Intro

-\-/-\-/-\-/-

Aboard the 1st Robotnik Egg Fleet, a message was being broadcasted to the farthest reaches of Mobius. "I, Doctor Ivo Robotnik the Third, am here for a… peaceful takeover." The radio and television stations were interrupted from their normal broadcasts with this message "Mobius desires a perfect society, with one man as its supreme ruler" almost every citizen is within earshot of this sudden broadcast "All I am here to do is simply… oversee a smooth transaction to perfection" the citizens of Central City saw the Egg Fleet come into view through the clouds, the Egg Carrier 3.0 was leading, housing the nefarious Dr. Eggman III. "My grandfather had many complications with this same goal, but I can assure you, it will be taken care of"

In an unnamed ocean, the 2nd Egg Fleet had circled around South Island, home to many strange species of animals. The flagship, another Egg Carrier by the name of EC302, had revealed a large front loaded cannon, with the other airships taking aim at the small land mass.

"So I say to you, the future denizens of the Robotnik Empire" it seemed as though the island itself was shaking in fear of the airships charging to their full power. "You will join me…" he said as the monitor in front of him had begun to display a large red circle where south island used to be "or you will die…"

-/-\-/-\-/-\-

It's been three months since the Robotnik Empire had risen to power. Most of the cities had been more empty than usual, and Badniks were almost at every corner of every street. The robots weren't really doing, they only made sure nothing attacked anything that now belonged to the big Egg Head. A lot of people had to work longer hours because of new taxes that were implemented, but the attitude of most of the city has just seemed to deteriorate over time.

When I woke up, I went to the kitchen and the usual mail. Nothing much, few spam letters, others about advertisements for shoes, but the last letter cam with an official Robotnik seal on it highlighted in gold and black. I didn't really want to open it, it could just say that I have another new bill to pay or another letter addressed to the people… but I felt obligated to open it so I wouldn't get in trouble down the road.

'Dear Robotnik Citizen: [Jack Dillon]
We require that everyone between the ages of 18 and 25 get an immediate "Robotnik Testing" done. It is a simple procedure that will make sure that none of the inhabitants are carrying life threatening diseases and to provide data on the number of abled bodied youth in [Central City]. Please get this test within the next weak or we will have special staff bring you to a clinic immediately following, have a nice day Robotnik Citizen!

Dr. Ivo Robotnik III '

"Ugh…" I said aloud. "this is going to waste so much time…" I put the letter on the table and had a quick snack of frozen foods before heading out to work. It was a car factory that dealt with really high end models that are only affordable by the really wealthy, but I was in charge of hand assembling the exhaust systems of the cars. It was the same pieces over and over again, but every once and a while I was able to work on other things, the coolest one was to paint one of the cars with its base coat.

"Yo Jack!" my manager called me, he was a short well-dressed guy, but he was always a bit of a prick to people "we got an influx of orders, so we need to double the number of parts we make today"

"What! Why don't we just hire more people? We're always making more and more parts!" I argued to him, we never hire any new people for the company and we're always needing more hands "seriously, like two extra people would make this job much easier!"

"I don't want to hear it today Jack, you make the parts, or you don't get paid" he said simply

"Fine…" I can't really talk back to him or else I could get fired "I'll get right on it…" I walked back to my bench and started putting more of the parts together. It wasn't too hard, but the trick is that you can never mess up, or you immediately get fired.

"Hey" a kid slightly younger than me named Collin was talking "Did anyone else get that letter saying everyone should go get a checkup?" some other guys around me nodded "well I heard that Robotnik gave those letters out to Station Square last month, and like 50 people never came back after their visits. I'm not going to no doctor!"

"Yea" another guy named Paul chimed in, he was taller than me, but he was really thin and always wore a hat "I knew this one girl named Sarah that I used to chat with over the phone. Just like three weeks ago she said she was going over to the nearest Clinic because she got a letter from the Eggman telling her to! I haven't heard from her since!"

"yea, I'm just gonna act like I never got the letter!" Collin said, a lot of the others agreed with him.

"Guys" I said tired of all the conspiracy theory going on here" let's just finish the parts for today, I don't feel like losing my job…"

"So" Collin butted in "You'll just trust it and go with what Robotnik has to say? Just going to blindly follow him?"

"No!" I said defensively "You read the letter, you'll be forced to go anyway, and you said like 50 people out of one of the biggest cities disappeared? What's the odds it'll happen to any of us?"

"Still…" Paul said "I don't like it…"

We worked for most of the day and finished all of the parts only half an hour after we were supposed to originally leave. I walked back home like normal and called the Clinic to set up an appointment, unfortunately for me, there was an immediate opening for a spot in thirty minutes. So I just decided to get it over with.

After I got there I got very nervous. I just got to thinking of all the conspiracies out there and what if it happened to me? No one really knows for sure right? But I heard the rumors that some of the people go missing and are never seen from again. It makes me wonder what the doctors do. I heard it's just a normal checkup, but why would the big egg make sure everyone is healthy just after a big takeover? I just find it weird and very suspicious, but unfortunately I'm already here at the doctor's office for my checkup. I was people watching while I noticed a lot of disgruntled faces, like their time has been wasted, so that gave me hope that nothing would happen to me.

As I got called up by the nurse, I felt sick just from worry. Doctors and clinics just weren't my thing to begin with, they were always so creepy to me, but I walked into the room to see normal equipment and the table-bed thing and sat on the edge of it to wait for a doctor. The nurse was also going through regular things, hitting my knees with the hammer, looking at ears/nose with that little cone thing that shines a light, but then she got the needle out.

"Um…" I started to say nervously "w-what's the needle for?"

The nurse looked at me "what, you don't like needles?" she said, being sassy

"Sorry" I said defensively "But it's a needle !"

"Well you're a big boy now so stop whining!" she said as she rolled up my sleeve "do you want to know it's coming? Or want to watch it go in?"

"just do it before I noti-ouch!" she pricked me with no hesitation

"There, now was that so hard!" I saw my blood fill the small container where she then pulled the syringe back out and put a kiddy Band-Aid on my arm "there, now wait a few moments for the test to come back"

"what are you testing for?" I asked her

"uh… you know, infections, diseases, other things, parasites, and all those other things!" she said as she walked out of the door.

"Oh…k…?" I said, now waiting on test results. "now I have to wait even longer… just want to get this all over with…" but I didn't need to wait more than 5 minutes before the doctor finally showed up into the room smiling

"Good evening!" he said smiling, yet I could tell he was trying to hide much more excitement

"How's the blood test" I asked, a little suspicious about him

"Oh, that's perfectly fine, no disease or anything… but um… we need you to take this small little shot right here" the doctor was a small syringe with some clear liquid in it

"Another shot? And if I'm disease free then why do I need a shot?"

"Uh…it's a… a uh.." he stammered, trying to think of something while snapping his fingers together nervously "it's a flu shot!" he nodded to himself "it's to make sure you don't get sick in the coming months!"

I didn't believe him, but what am I going to do? Say no to a doctor? Hopefully it's just a flu shot, but the doctor is acting so suspicious… "Just be quick about it… and then do I go home?"

"Oh yes! Don't worry, right after this you can leave" he said smiling. He walked over and quickly jabbed my other arm "just wait a few seconds, you might feel a little bit dizzy" he was smiling, so much to the point that you could tell he was suppressing his need to laugh. I started to feel dizzy, and not only that, but really tired

"Ugh… what was in that…" I moaned fell backward onto the table. I tried to stay awake… but I failed…

It didn't seem like a long time, almost as if I just closed my eyes and then reopened them, but I was somewhere new. Not in the crisp green and white walls of the clinic, but I was sitting down in a small… container? I tried standing but found the container was barely big enough for me kneel down in. The container was all white on the inside and was bigger at the base than the top. The front had a large black tinted glass on it that took up most of the side, but the most curious thing about this small little box was that there seemed to be a camera in the ceiling of it, like someone was watching me.

"Ahem" a stern voice was speaking and I immediately recognized it as the big egg himself "I suppose you're wondering why you're here, and I suppose you deserve to know, but first is there any questions?"

"I…i…" I was speechless about what happened, first I find myself in the box and now Robotnik III is talking to me! "W-why am I here!? I finally stammered out

"Ho Ho Ho!" he laughed, slightly snorting at the end "the science of it is quite interesting! You see, your blood is a very rare type of blood that isn't normally found in humans, it is missing a few antigens that would completely negate what I'm about to do to you. So I pay anybody that finds that blood type big bucks for people like you to be delivered to me! And back to your blood antigens without these very specific antigens my machine, powered by the chaos emeralds and my utter BRILLIANCE, You will soon be turned into a south islander! South islanders as you may or may not know, are known for their intelligence and special abilities! Some may be very strong, some able to break rocks and dent steel with their very fists! And even rarer is the psychic one that we found we can use for mind control! But I'm getting ahead of myself here… the chances of a second psychic south islander is very low… anyway I'm sure you can work machinery just as well with the other hundred or so South Island servants"

"Wait… what!? I have no idea what's going on" I was completely lost on what he just said, and he talked so fast!

"Ugh… people and their slow minds…" he said disgruntled at my lack of understanding "I have no real patience for going to explain in even more detail, so why don't we start the machine?"

"Wait, what was that about changing me!?" I just processed him saying it

"That… was almost the first thing I said… why don't we just let you see for yourself, and more good news for you! We have just collected a THIRD Chaos Emerald! All the other subjects had one or two emeralds to power the machine, so this should be exceptionally interesting for you!"

"A South Islander! No! I don't want to change into one of those freaks! You can't honestly do that right!?"

"Ho Ho! Be careful what you say boy, you're soon about to be one of these so called 'freaks', and of course it's possible! Now start up the machine!" he said as I heard a large humming noise start up all around me.

The machine startled me, making me shout out from fear "No wait! Stop the machine!" I slammed my hands onto the glass trying to get out "This has to be a joke!" I screamed as the humming got louder and louder, eventually drowning out my own shouting. As it got almost too loud to bear, the glass in front of me turned clear as a giant wave of silver, blue, and green had gone through the glass and into my body. As the wave went into my chest I felt my insides burn as if I swallowed acid! After a few horrifying seconds my muscles completely stopped moving. I went limp as more and more of the giant wave entered my body, my eyes stopped seeing as everything went dark. I could only hear the giant hum of the machine and feel my body scream as everything started to shift and change shape. The worst pain was the bones, some would just melt and reshape, but others seemed too eager and snapped completely. Soon everything went numb and the machine started to lose its hum and couldn't I hear anything else, I sat in total silence, total darkness, and total numbness for the few most terrifying moments of my life. 'I must be dead' I thought…

Eventually I started to hear the slight hum of the machine again, and it was powering down. Some hot sensation came to me as if the entire container had warmed up several degrees, but I also felt my body was drastically different. The light was starting to come back to my eyes… I felt something much… different… I could 'feel' everyone around me, I could tell where they were and how many there were. There were exactly fourteen people standing on a balcony over the machine, standing around and looking at me through monitors. More than one hundred people were on this ship in total and three were south islanders… probably in the same situation I'm in…

"Beautiful!" I heard Robotnik exclaim with joy "what luck that we have a second psychic South Islander! But you seem to be just different als… what! Where did the emeralds go!? They can't just disappear from the machine like that!"

My full vision came to me, I could see past the walls of the machine, and my new psychic abilities were helping me know where everything is! I felt three large sources of power inside of me, the Chaos Emeralds as I immediately knew them as, but I knew I had to get out of here! Without hesitation, I had busted out the glass of the machine, I was almost operating on an auto pilot as I jumped out onto the deck and started running down the hallway. I saw of what I now discovered to be another Egg Carrier of an Egg Fleet.

"Catch that hedgehog! He's too valuably of an experiment to lose!" Robotnik said while I was racing down his airship. I met a robot on the way and almost stopped if it wasn't for a natural reaction that made me curl up into a ball and attack it. Two more appeared but a completely new reaction came from me, and I almost didn't believe I did it at first. But the two robots were now completely encased in ice!

'What did I just do!?' I thought 'I just destroyed three of those things!'

As I kept running, I felt the exit guide me towards freedom, I don't know how I knew, but I knew that's where I needed to go. Upon reaching the escape hatch the alarms started sounding off throughout the carrier. Even with the safety lock I had willed the escape hatch open for me. 147 battle robots started to get closer to me, so I dove out of the aircraft. The cold night air feeling great on my new fur!

"WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I shouted as I was freefalling. Before I got too close to the ground I slowed down and gently landed among the treas. The three emeralds that were in me fell to the ground and all of my new found energy had disappeared. The emeralds were beautiful, a bright green one, cool blue, and shining silver emerald was before me. After collecting the three emeralds in a large leaf I decided to keep moving. I ran barefoot through the jungle until I saw the sun start to rise. I didn't know where I was but I just needed to get away from the area before the egg heads get to me again.

It was winter and snow was falling all around me, but I didn't feel cold at all. Even barefoot I wasn't getting any colder. Eventually I no longer saw the egg fleet, but with fatigue overcoming me, I stopped in the nice cool snow next to a body of water. I saw the ocean for the first time in my life. It was beautiful, and even in the cold weather it remains unfrozen. I sank down into the snow and drifted off to sleep in the soft and comforting powder…