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Part Six of the origin of Mobius series.

Azarlan prowled his cell, moving on all fours to avoid smashing his head on the low ceiling. Natalie slept fitfully in the corner, wrapped up in a blanket against the cold. She moaned in pain whenever she rolled onto one of her sores and sometimes she whimpered from some phantasmal nightmare. Azarlan growled involuntarily, he did not like being cooped up in this filthy cell, he hated Robotnik for being able to keep Natalie and the other prisoners in such foul conditions, he hated this whole rotting pustule of a hellhole. In a fit of rage he hurled himself at the bars for yet another time, jarring Natalie awake. The bars reverberated and a shower of masonry dust trickled down, but the bars only bent slightly. His rage spent, Azarlan continued to pace the cell in his strange four-limbed gait. Natalie wrapped herself in her tail and blanket, eyeing him cautiously.

Robotnik was furious, he kicked his green chair hard enough to send it spinning across his throne room. He hammered a fist into the desk next to where a shivering Snively cowered in front of a security monitor. The metallic clang reverberated through the room. Robotnik spoke in a tense quiet voice:

"Snively, I wish you to tell me, why you spent most of last night cowering above a water vat when you should have been watching out for those beasties?"

"I..I.." he stammered.

"Oh shut up!" Robotnik howled as he belted Snively hard enough to send him skidding across the steel floor of the throne room. "Give me a report on our new prisoner."

Snively picked himself up and walked to his monitor. "The subject is unrecognised by the computer data-banks, S-Sir. Initial scans show it to be a form of human although internal structure and cranial capacity does not fit with standard human models, S-Sir."

"Could it be, Roboticized?"

"Y-Yes, S-Sir, but it would require us to divert power from our northern shield generator to gain enough power to do so."

"Pah! We won’t need a defensive shield when I have a robot that powerful in my armies! Bring the prisoner here now!"

"S-Sir?"

"What!" Robotnik screamed.

"How sir, it seems immune to the sedative we gave him and it’s too strong to be brought here by Swats."

"Up the dose of the sedative, I don’t care if you give him enough to kill a herd of elephants, just get him into my lab now!"

He stared at Snively.

"Now you blithering idiot! Now!"

Michala lifted the heavy girder that was trapping Tails’ legs. Poor kid was unconscious, probably better than have him screaming in pain. Michala clicked the joints of Tails’ shoulders back into place. Tails stirred and whimpered a little as Michala rubbed his shoulder gently. Michala took another look at the dead Badger, she was definitely dead. The Rat’s skull, still clothed in some of its flesh, dangled from the trophy rack on his armoured belt. He lifted Tails up into his arms and pushed his way out of the wreckage.

Robotnik watched through the reinforced glass that separated his control room from the main lab. The prisoner had been brought in with great difficulty, he was still standing after having a doubly lethal dose of sedative. When they opened the door to his cell he had attacked a SWAT, tearing it to metal foil before another shot him in the arm. Robotnik watched as five SWATs hauled him in by thick cables attached to a neck collar. Strangely the shoulder stump of the prisoners severed arm had stopped bleeding almost immediately as it had been severed. The prisoner howled a string of curses as he was thrown into the lab’s biggest roboticizer. The steel exterior vibrated violently as the prisoner threw himself against the polished interior. Robotnik turned away and strode over to his control desk, Snively was hunched furtively over a bank of monitors and occasionally pressed buttons. Robotnik sat down in his swivel chair and turned to his desk.

"Snively, deactivate northern shield."

"Yes Sir."

There was an audible surge of power and a bank of lights lit up.

"Activate reserve reactors."

The hum increased in pitch to a whine and another set of lights was illuminated.

"Begin the procedure!"

There was a click as a computerised female voice came through loudspeakers.

"Scanning subject…. Decoding Gene sequence."

A string of the letters A, C, T and G flashed past with blinding speed on the monitors.

"Roboticizing now.."

Inside the machine Azarlan howled in agony as lances of white hot metal burnt into him. The procedure, due to its length, was far more painful than usual. The machine laid a neural network directly into his pineal gland. Suddenly Azarlan became aware of the thoughts of the machine. He was now able to control it. This was the basis on which imperial technicians were based. Azarlan focused a burst of mental energy back into the CPU.

"Alert! Alert! External override, lockout initiated." Came the computerised voice.

"What!" spluttered Robotnik. "Snively! This is your fault, where is that override coming from?"

"Tracing Sir."

"Well!"

Snively’s jaw dropped as he stared at the monitor.

"What!"

"I-In there." Snively stammered, extending a thin finger to point at the main bulk of the Roboticizer.

"No, it’s not possible."

Robotnik watched the monitors showing what was occurring inside the machine. The internal scanner showed strengthening matrices of super-hard alloy being laid down in the bones. The severed arm was replaced by a huge power-claw. One of the eyes was replaced with a technically advanced artificial eye. Robotnik was astonished to see that the entire body was absorbing strands of metal, becoming a mix of steel and muscle. It was finally covered in a sheath of adamantium, the hardest alloy that works in a roboticizer.

The lab became silent as power failed. Robotnik watched through reinforced polycarbonate glass.

The Omni-Steel tube of the central roboticizer unit was ominously silent. Robotnik had replaced the old iridium tube with Omni-steel to reinforce it after Sonic used a power ring to break out. Omni-steel was the hardest metal available in large quantities on Mobius.

There was a loud clang as four barbed hooks of metal burst through the tube. There was a scream of tortured metal as Azarlan wrenched it away like it was tissue paper.

Robotnik stared at this new figure.

It was recognisable as the subject, but was covered in heavy dermal plates. A monstrous claw snapped shut at his left side and there was the piercing whine of a plasma cannon warming up. Tendrils of fleshy metal waved out of a hole in his back and snatched up devices in the lab which combined with Azarlan’s structure.

Robotnik and Snively ran as he took aim at the control room window. It exploded with a hiss of superheated steam. The SWATbots fell in tatters as the claw described a lethal arc. A laser bolt rebounded off Azarlan’s toughened exoskeleton and gouged a rut out of the ceiling. A final bot fell. Natalie…

Tails woke slowly in a softly lit white room, his arms hurt a little but not as much as he remembered they had. He raised his head but was pushed slightly back into his pillow by a firm hand.

"How you doing big guy?" It was Sonic’s voice.

"Okay." He mumbled. He recognised where he was now, it was Doctor Quack’s recovery room. Sonic ruffled his head-fur.

"Cheer up, how are the arm’s?"

"They hurt a bit."

Doctor Quack butted in. "I think they should Tails, they were almost ripped out of their sockets when that transporter crashed. You were lucky one of our large friends found you."

"Who?"

"Michala, the big black hedgehog."

"Oh, yeah."

"Tails." Asked Sonic. "How did they capture you anyway?"

"It was some rat, he had a badger and held a knife to her throat and said he’d kill her if I didn’t go."

"Did this particular rat have a gold handled knife?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Freddie ‘Butterfly’ Rockston. He was a major big-time crime-lord before the coup. He had something of the sadist in him as well, probably why he worked for Robotnik." Doctor Quack said.

"What do you mean worked."

"Michala came back with his head on some kind of trophy rack." Said Sonic

"Ugh, sick. How’s the badger, I didn’t have time to ask her name."

"I’m afraid she died in the crash" said doctor Quack.

Tears formed in Tails’ eyes.

The contents of Michala’s stomach heaved up as he rested over the toilet bowl. The hot stream near sizzled as it hit the water. He wiped away the splashes of vomit that stuck to the sides of his mouth with a violently shaking hand. He was sweating profusely and his mind span. Seeing Tails suffer had brought back one of his worst memories. He stood shakily upright and splashed cold water over his face at the sink. He stared into the mirror…..

…. Unit twelve brace for impact. The command came over the loudspeakers in the drop pod. There was a bone crunching thud as the pod impacted. The petals of the pod were flung outwards and the troops charged out.

The towns they moved through were empty of any inhabitants. Everything looked as if it had been dropped where the people were at the time. The enemy, an alien race that had invaded this planet, was crushed easily by the imperial force. But there was no trace of the human inhabitants. Until they reached the southern pole.

The aliens had constructed a huge concentration camp to house the humans, they were all dead. They had died from cold and starvation but mostly from hideous tortures inflicted on them. It had been worse for the children, the frozen images of agony on their faces burnt into Michala'’ memory. He was one of the serving soldiers and so he had to help dispose of the bodies. All that could be done was to drag every person into a huge heap over forty storeys tall. This was terrible even for the seasoned veterans but was doubly worse for Michala and the other cadets. Michala had barely left military school and he was dragging huge numbers of corpses into a huge pile. They burnt the pile in a huge pyre that lasted several months. Seventeen billion corpses went up in the flames.

Azarlan’s power claw sliced through the heavy steel door of the prison building and tore it open with minimal effort. His newly acquired bionic eye thermographically scanned the cells for captives. Most were empty or contained cold corpses. He sliced through the bars of one cage to release someone. He didn’t pause to receive thanks. A Swat tried to bar his way and was felled like a sapling. Writhing tendrils of fleshy steel on Azarlan’s back snatched up the gun and power source from the crippled robot. Within a second they were assimilated into his structure. The gun appeared on his upper-right forearm, its barrel wider and its stock bigger. More Swats charged towards him. He casually felled them with white hot laser blasts from his new weapon. He approached the last cell, Natalie’s cell. He punched the lock off with his claw and offered his other hand to pull her out. She was confused and frightened, wide eyed with fear. She moved slowly back. He grabbed her and hauled her out before slinging her across his shoulders and sprinting down the corridor.

Amy walked up behind Michala and put her arms around him. She knew that look he had on his face now, he was trying to repress a terrible memory from his past. She had her own and knew how much pain they caused. She turned him round and hugged herself against his chest, tears welling in her eyes. She felt his arms run up her sides and link behind her. Amy stifled a sob and hugged him tighter, pushing her breasts against him. He raised one hand and ran his fingers through the spines on her head. She looked up into his face and the two kissed.

Azarlan sprinted down the corridor, the sound of metal on metal resounding behind him. Natalie hung on for dear life as he smashed through another door in the corridor. He scanned his internal map to find an exit. Nothing, only corridors stretching for miles to the surface, inside Robotropolis. Unless… A water pipe caught his attention. It was big enough to easily carry him and it led out into a lake distant from Robotropolis. It was close, just behind that set of heavy blast doors. Azarlan sliced into them with his claw and they tore like meat. The deafening roar of water filled his ears as he rushed onto a walkway fifty foot above a huge tank of water that surged down a sinkhole.

He pulled Natalie across to his chest and held her there with his arm.

"Take a deep breath." He whispered to her.

He jumped. The two of them hit the water with incredible force but Natalie was shielded by Azarlan’s bulk. They were sucked down the sinkhole. Natalie’s lungs burnt, her ears trickled blood from the intense pressure, her fur was stretched by the torturous currents. She couldn’t hold her breath any longer, she let it go in a blast of bubbles. Even in the blackness she knew her vision was going. Then Azarlan forced breath into her mouth. She held on as she saw light down the tunnel. The two of them were flung out of a massive outlet pipe on a cliff above the lake. They hit the water with a slap. The two of them gasped in air.

Amy laid in Michala’s bed. She shivered in pleasure and gently smoothed down the rumpled bed-sheets. The splash of a shower came from the ensuite bathroom along with the gasp of someone under cold water. Amy picked her clothes off the floor where they had been flung and pulled on a loose white T-shirt. She took a moment to glance at the picture of Michala’s parents on the wall. Marrying into royalty, she had never imagined this in her earlier life. Michala walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist but his fur and spines dry. They walked together and he ran his hands up from her hips to her breasts. She giggled and pushed his hands away. Amy then went to walk off.

"This yours?" Michala asked, holding out a black lace bra.

Amy glared jokingly and snatched it from him, her artificially serious face breaking up now as her mouth turned up at the corners. She walked back to her room, putting an extra wiggle into her walk for Michala’s benefit.

Azarlan hauled a spluttering Natalie up onto the narrow beach that fronted one edge of the lake. She shook the water out of her fur but it still hung matted due to its poor condition. Azarlan squeezed water out of his hair with his hand. He noticed that he was practically naked, save for enough tattered shreds to retain his modesty. Various pieces of armour also clung to his anatomy, along with the assimilated chunks of Swat. With a thought he released the pieces of metal and they fell to the ground with a clang. Natalie squeezed water out of her tail, shivering as she did so. The air had a savage bite to it and it was doubly worse now that they were dripping wet.

"Come on." He said.

He took her hand and led her into a small cave just above the base of the cliff. It was warm and dry, floored with a layer of softened pine needles. Azarlan grabbed a handful of dry twigs and needles from beneath a ledge next to the cave. He gently pushed Natalie in and pulled a large boulder half-over the entrance to shield them from the biting wind.

"I think we’re safe now."

Natalie smiled weakly back at him.

Michala made a check on Sally. She floated, suspended in the liquid of the regeneration chamber. All of her readouts were now fully stable, she could be released soon. He turned to face a computer console. He pushed an empty tea mug away, but then he stopped. It was one of Azarlan’s. It still contained the icy cold dregs of tea and the characteristic chip on the earthenware handle. Michala stopped what he was doing and walked over to the communications console. He uploaded a command to the Spy-Sat orbiting high above Mobius. It began a low priority scan of the whole area surrounding Robotropolis. As the beam passed over a lake it picked up pieces of clothing floating in the centre. Michala quickly upped the priority. The beam followed a chemical trace to the edge of the lake. Suddenly it picked up a signal. Michala read the signature pattern. His comrade was alive!

After moving the boulder slightly to let the smoky air waft out of the cave Azarlan sat down next to Natalie. She passed her arms around his waist and hugged her head against him. He stroked her head-fur with his hand.

"We’re free!" she whispered excitedly.

Michala almost ran straight over Amy as he ran out of the door of the Kestrel. He stopped to pick her up before strapping a fuel canister to his back.

"What is it?" Amy asked.

"I’ve just picked up a signal from Azarlan’s homing device, it’s coming from the base of cliffs near a lake." He replied.

"Do you think he’s still alive."

"I hope so."

With that he sprinted forward and took off as his jets ignited. The dull roar of a sonic boom echoed through the trees and Sonic looked up, surprised that for once it wasn’t him who had caused all the noise. The distant roar of the jets filtered back to the village, which had the unfortunate side effect of making about half the villagers run for cover and the others rolling on the floor with laughter.

Azarlan had absorbed his dermal plates and was looking like his old self, aside from a deep scar running across his chest. He and Natalie hugged together for warmth, it was cold despite the fire. Azarlan didn’t bother looking for food, he knew that this was a redwood forest and nothing else grew here except the immense trees. Natalie had dozed off, she was exhausted from lack of food and the cold. Her ribs poked through her fur in testament to her mal-nourishment. Azarlan pulled some pine needles over her to keep out the cold. A futile gesture perhaps, he doubted they would ever be rescued here. Natalie’s breathing was shallow and his own was slightly laboured, frost was forming outside the cave as the temperature dropped, the sun was hidden behind a thick black cloud. The only light that reached the cave was that which seemed to be a luminance of the lake itself. A mist was building on the shore and only the draft from the fire kept its chilling tendrils out of the cave. The mist crouched like a hungry animal outside the cave, wreathing everything in spectral coils of smoke. Azarlan swore he could hear the roar of ramjets as he fell, exhausted, to sleep.

"Hey bud! You and me both, huh?" Sonic shouted to Tails.

"Very funny!" said Tails, emerging from doctor Quack’s surgery. His scratched at the sling on his left arm and looked at the gel bandage around Sonic’s ankle.

"No fair! You get a squishy green one!"

"Well, it’s for my best feature, after my looks of course." Sonic replied.

Tails rolled his eyes as Sonic preened his spines.

"It’ll fall out if you’re not careful!"

"Huh?"

"That top spine of yours, you’re always pulling it about."

"And you’re always twirling your bum but I don’t say it’s gonna fall off."

"Cheers!"

Sonic slapped Tails on the back and he winced in pain.

"Hey! Watch the shoulder, I’d slap you back if you weren’t so spiny!" Tails yelled.

"And I quote: ‘Cheers!’"

Tails laughed.

"I’m starved, wanna get something to eat bud?"

"Sure pal."

Michala touched down on the shore of a large lake and broke into a run. He headed for the place the tracer had last been received from. He screeched to a halt outside a cave set into the base of the cliffs. A large boulder blocked the entrance and smoke wafted out of it. Michala approached cautiously, ever wary of a trap. He drew a knife from his belt in case. He couldn’t see around the boulder, so he leant his weight against it and shifted it out of the way with a tremendous noise. Something jumped on him and threw him to the floor, he held his knife against its neck. He stared into the eyes, one robotic, one strangely familiar.

"Mick?" it asked.

"Azarlan?"

"I don’t believe it!"

"I thought I’d never see you again!"

Azarlan sat back, removing his weight from Michala’s chest. The two stared at each other for a moment.

"What happened to you?" Michala asked.

"It’s a long story, I’ll tell you over a hot drink I’m freezing."

"You alone?"

"No, I’ve got company. Natalie you can come out, it’s safe."

Michala watched as a painfully thin Racoon hobbled out of the cave. She was in a bad way and needed urgent treatment for the festering sores that covered parts of her body.

"Hi.." She said weakly.

"Evening Missy."

Natalie collapsed, her breathing fitful. Michala rushed over to her.

"Don’t worry about me, just fly her back and send someone to guide me back."

Michala nodded and scooped Natalie up in his arms. Igniting his jets he flew away from the rapidly declining figure of Azarlan.