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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GREAT FOREST

Birds chirped in the trees as if it were the first day of Spring. Light filtered softly through the branches of the Great Forest canopy and warmed the face of a young hedgehog who had never slept so well for as long as he could remember.
A doe wandered in from the forest to inspect the goings on. Indeed, things were active in the young village as Mobians of every race and creed were milling about busily.
The blue hedgehog watched this from the entrance of the rather useless hut. Badly constructed as it was, it certainly beat out the prospect of another night in a city dumpster.
He was not a part of this. He was not an agent of any resistance force, and he did not wish to tie himself up in any kind of anarchist uprising from within the Kingdom of Acorn. He was a street rat, a homeless hedgehog, not a freedom fighter. As such, he quietly made his way to leave the village.
It was not so easy, however, as the rebels were a tight-knit group and he stood out like a bright blue beacon. He could feel the eyes scanning over him as he embarrassedly walked through a secluded path behind a line of huts. He felt about three inches tall.
"Hey, hey there," somebody said, "Hello? Hello?"
The hedgehog stopped and turned. He hadn't noticed that he had almost rudely walked past two other hedgehogs. There was a male and a female, neither very much older than he himself was, the male had red-brown spines and the female's were almost pink. The male had an amused expression, his mouth half-cocked into a boyish grin.
"Hi," the blue hedgehog replied, giving a half-hearted wave.
"You going somewhere pretty soon?" the amused stranger asked, "I mean, no offense to you or anything, but it'd be a mighty shame if you just went back to the city and ratted us out to the first SWAT that twisted your arm. Not that I think you would, but I'm more optimistic than most folks around here. What's your name?"
There was an uncomfortable silence. "My name?"
"Yeah, well I'd like a formal introduction to the kid who saved our agent, if that's all right."
It took him a moment to realise that the stranger was talking about him. "Oh, uh, well, I don't have a name," he replied dumbly, and cringed in embarrassment.
The stranger gave his amused grin again, and elbowed the girl next to him. She chuckled and gave him a playful shove. "Be nice, Keth."
"Well, Great Nameless One," he said, and he stretched his hand out to the other, "I'm Kethriel Rosethorne, this is my sister Amy."
"Call me Amy, or Rose," she added, "Either's fine."
The blue hedgehog stared at the hand for an elongated period, before taking it in his and giving it a weak shake. "Are you the leader here?"
"Well, kind of," Kethriel replied, "Actually I'm just Special Ops, but everyone comes to me anyway when our real leader isn't here, which is actually most of the time."
"Who's your real leader?"
"Can't tell you," the other hedgehog replied. He spoke quickly and with many stumbles and errors in his speech, words which he repeated until he got correct. He seemed strangely over-enthusiastic and good humoured. "You have to have level three clearance in Knothole security to know who the leader is. I can tell you, though, that the leader is a mole in the Mobitropolis parliament, and the leader has access to a lot of information that most of us never would otherwise, but the information that the leader can't get has to be achieved through Special Operations." He didn't breathe as he talked, and took a deep breath now. "And actually that's what I wanted to talk to you about, uh, guy. Slick pulled off a major hack yesterday, I hear he got a lot of urgent information that would've been lost if you hadn't been there in time."
The hedgehog sighed and looked around uneasily. "I helped him," he said, "Not because I'm any kind of rebel, I don't really know why I did it."
"Oh, we're not rebels either," Kethriel insisted, "We're the loyalists. Here, why don't you have some breakfast with us? We don't have any bacon and eggs, I'm afraid, just cereal, but I'd love to talk to you some more." His expression was friendly, his eyes locked and persuasive. The blue hedgehog didn't know why, but he relented and agreed to the invitiation, although he remained wary about what he was getting into.

"So, tell me about yourself."
The hedgehog was hungrier than he had thought. It was amazing how the eyes and the stomach seemed intrinsically connected around mealtime, and the very sight of food was enough to change the gut's opinion on things. He began to respond between spoons full of the sugary cereal, but the miscommunication between his hand and his mouth ended it in a choke. Kethriel held back a chuckle at this. "Hey, easy there."
"What do you mean?" the blue hedgehog asked.
"Well, you can tell a lot from a name, that's what I always say. But you haven't given me a name... which arguably tells me more than a name could, anyway. But humour me, where do you come from? Where are you going? In life, I mean. Where is your life taking you?"
"Nowhere," was the reply, "Somewhere. I dunno. I live in a bin."
Kethriel smiled at this, but it wasn't a humoured smile, it was the smile of somebody who knows more than they let on. "So," he said, "The hedgehog with no name, who comes from nowhere, goes nowhere, and lives nowhere of any great import. Un camino en el desierto. You remind me so much of myself it's scary."
"Hey you- what? No, you don't know what it's like, living on the street, feeding off what people throw away. You live here, eating cereal in the morning, with a roof over your head. You have this village to run. You have purpose."
That smile again. "Interesting," Kethriel replied, and had a spoonful of cereal. "You think this is purpose? Telling people what to do, processing information?" He spoke with his mouth full, like a child with bad table manners, and it appeared quite comical.
"Well, you're a leader, you lead people around, you get things done in the world," the other hedgehog replied, "I just do what I need to survive."
"Assuring your survival, then, for... what? A future without purpose? Doesn't that feel like flogging a dead horse? Like asking questions in a letter?"
"Are you asking if I ever feel like ending it all?"
"Not really... goodness no, nothing so morbid. Forgive me, I'm just making conversation." Kethriel had another spoonful, and then there was a moment of silence. The blue hedgehog took to stirring the milk in his bowl; the cereal was gone, and he felt it was bad manners to pick up the bowl and slurp it down. To his shock, Kethriel picked up his own bowl and began gulping, and having finished it off in mere moments, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and let out a loud belch.
"Geez, Keth," came the voice of Amy from another room, "Company manners please, bro."
The guest lost his appetite and pushed his own bowl aside.
"But you know," Kethriel said, "For a nobody without a purpose, you certainly have an interesting gift."
"What do you mean?" asked the other hedgehog.
"Your speed," Kethriel replied, making his fingers walk across the table, "I've heard that you run faster than anything anybody has ever seen. It just seems strange that nature would impart such a gift upon somebody if not to apply a purpose."
"It's useless though. I mean, for anything except stealing from people, which I hate. Doesn't sound like purpose to me, it sounds like more of a drain."
"Of course. But you have to wonder, now. Apply the situation of my agent, running through Mobitropolis with all those robots on his tail. He runs into somebody else, somebody with no talent at all, just an average schmuck. Now, Slick is good at what he does, but no mobian is an island. Without any help, he gets caught and let's face it probably killed, and without his particular talents our movement falls apart and by the end of the week we're all dead. From this angle it sure seems like you had a purpose out there yesterday."
"Maybe. I dunno," the blue hedgehog sighed in a mildly frustrated way, "I don't know what you're trying to say. I don't see your point."
"Oh, no point," Kethriel replied, "Not really. I go on and on sometimes. I guess if you needed me to sum it up for you, the closest thing I could say is that nobody does anything alone. Our lives all fit together like a big complicated jigsaw puzzle. If that wasn't true, then nobody would have a purpose at all. Either nobody does, or everybody does. I prefer to believe the latter."
At this point, Amy entered the room, a smile on her face. "My brother has been bothering you with his pseudo-intellectual horsecrap, I can see it in your eyes."
"Oh come on, Ames, I'm just making conversation," Kethriel replied, and gave her a playful nudge, "You're closer to the kid's age, I guess you're anxious to talk about video games and pop music."
Amy snorted, "Yeah, you're really old and wise, you're a regular prophet." She turned to the blue hedgehog with one cocked eyebrow. "So he's, what, two years older than me and he thinks he's an oracle."
This made the guest laugh. For some reason, Amy's presence seemed to break the tension, and he hoped she'd stay to mediate. Thankfully, she pulled up a chair, and that alone made the conversation significantly easier.

"So, what's this all about?" the blue hedgehog asked, "Purpose or not, if something's threatening my life, I want to know about it. Is it really that bad?"
Kethriel cleared his throat and put two fingers over his mouth for a moment, as if trying to figure out what he could safely reveal, or to pinpoint a mess of explanation into an exact reply. Finally, he clasped his hands together and spoke.
"There are a lot of people," he said, "Who think that Prince Martin Acorn is going to be the one who leads Mobitropolis into a golden age. They think that he will restore the monarchy to its former glory, and lead the people into the prosperity of the old times, the way it was before all this ultra-technological nonsense. I don't know him personally, but I've learned from certain people who do, and from what I do know, I doubt he has a lot of prosperity for the people in mind. There's a lot of talk in the palace, and although nobody would dare make it public, the rumour is that King Acorn intends to rethink his legacy and pass the throne to his daughter instead."
"Huh?" the blue hedgehog interrupted, "Why?"
"Nobody is entirely sure," Kethriel replied, "Father's intuition? Something in Martin's personality that only a parent could see? Either way, those in the know say that Martin is a little too keen on that throne. We discussed purpose earlier... Martin has very different ideas about purpose. It seems that his opinion of people like you and myself is that we are little more than excess waste, like redundant words in a sentence that could be made a lot clearer... if the kingdom was rid of all the unnecessary afterthoughts of society, then it would be more streamlined and more focused on the important task of making him a lot more comfortable."
"I'm not sure I get it..." the blue hedgehog admitted.
"A city without useless people," Amy clarified.
"That's right," Kethriel said, "A land of leaders without followers. Purpose without product, perpetual service to the government. The rumour is that Martin is so desperate to get the throne that he'll go to any insane length to do it... even if that means making his claim prematurely."
"That's the coup that Slick mentioned."
Kethriel nodded. "Now, there are some things that we know for certain. Other things are just speculation. What we do know for sure is that Project Mobitropolis is a cover operation, a big lie that only a few are privy to. What we don't know, is what it's a cover for, exactly. We do know that Prince Martin is involved in a few disturbing extra-curricular activities with the Science Minister, Robotnik. What we need to find out now is precisely what those activities are. There are a lot of possibilities being thrown around, the one that troubles me the most is the one involving nanotechnology."
"The robotizer," the guest murmered.
"Right again," Kethriel replied, and narrowed his eyes. "That's the problem with Slick, he's great at gathering intelligence, but not so great at bottling it up. Still, I guess it would all have been explained to you sooner or later. Martin seems to fancy the idea of robotization - purpose in a can, if you will. The easiest way to make robots out of the masses is... well, to quite literally make robots out of the masses. See, the strangest thing about this is that Prince Martin is notoriously revolted by robots, so his support for this project would seem to suggest that he's been coaxed into it by another, somebody with both the ability and the authority to pull something like this off. That's where Robotnik comes into it."
A chill went down the blue hedgehog's spine. "So that's it then. Prince Martin is planning to robotize the entire lower class of Mobitropolis, and have them serve drinks in the palace. How did you find out all this stuff?"
"Well, as I said, our contact is very close to the inner workings of the government," said Kethriel, "It was our contact who formed this group. Most of us used to be civil servants, myself included. Others are elites specifically chosen, very hush-hush. Like you for example."
The guest laughed. "I'm not an elite."
Kethriel cocked a smile and glanced at his sister. "We'll see."

"What are we doing out here?" the blue hedgehog asked, more than a little frustration showing in his tone from Kethriel's vagueness. The older hedgehog had been leading him for a while, through the village and out into a large clearing, not quite large enough to be called a savanna, but nevertheless an uncommon opening in the usually crowded canopy of the Great Forest. Kethriel had brought with him an apple, but he hadn't eaten it.
"Just something I wanted to show you," Kethriel replied, "You see, I- HEY HEADS UP!!" Suddenly and without more than a moment's warning, he spun around and hurled the apple at the other hedgehog with all the skill of a baseball pitcher. The target let out a short yelp and caught it before it bounced off his forehead. After a moment to gather his senses, he looked down at the shiny green fruit in his hands.
"Wow, nice catch," Kethriel said, and clapped his hands a few times.
"Is that why you brought me out here?" the other hedgehog snapped sharply, "Baseball?"
"No, nothing so pleasant, I'm afraid," Kethriel replied, and his expression hardened. Suddenly, he didn't seem quite so inviting, and the other found himself wishing they weren't so alone. Kethriel was staring at him, an unreadable, ponderous expression on his face.
"I'm afraid," he said, "That you know too much." He held up something that he had been concealing behind his back, and his companion saw that it was a pistol. Something terrifying occurred to him in a split second, something which nevertheless seemed to make perfect sense in the context of the situation.
Kethriel intended to execute him.
As the red-brown hedgehog fired the weapon, which shot bright red force beams through the air with a crackling buzz, his victim let out a panicking scream and jumped around in a disorganized mess of jerking reactions, ducking and weaving and almost falling over. It occurred to him that his attacker was laughing, and his fear turned to fury. In his defence, he launched himself at Kethriel, whose laughter cut off in a startled shout. The two hedgehogs landed in a heap, Kethriel still chuckling and the other with a face turning red and teeth bared.
"Whoa, whoa, hey!" Kethriel exclaimed, "Hey settle down, it's just a toy replica! This thing couldn't even hurt an insect!" To demonstrate, he turned the weapon on himself and shot himself point-blank in the temple. He recoiled slightly, but the beam splashed off his head harmlessly. "Ow... well okay, I guess it does hurt a little."
The other hedgehog pulled himself to his feet, grunting, angry and embarrassed. "What did you do that for?" he demanded.
"Had to see for myself," Kethriel replied, "We use these things in combat training. They're harmless, but they emulate the weapons that the SWAT-bots use. These beams travel about three times faster than a bullet. Usually, you have to be already moving when they fire at you, and even then it's almost impossible to avoid them unless you're well trained. What you just did, I've never seen anybody else do in my time at Knothole. I fired on you standing still, and you dodged it."
"Yeah, so?"
"I mean, you're fast, kid. I mean you're really, really fast. You moved like a dancing monkey during a drug overdose, but it was so quick it was almost supersonic."
Kethriel continued talking, but the blue hedgehog couldn't hear him anymore.
The clearing had darkened, suddenly and swiftly, like the sun itself was eclipsed. He wasn't standing anymore, he was running. Running for his life, because there were ghosts behind him, and they wouldn't stop until they had destroyed him.
Was this a dream? Or was this a reality? All he knew was that the memories had hit him so fast and so hard that it was impossible to discern the past from the present. All he knew was that Kethriel was gone, replaced by a ghost, and the ghost was screaming out his name, and that name was so familiar that it was almost a joke that he couldn't recall it.
".....so quick it was almost supersonic....."
The ghosts' voices echoed in his head. Now he wasn't running anymore, the ghosts were carrying him. He was flat on his back, unable to move. His eyes cracked open to see the lights in the ceiling, a recurring pattern of hypnotic fluorescent circles like flying discs. The ghosts were chattering away, chattering away, chattering away, all simultaniously and in indecipherable languages. His head was beginning to throb with pain, his mind desperately trying to prevent these repressed memories from seeping through.
The light was back.
The clearing had returned.
The hedgehog was still on his back, but now he could feel the grass tickling him as he lay there. Kethriel was kneeling over him, shaking him gently. "Kid? Kid? Are you all right?"
The blue hedgehog looked up at his host as one looks at a stranger. He opened his mouth to answer, but only said one thing.
"My name is Sonic."
He passed out.

Mobitropolis was a clean city, but if one only scratched a little at the shining exterior, it could reveal the much darker, filthier core that marred its beauty, a flaw hidden from the world as a child hides his mess in the closet.
Every city has this. You will never find a photograph of it in a travel brochure; the idea of an ideal city is one without this tarnished interior, but it occurs naturally, just as there is no light without darkness.
This darkness, however, was more of a problem. It was not a benign side-effect of the modern world, rather a cancer, a malignant tumour, the residue of a disease. Everybody felt it, but it did not exist to the extent that anybody really noticed it. You could feel it when you saw the Prince's shallow smile, you could feel it when you saw the dark robots painted in glossy police uniforms, you could feel it when you saw the public cheering the launch of another shuttle, perhaps while having their pockets picked by stealthy street thieves. Things were good to the untrained eye. Things were very good - but they felt so wrong.
It was darkest in Robotnik's laboritory. It was noticed visually, as the lights were dimmed to serve the professor's more photosensitive experiments, but it was also a feeling. Difficult to explain in words, but nevertheless present, as some depth of a Mobian's psyche seemed to register somehow that all was not right with this place.
Robotnik himself worked away at a project with all the patience and reason of a boy with a hobby. Hammering, welding, soldering, shaping... Of all the products his mind produced, this was the only project he personally worked on these days. This was not another clone from the assembly line, this was a personal effort. The doctor was putting his soul into this one, this was a special exception.
He put the welding tool down and turned off its flame, lifting his visor with the other hand. His artwork was taking shape, now. He picked up the claw and admired it. Four iron spike fingers hung limply but jaggedly from a dull, flaccid metal wrist. It was like a puppet's arm, some dark marionette. Robotnik placed it in a box and locked it away with uncharacteristic loving care.

Sonic.
The blue hedgehog said it again and again, aloud, getting used to the feel. It seemed like slipping into a favourite pair of shoes, and finding that they still fit.
Sonic. My name is Sonic.
He sat cross-legged on the pile of cloth that comprised his bed in the temporary village of Knothole. Why was he called Sonic? That wasn't a name, it was an adjective. He tried to dig deeper into his memories, but they were as elusive as the remenants of a dream.
Night had fallen, and the mosquitos were attacking him. He could hear the crackling of several fires outside, and considered sitting near one of them.
At this point, Kethriel poked his head into the shelter. "Hey there," he said, "Want something to eat?"
"Heck yeah," Sonic replied, "Where do I go?"
"Actually I'd like you to come to dinner with me and meet the operations council," was the reply, "We're discussing a lot of things, and one of them is you."
"The operations council?" Sonic asked, "Sounds like something you can only be in if you're important."
Kethriel smiled "Well, that's the good thing about being in charge. I can invite anyone I like to dinner, and nobody can say a wretched thing to stop me." He laughed, "No, seriously, it's okay. They'd like to meet you."

The operations council met in the most stable construction in the entire village. It was an enormous tent, covered in leaves and camoflage patterns, held up by a forest of metal poles. The entire thing was easily collapsable, assumedly so that in the event of some kind of raid, it could be packed up with the rest of the village and either destroyed or taken somewhere else. The interior was lit by gas lanterns on poles, and four people were milling about, dishing up food. Kethriel left Sonic at the doorway and met the closest counciller, greeting him with a short hug, and they all began casually socialising as they sat down at the round, wooden table where the food had been freshly served. Sonic recognised one of the council as Slick, the weasil he had rescued from the SWAT-bots in Mobitropolis.
Kethriel turned back to Sonic for a moment. "Come on in, sit down," he invited, and Sonic reluctantly agreed.
Everybody began to dig into the food, which was a modest meal, far from a feast. There was a low quality ham and some vegetables. Sonic didn't care, he was hungry, and it looked better than what the other villagers were eating.
"Sonic," Kethriel began, "This is the operations council... we call ourselves the Freedom Fighters, in light of the situation. Slick, you've already met. He's the computer analyst."
"I prefer the term 'hacker'," Slick interrupted, not looking up from his plate as he shovelled food into his mouth.
"Then there's Rotor, mechanics and security," Kethriel added, motioning to a slightly overweight walrus. Rotor looked up and smiled, offering a half-hearted wave. Kethriel continued by introducing Bunnie Rabbit, stealth and espionage, and an armadillo named Rockfall, whose specialty was referred to as tactics, which probably had something to do with gunfighting.
"Quite a team," Sonic commented.
"Heck yeah!" Slick exclaimed, "We are the team! From Mobitropolis to Arack, nobody outshines us!" This sentiment was answered by a lot of whooping and loud agreeance from the other Freedom Fighters, a few of whom gave each other high-fives. The group was obviously very close, which made Sonic feel a little like a third wheel.
"You're lucky, there's a seat for you," Kethriel said, "Our leader is back at the palace tonight."
"Who is he?" Sonic asked.
Kethriel just shook his head. "You're not ready to know yet, I'm afraid. That is to say, I don't think there's any danger in you knowing, but my friends might not agree with me."
"It's a security issue," Bunnie added. She spoke with a heavy Southasian accent. "You understand, don't you sugar-hog?"
"Sure," Sonic replied.
"So you're the kid with amnesia, right?" Rotor asked, "You can't remember anything?"
"Not really, no. I remember about two years back from now, but after that, it's all a blank."
"You get a bump on the head or something?" Bunnie asked - her accent made it difficult to discern what she was saying, but Sonic thought he could get the hang of it.
"No," he said, "I mean, I don't think so. It wasn't a sudden thing, like waking up one morning and not knowing where you are or who you are. I think I just did the same thing I've always done, day in day out, and one day it kind of struck me that my entire past had faded out of my head, just gone. You know, by the time I actually met other people, It'd been so long anybody had talked to me that I couldn't even remember my own name. It came back to me today - I'm Sonic."
"That was a pretty bad turn you took," Kethriel said, "You passed out so long I was ready to go and find a doctor."
"Yeah well this guy sure seemed pretty supersonic back there in Mobitropolis," Slick added, and he reached over for a second helping of food, "I mean, wow, that was awesome."
"So you keep saying," Kethriel replied, "Which is why I would like to make a bold suggestion.
Rotor laughed. "You make a lot of bold suggestions!"
"Well, call it intuition. Maybe I just have an eye for special talents. I'd like to send Sonic as fourth agent on tomorrow's operation."
The table fell silent. Everybody had stopped eating. Sonic's fork was halfway to his mouth, which hung open as his eyes passed from one Freedom Fighter to the other.
"Be serious," Rockfall insisted, speaking for the first time, "I mean, no offense to the kid, but we haven't known him more than fifteen minutes."
Kethriel nodded, "Well, that's what tonight is for. You'll get to know him."
Rockfall was diligent, "I trained for months to get a place in this unit. We all did. None of us are amatuers in any sense of the word."
There was a short silence. Sonic's face was reddening, he had no idea that anything like this would be suggested, but he felt like a co-conspiritor. Before he could speak out, Kethriel began to speak.
"I believe now what I have believed for months now," he said, "I believe that this week, things are going down. This week is crunch time, the rebellion has silently been moving the pieces for an entire decade, setting up the battlefield, and sometime this week they will move for a clean and uneventful checkmate. We have to block the king now, or forever hold our peace. There is nothing I would like more than to mould Sonic in the usual three months training, but we don't have three months. We don't have three days, we don't even have one. Every hour is crucial from now on."
"But you're more trained than all of us combined!" Rotor said, "If we need a fourth agent, why don't you come?"
Kethriel shook his head. "You and I both know that all the training in the world wouldn't bring me even close to having what Sonic has. His skills are very raw, but they're abundant. That's exactly what we need for a swift operation tomorrow. Time is our worst enemy right now, and who better to pull off a swift operation than the swiftest person in the world?"
The table was silent, but accepting. There was nervousness in the air, but Kethriel had clearly made a kind of sense that nobody could rebut.
"It's true, you know, I've seen it," Slick admitted, "I've never seen anything like that in my life."
"I'll give you one thing, Keth," Rotor added, "You've never been wrong, not in all the time I've been here. So I for one don't see any reason not to trust you again. Sonic, it'll be an honour to have you on the team."
"That's great," Sonic replied, "I mean, that's totally killer, except that I have absolutely no idea what the heck I've just been roped into."
"The operation," Slick replied, and his voice betrayed a tone of excitement, "The operation that everything has been building up to ever since we've been here. Operation. Information. Retrieval." The last three words were accentuated by Slick pointing his finger on every word.
"You're going in," Kethriel continued, "Jacking into Ivo Robotnik's personal computer network, getting anything you can about Project Mobitropolis, then getting the heck out of there. Quick."
Sonic chuckled, "Oh yeah? How is Robotnik going to let you into his personal computer network?"
"That's where I come in," Slick replied, and he reclined and cracked his knuckles. "Yesterday, when you ran me out of the city. You know what you were really rescuing? This." He pointed to his forehead. "Head full of codes. You see, I have a talent too, just like you. I'm quick. Only my talent is all up here. Photographic memory. Get me near a computer system, within two minutes I can have its most protected secrets downloaded into my brain."
"Thay call him the walking computer," Bunnie interrupted, "I call him the talking computer."
"Pay no attention to those who mock me," Slick quipped, "All the rumours are true. Yesterday I jacked in and filled my head with all of Robotnik's most private passwords, and tomorrow I'm going back to use them. Your job is to get my delicious brain into Robotnik's mainframe, alive."
"It's a little more complicated than that," Kethriel said, "You're sneaking into the center of the palace, which will be swarming with robots and the toughest security the city has to offer. The information you're looking for isn't on any open government network, it's a closed system, Robotnik's personal files. You have to get all the way into his laboritory this time. If anybody is caught, or even seen, it might threaten our entire movement. If they know we know something, they'll change their whole plan and render everything we learn tomorrow as useless."
"Tense," Sonic said.
"Yes," Rockfall replied, "Very. Not something for amatuers."
"I want you to wipe away any feelings of distrust you might have tonight," Kethriel said, "Distrust is poison. We are a team, all of us, whether we're going in tomorrow or not, whether we have experience or not. Sonic, you understand that I would never, ever give you any task that I didn't trust your ability to do."
"But you don't know me," Sonic replied, "How can you trust me when you don't even know me?"
"I do, though. I've seen what you can do, and I've seen that it isn't just a series of flukes. If there's anything I've come to learn, it's that a single day is more than enough time to judge a person's ability, provided you get to see into their true heart. And I'm pretty sure I have. So tonight, we prepare."

They did prepare, that night. It was the night that came to define the next week of Sonic's life. His sleep that night was dreamless.