A/N: Spoilers for IDW issue 15… and IDW in general.
Starline pauses before the mirror-like door to readjust his collar and polish his rimless glasses. A disobedient cowlick juts from his curled bangs, prompting him to yank it out with a frown. He doesn't mind the sting. Never has.
It seems a bit adolescent, primping one's appearance before meeting one's idol for an important meeting, but he hopes he looks presentable enough to be admitted into the Doctor's personal quarters. Though he has no idea what the Doctor could possibly say here that couldn't be said back at the lab, the request to see him alone renders him pleasantly surprised. He must have achieved another breakthrough in his research.
He raises a hand to knock when the door slides open.
The room is pitch-black.
"Doctor?"
His voice trembles through the dark air, and he straightens his posture. No, mewling questions won't do at all. Snapping his lapels, he ventures forth.
"Oh, so sorry for the inconvenience. Here, let me light things up for you!"
An electronic hearth bursts alive beside him, spitting out fake holographic flames. The light they carve through the gloom shimmers at the very edges of the Doctor's bared teeth. Whether in grin or grimace, he can't say.
The Doctor leans against the lip of a huge oak desk. There Starline notices a display of glass tubers, each filled with different liquids.
The second tuber transfixes him. Arterial red beads trickle from a rubber nozzle into the glass, where it fizzles and flickers. Crushed remnants of the Phantom Ruby prototypes, perhaps?
"Tell me something." The Doctor withdraws the ruby sample from its slot and swirls its meniscus like that of a fine wine. "You'd be honest with me, wouldn't you? Even if I was making a complete fool of myself?"
"Absolutely."
"Liar," the Doctor says, the drop in his cheery façade as quick as a disciplinary slap to the face. "Don't think I haven't seen you side-eye my methods, trying to get your own way."
"If I've displeased you in any capacity—"
"You're displeasing me now by flapping that maw of yours, so shut it. I'm not as stupid as you think I am. I wouldn't dash off some half-baked concoction just to put myself at risk. Every poison has to have an antidote."
So that's what the ruby liquid is. He doesn't know what exactly has tipped the Doctor over this precipice—though the incident where he tried to finish Sonic off prematurely springs to mind—but Starline remains a firm idealist. Maybe he can still salvage some good faith out of this. "Quite a small sample."
"It is, isn't it?" Plucking the virus off the display, he poises both tubers to the firelight, compares ruby with silver. "Reverse-engineering the virus produced this tiny amount. It's negligible, Starline, less than—" He flicks his fingers as if brushing away a crumb. "Once exposed, the enzyme breaks down and its entire molecular structure folds in like a deck of cards. Then it's about as good as snake oil."
"Am I to test this substance for you, then?"
"In a sense."
The Doctor encircles him now, his steps clicking on an overbuffed floor. Even the rustic analog clock bolted to the wall feels like a cold, relentless heartbeat, furthering the progress of his eventual decay. Though it'd may come sooner than he'd like.
tick
tock
tick
tock
tick
Starline's observed enough experiments to know when the subject's clinical eyes have turned on the researcher. "Surely," his mouth fumbles around the words, "you jest…?"
A slow grin overtakes the Doctor. "What's the matter, boy? Getting cold feet in those gaudy shoes of yours?"
He presses a hand over his rapidly-beating heart. "Of course not."
"You want to serve me, right? Now you can do it without those pesky physical needs getting in your way. Just think about it: no more hunger or thirst or sleep eating up your time, and you have your station cemented at my side. A win-win for everyone!"
A sliver of dread scratches at the grooves of Starline's brain. His heart pulses against the bottom of his throat, threatening to burst through his vest with each insistent pound. His eyes remain fixed to those tubers.
"I have you to thank for it, after all. Hearing how oh-so-ill you made yourself looking for me made me realize just how strong I'll have to be to have a long and healthy reign. Can't have my subjects running themselves down worrying over little old me, now, can I?"
His own words haunt him. It was worth it to find you. Proper rest is a precious commodity in a place like this, paid and returned with later suffering.
"Doctor… " Starline swallows. He knows better than to beg. He simply wishes to clarify: "I would have done it regardless."
"Of course, of course. Which brings us to why you're here. You want to bask in my glory as I crush this planet? Well, then, m'boy, to that I must say: take a ring-side seat to the greatest show on earth!"
Slats in the floor slam open, whisking up a hard iron chair that clamps manacles over his wrists, cutting off the circulation to his webbed hands.
He unclenches his fists, feeling his knuckles creak with a familiarly dry snap.
"Don't act so surprised. You knew exactly what you were walking into when you fried that annoying tinkerer out of me."
The Doctor peels back his own sleeve, revealing a knobby elbow.
Starline's blood runs cold as he stabs the plunger into his naked wrist, draining the precious liquid and hording the only cure to a soon-to-be pandemic. He covets it all for himself, insists that even the most loyal of his slaves remain subservient.
He flexes his fingers several times. "Looks like your 'therapy session' failed. I remember a few things when I was stuck in that horrible little village," he says. "They want this cure, they'll have to gut me like a fish. They won't, of course, once I turn on the waterworks." Tilting his head to one side and speaking softly as if explaining the concept to a very small child, he adds, "Oh, Sonic? Remember that 'sweet old man' who fixed houses and strummed the guitar? Kill him, and this world goes under." He tapes a cotton swab to his wrist, yanking out a gauze strip with a sharp tug and an even sharper grin. "Quite the plan, wouldn't you say?"
The sheer black-hearted treachery strikes him dumb. Such madness can only be borne of a twisted, snarling heart.
Slowly, his beak curls into a wicked smile.
How gorgeously vile.
With the loss of his last ounce of purity, Mr. Tinker scorched from his psyche in a thunderous flash of electricity, the Doctor's transformation from a good man to great one is complete.
He had a hand in that. He did. No one else may lay claim to such a grand feat as bestowing the world's ruler his soul, or more accurately, the lack thereof. And now that he sees his life-given creation turn on him with the virus, a mad giddiness seizes his heart, crushes it with a thrilling mixture of terror and pride.
"It will be my pleasure to serve you, Doctor."
Eggman chuckles. "That's the spirit."