Opening doors could be heard all throughout the skyscraper, slamming doors are sounded loud and clear as the mysterious character strolled directly into the office. With a zig-zag tail flapping around and red, spikey shoes making a disturbingly aggressive stomp as he walked. The cloaked figure sat down and nodded respectfully at the nearby security, who nodded back in return.
In front of him was a desk and a large chair, facing away from him.
A confident, familiar voice suddenly said clearly, "I've been expected you, Echidna-boy."
The figure unveiled his head from his hood and revealed himself to be Knuckles the Echidna.
"Yeah, what did you want to see me about, Eggface?" Knuckles snarled. Eggman spun round in his golden chair, grinning deviously, grooming his moustache professionally with his gloves.
"Knuckles, your emotion is anger but that doesn't mean you can't shut up," he growled. Both he and Knuckles glared at each other with genuine sparks of rage in their pupils. Suddenly, Eggman smirked and leaned backwards laughing.
"I wanted to tell you about the latest update in our... shall we say, 'situation'," he began, forming an 'inverted commas' sign with his fingers.
Knuckles reduced the intensity of his stare and folding his hands one over the other. He leant forward onto the desk and looked at Eggman with curiosity twitching to escape the giant hole of his mouth.
Eggman held a universal remote in his right hand, turned 90 degrees around and turned the television on nearby. A screenshot flashed up on the news channel of a riot of citizens aggressively banging on the gates to the skyscraper they were currently in. The news reporter was currently explaining how the riot was lead by none other than a beaten-up and aggressive Sonic the Hedgehog!
"As shown in this live filming of the scene this angry mob is currently lead by Sonic the Hedgehog, the former owner of 'E.T.E. also known as Emotional Technological Enterprises'. Unfortunately the company itself is disregarding this as a minor event and refuses to deal with the situation at hand. However, recent complaints seem to have shaken their brains a little bit and might have changed their opinions on the matter-"
As the woman was about to finish the explanation, Eggman turned the TV off.
"Do you understand now what the situation at hand is costing us?" he asked.
"I do," Knuckles solemnly answered.
"Do you understand what I want you to do?" he added.
"Based-off the supplied evidence I assume you want me to reduce the citizens' enragement status to a fair standard?" he answered again.
"Spot on, and one more thing," Eggman said, leaning back further in his chair, his voice hardening and seeming colder than before, "I want you to bring me Sonic the Hedgehog. Alive, but not safe..."
Knuckles nodded, acknowledging his task respectfully.
"So, Knuckles, for a good reward, are you in or out?" he grinned.
Knuckles hesitated for but a second, then stared straight forwards, stood up and concluded the conversation.
"I'm in," he said, followed by Eggman's trademark evil laugh.
Later that afternoon, Eggman left his office and walked into a lift. He pressed multiple buttons and seemingly entered a 4-digit code. He was instantly shot down to a secret underground floor as the code was completed and confidently wandered out of the lift. He walked for a long time before reaching a particular room of darkness, of which had a balcony that he was currently standing on.
He gazed down into the darkness and smiled.
"Well my friends, the time has finally come," he shouted, "Today is going to be a very special day for E.T.E. a phenomenal event will take place that will make modern history, and will give us the perfect opportunity to take what is rightfully ours. This world. Mobius. There's just one issue that constantly gets in our way. We will have to complete this one task and deal with that issue before it erases all of our chances."
He then hesitated again, but concluded the short speech with six, terrifyingly evil words:
"We must kill Sonic the Hedgehog!" he roared.
Then, just when everything went silent, and the deep echo ended, thousands of tiny voices spoke up, yelling four words, four words that made those inhumane voices sound so demonic.
"KILL SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!"
"KILL SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!"
"KILL SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!"
"KILL!"
"KILL SONIC!"
"KILL SONIC THE-"
"KILL SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!"
And then, amongst all those devilish voices, Eggman looked straight upwards, imagining all he could do if he succeeded.
Then he looked down at the voices of darkness again; and he laughed - he just laughed. Quietly, but not so quietly that no echo could be heard.
It was terrifying.