What had almost happened to her two years ago was no secret. The Freedom Fighters were all only fourteen years old back then, their tactics far more amateurish. It had been a careless mistake made during a raid that had gotten her captured. She had forgotten to check the alleyway behind the factory for hidden camera orbs. That was all.

One little mistake, and the next thing she knew, was being thrown to the ground in front of Ivo Robotnik. The small of her back tingled from the SWATbot's stun blast. A quick glance around the room had told her everything she needed to know. She had been brought to the roboticizer chamber.

Horror immediately numbed her mind. Upon her slight gasp, Robotnik turned around, as if spotting her for the first time.

"Well, you've been rather slow to regain consciousness," he said, musing, "Almost as if you didn't want to." His massive stomach quivered in what Bunnie could only assume was laughter. "Can't say I blame you."

Escape came quickly to mind. She tried to get up, get ready to run, but a SWATbot's thick metallic hand shoved her back down to the ground.

"Only fourteen years old, and already engaging in guerrilla warfare. Aren't you a little young for these rebellion games?"

"Ain't ya a little old to be a megalomaniac?" she shot back.

"Humor as a defense mechanism. I like it. None of my robots are capable of producing so much as a satisfying scream of pain, and hearing Snively's whines does tend to get on the nerves after a while. It's good to hear a fresh reaction every once in a while." He gestured towards the glass tube behind him. "As you no doubt know, humor is one of the first things that goes when someone steps into that chamber."

She had guessed from her presence her that that was the fate the fat man had in store for her, but hearing it spoken only confirmed her fear. The yawning pit growing in her stomach grow larger; she said nothing.

"It doesn't have to end like that, of course," he said. His lips twitched, as if he were having trouble keeping a straight face. "We can resolve this like peaceable beings, with both of us leaving this room intact."

Here it comes, she thought. The old ploy of promising freedom to prisoners. if only they talked. She knew she was strong enough to resist it, but some traitorous part of her wished she weren't.

"You band of adolescent furs are beginning to become a minor annoyance. Tell me about your friends, and where they are, and I'll let you go free."

"Lahk hell you will." The strength of her voice surprised her. She didn't feel anywhere near that brave.

"I've done some identity tracing while you were unconscious. I know who you are, Bunnie. More importantly, I know who your family is." Again, the twitch. "Would the names Percy and Diedre mean anything to you?"

Bunnie's defenses were instantly shattered. She felt the color drain from her face.

"I can have them brought here, you know. I can deroboticize them, make you all one big, happy family again."

The traitorous part of Bunnie screamed at her that he was telling the truth, as if just saying it would make it so. Her sane half knew better, but that didn't stop her from wishing. The image of her parents simply overwhelmed her senses.

Robotnik could hardly avoided noticing her shock, and was taking full advantage of it. "All you have to do is say a single word, and they'll-"

Bunnie's shock and fear quickly turned to rage. How dare that creature invoke the names of her parents! On her hands and knees, she scrambled forward too quickly for the SWATbots to follow. Once clear of them, she took two fast steps forward and planted her foot in Robotnik's groin.

He bellowed in surprise, and staggered backwards. Bunnie managed to get in another sucker punch to his stomach before two solid metal SWATbot hands seized her arms. She fought against them bitterly, struggling to inflict more pain on the fat man. His face was screwed up in pain, cheeks burning a bright cherry red. The blow must have been more torturous then Bunnie had thought.

Good.

When he finally was able to steady himself, his breath came out in ragged gasps. Whether it was pain, or anger, or a combination of both Bunnie couldn't tell. "That... was a mistake."

He drew back his metallic left fist. Bunnie braced herself.

"A very big mistake."

All the bracing in the world couldn't make it hurt less. She didn't even see his arm move; she just felt something crashing against her cheek, and her neck snapping back. If it weren't for the SWATbots holding her up, she would've collapsed.

Robotnik got ready to land another blow, then seemed to change his mind. "No, no. I have something special in store for you." He hobbled over to a console, and stabbed a button. Bunnie's pain-fazed mind recognized it as one of the city's communication ports.

"Snively?" he spoke into it. A moment later his nephew's shrill voice responded.

"Yes, sir?"

"Come down to the roboticizer chamber. I'll need your help modifying the equipment."

"Modifying it for what, sir?"

"Do you remember finding the old laboratory ledgers last month, Snively? Especially the records of Sir Charles's assistant, Laurentis, and his ideas for additions to the roboticizer machine?"

"Yes, sir."

Robotnik glared at Bunnie. The sheer animosity burning in his eyes frightened her badly. "I just found a suitable test subject."

She wasn't entirely sure of what happened next; either the concussion had affected her memories, or she had repressed them. She suspected the former because the next thing she remembered seeing was an image she was intimately familiar with through the medium of nightmare.

The glass walls of the roboticization chamber slid shut around her, sealing tightly to the floor.

She was trapped.

Bunnie pounded uselessly against the walls of her prison, not caring if Robotnik was enjoying her terror.

Had this been what it was like her friends, her family? This had been the last thing they'd even seen as flesh-and-blood Mobians. This would be the last thing *she* would see, too.

Snively's voice sounded muffled through the glass cage, but she could still make out his words. "The subject is a-go for phase 1 Laurentis roboticization."

"Good." The curvature of the glass distorted Robotnik's grin into an even more gruesome shape. "Well, rabbit, if this works, you'll be my servant for eternity. If it doesn't... well, you won't be so lucky. I'd pray that it works if I were you. Go ahead and activate, Snively."

Bunnie was aware of nothing more than the racing of her mind and the trembling of her jaw.

This couldn't be happening. Not like this. Her life couldn't be over so fast. She was only fourteen. Something like life couldn't be destroyed in a matter of seconds.

A glow began to build in the machinery poised far above her head.

This couldn't be happening, she thought again.

This couldn't be-

Green light stabbed down into her heart.

The immediate sensation of the roboticizer instantly overcame her disbelief. The muscles in her left arm and legs seized and tightened, her bones suddenly seemed frozen. It was as if the marrow had turned into ice, and the ice was pushing outward, crushing the bone with an incredible pressure. The ice expanded throughout her arm until she felt that her skin would burst. Very soon even the skin disappeared.

Her mouth opened in a wordless scream, voice struggling to make itself heard above the horrendous roar of the roboticizer's engines. The pain of the entire operation was incredible.

And then suddenly it was over.

Green-tinted, foul-smelling smoke swirled around her form, unable to disperse in the airtight chamber. It stifled her breathing even more than the fear that gripped her heart.

For a moment, Bunnie was conscious of nothing. Gradually, sensation returned. She could see the cold tint of the metal shealth that had engulfed her leg. No. it wasn't a shealth; it *was* her leg. She had been roboticized, joined the legions of Robotnik's victims.

Then she heard her own sobbing.

Her sobbing?

She looked up confused, suddenly aware of the sensation of damp fur clinging to her face. The roboticization hadn't been completed. Her face, torso, and right arm were still flesh. More importantly, her will still controlled her actions.

Something had gone wrong, or hadn't been completed, and Bunnie wasn't sure what.

The chamber hissed open, releasing the foul air into the room beyond. Robotnik towered over her.

"Phase 1 has been completed, sir. As soon as the Laurentis nodule is properly configured, we'll be free to move on to phase 2. That will complete the roboticization process."

Bunnie looked up, trying to make sense of a world that had gone insane, a world that hated her. "What the hoo-hah?"

The backhand came quickly, knocking her to the ground and dazing whatever scraps of her senses remained.

Too stunned to move, she could only watch as Robotnik approached, and casually flipped opened a panel on her leg. *Opened her leg!*

Humming to himself, he casually slipped a knife out of his pocket, and thumbed a switch on its handle. The blade began to vibrate softly, glow with a dull blue sheen. Glow? Bunnie didn't have the time to reflect on its meaning or purpose before he plunged it into the panel.

A wrenching pain stabbed up her spine, and her new leg jerked reflexively. Robotnik held it steadfast, holding the glowing blade inside the panel and twisting it, as if adjusting something. After a moment, he removed the blade and switched it off. The glow faded in a matter of seconds, slowly bleaching away the electric blue aura.

Bunnie caught a glimpse of a cylindrical object, perched among the wiring and hydraulics of her right leg, glowing with the same blue color, before he snapped the panel shut again.

"Very well, Snively. We're ready to begin phase 2."

The roboticizer snapped shut once more. What cruel twist of fate was this? It was happening, again. She was going to be roboticized, this time for good.

"Let me double-check the nodule's configuration," she heard Snively say.

"No, Snively, I don't want to wait. Just finish roboticizing this bitch, now."

"Sir, if the nodule isn't properly configured, the feedback loop could destroy-"

Alarm sirens punctured the air, without warning. Bunnie was already too terrified to be frightened any further. The volume of the racket ached her already strained eardrums.

"What is this? Report?" She heard, rather than saw, the pair of SWATbots approach.

"SECURITY ALERT, CASTLE ENTRANCE."

"What's the problem?"

"A FREEDOM FIGHTER HAS BREACHED FRONT DOOR SECURITY, AND IS APPROACHING THIS SECTOR."

"They're probably trying to rescue the rabbit," Snively pointed out.

"I *know* that!" Robotnik leveled a finger at the SWATbot's chest. "Scramble local patrols. Prepare an ambush to greet the newcomer. Shoot to kill." His cape billowed in the air as he spun around to face Snively again. "And you, activate the roboticizer, now!"

Snively frantically grappled with the roboticizer's controls. The machinery perched over Bunnie's head whirred to life. It was going to happen again.

A welcome voice pierced the glass chamber.

"Prepare an ambush? Man, I could juice to Knothole and back in the time it takes you to do that."

"Shoot the hedgehog!"

The glass cage distorted Bunnie's view too much to be able to make sense of anything. All she knew was that a long silence followed the sound of twin laser discharges.

After a moment a SWATbot's head clattered to the ground next to the roboticizer.

"When ya gonna learn, Robuttnik? Light speed ain't got nothin' on me."

"If that were true you would've gotten here in time to save your friend."

Just like before, a green glow began to build in the machinery above her head.

Fear tried to choke back her words, but she was strong enough to fight it. Her hands, including her newly metal fist, pounded uselessly against the glass. "Sonic!"

"Bunnie!"

The beam thrust down from the ceiling, but it was different this time. The beam was thinner, tighter, and more directed. It leapt directly into her roboticized right leg, right into the panel that Robotnik had opened. The beam seemed to be passing through the metal itself, striking something within. As she watched, her metal arms and legs buckled and changed shape, grew thicker.

The glass tube shattered, and something blue knocked her to the floor outside. The next thing she was aware of was lying on her back amongst scattered glass shards. Sonic had landed roughly on his side next to her.

"Bunnie? Are you-" His eyes immediately fell on her limbs. "What? But I thought that-"

A laser blast exploded against the deck plating, and then another. More SWATbots had been scrambled, and had burst into the room.

Bunnie didn't pay attention. She only looked bleakly at her metal arm.

Sonic glared up at Robotnik, a malice to compete with the fat man's burning in his eyes. For a moment, he looked as though he was getting ready to buzz-saw straight through his ribcage.

A third SWATbot entered, and a fourth. "Shoot the beasts!"

"One day you're gonna pay for this Robuttnik! One day!"

Bunnie felt Sonic grab her by her right arm, and then the world became a blur that didn't stop until they were back in Knothole village.

Adjusting to life afterwards was more of a struggle then any fight with Robotnik had ever been. The prospect of waking up each day to face limbs that weren't her own was daunting, and had overwhelmed her on more than one occasion. The worst part had been the day she forgotten about her unnatural strength and nearly crushed little Tails' skull.

She had been so busy trying to wrench the bolt out of the stolen pylon that she hadn't seen him come up behind her. The bolt was jammed; when she pulled on it, it twisted and snapped in half. Her left elbow flew backwards with enough force to splinter and crack the hut's wall. If the kitsune hadn't chosen that exact moment to duck, the sheer force of the blow would have caved his face in. She had nearly killed him. If that had happened, she didn't know what she would've done, nor did she want to.

After that, she was often struck by the thought that if her arm was strong enough to kill him, maybe the same blow would be just as effective against her own skull.

At least with those difficulties, she had a shoulder to lean on, someone to talk to. Sally had been a good friend throughout all of it, and without her Bunnie knew she probably wouldn't have been able to control her suicidal fantasies.

They still haunted her for almost a year, though, and it showed. It wasn't possible to live in a village as small as Knothole without overhearing some casual gossip. They didn't blame her for taking the loss of her limbs so hard. But they couldn't have known that was the whole story. Bunnie had never told them about "Laurentis", and still couldn't bring herself to.

She had known almost straightaway that her roboticization was unusual; something that none of her friends, not even Rotor, picked up on. She was physically stronger that the average roboticized Mobian, much stronger. Her limbs were thicker than those of most roboticizer victims as well; most worker bots' arms and legs were thin as rods, but hers were nearly twice of the volume of the original limbs. It was only natural to assume that these abnormalities were somehow related to the "Laurentis" process.

Sally was as attached to her hand-held computer two years ago as she was now, but she still couldn't keep watch over it forever. Early one evening, on a day when she was feeling worse than usual, Bunnie grabbed Nicole and stole away into the Great Forest, and asked her to search her data banks for anything or anybody matching the name Laurentis. It was from Nicole that she learned the full story behind the unusual roboticization process.

Laurentis had originally been an undergraduate apprentice in one of Mobotropolis's medical science research laboratories. More specifically, the laboratory run by Sir Charles Hedgehog, Sonic's uncle and the original inventor of the roboticizer device. Most of the old storage files Nicole had stored on her hard drive mentioned him only in passing, or only listed him on the old payroll records. Laurentis had worked with Sir Charles in creating the roboticizer, but that useless piece of information was about all Bunnie could find. For a while, she thought she'd hit a dead end.

It was only when she started looking into the design history of the roboticizer itself that she found Laurentis's contribution to the project.

The biggest obstacle in development project was the roboticizer beam's resolution. Once a being's flesh had been transmuted to metal, it took an incredible amount of complex machinery and moving parts, many of them very small, to keep the being inside alive. Aortal passages and arteries were many times smaller than anything the roboticizer could accurately recreate. The roboticizer simply didn't have the precision necessary to safely create anything microscopic.

As always, Sir Charles found a work-around, but not without making some compromises. Because of the impossibility of accurately transmuting muscle tissue, the strength of any person roboticized would be decreased. Due to the same difficulties in recreating arterial passages, endurance and oxygen distribution would also suffer.

Laurentis thought he had found a better way. He came forward to Sir Charles with a unique idea. He proposed using the roboticizer to only to transmute part of the body to metal with a patient's first exposure to the beam. Within the patient, the roboticizer itself would create a nodule that would direct the final half of the roboticization process.

When the roboticizer was activated again, to complete the process, the beam itself would strike the nodule. The nodule would then be able to distribute and direct the beam's potent energies with far greater accuracy. The roboticization process itself would be far more precise, and able to recreate complex organics that the machine would otherwise struggle with.

With the nodule, which Laurentis named after himself, installed, the muscle and arterial passages could be precisely duplicated. A patient's strength would acutely increase, as would endurance. After the roboticizer had been activated the second time, they would have physical strength far in advance of the original roboticizer could ever do.

Sir Charles had declined Laurentis's proposal, on the grounds that they were medical researchers out to save lives, not augment a patient's strength. Perhaps, he said, after the roboticizer had come into wider circulation, they could worry about it. Laurentis had reluctantly agreed, and set his plans aside. There were no further records of the Laurentis nodule before the coup.

When Bunnie had been originally roboticized, she had been in the chamber just long enough for the Laurentis nodule to augment the strength of the limbs that had already been turned to metal, and nothing else, fortunately.

The terrifying part had come when she discovered that the Laurentis nodule, the device now buried in her right leg, had a dual purpose.

It's main purpose had been to tap and redirect the roboticizer's beam. But in order to even have access to the beam, the roboticizer itself had to know exactly where the nodule was, in order to even contact it. That's why the transmitter was built into the nodule.

The transmitter was a powerful beacon, designed to activate when the roboticizer was ready for phase 2 of the Laurentis roboticization. Its signal strength was strong, almost unnecessarily strong.

Mouth growing dry, Bunnie had asked Nicole if the nodule's beacon could be remote-activated, not by the roboticizer, but by Robotnik himself, in order to find her.

Nicole had answered with an emotionless affirmative.

Bunnie's one solace through those first, terrifying days was the fact that Laurentis and Sir Charles had kept most of their data at the highest possible encryption. It was conceivable that Robotnik had found out about the Laurentis process itself, but not how to activate the beacon. Conceivable, but not likely, Nicole had said.

Her first thought had been that her friends could help her. They had helped her through everything so far, the loss of her family, her roboticization, everything. They could handle this, too. She ran back to the village as fast as she could.

"Sally-girl, Ah-" she stopped short.

Sally looked up, soft blue eyes staring thoughtfully at her friend. "Yes, Bunnie? What is it?"

Bunnie was suddenly struck by a appalling image. Knowing about the transmitter in her leg, her friends and family here at Knothole would have no choice but to cast her out. With the transmitter, she was nothing but a ticking time bomb, a danger not only to herself but to them. There wasn't anything any of them could do. but she was sure that if they found out, she'd be exiled. A lump formed in her throat. She couldn't bear that.

"Bunnie?"

Bunnie kept hearing the word 'exile', over and over. Standing there, looking at Sally, she knew that she didn't have to strength to say it.

"Ah just wanted to return Nicole. Ah borrowed her. to look something up."

Sally's eyes lighted upon the hand-held computer. "There she is! I've been looking all over for her!" She took Nicole and clipped the computer gingerly back into her boot. Irritation briefly flared in her eyes when she looked back at Bunnie. "You know, you could've asked if you wanted to use her."

"Ah'm sorry-"

Bunnie turned and ran, not caring what Sally made of that, not caring how many stares she attracted throughout the village, just ran and ran towards her cabin and slammed the door shut.

Why couldn't she have told Sally? They'd be right to exile her. As long as the transmitter remained in her leg, she was a threat to them. A threat and nothing more. The instant Robotnik found a way to activate the Laurentis nodule's transmitter, he would know where Knothole is and they'd all be dead.

She didn't have the strength to say it. That was the simple answer. She didn't have to willpower to tell them, and risk being forced out of the only family she knew. Her fear, her damnable selfish fear, kept telling her that it was worth risking their lives to stay here. That voice was so strong that she couldn't help but to obey it.

It was the first time Bunnie could ever remember truly hating herself.

She knew that it was wrong to do this. Her life alone wasn't worth all of theirs. She knew it was wrong but she couldn't help herself.

Bunnie collapsed, sobbing, into her bunk. Sleep didn't come easy, but when it came, it was haunted by the most horrible nightmares. Images of a fleet of hover units, hovering impassively over the burning wreckage of Knothole village, herself the only survivor of Robotnik's holocaust.

Everywhere she looked, she saw the corpses of her friends, dead empty eyes staring at her accusingly, cold fingers pointing. Their mouths half- open in cries of suspicion, all directed at her. Sally, lying half-buried in the smoldering rubble of her hut, her hand and face the only things protruding. Rosie, mouth lolling open as if silently asking how she could do this to them. Hadn't she been raised to be a good person? A good person wouldn't do this to her friends. Empty eyes, staring, pointing fingers. Her fault. Everywhere she looked.

Over in the center of the village, one of them was standing. It was Tails. The eight-year-old kitsune was just as dead and motionless as the rest of them, but somehow his body was able to stay propped up on two feet. He just stood there, finger leveled at her like all the others. His face was caved in: something the size and shape of Bunnie's left elbow had struck him, making his expression all but unreadable. Blood oozed down what remained of his face. Something thicker, pink and gray at the same time, followed it down. His finger arched straight towards her; it was the only thing about him that moved. It followed her, always pointing at her wherever she moved.

As she watched helplessly, the corpse swayed gently forward until it lost whatever balance it had, and fell lifelessly to the ground. His face struck the dirt at the same instant that a resonant chime sounded, as if a distant clocktower had struck an hour. The note hung in the air for several moments upon the still scene, finality itself come to confront her.

Bunnie forced herself awake, choking back a scream.

The nightmare never went away as the days passed, but neither did Robotnik's fleet come to Knothole. In waited in painful suspense for weeks, never knowing when she woke up if today was the day Robotnik was going to find her. Always hating herself for never telling anyone, but unable to bring herself to share her misery.

Weeks turned into months, and, with time, the fear faded. It never disappeared, but it faded. After almost a year had passed, she allowed herself to believe that it would never happen. At least, her waking self did.

If Robotnik hadn't found out how to activate the transmitter yet, she supposed, maybe he never would. Whatever the cause, whatever the reason, the transmitter had never been activated. Bunnie gave many silent thanks to Uncle Chuck and "Laurentis" for using encryptions of as high an order as they did.

No matter how sure she was that it would never happen, though, the nightmares still continued to haunt her. The recurring nightmare about the dead Knothole village had a new element, though, at the end, just as the clocktower chime sounded when Tails' corpse hit the dirt. A glass tube would lower from the sky, capturing her inside, and the roboticization commence again. Because no matter what happened otherwise, the instant the transmitter was activated, she was as good as dead.

Now, after two years of waiting, her nightmare had finally come to pass. If Drizit was right, the clock was ticking down. The Laurentis transmitter was going to be activated, a bright beacon shining throughout the sky, and inexorably leading Robotnik to her.

***

More chapters to come...