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Stephen Zacharus

WRATH OF THE GODDESS

 

Chapter IV: "Perspectives"

 

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"It's so quiet," Tails mentally noted to himself as he strolled through Knothole Village. It was almost disturbing; the silent, forlorn demeanor of nearly everyone in the village concerned the young fox.

But then again, the Freedom Fighters *were* being faced with the most challenging struggle that their Resistance had ever faced: Robotnik's villainous Doomsday Tower imposed an ever-growing threat of global dominion, several dozen Freedom Fighters had already been captured, and Sonic and Sally—in their last-ditch effort to thwart the project—faced a great possibility of never coming back. Whether or not Sonic and Sally succeeded would result in either the powerful resurgence of the Freedom Movement... or its ultimate destruction.

Tails paused for thought; there was nothing to do now but wait, and only the Goddess knew how the cards would fall. The kit sat down on a tree stump and nudged the ground with the toe of his shoe. Strange, he thought. His future rested in the hands of the two people he trusted the most... and yet... there was still a seed of doubt in his mind. He hated himself for it, but strangely couldn't help thinking about it.

What if they did fail...?

Furrowing his brow, Tails kicked at the dirt some more, trying to understand why he wasn't entirely sure that his friends would succeed. Perhaps it was because of the magnitude of their dilemma; sure, Sonic could beat up SWATbots, kick the crap out of Snively and destroy Robotnik's new factories all in time for lunch... but this situation was something different. Never before had the Freedom Fighters been threatened by a force as deadly and indestructible as Project Doomsday. It was like a nightmare from which there is no escape.

Or maybe, Tails thought, the germ of doubt was delivered by Sonic himself. His blue pal was so disappointed with his first attempt at destroying the tower that he'd nearly given up hope. Tails had never seen Sonic like that before, and it scared him.

Or maybe the young fox was finally growing up. Tails closed his eyes, shaking his head; whatever the case, he was guilt-ridden for the lack of faith that he held for his friends—and it was this gnawing pain that made him wish for the whole thing to end soon.

Lifting his eyes from the ground, Tails noticed Uncle Chuck sitting in front of a small campfire. Eager to talk to someone, the kit joined him shortly.

The roboticized hedgehog looked up. "Why hello, Tails—what brings you over here?"

"Nuthin'," Tails said, sitting down. "I'm just kinda lonely, that's all." He paused for a moment, staring into the dancing flames of the campfire. "It's just that... everyone is acting different, I guess. They seem so scared about this Doomsday thing."

Sir Charles smiled warmly. "Is that what's been bothering you?"

"Well... sort of. I... I guess that I'm worried about how everything is gonna turn out, too."

Charles looked to the starry, nighttime sky, causing Tails to do the same. "Well, Tails... all I know is that there's nobody that Sonic cares for more than his friends—and that he'd never let any of them down. This time should be no different." He looked at Tails. "Right?"

Tails nodded; Sir Charles smiled. "Then there's your answer."

Tails felt himself smile slightly; those few words seemed to lift a thousand pounds off his chest. With a small sigh, the kit laid back onto the ground and gazed up into the deep sky. The night was so peaceful...

That is, until a massive explosion sounded in the distance.

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Ivo Robotnik ignored the falling, burning debris and made straight for his personal hovercraft. On top of his seething anger towards that cursed hedgehog, something else was weighing on his mind.

Where the hell was that damned idiot Snively?

No matter; Robotnik would have time to deal with that coward later. He pushed the thought out of his mind as he boarded the hovercraft, focusing on only one agenda: the hedgehog would have to die.

In a surge of fire that burned almost as hot as Robonik's fury, the hovercraft launched into the internal infrastructure of the collapsing Doomsday tower. A burst of white light indicated the presence of the Freedom Fighters. They streaked down a nearby hallway; Ivo followed.

"Damn you, hedgehog. You will not make your escape. If I die, YOU DIE TOO."

He revved the engine, gaining on the blazing white sphere. With the press of a button, an onslaught of bullets spewed forth... only to be reflected by the rebels' surrounding forcefield. Ivo cursed and swerved out of the way, then floored the acceleration pedal with mad, kamikaze-like determination to smear them with his hovercraft.

Just then, a chunk of concrete smashed down directly in front of him, sending the craft veering off course. From an upside-down perspective, Robonik disgustedly watched as the Freedom Fighters escaped through the rear exit, the wall and ceiling collapsing behind them.

His escape-route sealed, Ivo frantically began to search for another way out; the edifice around him began to explode violently.

"I hate that hedgehog..."

The ceiling caught fire.

"I HATE him..."

The glistening metal walls became red hot.

"HATE HIM!!"

The increasing smoke began to obstruct his vision.

"Hate..."

BOOM.

"Hate..."

BOOM.

"HATE..."

BOOM.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!!!!"

The entire complex exploded in a fierce chain-reaction. The viscous, blinding holocaust could be seen for miles.

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Hands clasped and surrounded by the radiant energy of Deep Power, Sonic and Sally shot out of the Doomsday Tower and into the cool night air. Behind them, the mechanical complex exploded into oblivion, sending shards of twisted steel slicing through the nighttime void.

When they finally willed themselves to stop, the duo looked back at their handiwork.

Doomsday was gone. The once-imposing Tower had been reduced to nothing more than a smoldering field of blackened rubble. From across the wreckage, Sally could spy a small band of fellow Freedom Fighters—no doubt those who had escaped from the Doomsday prison sector before it blew.

"No mushroom cloud," Sonic noted, relieved. "The explosion was clean—no nuclear stuff."

And they finally looked at each other... whereupon they nearly burst out laughing; leftover energy from the Deep Power Stones tingled through their bodies, causing them to glow a bright pink.

They smiled broadly at each other, not quite knowing how to respond to their success. "YES!!" they finally cheered after a moment of silence, and Sonic and Sally immediately leapt into the air and high-fived.

A powerful bolt of energy, caused by their momentary connection, nearly knocked them over. "Whoa," Sally slurred, a little dazed. "If that happens when we high-five..." She smiled wickedly. "...I wonder what happens when we kiss... ?"

Sonic gave her a mischievous grin. "You'll have to catch me first, Sal!" With that, the hedgehog blasted into Knothole Forest. "Outta here!"

"Oh, no you don't!" Sally called after him, laughing. Gathering the surplus energy that the Power Stones had left behind, she leaped into the air... and found herself flying.

After an initial moment of surprise, Sally found this new sensation to be strangely... familiar. She'd dreamed of this as a child, she remembered; she could fly to wherever her mind told her, almost instinctively. Like an aerial acrobat, Sally dove into the valley, speeding after Sonic. "Ready or not, here I come!"

A few seconds later, Sally caught up with the blue hedgehog and collided with him, and the two tumbled down a hill into a mossy glen. Laughing, they wrestled with each other until Sally mercilessly began tickling Sonic's stomach. It was only a matter of time before Sonic, howling with laughter, was finally tackled to the ground.

"Okay, okay! You win," Sonic laughed breathlessly. They suddenly looked into each other's eyes.

"I was hoping you'd surrender," Sally whispered... just before she drew him into a passionate embrace.

Their lips met; it was like electricity. Their eyes snapped open as the leftover Deep Power shot through their bodies. The woods around them seemed to glow with luminous brilliance.

As their lips parted, Sally's hand found its rightful place with Sonic's, and she laid her head upon his chest. Purring softly, the two slowly drifted to sleep.

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Knuckles the Echidna paced about the Robotropolis prison cell restlessly. Twenty minutes had elapsed since that horrific blast and the earthquake that followed... and he still didn't know what happened! He pounded against the wall, frustrated. This was surely going to drive him mad; he needed to find a way out of Snively's damned, claustrophobic "guest quarters," and soon.

The red echidna eyed the thick, steel door that blocked his escape. He pushed against it—nothing. He backed up a bit and tried to ram it open—still nothing. Tired, pissed, and on the verge of a mental breakdown, Knuckles sat down on his makeshift cot to try to calm himself. Suddenly, he remembered the comlink that Snively gave him. "Push the button if you need anything," Snively had told him, "and I'll be here as soon as possible."

Knuckles lifted his pillow, revealing the small device. He picked it up and shrugged. What the hell, he decided.

He pushed the button.

Nothing happened.

He looked at the little thing, puzzled. No ring, buzz, vibration, whistle or otherwise—nothing to indicate that Snively had received his call. Maybe the pitiful human had turned his comlink off. Or maybe he was dead. Who the hell knew?

Knuckles threw the comlink against the wall, muttering vile curses in his native tongue. He looked once again to the door; if it operated via hydraulics (which it probably did), there'd be no way to open the blasted thing without entering the access code from the other side. Unless...

His eyes shifted to the scattered deck of cards on the floor—his only form of "entertainment" during the hours of boredom that he spent in this Goddess-forsaken hellhole. Upon seeing the cards, though, an idea began to form. He picked up a single card—small, flat, rectangular...

Perfect.

He stepped up to the door and inserted the card into the tiny, paper-thin crevasse where the door met the wall. He slid the card down, searching for a pressure-point. Not more than five seconds later, the door hissed open and a blast of cool air greeted the echidna for the first time since he arrived at this mess of a city.

Funny, he thought as he stepped outside of his cramped, stuffy room. All the modern technology in the world couldn't best the tried-and-true techniques of the ancients. He smiled, amused, as he thought of leaving Snively in one of *his* restraining devices. The centuries-old techniques of the Floating Isle provided some of the most inescapable situations that any pissed-off Guardian could ever dream of employing.

Ever curious, Knuckles wandered about to see if he could still see just what in the hell had exploded so violently... and sure enough, a spire of churning smoke danced in the distance, where the Doomsday Tower once stood. He wondered about the circumstances surrounding its destruction...

"Ah, Knuckles—I see that you let *yourself* out. How convenient."

The echidna's blood froze temporarily, then thawed as he recognized the origin of the voice. He turned around. "I came outside to get some fresh air, Snively-Mon..." He then gestured to the disgustingly polluted sky. "... but I found m'self somewhat disappointed."

Snively nodded. "I see... well, I suppose we'll have to make sure to improve the security of those things; the last thing we want would be to have those pesky little Freed..." He stopped himself. "Ahem. I mean the *terrorists*. We certainly wouldn't want them escaping so easily, now would we?"

Knuckles turned and rolled his eyes. "So what of dis 'Robotnik', mon? Is 'e dead or what?"

A smile crept onto Snively's face. "As dead as anyone could hope for, my fine echidna. In the meantime, however, we have much to do..."

Snively led Knuckles to the awaiting hovercraft, and they started off for the control sector of Robotropolis. Knuckles, staring out to the vast, industrial city, began to consider his current situation... and he didn't like it.

There was something suspicious about this needle-nosed little man, a flaw in his character that Knuckles couldn't quite put his finger on. What kind of businessman would ask for help in destroying his archenemy, then leave his client in a prison cell and proceed to take care of it himself? It didn't compute. Perhaps Snively wanted Knuckles for another purpose... but for what? The entire scenario was disconcerting—from his vulnerable, unguarded ruby on the Floating Isle and the lack of knowledge as to when he'd return to it all the way down to the metaphorical fine-print in Snively's requests. It worried him.

Yes, Knuckles decided, there was definitely something unusual about Snively... something that he couldn't trust anymore.

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"Are you ready, Tails?"

The two-tailed pup propped up the last of the fireworks and gave a thumbs-up to Rotor. "Ready when you are!"

A massive crowd of Freedom Fighters had gathered in the center of Knothole to hear Princess Sally's victory speech. While they knew that the War had yet to be won, all of them realized the advantage that this particular achievement signified: the death of Ivo Robotnik allowed the entity of Eventual Triumph to finally lean in their favor. There wasn’t a soul in the audience who hadn’t been moved to tears by the princess' oration. The Freedom Fighters were, at long last, filled with brimming hope.

The crowd exploded into cheer and applause upon the conclusion of Sally's speech. Sonic, who stood at the podium next to her, shuffled his feet slightly. "Well, ol' 'Buttnik finally bit the dust. Too bad."

Sally raised an eyebrow. " 'Too bad'? What makes you say that?"

"Well... I mean... now that the bad guy is gone..." Sonic looked up, perhaps a little sheepishly. "... what good am I?"

She pulled him close. "I'll show you."

It was the first time that they’d ever kissed in public.  Somehow, Sonic didn’t really seem to mind…

At that precise instant, Tails lit the fuse and let the fireworks rocket into the sky in a burst of victorious brilliance. "Perfect timing," Rotor chuckled to himself.

A trace of the leftover radiant energy from the Power Stones manifested itself around Sonic and Sally in the form of a pink glow as they held each other tightly. "Freedom!" the crowd chanted, their voices drowning-out even the explosion of the fireworks and drifting into the night.

Their lifelong struggle was almost over.

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Well... not quite. Not if Snively had anything to say about it, anyway.

He sat in the Robotropolis control room, reclining in that ever-so-comfortable green chair of Robotnik's. "So... Julian finally let the hedgehog defeat him," Snively mused. "Pity." A grin of satisfaction crept onto his face. "Or not!"

He sighed deeply. "Well, Hedgehog—it's my turn now... and I know I'll do a hell of a better job than Robotnik had ever dreamed of." He looked to his left; there sat his new minion—a gullible, simple-minded echidna—who would be his ultimate ticket to victory.

"I'm not alone, Hedgehog..."

He was unaware of a pair of red eyes that watched him from the darkness.

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"Déjà vu," Packbell thought to himself as he slithered through the Robotropolis ventilation system. What originally began as a prelude to Robotnik's death was now recycled as an anticipation of Snively's downfall.

With an evil glint in his eye, Packbell watched the puny, grandeur-delusional human. "The little son of a bitch thinks he's won. I'll show him otherwise." And easily so; Snively could be overtaken even before the fool knew what was happening.

A malevolent snicker. It was of no consequence that Packbell's victory was postponed for a short while; he was certain that he would have the last laugh. Hell, he only had forever to accomplish his goal. Those foolish mortals hadn't an inkling of what was in store.

Soon, he thought, the wrath of the Goddess would be upon them.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[End, chapter four of four]