Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Matt Herms
Colors: Josh Ray
Sonic finds himself coming to in the back of the Destructix's van, trying to remember how he got here. When he remembers his final moments before he was knocked out he realizes that Sally must be stranded alone with Nack right now and tries to break free of his shackles, but they refuse to give, and Sgt. Simian encourages him to simply sit back and enjoy the ride as he's not about to get free. Meanwhile, Sally runs for her life as Nack counts down from ten, determined to get to Freedom HQ before he can fire at her.
Man, it's so weird how much the entrance to the Great Oak Slide has changed over the years of the comic, isn't it? Its appearance, its location, even the part of Knothole it leads into have all been different depending on the comic's era and whatever the current plot needs. Anyway, Sally slides into the base to find Amy awaiting her, and Amy, after learning of the situation, explains that everyone else is back at New Mobotropolis. Without anyone else to back them up, they team up to fight Nack together.
Poor, poor Nack. He just can't win, can he? After Amy knocks him through the remains of the front door and into next Tuesday, she and Sally race to the comms room and contact Nicole, explaining what's going on. They ask her to call the rest of the available Freedom Fighters over to re-arrest Nack, while the two of them go after the Destructix's van to rescue Sonic. The hedgehog in question has by now been transported to the Casino Night club, where he's being guarded in a back room and more irritated than anything at the badniks constantly poking fun at him for getting captured.
Well, that's certainly an interesting comment. Remember, the very first time we saw these guys was all the way back in StH#2, and yet here, he implies that he was only eight years old when that encounter happened. We do know that the stories in the second era and onward took place when Sonic was fourteen and older, and I've gone over my theory before that the stories in the first era were mostly that - stories - and didn't happen exactly as we were told, being much less goofy and much more serious and life-threatening than portrayed. But this adds a new detail on top of all of that - some of those earliest stories definitely happened when Sonic was barely more than a kid. In fact, I'm sure the events that most of those early stories were based on began shortly after he and the others initially formed the Freedom Fighters to begin with, as that indeed happened when they were young children, right after the Original Freedom Fighters were killed. Just another interesting little tidbit that adds more depth to those old slapstick issues that we've almost forgotten about by now.
Anyway, Drago insists he wants his money for bringing back Sonic, and Coconuts tells him he'll have to wait as Mogul is still busy with casino business currently. Sleuth irritably warns Coconuts not to be so blasé about having Sonic as their prisoner, due to Sonic's reputation for breaking out of confinement and his friends' reputations for arriving on the scene far too quickly for comfort. Meanwhile, Sally and Amy enter the establishment, quickly running into Geoffrey, whom they learn is working as an informant here.
Due to their snooping, Geoffrey and Rouge have a good idea of where he's being held, so the four of them break into the back room, though Rouge declines to participate in the fight due to not wanting to ruin her dress. Geoffrey sets Sonic free of his shackles with a few well-placed crossbow shots, and he happily joins them in trashing the place and knocking around his former captors. While the fight is going on, Rouge pulls Drago aside and reveals the real reason why she ducked out of the fight, telling him that she's actually not technically on either side - Mogul has paid her to pass on some information to him, and after that, she's out. As she passes on this mysterious message, Sonic and his friends clean up the rest of the trash, and then head out to the main room, shouting for Mogul to come and face them. Mogul appears, but he seems angry to see Sonic at all, "reminding" him that he'd told him before their business was concluded. He pretends not to know what they're talking about when they claim he arranged for Sonic's kidnapping, and calls on Sleuth to explain why he had Sonic held up in the back room.
Mogul orders the heroes to leave his casino, and they angrily do, knowing they've been had. Drago doesn't know what the hell Sleuth was even "confessing" to in the first place seeing as they were hired by Mogul in the first place, but Sleuth explains that it was part of Mogul's plan all along, that the entire thing was a setup merely to humiliate Sonic. I suppose this is what he was referring to with the whole "I can't beat you but you'll never rest easily again" thing, huh? Not a bad plan, all things considered, especially if the Freedom Fighters winning was factored into the equation from the start. However, as Sonic and the others travel back to New Mobotropolis, Sonic seems mostly unperturbed, merely congratulating the others on being the ones to rescue him for once. Bunnie contacts Sally, and informs her that while Freedom HQ has been secured, Nack was gone by the time they got there, meaning he's once again escaped their custody. Everyone tries to look on the bright side, that at the very least things can't get any worse today…
Now what the heck is going on here? The Freedom Fighters of the reverse zone are hard at work on some kind of project, and Fiona seems to have gotten herself a nice high ranking within them very quickly, which irritates Anti-Sally to no end. Fiona reports back on the progress to Scourge… calling him "Your Majesty" as he sits atop a throne, wearing some kind of crown. Oh, boy, what the hell have we gotten ourselves into now…
