"Help me!" the voice screamed, the fear within became obvious with every passing scream. "Please someone help me!" the screams grew louder, more terrified with each one. The source of the voice was unknown, there was nothing around, but the screams continued, echoing all around the place, until eventually they were deafening, even to him. Robotnik sat upright. The screams had ended. He was back in a familiar landscape now.
He was in his room of the fortress, one of the few places within the whole thing that wasn't made entirely out of metal. The surrounding's were lavish, with luxurious purple curtains gently flowing in the breeze of the open window. Around him were various items of furniture all made of only the finest materials, which he had gathered himself, and allowed to be used to furnish his private quarters. The room was befitting of a dictator such as himself he thought trying to forget the dream. Robotnik wiped a few beads of sweat off his brow. This was the third time in as many days that he had been woken by the disturbing dreams. He couldn't figure out why they had bothered him, after all he had trapped millions of animals into robots before now, and he often enjoyed to watch them squirm as they were made into Badnik's, yet this screaming within his dream had been keeping him awake. Robotnik decided to give up on sleep for now; he swivelled round, his fat stomach wobbling as he did before he put his feet on the ground. He was wearing white pyjamas with pink polka dots, and a night cap, with the same colours, he went into his cupboard deciding it was best that he got changed. He looked amongst the various coats and trousers, before final settling on a pair of plain black trousers, and a red shirt with a large yellow collar. It was his favourite really of all the outfits he had worn, but he hadn't worn it recently for reason's he never had time to explain.
The memory of the dream bugged him as he walked towards his laboratory. It wasn't so much the screaming, more the fact that he was disturbed by it that bothered him. As clever as he was, Robotnik couldn't place why it bothered him, or even whose voice it was that had been screaming in the dream. He was also rather annoyed as it meant that for the third successive day he had been unable to come up with that killer idea of the day, which normally came to him as he slept. Of course these killer ideas were never really all that special, not one had yet beat Sonic. Sonic, the name alone caused Robotnik to clench his fist and grit his teeth in anger. Were it not for that Hedgehog, the Eggman Empire would be in its glory days, instead of the minimal wreck of a place it was currently. So far all Robotnik had control of was the leftover remains of the Metropolis Zone on Westside Island, and that place had been abandoned many years before Robotnik even emerged on the scene. The anthro's are always like that though; if they lost interest in something, they would just leave it, and go elsewhere. This suited Robotnik, as it meant he was left undisturbed to do as he pleased. Of course he had taken some precautions, making almost all the changes look like they had occurred naturally, and as if the place was abandoned, and unsafe to enter.
Robotnik sat down a desk and turned on a lamp. He didn't have that killer idea, but he had a few reasonable ideas that would help before he was woken, he noted them down, and began to proceed working out the statistical information required to make each idea workable. His first idea, a giant Chilli Dog was ruled out instantly as far too dumb to ever be workable, 'that wouldn't even work in a cartoon' he thought, as he proceeded to throw the piece of paper with a doodle of said Chilli Dog in the bin. It missed lying next to the bin. From out of the corner of the room a small green robot emerged. It was no bigger than a mouse, but was hovering with a quiet hum, not walking as a mouse would. It looked at the piece of paper, and immediately picked it up before placing it into the bin and disappearing back into its hiding hole. This did not even make Robotnik flinch, why should it, he had built said robot to keep the room tidy, and it was fulfilling its purpose. Robotnik proceeded onward dismissing many ideas, scribbling out a few others, and generally accepting most of them as not good enough. A few years ago he might have tried them, but he had been beaten so many times now, that he was only willing to settle for anything with an over ninety six percent chance of success, as he figured it.
An hour passed, and Robotnik had nothing to show for his night's sleep. Not one idea had been any good, all he had was garbage. Undeterred Robotnik got himself up and continued over to a workbench, where he had been tinkering with some key components. He wasn't building anything with them, but he had just been tinkering, disassembling and reassembling to see if he could improve the efficiency of the device. What the device was, he wasn't sure of anymore, he had been fiddling with it on and off for several months to no success. Today would be no different, and after just ten minutes Robotnik gave up with them, frustrated at the lack of inspiration that he had received. He cursed the unknown voice in his dream, and spent the next few hours trying to figure out what it was that was keeping him awake. He assumed that if he got his best ideas in dreams, and something was stopping his dreams, then he should figure out what it was that was stopping him from sleeping. Growing tired of walking he got into one of the many Egg-O-Matic's that were located in the place and flew over to watch one of the many Badnik assembly lines that was located in the place. He enjoyed the site of so many robots being created. Robotnik had returned to an idea he didn't even remember doing where he had seeds used instead of animals inside the Badniks. Although this meant that he couldn't enjoy the site of watching the animals suffer, he still had the joy of watching many new additions to the Eggman Empire being created. Of course most of them were kept in storage, as he did not actually have any purpose for them, but he never saw the harm in having robot's prepared should someone attack him. The rest of the robots were on patrol duty, unless they were specifically to do something. Many of the robots were based off animals, although some clearly had other inspirations placed upon them when they were designed.
Robotnik sat their, gently hovering in place just watching all these new additions to his empire. He began to think back to his dreams, they wasn't much to them, all it was, was a familiar voice screaming for help, yet he just couldn't place who's voice it was, his mind wandered as he thought, something which often happened, and although he never realised it, was often why he failed against Sonic and his friends. He noticed something about one of the conveyor belts, it was loose, and was slowing down production. He immediately ordered some repair bots to sort the problem, and watched them blindly follow his order it was only when he yawned through tiredness that the repair bots stopped, they both looked at him confused for a sec before both walking directly at the other. Robotnik looked at them again. They were just trying to walk through each other, neither of them succeeding, he began to wonder, and quickly realised that it had been triggered by his yawn. He said nothing, and watched them try to get through each other, neither of them seeing the logic of just stepping aside to allow the other through. This had given him an idea; one which he thought had a high chance of success.
Robotnik flew back to the Laboratory, where he began to scribble furiously on many pieces of paper, trying to remember everything before he fell asleep. He got through nearly two pencil's before he had finished writing it all down. He had it. His master plan. It was so simple in theory, but would take a lot of work to get this plan into action, even more than was required to build the Death Egg. Robotnik thought about his master plan, and smiled, this time he didn't even need the power of the Chaos Emeralds to see him through. It was only then did he realise that he had to get them anyway, after all, his plan was only 96.2 likely to succeed, and by taking the Chaos Emeralds all he had to worry about was the remaining three percent. Considering how close he had got the third time, where the odds were just 91.4 percent of success, this did not bother him too much. Now all he had to do was figure out how to get the Emeralds off of the Floating Island. He would figure this later though, it was now half three in the morning, and Robotnik had fallen asleep in his chair.
Just what is Robotniks plan, and what is it in his dreams that are disturbing him? Only one way to find out
