Author's Notes

In Sonic SatAM, Bunnie's partial roboticization is taken for granted - it's never explained how she got that way, aside from an unused title sequence. It was explained in Archie, but I don't consider that to be in line with SatAM; after all, at that point in the Archie run the story was very slapstick, in contrast to SatAM's dark, serious tone. Archie also rearranged the characters' pasts - in SatAM, Bunnie grew up with the other Freedom Fighters, while in Archie she met them as a teenager, post-roboticization. This is my little attempt at filling in that void.

I portray Antoine as left-handed, because of several official art pieces showing him as such. Besides, it's cool. ^_^ Anyway, please enjoy.

Chapter One: Failure

"All right." Bunnie smoothed her fur as she and Antoine peered down at the smog-choked city. "Just a lil ol' trainin' mission, right?"

"Oui."

"Flag on th'outskirts an' no reason for anyone to know we even exist."

"Zat iz being too true." The coyote eyed her a moment before standing, sheathing a sword almost too long for him. "You are making ze nervousness." Antoine, the oldest of their group at twelve, had already been into Robotropolis two or three times, and though he was just as uneasy as the rabbit he felt it his duty to present a cavalier attitude.

"Sorry, Ant-honey." She grinned, rubbing the back of her head and allowing one long ear to droop. "Ah 'spect this's old hat for y'all an' Ah'm just a silly lil ninny."

Antoine started to nod, but caught himself in time to shake his head furiously instead. "Mais non, mademoiselle! Eet eez only natural to haf ze bread and butter at zees times." He glanced at her puzzled face and coughed, shuffling his feet before he could force himself to dignified military at-ease. "Eh, zat eez, unless you are ze soljair like mahself. But zere are no worries here, as I am presenting." Bunnie brightened, tapping her open palm with opposite fist, and he beamed at her. She had it! Truly, he was the best for training the group!

"Ah got it! Y'all mean butterflies!"

"Eh?" He shook his head, bewildered. Maybe she didn't have it. "No. I mean soljair." The rabbit giggled, and Antoine felt himself reddening. What a maddening little creature!

"Never you mind, Ant-honey." She smiled, patted him between the ears, and began picking her way down the slope. "Let's get that flag!"

**

The flag Cat had planted for the trainees was a bright red spot amongst the unrelieved grey and sickly green-brown of Robotropolis, but between passing patrols and the confusing web of acrid scents and hazy exhaust puffs it was an hour and a half before Bunnie spotted it. She froze, tugging lightly at the hem of Antoine's shirt, and pointed to the scrap of cloth before they both stepped back into the maze of scrapheaps to avoid yet another patrol.

"What the hoohah are they lookin' for?" Bunnie wondered aloud. Antoine shook his head, spreading his hands.

"'Ow are we knowing ze mind of zat creature? Pairhaps somesing has made ze paranoia." He wrinkled his nose, trying to remember if he had seen so many patrols on his last trip. They had died down after years of inactivity from the survivors; Antoine had always assumed that Robotnik thought they had taken refuge in another and was simply not yet prepared for a war with his neighbors to find less than a dozen children and elderly, Princess Sally or no.

"Maybe they noticed Cat plantin' his lil flags?"

"We haf been searching ze flags for sometimes. Cat iz ze brave spying in ze last war, I do not think they are seeing him." The coyote frowned, shifting his weight. He had been up well past lights-out often of late, practicing the sword techniques his father had taught him before his capture; some nights, he had seen Sonic slipping out of Knothole when the hedgehog thought no one was awake. Could he have been coming here, and been spotted? No, Antoine decided, even Sonic wasn't that foolish. Still, the increased activity needed to be reported, and that hedgehog needed to be questioned.

But first things first. There was a mission to attend to, however frivolous.

"I weel take ze flag," he told Bunnie, "and you much watch and leesten for ze patrol. When we are leaving, Cat and ze Princess must know of zis." He crept from their hiding place, flicking an ear back but not replying as she protested that they should forget the flag and leave now; a soldier did not give up on a mission, regardless of the danger.

As his fingers closed on the oily cloth, Bunnie shrieked. Antoine turned to see her tumble out of their hiding place with one ear bloodied, a sleek mantislike robot pursuing her and another darting for Antoine himself. He leaped back hastily, sword flicking out to plunge into the delicate joint where the mantis' wing met body to send the robot spinning out of control. Bunnie was on her feet by now, bounding nimbly up a scrap heap to avoid the other mantis, and Antoine dashed after her to swing for its wings as well. He leaped to strike and coyote and robot went rolling down the heap—straight into three SWATbots. Working on instinct now, he gripped the hilt of his sword in both hands and swung, tossing the awkwardly fluttering mantis into the nearest SWATbot as he sprinted back up the heap after Bunnie.

By the time he reached her more SWATbots were approaching, accompanied by the more vicious mantises. Bunnie sprang up to aim a spinning kick at a mantis, knocking it into another but falling with a sharp gasp as the metal bruised her bare foot. Antoine lunged forward as she tried to get to her feet, gripping his sword in both hands to slice at the wrist of a SWATbot preparing to fire. By sheer luck, he hit the joint at precisely the right point to slice cleanly through it; unfortunately, the energy built up for the shot was too much for the insulation wrapped about his sword hilt. The coyote let out a short-lived yelp as the voltage coursed through him and then tumbled limply to the ground fifteen feet below, scrap metal raining down after him.

"Antoine!"

Bunnie slid to the edge of the heap, scrambling for balance on the shifting metal. There was no sign of Antoine; the coyote had been completely obscured. She scooted away from an incoming mantis, frowning as the robots all turned there attention to her. They had apparently lost interest in Antoine as soon as he disappeared; to still be motionless under the heap, he had to be unconscious and thus helpless. Bunnie moved to the other side of the heap and slid down, wincing as she landed. She had certainly damaged her foot kicking the mantis, and as she began to run she became sure something was broken. Still, she kept going to draw the robots away from her friend. One of Cat's safe houses was already in sight; if she could only reach it, she could call for help.

**

Antoine awakened to a sharp weight in the small of his back, burning pain in his palms, and an overall bruised feeling.

"You are please getting off of me, Sonic," he muttered, mistaking the sharpness for the hedgehog's quills. Nearly a minute went by with no response, and the coyote shifted, frowning; Sonic stayed silent about as easily as Antoine himself, so something was obviously wrong. As he moved the scrap metal slid off him and he spotted his sword, slightly melted and misshapen, and automatically looked at his hands. Much of the fur was singed from his palms, and the skin below was beginning to blister. Of course—Bunnie had been injured attacking a mantis, and he had intercepted a SWATbot attacking her while she was vulnerable.

"Bunnie? Where you are hiding from me?"

He frowned when no answer came, ears flicking back as annoyance vied with worry, and began circling the scrap heap, pausing as he came across the rabbit's tracks. Following them yielded a meandering path for a few moments before making straight for the nearest safe house. Antoine smiled as he trotted after her. Clever Bunnie! She must have drawn the robots off and then headed for safety to wait for him. He had taught her well(and Cat had too, he supposed).

Within twenty feet of the safe house the rabbit tracks vanished, replaced by a flurry of large, deep footprints. Antoine froze, eyes wide, as he recognized the marks of SWATbots. Bunnie had been intercepted and, no doubt, taken to Robotnik's headquarters. For all his posturing, Antoine had never been beyond the outer city, and the very idea of going into the base left him trembling violently. Bunnie was in there, though, and aside from his feelings of responsibility she was a dear friend. He raced back to retrieve his ruined sword and then made for the elliptical tower at a dead run.

**

Finding the roboticizer took a good deal of precious time; even Cat was not entirely sure where it was, and Antoine would never have found it if he hadn't come across Bunnie's scent in one of the endless corridors. After a few moments of following the trail he began hearing voices.

"It's no good, sir," a timid, vaguely familiar voice was saying. "This is certainly one of the missing palace children, but she isn't carrying any sort of tracing equipment."

"Y'all think we're that stupid?" Bunnie grumbled, thumping a fist against the clear capsule. Antoine nearly melted with relief at the sound of her voice; no robot sounded like that. He wasn't too late! The coyote crouched by the machine, trying to get his shivering under control as he began worrying at the panel with his sword.

"As a matter of fact I do," Robotnik told her, tapping the capsule with his own metal fist. Bunnie stepped back slightly but then set her feet, glaring up at him. "But never mind, my dear. You may not have a way home, but that simply means you know it well enough for me to extract it easily."

Bunnie gulped, uninjured ear drooping as severely as the bloodied one. "Y'all… y'all're bluffin'! That easy, an' you'd be in there already!"

"You think so, my dear?" Robotnik smiled, shaking his head slightly. "Think about it. Who knows Knothole better? My earlier robots, who knew of it as an occasional playground? Or a new one who has lived most of her life there?" He turned to flip a series of switches, activating the machine. Bunnie shrieked as pulses of agonizing light raced over her body, a hideous burning beginning at the tips of her toes and surging rapidly upward. Antoine, barely suppressing a scream of his own, grabbed a random handful of wires and jerked as hard as he could, sparks singing his fur and whiskers as the room went dark. For a long moment all was silent aside from Bunnie's shuddering breaths.

"What happened?!" Robotnik bellowed suddenly. Antoine and Snively both jumped, uttering nearly identical squeaks, and Snively hurried to placate his uncle.

"I-I don't know, sir—some sort of short, I suppose. Shall I, ah, investigate?"

"I'll fix it myself, you incompetent toad! Have the SWATbots start investigating the circuit breakers while I run diagnostic. I don't have shorts in my fortress, it has to be that blasted rodent!" He stomped out, still spouting insults and orders, and Antoine crept out wondering how this place could possibly support any sort of vermin. Well, it wasn't his problem; miraculously, they had both left, and all he had to do was take Bunnie and go!

Then he saw her, and was nearly ill. Both of the rabbit's legs, as well as her left arm, appeared to be fully mechanical; closer, he thought he could hear other machines within the unconscious girl.

He had been too slow.

Antoine stood for a long moment, not looking away but not touching her though the capsule had opened when the machine died. After several seconds he realized he was not even breathing. Was it even safe to take her? The roboticized were solely Robotnik's creatures; Sonic's uncle, his own father, and countless others were testament to that. Suppose Bunnie was the same?

No, he decided at last. Her face was normal, if pained, with no trace of robotic mindlessness. This was Bunnie. His friend. A moment more and he'd convinced himself to pick her up. She was surprisingly light—the new limbs did not seem to add much weight—and he could feel her trembling against him. Antoine swallowed hard and set off for home, Bunnie's scream still ringing in his flattened ears.