#you’ll also see that Wonder and Bunni Bot don’t really get along

[restinsodaroni]

Guess who the reader is going to have chat with in the next chapter of Forever Friends 🐇

The more I go into the chapters the more you’ll see how different Wonder and Bunni bot are (That’s what I’m calling him for now until I reveal his real name lol, though it may be obvious of what it might be :) )Bunni Bot likes to get into characters’ faces while Wonder hides behind screens. Bunni Bot knows he’s expendable, if he gets destroyed he’ll just be rebuilt lol. You’ll see soon enough how arrogant this bot can be, much to Wonder’s chagrin haha 💜

[mobius-prime]

155. Sonic the Hedgehog #88

Family Matters

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: FRY Colors: Frank Gagliardo

The cover of this issue is incredibly misleading. Seriously, I know they're trying to go for drama and all, but I kind of draw the line at straight up depicting things on the cover that literally never happen or even are hinted to happen within the actual story. You'll see what I mean in a minute.

The Freedom Fighters have finally all arrived home after their adventures in Station Square, quite happy to see the familiar landscape of the Great Forest once again. However, as they approach the Great Oak Slide to reenter Knothole, they're stopped by the startling sight of an entire goddamn army marching through the trees, led by the king himself.

The king explains that after Elias overheard the news about his mother's condition, he snuck out of the village, infiltrated Robotropolis alone, and managed to steal a vial of metallic liquid that he just… somehow knew would be able to cure the queen, I guess. Eggman's shadow-bots gave chase, and he was able to pass off the vial to Mina, who happened to be near the slide into Knothole, before being dragged away. She took it to Dr. Quack, and after injecting it into the queen's bloodstream they moved her to surgery. As the story winds down, Sally becomes enraged that she's only just finding out about all this, and storms off. Sonic makes to follow her, but Geoffrey calls him back, saying the army will need him and Sally needs some alone time. Meanwhile, in Robotropolis, Elias is sitting in his prison cell, and attempts to convince Uncle Chuck, who is guarding him, to let him go - but of course, he's still just a mindless robot, and refuses.

The king informs Antoine that he can't come along on the mission due to the injuries he sustained while at Station Square, and Antoine acts all disappointed despite the fact that he's literally on crutches. While Bunnie attempts to cheer him up by saying she'll stay behind with him, Sonic visits his parents briefly, happy to be back and be able to see them. However, Amy rushes up as he and Geoffrey are about to rendezvous with the king, telling them Sally has ordered them to the med-lab to speak with her.

Sally ultimately chooses to stay behind, anxious about her mother, and so the king's army, along with Sonic, Tails, and the Secret Service, begin their assault on Robotropolis. They use Bomb to explode their way in through a concrete wall, and Chuck, realizing there's been a breach in security, orders the shadow-bots under his command to take Elias to the roboticizer immediately. Sonic is, even in the middle of all the chaos, taking his duties to protect the king very seriously, but then things take a turn for the worse…

As Sonic panics and rushes off to reach Elias before it's too late, leaving the king in the care of the Secret Service, back in Knothole Antoine and Bunnie approach Sally with an important request.

Despite giving her blessing, as soon as they're gone Sally bursts into tears, the stress of everything that's happening clearly starting to get to her. Back in Robotropolis, Sonic manages to get to the roboticizer room before Chuck can press the button, only to be tackled by Muttski from the side. However, at that moment Geoffrey shows up and hits Chuck's hand with a bolt from his wrist-mounted crossbow, preventing him from roboticizing Elias. The king charges in, slicing apart shadow-bots with the Sword of Acorns, and when he brings the magical sword near Chuck and Muttski, suddenly they seem to come back to themselves, and recognize him for just a moment. However, to Sonic's horror, a shadow-bot hits a button that shunts the two away behind a rotating wall before he can get to them, and the situation rapidly deteriorates from there.

Honestly, this is just another reason I love that the comics go into Sonic's family and his feelings about them. There's such a raw emotion about how much he cares about his family members that I find to be missing from the games, where he's just a superpowered teenager with an unexplained past. While obviously Sonic's situation and entire life experience is far different in the games from the comics, I still love when the various media really digs in deep into his emotions and relationships like this. It makes him feel a lot more real as a character. A short while later, within Knothole, Dr. Quack emerges from the med-lab to inform Sally that the surgery on her mother is complete, but before he can tell her if she's okay, Sonic appears behind Sally, holding an unconscious King Max in his arms and begging the doctor to help him…

Picking Up the Pieces

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Frank Gagliardo

For whatever reason, this story doesn't bother crediting any of the people who actually worked on it. However, the writing is obviously by Penders, and the art style is pretty clearly that of Steven Butler, so I've gone ahead and credited them anyway. The comics actually start to get kind of bad about crediting the people who've worked on them around this time, so sometimes credits may be incomplete (I don't list things like letterers, inkers or editors usually, since those tend to always be done by the same people and are easily found on the wiki anyway), but I'll do my best, relying on the wiki when my own intuition fails.

Anyway, onto the story. Knuckles finally awakens after a night of unconsciousness, finding himself stranded on a floating bit of debris in the middle of the ocean. He only recalls hazy memories of the explosion on the island that forced him to run for his life, and angrily wonders what he's going to do now, with no direction or help in sight. However, a character we haven't seen in quite a while chooses that moment to make his reappearance. Turns out Mathias isn't the only member of the family who transcended a physical form, as good old Athair has also become an apparition! Remember how he left the tribe saying that the Ancient Walkers called him to a higher purpose or something? Man, I missed this weirdo.

A skeptical Knuckles asks how he's even supposed to get back to Mercia, and Athair simply tells him he already has everything he needs. Unlike most cases in fiction where this is just a bunch of vague bull meant to draw out the plot artificially, Athair is actually right - Knuckles pulls out the guiding star gem that he first got all the way back when he dropped Yanar and the others of the lost tribe off in Albion, and uses it to create an energy tunnel the same as he did back then to teleport himself to Mercia.

So, now, about Rob o' the Hedge. Remember how Mari-An stayed behind with him, and everyone was immediately expecting them to get married and everything? Well, it appears they actually did, and now Mari-An is holding a swaddled baby clone of herself! She and Rob seem perfectly happy as a young family, living in a treehouse in the woods, but Rob finds himself perturbed as he gazes out the window into the starlit forest, and climbs down to investigate his gut feeling in the darkness. To his horror, he sees what he thinks is the silhouette of the High Sheriff of Snottingham, which if you'll remember is Antoine's roboticized father. He fires off an arrow, pinning a shocked Antoine's sleeve to a tree, and rushes forward to demand they "stand and deliver, foul varlets" (yeah, he still talks like that) until Amy rushes up and hugs him happily. At first, he doesn't believe that she's the same Amy as his cousin, noting that his cousin is "but a mere lass," and doesn’t even relax when she explains her rapid aging, still suspicious of her traveling companions.

Man, Rob, you've gotten a lot more aggressive and suspicious than when last we saw you. Knuckles chooses that moment to emerge from the trees and vouch for the entire party, and Rob takes him at his word. They eventually decide that fate must have brought the five of them together here, and Knuckles says that they should all go to Albion just across the waters to find the answers they seek.