The infirmary door's pneumatic hiss faded, leaving only Bernadette's ragged breathing and the muffled artillery pounding the city's outskirts. Her claws retracted fully, leaving shallow gouges in the mattress stuffing. She shifted me gently against her chest, her fur warm and smelling of sweat and antiseptic. "Slow," she repeated, her voice raw but steady now. "Clumsy. Forgetful. Make him lose interest." She traced the curve of my ear again, her touch lighter. "Be a disappointment, Sonic. It's the safest thing you can be."
The milk scent was overpowering, primal. Hunger screamed louder than existential dread. I latched on clumsily, the act foreign and humiliating, the taste thick and cloying. Failure *was* my nature. Disappointing people? That was practically my superpower back on Earth. Maybe Bernadette was right. Maybe playing the inept fool *was* my best armor against Jules's plans. Yet I just could purposely look stupid . . .
---------
Four years later, the polished marble floors of Hedgehog Manor echoed with the sharp *click-clack* of Jules' polished boots. He paused before a towering stained-glass window depicting his own armored likeness crushing Overlander war machines. Below, in the manicured courtyard, a small blue hedgehog wobbled precariously on a miniature hover-scooter. "Sonic!" Jules' voice boomed, shattering the manor's oppressive quiet. "Where are you Sonic! We are meeting with the Acorn family and I will not be embarrassed by tardiness!"
I blinked, over the years the mad esure to follow Jules' training, and found out some things: Overlanders were basically humans with four fingers on each hand except five yet some still had five confusingly enough, and Mobius was the same as Earth, just renamed after some great reinvention thousands of years ago. The Northern Baronies were warlords who hated Jules' centralized rule. And I? I was the seemingly perfect prodigy, I was able to seem like a genius with my foreknowledge of history, physics, and very basic tactics—things Jules adored.
He saw me as his ultimate weapon-in-progress. her gaze sliding right past me to fix on the fluorogenic globe still replaying its massacre. "Lord Acorn." Her voice was flat, utterly devoid of inflection. It wasn't shyness; it was vacancy. Jules bristled, mistaking it for insolence. "Discipline, Maxx! Even Princesses require it!"
Acorn sighed, a sound like gravel shifting. "Discipline isn't the issue, Jules. Sally simply . . . sees things differently." He gestured vaguely toward the globe. "She finds simulations tedious. Prefers counting tiles." Bernadette knelt beside Sally, her voice softening unexpectedly. "Counting tiles? That sounds peaceful. How many are in this room, dear?" Sally blinked slowly, her focus shifting infinitesimally. "Three hundred seventy-four," she whispered, her fingers twitching as if tracing invisible lines on the marble. "Plus fourteen in the hallway." Acorn flinched almost imperceptibly. Jules snorted. "Useless. A lady in waiting should be reading herself for marriage!"
Ignoring what my father said, Lord Maximillian Acorn sighed, a sound like grinding gears. "Perhaps Sonic, you could make her see the truth of her position? Show her the value of politics?" Jules seized the opening instantly. "Of course! Sonic excels at instruction." He nudged me toward Sally with proprietary force. "You two go out into the garden or whatever while me and Maxx talk business."
Sally didn't react, her fingers still tracing phantom tiles on the marble floor. Bernadette shot me a look—sharp, warning—as Jules steered me toward the terrace doors. Outside, the manicured Acorn gardens stretched beneath twin suns, geometric hedges framing paths of crushed blue quartz. Sally drifted beside me, silent as smoke, her gaze fixed on the gravel. "Three hundred eighty-two," she murmured, barely audible. "Out here."
I hesitated, Jules' command warring with Bernadette's desperation. Play dumb? Be slow? Sally made failure seem effortless. "Do you . . . like counting?" I ventured awkwardly. Her head tilted, a fractional movement. "Its the closest thing to a fun thing I get to do." Her monotone scraped the air. "Numbers don't lie. They don't want things." The quiet certainty chilled me. She wasn't sabotaging; she was just surviving, detached. My own forced incompetence felt suddenly cheap, theatrical. God what the hell had this girl been through?
A sharp cry echoed from the manor—Lord Acorn's voice, strained and furious. "—unacceptable terms, Jules! The Northern Baronies won't kneel!" Sally didn't flinch. Her fingers kept tracing invisible patterns on a quartz path. "Four hundred nineteen," she whispered. Her detachment felt like armor thicker than Jules' ambition. My own clumsy sabotage suddenly seemed childish. Pointless. Failure wasn't freedom here; it was just another cage. "What do you *want*, Sally?" I asked abruptly, my voice low. "Not what they tell you. What *you* want."
Her tracing stopped. For the first time, her empty eyes focused—not on me, but on a cluster of green beans twisting up a trellis nearby. "Control," she stated flatly. "I want to grow vegetables. Large ones. Like marrow." The sheer banality of it, uttered with absolute seriousness, was jarring. Not freedom, not escape—just gardening. Before I could process it, a sharp crack echoed from inside—glass shattering. Lord Acorn's voice roared, thick with outrage. "You'd arm the Overlanders? Jules, that's madness!" Jules' reply was a low, dangerous rumble I couldn't make out. Sally didn't react; her gaze drifted back to the gravel. "Four hundred twenty-one," she corrected tonelessly.
The terrace door slammed open. Jules stood framed there, fur bristling, claws flexing. "Sonic! Inside. *Now*." His voice was ice wrapped in velvet. Behind him, Lord Acorn paced, muzzle twisted in fury. Sir Jeffrey St. Croix and presumably Rosemarie hovered near the shattered remnants of a fluorogenic globe, tiny Overlander screams still crackling faintly from its ruined core. Sally didn't look up; her fingers resumed tracing invisible tiles on the gravel path. "Four hundred twenty-two," she murmured.
Jules seized my arm, dragging me past Sally without a glance. His grip was vise-tight, claws pricking through my sleeve. "Dear Maxx's paranoia blinds him," he hissed, low and venomous, as we re-entered the solar. Bernadette stood rigid near the velvet chaise, eyes wide with silent alarm. Acorn whirled, jabbing a clawed finger at Jules. "Arming Overlanders? You'd turn those tech-scavengers loose on *my* borders? That's not peace—it's arson!" Jules shoved me toward Bernadette, his smile glacial. "Desperate times, Maxx. The Baronies rally faster than predicted. We need . . . unconventional deterrents." He gestured dismissively at the shattered globe. "Your theatrics waste time."
I stumbled toward Sally, still tracing patterns on the gravel. Her detachment was unnerving—a fortress I couldn't breach. "Later," I whispered urgently, crouching beside her. Her finger paused mid-swipe over a quartz chip. "When?" she asked flatly. "When the numbers stop?" Before I could answer, Jules barked my name. "Sonic! Attend!" Sally's gaze flickered upward, empty yet piercing. "Promise?" The word hung between us, fragile as glass. "Promise," I breathed, scrambling up. Her finger resumed its path. "Four hundred twenty-three."
Inside, Jules paced before the fractured fluorogenic globe, its dying sparks casting jagged shadows. "Maxx refuses to see necessity," he spat, claws scoring the marble floor. Jules whirled, pinning me with his gaze. "We depart immediately. Prepare the Sky Patrol." Lord Acorn snarled, "You'll escalate this into oblivion, Jules!" Jules ignored him, and just snarled . . .
As Jules snarled, Ifollowed him through Acorn Manor's vaulted corridors, Sally's hollow gaze burning into my back. Outside, Jules' Sky Patrol gunship crouched on the landing pad like a scarab forged from cold iron. Its boarding ramp hissed open, revealing sterile interiors that smelled of hydraulic fluid and ambition. Jules ascended without glancing back, barking coordinates at his pilot.
---------
Lord Maxx Acorn watched the Sky Patrol gunship claw its way into Mobius' yellow sunned sky, engines screaming like gutted beasts. Jules' parting threat still hung in the solar's ozone-charged air: *"Starve or bleed, Maxx. Choose."* The shattered fluorogenic globe lay at his feet, its trapped lightning flickering erratically, casting jagged shadows that danced over Sally's motionless form.
She knelt by the terrace doors, fingers tracing the grout lines between marble tiles, utterly oblivious to the crumbling alliance. "Four hundred twenty-seven," she murmured. The vacancy in her voice scraped raw against Maxx's frayed nerves. *This* was his legacy? A weird daughter who counted cracks in stone while having to be forced to act like a true lady? Jules' brat saw war as equations—clean, clinical. Sally saw only patterns. And he? He saw ruin. Arming Overlanders wasn't strategy; it was suicide, if they didn't suppress those abominations then they'd be the ones suppressed. Those tech-scavengers would turn those weapons on Mobius the moment Jules' grip slipped. The shattered fluorogenic globe spat its last sparks, plunging the solar into gloom. *Starve or bleed.* Jules' ultimatum echoed, vulgar and absolute. Maxx kicked the fractured glass aside. "Jeffrey!"
The skunk materialized from the shadows near the tapestry depicting the Battle of Knothole Pass, his fur impeccably groomed despite the hour. "Sir Jeffrey reporting, Lord Acorn." His voice was smooth as poured oil, but Maxx saw the tension in his shoulders—the slight tremor in his paw hovering near his holstered stun-pistol. "Status?" Maxx rasped, not turning from the window where Jules' gunship was now a shrinking speck against the twin suns. "Perimeter secure, Lord. The . . . incident in the solar has been contained. Miss Rosemarie is escorting Princess Sally to her chambers." Jeffrey paused, his whiskers twitching. "And the Overlander emissary? He awaits in the Violet Suite. Claims he brings terms . . . *new* terms."
Maxx's claws scraped marble. Terms. Jules' lunacy had forced Overlanders onto his doorstep like stray vermin. "Terms?" he hissed, the word sharp as broken glass. "They smell blood in the water because Jules dangled weapons before their starving snouts." He pictured their emissary—pallid skin, those unsettling four-fingered hands clutching data-slates instead of begging bowls.
But there was some hope for his grand plans throughout all of the dumpster fire: Jules' brat. That blue hedgehog child was unnervingly sharp—too sharp. Maxx had watched him dissect war games with chilling precision. *Pinch their supply lines. Starve them out.* The boy's flat recitation echoed in Maxx's skull. Efficient. Soulless. Like Jules. Yet . . . when Sally spoke her vegetable madness, Maxx had seen something, pitty? flicker in Sonic's eyes. A crack in the armor? Or just pity for Sally's obvious insanity? Either way, the boy was weaker than he wanted to seem, if he could mold Sally into something resembling a princess, then he could use her body to have the chance to mold Sonic into a tool against Jules. A scalpel to Jules' hammer.
"Jeffrey," Maxx rasped, claws tapping the chilled marble sill. "That hedgehog pup. Jules' 'prodigy'. He's the fracture point." Below, Sally drifted across the quartz paths, still counting. Useless. But Sonic? That calculated coldness hid something . . . soft. Pitiful, even. When Sally babbled about vegetables, Maxx had seen it—a flash of disgust? Recognition? Didn't matter. It was leverage. "We exploit it. Sally becomes bait. Arrange 'playdates'. Force physical proximity. Make him *see* her as someone vulnerable, and when the years would tock by, Sonic would see his daughter as so much more . . . "Sir?"
"See if you can contact Mr. Prower via Rosemarie please." Maxx murmured, claws drumming the marble sill. He needed ears, and Agent A had the best on the planet. Still, he could see the future now, molding his brat into a proper lady that knew here place in the world compared to men unlike her mother and use it to bring Sonic under his sway. He could almost taste the leverage—Sally's soon to be feminine charms wrapped around Jules' heir like silk ropes. "Make it frequent, Jeffrey. Weekly. Force them together. Gardens, etiquette lessons—whatever keeps Sonic returning."
He pictured the hedgehog boy's too-straight posture cracking under Sally's vacant stare, week after week. *Let him drown in her peculiarities,* Maxx thought, a grim optimism tightening his muzzle. Sonic's flaw wasn't incompetence; it was that flicker of *something* when Sally spoke of vegetables. Jules saw a weapon; Maxx saw a pressure point. If Sally could be shaped into even a semblance of desirability, Sonic's hidden softness might bloom into attachment—a weakness Jules wouldn't anticipate. "Weekly visits, Jeffrey," Maxx commanded, turning from the window. "Start tomorrow. Gardens, perhaps. Somewhere . . . open." Open meant observable, controllable. "Ensure Rosemarie supervises. Closely."
Jeffrey's nod was crisp, devoid of judgment. "Understood, Lord Acorn. I'll coordinate with the Hedgehog Manor staff immediately." He walked off, whiskers twitching minutely. He could see it now him having his right title as King Acorn, after all, its suppress or be suppressed, and he'd very much rather be the former . . .