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The unearthly sound of Davey Crockett throwing up greeted knothole village the morning after the night he arrived. It came from Sonia Hedgehog's hut, who drew the short straw to find out with who he'll sleep with until he got his own hut. Sasha Prower, a healer-slash-mage and Tail's cousin, and Rosie, the grandmothery nanny of Knothole, were headed there. "It sounded like Davey, Rosie," Sasha said. "Either Sonia's playing too rough with the guy . . ."
"Or th' last twenty-four hours hav' caught up t' th' poor lad. Ye remember, Sasha. Davey's been fed into th' Roboticizer, chucked through th' Void, and had his species changed. An' all in th' same day . . ."
" . . .why, no, Davey. I don't exactly envy you right about now," Sonia said to the human-turned-fox who was vomiting for the fifth time into the john. "Maybe giving you that chili dog late night snack wasn't a good idea. Hope you're no mad. . ."
"Wuz that ya said? Ah's buzy . . ."
"Buzy puking your guts out, I see. I wouldn't be surprised if your biochip fell outta your mouth."
"Ha-Ha-Ha! Now that's an image burned int' memory fo' th' rest o' th' day. Ha-Ha--HARRUGGH!"
He hacked three more times into the toilet, but nothing came up. "I'm afraid you are on empty, Big Guy." "Aw, crud. It's harder t' tell the ol' gag reflex to quit it when there's nothing left to puke."
"Ach," said an incoming Rosie, "Look at ye, Crockett. Ye look like roadkill."
"So that's what ah fell like?"
"C'mon," interjected Sasha, "Let's get you back to bed."
Davey managed to flush the toilet and lower the seat ("That was awfully nice o' him.") before he collapsed on his bed, actually, it was a cot that didn't compensate for the extra foot of legs that Davey left sagged on the floor.
Sasha set her hands on the tall fox and both started to glow. "It's not really bad, it's probably a rough day catching up with him. I especially sense the stress between his roboticized shoulder and . . . his . . ."
She gasped. Her eyes dilated. Her fur turned white. "What's wrong Sasha? You look as if you seen a . . ."
Sasha managed to lift the lid of the porcelain altar before adding her offering to Davey's. "His . . . His arm . . . Oh, God."
"What is it, Lass? What's wrong?"
"I-I just saw his left arm. It was chopped off--NO! It was SHOT off! It's lying in a pool of Davey's own blood. Hand . . . twitching . . . crying out for mercy . . . But, was only greeted . . . with blood . . . and metal."
"Oh my. Y'mean his arm wasn't roboticized!?!?"
"No, Sonia. It was removed."
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"Removed, you say," Sally asked as she arrived into the hut. "That was one of the original uses of the Roboticizer, until Robotnik got his hands on it, of course. Will the poor dear be all right?"
Sasha was still gasping for breath. "That depends on what you mean my 'all right!'"
Sally couldn't find anything about Davey from Nicole, so she wanted to link up to his computer for an update. She also wanted to catch him up to speed on Mobian current events, especially the parts about Robotnik leaving the planet for the time being, and Sally having speed granted to her by the Deep Power Stones. She also found out why Davey's arm was shot off, as another hologram from King Acorn appeared:
"I hope you're not viewing this file in front of all of Knothole, Sally. This concerns something that Davey here would like to forget: The political strife where he lost his arm.
It would appear that there were a faction of Davey's ancestors that behaved much like Dr. Robotnik, for they captured a certain sub-race of their own species as slaves. Some of the descendants of these slaves, although granted their freedom almost a century ago, thought themselves fit to demand reparation for their captors' sins on their children. One of those such people shot Davey's arm off."
("I swear, I would never consider to do such a thing . . . unless o'couse to a robot."
"Was that before you became one, Sonia?"
"I'll pretend I didn't heard that, Sasha.")
"I suspect that you would feel, as I did, very sorrowful over the whole ordeal, especially for how it left Davey. It is a situation where acts of injustice and intolerance is only met by another, and ages-old hostilities are prepeturated over the generations. Davey Crockett would rather be dead than live in that world, and for a while, he was, until I brought him back to life with Sir Charles' toy. I will not blame him at all if he doesn't want to return to his home planet. . . "
"The feeling is mutual, Daddy. Why would they make you answer for your ancestor's sins, Davey? I's just not fair."
"Yeah, if I want equality between different species, I wouldn't go and shoot off someone's limbs--"
"DO WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW?!?!?!?!"
"Sorry, Sasha." "My, Sasha, that psionic backlash must've spooked you, didn't you?"
"Like you wouldn't know," she sobbed as she hung her head over her patient. "You wouldn't know how much pain that tragedy causes him." Tears ran down her eyes. "You wouldn't know how much it will return to haunt him. . . "
"Aw, Davey," Sonia cried as she huddled by her new-found friend. "Why did they, whoever they are, do this to you? Are you doomed to become someone like Robotnik?" She felt a cold nose press up against her hot cheek.
She opened her eyes to find Davey slurping her tears off with his tongue."
"Will you look at that? Davey, you're too much."
"He's supposed t' be th' one who's cryin', and here he is, drying our eyes. I tell you, Sally, this guy's a prince."
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Sasha gave Davey something that resembled Alka-Seltzer for his stomach and let him rest for a couple hours. After the nap, he found Sally still has Nicole connected to his arm by a wire housed under his wrist. Davey calls it his "Data Spear," because it reminds him of Scorpion's projectile in 'Mortal Kombat.'
CYBORG PRIME DIRECTIVES:
1) DELIVER MESSAGE TO PRINCESS SALLY
2) ASSIST FREEDOM FIGHTERS
3) DESTROY ROBOTNIK BY WHATEVER MEANS DEEMED NECESSARY
4) LIVE
"I like that fourth one, Nicole. Continue."
BIOCHIP GENERATES A HEADS-UP DISPLAY DIRECTLY GRAFTED IN HIS EYES, WHICH GIVES THEM THEIR RED COLOR AND OCCASIONAL GLOW. . . EXCUSE ME, SALLY, BUT I BELIEVE THAT MR. CROCKETT IS "BACK ON-LINE," SHOULD I SAY.
"'Back on-line?' But what. . . <Sally looks up and finds Davey awake> Oh! Hi, there. Don't mind me. . . "
"Surfing my forearm, Princess?"
Sally giggles, half out of embarrassment and half out of Davey's cyberpunk-talk. She'd never expect someone who wasn't 100% roboticized to talk that way, but she figured that they always talked like that on his planet. "I'm just trying to figure out what your arm can do, other than act like a built-in Nicole, that is."
"Humm. I wonder if your father bothered to give me some docs for this thing."
EXCUSE ME, MR. CROCKETT, BUT I'VE DETECTED A COMPLETE SET OF USER HELP FILES ARCHIVED IN YOUR HARD DRIVE. DECOMPRESSING THEM SHOULD TRANSFER THEM DIRECTLY INTO YOUR BRAIN.
"Thanks, Nicole. If you'd excuse me. . . <Davey's eyes glowed for a moment. Sally commented on getting him some colored contacts for cosmetic purposes> . . . O.K. I've got them. . . Hardware Compression and camouflage, eh? Let's give that a try. . . "
Davey's left arm began to collapse on itself, starting from the shoulder and down to the wrist, synthetic fur appeared in much the same manner. It appeared more like a fox left arm after it was done with itself. "Ah do declare," Bunnie said as she saw this, "Ah should talk to Rotor about an upgrade."
"I can transfer the parameter settings to his Roboticizer, if you want. They're supposed to convert anything roboticized into this model."
"It looks and feels much like a robot duplicate model I encountered about 6 months ago when training new recruits. It's almost like you've got your old arm back. Ohh, I forgot. I ran out of disks a while back. I should've got some while I was in Robotroplis. Oh, well. Another item in the Minoc Grove shopping list." Sally meets Davey's eyes. "Are you going to be all right, Dave?"
"Why, sure, Sally. Just let me get some coffee and I'll be up and running in no time."
"It's not that at all! I mean . . . are you going to be . . . all right? You've been through a lot before coming here, more than any of us want to know. It'll probably take your whole life to heal . . ."
Davey shushed his Princess with a finger to her lips. "I'll be alright, Sally. <Winks> Trust me."