"…and then you beat him, didn't you, boss?"
Dr. Eggman sighed deeply before turning in his chair to shroud a dirty look on his small assistant, Orbot. The robot barely seemed to notice this and stared intently at his master, hands clasped together in anticipation of the next part of the exciting tale his master had just been telling him.
"What do you think?!" The Doctor snapped, a little louder than was intended, making Orbot shrink back a little, "I lost. Again. Just like I always do…" He brought his fist up to his face and clenched it, "But I was so close…"
Another Robot, similar to Orbot in stature but with a cubed head, wandered past the doorway and threw his heavily accented two-sense in, "If'n I may say, ya'll always get close."
"Rrrggg…SCRAM!" The man pulled himself out of his chair with amazing speed for his weight and waved his hand in the direction of the bot, which vanished immediately in a cloud of dust. Eggman grumbled and landed back in his chair, "No respect anymore…" He growled between gritted teeth.
"That's not true; I respect you!" Orbot hopped up on the control panel to be beside his creator, "Cubot is having malfunctions…that voice chip of hi-"
"No. stop right there." The human waved a finger at the robot, "That is the last time you use that as an excuse for him! He is in perfect functioning order and you know it. That voice chip of his is the only malfunction he has and it's hardly an excuse for his behavior." He reached to rub his chin thoughtfully, "Perhaps a new servitude chip is in order…"
Orbot seemed horrified, "I don't believe that that would be necessary! I'll…I'll go talk to him!" He hopped onto the floor and made his way quickly across the room, not bothering to listen to his boss' muttered retort.
If Cubot had a new servitude chip implanted in him, it meant no Cubot. It meant a droning, monotone robot mindlessly wandering the corridors of the Doctor's base, doing exactly as his master wished. There would be no hesitation if his orders were 'Through yourself off a cliff!' Nothing like that. Orbot shuddered at the thought. Of course, there had been a time when they both were exactly that, but over time and experience the bots had manage to gain a personality, something they learned was not uncommon among Eggman's machines.
Some just never got the chance, or were never re-built after destruction. An example was the egg-pawns constantly being sent after Sonic the Hedgehog. The experience they gained was so minimal that only a few out of hundreds created at a time would flee the battle line when seeing his brothers falling like flies around him.
He silently thanked a supreme being that he had been created an assistant; capable of gaining the time needed to discover that there was more to life than throwing his entire being into the pool that was the master's plans and dreams.
As he turned one of the corners, he found himself face-to-face with his yellow 'brother', who swayed back for a second, "What'n 'tarnations are ya doin' 'round these parts?!" He hollered, voice echoing off the bare walls.
"Shhh!" Orbot drew a finger up to where his mouth would be, "Be quiet, I have to talk to you."
"Oh." He drew himself up and leaned against the wall, "Be make'n it quick, I gotta appointment with destiny."
"You do not!" Orbot corrected stoutly, "Now you listen to me; the boss is this close to tossing you into the trash due to your terrible behavior! You have to stop before you give him a migraine; he hates those and it will only make your situation worse! Now stop this instant." He ended his speech with folded arms.
Cubot tilted his head, eyes narrowed, "Come with me!" He announced suddenly before turning and moving down the hall quickly.
"Wha-? Cubot, were you even listening to me?" He followed his friend, irritated, "This is what the boss is talking about!"
The yellow robot remained oblivious to the other as he moved at a fair speed, only waving behind his back once in a while to encourage Orbot to keep up. Further and further they went from Eggman's room, the lights became dimmer and dimmer until there were none at all, making the more responsible of the two nervous.
"We should really be heading back. Master will probably not harm you if you beg…." It was more or less an offer from one safe robot to a doomed one.
"Now ya jus' mosey on in here." Cubot seemed to be in a world of his own and grabbed his partners arm, pulling him into a room as black as a starless sky. Orbot, racked with nerves, switched on his night vision the second they entered and peered around, by now a little curious as to what was causing so much fuss on the other's end.
He gasped and stuttered incredulously, "Why…there's only JUNK in here!" He spat, turning his lit eyes unhappily to Cubot, "Care to explain?"
Only a scoff, "Junk? I reckon you meant 'treasure'! Just take a gander at all this STUFF!"
A pause before a smack was heard. Orbot slammed his 'palm' into his forehead, deciding that he really should have seen this coming. Who liked-no-loved stuff more than Cubot? "Really?" He sighed.
"Yup, and it's ours for the takin'!"He threw himself onto a pile of scrap metal, waving his arms into the rusted pieces like he was swimming, "We could spend all day here!"
Wait a minute…he began to notice strange things about this room. This wasn't just garbage. It didn't LOOK like it. No, these were parts. His head jerked a bit when realization hit, "Cubot…do you even know what all this IS?!" He spat, backing up a fraction.
"Huh?" Was the response.
"These are the remains of robots just like us." He sighed sadly, "I believe that this is where the master stores everything he doesn't need any more…quite tragic, really." He decided to make this into a lesson while the moment was there, "If you're not careful, this very well could be your resting place, too."
"Cool!"
Orbot was taken back, "Cool? What is wrong with you?!" After a second of thought process, he was relieved to see that the other was not malfunctioning; rather, he had been exploring and had apparently discovered something that interested him.
"There's a couple'a 'bots here, completely intact! Can we keep 'em, huh?"
The spherical bot hardly expected them to be 'intact' when they had been discovered in such a heap of trash and debris. To keep this as short as possible, however, he took a peek at what his companion was going on about.
He couldn't say that he wasn't surprised when he spotted the two slightly rusted figures, propped crudely amongst the debris around them. The shorter robot, looking more like a green blob on treads, sat straight and as tall as his form would allow him, eyes open wide, but glassy. Staring at something that had long since come and gone.
Then, long neck drooping over the other's head was what could only be described as a humanoid rooster. His eyes, unlike the others, were determined and fierce. His beaked mouth was a crack open, revealing grit teeth; together an expression that didn't seem to fit the rest of his form. The plume set atop the spherical head was drooped to a side, looking to be rusted into place and the felt around his neck which was only just visible looked ratty and torn.
Orbot allowed a soundtrack of a hard swallow to play to express his feelings over the discovery.
Cubot, however, was thrilled. He jumped right up to them and began to clear the debris off of their bodies, "Can we keep 'em?" He asked excitedly over his shoulder.
"Cubot! Let them rust in peace, please!" He begged, "You have to understand, this…this is what happens when the master doesn't want his bots anymore."
For once in the day, the words seemed to actually reach the square-headed bot, who hesitantly stopped his clutter spreading to squint with a mixture of confusion and sadness at the discarded use-to-be's.
He turned to his buddy, "Ya mean…?"
"Yes…these two were most likely thrown here over ten years ago. Probably after some failure. It's sad, but…well, we can't do anything for them. They're done, and the master has no more use for them. Activating them would probably only result in an immediate re-deactivation." He sighed, reaching out an encouraging hand to his partner, "Come on; let's go."
"But…whatta 'bout us?" His head was moving back and forth, from his new discoveries to Orbot.
His hand drooped a little in frustration, "What about us, Cubot?"
"Well, what if the boss man puts us 'down the river' someday? He wouldn't do that, right?"
The pitiful look on the bot's face made it easy enough for Orbot to finally say, "No…he'd never do that to us. We're his favorite."
This seemed to satisfy Cubot and he hopped past him to leave the room. As he clattered down the hallway, Orbot couldn't help but pause a moment to pay some respects to those who had served his master before him.
He supposed that they all had one thing in common. Sure, helping the Doctor was one thing that they always would have, but that was only a directive; completely un-ignorable. No, there was something else.
He found that he couldn't exactly put his finger on it. His thought processor was jammed with new views.
Orbot slowly followed the other, only glancing back one last time to stare into the oddly chilling faces of those long past. It reminded him that no matter what he told himself, or any other of his companions, that he knew what would eventually become of himself and Cubot.
They would be scrapped. Shut down and thrown away by their own creator, who, no matter what, they were programmed to trust with a compelling fierceness that was guaranteed to be betrayed one day.
And maybe, just maybe, they would be tossed beside these two and share this room together for as long as their parts held and their memory was alive. Slowly, an army of deactivated robots would build here.
But, despite the way Robotnik had abused, scorned, humiliated, and taken advantage of all of them, they would always be just as loyal to him the day they were first activated to right now; in the most shapeless, hopeless, and rust laden forms.
That was the something that they would all always have in common.