meeting was taking place. Sonic noted quickly that Sally was pissed. She was about to give hell and more to him, but he quickly decided to get the first word in.

 

"Sorry, Sal..." Sonic said, more choked due to the circumstances and running. Then he finished in a more authoritive tone. "Aw, Sal, lay off, I tripped over somethin..." Sonic replied. Not the excuse he had figured before, but the only thing that came to mind at that time. That was when Sonic felt a hand clasp onto his arm. Sonic jumped as a reaction, but then noticed it was only Rosie. Only Rosie? Aww crap.

"Oh, Sally... What do you think you're trying to do this late at night? Don't you know it's..." Rosie hesitated, then continued. "It's really not safe... in the dark?" Sally looked down.

 

"Just talking about.... Math homework...." she said in a voice that easily be taken for a lie along with absent eye contact that confirmed it, but Rotor tried to make it more believable.

 

"Boy, yeah, those differentials, gotta love them-- but it takes some late-night pondering ya know." Rotor almost yelled. Sonic almost sighed. These people hadn't the foggiest idea how to lie.

 

"But we are not doing ze differ-pen-pals until next week, non? Is it not ze fractions ce soir?" Antoine asked stupidly. Go figure. Antoine was more than just a nutcase. That was one person they could've left for Robotnik. He woulda screwed him over so bad King Acorn woulda come back and squashed that--

 

"Sally, this newfound predilection for 'freedom missions' has got to end." Rosie said. Sonic ripped his arm from Rosie. It angered him to no end when she went on about this. If they didn't who would? The Mobian Army? Oh, sure they would, after six years of sitting on their bum's. Obviously they've been planning, huh? No. They were turned into robots just like...

 

"--doing this for you. For all of us." Sonic caught the end of Sally's reply.

 

"You're eleven." Rosie replied. Sonic just got more torqued. He had the speed. There wasn't a single trap he couldn't escape from. He could go straight into Mobotropolis and wipe that idiot all over the ground.

 

"You want us to rot here. To accept fate. Daddy wouldn't have done that, Rosie." Sally replied.

 

"Sally."

 

"What's that? Is that shiny thing in your hand, that... that 'computer...' just any old device, or is it your attempt to do just what I'm doing Rosie? To deny this, this death?" Sally screamed in hostility that Sonic had never witnessed coming from her before. It was incredible. He didn't have the foggiest idea what she was saying, but it was awesome.

 

"Sally Elisha." Rosie began softly and sternly, then let loose the angry expression on her face. "Sally, let's take a walk. Just the two of us."

 

Rosie took Sally's hand and left the room. Heh, Sonic wasn't going to settle for this. Hell no. He had to hear all Rosie had to say. He wasn't going to let her convince Sally not to go through with this. They had to get out there and save Unc and Muttski... and the King, but certainly Unc and Muttski. The other kids followed his lead and tiptoed silently behind him. Sonic sighed and crossed his fingers hoping Antoine wouldn't do something stupid this time around...

 

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Post 38:

MistressAli

 

He was young. They were young.

 

The leaves were falling. The air; crisp, blue, white clouds of fluff. A deceptive beauty. He was so cold. So cold. Clasping his arms around his knees under the tree. He hated this time of year. It was like death.

 

Honey-eyes looked down on him. They should've hated him. But they didn't. "It wasn't your fault." The boy standing said. "Your father did it. Not you..."

 

The boy under the tree looked away. His daddy was like death too, sometimes...

 

"Hey." The standing boy was now kneeling. He put his hand on the shoulder of the shivering boy, and his touch was so warm, and his eyes so full of compassion.

 

It melted away the cold.

 

"You saved me."

 

No!

Don't remember...

 

"And I will never forget that..."

 

Snively's eyes went wide. The dog bot had slid smoothly to the side window of his hovercraft. He thrust his head inside, gaze meeting Snively's.

 

He had those same beautiful amber eyes. They were still so very warm, but this was a different heat; bubbling like lava. His touch, however, would never be warm again.

 

Sprocket leaned in close, so close he could've smelled sweet breath. But robots lacked scent. A blast of cool air hit his face and his friend---no, the rebel...he was one of *them* now-- hissed at him in a voice of pure fury. He was a man betrayed. Come back to extract vengeance. Sprocket was going to kill him.

 

Snively recoiled in his seat, too angry to be fully frightened but instinct propelled him away.

 

Sprocket would kill him. Because Snively would kill someone if they'd betrayed him. He would, right?

 

But Apollo was different. He always had been. Even now his heated eyes were flooding with liquid and he withdrew from the window and darted away with the koala on his back. Ahead of them the young dragon flew clumsily towards the east.

 

He would kill someone if they betrayed him, right? And Sprocket had come back alive, breaking the silence, breaking through into the buried part of Snively's conscience . He could barely stand the pain of this intrusion; his hands clenching white-knuckled on the steering stick, teeth gritted. His eyes were wide and wild. Sprocket had betrayed him in a twisted sense, but he couldn't squeeze the trigger... not with the robot in his sights.

 

Instead he flung shots into the empty air, like futile fists pounding in fury at Uncle. Fists he could never aim at Julian, so he abused walls and objects, and sometimes even his own hapless body, instead.

 

Shots flew harmlessly around the flying dog-bot and his white-furred passenger. A few flew wild past Dulcy and she yelped and rocked her body to avoid them.

 

Easy, the robot had said.

 

Easy?!

 

A short bitter laugh escaped the small human.

Sprocket was locked in the crosshairs.

 

This was easy. To shoot him down. To kill him. Silence that screaming and crying inside him.

 

Easy.

 

His vision blurred. Apollo's form melted into a blur of silver and white.

 

This was easy.

It had been easy.

 

He fired.

But Apollo was already clear of the shot.

He blinked and his vision was clear again, crystal clear, and growling he wiped his sleeve across his face, obliterating twin tracks of wetness. He'd never admit them to anybody. Not even himself.

 

Like fists beaten bloody on walls, burning tears would never help him.

 

**

 

Dulcy's breath came in whimpering with childish protest. Her wings were killing her. This was only her second flight and she was driving the underdeveloped wings to their limits. Her body ached from the harsh impact on DragonNest's summit.

 

She glanced behind her. Through wisps of low hanging clouds she could see the robot man and the koala following behind. She'd covered quite a bit of ground in this desperate flight and in the horizon was a field of emerald. The great forest. Only a few more miles.

 

She glanced back again. Her ears tousled about. She could barely hear anything over the blustering wind. She folded them down to her skull, grimacing.

 

The Robotropolian airship was still behind them as well. The shots waned and then started, then died again continuously as if the pilot was growing weary of the whole thing. She wished the horrible fiend would turn around and leave them be. But no...Robotnik wasn't like that. He'd never leave them alone.

 

Fortunately, none of the shots were coming close.

 

She remembered...that was how many dragons had been captured. Shot through the wings, they would plummet to the ground. With broken bodies they were dragged away and roboticized. The robots always made sure to force the creatures close to the ground to lessen injury upon impact. Robotnik had no use for dead Mobians.

 

Each time the laser blasts sang past her she cringed, waiting for her wings to crumple and the inevitable descent to begin. But it never happened.

 

She was at the forest now.

 

How was she going to land here? The trees were nestled so close together.

 

She gulped. Coasting low, she watched the trees blur beneath her. And finally, the trees thinned and she dove, weaving between them.

 

The sound of booster rockets came from behind her. She kept going. The leaf canopy above grew lush and thick and she felt secure to land.

 

Once again she reconnected with the ground roughly. She grabbed desperately with her hands, clinging onto a small sapling. It bent in her grip as she slid across the pine needle-strewn ground, but this turf was much more forgiving then the hard stone of DragonsNest.

 

She came to a stop, breathing wildly. The sapling in her hands was laid flat onto the ground.

 

"Thanks, little tree," she whispered, before letting go. It shot back like a spring to its upright position.

 

There was a little yelp; the sapling had nearly smacked into Sprocket, with Derek still in tow; his eyes registering great relief at finally being back on the ground. Lightly, the robot landed. The koala released his grip and sighed at the touch of soft moss under his paws.

 

"So uh..." Dulcy blinked at them. "Now what? Are we safe? Is that guy going to find us here?"

 

She moaned, folding her strained wings. "Because I'm reallllllly tired!"

 

**

 

His forehead rested on the hovercraft's dash. It was cold. He shivered.

 

The hoverunit hung suspended over the outskirts of the Great Forest. Snively'd chased them all the way here. It actually hadn't been that long of a distance. 30 miles, maybe. Still, it was far enough from the Great Mountains to make Robotnik very very angry.

 

He'd lost them. They were down there somewhere, hidden among the trees. He only had a few SWAtbots in this craft...they wouldn't be enough to scour this place, and they might face danger from the escapees as well. Robotnik never had programmed them with a very good AI, and their fighting skills mainly consisted of firing lasers, badly. He shook his head.

 

At least Robotnik hadn't known about the dragon. Or the Mobian. And Commander Apollo turned rebel...well...Snively would find some way to explain that. Or not. Maybe Julian wouldn't notice...

 

He moaned and clutched a hand to his head. The freighter!

 

He tried to contact the SWATbots back at DragonNest's tower; a rush of static was his answer. They were disabled, somehow.

 

Well, wasn't that just fucking dandy?

 

He eyed the laser gun at his belt, wondering just how much it would hurt to put it to his head and...

 

But fuck that...

He supposed it would be best to turn around and head back to DragonsNest. If he could at least get the freighter back to the mountains maybe Julian would only break *half* of his bones...

 

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

Post 39:

Ealain VanGogh

 

When the thrusters on his boots spat to a halt, he didn't know.

 

When the wind enveloping his body was stilled, when he found himself sedentary, supported by something solid that had risen to meet his feet--ah, he had landed, he had found the ground--he didn't know.

 

How he had managed to resist the urge to turn around and drink in Snively's reaction to his defiance, after he'd regurgitated the words of his heart in the Overlander�s face, he was grateful . . .

 

But he didn't know.

 

It was as if some greater, more magnanimous force had monopolized his circuits and reminded him of the virtue of mercy.

 

He shuddered to his knees after landing, allowing Derek to fall off and worship the solid ground beneath them with the ecstatically wriggling toes of his paws, dancing around in ginger circles behind the robot. He smiled. The virtue of mercy . . .

 

And that of fulfilling one's promises.

 

"You see," he quipped, leaning on the sapling with which the dreamy-eyed dragon had almost dismembered his facial features, "I told you I was a man of my word."

 

But the airy remark went unheeded by the dragon, who was far too preoccupied by the threat of the Hovercraft, surely in the vicinity, and by the koala, who was busy trying to slurp up great heaving portions of oxygen, the skin under his snowy fur drizzled in sweat, both from the rush of their flight and from his compulsive little victory dance on the forest earth. Suddenly the robot felt a peculiar gratitude for his artificial state, for his complete physical contentment, for his cool whirring circuitry. He was not perspiring, he was not tired, he was not even short of breath, for he had no need to breathe. Or to eat. Or to sleep. Or to do anything else that made him alive. It sent a violent flood of coldness through his frame, like the liquid from an IV into the veins, unnatural and potent--because he realized that the thought had made him feel . . . relief.

 

Happy passivity.

 

Resignation.

 

Ignorant bliss.

 

Oh God, don't let turn back into one of those automatons....No matter how imperfect life is, it is still the essential force of the universe. I must not allow myself to think this metal cage seems like luck.

 

But I mustn�t give up on life either.

 

He looked at the sapling that the dragon had used to cushion herself, that had sprung back to its original state. It was sparse, yet it had been resilient, bendable under pressure, returning to the upright. He could do this. So could these two newfound companions of his. But there were others who were not so enduring.

 

Snively was cold. Ice. Pale like a cadaver, a specter denied even a haunt in which to roil about shrieking. Thin like a worn, weak twig. Breakable. No, broken. No matter how much the canine cared for the human, he knew he had given up on life at some point, had just heaved a great shuddering breath and relinquished it all, while Sprocket's mind and heart had slumbered, to . . . to . . .

 

To Julian.

 

And Sprocket would not be cold. He would not be Snively. He could not. And not for his own sake.

 

Snively needed Sprocket, not himself, whether he admitted it or not. Snively needed his conscience to have a louder voice.

 

And there would come the day that Sprocket would answer the human's cry for help. For Snively would let out a cry, figurative or otherwise, for Sprocket's companionship again, once he too recollected the value of breathing, of eating and sleeping, no longer took what he did naturally for granted. They were mundane, these living habits, but they validated existence and enabled greater things to occur, like that elusive thing called joy. Perhaps it would take eternity, but it would happen.

 

I'll be here, my brother, he heard his mind's voice breathe, and felt immediately the cleansing rush, the untightening of the chest, of one who has finally found the capacity to forgive. My ears are keen to your voice, because yours were once keen to mine.

 

And then he heard the child asking, in a taut voice, whether this same man for whom he cared would be following them and shooting their guts out. It almost didn't register.

 

Sprocket raked his fingers through his tousled hair, his custom of deep thought, wrinkling his nose. He let his eyes slide shut. "I don't smell any fuel exhaust. And I don't hear . . . "

 

His observations were aborted by the sudden roar of craft engines above them; Snively lurked at the edge of the forest, but the craven parts of his psyche gave them the benefit of his withdrawal from entry into the thicker woods. Still the craft loomed, as if its pilot were agonizing over some heavy decision.

 

You can't do it, can you? The canine mused, staring predatorily at the flying machine's window. But then again, you can't see me...

 

But you missed your aim, Snively. You're too good an aim to miss a point blank target.

 

So what was that all about?

 

A small whimper, a kind of wordless query, brought him back from his ruminations. Sprocket put a finger to his lips when the dragon stirred. She nodded and bit her lip.

 

He turned to the adult koala, who seemed less afraid, more prepared to accept the burden of dangerous ventures. His voice was hushed but consoling. "He can't see us. The range of his headlights is too limited. All we have to do is remain beneath it for a time, and he'll get bored with us. He's their second-in-command, and believe you me, he's got plenty of other duties that are more pressing than sniping down a handful of refugees."

 

The koala grunted pensively, glaring at the craft. "I see." And then his scrutinizing eyes found Sprocket's face and locked on it. "But what about a rebel robot . . . and, I believe you called yourself, an 'old friend?'"

 

Sprocket swallowed; his artificial Adam's Apple bobbed harshly in his throat. That had not occurred to him... how much Snively would crave his head. "Ah...how good are you two at crawling?"

 

The Mobians blinked at him in unison.

 

"We can crawl on our bellies to a safer depth into the forest." Apologetically he added, "I'm afraid my anger got the best of me back there. You're right, I . . . I baited him a bit. As a debt, I can offer to escort you as far as Knothole Village--and if the rumors are correct, you'll find the royal heir and her caretaker living there. But after that . . ." He swallowed again, harder, as he got down to the ground, smelling the sour sweet moss of the earth, his nose bumping a congenial toadstool...oh, if only he could stay here with these people forever..." I want you to make me a promise. I'm going to turn myself in to Snively, to prevent him from capturing me at your expense. After that, God knows what his uncle can do to me--to my mind and will. So no matter what the circumstances after we part and I go back to the city, do not allow yourself to trust me. My loyalties . . . well, they may lie elsewhere the next time we meet. And Julian has a way of crafting deceptive facades of reality." He paused. "Unless . . . perhaps you can think of a signal or code word for me to use. I don't want my hands tied when I could be able to warn you of danger in the future...."

 

Finally his speech dwindled, for he realized the stark silence than had befallen his comrades. He looked u pat them, wide-eyed and still standing erect while he crawled. "I'm sorry. It's grim, I know, but it's the truth. I have all kinds of data on my hard drive . . . things you should never have to learn about . . . regarding . . .what . . . what that man can do to people. There's a file marked 'proper procedures of torture.' In my hard drive."

 

The koala opened his mouth to protest, perhaps to reassure the canine he couldn't ever be capable of harming a fellow Mobian, but Sprocket rose his hand.

 

There was less apology and more resolve in his voice now. "Listen. I just don't want to be the vessel of further pain for your people." He turned around, continued crawling, hoping they would trust him after the dark declaration, and follow him to the shelter of the deeper foliage.

 

It took them fifteen minutes of breathless crawling before they turned back and realized that the hovercraft had already turned haplessly from them and idled off into the distance.

 

Perhaps it was a good omen.

 

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

Post 40:

Tristan Palmgren

 

 

Derek stirred the dirt in front of him with a stick.

 

It was, he reflected, a rather odd habit, but it was one that he'd picked up too long ago to let go now.

 

Every evening of every year since he'd fled towards the Great Mountains with Ari, they'd had a small camp fire to cook and warm themselves with. And every evening they'd had one, Derek had always sat in front of it until it had cooled to glowing embers, which he'd always stoke and stir with a long stick. He had done it for long enough that it had become almost a ritual.

 

Tonight, there could be no fire. Even if there wasn't Snively to worry about, by now they had moved close enough to Robotropolis that even a small plume of smoke was a risk. They would have to go cold for tonight.

 

Yet Derek had resolutely grabbed the sturdiest stick he could find, and was now doggedly stirring the dirt in front of him, and doing his best to pretend that it was ashes and embers. His brow furrowed in concentration.

 

Night had settled quickly over the Great Forest. Only a few hours had passed since they had left Dragonsnest, but already it was pitch black. Derek had lost track of time during the chaos back in the desert, but if he had to make a guess now, he estimated that it was only an hour or two before midnight. The two of the three of them who happened to have biological bodies had both agreed that it was time to rest.

 

As he stirred the dirt, Derek glanced around at his two unlikely traveling partners. They were a motley bunch, to say the least. A dragon child, and a robotic contradiction in terms. Even though he had set out on this journey not know what to expect, the only way to describe this was... well, the last thing he had expected.

 

Dulcy, the dragon, seemed to have bought into the illusion of a campfire, for she seemed to be trying to shield her eyes from some bright light, though the night was as dark as Derek had ever seen. Her tail was wrapped around a lower branch of a nearby, and she was hanging from it, upside down. She was snoring loudly. Commander Apollo - Sprocket - didn't require sleep, and was pacing back and forth in the darkness. His bright red eyes glowed like two artificial stars against the dark silhouette of his metal body. He paced impatiently, like a caged cat, as though he couldn't wait to get back on the move again. Derek didn't blame him for being so anxious. If he'd had to wait an extra eight hours because other people required rest that he didn't, he'd be edgy, and a little annoyed, too. The simple fact was, though, that he and Dulcy couldn't function without rest.

 

Sprocket still hadn't adequately explained how he'd regained his free will. Derek wasn't quite sure that even Sprocket knew how he'd escaped the tyranny of roboticization. Though the canine seemed genuine, and was certainly compassionate to a degree that couldn't be faked, he still made Derek nervous. He no longer doubted the canine's sincerity, but there were still other things to be afraid of. The fact that they didn't know how Sprocket had freed himself meant that they likewise didn't know if he could suffer a relapse. The last thing Derek wanted was to meet the workerbot personality that had formerly inhabited Sprocket's metal brain.

 

Speaking quietly, so as to not disturb the sleeping dragon, Derek said, "So you've heard about Knothole, too?"

 

Sprocket stopped moving for a few seconds, and his eyes burned even brighter in the darkness. Then he resumed pacing. "Right. I'm not the only one, either. The only reason I know is because Julian's heard of it, too."

 

For a moment, Derek's heart stopped beating.

 

"Fortunately for Knothole, though," Sprocket continued, "Julian doesn't know where it is. He's only heard the name escape the lips of a few prisoners during... during interrogation."

 

Derek relaxed when he heard that Knothole was safe, but he didn't like to think too much about everything the word 'interrogation' entailed. He told himself that, so long as he continued to think of it as an abstract, and nothing else he'd be fine. Sweat began to bead on his brow, anyway. He continued poking at the ground with his stick. "So then, you don't know where it is, either?"

 

Once again, Sprocket's pacing paused, before quickly resuming. "No, no I don't."

 

"So how do you propose that we get there?"

 

Sprocket chuckled. Derek would have expected the sound to be harsh and grating, metallic, but instead, the canine produced a laugh that almost sounded wholly Mobian. Yet there was an undercurrent of futility to it. "We walk, until we find it."

 

"Er, sounds like a plan," Derek answered, coughing slightly. It, of course, wasn't much of a plan at all, but he was hard pressed to think of anything better. The only thing he knew about Knothole was that it was somewhere between here, and Robotropolis. There was a fair chance they'd stumble on it as they moved towards the city, but he still didn't like gambling like this.

 

"Thank you, though, for helping us get this far." He gazed straight at Sprocket's glowing red eyes. "I wouldn't have survived Dragonsnest if you hadn't shown up. I owe you a lot."

 

"Don't mention it," Sprocket said quietly, still pacing.

 

Derek had told both Dulcy and the robot canine about his friends who were, right now, still camping back in the Great Mountains, and what they planned to do once they arrived in Robotropolis. They knew about his friends' need for a resupply point somewhere along the road, which was why Sprocket had suggested Knothole to begin with. Dulcy had seemed kind of bored while Derek had told them this, and Sprocket was just indifferent. The canine seemed to have greater things on his mind. Yet Derek was convinced not to let the primary goal of his journey slip through the cracks. His exhilarating flight across the desert, riding Sprocket's back, had bought him a few extra days, but he knew that it wouldn't be long now before Ari and his company set out.

 

Sprocket ceased pacing again, and his scarlet eyes flashed. His gaze snapped to the east.

 

Derek began, "I just hope that this Knothole would be willing to take us in-"

 

"Quiet!" Sprocket whispered. "There's something going on out there!"

 

Instinctively, Derek dropped the stick, and fell flat to the ground. The fear he'd felt back at Dragonsnest hadn't had a chance to completely disappear, yet, and so terror came easily back to him. He glanced quickly to the east, at whatever Sprocket was staring at, but he couldn't see anything besides dark forest. The canine's senses picked up something that Derek's clearly couldn't.

 

Derek glanced back at Sprocket, and risked hissing, "What? I don't see anything."

 

"I don't think we need to hide," Sprocket answered. He squinted into the darkness, red eyes forming evil-looking slits. "Not yet. Whatever it is, it's distant, and it's not moving. It's too far away... but... it's like a glow. I just don't know what it is," he admitted. He glanced around the forest for moment. "Wake Dulcy. We need to move. We might be able to get a clearer view from a hilltop."

 

***

 

Usually, when it came to visibility in the Great Forest, finding higher ground was never much help. The entire area was covered in a thick, green coat of rich vegetation, so dense and impenetrable that sometimes it was difficult just to see the sky.

 

As luck would have it, though, there was a hill nearby whose very pinnacle poked out of the Great Forest like a giant bald spot. Visibility wasn't perfectly clear, but it was the best view of the forest that could be achieved while remaining on the ground. Derek clambered up the slopes after Sprocket, as the robot bounded up towards the top. Dulcy followed closely behind both of them.

 

Derek reached the summit of the hill just in time to see the glow vanish.

 

It was like lightning, almost, except there were no storms in sight, and the glow was coming from the ground. There was no thunder, either; no sound at all. It was several miles away, but, in the bleak night, he could see it clearly enough as though it were an inch from his noise. It was a beautiful gold color - not quite the color of fire, but rather of coin. The glow flashed and flickered sporadically, and then, after one particularly bright burst of brilliant gold light, faded back to darkness. It was all over only seconds after Derek arrived at the hilltop.

 

"...the hell was that?" Derek asked.

 

"I don't know," Sprocket answered. He rubbed his metal arm anxiously. "I can only assume, though, that it means you're not going to get much sleep tonight."