I'm sick of fighting him.
How many accursed years has it been?
Far too many, I tell you.
I must have built billions of robots. Millions of airships. Hundreds of bases.
I roboticized him. I cloned him. I built countless replicas of him.
I kidnapped his friends. I kidnapped strangers. I helped him defeat my experiments, even.
No matter how much I threaten, no matter what I do, he is always there.
In fact, he's here right now.
Of course.
"What's the matter, Egghead? Run out of bots to throw at me?" he taunts.
"No," I say. "There's always more where they came from."
"Well then? Where are they? Bring 'em on!"
I sigh. "If you insist," I intone boredly, and press a button on my console. A hundred robots fall from the ceiling. Within 30 seconds he's destroyed all of them.
"That was too easy!" he brags. "C'mon Eggman, show me what you've got!"
I do something I have never done before.
I just walk away.
"Hey, hey!" yells Sonic, in his usual annoying I'm-a-teenage-rebel voice, "Where do you think you're going?"
"I don't know," I say. "But I'm leaving."
He stands there dumbly. This isn't part of the game. I'm not supposed to walk away. I'm supposed to have a last trick up my sleeve, one last gambit, something I can do out of desperation that will allow him to have the last laugh.
I do, but I don't feel like letting him have it today.
"Uh," says Sonic lamely. "I guess...uh...I guess I'll go too. Um...see ya around."
He runs off, his shoes hitting the metal with loud thuds. That boy sure has large feet.
I'm sitting in my study now. I have nothing with which to occupy me. All of my energy, everything I am, has been bent upon world domination. Any world. Anywhere. No matter how big or how small, no matter who lives there, no matter what kind. But it doesn't matter. Even if I build an amusement park in space, even if I travel to a planet I'm sure he doesn't know of and kidnap its princess, I still can't defeat him.
"Dr. Eggman."
The robot I least want to see has arrived.
"I have no need of you. You are dismissed," I say, rubbing my hands together a little.
"Master, of course you have need of me. The hedgehog is near. I was given instructions to attack when he reached the inner core, but he never arrived. According to my calculations, he should have arrived 30 minutes ago. I did not alert you in case you were busy with his defeat. However, after 30 minutes had accrued I decided to change positions. I saw him heading south in the Tornado II, piloted by Miles "Tails" Prower. Do I have authorization to pursue?"
"No," I say, rolling my eyes. Sometimes Metal is just as annoying as his counterpart. "You do not. All you have authorization to do is to return to your storage unit and power down until I reactivate you. That is all."
"But Master-the hedgehog-he-"
"I said that is all, Metal Sonic." I turn around to face him. "Don't make me deactivate you."
Metal Sonic, of course, shows no reaction. But I know all of the robots have a primal fear of deactivation. I've heard them speak of it. Well, the more intelligent ones have. However, I don't think Metal Sonic fears deactivation, somehow.
Perhaps I should fix that.
Death Egg, 1992
"How is he?"
"He is stable," said the robot in a lifeless voice.
Julian grimaced. That meant he had been repaired, that was all. No more.
"Ah, Julian, come in," said the man inside the room when he saw Julian at the doorway. Julian closed his eyes and sighed to himself. He didn't really want to. To say the least, his father made him very uneasy. His relentless quest to take over the world seemed very, very inane to Julian. But they said Dr. Robotnik was a mad genius, so perhaps that was what mad geniuses did in their free time. Mad geniuses certainly seemed to have a lot of free time.
"All right, doctor," said Julian. "How did it go this time?"
"It was ridiculous!" said Dr. Robotnik, waving his arms in the air and sitting up quickly. "Now he has a two-tailed fox following him around! That fox can't be more than 5 years old! Yet there he was, flying the brat's plane like he was born right there in the cockpit! I was almost unable to shoot him down!"
"And the hedgehog..." said Julian.
Dr. Robotnik's eyes narrowed behind his glasses.
"He found them," he growled. Julian was surprised.
"He found the Chaos Emeralds?" asked Julian. "Again?"
"YES!" snarled Dr. Robotnik. "How he can find them by himself when I can't find them with a whole army of robots is beyond me. It doesn't make sense! It doesn't! It doesn't!"
Julian was beginning to think it wouldn't be long before he had to lock Dr. Robotnik up somewhere where he wouldn't hurt anybody. He was starting to get out of hand. Sure, when he was a kid, Julian had thought world domination would be really cool, but after one too many failures he was positive it was impossible.
"I assume he transformed, then, " said Julian, to make sure.
"YES," growled Dr. Robotnik. "Of COURSE he did. Why wouldn't he, if he had the Emeralds?" "He seems to enjoy defeating you," said Julian. "Perhaps he might have wanted to see if he could defeat you without them?"
"Well, I wish he had," said Dr. Robotnik, wiping the corner of his mouth, "because maybe then I could have defeated him! And his friend! Because right after that hedgehog blew the Death Egg to smithereens, he plucked Sonic out of the sky with the Tornado! In the time it took for Sonic to pass through the Wing Fortress, destroy the Death Egg, defeat my robots and Silver Sonic, as well as me, and get thrown out into space where he might have finally met his demise, the fox FIXED THE TORNADO AND CAME TO FIND SONIC!"
"He must be quite skilled," Julian mused. "How long did it take Sonic to do all of that, doctor?"
"ABOUT 20 MINUTES!" Dr. Robotnik screamed. "20 MINUTES! HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE! HE'S WHAT, 12? AND HE MANAGED TO DEFEAT MY PLANS OF WORLD DOMINATION IN ONLY AN HOUR AND A HALF!" He took a deep breath, hopefully to calm himself. "Do you know how long it took me to create all of that, Julian?"
"How long, doctor?" said Julian, even though he already knew it was a little over a year.
"A YEAR! A YEAR! HE DEFEATS A YEAR OF WORK IN 90 MINUTES! HOW DID HE DO THAT?"
Julian decided not to answer. It would only infuriate Dr. Robotnik more.
"I will start again," said Dr. Robotnik to himself. "Next time, I will be successful. Next time, I will win. Next time..."
Julian prayed there would not be a next time.