Bunnie Rabbot
From Sonic Blur
Bunnie Rabbot is a fictional character who featured prominently in the animated series, Sonic the Hedgehog, in which she was voiced by Christine Cavanaugh. She is also a main character in the ongoing Sonic the Hedgehog comic book based on the TV series. Bunnie is a female, anthropomorphic, humanoid rabbit with a thick Southern accent, and is a cyborg. Bunnie is one of the "Freedom Fighters" combating the evil Dr. Robotnik in both the cartoon and comics. Bunnie is often the fearless or reckless one, honest to herself and to others, and is very loyal, especially to her friend Sally Acorn.
Bunnie is a golden rabbit with green eyes. She is partially roboticized: both legs, her left arm, and shoulder; she also wears a pink leotard, so it is hard to tell if any part of her torso has been roboticized as well. This is possibly another indicator that Bunnie is one of the more "human-like" characters in the Sonic world. In the comics, her pelvis was also roboticized. In the cartoon and early in the comic, her parts were primitive-looking, as was Dr. Robotnik's technology; a later upgrade in the comics gave a more 'natural' shape.
For most of the cartoon show Bunnie's eyes were solid green without pupils; partway through the second season of the cartoon, the artists changed this and drew her (and several other characters, including Sally Acorn) with pupils. Her normal outfit consists of the aforementioned leotard (which is more pink than purple in the comic version), sometimes augmented by a jacket of some type (usually a cowboy jacket) after her upgrade. She can also sometimes be seen carrying a pair of revolvers and wearing a cowboy hat in some of the later comics (as shown above), but has never been seen using the pistols to date. She was also seen wearing an outfit reminiscent of Daisy Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard in issues #94 and #95 when attending classes at Knothole High School.
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History
In the Beginning
Bunnie first appeared in the story "Rabbot Deployment" in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic. Although she had been put into one of Dr. Robotnik's roboticization machines, Sonic the Hedgehog and company pulled her out half way through the process: one arm, everything from the hips down, and certain internal organs were replaced with cybernetics. It was after that she joined the "Freedom Fighters." Although not part of the original team, she has not left since the first year.
In "Animal Magnetism", Robotnik attempted to use a machine called the 'Magnabot' (a robot piloted by Robotnik and Snively fitted with a giant magnet) to capture Bunnie via her robotic parts and use her as bait to trap the other Freedom Fighters. Sonic was able to defeat the threat, and Rotor then applied a non-magnetic coating to her cybernetic parts to prevent further such attempts. (It can be assumed that her upgraded parts have such a coating as well, as Eggman has not even attempted to capture her this way as of yet.)
In "Fortified" , Bunnie and the others were on the run from Robotnik when they came upon an ancient, abandoned log fortress. Deciding to make their last stand there and with Sonic out of action due to a leg injury, Bunnie takes it on herself to defend her friends, using scrap metal found around the fort to fashion an add-hoc suit of armor, dispatching several SWATbots and tricking Robotnik's Bot-Bus into careening out of control down a steep hill.
In "Saturday Night's Alright For A Fight!", Bunnie and the rest of the Freedom Fighters were forced to defend themselves when Sonic, having been brainwashed by Robotnik into thinking they were his enemies when Sonic suffered amnesia in the previous issue, launched a full-out assault on Knothole. Bunnie almost succeeded in subduing Sonic using her 'Tight Leg Crush', but Sonic ultimately managed to fight his way free and was able knock her and almost all the other Freedom Fighters unconscious until he too was finally knocked out by a sneak attack from one of Sally's trainees.
In "Bunnie's Worst Nightmare", Robotnik capitalized on her fears of becoming fully roboticized; using a hologram device, she convinced herself and others that a microdot in her roboticized body had activated, and was slowly finishing the job. It turned out to be a bad dream (hence the story's title).
In "Rage Against the Machine", Sonic proposed that he let himself get roboticized while wearing a neural overload device, so he would retain his free will but gain the powers of roboticization. Bunnie strongly disagreed with the plan, more so than the other Freedom Fighters. However, before he can enact it, Nack the Weasel abducts him, and Robotnik roboticizes Sonic without the neural overload device to aid him. Bunnie must take her fully roboticized, better-seasoned friend on one-on-one, with some enhancements to her cybernetics provided by Rotor including rocket-powered flight as well as a Mega Man-esque blaster and a miniature shield generator in her left arm; this story was resolved in the Sonic 'Mecha Madness' special. Bunnie also served as the bailiff during Sonic's ensuing court-martial (the Freedom Fighters being under the impression that Sonic had disobeyed orders and gone through with the plan without permission), wherein her robotic arm was fitted with a buzzsaw-like 'Hedgehog Hunter' missile designed to seek out the magic aura surrounding Sonic after he collected his one billionth power ring, though she thankfully didn't need to use it.
In "Enemy Mine" , Bunnie co-starred with Sonic, but the story did not suit her strengths, being a story about deception and mystery. In it, Bunnie accompanies Sonic when he sneaks out at night to Robotropolis to try to save the Overlanders Robotnik had tricked into going there, only to find them living comfortably in the city, much to Sonic and Bunnie's confusion. She and Sonic then come upon a maddened Warlord Kodos fighting Uma Arachnis in the great forest, Sonic forcing Bunnie to return to Knothole fearing she might get hurt when the two get caught up in the feud.
In "Bat Fight!", she had her own story: an eight-page 'duel' versus Rouge the Bat. Although the fight started when Rouge mistook Bunnie for a swat-bot when Bunnie came to rescue her after Rouge had been captured, the duel stayed personal as the two duked it out in the ruins of Old Megopolis (an abandoned, post-apocalyptic version of New York City) until Sonic stepped in and broke it up.
In "Dust Bunnie", Bunnie had a solo adventure wherein she was lured to Sandblast City via a fake distress signal and imprisoned by its' inhabitants whom were seeking revenge on Sonic after his visit five years prior. They unleashed a group of murderous Robians (fully roboticized Mobians) on her thinking they'd kill her, but she was able to fight them off and break free of her cell and escape, leaving the city's inhabitants to face the Robians' wrath a second time.
In "Spin City", the free sample comic Archie gives away to promote the Sonic comic, Sonic and Bunnie infiltrate a 'seedy dive' populated by Robotnik's robots. the pair's cover is inevitably blown, and a brawl ensues, resulting in the establishment's destruction when a bomb inside a vanquished Combot detonates, th two barely managing to escape the blast. The comic is an obvious parody of Sin City, with Milleresque black-and-white artwork and a hard-boiled voiceover provided by Sonic.
In the Sonic Special comic "Girls Rule," Bunnie was upgraded from her SatAM design with a more modern-looking, stronger set of cybernetics, including abilities such as flight (though she has been shown being capable of flight with her previous parts as early as the aforementioned issue #39, where she briefly engaged a roboticized Sonic in mid-air melee combat). This upgrade was necessary as her immune system finally caught up with Robotnik's technology, and attempted to reject her robotic parts; the 'upgrade' made her body symbiotic with the cybernetics, so now nothing short of an extreme plot device can remove it. This was also the point where she fully accepted her half-robotic nature; before then, she dreamed of becoming 'normal' again, and continuing with her original life's dream to be a hairdresser. This upgrade also resulted in Bunnie and Jules being the only members of the Mobian population unaffected by the worldwide de-roboticization by Ceneca 9009, since neither of them could survive in a 100% organic form. Bunnie, along with every other able-bodied Mobian was also involved in the battle against the Xorda in the "Sonic Adventure 2.5: Ώmega" storyline, though was unable to breech the defenses of the Quantum Dial. She is later seen mourning along with her comrades when Sonic appeared to have died destroying the doomsday weapon.
After #125
In part 4 of the "Home" storyline, Bunnie and the other Freedom Fighters returned to Old Megopolis to back up Sonic in preventing Robotnik from launching nuclear missiles targeted at Station Square and Knothole from his aircraft carrier anchored in the harbor. After saving a wounded Sonic from Mecha, she proceeded to singlehandedly destroy Robotnik's carrier, punching so many holes in the ship that it sunk and exploded, taking the nuclear threat along with it.
In "Sonic's Angels", Bunnie and several of the other female Freedom Fighters accompanied Sonic on a mission to investigate and neutralize a swarm of nanites unleashed by A.D.A.M. that were overrunning everything in their path. During the investigation, Bunnie was captured by the nanites, which intended to absorb her into the 'contiguity', the nanites' collective consciousness. She was saved when Sonic arrived and convinced the nanites that she couldn't be absorbed since she's a fusion of both organic and cybernetic material and therefore incompatible with the contiguity, thus prompting the nanites to release Bunnie unharmed.
Bunnie would later have another encounter with these nanites when her robotic parts, as well as Sonic's father Jules, and NICOLE were unknowingly infiltrated by them as part of a future scheme, which manifested itself in when A.D.A.M. used the nanites to take control of her limbs and smash a computer monitor NICOLE was occupying at the time and throw Tails outside, where Jules was waiting to take him to the 'city' the nanites had constructed during their initial rampage. She was finally stopped when Rotor took her cybernetic limbs offline, but not before the damage had been done. Bunnie was also one of the Freedom Fighters/Chaotix who took part in the battle for the Artifacts of Acorn against Mammoth Mogul, Ixis Naugus, the Destructix, and the Arachne. She was also part of a sting operation to capture villians lured in by the prospect of an auction of the Master Emerald held by Rouge the Bat, the mission resulting in the capture of Nack the Weasel, Bark the Polar Bear, Bean the Dynamite, Naugus, and Mogul. Just prior to this, Bunnie accepted a proposal from Antoine, and asked Sally to be her maid of honor. Bunnie and Antoine were married without incident, however the wedding occurs just before Eggman assembles his Egg Fleet for his largest scheme yet.
Possible Futures
Like many other characters, Bunnie is shown to have futuristic counterparts. The only known one of these comes from the same future as NICOLE, and is shown to have been De-Roboticized. However, it should be noted that this is only one possible future, and thus is not the official canon future.
Romance
the comics depicted Bunnie falling deeply in love with Antoine D'Coolette. This relationship began shortly before the EndGame storyline and went on rather peacefully until the Xorda attack. During Sonic's exodus in space as a result of this event, Antoine seemingly dumped Bunnie, but their breakup was later revealed to be due to Antoine being replaced with his "Anti-Mobius" counterpart Patch who did not love Bunnie.
Bunnie was unaware of this, and believed that her Antoine no longer loved her. This resulted in Bunnie becoming more reckless and emotional, both in combat and in love-she even went as far as kissing Sonic in an attempt to make Antoine jealous, and hopefully renew his interest in their relationship-and gave her severe bouts of depression. Sonic later discovered the swap and brings the real Antoine back, leading to a happy reunion, as Bunnie had never truly given up her feelings for him. She also accompanied Antoine when he bid farewell to his father, General Armand D'Coolette, whom was dying from Patch's poisoning. The General voiced his approval of Bunnie's relationship with his son, and beseeched them to cherish their relationship. After this, Antoine proposed to Bunnie which she accepted, and the two were finally wed.
Aside from her relationship with Antoine, Bunnie has been shown to be somewhat affectionate with other male characters. Sonic is among those, as shown by her willingness to get involved with Evil Sonic (although Bunnie was unaware of this, mistaking him for Sonic Prime). Numerous occasions, including Sonic saving her from A.D.A.M., have also earned Sonic grateful kisses for his actions.
Alternate Versions
Similar in fashion to several other characters from the comics, Bunnie has multiple counterparts from other dimensions. In one instance, Sonic is sent to an alternate dimension where all his friends are now gargantuan monsters running a rampage. In that dimension, Dr. Julius Kintobor was experimenting with the Master Emerald on a distant island, when it cracked in two, releasing radiation that mutated local creatures to Godzilla proportions. He then developed the robo-virus to paralyze them, but by the time he roboticized Bunnie, the monsters were developing an immunity, resulting in the cyborg-lizard-rabbit monster "Rabbot-Zilla".
In the Guardians of the Galaxy possible future, there is a version of Bunnie with flaming hair and enormous feet who can attack with an energy blaster on her left glove, named Bunni. In her alternate universe, the Freedom Fighters lost the war against Robotnik, so the last four took separate ships to form colonies on other planets. Over the generations, the new environments caused their clans to evolve. Bunni is the original Bunnie Rabbot's descendant. She joins up with descendants of the other Freedom Fighters to challenge Robolactus, a giant planet-eating descendant of Robotnik, ala Galactus.
Bunnie, like most of her friends, has an evil counterpart among the Anti-Freedom Fighters. Anti-Bunnie was never Roboticized, given the fact that there was no evil entity with a Roboticizer on Anti-Mobius. She was not originally part of the team, but joined later to get revenge on Evil Sonic, who was dating her and several other Anti-Mobian females at the same time. During the brief period where Sonic and Evil Sonic switched places, Anti-Bunnie and Anti-Sally were knocked into a pool containing creatures known as Octopods while attacking Sonic.
Stats
* First Appearance: Sonic The Hedgehog #3 * Real Name: Bunnie Rabbit (changed to "Rabbot" in Robotnik's Revenge) * Skills: Hairdressing; martial arts. * Powers: Enhanced cybernetic strength; armor and toughness; stretching limbs; flight (briefly in Sonic #39, regularly after Sonic Special 'Girls Rule').
