Here's yesterday's, starting off a mini-trilogy within the series...
---cut on this line---
"Vengance Denied" Part 1: Assassin
by Adrian Tymes
[Legal disclaimer:
This story is based on characters created by SEGA and DiC Productions, as well
as Sandra Nightweaver and Bookshire Draftwood by David Pistone, and "Postcards
>From Mobius" #2 by Richard Ray Roberts. Permission is granted by the author to
freely distribute this story, so long as:
a: no recompense of financial value is received or given by the person who
distributes the story, and
b: the distributed copy is identical to the story as originally authored.
In other words, don't sell it, and don't alter it.
The griffins in this story are my own creations. If you wish to write a story
including or referring to the griffins as presented below, or the events in
this story, please contact me in advance - I would like to know who uses them.
Copyright (c) 1996, all rights reserved, et cetera.]
******
Time: Immediately after "Powerdown"
******
"Open wide, sugar. This won't hurt you any more than you hurt Sally-girl."
Kenal's claws were still stuck inside the pillow Bunnie had caught him with.
His wings were free, so he flew towards the ceiling.
"Git back heah!" Bunnie stood up and extended her legs to match Kenal's
altitude.
"No. This is not right. Please, Bunnie, don't..."
Bunnie's metal hand grasped Kenal's throat, choking off his sentence and most of
his breath. "Save it. If y'all didn't want this, you shouldn't've injected
Sally with a day's worth of C-Fear in th' first place."
"And what, praytell, does that mean you can do to him?" Sally cautiously
enetered through the doorway.
"Oh, hiya Sal." Bunnie retracted her legs to their normal length, moving her
eyes to Sally's level. "Ah'm just doin' what he did to you."
"You're using Chemical Fear on him?" Sally tensed, unnoticed by Bunnie.
"Tha's right, dear. I just - whoa!" Bunnie dropped Kenal, and the bottle which
held the synthesized biological essence of fear, as Sally knocked her over like
a battering ram.
"Get out of here, Kenal." Sally tried to hold her hutmate down, hoping that
Bunnie still retained a little sense.
Kenal was quick to comply, not even touching the ground after getting free of
Bunnie's hold. He veered around the bottle in flight as he headed through an
open window, still carrying the pillow. The metallic bottle landed, bounced,
and rolled into a corner, spilling its contents harmlessly onto the floor.
Bunnie tried to get up, but found no way to do so without hurting Sally. "Lemme
go. He's gettin' away!"
"Let him. I already talked with him; that issue is over."
"What do yuh mean? You forgave him, sure, but..."
"But nothing. This is between him and me. If I choose to forgive him, that's
it." Sally relaxed a bit as Kenal left her line of sight. "Look, I know we're
usually on the same side. Most of the time, your enemy is mine as well. But
this is different. I was the one who was wronged; I was reduced to a fearbot
for a day, not you. Revenge should have been mine if it was anyone's, and I
declined. Pointless vengance will get us nowhere. Besides..." Sally smiled as
she let Bunnie up. "...it wouldn't have done you any good anyway."
Bunnie stood up, dusted herself off, and looked confused. "Whut do you mean?
C-Fear was designed to work on any species. The designers didn't have any
griffins to test it on, but it still works on them, 's far as ah know."
"It does work on them, but Dulcy would have gotten rid of it soon enough."
"Dulcy? But ah was forcin' it on Kenal."
"Remember, Dulcy's a protector, apparently one of the 'Wyrms'. One of the
powers that gives her is the ability to heal her family."
"She don't have no family here, Sally. They've all been roboticized."
"Not biological family, Bunnie. Emotional. Anyone she feels emotionally close
enough to, she can heal. That includes purging C-Fear."
"So why can't she heal us when we're hurt? We're close 'nuff to be her family,
ain't we?"
"No. Friends, yes, but not family." Sally rolled her eyes in annoyance at
herself. "I've been trying to make her feel as close to us as we are to each
other so she can use that power, but it hasn't worked. Almost no one wants to
be around her much, unless we're using her."
Bunnie's heart chilled as she likened that experience to her own, shortly after
her partial roboticization. As usual, she did not let Sally see even the
slightest trace of depression. "Almost no one?"
"A few of the kits play with her every now and then - especially Tails - and
now she's adopted Kenal."
"Adopted? She's young enough to be his older sistah...young enough in dragon
years, that is."
"Think about it, Bunnie. Whenever she's lonely, he's there for her. She saved
his life; he stopped her powers from controlling her. I think she's the only
reason he hasn't had nightmares about what he did as a workerbot. He even slept
in her pouch once, just like her children would if she had any." Sally could
not stop a smile from breaking out as she remembered that event. "She's
definitely close enough to him to remove any C-Fear."
"Well, even if it would've lasted only 'til he got to Dulcy..."
Sally's reply caught in her mouth when Tails stepped into the doorway. "Aunt
Sally..." His voice was extremely weak.
"Yes, Tails?"
He replied by collapsing forwards, showing a red dart buried in his back as he
lost conciousness.
******
The only reason Bookshire's hut was not full of worried Mobians was that Sally
and Bunnie had moved Tails to it before anyone else noticed. The two females
were doing enough worrying for all of Knothole, and Bookshire knew it.
"He's been poisoned. Good thing I was able to get the dart out before most of
its drug could enter his system. I've seen this poison before."
"So you know an antidote, right?"
"No, but you do, Sally Acorn." Bookshire placed a noticeable, almost
contemptuous, emphasis on her last name.
"What do you mean?"
"The secret of that poison's manufacture was known only to the royal court. I
knew what it looked like, but no one outside of the King and his most trusted
advisors knew how to make it or its antidote. Even Rotor's synthesizer can't
make a batch that's stable for more than a few seconds. I know, I've tried."
"Are you suggesting that I poisoned him?" Sally's demeanor took on a noticeable
edge.
"Well, you are the only one here that I know of who could have learned how to
make it. I'd hoped that one good thing to come out of Robotnik's coup was the
erasure of that formula from Mobius. It seems I was mistaken."
"I'm telling you, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know the
formula for any poison. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn't use it on Tails."
The tension in the air was thick enough that Bunnie had to act as a proverbial
knife to cut it. "Hold on there. You said the royal court knew it? Maybe
someone else from the court's picked up a grudge 'gainst Tails."
Bookshire snorted. "Huh. The only members of the court I don't know the status
of are the Homeguard. Everyone else is either dead, roboticized, or not here,
aside from Sally."
"Homeguard?" Sally rolled the term in her mind for a second. "You mean, Home
Guard? My father used to say they made good bodyguards, but they didn't like to
leave Home for long. He had a funny way of saying Home when talking about them,
almost as if it wasn't our home he was talking about."
"Y'know, Sally-girl, that sounds like the...griffins..." Bunnie's face lit up
with realization. "...who your father was tryin' to bring into his kingdom. Oh
mah stars, they must've been the Home Guard. But why would they want to harm
lil' ol' Tails?"
Bookshire looked in confusion at the two. "I thought Sally said they weren't
going to let anyone in or out of Home for a while, other than Sandra, and she
wouldn't have a reason to want Tails dead. If anyone had hired her, she'd have
done the job when she was here two days ago."
"So, who could have..."
"Well, Kenal did look kinda mad when he left."
Sally was not happy about Bunnie's interruption. "Kenal's his friend. He would
never kill Tails, no matter how angry he was."
******
The griffin loaded another poisoned dart into a blowpipe. Moving like a shadow,
the unseen assassin found another target, an ancient enemy that had forced them
underground: a dragon. Carefully, a small wooden pipe was raised to the
griffin's puckered beak, aimed straight for a thin spot in Dulcy's scales
between her wings. So intent was the poisoner that a light touch on the back of
the griffin's neck was the first thing that revealed another's presence. The
assassin knew that the other had also been trained to kill, as shown by the
location and amount of the pressure: just a bit harder, and the poisoner would
be dead.
"What do you think you're doing?" A familiar voice came from behind.
"Getting rid of that Wyrm."
"Is that what you came here for?"
"No. I was sent to kill the necromancer. By now, he's either dead or close to
it."
"There are no necromancers here."
"Is this not Knothole, home of the outsider Freedom Fighters who house King
Prower?"
"There are no Kings here, either."
"He was once known as Tails."
"Tails?" The pressure vanished. "Tails?" Chuckles arose from behind.
"Yes." The griffin, curiousity raised, turned around to see the interloper.
"He became King and a necromancer when he took the life of..." The griffin
finally recognized her shadower. "Kenal?"
"Oh, Mobius. You thought I'd let him take my life witout being sure he'd
revive me?" Kenal struggled to keep down his mirth, trying to make sure that
no one else saw him or the assassin. "I thought if anyone back at Home would
figure that out, you would, Rikal." He rocked back and forth in tune with his
chuckling to free three of his paws, just as he had freed his fourth.
"Kenal, he's an outsider. None of them can be trusted." Rikal stowed her pipe
inside her leather collar, which had loops that held several darts of varying
colors. "Even if he is kind of cute."
"Kind of cute? Coming from you, that's like Robotnik saying he merely disliked
Sonic."
Rikal sighed. "That's why they sent me. But now, it's too late."
Kenal's giggles abruptly stopped. "What do you mean, too late? Rikal, did you
already..."
The assassin nodded, a tear rolling down her pink head feathers. Rikal
murmured, "If I'd known...I didn't want to hurt him, but I had no choice."
"Stuff it, Rikal. Just give me the antidote."
She pointed to a blue-banded red dart next to an empty loop. Having finally
extricated all of his claws from the pillow, Kenal quickly removed the dart and
took off.
******
Fortunately for Tails, Bookshire's hut was the first place that Kenal looked.
When he offered the antidote dart, Bookshire quickly administered it while
Sally had to restrain Bunnie.
"This is not funny, Kenal. Poisonin' Tails was not a good practical joke."
"I didn't do it, Bunnie. Don't leap to conclusions."
A pink and purple griffin, slightly larger than Kenal, landed on the windowsill.
"He's right. I was sent to poison Tails for what he did to Kenal."
Sally had interposed herself between Bunnie and Kenal, which left an open path
for Bunnie to charge at the newcomer. Before Sally could react, Bunnie had
sailed through the window. The griffin had leapt to avoid Bunnie's attack, but
she bonked her head on the window frame before remembering that the window had a
frame. Sally caught the unconcious griffin as she fell, barely avoiding
stabbing her hand with one of the darts on the griffin's collar. Recognizing
the darts' shape as identical to the one Tails had been hit with, she quickly
tore off the collar and threw it in a corner.
"What's with Bunnie today?" Kenal looked out the door, his field of view ending
just short of where Bunnie had hit the ground.
"I don't know. She's usually not like this." Sally studied the unconcious
griffin in her arms, failing to find any other dangerous weapons aside from her
claws. "Do you know this griffin?"
"Yeah, but I'm surprised she did it. Her name's Rikal, and I think she's got a
crush on Tails. She got in trouble a couple months ago when she put up a poster
of him in her bedroom, and I saw her writing love poems about him more than
once. She said she was sent for Tails; the other griffins probably thought he
was still holding my life force inside him, so they sent her to free me by
taking his life."
"They sent her despite her feelings for him?"
"They probably sent her because of her feelings. The same thing happend to the
last griffin to love an outsider."
"I...that's almost as bad as Robotnik. Why would she do it?"
Kenal shrugged. "Unquestioning obedience is the only life most of the other
griffins have known. Without a Monarch, our elders rule. They don't bother
with learning the truth, they just assume they know the answers, like most
Monarchs do..." Kenal noticed Sally's brow furrowing. "...most of our
Monarchs, that is. Their ignorance has convinced them that everything outside
of Home is to be feared, and they've convinced almost all of the griffins of
that. The few of us who do study the outside keep quiet about what we find.
Challenging popular beliefs is not a good way to make friends, and our Monarchs
have allowed lynch mobs in the past."
"'Lynch mobs'?" The concept was entirely outside of Sally's experience.
"When a lot of griffins get angry with one, they gang up and get rid of the
offender."
"You mean, 'exile'."
"No, I mean..." Kenal extended his claws, then swiped them just short of his
neck. "It usually leaves a bit of a mess, which the mob has to clean up."
Sally was in a state of near shock after picturing Kenal's description.
"I'd hoped to outlaw them forever when I became King. Thanks to Grisha, I
never got a chance."
"Won't they just obey their King now?"
"Even if I were still King, they could just revolt. It's happened before, when
the King forgot to use the crown's mind control powers. That's when my family
got the crown. If it were any griffin but me, I doubt they'd do anything but
obey, even if the crown hadn't been destroyed."
"You are still their King, aren't you?"
"No. Death, even temporary, passes the title on. And I know that Tails would
not be welcome at Home. Fear of outsiders is so great, that...well...let's just
say he wouldn't rule for long."
"Tails? You're kidding, right?"
"I'm kidding, wrong. By our laws, he is our King. The elders will not allow
someone else to take the throne until Tails passes the title on. As far as
they're concerned, necromacy is just an excuse to speed that up."
Sally looked at the unconcious griffin in her arms. "What will happen to her if
she fails?"
"You mean, if she returns without killing Tails? She dies, and someone else
takes her place. I'd be surprised if she doesn't know this, so if you drop her
at Home, she will just come back if the others don't kill her on sight. If she
does not return, the others will assume we killed her, and use that as an excuse
to attack in force. Without the cloak, they probably think it's only a matter
of time before the dragons wipe them out anyway."
"Despite the fact that most of the dragons have been roboticized."
"They don't care about what is real, only about what they fear is real. And
what they fear is that the dragons just made it look like they've been
roboticized."
"How much of an attack could they mount?"
Kenal closed his eyes. "Hmm...in our case, they wouldn't actually attack us.
They'd just tell Packbell where we are, and ask for Tails' death as payment."
Sally noticed Rikal starting to move in her arms. "We'd better make sure she
doesn't do any more damage while we think about this."
"Who? Bunnie or Rikal?"
******
When Rikal woke, she had been hung upside down by her paws. She was in an empty
room with only one door. Dizzy, she flapped her wings to turn herself upright,
then flew for the exit. The rope which looped around all of her paws stretched
taut, holding her just short of her goal no matter how hard she flew. As she
struggled, she noticed that her collar had been placed near the door, just out
of reach. Eventually, she folded her wings and let herself swing like a
pendulum.
As she relaxed, the door opened to admit Tails.
"Tails? Oh, good, you survived. Look, I'm sorry..."
Tails waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry, Kenal told me everything."
Rikal did not remember telling Kenal much, but decided not to press the issue.
"So you're not angry?"
"No. If I thought my friend had been taken by a necromancer, I'd want him
freed, too. You could've asked, though."
"Uh-uh. Necromancers become totally evil. If I'd asked and you were still
under the necromancer's evil's influence, you would've just taken my life, too."
"'Necromancer's evil'? You mean, that voice that kept telling me to do bad
things? Don't worry, I just ignored it."
"Ignored? But that's...no necromancer has been able to resist it, ever."
Tails casually leaned against a wall. "I did."
"Really?" Rikal was clearly impressed. "Thank you for freeing Kenal, but why
did you take his life in the first place?"
"He tricked me into it. I cast the spell without knowing it was a spell.
Besides, he was already dying, thanks to Grisha."
"You saved his life by taking it? Oh, my..." Rikal started to swing faster.
"Well, that's how it OOF!" Tails was unprepared for Rikal's sudden plunge
towards him, after she slipped her paws free of the rope. "Hey, get off me."
Rikal smiled. "You are brave, smart, and..." For want of lips, Rikal licked
her beak. "...handsome, Tails." Rikal's head leaned towards Tails', her beak
ready for a kiss.
"AAAH..." Seeing what she planned, Tails leapt horizontally from under Rikal,
straight into full speed flight. Rikal, still smiling, gave chase, stopping
only to put on her collar.
******
Sally had called an emergency meeting to discuss the griffins' possible
cooperation with Packbell. Dulcy was among the last to arrive, and was just
walking in when she saw Tails flying towards her, pursued by Rikal. She
immediately started gathering a breath in order to roast the former assassin.
"Help! She's trying to kiss me!"
Dulcy paused in surprise, long enough for Tails to fly under her. Changing
gears internally, she let out a thin, but forceful, stream of steam at Rikal.
The stream was powerful enough to stop Rikal in mid-flight, and to force her to
land and dig her claws into the ground to keep still. "Hey, watch it. You're
frizzing my fur." Indeed, when the steam cleared, Rikal's smoothed fur had
puffed out in uneven patches. "That's better. Now, who..." Rikal gaped as she
saw who Tails had been heading for, then slowly walked backwards away from the
dragon as she smiled nervously. "Umm...heh, heh...hi?"
Dulcy spat fire at the ground in front of Rikal, who rolled backwards, threw a
green dart at Dulcy, and fled. Tails leapt to grab the dart, but missed. The
dart, which had been meant for Dulcy's neck, instead pierced Tails' arm. He
yelped, fell to the ground, and lay still.
The commotion had attracted a large crowd. Sally pushed her way to the front,
ran to Tails, yanked the dart out, and turned to Bookshire. "Do you have any
more of that antidote left?"
Kenal shook his head and pointed to the dart. "It wouldn't work. The darts are
color-coded: this is a different poison."
"So what can we do?"
Kenal looked up, smiled suddenly, then flew up and whispered in Dulcy's ear.
Dulcy frowned, then recoiled her head to turn it towards Kenal.
"Please," he begged.
"Well, ok..." Dulcy gathered her breath.
Sally looked for Dulcy's target, then saw her aiming for Tails. "Dulcy, NO!"
She tried to put herself in the line of fire.
Kenal flew against Sally's chest, pushing her out of the way. "Chill, Sally.
This isn't what you think."
Dulcy exhaled. In a second, Tails was covered with something that looked like
burning snow. The flame danced around him and up a white, but quickly
darkening, column that ended at Dulcy's mouth like a straw. When the column had
turned entirely black, Dulcy swiveled, breaking the black part away from the
snow, and spat it out. It sizzled and quickly evaporated when it hit the
ground, as did Tails' covering.
"What was that?"
Kenal dropped to the ground to examine Tails. "That was the poison." Kenal
prodded the fox in his shoulder as his voice quieted. "Yoohoo, anybody there?"
He began tickling Tails' stomach. "Hey, Tails, wake up already."
Tails giggled, then sat up and yawned. "What happened?"
"You saved my life," responded Dulcy. "Then I saved yours."
"Feels like more than that." Tails jumped into the air, but put too much power
into his leap. He spun tail over head over tail until finally coming out into
his regular hover. Tails landed on one tail, flipped into a handstand, and
started racing around, bursting at the seams with energy.
"Oops, guess I overdid it."
Sally tried to take it all in. "What do you mean, you overdid it? What did you
do to him, Dulcy?"
"It's a little trick my mom taught me. I put my fire and ice together to suck
out the poison, but I couldn't use all of it or I'd burn him. I had to put the
rest of my fire somewhere, so I put it into him, but I forgot to take it out
when I was done. He just needs to burn it off, that's all. I didn't think it
would work for Tails, and I'm sure it won't work again."
Bunnie cupped her hand to whisper to Sally. "Is this th' healing y'all were
tellin' me about?"
Sally nodded, but kept her head facing Dulcy. "You're sure he's ok?"
"Sure I'm sure, Sally. At least, I think I'm sure."
"Well, we'd better find Rikal before she gets him a third time." Sally turned
towards the other Freedom Fighters present. "I need search parties. Sonic, you
and Antoine search the power ring pool."
"Sure thing, Sal, if I can find Ant."
"He isn't here?"
"Nope. I haven't seen him since Packbell got me. I thought he told you guys to
come after me."
"We came when we saw the hoverbots." Sally paused, then muttered, "I have a bad
feeling about this." She then yelled, "Has anyone seen Antoine in the past
hour?"
The crowd's response was a chorus of "No"s, "Nope"s, and "Would I want to?", the
last comment being from Sonic.
"Sonic..." Sally was about to reprimand him when realization struck. "He must
still be in Robotropolis. We've got to rescue him."
"I'll get him, Sal. You take care of Rikal."
Tails rose above Sonic's head and flew circles around it. "Can I come too?"
"Sure thing, big guy. Race ya there."
"Readysetgo!" Tails took off, closely followed by Sonic, who was followed by
Sally.
Sally did not sound amused as she pulled even with Sonic. "Sonic, wait."
"Moi? Wait? Are you feeling ok, Sal?"
"I thought we agreed that Tails was too young to go to Robotropolis. I'm
coming with you instead."
"You heard Dulce. He needs to burn off some energy. Besides, this will give
the search parties time to find Rikal before she can use another dart."
"And you think he'll be any safer in Robotropolis?"
"I'm sure he'd say so."
"Can you talk some sense into him, Sonic?"
******
Unseen by anyone else, Rikal watched the trio dash towards the tree on which she
hid. As they passed under her, she spread her wings, and rode the wind that the
three nearly supersonic Mobians generated. The pull was so great that she did
not have to flap her wings to match their speed. Totally silent, she followed
them undetected all the way to Robotropolis.
******
Back at Knothole, most of the Mobians present had scattered for a search that
would be in vain. Only Bunnie, Rotor, Dulcy, and Kenal remained near the War
Room.
Bunnie smoothed down a stray fur. "Well, Kenal, y'all know so much about
griffins, where would you hide?"
The fur on Kenal's back was now on end. "Somewhere where you couldn't find me.
Don't follow me; you'll just spoil the search. I don't know about you, but I
want her alive."
Rotor crossed his arms and frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"What, you haven't seen her this morning? First she tried to forcefeed me
C-Fear, then she accused me of poisoning Tails."
"She wouldn't do that." Rotor's voice was less sure than his words.
"Ah'm afraid ah did."
"She's probably going to hand me over to Packbell tonight."
"No way." Rotor turned to face Bunnie. "You took the C-Fear? Why?"
"Ah...ah don't know why. Somethin' came over muh..." Bunnie stuck her metal
hand out towards Kenal. "Look, ah'm sorry -"
Kenal sprung into the air spinning, extended his claws, and struck at Bunnie's
hand after a full revolution. Sparks flew as three of his claws dug gashes in
the hand's casing. "Leave me alone!" He stormed off as soon as he landed.
Bunnie froze, not believing what had just happened.
Dulcy broke the stunned silence that followed. "You deserved it," she snorted
as she turned her back on Bunnie.
"Nobody deserves that." Rotor placed himself between Bunnie and Dulcy,
symbolically defending his mate.
Dulcy turned her head just enough to see Rotor. "Not even Robotnik and
Snively?"
"Ok, nobody still alive." Rotor turned back to Bunnie. "Let's get that hand
fixed before it rusts."
Bunnie was speechless as Rotor lead her away. She knew that she had wronged
Kenal, and that she had to make up for it. More importantly, though, she had to
find the reasons for her anger.