Gone Batty
"I don't get it...why'd he call us bat brains? I mean, sure we're bats, but our brains our actually CPUs, and-..."
"Chiroptera, you're overanalysing."
"And while the animals inside us have brains, I don't think any of them are actually bats! I-..."
"And there goes the hedgehog. Nice one."
It took more microseconds than he cared for Chiroptera to work out what Blumenback had said and, woe and behold, actual milliseconds to react to it. All in all, it was hardly a surprise that the only evidence of Hedgehog: Priority One was his kinetic sensors picking up the movement of air of someone moving at high speed.
"Well?" Blumenback asked, opening an eye. "Are we gonna chase after him?"
The bat brain sighed. "Ah, let him go. Chances are the spikes or lava are going to be the things that take the critter down, if at all."
Neither badnik spoke for awhile after that. Both of them knew that "if at all" was being overly optimistic. The hedgehog hadn't been taken out back when Robotnik was actually trying to conquer South Island and since the rodent had been free to revisit all the previous areas at his own discretion (never visited the underwater labyrinths for some reason though), the remaining badniks in them had nothing to do but wait for the inevitable moment when they'd be destroyed and their furry power sources left free to run wild.
Which is why I must make the most of this time...Chiroptera thought to himself, hearing the sound of the hedgehog make various comments about lava, when it should really be magma. I must live life as I should.
Admittedly, Blumenback hadn't been reciprocal to such a notion, any more than his bat brain counterpart actually making up names for the two of them. But still, with the caterkiller and crabmeat badniks remaining on the surface of the Marble Ruins, Chiroptera had no-one else to talk to.
"Maybe we have a purpose beyond hunting the hedgehog..." began the bat slowly, warming up to another conversation faster than the fire traps below did. "Maybe we're here for a reason..."
"We are. And it's to catch the hedgehog."
"No, more than that!" Chiroptera exclaimed, detaching from the ceiling and flying around more chaotically than a newborn flicky. "We're called bat brains. Bat brains! We're meant to think! We're meant to go beyond being mere badniks and actually think!"
"...you've lost it."
Landing on the ledge of their marble slab and staring at the pool of lava (or magma, whatever) below, Chiroptera let out a sigh, even if no air came out of his non-existent mouth. It was tragic really, how even after Scrap Brain had been reduced to ruins and their creator missing or dead (or shouting "I hate that hedgehog", though that could have been a recording), Blumenback could not or would not appreciate the important things. Still, while he had realized that taking out the hedgehog was a hopeless endeavour, he wasn't willing to give up on his friend just yet.
"Look at this..." the badnik began, spreading out his wings in a manner similar to how Robotnik did it with his arms when he first looked over his badnik army. "Look at this architecture, this marvel of engineering. Who built the Marble Ruins? Why did they build them? And how did they channel lava-..."
"Magma."
"...into their tunnels?" continued the bat brain, not allowing himself to be slowed down by his partner's cynicism. "I mean, sure our creator has used it for his own purposes, what with the fireballs and spike traps, but...well, just look at it."
Silence fell over the bats, apart from the sounds of fire, spikes and a certain whooshing sound down below accompanied with puns left, right and centre. It was a silence that Chiroptera appreciated, knowing that he was going beyond his programming, that his ghost within his machine was surfacing. And looking back towards his...friend, seeing the badnik deep in thought, it looked like he wasn't the only one who thought this way.
"Chiroptera..." began Blumenback slowly."
"Yes...?"
"...you've gone batty."
A/N
Update (2013-07-26): Corrected badnik naming error.