****************************************************************************** Hello everyone, well here it is my Sonic story. Though I would like to tell you before you read it that there are a few things I didn't like, for one Sonic didn't speak enough, and the story couldn't be modified to give him big scenes. :-( But, the rest of the story is pretty good, so READ on. ****************************************************************************** Bugs: What the hell do you mean bugs, this is a text file, you can't have bugs in a text file! ;-) 1) Will not display if motherboard is immersed in 1 or more litres of water. 2) Still has some linedefs that cause the HOM effect. (Bugfix soon!) 3) Won't be able to get the STH, TTF or STS if playing on Deathmatress. :( 4) Altogether won't run on a 286 when Windoze in in enhanced mode. :((( 5) Will not work if less than 16Kb of memory is installed on your system. 6) Will not work without controller card or graphics card. 7) Is not compatible with 40X25 Mode. (V1.12! coming soon!) 8) Will not run under Windoze when in an OaSis/2 session. 9) Requires you have a keyboard installed. 10) No support for sPAS-16+ yet, (Does anybody actually support it?) ****************************************************************************** Sonic the Hedgehog and other associated characters are based on the creations of Service and Games (Sega), Archie Comic Publications, and the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons (Saturday morning issue) created by DIC and Sega of America. Additional characters that appear are the original creations of their respective authors (characters indexed by author): David Pistone: Packbell David Pistone: Bookshire Draftwood ****************************************************************************** All the copyright text, "Sonic .. and other.. bla bla bla" was ripped from Sean Wolski's "Evolution of a Predator", you should read his "Temporal Syndrome" I think it is brilliant! P.S. I'm lame for ripping copyright text.. ;-) Shawn did you get the E-mail I sent you, or does my Email all really vanish into the NO CARRIER void? The answer there is obvious -- it does! Just a thought, if you're not getting it, and I'm not getting it back, who's getting it--King Acorn? [HIYA ACO!] ****************************************************************************** If you want to compliment me, send me hate mail, fax your DNA strings, upload your conscience, download my conscience, or want my dogs DNA structure then you can contact me at: ablater@lin01.global.co.za Please note: If your DNA strings grow into an evil clone of you that takes on the world, and/or succeeds at it, I will not be held responsible, if the DNA cells mutate to form some new sort of species, it will be to my judgement whether I'll accept the credits for it or not. If you feel so emotionally controlled by this story, or are unable to think straight anymore because of a lot of *sad* stories, why not email me some moron-mail (MAIL-PLEADING), I'm sure I'll respond.. I love Moron-Mail(TM)! Format for moron-mail would be: >From : Whoever@wherever.whatever.something To : ablater@lin01.global.co.za Subject: Whoohaaay Moron Mail! Attach : Megapics.zip/Megasong.zip[Or anything you may feel the need to give!] Whooohaaay! Simon, I was like in the cyberhood.. when I gripped this gribing adress and decided to bla bla bla bla Cheers Whoevers_callsign [Dumb comment] .. >Insert humourous tagline here< ****************************************************************************** Other junk.. The GR, CALA, GMM, Jonathan Righter, Marken Psantis, the Cinz race, Kate, Craig, GRB-I, and GRB-II are all copyrighted by me.. Please don't write any further stories about them, as this will most probably be their last occurence in this storyline. (That's why Jonathan gets killed. Killed you ask? Well, read on and find out!) ****************************************************************************** RL10- Tortured Freedom by Simon Howes ****************************************************************************** "The universe is so dark and evil" Jonathan Righter thought to himself that night as he stood in the communications room, staring out at the stars. "And" he added, "..so unpredictable.." It was the Earth year 1997, though he was standing amass technology so advanced that it would take his homeworld some one and a half thousand years to achieve it. He smirked as a ship raced by in the void outside the huge three meter perspex window of the base he was on. This was GRB-II, "Guardians of the Reality, base two.." Though it was based on GRB-I it had a few major revisions. For instance this was a starbase, while the original was a planetary base, this base was outfitted with shields, had fifty-eight fighter ships, two-hundred and ninety six weapons turrets, four thousand seven hundred and fifty three warheads onboard, was outfitted with a main weapon capable of tearing a small moon in half, and could detect a ship all the way across the galaxy. Yep, the GR didn't want a repeat of GRB-I to occur, he dropped his eyes. That evening four years ago was still locked in his brain, and haunted his dreams. Back then he was still a rooky, flying small missions to all parts of the universe. Nothing really big or exciting ever really happened, until on one return flight he came back to the smoldering remains of what the Cinz had left of his base. There were few survivors, from a group of six-hundred only a dozen remained. He'd sworn revenge, heading back to a bar in RL8, finally the truth dawned on him. The Cinz yolk now ruled the universe, and those who supported the GR were rebels. "So be it", he said, joining up with others sharing his view, they made a suicidal attack run on the Epsilon Mysadness system. An attack that went down in history as the day the rebels became the law. Not long after that , he came into a confrontation with the Cinz emperor, Mmmammaris. And in a cold battle of bitter revenge he drove a shard of crystal through it's heart. Before the last drop of blood had fallen, the dying emperor had a chance to hurt once more. "By CALA, we will be victorious!" And with that he died, striking a blow to the human's heart that could never be healed. A blow that drove him on further, made him cold, even at times as evil as the Cinz in the quest for revenge. Once he had found a Cinz nursery, and destroyed it--with little regard for emotion and in an atire that would make Mmmammaris himself shirk. He coldly destroyed Cinz ships feeling no pain, nor gaining no pleasure from it. He ravaged Cinz planets, throwing every weapon at his power down on them below, coldly killing the empire. His weapon accuracy was so high from the killing of the 116 he personally had overseen, that he could take a leaf out at a range of three hundred meters with his pistol, and there was more.. he seeked them out wherever they hid, no matter who they were, peacefull or hostile. To him, if they were Cinz.. they were his responsibilty. At times they even begged for mercy, mercy that he delivered quickly, coldly and effectively--with super-ionized gas. Yet, this was not him, his friends always knew his as a caring, soft, honourable person. The same person who had titled the RL god "Cala" seven years ago. "Computerised Advanced Linear Accelarator", extremely crude and very far off, and he was the only one who knew that, everyone else used the name without ever knowing what it meant. But he knew CALA was a computer, it's logics unknown, and it's boards forever hidden. It was a moderator, it chopped and spliced situations with it's particle tools. It could make madmen out of hydrogen and flesh out of dust. In it's own way.. it was a god. And like a god, it had it's own stars, it's own worlds and realities--this very area of space he was now in was dubbed RL8. Which stood for "reality- level eight" A place of high technology that even when removed from 'Cala-space' would remain functioning. The other realities all had their own odd attributes, depending on the involvement "Cala" had in them, the lower the reality level. In reality level one, you might find yourself stretching lakes around, like in some mad cartoon, while in Rl9, life was very much 'Real.' RL10, was called the untouched reality, this included Earth, and all areas of space Cala didn't control. Whether Cala left them, or couldn't control them it would never be known. He glared out into the void, one of those stars out there somewhere was Sol, his home system. It's exact spacial co-ordinates he would never know, after all he travelled to and from Earth via a gateway.. or the science-fiction classic a port'al. He turned his head to get more of a view, so many stars, but out of all of RL10, he knew of only one race.. the humans.. Whatever or whoever had built the moderator would never be known to him, "besides" he though, there were more important things to do--like cleaning the galaxy. ****************************************************************************** Time : 10:30 AM on GR base 2 ****************************************************************************** "Damn", he shouted out, "damnit all to hell", where have those suckering low swine run to this time, Jonathan slammed the one metre radar screen as if though it would reveal where the Cinz ship had so suddenly disappeared to. Marken, his partner and friend, also from RL10, who had joined him in the service of protecting the realities after he had proven their existence to him in late 1990, was unable to think of anything to calm his friend down with. This case was indeed very rare, and the concept of a ship just vanishing of a sub-space radar was indeed odd.. in fact, it was almost impossible. Jon whirled around to face Craig, the super genius, almost super human, brain of the GR. "Explanation.. if you please, has our antenna dropped off" He found himself wondering about peering outside to see if it really had, though, they would have been informed by the computer had that really happened. Craig gave a blank stare for a moment, his mind racing through all the possibilities, but carefully selecting the most likely. He was from RL9, a place of human dominance and incredible technology, also, amazingly a place that including RL8 was scientifically compatible with RL10, meaning anything built there could be ported to RL10, and used without the need for CALA to emulate it. Whereas a RL3 flying machine would probably explode before you could throttle it enough for takeoff. Finally, he stopped, nodded his head attracting Jonathan's attention, collected his thoughts for a moment then began. "The most likely possibility is that their ship headed out of CALA's range, or as such into RL10 space." Then he walked over to the monitor and began explaining, " after all, they were at the furthest in the sector I have ever known a ship to be in, and as you already established to us three years ago, CALA throws ships at the border of CALA RL's at lease fifteen light years away. If you think about it, it's a kind of protection system really isn't it?" He glanced back up at the two partners, "I'll bet, that if anything came too close to the borders from outside, CALA would toss them just past the border at the other side, making our place in space eternally hidden." Jonathan looked blankly up at him, stunned, he could see it now, Earth, his homeworld shattered by Cinz ships, houses burning, the smell of human flesh only too common.. "Earth, they may find Earth, we have to stop them!" Craig reasuringly looked back up at him, trying his best to comfort him, "Jon your universe is many times larger than ours, with so many combinations of possibilities that the chances of them ever finding your homeworld would so minimal that.." But Jonathan was already running, with Marken tagging behind him, he squeezed out as he dashed.. "Now or ever, my first loyalty is always to my reality!" Fifteen minutes later, their ship was spewing it's fiery plasma out as it blazed to it's jump position, then instantly, as the gravity fields, those from nearby stars, and those from his jump drive overlapped one another, his ship was gone, slingshotted at a speed not capable of being measured, not by light at least, into the great beyond of realspace. ****************************************************************************** Time : 19:00 on the Planet Mobius ****************************************************************************** Robotnik was annoyed again, and nothing he had access to could relieve it, already he had beaten a few of his earlier model robots into scrap metal with an iron bar.. However the only result of this was that he had damaged his wrist and was in fact now even more irratated. To make matters worse he had a cold, something that he had not thought he could get on this planet, apparently the Mobian virus had mutated to be compatible with one of the very few of his species on the planet that it would effect - him. "Suck all the atmosphere away", he mumbled to himself, a plan which he wished he had initially followed, it was too late now however, as his factories had need for that air. Had he only not been so arrogant to assume he could have taken Mobius without any difficulties, he would be free of that blue pest now. A sick though came to his mind, the hedgehog lying all bloated from the effects of the vacuum, an evil smile crossed his face. Even with all the mechanics latched onto his body, he still retained his ability to have dreams. The door behind him shooshed open, a metallic drone of a service 'bot, he had once designed, echoed out to him. "..Sir..is..there..anything..I..can..get ..for..you.." He pushed the button on his chair and reeled round to face the bulk of junk, "actually there is something, I would like one hedgehog, on a plate." The baffled droid responded, "I..am..very..sorry..sir..your..order..cannot.. be..completed..now..as..I..have..no..ingredients..of..type..hedgehog.." He interrupted it, with a short question, "why not?" The droid, reeled for a moment to adjust it's servos that were slipping under it's own weight. "..sir..you..either..robotized..or..killed..all..hedgehogs.. we..have..ever..had....except..for..one..that.." He didn't want to hear anymore about Sonic, "Destroy yourself" he dictated. And the droid tore itself to pieces with it's own servos, but from it he gained little pleasure, just the stopping of that terrible word that haunted his days and destroyed his factories by night. ****************************************************************************** Time 19:30 Mobius Time, aboard the Cinz Ship "Eternal Victory" ****************************************************************************** Commander Myponda of the Cinz Ship "Eternal Victory", stood proudly on the bridge, he talked over the plan again, it was good to hear success, and even if they had to repeat it to him a hundred times, he would still never get over that tingling feeling of a soon to come victory. After all he was a Cinz warrior, one of the Elite. Victory, success and chivalry reined in every particle of his blood. Sub captain Myroda, spoke to him, like all honourable Cinz pilots, he had changed his name to begin with an "M" when he had gained his high rank, "M" a sign of incredible honour.. "Sir, those GR fools cannot stop us now, and.." he tensed his mandible in a sign of pride, honour and success, "I was right about sending that probe out nine months ago, for it has succesfully found life on a nice planet. Safe in truespace from those GR fools, we will be able to build up the ultimate armada there, then sweep back and show them what real power entails. " "Excellent, but one thing, what life is there on this planet?" Myroda laughed, "our scanners have shown only factories, run by machines, and maybe one or two humans, but, these factories are built to make droids!" Myponda reeled his neck backwards and forwards , the custom way for a high ranking officer like himself to show his happiness. But there was more, "also, sir, forest makes up twenty percent of the planets land mass.. TWENTY PERCENT SIR!" Myponda smiled," well, that will speed up the process of making it preferable to our needs." He stopped for a moment, then dictated to Amaropolis, "Have the biological pods prepared for launch, we'll have need for them after we purge the planet of the inferior life that inhabits it." The Cinz could best be described as "Psycho Gardners", anybody who knew a Cinz would tell you that they LOVED nature, after all, it was part of their honour. Unfortunatly, this honour also said something about the Cinz being the rulers of all creatures, sentient, non-sentient, silicon and plant. So, while they would really fix up the eco-system of a planet they took, their was a slight problem for you if you were not a Cinz yourself. Though, the Cinz were not cruel, they would give you two choices, instant painless death, or retro-engineering (A process in which sentient beings were made non-sentient.) However the GR really didn't like this at all, after all only 4% of their members were Cinz. They crew laughed as their ship neared a few hours at full speed to what they believed would be their new home. ****************************************************************************** 23:00 Aboard GR Fighter of Jonathan Righter, GR Base 2 Time ****************************************************************************** Marken and Jonathan sped through space at the fastest speed their ship could effectively go, they had passed into RL10 just seconds ago, but their speed still held solid.. "Made in 8" joked Marken as they passed through into ten without tearing into pieces.. Marken targetted a ship some fourteen million blips away, then typing some jargon on the keyboard predicted it's destination.. A planet somewhere in a constellation they may have never seen, he fiddled a bit more, and a jerky wireframe image of a spherical planet came onscreen. Slowly data on it began being calculated, spin time, 20-30 hours, atmosphere type, "life planet". Jonathan rubbed the gun he carried on him, then whispered softly, "Earth, they are going for Earth.. intolerable, for which they must be punished..." ****************************************************************************** Time 20:30 Mobius ****************************************************************************** Tails was lying in bed looking up at the stars, Bookshire had told him that every star, however small it was, probably had planets the size of Mobius revolving around it. It was hard to consider this, they seemed so small, even to him, so far, they would never be reachable. Then something caught his eye, in a constellation he knew only too well by it's shape, there was a new star. An odd star, not flickering like the others, but staying permanently bright, it couldn't have been a sattelite, he had seen plenty of them, smoothly moving across the sky, doing their evil jobs for Robotnik.. Perhaps it was a planet, but, it didn't really matter now, as he drifted off to sleep, feeling secure with his friends. Unknown to him a ship of mass destruction bore down on their little world. Outside Sonic was chuckling to Sally about the new nets that they had installed.. he concluded finally as the laughter began dying down, "Yeah, it sure was nice of old Robuttnik to lend us all those nets.." Nets all across the forest had beed repositioned by Sonic, and when the droids went scouting in the morning to see what they had brought them, they would be quite amazed.. with any luck Robotnik himself would step in one, that and the cold would put him on an all time low. ****************************************************************************** Time 8:30 Aboard Cinz Ship (Mobius Time) ****************************************************************************** They all looked down on the blue planet, Yes, this would be their new home, the gunners locked weapons on the factories, already fifteen sites had been selected, upon firing, all artificial power sources on Mobius would be shut down. One of sites included a pond, the commanders sneered, did the fools really think they could hide a power source like that.. in a pond, how ridiculous! The ship locked it's weapons, dropped their shields, and began loading and arming thermonuclear torpedoes for launch. ****************************************************************************** Time 8:32 Mobius ****************************************************************************** Tails had noticed that the star he had seen the night before was still there, only bigger and brighter than before. Grabbing his binoculars he flew up into a tall tree to get a better look. Was it a planet? The fox's mind boggled at the possibilities, then, all at once he realised, it was moving! Flying from tree to tree to get a better look at it, he gradually headed farther and farther away from the village. ****************************************************************************** Time 8:50 Mobius ****************************************************************************** Myponda looked over the controls, "Okay, open the hatches!" An adlib voice echoed. "OPEN!" Then he smiled, "Check final launch statistics" "CHECK!" He reeled back in morbid desire, "Fire!" Suddenly there was almighty explosion, Myroda, Myponda, the crew and all fifteen armed thermonuclear torpedoes turned to vapour. They had paid the price for being arrogant, in failing to raise shields or monitor their radars, Jonathan and Marken had brought their small ship to bear on them, firing a single missile. Now, where the "Eternal Victory" had sat proudly just a few minutes ago, a rapidly expanding show of ionized gas entertained the dead. Jonathan's craft sped on rapidly through this gas, an unfortunate result of inertia. The shield monitors jittered as the occasional piece of debris ablated against the blue aura two meters away from the ship. A clanging resonated through the hull as a huge piece of inactive structure puffed through the shield, impacted up against the main viewport and fore antenna. The perspex window cracked, hissing as the atmosphere tried to normalise. The debri, shuddered as it bounced up and went scraping back across the top of the hull, tearing cables, antenni and top mounted units of all kinds into the eternal residence it was promised. Systems aboard went haywire, the little fighter plummeted towards the blue-green planet below. On contacting the atmosphere, the collision with air particles and the fact that shields were inoperative (the generator floating around a few kilometers away), caused the GR ship to temporarily become a ball of fire. In the heat, systems began to malfunction, the main plasma engine imploded, sending super ionized gas throughout the ship. For a microsecond, as it streamed just over his body, the thought of eternal danger raced in Jonathan, seconds later, there was no trace of him or his friend, save a burning comet falling to earth. An awestruck Tails watched the display, and excitedly flew towards where the ball of fire was heading. ****************************************************************************** Time 10:30 Mobius ****************************************************************************** He had flown as fast as he possibly could to get to the crash site in time, but, by the time it was actually in view, Tails saw it was crawling with droids. He abruptly stopped, sat on a branch in a tree and tried to work out what they were doing. Through the binoculars he could see them scavenging the mutilated flesh of machinery that manifested as the engines just minutes before. Then, as one of the 'bots removed a glowing orb from it, he leaned forwards to get a better view. All of a sudden, the new vectors acting on the branch he was on overcame the weight threshhold, it snapped, and in an instant he was laying on the floor. The fall had not in fact been fatal, his mass combined with the softness of the leaves below reduced most of the impact, leaving him only slightly stunned. But the noise had been sufficient to arouse the droids attention, two of them raced towards him, frantically he stood up, disoriently running for a clearing where he would be able to take off from, not more than meters away. The droids servos thrashed behind him as their tracks cracked over leaves and threw up dust. The clearing was less than two meters now, he began spinning his tails, and then suddenly there was an immense amount of upward lift. But, it was not his, his tails had not even began to produce enough lift to get him airborne yet, and he was now hanging in one of the net's Sonic and he had moved around to play havoc with the droids. ****************************************************************************** Time 11:30 Mobius ****************************************************************************** Jonathan stood stunned and shocked on a small hill amongst the grasslands, alongside him Marken brushed his fingers through his hair, trying to keep his normal cool collected image. "Well, I guess 'auto teleport out' was made in RL8 or we would be so wasted now, kinda like those toasties you make." He laughed, but his counterpart couldn't bring himself to share in the humour, lost in shock and thought he stared off towards the blue horizon. This annoyed Marken, he didn't like people who kept to themselves. They reminded him too much of how he used to be, before he'd created his new image. Now, everyone believed he was an open person, and in a way, this is what he was. If anything bothered him, he would disguise it in a joke and post it.. Instant removal of problems. Finally Jon' rotated his head, he slowly spoke, his voice trembling from the shock he had had, "we should have died, it was only luck that saved us, do you realise that?" Pausing for a moment to allow his rhetorical question to detonate he continued "I only just had enough energy to teleport out, if we had been just a few hundred meters away..." his throat closed up, choked by the harsh brutality of reality, he was unable even to make eye-contact, fearing the pressure around his eyes would relieve itself. He was a man, he would not expose himself as being like that. Marken mused, "but, hey, we had a brill pilot.. we were never in danger, hey, he intended to do that!" His friend smiled at his joke, but the joke-maker himself did not. There had been plenty of times in his life that he'd cheated death... The attack run on Barotis, if it hadn't been for that silicon wonder planted in his head he would be just another gas cloud so common to Cinz space. Ah, the "device" as they called it, a wonder of RL8's scientific community. It basically was a body management system, but to any normal person, you might as well call it magic, as the electronics inside it were so complex that Magic was close to what it was. It supplied a whole series of features each one responding differently to what RL the user was in. Yes, the device demonstrated once more their dependance on it, as far back as he could remember ever since that device was implanted there had never been a day he hadn't used it. After all, that was impossible, since it dynamically overlayed text on his vision, displayed menus of options, played back video clips, stored data errorlessly on his brain, and gave him abilities ranging from an external shield to a database on recipes. But all this didn't matter right now, his friend was far too shocked to do much, so the first move would be his. Removing a radio from his belt he tried to call Paxis (their Earth connection), naturally, due to the fact this was not Earth (even though they assumed it was), there was no connection at all. He played around with it for a while, but in the end decided that it had to do with them being at such a remote location. This didn't really worry him, encouragingly he spoke his thoughts out loud in hope of inspiring his friend. "Well, this stupid hill-billy land doesn't seem to have any sattelites.. So, I guess we'd better just use a phone." He obtained the desired effect, Jonathan looked up, then in a recharge of will he burst out, "yes, let's find and borrow some nice swedish farmers phone." Marken looked at him funny, "Geesh, your geographies not very good is it.. I'm telling you, this is Scotland, look at the hills.." They chattered on about their ineffectiveness at being human as they passed by a rather furry tree and up into the forest. A few seconds later the tree shook as princess Sally dropped out of it, she had been on lookout, when suddenly they had seemed to pop out of nowhere. Spies - Robotniks spies, for sure, she'd seen them transmitting information to him, pointing, planning, then heading off to scout out the forest. As she ran towards the forest to warn her allies, she reminded herself to keep a better eye out in future.. ****************************************************************************** Time 12:00 Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** Robotnik's mood had taken a swing for the better, the blue hedgehog was not going to be meddling with his plans in future, not if he valued his little friends life. Tails hung in a cage suspended from the ceiling, occasionly making feeble threats about how Sonic would render bodily harm to him. But to Robotnik, there was no immediate danger, for the cage that he had crafted had a series of preserving features built in. For one, it was made out of solid titanium, no hedgehog would be cutting through it--ever . Secondly, there was no doors or locks, the only movable part in it was the base which snapped on to the bars, each one acting as a padlock. Finally, and this one he really liked, the only way it could be opened was by a code known only to him, any other numerical combination he had told Tails would cause a small nuclear device housed in the base to detonate. Though this wasn't the truth, he preferred not to have easily activated nuclear weapons in his near proximity, it served to further tighten the rope that he would strangle the blue blurr and his friends with. "Yes" he mumbled to himself, today was going to be a good day, he had configured a trap that there was no escape from, at least not any method concievable to him.. ****************************************************************************** Time 12:30 Mobius Forest ****************************************************************************** For an hour now they had been walking, the forest seemed to eternally drag on, making their quest seem all that harder. Marken kept up his encouraging views of life, making jokes about everything Jonathan could possibly say. Jonathan now had given in to the irratation, and simply took the bad jokes with the eternal journey. Every now and again though he would make a comment in vain attempt to make the babbling torture less by changing the subject. "Mark, we must be miles away from any civilisation" he burst in a hyperbolic tone, "where on Earth are we, the Australian wastelands?" Like a automatic weapon his friend spat out long streams of fiery replies and bad jokes. "Come on, we must be near to something, have you seen any animals around?" Jonathan hadn't thought about that, these woods were as deserted as his cupboard on the day before payday, his mind wondered into long thought about the enviroment they were wasting so badly on his home planet. But his loss in thought was not tolerable to Marken, who's constant streams of text once again revived his mind from the pit of serenity. "Just follow the smell of pollution Jon. There's carbon monoxide not far off, trust me, my senses are better than.. than .. than.. Well, whatever, but believe me, I notice everything, see everything, smell everything and sometimes I even.." Almost as in response to his boasting, an unnoticed trap they had sprung now levitated them in a net about fifty centimeters above the ground. Marken quickly appended a line to his boasts. "See, told you I would find civilization!" Jonathan couldn't help laughing at the sheer will his buddy had. "Great Mark, now next time, let me do the navigation", he pointed to the dirty chimneys spewing out smoke across the valley. Suddenly however their attention span was pricked by a group of creature not very native to Earth, standing assertively around them. Jonathan for a moment was shocked, "Psantis, I thought we were in RL10?" A blank stare from his colleague showed that his thoughts were indeed not altogether unique. He looked at the "device's" overlay, as it confirmed they were in true space. In awe he tried every test that his little onbrain computer had to offer, each time being slapped in the face by the same answer- RL 10.. Marken however had already began to initiate communications, whether it was RL10 or RL3, it was all reality to him. "Uh hi, I'm Marken Psantis from.." His speech was cut short as one of the leaders of the biased crowd stepped forward and terminated it by begining his own. "Well looky what the hedgehog dragged in, two of Robuttniks monkeys.." The crowd made happy laughs and sarcastic comments, all of which Marken didn't exactly catch. He didn't like this potentialy explosive situation, mistaken identity can be humourous.. at times.. this was not one of them. And looking at those splines the blue hedgehog masqueraded one thought came to mind - impalation. He tapped his shocked comrade on the arm, trying to suggest that he take over but whether he was busy running diagnostics or just plain scared, he did nothing. Next, the net delivered them into the merciless hands of the crowd, and ropes from all around bound the two next to one another. All the way round, right down to their knees. Then, with a hasty push, the crown maneuvered them off towards the unknown. Jonathan, didn't like this situation at all, if they were in RL10, and this was Earth, some world-wide constitutions had sure changed since he was last here. If this wasn't Earth, they were in more trouble than he had ever imagined.. trapped without ships, lights years away from ANYTHING.. anything but this. Something was hurting him as it rubbed up against his side, he strained under the ropes to try and move it. Upon contacting it, he realised all at once what it was ... his pistol! Squeezing his hand to all flexible limits he forced it onto the trigger. Then the party stopped, the blue hedgehog came forward and began speaking to them, whatever he said, neither of the GR men heard. Marken was trying to get reasonable grasp on the situation to build up a rescuing speech. Jonathan was trying to find the power/safety button on his pistol. Sonic looked at the pitifull servants of Robotniks, squirming, trying not to look suspicious the blondehead was consumed in his attempt to escape. Sonic walked over to him and jabbed him in the side, shocked, he looked at him. His comrade started up, "Excuse me Mr Hedgeporcupinepersonniceguyswhostoonicetoconsiderimpalingme, but uum, what planet are we on.." Sonic was baffled, why did they want to know something like that, he was about to answer when suddenly a high pitched tone rapidly increasing it's frequency emmanated from under the ropes. In a burst of light a loud explosion of gas answered the whining, the rope around Jonathan exploded. People screamed, diving behind trees to avoid crossing the path of that weapon. As they did, fate revealed the grim testament of what plasma can do to flesh, Jonathan's right leg was morbidly trimmed, the flesh on his thigh stripped away. He screamed and realed back, gun harmlessly pointing towards the sky. To Sonic that was the only opening he needed, thrusting forward he was suddenly suprised by the lack of traction. By the time he had realised that Marken had plucked him up from the ground it was too late, something cold wrapped around his neck - sending a chill down through his body. He desperately tried to struggle, his power being clipped by the luminous-pink restrainer collar. Marken quickly evaluated the situation, took the gun off his friend and held it to his captives head. "Look, everyone.." his voice uncertain, "we don't want any trouble, now.. we're just going to take a little walk off somewhere, and if you are all good, we'll.. we'll just drop off your friend.. OK?" But there was no reponse, so he added his own, "Ok, Ok, so it's cool, we're just going to drift back off down here. Ok? And.. nothing's going to happen because we're all cool.. Right? Yeah.. Ok?" Jonathan gained support by leaning on his shoulder as they hopped off backwards into the trees. After a few meters they came to a path. Mark dropped Sonic, slipping his hand round the collar, increasing the power, slowly until his captive was too deep in sleep to cause further complications. ****************************************************************************** Time 14:30 Mobius Forest ****************************************************************************** Jonathan groaned, the leg was a goner, he layed down between the bushes looking at the cooked meat. If only the gun had been a few centimeters further away, the "device" could have raised shields, if only HE had used the gun when they were hanging in the net. But no matter how much he regretted the situation, it would have no effect on it. They were in a world where humans were outlawed, a world from which there could be no possible escape. Even now, "the device" was running down on energy, soon, as the energy orbs situated on the inner of spine discharged, his limited special abilities would go with it. Starved of food and without allies they would die on this planet, just like Craig had always said: "you will die in RL10." Marken Psantis looked over his injured friend and partner, despite his advanced medical training, there was no way he could make flesh out of air, morphing would help, had they sufficient energy to "fusion morph" where nearby particles are converted into the required substance. But, they didn't, then energy required to even fuse hydrogen together was so high that only Cala alone could perform it. But, there were alternatives, "Jonathan, what if you transform into something smaller?" A horrified stare replied, "in RL10, do you realise what that would be like?" No, he had no idea.. so he let him continue. "While Cala simply lets us flash into another form, the RL8 morpher involves physical and emphasis on physical morphing... have you ever wondered what it feels like to have your spine collapse?" Mark, edged closer, "what other chances do we have", he pointed to the scorched leg, "anyhow, in a few days we won't get another chance.." Jonathan shifted on the floor, letting out a softened cry of agony.. "Well, I guess", turning his head away his voice began to tremble, "we have to do what we have to do.. right?" Mark continued hastily, "well, shall we do it then?" "No, we'll be vulnerable for hours, we take it in turns, if anything occurs, we protect one another or lead off the enemy.. OK?" Psantis stalled for a moment, "You go first.." pointing to his comrades leg. A chill ran down his spine, there was no way out, he selected the morph command, put up two-orbs for use, leaving the last one, then, "the device" gave him a list of rotating images, each one the creature he could try change into, he let "the device" select for him that which would be the most effective. The selected image flashed over his mind too quick for him to register what had been chosen, and then , a little dialog came up. Calculating internal paths.. The percent done slowly increased, every percent freezing his heart more, he stared at Mark. "Well, I guess this is it.. see you on the other side.." thirty-two percent. Marken smiled at him, "good luck.." Fourty-eight percent, the andrenalin gland that was soon to be rocked pumped out it's load under the "device's" orders.. Sixty-five percent, heart racing, Jonathan took a deep gulp. One hundred percent... For the few seconds the 'device' did it's last calculations, Jonathan gave a grim smile. Then he rolled forward, mouth hanging open, drooling from it as a loud gut wrenching snapping from his spine resounded, he dropped face down, tears streaking from his eyes. His leg made a crackling sound, and with an abrupt burst, blood flew up against the bushes as the bottom of the limb detatched itself. Marken grasped his hand, holding it reassuringly while the crackling noises of morphing bones like splintering wood continued. Standing on his knees, he tried the best he could to comfort his friend. Suddenly there was a shout from the distance, "There he is!" He rotated his exposed head around to see it, they had found him, and they were coming his way rapidly.. "Jonathan.." The bloodied body replied, "Go.. leave me.. save yourself.. " Mark couldn't, gripping his hand, he pleaded, "Jonathan.." But Jonathan had been given the mercy of the gods and did not respond, he looked back, they were closer now, then, he felt some of the weight taken off his hand... Clutched in his hand was a broken off part of his comrade, he knew what to do. Tears of sheer determination raced down his heart as he charged toward the oncoming. Several darts hit him, but his body kept on, his only goal to lead them away. As the drug in the darts touched his heart, his body pathetically thudded to the ground, his only consolation the rescue of his friend. For a moment he lay there, before darkness led him down a loomy passage. ****************************************************************************** Time 19:00 Mobius Forest ****************************************************************************** Apart from the white overlay from the 'device' and the little energy-low icon, the world was silent to Jonathan Righter. Lying on the floor, his eyes closed, his new body's skin fizzed as it completed the last part of the morph. His perception was static and chaos, the neurons in his brain not fully rerouted by the 'device' yet. He had come to the eye in the storm of chaos, disoriently he stood up, muscles moving incorrectly in spasms. He opened his eyes, a luminous bright image came to them, in the far-off distance some figure moved. He had to get away from this spot, storing it's coordinates, he stumbled forth, collapsing some meters away in a bush as the 'device' restarted it's configuring process. ****************************************************************************** Time 20:30 Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** "H.. h.. hh. he's awaking r..r..Robotni.. SIR!" "I hope so Snively.. for your sake." He opened his eyes, looking straight up at a metallic ceiling, around him shadowed forms stood, one less digital than the others. Tired but not beaten he started the ball rolling, "uh, where am I." A man trivially replied, "why in Robotropolis my boy.." "Robotropolis, damn, guess my cellphone won't work here.." Robotnik was not amused, he pulled Mark up by the collar quite surprising him with his strength, then burnt him with a dark stare. Mark panicked, "Yip, okay, I get the idea," scanning the room to avoid eye-contact. Robotnik held him there, allowing him to notice the plastic restrainer collar he had used earlier that day, cutting into his neck. The situation was getting critical, from what he could tell, this guy was the very very serious type. Choking now he spat out, "Ok, I see you want to speak, I seem to have a lot of time suddenly.. honest.. really.. you know once.." Robotnik jerked him, "you are the pilot right?" He nodded timidly, with a thump he was thrown back into the metallic arms of the droids. He caught a breath for a moment as the local threat fetched something from the bottom of the room. This allowed him to make a quick survey of the area, dark, full of monitors, hyraulic doors, control panels, an empty cage hanging from the roof. Mmm, cosy, basically a classic mad scientist who would.... Suddenly his thoughts were cut as Robotnik masqueraded a device looking something like an old SeaGRATE harddrive, "well, pilot, you are going to help me, you see there is a little a something I want off here.. " The ship's data backup unit flashed as it was rotated, then stepping closer and undoing the collar he smiled evily. "and you are going to help me get it.. " Marken looked at him for a moment, "uuhm, just one small point I would like to know.. That scientist..guy..person called you Robotnik earlier, and well, uum, you see the people that kinda nabbed me didn't seem to work for you.. So I was wondering, why am I here?" Robotnik walked over to the now-empty cage, he had exchanged the fox for the curiosity that killed the cat. When Sonic boasted he had a hostage he had immediatly become interested.. and what a surprise it was.. to have the pilot of a ship with unknown powers. He smiled at the pilot, "Well, let's say I did a trade. And I'm about to do another one.. considering I traded something valuable to save you from the free.. terrorists, you in exchange are going to give me information to build the weapons on your ship.." Marken stared amazed at him, this guy sure was evil, he probed a bit. "And what if I refuse?" Robotnik exploded "You ungratefull pest, I saved your life, and this is how you repay me?" He probed a bit deeper. "And what if I wanted something more?" The professor grew a grin, "I could gave you anything you want! I could build you a new ship.. I know you want that!" He smiled, "Sorry, no deal, a GR members life is worth less than a citizens in danger... and I don't see you using my ship's design for airshows!" Robotnik faced away, "No matter," he punched a button on the comms system, "Packbell, I need you to persuade someone up here.." ****************************************************************************** Time 00:30 GRB-II ****************************************************************************** The monitor continued to dictate death, "DTA LOST", Kate looked at Craig. "Damnit, we have to go after them, I just know something terrible has happened to them.. " Craig rotated his head to look at her, "Kate, I understand your anxiety, and that you believe you have the ability to sense happenings across the vacuum of space.. But you should relax, they have flown many missions, many of them to Earth before.. " Kate stopped him, "What if they're not on Earth, after all Paxis didn't hear anything about a crashing ship or a great space battle... Craig, what if they are lying on some alien ship somewhere, being played with by some evil Cinz soldier?" He could sense her emotion, but, he was the base commander, and a matter in truespace was no matter of his.. in fact.. losing a ship to true space could prove a rather embarassing situation. "Kate, we don't want to go jumping into affairs that are not our own, but, if by the end of the week we haven't heard anything, I personally will launch.. Okay?" He was good with people, she embraced him-- standard practice for a female human of her culture. ****************************************************************************** Time 21:00 Mobius Forest ****************************************************************************** Sonic and Sally sat side by side watching the slumbering fox that the scout party had brought back. Sleeping beauty, trapped in the realm of dreams. Bookshire after various examination concluded he had been drugged, though there was little proof to support this, but he could offer no other explanation. His temprature normal, heartbeat regular and breathing good, if by some weapon he had become stunned, it had left no trace -- there wasn't a sign of any trauma to his body, his furr unsinged, his skin unpunctured. Leaving only the possibility of poisoned food. And what a poison it must have been, nothing they had tried to rouse him had worked, not the three kilometers he was dragged back to Knothole base, nor the prodding, shaking or yelling. Now they had resorted to the last method known, wrapping him in blankets and leaving him to come out of his slumber to them. This was something neither Sonic nor Sally enjoyed. For Sonic it was the worst, minutes to him felt like an eternity, and nothing he could do would make it pass, his mind had long since passed wondering -- considering every thought he ever had. The war, the king, his friends, Robotnik.. and this very odd person. How would this smoothish-furred fox look when their was life in his eyes and motion in his limbs? What type of person was he, what did he do? And what would he do when awake? Abruptly he stood up and paced over to the window, looking up at the stars, the little scene change altered his "prison-sentence" for a while, making it slightly shorter. He turned his head to look at his prosecutioner, the sleepy aura pulled him in, sooner or later, probably sooner he too would pass out. Princess Sally stared endlessly at the fox, it reminded her of someone, someone she had once known, many, many years ago. Though if it was him, had he not been killed or roboticised, age would have surely taken it's toll. And from his skin she could see age was an unpayed debt, as unpayed as Robotnik's deeds to the land, deeds that one day in maroon light and crimson reflection would be repayed.. with the same coldness he had issued them. But now was not a time to think, for whoever the fox was it would soon be answered, he groaned into life. Sally stood up-- too quickly, and had to wait a moment as her blood flow equalised, in the meantime however Sonic had not wasted any time at coming to his side. The fox groaned. Lifting an arm to his face he surveyed it, as if to make sure it was still there, as though he expected something different. He grasped his hand in the air then dropped it to his chest, sighed, took a deep breath, layed back and looked up. Sonic edged closer, alarming him, he jerked for a moment, closed his eyes for two seconds, opened them again and slowly began to speak, his voice golden and ambient like a warrior or a prince. "My name is Jonathan Righter, if I may enquire where am I?" Sonic started, "I'm Sonic, Sonic the hedgehog.." forcing in an answer, "and I don't think I could tell you where you are.. " carefully hiding any data. Sally paced over to him, "hello, Jonathan, don't worry, you're safe now." He flung his head over, causing them both to jump back in caution, then, slower this time turned his head up to face her. Mumbling softly and apologetically "uh sorry, umm, muscle spasm ..." The two freedom fighters edged closer, Sally braving to talk to him again. "What happened to you?" This time his voice a lot more wavering and uncollected he began his story. "Well, you see, I was walking along, and then.. uuuhm, well uuh.. actually I can't really remember much after that.... uuhm.. not much before it either, just lots of trees and some factory... and someone.. uuh I hope she's Okay.." Sonic rolled his eyes, this was the most generalised story he'd ever heard, and every moment it went on he trusted this... this outsider less. Sally however was paying a lot of detail to the points of it. "Where did she live?" He paused for a moment, then continued to toil with the thread, "uuh, um, well, all I really remember was this big room with her sitting across from me, on that greenish chair.. Now, what was that place called, geeesh, I'm sure it was the capitol.." Sally's eyes lit up, "Mobitropolis?" Again he stumbled around thoughts, "uuhm, not sure, uuh, but I would know her place if I saw it.." Sally extended an arm and patted him on the head, changing her voice to hide as much emotion as possible, slowing it, and rubbing his head, "Jonathan, if she lived in Mobotropolis... then .. there is a chance that.. the battle has caused.. the battle.. that she has lost to the battle.." He closed his eyes, letting out low moans, "No, what has happened.. why? What has become of .. of.. everything?" She hugged him softly, Sonic didn't like this at all, but he let her continue on about hope and losing people. It ended minutes later with them leaving him to sleep and silently closing the door, stepping out into the chilly fresh forest air. As they walked away from the hut Sonic began warning the princess about how he didn't trust him, and how they should keep an eye out, and Robotnik's agents. Inside the hut however Jonathan the Fox reopened his eyes. They were gone, for now the interrogation had ended, soon they would stop for good, either accepting or rejecting him -- he had seen it plenty of times before. He voted for the former, and with the 'Device' helping him it would be easy enough to convince them of his good intentions. A new line overlayed on his vision: "New PDB entry created." He smiled as the "device" did some more calculations, already he was beginning to know these people, as he gradually built up his "Personality Dictator Base" he would be able to predict them, even act like them. A sparkle of static overlayed his vision as the videoclip player reconfigured itself to the new architechture of his brain, it's luminous colours mutating until finally they made up an image. It was from the day, the lady... Sonic's friend who had been trying to soothe his "most unfortunate loss" was being compared to the personality she dictated earlier. Back then, as they hung in the net, she transmitted negative body language, asserting a level of leadership in the group. Obviously she was an absolute against this war she'd talked about, yet she still mantained a softer side.. Another PDB was created for Sonic, in a few moments he gathered up information on him. A leader, from what he had seen so far, also feeling strongly about the war, also some type of hero or a holder of a high morale/ego -- the way he said his name revealed it. From what he could tell, the hedgehog doubted him, and/or liked whoever she was.. which reminded him to ask her name next time he saw her. The 'device' added it immediatly to it's list of priorities, wonderfull little thing he thought. From the day he'd had it installed, after the 'accident' it had served him well, and it could continue to do so for another two years on the single orb that still retained it's charge. Within that time he would have to recharge it, not a critical issue, but something he could begin working on.. tomorrow. ****************************************************************************** Time 22:00 Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** Huge arcs of energy surged over his skin, enough energy to kill any other lifeform instantly with pain, but the "device" protected him from this by simply filtering any erratic signal going down his neural lines out. Marken looked across to Robotnik and Packbell, in his normal relaxed sarcastic voice he began to torture them. "Geesh, this is terrible, I''ve never been so bored in my life.. PLEEAAASE Stop..." Chuckling in humour he began to make horrid cracks about androids and drinking glasses of water. Commander Packbell was less than amused, this human was beginning to really annoy him. To make matters worse nothing they could do would hurt him, and it seemed that everything they tried only allowed him to torture them more. On an even worse note Robotnik was beginning to become destructive, and with him not being able to hurt the prisoner he would sooner or later begin on him -- a definate problem. He cranked the power up more, he could almost see the lights dim, this human was either mad or simply had no nervous lines. Mark smiled up at him and in an impersonation of Robotniks voice started again. "Carefull Packwell my boy, you'll shock yourself.." He cranked the power up again. The voltage reached such a high level that it found it easier to arc across to the android than pass through Mark. It struck him on the arm reeking havoc and chaos across his systems -- he strained for a a moment as servos went wild. Then with an heir of finality shut off the machine. Once again bringing the human back online. "Geesh, are you stupid or something, I warned you, but hell no! I'm a android, I'm so clever yeah... and you know, I'm not scared off anything.. Because I'm so damn clever.." Robotnik exploded, "roboticize him! I've had enough of it, just robotocise him.. NOW!" Packbell undid the straps, and pulled him up, once again he cracked another line, "Wow, have you heard of decaf out here? Geesh, You don't have cell-phones, you don't have decaf, what kind of stupid planet is this anyway?" Packbell didn't listen, he simply stuffed his hand into the humans offensive mouth and carried him down the hallway to the set of cylindrical tubes that layed dormant, just waiting for something to do. They stuffed him into one of these tubes, lowered the glass, and glared at him. The computer began it's boot sequence, powering up the giant capacitors that would be his fate. Inside the machine he gunned out comments like usual. Joking about Microsloth and Windoze and the computers they were using. Suddenly a giant beam came bearing down on him, but it never struck him, terminated by an energy shield not milimeters from his skin, the "device" showed it's ability once more. Abruptly the beam stopped and the computer echoed a message. LIFEFORM NOT DETECTED, ABORT, RETRY, FAIL ?> Mark Yelled at them, "What are you trying to do, just remember pops, if I go, you'll never get the designs you want.. and if you tamper with it too much there's a thermo.." Robotnik rudely interrupted, folding his hands together in front of him and pacing forward while grinning evily. "On the contrary my dear boy, I will have all secrets after you are my slave!" He pointed towards where the beam would have hit Mark, "and, while you may do your little tricks, they won't protect you forever.. Sooner or later, your power will run low, and then, then.. you will be MINE!" Mark reeled back, the "device" abruptly moved all data concerning reading the data recorder from his mind to it's own 7GB data storage where it would remain encrypted. In turn he began, "You'll never succeed, if your toy even touches me, some thrirty grams of plastic explosive in my mind will detonate, turning your stupid little fantasy of me as a slave into potato salad like Jonathan's mom used to make!" Though he knew this was not the truth -- there was no explosive, it was still partly true, the "device" had all the information concerning the SeaGrate drive now, and if he for some reason should come to the end of organic functioning, the "device" would fail to operate with the new systems. To top it, the encryption method it used for storing data was "shift bits and play tetris" also, the data was stored in 14bit bytes, and representations of human storage. Thus, even if they did decrypt it, only a human mind could read it, only a human mind like his had similar references to pockets of data. Any other human would get garbage.. it was significant only to his mind mapping. Robotnik turned away, "carry on Packbell.." Once more the beam flashed down on him, this time however the "device" was far better prepared. Having analysed the beam earlier it knew it's type -- electromagnetic. Two energy poles formed over his head, deflecting the beam, which refracted through the glass and passed just by Robotnik's head. Again Marken burst into comment, this time however far more worried. After all, he should have been, he could deflect the beam only so much longer before all the orbs lost their power. Right now he had only three of them left, the third one only semi-charged, it's true energy level unknown because of his incapability to test Silicon capacitors which kept their power constant until they ran completely out of energy. "Ok, I feel worried now, I'm willing to tell you how to use the drive, but.. only if you can sponsor me a ship to take me off this dumb planet.." He knew they wouldn't keep their promise, but hey, he wasn't about to keep his either. Robotnik waved his hand in a motion telling Packbell to cut off the robotocizer... The android then regained his grip on the human and carried him back to the main control centre. They sat him down in front of a computer. "There.." commanded Robotnik, "now, you will give me the information." Marken smiled, "certainly.. but.." he pointed to where a keyboard would normally be, "I would prefer an asci keyboard... please.." Suddenly he began shaking his head in small convulsions that soon became dominant all over his body as he fell backwards off the chair and smashed his skull against the floor. Packbell looked down at the crumpled-up pathetic malfunctioning human. "Apparently the 'persuaders' have had a most unforseen side-effect" Robotnik rolled his eyes as the convolsions ended and cross-faded into sleep. "Put him in my sick bay, and have two swat-bots guard the door. We'll see what we can extract in the morning...." Packbell siezed the body and headed towards the door when he was interrupted again, "Oh, and Packbell my boy, see about getting a keyboard.. " He nodded and passed out the door carrying the limp body. ****************************************************************************** Time 02:00 Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** Marken opened his eyes, he was quite amazed that his little program had actually worked, he wasn't one of those .. "coder guys" but, hey, he could also "grive" at that weird "funk." He stood up and took a look around, from what he could tell, he was in private quarters. This was definately not a cell, sure, it had barred windows, but how often do cells have air conditioning? Nice, a vent in the roof, possibly a good exitway, though it posed a problem as it was rather small. He would find it rather hard to squeeze through there while he was human... "Well Jonathan, looks like RL10 is about to lose another human, but, hey.. who better to become a furry than me.." he humoured himself as he selected "morph." Then he layed down on the floor, it had a nice blue carpet, too bad he would mess it up, well, maybe human blood would wash out of it.. A few moments later he wasn't all that concerned about it any more as he writhed in crackling agony. ****************************************************************************** Time 04:00 Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** Mark looked over the mess on the floor and up the walls, nope, cleaning this mess off would require a laser weapon. Too bad they hadn't heard of that fangled "new non-stick paint", but seeing that he wasn't going to be cleaning it, he looked up at the ceiling. Yups, this would be a real breeze, climb up into ventilation duct, destroy SeaGrate drive, exit via duct, steal ship and get off the planet. He wondered for a moment if his plan would allow him time to eat, as his stomach's contents had been ejected around there somewere, huh, too bad to let all that nutrition go to waste. He stepped forward but was stopped by a squishing noise, he looked down, amazingly the "device" had even scavenged enough material to give him some "smooth-smooth cool-cool" shoes.. or sneakers as the Americans called them, below them was some internal organ, he picked it up and looked at it for a moment wondering exactly what it was, maybe his liver, or spleen.. hmm. how extremely fascinating. Another pity he didn't have a jar to put it in, otherwise he would, the thought of bringing out a morbid bottle filled with inards every time someone ate curry REALLY appealed to him. He scaled the wall, and hanging upside down on the nicely textured ceiling, clambered towards the grating, after a bit of messing with it he finally opened it and clambered inside. Slamming it back down, a surge of pain went through him, of all things he had managed to close his tail in the grate. Cursing, he rectified the problem, then took a moment to observe this odd piece of cartlidge. "Great" he mumbled to himself "what in the hell am I? Some kind of Racoon? Geesh, as if it isn't enough trouble having a tie fall in your coffie.." Now he would be able to enjoy a whole series a interesting activities, including shutting his tail in car doors, getting his tail caught in elevator doors, getting shocked to hell when his tail picked up static electricity from persian carpets. Getting his tail stood on by someone wearing high heels! And finally his personal favourite, having his tail fall in his coffie. "Way to go Mark-han.. " he concluded as he scrambled off down the air-way. Eventually he arrived in a vent looking down into the control room, from what he could see Robotnik wasn't there. So, cautiously he removed the grating, lifted it above his head, dropped down, and let if fall back into place. On the floor he quickly scampered underneath a control panel, inside it had a metal overhang on which he sat. No sooner than he had become comfortable, the doors hissed open and Robotnik resumed his place in a chair not two meters away. >From Mark the Racoons point of view, this guy never slept, unlike him, even at that moment the power drain of morphing had begun to affect him. Repeatly in his mind he odered himself. "I will not fall asleep, I will not fall asleep.. I ... will not.. fall asleep.." then as his new body asserted itself " I will .. not snore.. while .. I sleep." In a few moments he was a warm bundle of slumber. ****************************************************************************** Time 08:00 Mobius ****************************************************************************** Jonathan was awaken by Sonic and his friend, who, he quickly found out was called "Princess Sally", they invited him to breakfeast, and he openly agreed.. after all he hadn't eaten for an entire day. At the table he was once more asked about his origin, this time however he was far more prepared and confident, he claimed that he knew little of where he came from, and that all he could remember were brief moments of his life... which he preferred not to think of. In turn he was told the story of Robotnik, the kingdom, the roboticizer, armada's of robots and evil plans. The whole time the "device" monitoring everyone, adding new personalities to his database. Because of this ability he was able to detect the negativity coming from the hedgehog. It seemed no matter what he did or said would change his mind, this brought to the top of his mind that sooner or later their would be a conflict in the group -- Something he would prefer to avoid if possible. ****************************************************************************** Time 08:00 Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** Marken was awakened by violent yelling, apparently Robotnik was having a little tiffy. "What do you mean.. he just exploded?" There was a type of wimpering as one of his subservients tried to explain. "Sir, take a .. look for yourself.." There was a metallic clang as something or somebody was thrown up against a wall, then a hiss as the door opened and someone walked out, and a type of subsiding wining softening slowly as it was dragged further away. Mark popped out of hiding, "alone at last" he looked around, yupsyipee, they're gone. Now, to do something about recharging. There was a type of metering device on wheels in the corner of the room. He dived at it. Setting it onto resistance he was amazed that both Earth and Mobius used Ohms. Then, plugging one probe into a hundred volt DC power supply, the other on his chest, and the power supply ground on his back, he began to maneuver them around. The resistance twitched, 6.3MOhms, he moved it a bit more, then suddenly, 0.2 MOhms. "Bing, one hundred volts point five amps, don't let me down now orbies.." he chuckled to himself. A few minutes later the resistance had risen back to normal, he moved the electrodes a bit, again the resistance dropped as another power hungry orb attained it's charge.. at this rate he would be fully charged in an hour. Suddenly with a hiss the control room doors opened, in waltzed a very peeved Robotnik, who fortunately didn't notice him. The racoon looked frantically for a hiding place, but there was none. Sooner or later he was going to be noticed, and he didn't want to stick around to see the consequences. Suddenly an image of the android appeared on a large VDU, he spoke with satisfaction in his voice. "Sir, the new Swat-bots will be quite effective at purging them from the planet. I have sent a sweep of them to the Great-Forest." The hairless rulers voice changed, "excellent.. carry on commander.. carry on.." With that the image collapsed in on itself. The last orb reached it's charge, causing the power supply to emmit an exposing beep, with it Robotnik rotated his chair. "Well, well, what have we here, a little freedom fighter.." His blood froze, but the "device" didn't, it issued a set of escape sequences to his suggestive mind. With it he grabbed a scanner off the table he was on, and threw it at the exposed circuits of a computer all the way on the other side of the room. The two collided with a spark, instantly the lights went out. He ran for the door, pushing the 'open' switch, then scuttled back past Robotnik in the dark. Robotnik dived out into the passage, screaming orders to his droids, "Find him, he can't have got far! Search every room on this floor and triple the patrols outside." Then a lot calmer.. "I have you now.." Marken resumed his position below the control panel while the search went on, the droids searching out every possible room, every possible hook, crack, pipe and shaft.. except for one place -- this room. Suddenly the doors hissed open, something or somebody entered, and then a voice he knew as "Packbell" resonated, "we've found him sir." There was a thud as some whimpering creature was dropped to the ground. The result, Robotnik detonated.. again.. "this is not him! Find him, and bring him back here!" The android responded by picking up the creature and heading for the door, Robotnik stopped him.. again. "You can leave him here.." The droid aknowledged and dropped the prisoner on the ground.. again. For a few moments there was a silence as the door hissed shut and Packbell moved off.. and for a few seconds afterwards the silence remained. Then finally Robotnik broke it with a calm, collected voice. "I find it difficult to deal with people when I don't know their name.." The creature paused, fear in the air. "b..b..b.Barney" Again there was a chilling silence before the toiler continued. "Tell me Barney, if you had a switch with three settings on, 1-2-3 respectively. Which one would you select?" Barney knew what the switch manifested as, for it resided on the rifle that Robotnik was now fingering, so as a safety measure he took the neutral path. "Well, it d...d..depends on wh..wh.. what you.. wh...whh..want to do w.w..ww.ith.. it.." Suddenly the chair rotated, there was a scrambling noise of shoes on metal, an ear-piercing blast followed by a cut-off scream, and finally after the impact of flesh against metal, a noise that sounded like a fire being extinguished by water. The grim smell of burning flesh floated over to Mark, he wanted to be sick, but the andrenalin rushing through him wouldn't permit it.. "I'd select three and blow the living crap out of you, you bloated toad!" he yelled to himself. Robotnik's chair swung back around, "Dispatch, remove a body from here.." ****************************************************************************** Time 10:30 the Great Forest ****************************************************************************** Princess Sally pointed at Robotropolis from the rocky outcrop the three were now standing on. "There.." Jonathan stopped, in the distance the sickened image bubbled. It reminded him of a return flight to GRBase-I, a return that had shown him the true power of evil. Evil of such magnitude that's even Earths agents of eco-destruction would be awed. Unclogging his throat and pulling a rich voice he looked at the two freedom fighters. "So, there it is, the poisoning blister that juts out our own life-force and festers on it's own evil.." He liked to speak in a poetic manner, and was usually quite good at it. Sonic rolled his eyes, he still didn't trust this guy, and knew sooner or later they were going to see his real mettle. The fox sat down on the edge of a large rock overlooking the valley below, staring at the city in amazement--it never slept, continually boiled and bubbled like a witches brew, stirring up chaos for the primary inhabitants of this world. In the smoke little dots were darting around, supply ships, war ships, whatever, and every single one of them was a potential threat. Sally sat down next to him, she'd accepted long ago the destruction on her world, and what her mission was, to bring it to an end.. oneday. But from this fox emmanated feelings of sadness and loss of such energy that they pulled her back into the thoughts she had the first time she saw Robotropolis's cloud of evil. Sonic sat down too, partly because he could mutually feel the pain, and also, because Sal had. He was the first to break the silence, "Jon bud, don't you remember this?" The fox faced him, "I know why I would want to forget it.." Sonic looked down to the forest below, there was nothing more he could say. For a few more moments there was silence, even Sonic sat perfectly still, the fox broke it with a frightened yell. "What in the hell is that?" Pointing at a fast moving blob getting rapidly larger and heading to more or less from where they had come. The two freedom fighter stood up, holding their hands over their eyes to get a better look without the glare from the sun. Sonic spluttered. "SwatBOTS!" He sped on ahead as fast as possible to warn the others, while Jonathan and Sally ran side by side back to base. It was going to take a miracle to prevent them from being crackled and crispied by the end of the day. In the distance they could already hear bursts of weapon fire. Running to the max they came to the centre of the chaos, rebels were diving in every direction trying to avoid beams of energy. In the panic a small fox had stumbled and was now lying crouched down hands-over head futily hoping it would save him from a blast. Above him one of the droids wasted no time in taking aim, in a moment of andrenalin and digital panic, it was all over. Jonathan's body lay crumpled up on the ground, having used all his speed to save the fox.. and succeeded, but a price had to be payed. A few seconds later the droid tore as Sonic ravaged through it--In turn, a few minutes later the action was all over, the remaining droids either returning to base or lying non-functional in scrap heaps all over the forest. When the blue-disk-of-droid-death finally slowed down he went off in search for Sally. He found her cuddling a frightened but otherwise okay Tails. "Hey, Sal, where's Jon?" he enquired, relieved that she was okay. Princess Sally faced him, a tear running down her soft face, pointing at the smoking heap with the burning grass around it, she forced out between even more tears. "Th.. there.. he saved Tails life, ... pushed him out the way.. and .. and.. took.. took.." Sonic faced away, "No.. No.. NO!" he slammed his fist against a tree "NO!!!" His mind rapidly boiling with guilt, regret and anger, if only he'd been faster, if only at least he'd got to know him, he was wrong, Jonathan Righter WAS a hero. And then finally, Jonathan Righter went out like a hero.. He stopped, walked over to Sally and Tails, and embraced them both. He was about to begin speaking when something stopped him. The body moved, the body groaned, the body stood up, and screamed in a voice that echoed across the mountains. "NO! WHY? MURDERERS! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS! EVERY LAST INCH OF ME THAT BORE TESTIMONY TO WHAT I ONCE WAS WILL BURN YOU!" Sonic ran over to Jonathan, "Jon? What's up?" But Jonathan just pushed him to the side and dissapeared off into the bush. Sonic stood up, looked at a very confused Sally and Tails, and let his mouth drop in awe. Sally looked back at him even more amazed, beams that size killed people if not cut them straight in half, and apart from surviving, what was he talking about? "Revenge?" asked Rotor curiously "but why?" Sally glanced at all of them, "well, he talked about someone he once knew, maybe when that defective beam hit him he remembered something.." Bookshire butt in, "good concept your highness, only one thing point, that beam couldn't have been defective.. When weapons fire, they fire with constant power, a few seconds after it shot him, it tore a tree by me straight in half.." Sonic spun his head in amazement, "Are you saying that he's a Robot?" A bubble of mutter came from the group, Bunnie added to the end of it, "well, what if it just missed him, I mean it wouldn't kill him, but it sure would shake him.." Again a mutter from the group. Sonic finished this time, "well, whatever he is, or whatever happened, he's gone of looking for Robotnik, and if we don't stop him.. " he slammed his hand on the table of the war room to show what would become of their mysterious new friend. Sally, added, "That's why we need volunteers.." ****************************************************************************** Time 12:00 Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** Marken crawled back through the air system again, geesh, he smiled to himself, putting on a ladies voice, "huh, I though he'd never leave.." He pulled forward, his movements dampened by at least two-centimeters of dust. He looked down at it, good thing sinusitus can't follow you through morphs, but still, the least the search droids could have done, when they searched the system about an hour ago, was to clean up a bit. Whatever, right now he had to find a way out of here, he'd never believed those statistics that nuclear plants have twenty-miles of copper wire in then or something like that, but whatever this building was, it had enough ventilation shaft in it to make.. to make... hmm.. well something with a lot of pipes. He imagined sooner or later he would bump into the "Marie Brothers" and "King Glooper".. In the distance he could barely make out a fan, a fan sucking in outside (and not altogether pleasant) air. ****************************************************************************** Time 12:30 Great Forest ****************************************************************************** The fox crashed through the woods, in his opinion Jonathan Righter died when he was hit by that beam, died when the "device" sucked every last bit of power to shield him, died when without the "device" the last part of his brain it was keeping human lost the battle to the cells of his new body. Now he was a fox.. his emotions had become that of a fox, the one bit of his mind that humanly manifested as his conscience-- giving him human feelings was gone. Robbed by Robotnik, stolen by evil, leaving him like this.. a tear rolled down his face.. only serving to make him more angry.. this was not him.. He cursed the instinct of direction he now had that took him back towards where this had all began, where he'd transformed, and .. where his pistol lay.. ****************************************************************************** GRB-II 16:00 ****************************************************************************** "Damnit Craig, I can't wait any longer, I'm telling you, he's in pain!" around Kate in the operations room, people of every race, type, species and sex monotonously continued their work of monitoring the Star-base's functions. Craig spoke again, "Kate, I feel guilty, but I refuse to authorize you to take a ship out into the unknown." This time calmer, "Kate, we do look after our own, and, my ruling stands firm, if they don't reply in a week, we will scout for them." Tears of frustation began to roll down Kate's face, "Craig.. The pain I can feel is so intense, so intense, when ever I sense him, I feel pain, pain all around him, in him, through him. Craig.. He is pain, anger and frustration burning like I've never felt before.. Not even on my own homeworld.. " Her voice began trembling,"MY OWN HOMEWORLD, CRAIG.." He looked at her again, "Kate, you only serve to make me feel guilty, you are hurting me, you are hurting yourself.. But we can't live by emotion, we have to live by logic.." Kate's eye sparkled, her voice changed, it became calmer, then wiping away the tears she continued. "Craig, can I speak with you.. alone.." "Certainly.." She led him out to the hangar, and pointed to the Draconis-II, a prototype jump ship -- designed primarily for true-space flight. Among other things it was armed with warheads that could 'jump' using gravity to fields to almost any location in space. "Craig, if on friday we haven't heard from them, we would be using this ship.. right?" Craig smiled at her, "Yes, if for some reason they don't respond.. which would be unlikely.. wouldn't it really?" Kate cut her words into him, "You're afraid, stop hiding it and do something about it.. You're human for God's sake, even though you doubled your metabolic rate, you are still a human, a human with feelings. Stop behaving like an android." He stared at her, "feelings cost lives, and I have chosen to run by logic." But once more she was prepared, "Craig, you are afraid! It only takes an hour to configure the ship, but you configured it yesterday, slightly illogical don't you think?" He froze, she was right, and he admitted it, "yes, I felt anxious, but I control my feelings.. A practice you should learn." "Well", she beamed happily, "your feelings have cost you dearly.." Before he was fully able to grasp the situation, it had befallen him, he'd been shot. Her hand blaster crumpling him up in a stunned heap on the floor. She stood over him for a while, then, dropped something down to him, a shiny silver badge. "Sorry Craig, I guess I always have been a rebel, you see, I value people more than law. On my homeworld, against the Cinz, now and forever.." With that, she walked over to the ship, got in, and took off. ****************************************************************************** Time 13:00 Great Forest ****************************************************************************** Jonathan the fox picked up the pistol, checked it's energy.. there it was ready.. ready to rampage, destroy and murder in an atire that would make Satan himself shirk. He looked at the gun, it felt odd in his new hands, it all felt odd, everything about the situation was odd. He didn't quite feel like killing anymore, if he did start killing.. logic told him, he would be blasting people's robotocized families away. Eventually, his power would run too low to permit him to fight anymore.. he would either be killed or Robotocized, and if the latter came about, he would end up an unthinking slave, granting his power of information to the side of evil. No, he could, would never do that, he would stop it all now.. He pointed the gun to his head, a brain may die a hero, a body is but flesh. He never pulled the trigger though, he just sat there, wondering, wondering what Marken's fate had been, pehaps now, he wasn't a carbon lifeform.. maybe silicon and plastic, bursting with evil. The "device" would normally have warned him about now. He was becoming far too depressed.. and every moment he sank deeper in the swamp of despair, the pressure increased, until sooner or later he would implode. But, no digital overlay had anything to say about it, it's power used up on protecting him.. He dropped the gun to face the floor as tears ran down his face, his emotions pouring out slowly. Softly a voice called out, "Jonathan? Is that you?" Out of the bush climbed a teenage racoon who glanced over the fox, "Geesh bro, what in the hell happened to you?" But Jonathan didn't answer, he simply grabbed Mark and embraced him, making his comrade feel even more confused. Grabbing him around the chest and forcing him away, yet still holding him within an arms length, Marken began trying to figure out what had happened to his friend. "Okay, Jonathan, now I don't have time for the full story, so just give me the latest.." The fox began, his voice wavering, "They.. shot .. me.. the.. device.. lost.. it's .. power.. and now... my mind.. is.. no.. longer human.." Mark, looked into his eyes, amazed.. "So?" The fox spluttered out, "So, don't you see? My human mind has died, my consience is dead.. And.. I feel ..like this.." Mark, stood for a moment digesting the data, then spoke softly, "You don't die with the same cells you are born with. Your whole life, weak cells die, but the strong suckers carry on. Our life doesn't work on single cells, but all of them working as a team.. Can't you see what's happened here? Your cells were just replaced with those little chemical blops that outnumbered them. Sure.. you might feel odd, hell, you might be totally psycho, but no matter what.. you are still you.. a bit crazier.. but the same guy who flew against the Cinz forces three years ago.. and the same guy who's my friend." Jonathan embraced him.. again. He let out a sigh of relief, "thanks Mark..", and kissed him on the cheek. Marken didn't like this, but "whatever", he thought to himself, those dudes in the bible used to do that a lot, and as long as his friend just kept it to that, it would be okay with him. A few minutes later whatever tears had fallen had vanished into the ground, and while Jonathan's new emotions were a bit odd, they were generally back to their normal selves.. As such, Marken grabbed his comrades tail, and began cracking all the jokes about persian carpets, high-heels, car-doors, elevators and coffie. Suddenly, out of his laughter Jonathan stopped, putting his hands on Marks shoulders and looking straight at him. Mark hoped he wasn't going to hug him again. He didn't, he spoke instead, worriedly: "Shit, we've gotta get back to base, they'll have a search party out looking for me by now.." "What? And where are we going to get the ship?" he replied in a low tone. "No, I mean the guys who chased us.." "Those morons, what the hell did they want?" "Actually, they're quite nice, and thought we worked for the guy that they swapped you for one of their friends with.." Marken smiled, "Jon, you are and always will be, no matter how morphed, terrible at that communication stuff." "Shut up, I'll explain to you on the way!" The fox and racoon ran off into the forest, leaving the pistol in the bushes, heading for Knothole. ****************************************************************************** Time 14:00- Truespace. 91.6x10^C Meters (DAMN FAR) from Mobius ****************************************************************************** From this postion in truespace she could detect nothing, the scanners on her ship were the best available, but even they couldn't pick up any intelligent signal out of the electromagnetic chaos of space. She locked scanners onto 'Gravity Magnitude Modulation" mode, they searched for a moment, only however coming up with current GR transmissions. [Note: GMM is the standard the GR use for transmission, as gravity fields travel instantly, allowing realtime communication. For example: it would take 271 Years for GRB-II transmissions to reach GRCentral via normal radio, while GMM is naturally instant.] "Computer, search for all possible life planets within 24 hours at speed 150C.." The computer seemingly did nothing for a moment, she smiled, Marken used to joke that they did it to seem impressive. "157 Possible planets found.." "Oh, shit!" "Computer, scan current planets for engine traces, or non-standard entropy." Once again the ship's computer went to work for a moment, "Three planets found.." "Plot otimal course using all three planets.." "Done." "Go nav1 to nav3, speed 110C." ****************************************************************************** Time 15:00 the Great Forest ****************************************************************************** From amongst the bushes, Bunnie and Rotor spied the fox and raccoon, they called up Sally on their communicator, and then quickly rushed towards them. Jonathan was speaking, "..and then it's own army turned in on itself... led by...", when suddenly, out of the bush ahead of them Bunnie appeared. For a quick instant the two got a fright before the fox finally spoke, "hiya.. what's up?" Bunnie smiled, "you are hon' if you keep on going down this path.." He stared at her shocked, "..and, why would that be?" "'Cause" she smiled, "that ain't the way to Knothole.." Jonathan sighed, "you had me worried for a moment there. If just for a short one... Just one thing, who are you?" She beamed, "why, they call me Bunnie around here.. Bunnie Rabbot." "Aah, well, my name is Jona.." "..than Righter, I know hon', I know.." Rotor pointed to the raccoon, "who'd you bring back?" Before he could answer however, Mark began, looking at Bunnie and ripping off her voice he began, "well 'hun they call me Mark, uum, Marken Psantis that is mind you.." They all smiled, even Bunnie, all except for Rotor, "Marken Psantis, I'm sure I heard your name some place before.." Jonathan quickly changed the subject, "well, I guess we'd better see the princess?" They headed off the path and into the bush, back towards Knothole. Eventually, after a rather long journey, they arrived at Sally's hut. Outside they met with Sonic and Sally, who asked a whole series of questions, all of which Jonathan either lied about, or "toiled the thread" with. Then came the introductions, Marken met a whole series of people, some of them hugged him. He didn't like that.. but he took it in his stride, "after all" he thought to himself, "you could be stuck on this planet for the rest of your life Marken Psantis, natural life that is though.." Aftterwards, they stood around in groups talking to one another, Mark was involved in a very heavy conversation about "anti-static spray" for his tail, with Rotor when Jonathan broke in. "Excuse me, Mark, have you met Princess Sally?" "Princess?" "Yes." He reeled around to face her, performed a beautiful bow, dropped to his knees, took her hand softly, kissed it, and then after a short moment, spoke. "Your highness, I am Marken Psantis." Sally was amazed, Sonic and Jonathan both rolled their eyes. Later on as the sun began to set, Mark found Jonathan sitting alone on a log, he walked over and sat down next to him. "What's up bro?" The fox took a deep breath, "depressed, just depressed.." "Aaaahh... you not still going on about that fox-brain thing are you?" Jonathan squeezed a blank smile, "thanks for reminding me.." "Oh come on, geesh, I mean, apart from the fact that we are trapped billions of miles away from any other GR planet, stuck in bodies we weren't born with.. and having to put up with a mad scientist.. Doesn't mean things are all that bad, it means that things are terrible.." the raccoon chuckled, "terrible.." But Jonathan couldn't let himself be humoured, "we're stuck here.. we're really stuck here.. There's no way out, and we can't trust anyone." "What about these guys.. don't they qualify?" "That's what I mean, I'm lying to them all.. Spinning lies that are going to get me back.." Mark smiled, "Want to see instant solution?" "You have one?" "Marken Psantis, always has a solution.. " With that the raccoon jumped up and headed towards the hedgehog, Jonathan trailing behind him, hoping he wasn't going to do something stupid.. "Princess, Sonic, my friend an I want to have a chat with you.." Jonathan's eyes exploded with fear as the four headed off into Sally's hut. Siiting across from each other on beds, Sonic and Sally on the one, Jonathan and Mark on the other, Mark wasted no time in starting. "Jonathan here, is going to tell you a story about a universe far-far away.. aren't you?" The fox smiled awkwardly. "Well" he said, energising his voice, "there is a group of fighters in a universe far-far from here, they are called the GR, or 'Guardians of Reality', their task is to uphold law an order." "And?" asked Sonic. "And, Jonathan is about to continue" smiled the raccoon. "And, well, they have these ships, star-ships that can jump from one universe to the other with their advanced technology. But they had an enemy called the Cinz, who believed that.." Marken butt in, "who tried to attack a little planet.." The fox went a sickly colour, "..uuh.. but they failed, as the GR stopped them just before they could fire their weapons.." "But.. then.. the GR ship.." "Then the GR ship gained intolerable damage by being hit by some of the explosion's debri. This forced them to land..." "This caused them to crash into the atmosphere of Planet Mobius.. where their ship turned into a ball of fire.." The fox went white, he couldn't say anymore, he just looked at his friend. But his friend just looked back, eventually, the poor fox had to continue. "They managed to get out of the ship before it crashed.." Marken sensed that his now-furrry friend could continue no longer, so he looked at the two freedom fighters. "You probably don't like humans.. can't say I blame you seing what that Robotnik guy is like. Well, the pilots were humans, and you caught them with your net. They escaped, but then you caught one again, you gave him to Robotnik in exchange for something.." "Tails", Sally murmurred. "Yeah, they're a problem, got mine caught in a grate.." Mark smirked, "but anyway, this human kinda got on ' no-hair-day's ' nerves, who then decided to robodigitize him, or whatever.." He smiled sweetly at them for a moment, "well, I can tell you, that I didn't entirely like him trying to turn me into a robot!" Sonic stood up, "You're a human!?!" "No, and yes, mentally yes, physically..", he pulled his tail, "..no!" Sally stared in amazement at him, "What happened to you?" "Well, after I refused to give him information on weapons and stuff, and after they TORTURED ME! Again note that I REFUSED.. I woke up in a room where I was too big to get through the vent in the roof..." The hedgehog looked at him strangely, "Yes?" "Well, then I kinda did some magic.. and... well here I am! Oh, and I'm also not cross you nearly got me killed, so you can calm down Mr Hedgehog." Sonic dropped back onto the bed, then Sally looked at Jonathan, "Are you?.." Marken spat out, "Come on, you can say it HUMAN. Geesh why is it that everyone hates humans so suddenly?" Jonathan looked at her, "No.. not any more.." Marken looked at her, "He's a full real-real, fox, aren't you Jon?" "Well Yes, you see, it started today when that..." And the conversation went on until the early hours of the morning, with stories of adventure, daring-raids, crushing attacks and rescues from both sides. They explained the universe of RL's, the "device" and the Cinz, and were told about the rebellion, the king, and the land. Finally the two GR pilots grew tired, Sonic showed them to a hut, where they collapsed onto it's beds. ****************************************************************************** Time 21:00 Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** Packbell sifted through the data on the backup unit, though what he was getting was less than usefull. He may have cracked the code on it, but the data itself was different. Apparently, all the diagrams were stored in some format called BMP. From what he'd noticed so far, two words, always located in the same position in the file, when multiplied made up a value just smaller than the file by 1024 bytes-- It had to be some powerfull encryption method! He'd tried decoding it with every method he knew, fractal, LZW (Lorri, Zippie and Wimpie lossless compression), run length, 7bit, and even truecolor raw. But nothing seemed to work. He was sure that the table of 768 bytes had something to do with it.. but what? He flipped to another listing, now a file called, VIEWBMP.EXE was visible. "EXE" his mind boggled, it couldn't be the terrible 'EXCALIBUR' encryption he had heard about, could it? No point in trying that file. He changed the listing area again, now he was in the listing called WINDOZE, from it there was another listing called SYSTEM. He listed the files, a new file type caught his eyes. "COM" He'd never heard of 'COM' files before, perhaps it had to do with file compression, or maybe even communications. No point in trying that file. Robotnik broke in, "So, how's my favourite android tonight?" Packbell shrugged his shoulders, "This isn't all the data, I was unable to find any programs that would view the data files.. The only file I could even consider.. which was hidden, "WINE386.SWP", was small at 21MB for a program, failed to run on, "AND", "DIMTEL", "CIRAX", and "NEXGEL" processors." Robotnik faced the window, there was a dark black cloud forming on the horizon, he stared at it for a long time, then finally turned around, walked over to his seat and sat down. "Packbell my boy, it's moments like these that make me wish I hadn't robotocized all of my prisoners.." ****************************************************************************** Time:Night, Dreamland ****************************************************************************** Jonathan liked it here, there was a brook he could drink from and every tree was laden with fruit. But from this little eden however, he could still find evil, for in this garden of fantasy there was a cave. A dark cave, a cave that frightened him, a cave that held some primal fear, whether human of vulpine. He had never been in this cave, he didn't know what was inside. But in the darkness he knew there was enlightment. He stepped closer, a smell like rotten meat came to him, a hinderimg smell, but something he had learn to bear. After all it was just an excuse to stop, and he knew, that even if he did turn around to face back to the eden, it would no longer be there. For intrigue ruled the night and his soul, his quest for power. Heading down the dark bellows of the earth he saw a greenish ambient glow ahead. A cold glow, a glow that spelled the truth, almost a dark glow. Coming closer he found it to be the remaining shards of a soul-crystal, like the one that once hung around his neck when he was in the house of "Righter." Alike the one he had left to the 'cave of voices' when he began his quest of vengeance on the Cinz. He picked it up, a cold chill went through him, in his sleep he whimpered, and in his dreams a voice called out to him. He reeled around to face Katicha. He stood in the tweenworld, staring at her, "You're here.." She smiled, "I always have been Jonathan Righter, I always have.." "But, the Cinz.. they.. the cave.." "Bodies are only flesh, collections of protons, neutrons and electrons, what makes us who we are is a soul.. The biostream, the power that inhabits all cells in your body.. even those cells you don't want.." She pointed to her head. "I guess you know what happened?" "Yes, I know.. how do you feel about it?" He turned away for a moment, then brought his eyes back to her, "I have accepted it.. I don't like it.. but.. what else can I do?" Her voice went grim, "What is it then that bothers you?" There was no escaping her, she knew him too well, so, he began. "I am frightened, I don't want to stay here, I don't want to die..." She smiled slightly, "Jonathan, a body may live forever, but a soul can't stay in it for eternity.. You have to face the fact that oneday you too will be released from your grip on matter.." A tear ran down his face, "That's what scares me, my whole life I've been free from the pincers of death.. But what happens after this?" "Jonathan, that is something you must accept that you will never know, it is best that you don't know it until the time is right. By questioning it, you only poison your body.." "What do you mean, poison?" She walked over to him and put her arm over his shoulder, "Your quest for knowledge must have a limit, without it you rupture the flow of the biostream. Even now, your body has began to die.." He stared at her, "dying.." "Yes. Dying.." She bent down and picked up a large shard of green crystal on the floor, from it came little stars of light, they all formed together to make a wall of image. It was the hut he was sleeping in, around him stood his friend, frantically taking his pulse. A middle age raccoon looked over him glumly, then turned to Marken, "I don't know what it is.. I've never seen anything like it, he's burning up, his heart-beat is erratic.." and then, walking over, putting a comforting arm on his shoulder, "Mark, I don't think he's going to live long.." Mark showed his emotions in a way never seen by anyone, "NO!" he shouted, "No.. there has to be something we can do?" Tears rolling down his face, he went over to pat his comrades head. "What if his body is rejecting it's cells, you know, like when they do heart transplants?" Booksire looked at him, "well, that is a possibility.." "And's it's one I'd like to play by, what can we get him to help?" The image disintegrated. Jonathan looked at her, "what can I do?" She looked into his eyes, "Jonathan, look at yourself, what are you?" "A human" "Exactly, but Jonathan, what are you there.." she pointed to where the projection had been. "A fox?" "Right, you are what you are, you have to accept yourself.." "But I have! I have!" "No Jonathan, you tell yourself you have, in reality however, you despise yourself..." He looked to the floor.. "but.. but.." Then the lady took his hand, "Come it is time, for you to leave your body..." "But, will I ever come back?" "That" she smiled, "that is your choice.." Chaos rushed his mind, thoughts, emotions, memories, loyalties, images, faces, people, time.. Wrapping themselves into his inner thoughts his soul shuddered, there was so much pain.. So much torture, he could see it all now, from the day he was born, pain, pain when he wanted to be with Clare, pain when the Cinz killed her, pain, pain everywhere, pain in his friends, his homeworld.. but pain in him.. Pain which turned to desire, desire that no matter what, told him he had to survive. It stopped. Lying on the floor of the tweenworld, he looked up at her, "The pain.. I have so much pain.." She grabbed his arm and lifted him up,"And only now you have noticed it.." "But why?" She walked over to the far end of the cave, then digging into the ash floor, she removed a mirror, she brought it over to him. "Because, you have never before been in a world of such pain.." "What do you mean, Mobius?" "Yes.." "But Mobius.." She lifted the mirror so he could see himself in it, he stared into it as she continued. "This planet holds enough pain in it to tear itself in half, you may have not noticed it, but your soul did. Inside every one of your new friends there is a driving urge, friends, family.. Pain Jonathan, more pain than even you have ever known." The mirror moved, the image pulled him in, faces all around, faces screaming, bursting with pain. There were so many people, so many, he couldn't help looking into them, their memories becoming his. Blood, tears, futility, they were all there. Amongst them though there was something else, the cold desire for revenge, the same type of desire that drove his sword through the last emperor of the Cinz. But beyond that, there was something, something he hadn't felt in years, happiness. Happiness blossoming like a flower in a grave of skulls. The mirror flashed, it now showed an image of a teenage fox -- him, he quickly looked at his body, but it was still human. He looked at the reflection again, it was human. Then suddenly, it changed again, reverted back to that of a fox. The mirror cracked, it's pieces vanishing from existance before they touched the floor. He was a fox, and it didn't matter anymore, for whatever he became, he would always retain his soul. He turned to Katicha, she grinned, "Now go, you have a task." His mind flicked across space as his soul found his body once more. ****************************************************************************** Time 11:00 Knothole ****************************************************************************** "He's waking up.." cried Bunnie as the fox groaned out of slumber. Rotor and Bookshire raced over to him, Bookshire being the first to speak. "Jonathan, are you okay?" He nodded, "uuhh, but I've got a mega headache.." The raccoon smiled, "I might think so, you almost died lastnight.." Jonathan went a sickly colour again, "it wasn't a dream!" "No, I wish it were, you really had us worried.." "Uhuu, um where is Marken?" "Well, the Princess, Sonic and he all went to Robotropolis, Mark said something about some backup or a ship or something.." "Damn, I've got to help them.." The fox tried to roll over to stand up, but Bunnie stopped him, "wait, sugah, you ain't well enough to get up yet.." Bookshire sympathised, "I understand your feelings son, but you have to get some rest.." Jonathan looked at them futily, then with a sparkle of cunning in his eyes began, "yes, maybe you're right.. I don't want to die or anything.." And with that he rolled over and closed his eyes, the three friends watched him for a while. Eventually Bookshire spoke to them, "well, it looks like that medicine did it's job, he's going to be just fine." Then picking up a bottle of pills, "just give him one of these every two hours." With that the raccoon left and went back to his hut. ****************************************************************************** Time 11:00 Deep space [Mobius time] ****************************************************************************** "One down, two to go." Kate smiled to herself, that last planet had been a fat load of use. How the computer ever identified it as a "LIFE-PLANET", she would never know. The whole surface was charcoal, and floating on top of that there were liquid-oxygen lakes. Suddenly, something beeped, she looked over the controls, apparently the computer had picked up some kind of carrier wave. "Computer, find source of transmission.." She waited a moment, "Found, signal is 200-300 years old, and originates from nav point two." "Well, well" she smiled," looks like I found something sentient.." "Computer, increase speed to 150C, and direct for Nav Point two direct.." ****************************************************************************** Time 12:00 Forest ****************************************************************************** This was the last thing he wanted to do, apart from the fact that his head was pounding, he was damp with sweat and moisture he had picked up from dashing through the forest. He was back in the clearing, Jonathan looked around for a moment, then stooped down to collect his pistol. It was still there. He looked at it for a moment, then rubbed it dry(er) against his chest fur, took a deep breath and looked in the direction of Mobotropolis. What was going to ensue, he was not likely to enjoy. Pausing for another moment, he inhaled as much air as his lungs could hold, and then belted off for the horizon. ****************************************************************************** Time 12:30 Outskirts of Robotropolis ****************************************************************************** Mark looked up at the city, then turning to Sally in disgust began," all this, and you can't even order a pizza.." They all chuckled for a moment, it broke some of the tension. Abruptly however they stopped, Sonic pointed to a tall building in the distance.. "That one, Jon?" "Yipsyappie, that's the one." "He's got to have at least a dozen swat-bots over there." Mark gave Sonic a sickly smile, "uh hu, uh, don't look now, incoming 6 o'clock" The hedgehog ripped around to face three swat-bots, as he started up into his blue-rotor, metal began to fly. More swat-bots came in, Mark began to get worried as they came dangerously near to him and the princess, eventually surrounding them. He looked at her quick, "oh gee.. I feel so threatened.." Then picking up a piece of rubble and holding it near his chest he gave the "device" a command, which he said out loud for effect, "explode shields UP!" His shield exploded into existance--propelling the rubble at a velocity so high that if it hadn't hit the swat-bot standing five meters away, it would have disintegrated on it's own accord. He smiled sarcastically, "Hey, what can I say, I'm a trained professional!" Even the princess rolled her eyes this time, but not for too long, as more foolish droids were trapped between the blue-blade of death and the particle accelarator raccoon. However, all good things have to come to an end, and soon both Sonic and he found themselves out of playmates. "Too bad, I was just getting to enjoy that.." Marken remarked as they headed into the building. ****************************************************************************** Time 12:50 Edge of Robotroplis ****************************************************************************** Jonathan staggered into town, he wasn't feeling good, his brain was overheating while his body was flushed of energy. But he still kept on going, he had a mission, and he was going to see it through, even if his vision was becoming blurry. In the far-off distance he could see smoke, someone had been at work retro engineering Swat-bots under a very short time factor... He took another deep breath, switched his pistol on, and then headed off towards the battle scene. ****************************************************************************** Time 13:10 Couple 'a million miles away from Mobius ****************************************************************************** "Damn, why couldn't they encode their TV with PAL or NTSC" Kate complained to herself. She'd moved into range of Mobius's old television transmissions about half an hour ago, however, due to the fact that the Mobians employed an alternate encoding method, she was unable to get anything. "Computer" she dictated, "attempt do decode format.." The computer waited a moment then replied, "Carrier signal lost." "Damn, why did they have to close down, Computer find another frequency!" "No carrier signals of sufficient bandwidth to store analog unencoded video on..." "Computer, try digital video.." "No carrier signals of sufficient amplitude found for decoding." "Computer, identify carrier signals.." "Signal consistency, one low power 10.3Khz AM band, one low power digital 128.0Khz band, one GMM digital 3.5Ghz band." Kate's eyes exploded, "Computer, identify GR signal.." "GR signal is of type 'data poll' from node titled "Marken Psantis", warbling is enabled, node is active." "Computer, increase speed to 335C, and land at closest site to signal." "Warning, warbling on node is enabled, would you like to continue?" "Yes, just go!" ****************************************************************************** Time 13:15 Robotropolis command centre. ****************************************************************************** Princess Sally carefully cut wires as she removed the ship's data back up unit from the computer. "Whoa, relax, just cut all the suckers, it's not one of those 'cut the blue one bombs'" Sally looked at Mark, "Oh yes?" she pointed to a red wire coming from the unit and heading into the wall. "Uh huh, now what is that then?" The princess huffed, "That is an alarm.. Mark." "Oh, is the crime around here really that bad?" "Indeed it is my little freedom fighter" Robotnik glared, his laser pointing at the three. Mark was the first to react, "please stop, the glare of your head is blinding me!" The raccoon edged a bit closer. "Not so close my furry, I've seen that little trick you can do" Robotnik sneered, pointing the gun at the princess, "and if you come any closer, I would be forced to.. hurt her highness..." Packbell came into the room and stood by the door, Mark smiled at him, "how's the arm mate?" Even androids are unable to compare an infinitely large amount of data in an instant, so he needed some reminding the raccoon decided. "Well, I just thought that your arm might be sore, you know, all that current and stuff passing through it.." Packbell stared in amazement, "You're the human!" Mark smiled, "after seeing what caffeine does to that species", he pointed at Robotniks dome, "I decided to slip into something a bit more comfortable.." Robotnik fired, the beam just striking the wall above Sally's head, Marken froze for a moment considering what that shot could have done.. abruptly, for the first time in Robotnik's company, he shut up. Robotnik gave the rifle to Packbell, and then waltzed over to the window, stared out for a moment, then turning around he glared at Sonic. "You know, today might actually turn out to be quite good. After I rid the planet of you hedgehog." Sonic glared back, "I don't think so 'buttnik!" But the overlord continued unhindered, "..We'll see what the freedom fighters have to say when their princess has been captured!" Sally looked at him stunned, "In your wildest dreams!" but she secretely trembled with fear. "Wait!" began Mark, "What about me.. don't I get a part in this? I don't believe it, I break in here, bother the hell out of you, plant a bomb of immense power in your basement.. and I still.." Robotnik stared in fright for a moment, "Bomb?" "Whoops, damn, guess we're all going to be carbon-crispies, well, at least let me tell you, I really enjoyed playing. And you were a great guy and all..." "What bomb is this?" "Oh well.., " Marken smiled, "I guess seeing that there is no way you can get off the planet in the next two minutes, I can tell you that it's one of the thermonuclear warheads off my ship.. Fusion type that is, you see what you do, is take hydrogen gas and ionize it, after it has become hydrogen ions, you ionize a bit more, and then a whole series of nuclei fuse together to make helium, in the process a great deal of energy is released. Now, uuh, I'd just like to remind you that after the planet has cooled down again, all our atoms should make a nice new world in the proximity of two billion years." Packbell himself froze with fear, all the missiles on the crashed ship he'd inspected were wrecked, but he'd never been able to find one of them. Little did he know that the missile had been used on the Cinz. Mark looked at them both, "well before we all go vapouro, do you mind if I give you a hug.. I mean after all, we are kind of like, ..were cousins.. you know and all.." But Robotnik was not shaken, "before demise there is still time to make you suffer, I'm going to let you see one another die.." Marken chuckled, "Let Sonic kill us, or we're going to run out of time!" Rototnik glared at Sally, "You know, I knew your father, he was like you.. foolish!" Then pointing at her and looking back to the android, "Packbell, my boy, will you do the honours?" He smiled and aimed the rifle for what seemed like an eternity, during which time the young princess shuddered with utter fear. There was an explosion of light as the gun he held blazed. Sally opened her eyes, she was still there, she looked around to see both Mark and Sonic also very much in existance. A voice from the doorway called out, "Miss me? Hey, I made a pun Mark!" A rough looking fox appeared at the doorway, bringing a bit of nature with him in the form of leaves, thorns and vines stuck in his fur. Packbell stared at what remained of his rifle as Jonathan walked into the room, pointing his pistol at Robotnik. "Ivo Robotnik, I find you guilty on the charge of treason, retro mechanics, unlawfull rule and murder, you are hereby sentenced to death, to be carried out immediately by a weapon of GR agents choice.." He pulled the trigger--too late, Packbell sweeped his legs out from behind, he fell backward, the shot went far--striking the ceiling above Robotonik, but before the fox's skull had impacted the floor, he squeezed out one more shot, this time striking Packbell in the chest. The android's body flew back striking the edge of the doorway, Jonathan was knocked out cold on the hard metal floor, his gun bounced twice before sliding along the floor and stopping at the feet of princess Sally. After a moment of hesitation she picked it up, then slowly pointed it at Robotnik. Mark laughed, "geesh, now what was that you said about the king being stupid?" Robotnik stared at the princess, time froze, and for a moment to princess Sally, it felt like their stares were the only thing in the universe. Slowly he began backing towards the doorway, while Marken's voice echoed out, "Shoot him, Shoot HIM!, SHOOT HIM!" The ad lib echoing of voices caused chaos in her mind, all the suffering, pain, killing, destruction... but still she could not bring herself to do this. But she knew she had to, Robotnik was already nearing the doorway. She clenched her eyes shut, Time stopped, the trigger clicked as it was pressed, the echo of plasma surging from the barrel and a short cut-off scream resounded off the walls for what seemed like an eternity. And it was over. When she opened her eyes again he was gone, the only reminder that he'd ever been there--a piece of metallic scrap that once manifested as his robotocized arm. Mark's voice went serious, "That's for Barney.. the next one will be for Mobius.." She looked at Sonic, stunned from what she'd just done, she dropped the gun, grabbed the hedgehog into an embrace and held him there for what seemed like an eternity. Mark picked up the gun. "Nice shooting princess, I just know the next time you try that, you'll waste him so bad!" "What!?!" "I said next time you shoot him, you'll kill him for sure.." "b..b..But.." "Well the main thing is, you disarmed him.. 'Disarmed' him, get it..." The princess looked at him, "..but.. didn't I?" "Nope, you just blew his arm off, if you'd hit him full on, you'd be washing bits of him out of your hair tonight.." There was a noise down the hall as Swat-Bots came scuttling up it. Mark looked up, "looks like it's time to play again.." Between cutting blows delivered by Sonic, and burts of super-highly-ionized-gas delivered from Marken, Sally was able to look at Jonathan. His head was hot, but not as hot as it had been the night before, he was breathing okay, his pulse was weak but not erratic. She patted him softly on the head. (and removed a thorny vine from it too!) "Holy shit, how many of them are there Bigblue?" Marken screamed, as another laser was stopped by the "device." Sonic stopped grinding for a moment, "We've gotta get out of here!" "You're telling me.. OK, I'm gonna jump out left from this door, that's where they seem to be coming from. Grab the princess and fox-brain, busticate that stupid backup thing and then get the freaking blue blazing laser trailing hell out of here! Don't worry.. I'll be right behind you.." Marken watched Sonic cut through the unit, "well, there go any hopes of getting of this planet" he sighed, "but, hey I like getting shot!" He took a breath, brushed his fingers through his hair, smiled, then dived out, seeing more robots than he'd ever done in his life. Every one of them with a rifle, but in a digital multitask they were all..well offline. He then followed Sonic down the passage until they came to a locked door. The door didn't remain locked for long, as the blue streak tore through it. Suddenly he stopped, they were now on a launchpad, about twenty stories up, and to add to it all, they came face to face with a ship floating in midair. "Draconis-II!" Mark yelled as it fired a missile towards them. There was an explosion as a group of foolish Swat-Bots attempting to sneak up behind them turned into shrapnel. Over the ship's loudspeaker came Kate's collected voice, "Whoo, hello, could I interest you in a lift?" Mark grinned, "Hurry up and open the doors WOMEN!" And that she did, and as the ship flew towards the forest, Marken continued his joking, this time about interior space, seating in available colours and why to make sure to get the leather seats if you had a tail. ****************************************************************************** Time 16:00 Knothole ****************************************************************************** He woke up in her arms, Jonathan looked up into Kate's eyes, and for the first time in his life he saw something in them he'd never done before. She cuddled him close for at least ten minutes before telling him how afraid she was that she'd lose him. Outside the ship a celebration was going on, and after a few more minutes talking with her, he went out to join it. When he emerged from the doorway there was a cheering as the freedom fighters welcomed him back to the realm of conscience. He smiled like he'd never done before, once again in his life he had those two feelings that had become so distant to him--Love and Happiness. Later as that day turned to night, Marken found his friend sat alone on a log once more. He sat down next to him, "What's up bro.." Jonathan smiled, "Mark, have you ever noticed how beautiful the night sky is?" His comrade laughed, putting his hand on his head to feel for a temprature. They both laughed and headed back to the party... ****************************************************************************** Time 8:00 Knothole ****************************************************************************** The Draconis II's plasma-fusion engines whined as they powered up for take off throwing dust up into a chaotic state.. "Where in the hell is fox-brain?" asked Mark. Kate just smiled, "relax Mark, I'm in no hurry to get back, after all, I am going to get court-marshalled.." He chuckled, "Well, I think I'm going to have a little chat with Craig about that.. eh?" In another part of the forest Jonathan said his goodbye's to Sonic and Sally. "You're sure you don't all want to come back with us, there's plenty of planets in RL9 that look like this.." Sally smiled, hugging Sonic a bit closer, and what she said echoed in Jonathan's mind as his ship sped away from Mobius. "We want to stay here, we want to fight, someone has to stop Robotnik, and one day we will. We will continue in honour of those who died for our cause, for those who no longer have any choice... And in hope of oneday restoring Mobius and it's citizens to what they once were." He looked at the planet growing rapidly smaller, until it's solar system became just another star in the sky, then finally after a moment of thought, he closed his eyes. "Freedom from the evils of men, tortured freedom." And with that he dropped into the realm of soft untroubled dreams. - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - The ship that landed at GRB-II a day and a half later however was less than complete.. a letter on Princess Sally's bed attached to a hemispherical device summed it up. Princess Sally, The device I have left you is part of the warhead of one of the Draconis II's missiles. It is effectively a port'al spawner. I have programmed it with the co-ordinates of my Earth Gate. If ever a matter of Dire danger should occur, use it.. Also, protect the device at all costs, it is the key to my world of humans.. "Earth" Farewell Jonathan Righter - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - Robotnik stared into Packbell's eyes as he rebuilt his chest with his new arm. "Packbell new priority--humans.." - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - The End.. Hope you all enjoyed the story, and in case you didn't I'm glad I just wasted two-hours off your life while you read this... Well, until my next story, whatever it may be, I will as Marken Psantis might say.. "Grip those sucking gribes and ride 'em like a horse through LA in rush hour!" Or as Jonathan Righter might say, "Get back in my car and drive away..." Or as Craig might say, "modify my spacial co-ordinates." Or as Kate might say , "Get the hell outta here!" Or as Sonic might say, "Cruise.." Or as I might say... Chow, {Spelling is WRONG!! AHAHAHAHA! } Ablater [Simon Daniel Howes of SolBase-IV Orbital Defence Platform] (Chow? Hmm, chows are dogs with orange furr and blue tongues...) {Simon.. for DTA's Sake.. it's CIAO or Something..} [Shut up #2!] {I'm in control! AHAHAHAA!} [OH YEAH?] {YEAH!} [EAT CHAOS!] NO CARRIER