FicWad

PROJECT MOBITROPOLIS
S Peter Davis

All characters (C) SEGA, Archie and SP Davis 2004.
Used without permission
To contact the author; trojan_masters@hotmail.com

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WING FORTRESS

An early-afternoon envoy from Mobitropolis dispatched quietly from the city at around one o'clock, while preparations for the evening's celebrations were in full swing and nobody really paid enough attention to the comings and goings, as there were quite many.
The royal seal was emblazoned upon the side of the jet, Prince Martin's private airline, and it flew alone in the flawless blue skies above the still and surprisingly placid city. The people of Mobitropolis were still reeling from the unprecedented terrorist attack early that morning; confused, disillusioned. Their sense of security, false, had been pulled from under them like a magician's tablecloth trick, and they stood standing, ignorant to the severity of the situation but suspicious and uneasy nonetheless.
Martin's convoy was absent of higher life forms but for two - the prince himself, and the crown's Minister for Defense, Andreas Packbell. Even the pilot was a robot, an arrangement which, as always, limited witnesses and made for a much easier siezure of power.
"I much prefer it when things run smoothly," Martin said, "Although I suppose nothing is ever without complications, the world is too unpredictable that way. Still, this will work, as long as you and Dr Robotnik adhere strictly to the instructions that have been devised. This will be quick and, if everyone does what they are supposed to do, it will be painless. We'll all get what we want."
"Painless for some, perhaps," Packbell replied, and he looked down at a locked briefcase he kept at his side, "But we never all get what we want."

Time rolled on.

The air was clear all over the continent, even the polluted skies of Kirandul were blue and cheerful. In the mountains, above a strangely positioned airstrip, a stork named Flightless Joe piloted a small red Tornado model biplane in an erratic, somewhat eccentric flight pattern. Martin's jet could be seen from this vantage point as a tiny dot above the inland horizon, but it would not be passing through here and its proximity did not alarm Joe in the least. The remenants of the early morning fog was clearing and the mountains were visible below in all their natural glory.

Time rolled on.

A train powered its way through these mountains, black smoke billowing from its stack. It's operators, robots; its carriages laden with thousands of barrels of Acornex produce - Oil from off the coast and mega mack from Station Square - en route to the Barren Quarter where a discreet shuttle launch was scheduled for three o'clock. Its crew, robots. No questions, just comfortable obedience.

Time rolled on.

But time was indifferent. The ancientness of time assured that it had seen one revolution after another throughout the great, great age of Mobius, and this was to be no more significant to the beat of the ages than any other. Time was nonchalant. To the people, however, their lives fleeting, this was to be very significant. A legacy hundreds of generations old was about to crumble into dust and there was absolutely nothing that any of them could do about it.

Time, the behemoth of cruelty, rolled on.

There was a flurry of activity in the forest village of Knothole that day. Sally Acorn, princess and Freedom Fighter, graced the village with a very rare daytime visit in preparation for the storm they knew was coming. Plans were being laid, information exchanged and concerns attended to.
"Mother Hen is going to lay its egg any day now," Slick, the weasil, said to the few members of the Operations Council who could be present, "Basically as soon as Martin can get the seven emeralds aboard the ARK, it's crunch time. Which means that from this point on, we have to be very vigilant in protecting those crown jewels."
Sally, Slick, Rotor and Rockfall sat facing each other, shrouded from prying eyes inside a small tent.
"How do we even know that Martin knows where the seventh emerald is?" Rotor asked.
"Oh, he knows," Rockfall assured him, "We were taking a huge chance assuming he didn't in the first place, and I don't like taking chances. But Martin knows about the Eye of Mobitropolis already, and we know he's employed people to track down the locations of these rocks. If he hasn't figured it out by now, then frankly we've been attributing too much intelligence to him."
"So when do you think he's going to strike?"
"Tomorrow," Sally said, "That will be the best time for him. Assemble his forces overnight and strike in the morning, at daybreak, while everyone is in bed and hung over. I'm also pretty sure that he wants to wait until after my father's announcement tonight. Just, you know, so that he can hear it for himself. To be certain that he's really not in line for the throne. I don't think he's ever really accepted it."
"Well, if that's the case," Rockfall replied, "We will have to assemble ourselves today. And we need that information on the SWAT network by yesterday. Has there been any word from Kethriel and the blue kid?"
"The last time Keth checked in he was close to Zero Seven," Slick said, "He has to retain radio silence until he's safely out of range, in case his transmissions are intercepted. That was... five hours ago. If they're successful-"
"Which they will be."
"Right. They should be due for contact any time. We're standing by the radio for any word."
"I won't be contactable during the celebrations tonight," said Sally, "I'll trust that you guys have things in order and I will try to get in contact before daybreak tomorrow, but I can't promise that. I want to be with my father when things get serious."
"Roger that," Rockfall replied, "I hope everyone had a good sleep last night, because we're in for an all-nighter. Start boiling some coffee and let's get a move-on."

Dr Robotnik's metropolis of Zero Seven had no want for streets, for commerce or money, for any of the other things that one might think about when imagining the concept of a city. It was in every sense of the word a robot metropolis, and if robots could be considered a parody of life, then they were a cheap one.
The machines marched in perfect symmetry through the halls of the enormous complex, machines of every purpose imaginable. Philosophy has a number of things to say about the meaning of life, the nature of purpose, but surely these machines, these robots, were the very epitome of what it meant to have purpose. Each was created for a single reason and existed for that reason one hundred percent. There were construction robots, repair robots, maintainence robots, security robots, each with dozens of submodels designed to deal with just one particular facet of the continued operation of the complex. Each had one reason to be, and none ever strayed outside that purpose, never questioned their occupation, never wanted for more, never even grappled for understanding. None ever had any reason to.
None, except one.
A small crablike security drone scurried along one of the many dark halls of Zero Seven, its many legs tapping on the concrete and metal halls as it unquestioningly went about its silent duty. One of its limbs, a large and club-like spiked claw, was attached to a pressurised piston and designed to shatter arms and legs with a single blow. The robot stopped its movement suddenly in the darkness and took a defensive stance. Did it detect a presence? Its sensors were unsure, leading to some degree of confusion in its simple mind. Hesitantly, it moved onward.
Yes, there was definitely something nearby, and its presence was a paradox to the uncomplicated machine's instruments. The presence was almost reading like a confederated unit, another of Robotnik's machines, but the crab-robot could not discern its purpose or the nature of its activities, its reason for being. Nor could it get a lock on the other unit's exact location. All it could find was an occasional glimpse of two red points of light in the darkness.
Moving quickly, soundlessly, like something made of wind, the equivocal anomoly strode out of the shadow, red eyes blazing, and with a lack of strain that would be nothing if not terrifying for an observer, it ripped the crab-robot apart like it was made of pudding. The severely damaged machine, its severed parts sparking and whining in mechanical agony, managed to spin around and activate its fierce club-arm, the vicious implement striking out and pummeling what appeared to be the assailent's knee joint. With a very loud clanging noise that echoed through the halls, the club struck home with a powerful impact that would easily break a bone in two. Rather than the desired effect, however, it only slightly scratched the royal blue paintwork of the attacking machine and failed to even leave a dent. The assailent proceeded to smash what remained of the crab-robot into so much scrap, pounding it into the ground again and again and again until the machine was completely unrecognisable, the concrete beneath it cracked and indented.
"Hello," the attacking machine said to the scrap, "I am Mecha." Its red eyes glowed brighter than the fluorescent lights around it, and made the blue metal around its face appear purple. Mecha kneeled down beside the remains of the former robot, sorting through the pieces with the semblance of an inquisitive child.
"You are no longer operational," Mecha said, "You are unable to respond."
The blue robot held up a flattened piece of equipment which may have been a gasket or an alternator plug or any number of other items moments ago. Now it was good for nothing, an inanimate fragment of debris.
"You were a machine," Mecha pointed out, "You did not excrete blood when I opened your body." It (he?) looked down at the scratched leg, blue paint chipped away to expose solid grey steel underneath. "Nor do I. This is an interesting development. I will continue to collect data. Thank you for your co-operation in this matter."
The robot faded into the darkness, leaving the evidence of its presence behind in the hallway. Soon enough, another robot, designed for its own specific role, would come across the scrap metal and report it. Another robot would clean up and remove the mess. Another would patch the concrete. Soon it would be like nothing happened, for in the robot metropolis, nobody wept for the loss of one of their own, for nobody had tears, or conscience, or remorse. That was the way it was.

"Sonic, you have to get up," Kethriel begged, "Get up, kiddo. I'm betting that this place is going to be swarming with SWAT-bots before you can say knife."
The hedgehog mumbled something under his breath.
"Sonic?"
"Don't... call... me... Sonic!" he shrieked.
"Say what?"
"That's what he called me! It's in the past now, I'm not Sonic anymore! I left it behind me, don't you understand? That's why I forgot all this!" He tried to fight back the sobs, "I want it to get... back... in! I want to pack it away and lock the door and never remember any of this ever again!"
"Sonic-"
"Oh why, why did I do this? Why did I get myself involved with all of this? I was happy! I was happy knowing nothing!"
"Sonic, I know it hurts," Kethriel said, "But you can't run from your past, sooner or later you have to face up to what happened and deal with it!"
"No, you don't understand," Sonic protested, "I was happier not knowing... for years I wished to forget, I was so depressed I almost wasted away. Just knowing that- t-that there's no reason for my life, it's not a product of love or- longing or anything, I mean, nobody ever wanted to love me, j-just to use me, I was a thing to be used..." His face crumpled for a moment and then he fought it, "I was just an experiment like a rat in a cage and then I was thrown away, there's no room for me in the world."
"That's not true and by now you should know it," Kethriel replied, "Look at everything you've accomplished. You, all by yourself. If it weren't for you, I can't imagine that the resistance would have come as far as it has. You were a gift from above, Sonic."
"My head... hurts... so bad... like a jackhammer in my skull."
"Come on. We have to get moving."
The hedgehogs stood up, Sonic supported on Kethriel's arm, and they left the Gene Room behind them (forever, Sonic hoped, please be forever) and moved back into the corridors of Zero Seven.
"This isn't good news for us," Kethriel said, "Being found out, I just hope that Bunnie has better luck. We might just have to focus on getting the heck out of here in one piece."
"The bag..." Sonic mumbled, "Keth... the silk bag... the bag, we can use the bag!" He grabbed the bag that was still tied around his neck.
"Not yet, kiddo," Kethriel replied, "There might be time for that later, but we're not quite licked yet. Come on, this way."
After half an hour (a journey which may have taken five minutes if not for the constant danger of being found by the newly alerted guards) Sonic and Kethriel reached what appeared to be an exit. A window, open just a crack, let the light of day into the dark and gloomy recesses of the mechanical cage that was Zero Seven. But just as Sonic was about to squeeze out into the providence beyond, Kethriel signalled him to stop and looked outside, careful to keep himself hidden.
The wilderness lay about two hundred feet away. Trees (a symbol of life forbidden within the boundries of the complex) grew freely, shrouding everything beyond them in natural opulence. In front of that, a forty foot barbed wire fence. Between the fence and the hedgehogs, enough SWAT-bots to invade a small nation.
"Uh-oh," Kethriel gulped.
"That's very encouraging, Keth," Sonic said, more than a trace of bitterness in his voice. His face was still contorted with misery and tears, and he tendered his aching head with a trembling hand.
"They're trying to trap us," Kethriel said, "Easier to catch us in the open than inside the complex. Robotnik's probably got the whole place completely surrounded."
"And what does that mean for us?"
"Well... okay Kethriel, think. Zero Seven backs onto the ocean."
"Can't swim, Keth."
"No, but... hey. The launch base."
"The what?"
"The airport..." Kethriel looked at the other hedgehog with his eyes wide but vacant, thinking hard. "The Flying Battery. We can board the Battery."
"He's going to catch us."
"No... no, he isn't. Listen, we can stow away on the Flying Battery. We can see the whole complex from the mansard deck, I'm sure. We'll check out the area, scope a way out, maybe even wait until the search dies down."
"He's going to catch us."
"What are you talking about?" Kethriel spoke quietly but harshly.
"I escaped once, he won't let it happen again. I think I was meant to die here. I finally got away, forgot why I left in the first place, and marched back here like a cow into a slaughterhouse."
"You really think that's your destiny? Really, Sonic?"
"I wasn't made for this, okay?" Sonic snapped, "I'm a cosmic mistake. Don't you understand that yet? Destiny doesn't apply to me. Destiny is for the children of God. I wasn't made by God, Keth, I was made by some crackpot pretending to be God. You keep talking about everyone having a purpose and all that garbage. But I don't fit into the universal order, any purpose I was supposed to serve was fulfilled when Robotnik built his precious robot. Now I'm redundant. I'm not who you thought I was. I wish I could have told you this a week ago, but I didn't know it yet. I can't help you, Kethriel, I'm sorry but I can't."
Kethriel's face appeared almost blank, humourless, the expression of a father who had just discovered his child doing something extremely bad. Sonic tapered off at the end of his tirade, intimidated, realising that he had never seen Kethriel this serious before. The semblance of a friendly uncle gave way to a patriarchal aura of vehemence that Sonic hadn't known he was capable of.
"That's great, Sonic," he said gravely, "Did you come up with that just then?"
Sonic didn't respond, just closed his eyes and nursed his head.
"Let me ask you something," Kethriel continued, louder, "You're so keen on remembering, now. Why don't you put that keen newly-supercharged memory to work and remember the last week, Sonic? You stole four of the most well-protected items on the planet and you barely broke a sweat, do you remember that? And please don't claim you have amnesia, you've already run that excuse into the ground."
Sonic murmered something that might have been "So, what?"
"So what's changed in the past hour, Sonic? What - has - changed? Please tell me because I'm dying to know. You remembered something that happened a decade ago. How does that change what happened over the past week? I can't imagine what you're going through right now, and I hate to tell you to get over yourself, but get over yourself. This is not the time."
Sonic didn't reply.
"You're a mistake, all right," Kethriel said, and Sonic looked up at him, stung. "You're a mistake," he continued, "You're the biggest mistake Robotnik ever made. He was messing around with fire and he managed to make the blue blur, and now the blue blur is going to make him sorry he was ever born. That fat, butt-ugly psychopath told you that you were useless, don't you want to prove him wrong once and for all? Put yourself together and show me what you're made of."
Sonic's eyes had welled up again, but his face had hardened. Fear and despondency had turned to rage and loathing, and Kethriel wasn't sure whether it was directed against himself or Robotnik, but either way it was progress.
Eventually Sonic sniffed, wiped his eyes, and asked "What do we do?"
"That's the kid I know," Kethriel replied, the colour returning slightly to his sullen features, "We get on that battleship, that's what we do. Then we find a way to get out of this stinking place."

Flying above the Zero Seven complex, one would perceive the following: To the north, an enormous domed structure towered above the rest of the complex, and underneath this was the refinery centre where the molten metal was stored and kept hot. Three large cooling towers belched smoke and steam into the atmosphere.
South of this area was the ocean, and a sparse, open section with many yellowbrick buildings covered the coastline. This was the Zero Seven launch base, a private airport for the exclusive usage of Prince Martin and the many bizarre and diabolical flying machines of Ivo Robotnik. Hangars and landing strips defined the area, but it was dominated by the immense aquatic landing platform spread over the ocean in a circle, clearly designed for something much larger than had ever flown the skies of Mobius. The Flying Battery battleship, holder of the previous record in that particular area, was currently docked in the centre of the launch base. If one looked closer, it was also possible to see Martin's private royal jet parked on a runway.
Northeast was a large, flat building of a much less industrial design than the others. It was this building that Bunnie and the vulture Carrion were currently attempting to infiltrate.
Rhes el Carrion, prisoner in Zero Seven for no longer than a day, had quickly made friends with the tortured soul in the next cell, who had been a miserable wreck to begin with but had quickly been somwhat cheered up by the vulture's caustic sense of humour. Still, Carrion, despite having known about Bunnie's condition, had a hard time adapting to her visual appearance. The rabbit (rabbot now, he reminded himself) had once been quite attractive with a pretty face, shapely athletic body and petite features. Her face remained mercifully untouched, but the beauty nature had bestowed to the rest of her body had been demolished, obliterated by the horrific process of robotization. What was worse was that it was painfully clear that the technology had not yet been perfected. Bunnie looked like the result of a child's inquisitive bedroom experimentation, the way a child might rip the head off one of his sister's dolls and attach it to his own battle robot action figures just for the sake of creating some kind of abomination. There was no real shape to her robotic limbs, they looked chaotic and random as though the metal had been dripped over her like wax. Only Bunnie knew that there was little left of her original body underneath it. What had she been allowed to keep? Her bones were probably intact, her muscles still operative in some form. But below the waist, her nervous system was putty. Robotization was really a form of cyborgification, from what she could figure out. She could even see where the idea had come from. After all, the body's movement was caused by electrical signals through the nerves that told muscles to contract. If the brain could be blocked and the electrical signals sent from a computer instead, then you could make a robot out of anyone. Bunnie's head untouched, she carried no such computer, and her robot parts were confused about where they were to report and sent data to her brain instead, though a different format of data than it was used to. The brain was adaptable, but it produced the queer sensation that she was two entities at once, rabbit and machine.
"We can't get further," Carrion said, "There are tinheads everywhere. Someone must've raised the alarm."
The research facility had been put into lockdown, and was swarming with robots - SWATs as well as things that looked like giant toy parodies of crabs and frogs. Carrion didn't want to know what their special talents were.
"Yeah," Bunnie replied absently, but suddenly she appeared very tired and held her head.
"Something wrong?"
"I-" Bunnie looked for a moment like she was going to throw up. "I can- hear them- in my head."
"Hear who? The tinheads?"
Bunnie nodded. "The SWAT-bots are a hive mind, they're attached- to a network. I can- hear-"
"You hear those things talking to one another?" Carrion asked in disbelief.
"They're really simple, they- they're like pocket calculators- listening to them chattering makes me-" She kneeled down and appeared to gag. Carrion, comfort not his strongest suit, stood by uncomfortably and waited for her to compose herself. Bunnie eventually had to move away from the SWAT-bots' proximity, and recovered quickly.
"That was unpleasant," she gasped.
"You can eavesdrop on robots?" Carrion asked her again, "I can't even begin to tell you how awesome that is."
Bunnie smirked unpalatably. "You'd think so," she said, "But just imagine putting your hand into a bucket of live maggots. That's what listening to them feels like."
"What did you hear?"
"Nothing much, but... I caught a glimpse... The SWATs have brains like ants, but they're attached to something mentally. Something... smart. Really smart. An intelligence I can't even fathom. I felt it, just for a second..."
"What was it?"
"I don't know, I couldn't say."
"Well, what now?"
Bunnie sighed. "Nothing much we can do here, right? I say we get our tooshes outta this place and get the hee-haw back to Knothole."
"Not me," Carrion grunted, "I've had just about enough of this crazy party. Show me the exit and I'm jumping on the first convoy home. No offense you understand."
"No, I know how you feel. I only wish I could imagine ever feeling at home again."

The Zero Seven launch base sprawled out in front of the intrepid hedgehogs like something almost familiar, even benign. They were fortunate enough to know better. Dozens, even hundreds, of robots worked tirelessly, loading barrels and crates of unknown content onto transport vehicles which buzzed back and forth. To all appearances it seemed like an ordinary airport, except for the gargantuan winged fortress parked on the tarmac.
The Flying Battery seemed even larger than Sonic had figured when he had seen it in the air. It was a huge vessel, and nothing short of a remarkable feat of engineering could have made it airborne. When he thought about the name 'Flying Battery', Sonic imagined a giant coppertop C-cell with rockets attached to it, and found the idea mildly amusing. Kethriel, also amused, had told him that the word 'battery' also refers to a machine onto which a large number of guns are attached. The Flying Battery was just that, and it had once been the scourge of the sky, the pride and joy of the Mobitropolis air force. In fact, the Android Wars might have been a lot more disasterous had it not been for the Flying Battery and its contribution to the war effort, might even have destroyed Mobitropolis before Prince Martin even drew breath. Ironically, the Battery was a highly advanced piece of technology, and it was declared illegal after the postwar blitz against technological advancement. Now, technology was back in use, and like a phoenix from the ashes, so too was the Flying Battery.
"Can they see us?" Sonic asked, referring to the worker bots.
Kethriel replied in the negative, but not with complete certainty. They appeared to be the same model used for similar purposes in Mobitropolis, and those were not equipped with the intelligence to discern an intruder from another robot (or a bar of soap for that matter). It wasn't their purpose. But that wasn't to say that they hadn't been given special upgrades in Zero Seven. Nevertheless, they decided to take a chance, and followed a convoy of transports onto a loading ramp that led directly into the cargo bay of the battleship. They didn't face any trouble from the robots; in fact, the machines were exceedingly polite in offering them the right of way whenever they crossed each other, mistaking them for other workers. Sonic and Kethriel hid in the cargo bay for about half an hour before they became confident that there were no SWAT-bots coming to flush them out, and then they began making their way through the wing fortress to the deck.

Prince Martin Acorn, nineteen, had no idea that fate, the great unknowable, its cloak descending quickly upon Mobitropolis, was about to turn its merciless gaze in his direction. Just as time cared not for mortal affairs, so too was fate unbiased and without prejudice in its actions. Martin was about to find that insurrection was not without its consequences.
But for now he stood and looked out over Zero Seven with his face in a faint scowl on his face that he wasn't even aware he was making, and an extra long white cigarette between his lips. With dainty grace he removed the cigarette with his thumb and forefinger and blew a long cloud of dark smoke. It was barely visible amongst the pollution that was already in the air.
The robots marched below him, beastly contraptions of every size and shape. They looked like monsters, shambling and crotcheting about the place almost as though they had no purpose at all. But these things were the epitome of purpose, and he knew that.
The prince closed his eyes and dreamed. He envisioned Mobitropolis as he had known it as a child. The fairytale world of his youth flooded through his mind, a vision so perfect that he was able to call upon it whenever he wanted. Sunshine fell upon the cobblestone paths like a golden veil, horse-drawn carriages clip-clopped back and forth carrying neatly dressed gentlemen and elegant ladies to their destinations. The grass was as green as emerald, and the waters just as blue as the royal flags that adorned the palace. The palace, firm and proud, watched over the lands as protector and guide, and the young king sat admiring it all. He saw all of this through the king's eyes, and wondered if he looked like King Acorn would have once upon a time. A small tear welled up in Martin's eye as he imagined. Soon the kingdom would look like it did all those years ago. No filth on the streets, no protests and riots, none of the decay and dilapidation that his father had allowed with the decay of his own mind and of the strength of the monarchy. For a minute Martin even allowed himself to dream of a reconciliation between himself and his family. His sister was the apple of her father's eye, and he dreaded the consequences of allowing her to rule, but under his own competant control he fancied that she would eventually come to realise that he had been right all along, even support him. Maybe, he dared imagine, maybe even his father would in time see past Martin's betrayal, see how beautiful the kingdom was, and forgive his son.
When Martin opened his eyes, though, the beauty of the old Mobitropolis vanished from his mind. He had been about to drag on his cigarette, but stopped with his hand inches from his mouth. What he saw now was a dark, smokey, grease-covered metropolis of steel and grime. One of his hands had been resting on a rail, and he brought it to his face to see that it was covered in soot, as were his clothes.
Was this the direction he was headed?
The tear dried up in his eye and the expression of bliss faded from his face. This was the ugliest, most repulsive place he could imagine, the exact antithesis of his eventual goal. Robotnik's dark technologies had choked the life out of this patch of the world. And yet, these were the technologies he was going to use to bring the beauty back to Mobitropolis? Was that even possible?
Something like horror clouded his face for a moment as he saw a glimpse of Mobitropolis choked with smog like this place, all metal and sludge, robots clunking down every street making clanging noises with their feet, their wheels, their gears. Martin, his mind screamed, in the name of all that is holy what. are. you. doing!?
He blanked the thought out and shook his head hard, as though the dissenting images could be dislodged from his mind. Things would never go that far. He knew what he was doing. There would be no room for cold feet, it was too late for that. Most of all, he must retain his strength. He was about to go to war with the city he loved, but only to cure it of its diseases. Just a tiny prick, a doctor might say, and then everything would be okay. For those who had nothing to fear from his wrath, the transition would be gentle.
He dropped the stub of his cigarette on the metal grating below his feet, stamped it out, and walked away from the horrific dystopian vision before him. Tomorrow, Mobitropolis would enter a new era of grand prosperity. Tonight, though, he had a party to attend.

"Kethriel..."
"Yeah?"
They were navigating a musty series of disused industrial corridors aboard the Flying Battery when Sonic called his companion's name in a low voice, and Kethriel turned to him inquisitively. Sonic cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Kethriel asked, "About what?"
"That stuff I said before," Sonic replied, "About being useless or whatever. You were right, it's not the time to be feeling down on myself. Mobitropolis is more important right now than my own neurosis, right? So, uh, do you forgive me?"
Kethriel laughed cheerfully, and Sonic had already forgotten that this hedgehog was capable of anger. "Of course, kiddo! Hey, we're a team, right? So how's your head?"
"Stings." Sonic winced. "Feels like a dumptruck parked on my face and dumped forty tonnes of memories into my skull. But you know what? It's kinda weird, now that I remember everything, I can't remember not remembering. I mean, it seems crazy to me. How can someone possibly just forget all that stuff?"
"Mind over matter, I guess. It was a really hard time for you, the memories were too painful, you wanted so badly to forget them that you just did."
"Well, you got that right," Sonic replied, "It hurts to remember. It hurts bad. I'm starting to have the same thoughts that I had ten years ago when I first started living in the garbage, crying myself to sleep every night."
"Thinking what?"
"That I want to forget. That I'm happier without these pictures in my head, happier without that shambling orange-eyed thing haunting me wherever I go."
"Yeah, well you need to hold on to those memories of yours," Kethriel said, "That's the only way they'll relinquish their power over you, you know, the only way you can become immune to them. You can never shove the past under the carpet. You'll just keep remembering it all again, and it'll hurt like the dickens every time."
"I know... And you know what? I think my nightmares were scarier than the truth can ever be. I think it was scarier not knowing what the ghosts really were."
"Do you think you can pull it together? I mean, enough to be able to face Robotnik? To face that... silver thing, if need be?"
Sonic looked at the ground with dread. "I'm furious," he said, "But I'm still scared of them. Terrified. To the bone. If I come face to face with either of them... I'm not sure what will happen, it could go either way."
"Well, hopefully you won't have to. When we get back to Mobitropolis, it's really only the prince we have to worry about."
Sonic smirked. "Not afraid of him. The guy threatened to break my fingers, once."
"Yeah? What did you do?"
"I gave him the finger."
Kethriel laughed.
"But hey," Sonic said, "We never got the information we needed about the SWAT-bots. Are we going to be able to stop them?"
Kethriel sighed. "We did all we could under the circumstances. Unless Bunnie had better luck, it really comes down to whether Slick is slick enough to hack the SWAT network. If not, we have to do things the hard way. We probably have the forces to combat and defeat the SWATs ourselves, but... if we do things that way, there's going to be losses. Heavy losses." He shook his head. "But if it comes down to that, I don't think there's a single Freedom Fighter who wouldn't be willing to lay down his or her life in the name of freedom. That's really what being a Freedom Fighter is all about."
"Would you?"
"Huh?"
"Lay down your life?"
Kethriel didn't have to think about it. "Yes," he said, "If it had to come to that. Turning people into robots is no way to fix anything, I don't care who it is. Seeing Bunnie only strengthened my resolve. That's a horror I wouldn't even inflict on the worst kind of criminal. If I had to sacrifice myself to make sure it never happened to anybody again, then its a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I guess I'd be fulfilling my own purpose... I'd like to think I'd be looked after because of that."
"Do you think there's an afterlife? A god?" Sonic asked.
Kethriel shrugged. "Why not? There's no purpose without product, right?"
He was cut off by a great grinding, lurching noise that seemed to fill the entire ship, from bow to stern. The sound of machinery warming up and coming to life. The ground was shaking and vibrating beneath their feet. Sonic appeared frightened and looked up at Kethriel in horror.
"Hey, what the-" Kethriel exclaimed, "The ship is taking off!"
"Is that good or bad?" Sonic asked.
"Well, I think it has to be good... I mean, we're leaving Zero Seven one way or another, right? Hopefully they're hauling this thing right to Mobitropolis."
"So what, we just sit and wait?"
Kethriel shrugged again. "I haven't got a better idea. You like flying, kiddo?"
"Not really," Sonic replied, remembering a few days ago when he and Tails Prower had jumped from a moving aeroplane.
"That's too bad. I hope the in-flight movie is decent."

The Flying Battery, massive as it was, took twenty minutes to power up from its docked position. Forty-five rotor blades on top of the craft provided lift, but they only really worked to keep it in the air once it was in flight. Rocket thrusters around the sides and underneath did most of the launch work, and it was these that needed to warm up before the ship could begin its launch sequence. The Battery was too big to be able to gather speed along a runway, so it had to launch from a standstill, operating on the combined principles of a helicopter and a jumpjet.
After taking its time to power up, the battleship spewed forth a thick cloud of smoke which it seemed to slowly ride upon as it rose into the air, slow at first, and then with growing speed. Above the towers of Zero Seven, the back thrusters fired, and the Flying Battery gained horizontal momentum, its bow slowly turning in mid-air so that the machine faced the flat line of the southern horizon, where the ocean softly lapped at the fringe of the sky.

It was getting towards late afternoon in Mobitropolis, and there were few times in the recorded history of the city that there had been so much commotion in the palace. It had been decided that celebrations shouldn't be dampered by the new threat of terrorism and that nobody should have to sacrifice the spirit of festivity for fear and anxiety. Even despite saying this, people were less enthusiastic than they would be (which probably counted as a minor victory for the Mobitropolis Workers' Union) but things went ahead as planned and the show did go on.
'1300' declared a great banner over the palace entrance, 'Thirteen Centuries'.
The traffic inside the palace was more congested than the streets outside, with servants and staff milling about frantically to get everything finished in time. Interior designers, cleaners, caterers, and every other shape of uniform you would expect to see preparing a royal celebration. Many of them were very frustrated, sweating and barking commands at each other as their respective deadlines approached. Three mobians dressed all in white carried a downright massive multi-tiered cake down the main hallway and almost had it knocked to the floor twice. Both times, the expressions of the couriers were the expressions of people who had seen Armageddon approaching and averted it by inches.
The hallway stretched from the palace entrance right through to the central courtyard, and along its length were framed paintings of every Acorn monarch to sit upon the throne in thirteen hundred years. Cleaners frantically cleaned the frames and dusted the delicate canvasses.
Two vagrants stood outside the palace gates and tried to get a look in to see what was going on. "Do you reckon they'll give us their leftovers if we ask really nicely?" Rat asked.
"My friend," Bosley replied, "I think we have about as much chance of that happening as we have of the moon being shot out of orbit."
"That's what I thought."
A couple of palace officials ran to them waving a rolled up magazine as though trying to swat a fly. "You there! Getawayfromthere!" he shouted, the stream of words compressed to sound like just one sound, "Geddoutahere! Scat!"
Rat and Bosley groaned and slinked out of sight.
"Fascists!" Rat yelled back, but the official was already returning to the palace.

Sonic and Kethriel sat together in one of the Flying Battery's many storage facilities, sandwiched between stacks of barrels and drums. Every one carried the Acornex logo. Kethriel had earlier pointed out a revelation that he had made upon seeing those drums. The Freedom Fighters had been having a lot of trouble working out exactly how Martin and Robotnik were going to fuel their superweapon. The Chaos Emeralds would provide the raw energy needed to operate the components, but the machine would assumedly need thrusters and thrusters need fuel to burn. Martin needed to hide a huge amount of this fuel somewhere with no undue suspicion. The answer, Kethriel figured, was mega mack. If Robotnik had invented a form of malcohol-combustion-engine (which was probably well within his ability) then millions of liters of dirt-cheap fuel could be refined simply and efficiently in Station Square without anyone asking any questions. It was just another factor in the extremely complex web of deception that had been woven over the past decade behind the scenes in Mobitropolis. It seemed that no piece of the puzzle had been left unsolved. The ingenuity of the plan would be respectable if it wasn't so spinechilling.
"I want you to promise me something," Sonic said.
"Yeah? What's that?"
"Promise first."
Kethriel laughed. "I never sign anything I haven't read."
"But if I tell you first, you probably won't do it," Sonic explained.
"That's highly encouraging."
"Come on, Keth. Trust me, I'm doing this for your own good."
Kethriel laughed again. "Okay, okay, I'll bite. I swear I'll do the thing. Now, what did I just promise?"
"That when we get back to Knothole, you'll tell Princess Sally that you love her."
The other hedgehog's face turned red, and he chuckled embarrassedly. "Sure. I never said when I'd do it, did I? How's two thousand years from now sound?"
"She likes you."
"So you said before. Personally I kinda consider the future Queen of Mobitropolis a little out of my league. I can't even get a date with the girl who sells me my Sunday newspaper."
"We're gonna save Mobitropolis!" Sonic said, "That's one heck of a valentine."
Kethriel smiled but said nothing. They sat in silence for a few moments, but it was Sonic who spoke again.
"How long have you known her?"
Kethriel considered it. "I think it was thirteen years ago, I was fifteen at the time. I was a very depressed kid, did a lot of things that... well, things I really shouldn't have been doing. And one day I saw her standing in the palace courtyard, just looking at the flowers, and I thought to myself, Keth, that is beauty. That is worth every problem you have with the world. And you know what? I don't think I was ever quite so depressed, ever again. I was a page back then, I polished a lot of soldiers' boots, cleaned their dishes and their toilets, brought them their beer and had it thrown on me if it was the wrong kind of lager, that kind of thing. I was on the way to getting fired, really. After that day, though, everything changed. I changed my attitude, worked hard, and a few years later they made me a squire. After that it was generals and ministers whose boots I was polishing and whose beer I was washing out of my hair. It really was a horrid job and I'm not sure why I stuck with it, but I did. This was around the time that the military started to get replaced by the SWAT-bots. Before too long there wasn't even really any need for people like me anymore because robots don't have boots and they don't use dishes or toilets and they don't drink beer no matter what lager it is. Most of the pages and squires lost their jobs, but I was so good at it that I was promoted to royal servant and charged with assisting the princess. I never told her that she was the reason I was there, though, that seeing her in the garden was what gave me my ambition. We were fast friends, though. She's my best friend in the world, the best I've ever had."
"I've never had a good friend, really," Sonic admitted, "I only stuck with people to survive. You know, street gangs. We went around stealing wallets and then divvying up the loot. I was a good thief, that's really the only reason people wanted me around."
"Oh, you'll meet someone one day," Kethriel said, "Everyone does, I think. It's the universe's way of reminding you that everyone matters to someone else. One day you'll see a girl standing in a garden looking at flowers and you'll feel a flutter, and you'll know that you'll never see anything even remotely as beautiful ever again."
"Yeah yeah, okay," Sonic said, "It wasn't an invitation to get all sappy and have your heart start bleeding all over me. I'm just saying, dude. Tell her."
Kethriel smiled. "Okay, Dr Love. Whatever you say."
"Now, I'm getting a little cramped in here. I'm gonna go explore this great big Flying C-cell or whatever it's called."
"Your head's feeling better, then?"
"Oh... hey, yeah, I guess it is."
"Be careful."
"Don't worry, I won't."
With that, the blue blur had disappeared into the labyrinthine corridors and out of sight.

King Acorn was dressed in the finest dinner suit that could be found anywhere in Westerica. There were more people around him than could be counted on one hand, and all of them were prodding and fixing the monarch's attire while he wore it. Seeming almost oblivious of their presence, the king stared at his reflection in the mirror and practiced his speech.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I want to thank you all for being here tonight. As you know, this is a celebration of thirteen hundred years. Thirteen hundred years since the great Ridgewars, when the crown was passed from the house of Greyblack to the house of Acorn, who have watched over this kingdom ever since, with benevolence and- Richard, what's your impression of the word 'benevolence', do you think it's too... I don't know... vainglorious?"
One of the servants mumbled a response while trying to perfect the king's collar. "I think that the word 'vainglorious' is too vainglorious, sire."
"I think I'll use 'altruism'," King Acorn replied, "With altruism and pride. But let us not see tonight as a celebration of one family, rather as a celebration of Mobitropolis. For it was only after these great wars merged the peoples of Westerica together under one flag that the glory of-"
Princess Sally walked into the room at this point, cutting him off. "Father-"
"Hello, dear," he said, struggling vainly with his bowtie, "You're not dressed yet, you had best hurry. The guests arrive in three hours, and I know how your stylist Michelle hates to be rushed."
"Yes, I know, I'm sorry, I'll get to it right away," she replied.
"Good girl."
"Father?"
"Mm?" The servant named Richard had taken over with his bowtie.
"Have you heard from my brother?"
"Not in a while," the king replied, "Martin did assure me that he would be here, and one thing about your brother is that he hates being late for anything. He's probably around somewhere, or will be soon."
"Okay."
"Sally, which word do you prefer, 'benevolence' or 'altruism'?"
Sally giggled. "You're on your own, Father."
"Well at least let me know if you prefer the golden cufflinks or the silver."
"The gold ones are more regal, Father, and they go with your buttons."
"Ah, my thoughts as well, good girl."
Sally turned to leave, but the king called her back.
"Sally?"
She turned. Her father was looking at her with a warm smile. "This is your night, you're going to look beautiful."
Sally smiled and nodded, and then turned to walk towards her dressing room. A servant barreling down the hallway almost knocked her down, and was so devastated by his transgression that he looked like he might cry (although, after she pardoned him with a smile, he went right on running just as fast as he had been). She passed the guarded entrance to the treasure room, which was open with servants cleaning the glass cases and polishing the floors. As she passed, she noticed something odd, and did a double-take.
It took a moment before the dread fell like a sack of bricks in her gut. She entered the treasure room for a closer look.
"Princess," someone said, "Uh, Princess? Majesty, sorry but you shouldn't come in here, the floors-"
"Where are they?" she all but shrieked, "The Crown Jewels! Where are they!?"
"I- I don't know," the servant stammered, "Please, Majesty, the floors-"
Sally fled the treasury before he could finish, delayed shock welling up inside her. She ran back to her father's dressing room.
"Father!"
The king spun around, causing several of the servants dressing him to grunt in frustration.
"What's wrong, dear?"
"The Crown Jewels are gone!" she exclaimed, "They're gone!"
King Acorn looked amused despite his daughter's clear state of distress. "They were moved this morning. Commander Packbell took them."
"He can't do that!" Sally almost screamed.
The king simply laughed. "He can if I tell him he can, dear. I am the king of this nation, I believe. Am I the king, Richard?"
"Yes sire, you are the king," Richard replied, "If you were anything less I'd tell you to dress yourself."
Sally had already left. She rushed to her quarters, running faster than a princess should probably ever have to run. She passed Michelle, her stylist, who tried to get her attention but was ignored.
When she reached her quarters, Sally shut and locked the door, and grappled with the telephone on her bedside unit, her private line. There were no assurances that it wasn't bugged, and she made a point never to use the phones in the palace for Freedom Fighter business, but there was no time left. She picked up the receiver, punched a number into the keypad, got it wrong, hung up and tried again. As it dialed, she breathed heavily and curled the cord in her fingers. Eventually she got a response, it was Rotor of the Operations Council. She started talking before he was even finished saying hello.
"Rotor it's Sally. Listen, Martin has all seven Chaos Emeralds, and he's missing. I think the war is starting tonight, during the celebration. I repeat, Martin has all the emeralds and he's going to act tonight. Spread the word! Hurry! Go!"

When Sonic's mind was distracted from the misery of its reassembly, his sense of adventure throbbed at full force. When, however, he separated himself from Kethriel, he was taken by an all-devouring sense of loneliness that dulled it and made him wonder whether he should just return to the cargo bay among the barrels and drums and sit with the other hedgehog until the Flying Battery landed. It was funny; Until now, he had spent most of his time alone, had preferred it in fact. Now the weight of the world seemed to be on his shoulders and he felt so insignificant, so incapable of mattering in the scheme of things. Kethriel made him feel differently, and it occurred to him that Kethriel was his first real friend. For the first time he felt comfortable in somebody else's company. No, that may have been false, he might have felt similarly about Tails for a few sparkling moments, but Tails hadn't been a very good friend after all, although much of that, Sonic still feared, was probably his own fault.
Thinking about Tails - his betrayal, ingratitude, Sonic's own part in his downfall - started to depress him and send him along the road to being down on himself all over again, so Sonic decided that exploration probably wasn't the best idea right now (dangerous, anyway) and he should turn back.
The corridor he had been following, however, had taken him to the entrance to a strange chamber that he caught himself exploring before he could stop himself. At first it appeared similar in design to the Gene Room in Zero Seven, and a shiver of recognition and discomfort rippled down his back, as though he were caught in a recurring nightmare and couldn't escape from this place. Quickly though, he discovered that it was not the Gene Room and in fact didn't look much like it at all. A great chamber enclosed in glass provided a virtually unobstructed view of the surrounding area, it was probably the lowest point on the entire battleship, and Sonic was struck with the realisation that they were flying over the open ocean. This was strange to him because he had thought they were travelling to Mobitropolis, which was east of Zero Seven, but the ocean was to the south. What was stranger, and more unnerving, was the fact that there was very little in the way of land for some distance south of Westerica.
The room, circular and covered by a wide dome almost like a cathedral, was dominated by a very large glass cylinder with an open door on one side of it and little else marring its smooth surface. The cylinder stretched from the floor all the way to the domed ceiling above, and there was a lot of machinery attached to this ceiling, with what looked like the lens of a flashlight (only much, much bigger) at the top of the cylinder shining down into it. Sonic stood fascinated by this for a few minutes, before noticing a small antechamber off to the side, a room filled with giant computers and switchboards, some kind of master control area. Hundreds of wires and cables streamed from this area to the contraption on the ceiling of the glass tube (a machine which Sonic was sure was much larger than what he could see here, like the tip of an iceberg poking up out of the water). Sonic looked it all over like a deer in a car's headlights, so interested that he almost didn't hear the sound of a deep, throaty cough coming from somewhere behind him.
He did hear it, though, and just in time he combined speed with reflexes to dart into one of the few shadowy niches that this chamber had to offer - a line of storage lockers of some kind, one of which stood ajar. Sonic squeezed himself into the small locker and pulled the door softly closed just as Dr Robotnik walked into the room.
Robotnik. A figure towards whom he now directed a healthy dose of loathing. He was also deathly afraid of the cold professor, for Robotnik still held a powerful residue of authority over him. For years, in a room almost similar to this one, he was Master, the bearer of pain, whose will was to be appeased at all costs. Sonic still found himself almost expecting that Robotnik would, any moment, press a button on a remote control and 'correct' him, punish him for this horrible waste of his potential called the Freedom Fighters. He expected Robotnik to shout a command and summon the terrible silver shambling thing that would strip Sonic's flesh from his bones with jagged claws like shards of broken glass, all the while glaring at him with those featureless, unblinking orange spotlight-eyes. But neither of these things happened, he had been lucky enough not to be seen. Robotnik went directly to the consoles in the antechamber, fiddling with switches, clacking away on a keyboard, glancing at monitors and muttering to himself.
Sonic didn't know how long he was hiding in the locker, but it was anywhere between ten to fifteen minutes before Prince Martin stormed in. What Sonic saw next sent blade-sharp chills and waves of nausea through his body, and burrowed itself into his memory, burned onto his mind like the ghost images that appear if you stare at a bright light for too long. This was the point at which hope turned to dispair, and the true horrible scope of the situation at hand was realised, although possibly all too late to truly have made a difference.
What Sonic saw was this:

The former Crown Prince Martin had preset his expression to irate before he entered the research chamber where Robotnik was playing with his machines. The prince carried the trusty scowl that he traditionally used to keep his loyalists in line, and although Robotnik had never seemed intimidated by him (a fact that angered him immensely) he found it impacted on his ego much less if he pretended it wasn't so.
"Robotnik!" he exclaimed, "Where are we going? Why are we travelling south?"
"The ARK space colony is in orbit over the Westerican Ocean," Robotnik muttered without turning around, "It will be easier to reach it if I launch the exoplane from a nearby point of departure."
The prince appeared momentarily baffled. "Are you losing your mind!? We don't have time for this! I have to be taken to Mobitropolis, I'm already late for the royal banquet and I have no desire to be any later! Do you understand? Turn this thing around and take it to Mobitropolis immediately!"
Robotnik sighed, still working the dials and switches on the control panel in front of him.
Martin turned and at this point seemed to notice the machine in the centre of the room for the first time. His scowl faded and he looked it over with an expression that Sonic was unable to completely discern - was it awe or fear?
"Is this the machine?" he asked.
"Yes," Robotnik replied, "This unit is for controlled singular conversions."
"Does it work?"
The professor turned around for the first time and looked over his machine with all the expression a mother has for her newborn child. "In theory there's no reason it shouldn't."
The prince stepped inside the glass case and admired it from the inside. He stood on a white platform of iron grating, and underneath it were little piles of what appeared to be metal shavings, shredded as fine as sand. He looked up at the lens above him, like a searchlight pointing uselessly downward.
"Of course," Robotnik continued, "There's no way to know for sure until it's tested. Your echidna, Knuckles, was going to have the honour of being the first mobian test subject, but I decided his potential was better expended elsewhere." He turned back to his console, flicking switches and programming commands.
"You haven't tested it?" Martin asked, "That's a problem, Doctor. This operation must begin tomorrow or we will miss a window of opportunity that we will never see again! I do not want to launch a campaign centred upon a weapon that does not work. I want you to make sure that this... thing... is fully tested before tomorrow."
"As you wish," Robotnik replied.
Martin was about to exit the glass cylinder when the door slid shut and clicked with a dull mechanical sound.
He looked shocked for a moment, then sighed through his teeth impatiently. "Your sense of humour is arduous, Doctor. I am not a fan of practical jokes, do not try me."
There was no response. Robotnik was checking the instruments on his various control panels, and typing commands into a computer.
"Robotnik?" the prince tried, "I'm not sure why I continually tolerate your disrespect, but I do. Nevertheless, I assure you that you do not want to make me angry. Release me from this contraption immediately, a fellow... a fellow could suffocate in here."
"I'm about to activate the confinement beam," Robotnik explained, "The light itself is harmless, it both fuels and restrains the nanomachines, just the same as water is to fish."
Inside the cylinder, mechanised components began to power up audibly. To the prince, Sonic imagined, it must have been a terrifying sound. This was reflected in his expression, which began to cool and harden, less like anger and more like fear.
"Doctor," he blubbered, "Doctor, this isn't funny, do you understand, I'm becoming very, very upset and you do not want to aggrivate me right n-"
The chamber was suddenly flooded with an eerie green light. Martin's self control snapped like a twig.
"Robotnik!" he shrieked. He rushed to the glass and began clawing at it like an animal, "Robotnik! Robotnik! Turn it off turn it off please I can't breathe in here I can't breathe! Please! Please for the love- for the love of God turn it off!!"
"At this juncture," Robotnik said calmly, as though addressing a conference, "I release the nanoswarm from the dormant storage recepticle into the conversion chamber." A pause, then as an afterthought, "This will hurt a lot, Majesty."
"No!" Martin, now completely out of his mind with terror, screamed. He hammered on the glass with one hand and clawed at it with the other. He had scratched one of his fingernails off and blood was smearing onto the glass, though he didn't appear to notice. "No please please please you can't do this you can't you can't!!" His cries for help ceased to be recognisable as words when the machinery started making a new set of clunking, whirring sounds. Now he was just screaming, beastly shrieks like the cries of a tortured animal. Sonic speculated that they were the cries of someone whose entire world was coming crashing down upon him, whose illusions are completely lifted and who can see their entire life's work being ripped from him in a single act of savage betrayal. He wondered what Martin was thinking about - were all his plans and ideologies stripped away to the barest animal instinct of life preservation, or was he cursing his feeble-mindedness and begging for some kind of redemption? Either way, Sonic (himself in a state of shock) did not at first believe that Robotnik was actually going to kill the prince inside this glass prison any more than he had killed Sonic all those years ago. He assumed that the professor, any moment now, was going to release Martin and laugh at his sick joke, and perhaps even Martin would start laughing and they would walk away clapping each other on the shoulders and start their war in the morning as planned.
But then the prince's screams changed their tone, and Sonic realised that they had changed from cries of fear to cries of pain. This was when his own mind started to register terror, and what he saw next almost made him physically ill.
The green light in the chamber bathed Martin in a sickly radiance, and now something that could only really be described as looking like a sandstorm almost obscured him completely. The prince was in instant agony, thrashing and beating at the air. Sonic could tell that the particles (what had Robotnik called them? Nanomachines?) were doing something to him, hurting him. The sight was so grisly that Sonic imagined himself inside that chamber, the air itself burning him and him screaming, trying to fight what was too small to see, inhaling those fragments and feeling them burn from the inside as well. The prince's screams were reduced to muffled, choked wails, and now Sonic could see something growing on him, his arms, his body, spreading like a rash but looking like raw steel. The fragment swarm burned through his clothes and attacked his flesh, plating it in horrific armour that he was frantically trying to rip off of him but which was attached far too solidly.
At some point the prince stopped making sounds, and soon after that he stopped moving completely. Sonic, caught up in the terror, almost screamed himself and had to bite his tongue to choke it back. He realised, though, that at some point the locker door had swung open and he was completely visible. The prince was looking in his direction, and something like recognition seemed to flash across his face. Sonic wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he was fairly sure that Martin mouthed an incomprehensible plea and reached out for him, reached out for help which was clearly and obviously beyond the realm of possibility for him now. Sonic slipped back into the darkness and the prince's body began to spasm and jerk.
Then the metal covered his face, and any trace of thought, feeling or life that he had once possessed was completely obliterated.
Robotnik pressed some buttons and the green light that was emitted from the lens inside the chamber was switched off. Almost instantly, the cloud of nanomachines dissipated and fell like sand to the bottom of the machine, through the holes in the metal grating. The machine made a powering-down whine.
There was a robot standing inside the glass cylinder, as calm and silent as a potted plant. The door clicked and slid open with a soft buzzing sound, but the robot did not budge.
"Robot, come," Robotnik commanded. The robot walked out of the machine and approached him, its feet clunking on the ground in a somewhat awkward, unweildy fashion. Dead nanomachines fell off in little streams.
"Status report," said Robotnik.
"All systems at full capacity," the robot replied. It sounded like Martin speaking into a metal pipe.
"Good, good," the professor replied. He walked around the robot, inspecting it as a carpenter inspects a table he has built. "Movements is a little erratic, but that can be tweaked. Otherwise, everything appears fine. Robot, please terminate operations."
The robot stood silent for a moment, then there was a loud fizzling sound. Something sparked in its head. It jerked twice, then fell over.
Robotnik showed no more emotion about what he had done than Sonic might feel about tying his shoes. The professor turned and left the room casually, scratching the back of his neck. Sonic looked at the pile of scrap metal that used to be Prince Martin, and threw up.

Kethriel smiled when Sonic returned, not noticing the dead and pale look on the other hedgehog's face.
"Hey there kiddo, anything worth seeing?"
Sonic looked up with wide, anxious eyes. In a single tone and with utter sincerity he replied, "The prince is dead."
"Psht," Kethriel snickered, "If only."
"I'm serious," Sonic replied, "Robotnik killed him... turned him into a robot, I saw it. It was just nothing to him."
Kethriel's smile faded as he held eye contact with Sonic, trying to figure out if this was a part of some elaborate prank. Sonic's expression told him otherwise, it was too real.
"Sonic? What do you mean?"
"I mean he's dead, gone, murdered."
"By Robotnik."
"Yes."
"I think you're mistaken," Kethriel insisted, "I mean, I have no doubt that you saw something, but that's one thing that I really can't imagine happening."
"Why not?" Sonic demanded.
"Because it doesn't make sense!" Kethriel shrugged and laughed. "Robotnik needs Martin, for the same reason a domestic dog needs an owner. The dog could kill the owner, but it would starve to death. He's a lackey, a tool, that's why he sucks up so much. If he bit the hand that fed him... he'd starve."
"But what if Robotnik wants to take over Project Mobitropolis?" Sonic asked, "Start the revolution by himself? He controls all the weapons, his hands are on all the buttons."
"That's what wouldn't make sense," Kethriel insisted, "It doesn't work that way, Robotnik is in this for completely different motives. This is Martin's project through and through, it always has been. Benefit society by transforming the labour force into robots, make them all unquestioning in loyalty and eliminate wasted potential. He's so fixated on becoming king, leading Mobitropolis into a new era of prosperity, going down in the history books as the kingdom's greatest monarch. I'm sure that he still believes that the government will back him, and that's the key. He's royalty. He's an Acorn. But Robotnik... he doesn't care about ruling a kingdom or improving anyone's lives, he'd follow anyone who paid him enough money. He'll only get what he wants if Martin becomes king, otherwise he won't get paid. He's not an aristocrat, he's a s-" He trailed off here and stared into space, thinking, as though a revelation had occurred to him. "Sociopath," he said after a long pause. "That's it... that's the answer."
"It doesn't matter how much sense it makes," Sonic insisted, "That doesn't change the fact that it happened."
"You're very sure of this," Kethriel probed, his own expression now almost as glum as Sonic's, "I mean, you're absolutely sure that's what you saw? You can't be mistaken."
"I'm sure."
"Completely?"
"Yes! Yes! A hundred and twenty percent. Why is it so important?"
"Because this changes everything," Kethriel replied, "Everything we think we've known since the beginning. If Robotnik- wait, let me think for a minute." He put his hand to his head and closed his eyes, deep in thought. "If Robotnik is in control now, then we can only assume that he has been in control since day one. That means that-"
He was cut off by the sound of loud static and distant distorted voices. Immediately he lifted up a two-way radio to his ear and spoke into it.
"This is Kethriel, is anyone there, over?"
Sonic heard a fuzzy reply he couldn't discern. It sounded like somebody shouting "Wa-wa-wa" over a jet engine.
"That's an affirmative, Rockfall. Is this important? I requested that there be no radio contact until I can ensure that the line is safe, over."
(hissss)Wa-wa-wa-wa-(hissss)
"Please repeat, reception is very bad, over?"
(hissss)Wa-wa-wa-wa-(hissss)
Kethriel closed his eyes and fell silent. The look of defeat on his face was total and unmistakable, and it made Sonic very afraid. What news could possibly create that expression on the face of such an optimistic and dedicated leader? One who, up until moments ago, had been almost ready to declare his campaign an almost flawless success? Kethriel was somebody to whom you could look for hope when hope was lost in the hearts of everyone else on Mobius. He was a pillar of inspiration, but at this moment he looked more like a pillar of salt.
"Rockfall," he said, "You are sure of this? Over."
(hisssssss)
"Rockfall, come in, over?"
(hisssssss)
"Come in. Anyone."
(hisssssss)
He put the gadget away, then buried his face in his hands.
"What is it, Keth?" Sonic asked, pleaded, "What is it? What's going on?"
"It's over," Kethriel replied simply, "It's all over."
Sonic was freaking out. "What is it, Keth, tell me! Please! What's wrong!?"
Kethriel talked slowly, laying the details out for himself as much as for Sonic. "Robotnik doesn't care about Mobitropolis, about kings and queens and classes and people," he explained, "He's playing a different game. He's taken control of the military and he already has the seven Chaos Emeralds. He's pulled the rug right out from under us all, and moved into checkmate without anyone even noticing. I should have seen this before..."
"What's going to happen, Keth?" Sonic asked, "What's he going to do?"
"He's a sociopath," Kethriel said again, "Hates Mobitropolis and everyone in it. That's what this is all about. He's not just going to robotize a few vagrants and labourers, he's going to drop from the sky and robotize everyone. Absolutely everyone. He's not starting a revolution at all, he's starting a war. He's going to destroy it all. And there's nothing we can do about it."
"Come on Keth, there has to be something!" Sonic insisted, "We can't just give up! We're still here! Remember what you said about purpose? There must be some reason we're still here, some reason we know all of this now. We must be meant to do something, there has to be something that will make a difference."
"He's all set to go," Kethriel replied, "The only thing anyone could do would be to attack the source... the secret weapon. But everything we know tells us that you can't fight this thing... from the outside." Colour returned to his face suddenly. "Sonic, that's it... you're a genius, kiddo!"
"Don't I know it," Sonic replied.
"Robotnik's next stop will be ARK," Kethriel explained, "I have to follow him, get inside the Egg and destroy it before it gets to Mobius."
"You? You mean, we."
Kethriel smiled and shook his head. "End of the line for you, kiddo. After everything I've put you through, I'm not going to ask you to follow me on a suicide mission."
"You're not asking me, I'm insisting."
"I'm not sure you really get the scope of the situation," Kethriel explained, "This probably won't be the kind of mission that the heroes come back from. The weapon has to be destroyed from the inside, in space. There's no taxi waiting to take us back home when we're done."
"I get that," Sonic replied, "I also get that this is my only real chance to do something meaningful. Robotnik held me in a glass prison and tortured me for years, I know more than anyone what a monster he is. If everyone has a purpose, like you say, then stopping Robotnik is mine. We can't do it without each other, together we have the means and the initiative to end this, and end it tonight. What do you say, Keth?"
Kethriel considered this, and with a noble nod he smiled and shook Sonic's hand, a crisp and honourable gesture. "So be it, Sonic," he said, "So be it. Let's save Mobitropolis."