Cautionary Words: This story will focus mainly on Dr. Julian Robotnik (the Sonic SatAM version of the character) and not on the Freedom Fighter alliance. The good Doctor will be calculating, vengeful, abusive, unequivocally unkind, and overall, a far cry from the bumbling villain who seemed perpetually incapable of catching a hedgehog. He will also be in love. Slowly, eventually, and quite unwillingly, he will learn to care for someone else besides himself. Still in? Good. Now, I expect the initial cringe factor… but be prepared to encounter a large number of human OC's. We're talking about a whole colony of them. I'm taking quite a bit of creative liberty here, but please bear with me. If we looked beyond the narrow scope of the Mobian universe presented to us within those two oh-so-short seasons, it becomes reasonable to assume pockets of human civilization existed elsewhere. Perhaps some were even actively resistant to Julian's rule.
Well, that all sounds pretty probable to me anyway... "Enter OC's, stage right!"
Credits:
I hold absolutely no legal rights to the characters or environments of Sonic the Hedgehog. SEGA's got that on lock down.
This story's cover art, "Their Specialty", is provided by the lovely Rinkusu001. For more of her amazing Hidden Weapon: Hardened Heart artwork, head over to deviantART.
Rating:
Rated 'M' for language, violence and potential sexual content.
1
Paradise comes at a price
That I am not prepared to pay
What were we built for?
Could someone tell me please?
-MUSE, "Megalomania"
Jade
Everyone had stopped their exercises. A building of constant motion and turmoil, the training center had stilled. Its occupants hushed. All eyes were turned to focus on the circling pair.
The pair: counterpoints in skill and form, yet linked in the unbreakable bond of blood.
Their combined movements were so fluid, so quick, and all together so beautiful, that the duel could almost be called a dance – one of sweat and pain and loss, but also unmatched thrill. It was the only dance the crowd of rapt soldiers had been trained to admire. If preformed skillfully it created mechanical destruction; if failed, death.
As the pair fought, the crowd swelled. Officers, instructors, trainees, and civilians slipped in, some with readied pens and clip boards, others with preoccupied looks of indifference. Amongst them, a murmur of conflict was growing. The Ashwin siblings had never before occupied a plane of near-equality in the lancing ring. It finally seemed that the younger brother could perhaps surpass his sister. And yet, it seemed just as likely that she would persevere against him.
The brother had grown visibly stronger over the past year, a sense of solid immovability emerging about him as he bridged the furtive gap between adolescence and masculinity. Almost as if gravity held him more tightly now, it seemed breaking him would require breaking planetary forces. He pushed his opponents around the fighting ring, rarely encountering a reciprocation of strength or skill.
The sister possessed a fraction of her brother's raw power and presence, but she was the quicker of the pair. Unconstrained by bulk, hers were the movements which gave duels a heightened sense of grace. Her sword seemed to become a fluid extension of her body, and she moved with an easy, unguarded awareness that spoke of calmness and at the same time intense focus.
The senior officers were well-accustomed to the girl's expertise with a blade now, as they had largely witnessed the twenty six years of her life and military progression. Still, it remained a skill to quietly marvel at. From inquisitive child, to attentive trainee, to readied warrior and officer, their stricture in developing her combative style had pushed her beyond the point of perfection, and consequently, had elevated all previous standards for long blade mastery. It would be difficult to re-break the mold she had cast.
As if in protest of the thought, the brother raised his long blade again, but higher, above his head like the native tribes did. Like a Mobian would. The pose was unconventional and risky besides – his torso was left completely exposed – but the exotic form of open-stance fighting appealed to some soldiers. Most were newly recruited or naïve.
The sister paused mid-stride, examining her younger sibling's change in position. Her features softened. It was hard for her not to sigh.
Even when facing the most important match of his life, he's still the eternal show-off, she reflected with a small measure of reproof. Weakening himself on purpose…
She answered her brother's arrogance appropriately, with focused speed, lance slashing down to meet his own, mere centimeters from flesh. The blades vibrated together, steel thrumming against steel. Their faces came close.
"Much better than last year, Orin," she praised quietly. "Even with the Mobe moves." She slid sideways out of the metallic cross and away from him. Orin stumbled as the pressure vanished, face twisting in disgust. He made an exaggerated show of brandishing his lance overhead, in another reckless position, and rushed forward to meet her.
She received his attack near the end of her blade, far from its weighted center. The jolt was hard – a rattling collision she felt in her teeth – but her mistake hit harder. She knew it on impact; saw Orin's eye's flick to his new target. Before she could retreat from his plan, he stepped closer, grinding his lance down the length of her steel until their hilts banged together. With a quick twist, the hilt bars crossed, and the lock was made. Orin grinned.
"This isn't turning into much of a test, Lieutenant. I'm kind of disappointed." His voice was loud, meant for the crowd, but his blue-grey eyes were on his sister. He leaned closer, goading. "All that time in front of a computer's made you slow, Jade. Give up and stop embarrassing yourself."
Laughter erupted from a group of males in the audience. Jade knew every voice, chuckle, and snicker without looking. They belonged to Orin's closest friends. Most were barely nineteen, some much younger – boys who called themselves "men", trainees completely devoted to combating a threat they would likely encounter too soon. Along with them, one female laugh echoed through the cavernous room. Unmistakably Shelby, Jade seethed. The girl needed serious refocusing if she hoped to graduate. Her interest was currently focused on Orin, despite his constant disinterest, but more dangerously, despite the celibate vows she had taken as a recruited soldier. Jade struggled to accept the presence of such a blatantly wayward girl in the most serious of settings.
Orin shoved hard with his blade, demanding her complete attention. She responded to his criticism rationally, as an instructor should. "It wouldn't be much of an initiation test if I just let you win, Private Ashwin."
Orin's eyes narrowed, just slightly, as Jade had hoped they would. In his distraction she tried to kick out of the hilt-hold, aiming to buckle his right knee with a well-placed kick. Orin sidestepped her foot though, allowing her attack to only graze his thigh. He used her temporary imbalance to reposition with more force.
"I've beat you with this hold, now… just yield." he grunted, all measure of amusement gone.
Sweat had started creeping into Jade's eyes minutes before. "Not yet…" she huffed, blinking away the sting. Her forearms were already burning under the weight; the exertion it required just to match him. Orin had never been so powerful against her, so unyielding and determined. I'm not ready, she realized with a fresh jolt of panic. He's stronger.
She let some of her worry show then, not for leniency – it was obvious that Orin wouldn't give her any kind of sympathy in this, his final graduation match – but instead so that he might see her plight. If he could at least recognize, or better yet acknowledge the conflict within her – that she didn't want to be fighting him like this – maybe he could later understand her actions. Maybe he would understand why she continued to fight him when any other Lancing Master would have ended the match minutes ago. By most standards, he had already passed this graduation trial.
His eyes weren't seeing her though. They were on her face yet far away, starting to gleam with triumph, slipping towards the promises of glory and a future in battle. His brow furrowed and fell as he pushed. It was that look which kept Jade pushing back against him. That expectant, hungry look terrified her. He had changed so much within a single year, in both form and focus, that she felt she was sometimes staring into the face of a stranger. His polished lance, meticulously maintained, reflected a band of light across the high angles of his cheeks. Stubble darkened him, warring with the liquidity of cobalt eyes. His had become a hard face, a battle face; all of its lines contorted in rigid, inconsolable ferocity.
The flicker of understanding she hoped to find in his features simply wasn't there.
He's turned into the perfect, distant soldier, like dad… she had come to accept it, even as the thought ripped at her again like a fresh wound.
In another simpler reality, she could envision herself cheering Orin on to finish his initiation match; to win, to crush his opponent, and to earn his graduation rites at last. It was everything he had lived and worked for during his nineteen years. It was what their dad would have expected.
But if he succeeded, this brief, simulated accomplishment could be his last win. The larger, more well-informed parts of Jade – the officer and lancing instructor – feared that Orin's graduation would be enough to tip him into an infield officership. Psychologically unprepared, he would be part of, perhaps even lead, continuous skirmishes against the machines and hostile Mobians who strayed into their small realm. With no foreseeable end in sight, he would experience firsthand the inhuman regeneration of robotic armies and the pathetic inefficiencies of his own numbers.
And in the midst of this chaos, he might lose.
How many expedited soldier promotions had she reviewed before, even vouched for before, only to later find the promising graduate reduced to another name on a casualty report?
The last match… It couldn't be his last match. I will lose him, like dad…The thought never lost its punch of emptiness, its clenching immediacy.
To save him from an already bloody battlefield, she had decided weeks before, she needed to defeat him. Fail him through testing. It would delay his departure and temporarily smother the dread which had clawed its way into her life.
Everyone will see. The testing council will have to hold him back, at least for another year.
She couldn't lose this match. She couldn't lose Orin. It was simple, and yet, in a thousand ways complicated.
I'm not strong enough to match him…
The underground military academy trained its recruits in various forms of physical control, strength and adrenaline preservation being among them. Slight in build and height, Jade had always lacked muscular power. It was a tool she fought for every testing season when she was tasked with lancing against potential graduates. But the past months were different than previous seasons. She had purposefully neglected her programming duties, spreading the network's security maintenance out among her apprentices so she could slip away from computer terminals and into the darker reaches of the academy's tunnels. She practiced strength preservation with an intensity she never approached during her own initiation trials, draining herself repeatedly in the dark, to the point of exhaustion and then beyond. Agony went from an acquaintance to a bitter companion.
It never seemed enough though. She doubted her abilities and efforts constantly, most of all when she watched Orin spar. None of his peers could defeat him with a sword. Few could harm him. And she found little solace in the revelation that as he progressed physically, he also regressed further into arrogance. It was, disappointingly, a weakness she could at least try to exploit.
Her heartbeat was in her ears and the wait was torturous, but she knew it would come. Nobody, not even Orin, could maintain even pressure on a blade without eventually moving to readjust. She gathered her strength reserves, mentally numbing herself to the pain firing up both arms.
The weight change was infinitesimal, the opening sliver-thin, but Jade reacted as Orin finally shifted his shoulders. She drew further motivation from the remnants of her little brother's face. There were still innocent parts there amid all the changes, boyish parts she remembered growing up with… the crinkle at his eyes, the chaos of black hair.
Save him!
She shoved all of her remaining weight against his blade. The deadlocked lances squealed in protest as they came back to life, the crowd awakening with them.
Surprise surfaced on Orin's face. He tried to compensate for Jade's sudden momentum, sliding his blade downward and twisting his wrists in an attempt to recreate the lock, but she was moving quickly now and he had been still for too long. With a swift, powerful surge upward, she pushed out of the steely embrace, sliding away from Orin's counter stroke and falling into a new stance, purposeful in both its defense and respite. Her right knee rested on the floor, other leg extending to the side. Blood felt like liquid fire as it surged through her arms.
Orin stepped back and examined her with a scowl, rolling his shoulders in languid circles, breathing deeply. He didn't move to fight as Jade had anticipated. He's tiring, she realized. The disadvantage was a small spark of hope.
She met his gaze and forced her own to harden. She needed to be more detached, to just be his lancing instructor. As their father used to say, her eyes could be "a storm" when she wanted them to be, sapphire orbs of raging sea, churning around two blackened pools.
"A sea can calm, and a sea can storm. Save the calm seas for family." he would say. "Storms are for war."
Orin's eyes held the same storm, the same unnerving yet captivating power, and somehow, they were directed at her now. And hers were the same for him. We've come to the place dad never wanted us to be, she thought.
Orin paced an invisible line, his movement smooth and predatory. Jade stayed motionless, eyes tracking him, recognizing his delay as fatigue and not his typical, fear-provoking dramatics. The audience's energy built under the inaction.
The match official finally spoke, "Lieutenant, please move the test along." Shouts of agreement echoed off the cavernous ceiling.
"Yeah Lieutenant, let's move things along," Orin said, "I'd like an actual challenge before taking your place as Lancing Master." His friends laughed again, louder.
Mockery missed target. It was desperation and hope that fueled her now.
She burst from the floor, reaching him in two strides. Her lance sliced at him horizontally, mid-torso, the sound harsh and ringing as Orin's steel dropped to meet her own. Orin parried her next stroke as well, though slower than before, and then tried to press forward. Forcing opponents around the ring until they mis-stepped was how he usually won. But Jade deflected each of his blows, using her lance's weight to manipulate Orin's power until it was lost to the air, dissolving into noise.
Her breath slowed to evenness again, her movements becoming controlled and familiar. Orin would tire himself quickly if he continued on with full-force attacks and exaggerated lunges. Measurements of his moves and counter-moves overtook her. Visual memories of strategy fell into place. The clang of their swords became a backdrop of metallic rain: a patter of pangs, clangs, tings, thrums, and rings.
Orin bared his teeth from the effort, trying to keep up. Quick, precision combat was not his specialty – his musculature wouldn't allow it. He can't last long at this pace. There was thrill in the thought. His form began faltering under the rapidity of her attacks, each of his strikes carrying less power than the one before. Instead, Jade felt urgency pulsing through his blade.
The sisterly part of her cried out for his strife; for the embarrassment he would encounter if he lost, and as a result, the anger he would cast her way. It will be the worst kind of humiliation for him - being beaten by a computer programmer.
But she had already decided: the price of his shame and resentment was nothing compared to the alternative. She could manage the pain of his potential hatred if it meant saving him from field duty... from a death made by machines or monsters.
"Come on, Lieutenant!" Orin roared, breathless as he stepped back from her. "It's been done since you lifted your lance… yield!" He put real strength behind a swing – a decapitating blow.
Jade ducked away, twirling, her blade following. It was so natural, she almost didn't think about it. With a smooth cut, she drew a long, red line across Orin's exposed calf.
He staggered backward. Shelby was somewhere distant, screaming in protest, but Jade could barely hear the girl.
Orin doubled over, dabbing at the blood creeping down his ankle. He looked up at his sister with disbelief, angry eyes flooding with something close to a plea as he finally recognized her resolve.
That look… that young, vulnerable look… and suddenly Jade's lance felt too heavy.
You have to save him!, her conscious urged. But his face was preventing her…
She looked away from his gaze, her eyes sliding to the cords of his neck instead – thick bands of sinew and tendon, throbbing quickly. She forced herself to imagine that neck belonging to something else, anyone else… a training droid… a SWATbot… Robotnik himself... and then her sword was a connected appendage again. It flowed through the air.
An audible gasp came from the crowd. Orin tried to tilt his head away. The match official rose from his chair.
Jade was, just for a moment, offended that so many people doubted her intentions.
Her final attack, the attack that would certainly pass for a robotic kill in battle, never made contact with skin. The blade halted just a whisper away, blood from his calf wound dripping off the sword and onto his chest, melding with rivers of sweat.
The crowd exhaled. The end was not really an end, just a dramatic loss. Their apprehension turned to praise and applause boomed off the cave walls.
When Orin tensed his lance arm, Jade eased her blade against his neck, scared that he wouldn't yield.
"It's done, Orin. Let it go." She pleaded over the noise.
His sword arm was shaking, from exhaustion or anger she wasn't sure. The official saved her from arguing any further. "That's enough Private Ashwin! You're beaten. Lay down your lance!"
Orin squeezed the weapon for a second longer before tossing it, all care for the tool vanishing. The scrape of steel against stone was lost in the cheering. His friends were soon at his side, trying to usher him out of the ring. Jade numbly noticed Shelby pulling off her training tunic and kneeling, fighting to press the fabric against Orin's wound.
Orin threw their arms and assistance off easily, like the weight of his lance. Nothing could draw his glare from Jade. She watched the intensity build behind his eyes… a storm… all directed at her. More than an intimidating glance, or a heated stare to make an opponent question themselves, she felt it. Felt his fury.
So this is what his hatred looks like... she realized. Its power had never been so fully directed at her.
"They were right." he said, punctuating every syllable with malice. "This whole time – I didn't believe – but they were right about you."
They?
Jade couldn't even utter an apology in her confusion. "Orin, what do you… Who was right?"
But his friends were pulling him away, his glare finally leaving her. Spectators flooded the floor to replace them. She lost view.
People encircled her completely, a slew of officers and colleagues. She was dead to their smiling faces; their misplaced congratulations. It was a false, hollow victory:the continuation of an uninterrupted number of lancing wins. It means nothing…
She ignored the din, rising on her tip-toes, scanning above the faces for another glimpse of Orin. She found him slamming through an exit door, his own crowd following close behind.
The last of her strength seemed to leave with him. She exhaled for her own loss. Her lance slipped to join Orin's on the floor.
He hates me... But I've saved him.
Julian
Many miles away, across plains and seas...
It was still early, the planet's second sun barely beginning its assent towards a pink horizon. In the depths of a cold room, at the center of a silent city, a wall-sized monitor flickered to life. There were no windows, just a wash of glowing screens and control panels, allowing the approach of sunrise to go unnoticed. The only indication of morning came from an over-sized digital clock, projecting the local hour in neon green.
Dr. Julian Robotnik considered the rise of the planet's second sun inconsequential. Unless he was working on solar cells or atmospheric evaporation constants, Sn2 along with its sister sun Sn1 were just more stars in the sky. The Doctor's real passion was technology, specifically robotics, and by extension all the applications it could afford his quest for planetary dominance.
Today, like most other days, he would miss the sun rise. He would instead rise with the glow of computer monitors and his plans for further advancement.
"Status reports, Snively." he demanded, sitting back in his command chair.
A stunted man stood in front of a black-lit computer monitor, fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard. Wisps of dark hair seemed to sprout randomly from his scalp, the remnants of a once thick mane. His blue, bulbous eyes scanned the screen readouts before answering.
"All systems operational and intact sir… except for, of course, the backup generator."
Robotnik's metal fist slammed into his chair. The unnecessary reminder riled him more acutely than he cared to acknowledge at such an early hour.
"That damn, meddlesome hedgehog…" he breathed, "No more delays. I want that generator repaired today."
"But sir… as you know, the majority of worker-bots have been commissioned to work on-"
"Yes, I know, Snively," the Doctor's voice was rising, "and I don't care. The generator repairs will be completed by this afternoon, even if you have to be the one fixing it!"
The lackey cringed but stayed turned away. "Yes, sir…" He spoke to his keyboard and tried more pleasant news.
"Sir… a video message was received from the western building site late last evening."
"Good." Robotnik purred, relaxing infinitesimally. "Play it now, Snively!" His chair rotated to face the largest wall monitor, fingers steepled in anticipation.
The screen flared with pixelated life, a yellow lizard standing in frame. The reptile's slitted eyes darted between the lens and whoever was holding the recording device, tongue flickering outside its mouth.
"Doctor, I'm able to report that construction is running on ssschedule." The lizard began. The video panned up and out to its right, revealing a colossal metal aircraft in the distance. Countless floodlights bathed the site in columns of white. A crane, partially shrouded by darkness, swung metal piping into an opening in the craft's incomplete hull. Scurrying dots moved to secure the load.
"But, we did have to recruit more laborersss to meet your requesssted work quotas, which took time and energy that wasssn't planned on." The lizard paused as the camera zoomed in on a group of workers. A few were unrobotocized, still organic flesh and blood. Metal collars glinted around their necks.
"The worker-botsss you sent couldn't do all of the manual labor… It'sss not in the contract… but we will need additional compensssation." It was more of a demand than a request. "It took a day to capture enough localsss to finish installing the fuel cellsss and two from my team were injured corralling the bastardssss…"
In the distance, a shower of sparks rained down the side of the craft. One of the ascending pipes shrieked as it ground against the hull, close to slipping out of its bundle. Alarms were sounding, worker-bots swarming, spotlights shifting towards the dilemma. The crane tilted dangerously under the new strain.
The lizard looked on dispassionately, slowly turning back to the camera lens.
"As I ssssaid, additional compensssation will be required for my lossesssss… Thessse local workers are not skilled or cooperative… but we will manage. The craft is nearly operational. Preliminary artillery tessssting should start tomorrow… Your requested report issss attached."
The screen went black.
Robotnik turned his chair back to the main monitors. He was quiet for several moments, fists clenching and unclenching as he considered. Snively seemed to have decided against breathing.
Finally, and evenly, the Doctor spoke, "Review the report Snively, and send more surveillance orbs to the site. I want visuals of the capacitors… If the lizards are using locals for labor I need evidence that the craft's systems have not been compromised."
Those idiotic lizards could have put Freedom Fighters to work! If the rebels were to get a hold of my plans… Robotnik seethed at the thought. The possibility of his operation being compromised flushed his pale face crimson.
However unpleasant and methodically asinine the reptile mechanics were, he needed them. If their foreman had spewed anything of significance it was his insistence that worker-bots couldn't construct the entire craft alone. If the capabilities of his animatronic creations extended into the realm of detailed, infield aircraft assembly, the Doctor would have gladly roboticized the money-grubbing lizards and discontinued the charade of his collaboration with them.
It will be a far more appropriate use for the vermin once this project has reached its end, he mused, drawing some consolation from the thought. Relying on freethinking and ultimately free-willed organic creatures had become another experience in dealing with the infuriatingly incompetent.
"…Should I reply to their request for additional funds, sir?" Snively asked after a pause.
"The lizard said it himself." Robotnik answered quickly. "Procuring slave labor was 'not in the contract' and thus is not an expense I am willing to pay for… He will, in fact, be lucky if I pay him at all."