Kenal's Legacy Written by: Adrian Tymes [Legal disclaimer: This story is based on characters created by SEGA and DiC Productions, as well as Sandra Nightweaver, Bookshire Draftwood, and Commander Packbell by David Pistone. Permission is granted to freely distribute this story, so long as: a: no recompense of financial value is received or given by the person who distributes the story, and b: the distributed copy is identical to the story as originally authored. In other words, don't sell it, and don't alter it. Copyright (c) 1998, all rights reserved, et cetera.] ****** Time: One year, minus five seconds, after a certain moment in Doomsday ****** "5..." Sonic held Sally tight. "4..." Bunnie laid her freshly deroboticized arm across Rotor's shoulders. "3..." Tails nudged a bulky statue into place, as Antoine raised his sword in salute. "2..." Snively, locked in a bedroom in the royal palace, raised his binoculars to observe the event. "1..." Two floating crystal boxes, one each for King Acorn and Ixis Nagus, swivelled their cameras to allow their Void-borne controllers to witness the event as Sonic's uncle, Sir Charles, observed from below them. "0!" Dulcy, whom Tails had talked into returning for the event, steadied her aim and let loose a wisp of fire. The flame ignited a row of fireworks, which set the sky ablaze with color in short order. Antoine turned briefly to watch the show, then looked back at Tails. "Are you sure this is being the spot?" Tails nodded. "This is where Kenal died." He looked at the sculpture of his friend. "Ask Nicole if you want to confirm the coordinates; I did. They got control of the spy satellites just in time to...to..." He broke down in tears. Antoine sheathed his sword, and hugged Tails. "Just in time to see you being a hero for all time. Kenal gave his life zat we might nevair have to face zis type of evil again. Don't evair forget what he wanted, even eef you should forget him. Zat way, hees death will not have been in vain." Not too far away, Sonic watched a crowd of revelers, lead by Bunnie and Rotor, begin to dance. "So, Sally, whatd'ya think? A party, every year, to celebrate the moment we kicked Robuttnik for good?" Sally leaned into Sonic's embrace, her face more serious than his enthusiastic grin. "Not just to celebrate, but to remember. I've been thinking about something Bunnie said. We *need* to remember this...us, and our future...so we will not allow this to happen. Never again." "And if it's an excuse to have a good time?" "Sonic!" She turned and stared, frowning, into his eyes. "That's not the point." "I know." He kissed her. "So?" "Ooh, why you...you..." "...are absolutely correct," Bookshire interrupted. "Consider, your majesty, that the people are more likely to celebrate this holiday if they want to do so. Mourning and remembering old wounds are not happy events, and there are few who genuinely wish to be unhappy most of the time." Sally glared at Bookshire, then sighed. "You're right, I suppose." Bookshire shrugged. "It was Sandra's observation. I just happen to believe it." Sandra stepped out of a shadow. "Hey, you, I just told you what happened when the Wolf Pack got overwhelmed burying their dead. You were the one who said, 'This is the same type of situation'." "Ah, there you are. Speaking of the Wolf Pack, have you had any luck finding them?" She took him by the arm and smiled. "They're burying their past, now. C'mon, this way." Sally shook her head as Sandra dragged him off. "Is it just me, or have those two been spending a lot of time together?" "Sandra and Bookshire?" Sonic blinked. "Well, I thought Bookshire said he was trying to get a history of the war together, while everyone still remembered exactly what happened. He was all over the place before Robotnik, and Sandra traveled Mobius afterwards. They've already got an overview written down." "I don't know. It seems like there's something more..." "Maybe there is, maybe there isn't." Sonic shrugged. "If it happens, it happens. I'm sure they'll invite us to the wedding. Speaking of which..." "Sonic, we've got several millions of deroboticizations to oversee. We've got an entire kingdom to rebuild. We still haven't decrypted all of Robotnik's databases yet, either the ones we downloaded from Robotropolis *or* the ones in his other bases. With all that and more, why do you keep nagging me to pick a date for the wedding?" "Because you asked me to." Before Sally could reply, a gray, feral wolf stalked by. "Sonic...that wolf almost looks roboticized." "Yeah, so?" "That's a non-sentient wolf. I thought we already freed them." "You're right. It looks like a forest wolf." The wolf stared at them, red eyes shining bright, then bolted for the shadows. Sonic shivered. "For a moment...that wolf almost reminded me of Packbell." "That thing? Packbell was humanoid." "I know, but..." "Sonic, Packbell is *dead*. He would have made a move by now if he'd survived. Forget about him." Sonic looked where the wolf had gone for a moment, then relaxed. "Ok, Sal. If you're sure." "I'm sure. We've won. Nothing can take that away from us. Only Snively could even try, and he's been sincere so far about wanting to reform. I guess hearing about Kenal's death made him snap." "Sal, Kenal brought him to us. He snapped when Kenal died, alright, but I don't think he took it well." "In any case, he's not trying to control Mobius any more. And about that wedding..." Sally smiled, draping herself seductively over Sonic. "How would you feel about having kids?" "Umm..." "Right now?" Sonic looked ready to faint, but managed to keep himself upright. Sally pulled a tablet from her vest. "With all I've been exposed to in the past year, the doctors aren't sure if I can have children, and the throne needs an heir. I was thinking of formally adopting Tails just in case. He's like a son to me anyway, and we still haven't been able to find his natural parents." "Err, well, I think..." He straightened up. "I think that's *his* decision, Sal, not mine. I mean, I won't object if he agrees, but I'm not going to push it on him. After all, you're adopting him, not me." "And perhaps you should not be the one to adopt him." Sally rolled her eyes, and looked over her shoulder at King Acorn's approaching box. "Father, I thought we already discussed this." Sonic blinked. "Discussed what?" "My father wants to adopt Tails as *his* son, so he'd be my brother." "And force you to treat him as an equal," King Acorn added. "From what I have seen of him, he is quite the young adult despite his physical age. More so already than even your future husband." Sonic opened his mouth to retort, but could come up with no words that would not denigrate someone he cared about. "See? Even he agrees." "I don't think that's agreement." Sally quickly kissed Sonic, using her mouth to close his. "But he's right. It is Tails' choice, in the end. Although, I think he'll agree with me if I offer to change his name." "What do you mean? His formal name is Miles Prower, so it will become Miles Prower Acorn." "Not if I officially change it to Tails Acorn. He hates the name 'Miles'." ****** The next morning, Snively woke to a knocking on his door. "Coming, sir!" He bolted out of bed, ran for the door in three steps, and threw it open in under two seconds. "'Sir'?" Sally looked as amused as she sounded. Snively blinked, then remembered where he was. "Sorry, Your Highness. Robotnik woke me up more than once, and he was always furious that I was not already..." Sally held up a hand to silence him. "I'm not Robotnik. And, please, call me Sally. I haven't used titles in over a decade, and I'm not comfortable with everyone..." She swept a hand towards the closest window. "...calling me 'Princess' and 'Your Majesty'. What's worse, some people are trying to come up with new titles, to celebrate my leading the Freedom Fighters. If you ever want to be left gasping for breath, I'm sure Nicole could give you a full list of my titles to recite. But, for now, please...even though we've never been friends, I would still appreciate it if you would just call me Sally." "Yes, Your..." Sally frowned. "...Sallyness." He smiled. She chuckled. "Ok, ok. I'm here because we've decided you can be trusted to go out and about. Under supervision, mind you; lose your escort and you'll wind up back here for at least a week." Snively looked around the lavishly decorated guest bedroom that had been his prison since the Freedom Fighters moved from Knothole to Mobitropolis. "Even a velvet birdcage is still a cage. Thank you for your trust, Sally. I would very much like to see the memorial Tails set up for our friend. Might I ask who is to be my escort?" "Nagus. You, personally, betrayed him under Robotnik when you exiled him, and you failed to bring him back in the brief period you controlled Robotropolis." "By the time I ruled, his body was already too acclimated to the Void. Bringing him back would have been fatal for him." "He does not think you knew that at the time." "I have not discussed the matter with any of my guards or visitors, and Packbell would not know this if I did not. How else could I have learned it?" "Maybe Kenal told you. In any case, we've agreed that Nagus has motive to keep an eye on you." "I hope he may also have motive to forgive me, someday." Sally smiled. "So do I, Snively. And I hope the rest of Mobius will, too. But that's your struggle. Come on, he's waiting for us. Oh, by the way, there is one event that I'd like you to attend, mainly because everyone else is going to be there anyway." "Another party, I assume. You realize you're in awfully high spirits today, don't you?" ****** "I do." "I do." As Sally predicted, everyone in Mobitropolis attended her wedding to Sonic. The applause when they kissed was felt as much as heard. Rosie swept a tear away as she watched the newlyweds stroll off, arm in arm, down the aisle. She had been mildly surprised when Sally asked her to marry them, but quickly agreed. The entire ceremony almost seemed to throw itself together, but there was an ample supply of newly deroboticized Mobians still in a celebratory mood, and Sally had asked for a simple ceremony so as to not to take too many resources away from the reconstruction. Less than a day after Sally and Sonic had decided to get married as soon as possible, the deed was done. Rosie had pushed herself to live long enough to see this day, and excused herself to take a rest as soon as the ceremony was over, not caring whether she woke up on Mobius or in heaven. Snively stayed near the edge of the festivities, more out of self-imposed exclusion than from any real animosity anyone still felt towards him. "This was the price Robotnik wanted Mobius to pay." Nagus's box turned towards Snively. "What price?" "Love, joy, happiness...Robotnik wanted everyone to trade those for his future." "Don't forget hate, sadness, and anger. He would, eventually, have gotten rid of all emotions. Except his own, of course." "I've seen enough of this. I doubt I'm going to get any marriage proposals today, so unless you've got something to do here, shall we go?" "Where to?" "How about Knothole? I only saw it briefly, towards the end, and then mostly from my cell. I'm curious to see how they lived. Even accounting for their determination, the Freedom Fighters came up with tricks and devices I thought were impossible without some kind of factory." "Sure. Climb on." Snively hesitantly lifted himself onto Nagus's box, which turned out to be a surprisingly sturdy mount. "Rotor overengineered these things, but if it is to be my body on Mobius, I suppose I should not complain. I just wish I could cast magic through it, but I can not cast through the portal, and the Void stops me from reaching through the portal." "Then we are more alike than I had thought." The box sped away from the festivities towards Knothole, significantly faster than Snively would have preferred, but slow enough for him to stay on the box. "How so?" "You have lost your magic. I have lost my armies, and my city. We both once controlled vast power, and now we are no stronger...frankly, we're slightly weaker...than the average Mobian." "Would you like to fix that?" "What?" "I said, 'would you like to fix that'? You're not powerless if you're resourceful, and I know a way that you, at least, could get your power back." "At what cost?" "Snively, Snively, Snively..." Nagus chuckled. "Do you really resent all that you once were? Have you changed that much?" "Yes." "Would you abandon your uncle if you could save him?" Snively blinked. "Julian is dead. They never found the body, but he could not have survived." "Yes he could." "How? He did not have your magic, to teleport out of the blast. Sonic ripped right through his hovercraft. He. Is. Dead." "He might not have had my magic, but you have access to some magic. Do you remember when you lost most of your hair?" "That was on the day Robotnik took over. Something fast and blue went by me. I'd swear it was Sonic if it happened ten years later." "It *was* Sonic. He and Sally traveled through time, once, to try to stop Robotnik from taking over. They failed badly enough to scare them away from any more time travel, but the means for others to try still exist. The Time Stones are your key. Sally buried them under her hut, and no one has yet removed them. You could save your uncle, Snively. Bring him here, where he would be powerless too, and force him to see the light you have embraced." "I doubt he would." "You could have a friend, again." "A...friend?" "You miss Kenal, don't you? You miss Robotnik too. Bring back Robotnik, and he could find a way to restore Kenal." "Kenal? He could...he COULD, couldn't he? Uncle Julian could invent anything!" By this point, Snively was beginning to cry. "That's right. Bring Robotnik here, and you'll get Kenal." "Wait...why don't I just go back and get Kenal?" "It's dangerous to interfere with history. Tails saw Kenal die. No one saw Robotnik die, or found his body. Maybe that is because Robotnik's body was not there to die? If so, you've already changed the past, Snively. Time demands that you will travel back to rescue Julian, because you already did." "Yes...yes, I'll do it! Oh, thank you Nagus! Thank you for showing me the way!" "You're welcome." Nagus chuckled to himself. When Sonic killed Robotnik, he deprived the wizard of his personal revenge against the cyborg warlord. Sonic would undoubtedly bring down Robotnik again, but this time, Nagus could at least watch...and, maybe, find a way to break free of the Void before then, so he could personally destroy Robotnik. ****** Robotnik snarled as he piloted his personal hoverbot away from his rapidly deteriorating Doomsday Machine. The factory where he made life-destroying, nearly invulnerable pods had somehow fallen to Sonic, and it was time to evacuate. He had left Snively to face the hedgehog alone, hoping that his worthless nephew would at least prove useful as a distraction to buy time for Robotnik's escape. So intent on flight was he, that he did not notice Snively appear until his nose was scratching Robotnik's mustache. "SNIVELY! How did you get on board?" "Oh, sir!" Snively hugged Robotnik tight, trying to piece the Time Stones together behind Robotnik's back. "I'm from the future. You died today. I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen." "Wha-" And then they were gone. Two seconds later, Sonic and Sally tore through a hoverbot that, judging by its size and color, could only have been Robotnik's personal transport. Both were going too fast to notice that the hoverbot was empty. ****** "-at?" Snively blinked, taking in their new surroundings. "Snively." Robotnik picked his nephew up by the throat, causing him to drop the Time Stones, then took a step forward to pin Snively to a tree, shattering and crushing the gems under his foot. "You had BETTER have a good reason for this." "S-sir! I told you, I came back from the future to save your life!" "Where, and when, are we, and how do we get back?" "The Great Forest, about one year from then, and we can't because you just demolished what I used." He gestured to the fragments peeking out from under Robotnik's foot. Robotnik contemptuously dropped Snively. "Bah. I should've known we were in the Great Forest, from this foul clean air. What is the status of Robotropolis?" "Destroyed." "So, with you in charge, they finally decided to leave their city as a smoking crater? I hope you got Sonic in the explosion." "No, sir. With *Packbell* in charge, the Freedom Fighters found and used your nanoformers. Mobitropolis has returned, and there was nothing I could do." Snively quickly got his bearings, parted some brush, and gestured to the capital of the Kingdom of Acorn. Robotnik was lucky that, with Snively having returned while the wedding party still in progress, no one but himself, his nephew, and Nagus heard his wail of despair. ****** Sally nearly glowed in the moonlit night. Nagus reporting that Snively had run off had been a minor disappointment, but today had secured her future. Sonic was now her husband, and Tails was her son. Rotor and Uncle Chuck - he seemed to bristle at much at 'Sir Charles' as Sally did at her titles - finally completed diagnostics on the deroboticizer they had assembled from Robotnik's own notes, and confirmed that these deroboticizations would never undo themselves. Nothing could possibly go wrong. She turned on her side to savor her husband's sleeping beauty, just in time to see a laser bolt strike him in the forehead. Instinctively, she stood up on their bed, head quickly tracking to where the bolt had come from. A laser rifle dropped from an open ventilation grate onto the floor, and a shadowed form crawled away. Survivalist instincts kicked in immediately: if Sonic was dead, Sonic was dead, but this threat was *not* getting away. She was in the ventilation shaft, following the form, within five seconds. A full minute later, she popped out of the shafts to an occupied launch pad. She examined the transport that was just taking off, trying to get a good look at its pilot... Her wail of despair woke up the entire palace. ****** Half an hour later, Bunnie found Sally in a bar, pouring drink after drink of concentrated booze for herself. "Sally-girl, there you are. We've been lookin' high and low for ya." "Ich no fair. Ichss jezz no fair!" Bunnie sat down next to Sally, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the stench of alcohol on her breath, and gently removed the bottle from her reach. "What's no fair?" Sally slammed down the last of what she had poured, grasped for the bottle, and looked in Bunnie's direction when she could not feel it. Bunnie gasped at the mess on Sally's face; to say she had been crying would be to say that, with all the trees overhead and nearby, Knothole needed raking every fall. "We work, an' we fight, fer 'leven yearsh, an' we finally think we won. Well, guessh wha'?" "What?" "We didn' do a sching! I mean, schure, we got Mob'tro'lis back, and the workerbots too, but 'botnik's jezt gonna take 'em all back from us!" "Sally, Robotnik's *dead*." "Oh, really?" Sally pounded her glass onto the bar so hard it shattered. Ignoring the glass shards that were quickly drawing blood, she continued, "Then how'd he zap Sonic jus' now?" "Say WHAT?" Sally winced. "No' sho loud, Bunnie. Ah'm tired o' fightin', tired of never knowing when we'll win, so tired..." She fainted into Bunnie's lap. Bunnie picked up her comatose friend, briefly wishing she still had her robot limbs' strength, and walked to the palace's infirmary. She already knew Sonic had been discovered with a laser burn after Sally's scream, so she was not surprised to see Bookshire tending to him when she arrived. He looked up as she came in. "Ah, Bunnie, you found her. Any idea what happened?" "She got drunk and cut herself, but only just now." "So, what caused her to scream?" Bunnie nodded to Sonic. "Is he gonna be alright? If not, we got big problems." "The laser we found was sabotaged. It appears to be what injured him, but he'll just wake up with a concussion. Thank goodness. If it had been at full power..." "He'd be in no shape to fight Robotnik," Bunnie finished. Bookshire froze. "We ran fingerprints. Snively fired this." "Sally says she saw Robotnik." "Security cameras recorded a two-person hoverbot taking off not too long ago, moments after someone got in. Robotnik must have been piloting it as a getaway vehicle." "Bookshire..." "Yes?" "It's starting all over again, isn't it? Somehow, Snively revived Robotnik, and..." "...and we'll stop them again. Our positions are reversed. They're on the run now. We're in control, and we won't lose Mobitropolis this time. We were resourceful enough to keep running when we had to. How long do you think Robotnik's legs can hold him up?" Bunnie's mounting panic derailed. "You know..." She chuckled. "...y'all got a point there. We just wait for him to run out o' steam, and pick him up." "Well, it's not quite that simple, but close. Now go to bed while I tend to these two. No one's in any condition to go after them right now, and Nicole's tracking them by satellite. Get some rest. We'll get them in the morning." ****** The next morning saw a grim war council assemble in the Acorns' throne room. Sonic and Sally, looking like glum parodies of monarchs with icepacks for crowns, studied the holographic map Nicole projected. All of the core Freedom Fighters were gathered, as were many of the pre-Robotnik Acorn military. With a significant effort, Sally willed her voice to work. "Ro...tor?" No one commented on the pain and upset evident in her cracked voice. No one had to. "We changed the access codes to all of Robotnik's former bases that we knew of. However, it seems he had some bases that weren't mentioned anywhere in the main computer network. This would not have been a problem, since they would've just remained idle and lost, but now the only list of where they are that we know of is in his head. There's no way of telling how much he's gotten hidden out there." Sally nodded. "We can't afford to send a whole army after him. As it is, we barely have enough people to get the hydroponics working before we starve. Going back to Knothole is not an option: the crop fields were ok for feeding refugees, but they're not nearly sufficient for all of Mobitropolis." Sally nodded. "At the same time, though, we can't let Robotnik go for too long. It'd take him years to rebuild his army, but if we just let him be for a month, he could come up with some nasty tricks. We have to retrieve him now." Sally nodded, and fell off her throne. Bunnie caught her. "Somehow, ah don't think she was listenin' too hard." Snores from Sally soon reinforced Bunnie's point. Sonic stood up, leaning on the arm of his throne for support. "There's only one way. I've brought him down before, and I can do it again easy now that he doesn't have his army. You heard Rotor; we can't afford to send a lot of people. Just me...and T2." Tails grinned. "I've already prepared a chase plane that's even faster than we are. It's a bit of a relic, but it'll do." Sonic took off his icepack. "Unless anyone can think of a better idea?" The room was silent. "Ok, then. Lead on, T2!" Sonic raced Tails out the door. The moment they were gone, Bunnie sighed. "Are y'all sure we had to trick 'em like this, Rotor?" Rotor nodded. "Those two would have gone no matter what. And I wasn't tricking them: Sonic and Tails can handle this, and we can't spare anyone else. You did put the tracer beacon on Tails' plane, and give him communicators to contact us, right?" "Of course. No matter where they run, they ain't runnin' from us." She grunted as she put Sally back on her throne. "So long as we c'n be sure they're ok, Sally-girl won't run after 'em...and we can't afford to lose her, too. Not right now." "I just hope he doesn't have any more secrets." Bunnie chuckled. "Sugar, unless he's got another Packbell stashed away somewhere, he's as good as gone with Sonic and Tails on his tail." ****** "Excellent work, Packbell." The red-eyed, robotic forest wolf nodded to Robotnik. "I was planning on striking back on my own. How on Mobius did you survive?" "Snively brought me back. The fool thought he could sabotage my plans, and force me to *surrender* to those miserable Freedom Fighters. I'll bet he didn't even kill Sonic like he said he would, despite firing a perfectly good laser rifle at Sonic. He probably didn't even see the camera chip I planted on his rifle, or the one I watched him sabotage our transport with. Tell me, how did you survive? Snively told me what happened over the past year, and I thought the nanoformers would have destroyed your backup bodies." "I kept this one in the prison, just in case, set to activate if it did not hear from me every few months. It would seem that this is my only remaining body." "You have not made more?" "This body is not the fastest. I only arrived and warmed up this base last night. I don't see Snively with you. I trust you disposed of him?" "I dispose of all traitors." Robotnik snatched a laser rifle from a passing SWATbot, and drilled a hole through Packbell's central AI processor. "Including those who betray my nephew." As Packbell's final incarnation collapsed, Robotnik surveyed the hidden base, and the army it contained. Toys, compared to the SWATbots, but these were all he could produce now. Not that it mattered, for their blades and bombs would rend flesh just as well as a laser. "Come after me, hedgehog. I know you'll try. And when you do..." He surveyed his forces again. Toys, one and all. "...we'll have some fun." A gust of wind whistled by outside. The sound of its passing bounced off the base's acoustics, becoming more and more animalistic, eventually merging with Robotnik's laugh and echoing back outside. It carried for miles, finally becoming something comprehensible at about the time it reached Home. All that could be heard was a primal laugh.