Clunk

"Urgh, my head. Where am I?" the man said, getting back up to his feet, wobbling slightly under his mass as he did. He looked round and saw small pipe that was lying out of place on the floor. It didn't take long for him to suss this was why his head hurt. What didn't come to him right away was what he was doing around a production line. He looked around, for some idea of what he should be doing. His hand clutched his white jacket, and his fingers fumbled over a name tag.

"Eggman," he said aloud, "Is that my name? Doesn't sound like a name, sounds like a job. But what would an Eggman do?"

It had been several months since Sonic had last heard from his arch nemesis Dr Eggman. Sonic had become increasingly bored during this time. He'd explored the entire planet twice, had done more than enough interviews for TV, Radio, and internet sites, and he'd even finally found the time to finish of his list of needlework ideas. Sonic was so fed up of having nothing to do he'd even set himself up for hire as a speed lawn mowing service. The papers had a field day on this one, Sonic, a world class celebrity, mowing lawns because he was broke. As Tails had mused, you can't be a hero without a villain.

It was a mild spring day; Sonic had cut through at least fifty lawns in the last half hour. He stopped for a second to go chase payment for the last few lawns, when he heard something. Sounding like an ice cream can, a large silver and grey hovercraft flew by. It stopped a few feet away, and Sonic watched a few eager kids go out and investigate. They'd been lured out by the temptation of a cold ice cream. What they got however, while slightly confusing, made them just as happy.

Sonic watched a small child unwrap a silver-lined round object. He glanced at the driver of the vehicle, and saw a familiar ginger moustache. Instinct took over, and he ran towards the child, knocking the brown unwrapped sphere to the ground.

"My egg!" the boy cried. Sonic looked at the kid, and then at the small pile of broken chocolate and silver foil on the floor.

"Sorry kid, it's for your own good," Sonic answered, before yelling, "Nobody eat those eggs! Eggman is up to something."

"Wh-what?" The vehicles pilot said confused, "I'm only selling chocolate eggs. There's nothing wrong with that is there?"

"Not normally, though I'll admit selling chocolate from a heated vehicle doesn't make much sense, though I suppose selling ice cream from a hot van is even weirder," Sonic pondered, "but this is you we're talking about, you don't do these things. You don't care about people and you certainly don't do niceness like this."

Then something happened that caught Sonic by surprise. He looked at Eggman, and watched from behind his glasses, a single solitary tear rolled down his cheek. Eggman turned away from the blue hedgehog, and shot his hovercraft upwards, and away from the scene as fast as he could. Sonic watched as he disappeared then, after seeing the angry faces of a dozen kids who hadn't gotten any chocolate, Sonic himself fled, he'd heard that little kids bite hard when deprived of chocolate.

"It's chocolate," Tails said, "Pure chocolate, and nothing more." Sonic had given Tails some of the egg he'd knocked from the kid earlier that day. Tails had ran it through several machines, and tested it for several poisons, before reaching his conclusions by biting into it, "Tasty too."

"So Eggman's handing out chocolate eggs?" Sonic asked rhetorically.

"Doesn't make sense to me either," Tails said, "Maybe he's cracked?"

"Maybe, but I don't trust it. Something going on and I've got a funny feeling about all of this," Sonic said. Tails nodded, and finished off the rest of the egg.

Another few months had past, and Sonic had been tracking Eggman's egg selling. Several times he'd succeeded in getting more eggs, and each time the tests Tails would conduct on them would conclude they were nothing but confectionary. Lots of kids had grown annoyed by Sonic's antics, and despite Eggman's past, and Sonic's reputation, people eventually relented, and Sonic found himself with a restraining order, to stay five hundred feet away from Eggman.

Tails had been purchasing eggs since this incident, and had been checking them. This never yielded any results, and eventually Sonic was forced to give up. As sad as he was to admit it, Eggman had changed, though Sonic couldn't figure out why.

It was the middle of March, and Sonic had given up. During his stint selling chocolate eggs Eggman had turned his one man business into an international success story. Though Tails had been desperately trying to figure out why his chocolate was so popular, he ultimately had to conclude that Eggman was good at marketing, and that his chocolate was delicious.

During this time Sonic hadn't done much. Having done all his needlework prior to this, the blue hedgehog had began writing a novel, but he'd got so frustrated after one page. Writing was too hard, and he wondered how or why anyone would ever do that sort of thing for fun.

Sonic was watching TV. His favourite show The Adventures of Silver the Hedgehog was on, and as always just when it was getting interesting it flipped to commercials.

"Hey kids," a familiar jolly voice said from the TV, "I know you love my chocolatey eggs," Eggman said smiling, "well you're in for a super treat. Up and down the country there will be free egg hunts. Come along next Sunday to your nearest hunt, information is on our website. Can't come to one, well don't worry, simply send us the wrapper of any Eggman's egg along with your address and we'll send you two free eggs."

Sonic clenched his teeth angrily. This had to be what Eggman was up to. "Tails," he yelled, "Come on, we've got to get into his factory and put a stop to this once and for all.

Sonic wasn't quite prepared to be able to take a guided tour of Eggman's factory, Sonic had been in many of Eggman's factories before, but usually they were swarming with robots, and his goal was to shut the place down. The closest Eggman had to a robot this time though was part of the production line. The entire building smelled like chocolate, which was expected, but still different from the smell of oil that Sonic was used to from Eggman's refineries.

The tour was only two hours long, but Sonic didn't find it all that interesting. Much to Tails' displeasure, Sonic forced the pair of them off the tour after half an hour. Tails was annoyed as he was genuinely interested by it, but he knew they had a job to do. They snuck through teams of chocolate makers, and into the main assembly lines. This machinery was much better organised, and Sonic and Tails had little trouble making it to the main office.

"Who are you?" Eggman asked confused; then he recognised Sonic, "You're the one who used to chase me when I sold eggs out of my little Egg-pod. Security!" Eggman yelled at the top of his voice. Two burly looking men walked in the room. Sonic and Tails both jumped out of the way. Sonic landed atop the head of one of them, and knocked him backwards, back through the door the guards had rushed in through.

Eggman could only watch defenceless from behind his desk, as the blue hedgehog and his twin-tailed fox friend knocked both his guards unconscious. Eggman cowered behind his leather chair, "What do you want?" he said nervously.

"What are you up to Eggman?" Sonic demanded.

"What are you on about? I'm the Eggman; all I do is make chocolate eggs." Eggman answered, shaking.

"Your Egg hunts. What are they really?" Sonic asked.

"They're just a promotion," Eggman answered, shuffling nervously, "We figured it was the best way to increase sales."

Sonic didn't know what to say, he knew deep down that Eggman had a master plan behind all this, but there was nothing to tell him what.

"Sonic, he's being honest," Tails said slowly. He whispered into Sonic's ear, "I don't think he even knows who he was. Somehow he's forgotten his past."

Sonic let go of Eggman, and walked out of his office. The pair of them fled quickly, not wanting to be caught by the police. Sonic later asked Tails how he knew Eggman had amnesia, and the fox simply said he didn't but Eggman's actions weren't those of Eggman normally in that situation, reminding Sonic of just how physical Eggman could get if required, and how tough a punch Eggman packed when cornered.

Sonic returned back to his living room, and picked up his knitting needles. Sonic wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he found knitting very therapeutic. He flicked his television back on, and began watching.

"And this was the scene earlier today at the Eggman chocolate factory," the TV announcer said. Sonic recalled what he'd just done, and put down his needles and gave the TV his full focus. The TV showed Eggman outside his factory. Sonic watched as Eggman was stood with a bunch of official looking people. Apparently he was receiving some sort of award. Sonic watched as Eggman was hit by some sort of large rock, and feel unconscious.

"That serves him right," Sonic said quietly.

"Ivo Robotnik, the owner of the Eggman factory has been admitted to Station Square hospital until he recovers," the announcer said.

It was three days later when Sonic was going for a sprint through the city that he heard a rumbling. Sonic was actually somewhat surprised to see a giant drill burst through the tarmac, sending chunks of the road everywhere. It was pretty obvious to the hedgehog that this was not planned for, and Sonic was, though he'd never admit it, surprised to see the ginger moustached face of Dr Eggman in the drivers' seat.

"Gah!" he yelled, "Every time I try to make a surprise attack on anywhere, and you're always there you stupid hedgehog," Eggman said in frustration. The hedgehog tensed up and prepared to attack the craft when it slunk back underground. Sonic closed his eyes, and listened to the faint rumblings. He felt the ground shaking underneath him, and jumped into the air as a gigantic metal drill shot through the earth. Sonic curled up into a ball, and narrowly jumped past the drill blade, and landed on the cockpit, bouncing off of it. The blue hedgehog heard Eggman curse as he hit the doctor's glass windscreen.

The machine went back underground, and once again Sonic prepared himself to jump. This time Eggman caught Sonic by surprise, and the hedgehog was thrown against the metal of one of the city's lampposts. The evil scientist laughed, and burrowed under the concrete again. The dazed hedgehog shook his head, and jumped for the top of the lamppost. Once again the machine burrowed up, however this time Sonic was ready. With a carefully timed jump, Sonic landed right on where he had guessed the control panel for the craft sat. Through dumb luck, Sonic had been right, and the machine began to malfunction, spitting sparks everywhere.

Sonic jumped away from the craft, and watched Eggman's Eggmobile fly out of the machine. Sonic watched the drill machine explode. He didn't notice at first, but amidst the scrap metal there was what appeared to be melted chocolate and tin foil.

"…And in other news," the TV continued, "the Eggman chocolate factory was shut down today. When we asked Eggman for a comment he told sent an army of robots after us. It seems like this combined with the attack on Capital City a few days ago mean that doctor Eggman is back to his old self. This could be a worry for…"

Sonic switched the TV off at this point, "Knew it," he said quietly to himself. Sonic put down his book, and smiled. He was back in action.

It was the day off the egg hunts. Sonic had already warned everyone to stay away from the locations of the hunts, and was eagerly running around in search of Eggman. He knew Eggman would do something today. After all the advertising at this point, Sonic knew Eggman would use today as a way to put his plan into motion. Sonic had been running around for over fourteen hours when Tails got in contact.

"There's nothing going on Sonic," he said, wanting to go home. Tails knew about Sonic trying to protect the world, and accepted there would be times like this, but today he couldn't imagine Eggman seriously considering there being a strategic advantage to an attack on a day when he'd declared something. Tails didn't think that was much like Eggman. Sonic agreed somewhat, but he wanted to be sure.

Sonic eventually got back to his house in the small hours. Despite all his running, and all his searching nothing had happened. He ran through his all too familiar neighbourhood and stopped outside his house, tired. He was about to enter when he noticed a large egg shaped parcel. Sonic could guess this was Eggman's plan all along, and picked it up. The parcel was wrapped in silver tin foil with a bow, and there was a note attached. Carefully Sonic opened it up.

"Dear Sonic," Sonic read quietly to himself, "this is a small token of thanks for allowing me to have some fun recently. I hope you and all your friends have a happy Easter, because I'll be back to full strength before you know it. From Doctor Eggman." Sonic finished reading, "as if I'm falling for that one."

The bin men thought that Sonic was just giving them a generous tip when they saw it sat atop his rubbish bin a few days later. "Eggman made the best chocolate eggs," one of them said as he picked it up.