"For now?" Hector replied dubiously. 
 
"He said that we would have to wait it out, basically," Rotor replied. "If it doesn't start to heal fast enough he might have to operate and insert..." 
 
"Er," Hector started. "Medical science is NOT my forte, so I probably won't know what the hell you're talking about." 
 
"It actually uses some of the same principles as your living energy sources for your airships..." 
 
Hector raised an eyebrow as Rotor went on. "Go on..." 
 
"Well..." 
 
"Um, I think we'll be over here if you need us," Sonic said hastily, going to the other side of the room to avoid the techno-babble. Sally was the first to follow, then Mura followed her. And thus Bunnie and Antoine followed them to Tails's side. 
 
"Haha..." Mura laughed. "Bune would probably be listening in with Rotor and Hector and probably understand all of it too... that's how he got along with Hector when he first came by..." 
 
"...you don't think he's dead, do you?" Sash said, getting up from the chair at the far side of the room. 
 
Mura turned, and opened her mouth to respond, but she didn't say anything.  
 
"Neither do I..." Sash responded, her voice trailing off into nowhere. She turned slowly, trying not to hurt her bandaged arm, and sat down again. 
 
"What's with her...?" Sonic whispeed. "She's been so... different." 
 
"She's sad, Sonic," Sally said. "It's probably because he died and she didn't..." 
 
Mura was looking at the ground. Suddenly, she looked up at Tails. His head was moving, he was waking up. "H... hey, he's... he's waking up!" 
 
Six heads in the room swiveled around to look at the fox. He was indeed waking up. His covers moves as he stretched. "Oww..." He said. "Wh... where...?" 
 
"You're at Knothole..." Sally answered gently. 
 
"It looked like you took a nasty spill or somethin' in the Great Forest..." Sonic said. "What th' heck happened out there?" 
 
"He's back..." Tails said, his voice small, like a secretive whisper. His eyes closed suddenly. His breathing became higher and more frequent.  
 
"What...?!" Hector yelled. "Someone get Doctor Quack! NOW!" 
 
[A few minutes later...] 
 
"...I don't know," Quack was explaining. "It could be that part of his brain was damaged in whatever it was that happened to him. He'll have an X-ray once he's sedated." 
 
"But... what about what he said...?" Mura asked. 
 
"He is back," Sash said. "Both of them are..." 
 
Sonic turned with a confused look on his face. "What's that supposed to mean?" Sash did not respond. 
 
"Hey..." Hector said. "Where did you guys find Tails?" 
 
"A little ways away from the Great Oak Slide... why?" Sally responded. 
 
"Maybe we'll see what both Sash and Tails are talking about when we go there..." 

-------- 
 
What had started as a simple thought from Hector turned into a full scale search mission. Sonic was on the treetops, using his speed to defy gravity, as there were no aerodynamically proficient people currently at hand. Hector and Sally, being part squirrel themselves, used their talents to stay under Sonic but over all the others patrolling the ground.  
 
But what were they searching for? This they did not know. Anything out of the norm, perhaps. Mura knew what - or whom - it was. 
 
It was Bune. Or... FAK. 
 
"Mura!" 
 
She looks so distant, Hector thought after she didn't answer. She's lost in thought... and she's starting to lose Bune all over again. We're not finding him, and we've been searching for hours... It's all fallen to pieces... Bune's gone, Sasha's depressed, and so is Mura... 
 
"Are we even going to find anything?" Mura said, almost reading Hector's mind.  
 
Hector looked up at everyone searching. The entire band of Freedom Fighters, the people of Artail, and a whole bunch of citizens from Knothole. "Mura, they have one thing that you need..." 
 
Mura looked up at him, knowing the answer to the question that she was going to ask. "What...?" 
 
Something glittered in his eye as he spoke. Something, an idea, person, place, anything. "Hope..." He looked to the sky. "Through this polluted, horrible, enslaved world we need hope... I know we aren't used to this world we live in, but we have to adapt... it will help us in the end. It'll make us stronger." 
 
Mura was ever silent. But the same thing glinted in her eye when she looked up. "I keep on asking myself the same question... 'What if he's really gone?' and I realize I'd only be decieving myself if I told myself that he's alive... That's why I'm saying that I hope he's alive... Then I won't be decieving myself anymore. Because I really do hope that he's alive..." 
 
Hector nodded solemnly. "I do too." Suddenly his comm-unit rang. Picking it slowly up, he replied, "What?" 
 
"We need you back up here. We may have something." The voice of Sally said. 
 
"Sure..." He said, looking down the forest to see where 
 
"Where is Mura? Is the at the flank with you?" 
 
"Yeah, she's right here..." 
 
"We might need her up here... here are the coordinates of current location..." 
 
"They're a little ways ahead... not too far. Come on..." Hector explained, startng in a run. Mura followed, sprinting along behind him. They were both fit enough to keep the pace, and soon reached the sent coordinates. Sally was with Sonic in one of the trees along with a few citizens and Rico Underwood.  
 
They were all clustered around no other than Jucx Exx. Except he was in no shape to move around. He was bleeding profusely.  
 
"Alright, you f**king scumbag, now that everyone who's gonna come is here, what the hell are you doing here?" Rico barked, pointing his gun square at Jucx's head. 
 
"I already told you idiots that I didn't do s***, now stop pointing that gun at me before I make you eat it," Jucx coughed feebly. 
 
"You're in no position to tell me what to do!" Rico growled. 
 
"Jucx HAS a point, we have no evidence that he did anything," Hector responded. 
 
"I know he did it! He's being controlled by Robotnik or somethin'!" Rico responded, his gun never wavering. 
 
"You're starting to piss me off." Jucx said. He wasn't coughing. His voice sounded distant and cold. Suddenly his arms were raised at Rico, containing one gun each. He stood up. Rico's gun was doing the same as Jucx. Jucx's gun flashed to the side and gashed Rico's hand, the gun flying to the floor. 
 
Sonic used all of his speed and lunged for the gun. Within a split second, the hedgehog was in Jucx's face with 2 guns, the gun he picked up and one he just then stole from right under Jucx's nose. 
 
"What... the hell?" Jucx said in disbelief. "You're faster than I am..." 
 
"Drop the gun, bud, or you'll regret it." 
 
Jucx laughed silently, and dropped his gun. "Just wanted him to disarm himself..."  
 
"Alright, Jucx..." Rico growled. "Then what ARE you doing here? And what the hell are those wounds from? And how the hell can you WALK with those wounds!?" 
 
Jucx looked to the ground. "Robotnik transported me here. He... tried to robotisize me. But I was born into the Dark Legion, so I was already part machine... so I overloaded the machine and escaped. But someone stopped me when I was running away... he was f**king strong, I didn't even see his face when he started on me. He left me for dead, but he didn't know that he'd only knocked me out because part of me is machine..." 
 
"Nice account of the story, but he left out the part where I came in and saved his ass from being killed," A voice from above said. Everyone looked up. The creature was standing up in a tree. He was clad in a ripped shirt, pants that looked like they'd been through everything, and a sword over his back. He was white with black hair shining in the sun. 
 
It was Bune. 
 
"BUNE!" Mura cried as he landed on the ground. She sprinted towards him, crying as she ran. They embraced. 
 
"How did you survive...?" 
 
"Oh, that... I go through crap like that all the time." 
 
This brought a laugh from Mura as she looked up slightly at him. "You haven't changed over the few months you've been gone..." 
 
This brought clapping and probably a few tears at the touching display. Soon they subsided in the embrace. Then Hector spoke. "Bune..." he started, "who attacked Jucx and Tails?" 
 
"FAK," Bune said, not faltering at all. 
 
"What the hell? How'd YOU hold him off?" Rico said in disbelief. 
 
"Ok... who's in the mood for another story?" Bune said. "Because that's what I'd have to tell ya..." 
 
"Just get on with it, idjit!"  
 
Bune's eyes narrowed. "I just saved your ass and this is the thanks I get?" 
 
Jucx thought for a moment. "Yeah." 
 
"Figures. 
 
"Well, I'll start with helping Sash... I got her out of the way of the explosion, but I didn't... I got caught in it. So did FAK and that badger dude. But then I woke up... I didn't know what had happened. I just woke up and saw the 2 big guys dukin' it out. I don't know why, but even though I was bleeding all over and felt half dead, I ran over and started in the battle. I don't know why I thought I had a chance, but I suddenly realized I did... I was really strong for some reason. I stopped them both from fighting, and they both ran away. I ran into the woods, not knowing anything about this power I had. It was this way for a long time until about a month later... 
 
"I stumbled on this treehouse in the middle of nowhere... but there were some people inside. They were a bunch of rabbits... Brine, Lark and Kira... they took me in. I regained my memory there... and guess what? They knew about that badger! His name's Hel and they took him in a year ago. But then there was a SWAT-bot raid and the treehouse was destroyed. FAK lead it... Brine was awake, but too weak to move, and he saw what happened... Hel went ballistic on FAK and beat him up badly, then left...  
 
"Why are they there? I mean, how'd they get there?" Sally asked, interrupting a little bit. 
 
Bune didn't get mad at the interruption at all. "Well, they don't know.. they were born there and their parents were killed when they were young. Brine's always been a real 'big brother' and Lark the 'big sister', even though Brine and Lark are both a year younger than me... Kira's a year younger than both of them too." 
 
"So they're both 18 and she's 17?" Sally confirmed. 
 
"Yeah... well, I got along with Kira. She's a great musician, she can sing too... we kinda made some music too...  Brine can play drums, Lark can play guitar a little, but Kira's the best of them all... Anyway... I said that I'd come back for them once I got back to Knothole and they could live there. I didn't want to endanger their lives when I would go out to one of Robotnik's bases and steal one of his ships.  
 
"I got attacked when I got to this continent. My ship crashed, and I was on the run. I finally got into the Great Forest, when I saw FAK attack Tails. Tails was almost unconscious when he saw me. I told him it was gonna be okay. But I didn't really know because FAK didn't look like he wanted to oblige. I actually held my own against him when he saw Jucx." Jucx growled a little. "He lost interest in Tails and went to kill Jucx. He punched two times and Jucx went unconscious. I got over there and got FAK away, but FAK got me a few times. That guy never tired, he only got more pissed as it went on. He finally ran away. I don't know why, I was almost out of energy. So then I camped out near where Jucx was for a while. The next day I was finally free from everyone chasing me, so I looked for Knothole. I couldn't find it, but I saw Jucx moving. But then Rico found him and I found you guys." 
 
"Whew. Long story..." Sonic said. "I woulda fallen asleep if it went on any longer..." 
 
"Oh, hush, Sonic," Sally answered. "I think you need to come to Doctor Quack and get some rest, Bune." 
 
"Yes, sir!" Bune said enthusiastically, arousing some laughter.  
 
"You're back at last, Bune... I've missed you..." Mura said.  
 
"I've missed me too," He said, smirking. 

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