A/N: ... AND A MONTH LATER, SHE UPLOADS CHAPTER 1! YAY!

I... don't really know what to say, except: "FORGIVE ME, OH MIGHTY READERS!" I'm so sorry about the lateness... I had quite a bit of trouble wrestling with this chapter, and it now has six different versions... This is the first time that I've actually written a story with so many chapter versions. The biggest I'd ever went to was three, and now it's doubled XD

Also: THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS! I didn't expect the prologue to garner so much... praise. So thanks!

Happy reading! And you WILL be confused by the first part.

The desert was full of monsters.

Monsters with long, curved nails that were burnt black from the sun and sunk themselves deep into flesh. Monsters that stank of rot, with sandpaper skin that rubbed It raw. Monsters with cyclopedian eyes, giant and red, that made the air around It ripple with thick, thick heat.

Any normal creature would be dead by now, a layer of dusty skin clinging onto a frame of bones. Any normal creature would've gone through the painstakingly slow process of feeling every single nerve in their brain snap, sanity shattering under the blinding sky, eye-less sockets gone wide with madness.

As a rule, however, It was not a normal creature by any standards.

Perhaps that was why dying gave It a feeling of being… inferior. Normal.

Ha… ha… It would've laughed It if could. Laughed at the preposterous scene. How could someone immortal ever die?

… And how could It become trapped by a prison It couldn't touch?

Doctor Ivo Robotnik's world didn't extend beyond the dark tints of his glasses.

They told him everything, these glasses of his. Calculations, angles, ancient legends. They could detect the tiniest hint of a lie being born in someone's mind. They told him what would make a man's heart beat faster with longing, and what would set their eyes ablaze with fear. They whispered to him the stories of treasure, and power, and an empire that blanketed the whole of the universe.

They were clever, these glasses. Almost as clever as the man who had built them.

With his hands, he had crafted infinity into the shape of two circles that he could set before his eyes. They were the only things that reminded him that he was different, colder and smarter than the silly creatures that he had to associate himself with. They showed him the true nature of the world around him – dark, cruelly black, and made of numbers that could be broken down, merged together, and rearranged to his own liking.

Even the face of the fool of a man before him was merely an arrangement of numbers flashing before his eyes.

"… Do you see now why we need your…a-assistance?"

How the man's lips shook as he talked to him! His glasses whirred as they calculated the quick beating of his heart, the amount of sweat pouring down his face, the size of his dilating pupils. He was scared, this man.

It was inevitable, if Robotnik did say so himself. Looking in the mirror was almost a sort of daily joke that he played on himself now. He would practice every gesture there, twiddle his moustache just so, let the light reflect off his skull at just the right angle, making sure every movement seemed to almost casually stink of fear. He would tirelessly watch himself on the news, catching every twitch of his audience as they reacted to him and his words, improving himself until his own shadow seemed to be on the verge of tearing itself off his feet and fleeing.

And then… then there was the symbol.

The symbol emblazoned on floating warships, embossed on iron soldiers; a symbol raised above the great factories, where prisoners entered, and only robots emerged. A symbol which screamed from news kiosks, from papers, from emergency broadcast screens; "horrific experiments", "families enslaved", "city completely destroyed"...

The media did half of his work for him, Robotnik thought. He wondered briefly if this man perhaps had any relatives in Station Square.

Well… used to have any relatives in Station Square.

The man flinched, as if he had heard his thoughts. Now why had they sent such a little boy to talk to him?

"Well, you see, boy…" His own voice sounded much more impressive next to that child's, a snake's chilly hissing next to a mouse's panicked squeaks. "I do feel a certain amount of… Shall we say, skepticism, towards your offer? Can you tell me why I would trust an organization that has dedicated itself to hunting me down? You even have a special division for me, don't you? What was that division called again? "The Egg Hunt," was it?" He laughed, the steel walls of the base around him shivering. Robotnik made sure everything feared him, even his own creations.

The man gulped. Perhaps someone with a softer heart would've taken pity on him, but Eggman's heart was as hard and merciless as the dark room around him, lit only by the lights of a few computers.

The face on the other side of the screen, on the other side of the world, composed itself. It was an abrupt transformation indeed; and the timbre of the words he spoke was such that… it almost seemed the man might have grown some backbone.

"Need I remind you that… that should we fall, you shall fall with us? Ivo?"

The base rumbled quietly. His words might have sounded like an impressive ultimatum – to a lesser observer. But the Doctor's glasses did not lie. The fat man saw right through this idiot's paper-thin façade.

Still, Robotnik was silent for a moment. Quite apart from the fact that he had just tried to be intimidating by calling him by his first name, which was ridiculous on its own, how could he make such an outrageous claim?

The man seemed to gain confidence from his moment of quiet. "Yes, that's right. Both the Eggman Empire and our organization shall fall if this event really comes to pass. All our research points to it – and we know that you know as well. Oh, we have knowledge about your data-scouring attacks!" His words were coming out quicker and quicker, as if trying to hurt Robotnik before he had enough time to breathe. "You've been as interested in this as we have, from what we've gathered. If you don't help us, you'll lose everything! Even that… even that Chaos Emerald will no longer be yours!

Robotnik raised an eyebrow. "Ah, you mean this Chaos Emerald?" He leaned slightly to his left, to give the boy a small peek at the gem that sat behind him.

The boy winced and squinted his eyes, the white brilliance of the Chaos Emerald unnaturally bright in the Doctor's dark room, bright enough even to avoid becoming tinted by his dark numbers scrolled before his eyes, as the glasses' sensors scrabbled in vain to quantify the subtle gem. One lens told him the Emerald was smaller than an electron; the other claimed it was fourteen light-years across, and denser than a black hole. Robotnik had to grant the jewels a measure of grudging respect, that even now, after so many years, they still defied him. Still hid from him their true nature.

It… bothered him a bit, he would sometimes admit. Lack of information always bothered him, but he supposed that discoveries were a part of being a scientist.

Oh, was the boy still talking? He picked a bit of lint off his gloves, already bored. He had been surprised that they would send such a low-level, clearly inexperienced one to talk to him. 'Fools.'

The man licked his lips. Clearly, he was trying to think of something shocking and powerful to say. Robotnik waited indifferently for his words.

Suddenly, the words seemed to hit him. He leaned forward, but Robotnik did not move an inch, unimpressed. "You… you… you can't ignore this offer, because it could make you the most powerful man in the world!"

Robotnik's hands stopped. The dust around him seemed to hold their breath at the last statement. 'The most powerful…' His base shook slightly, an animal twitching in its sleep as its internal mechanisms worked ceaselessly and causing the dust to twirl around him, as if they could caress the words.'The most powerful man…'

Ivo's reaction clearly wasn't what the boy was looking for. His glasses caught his surprise when Robotnik started to laugh.

"You amuse me, boy!" He ran his finger delicately over his smooth scalp and down over his ginger mustache. "Let me tell you something." He leaned towards the screen, and the boy actually started back, as if they weren't separated by an inch of glass. "I am already the most powerful man in the world. For every time you attack me and my Empire, we strike back, ten times worse. For every creature that opposes me, I have them thrown into my labs – them, and their families and friends. Who knows? Perhaps you might even have the privilege of seeing them one day!"

The clear threat had him sweating visibly, and Robonik enjoyed every minute of it.

"You… you are not the most powerful man in the world. Not yet," the man almost whimpered.

"Really?" Robotnik let a finger trail over his keyboard, the clicks as ominous as a trigger being pulled. "Name one person who could stop me."

"Sonic the Hedgehog."

Sonic the Hedgehog.

'Sonic the Hedgehog.' Robotnik's fist suddenly clenched. The answer – it had been so instantaneous, like a natural instinct or reaction.

He hated it. How people uttered his name like a hope as they cursed the Doctor with the same breath. Oh, he didn't mind the hate. He thrived on the tears, the anger – it gave him deep satisfaction to know that those lowly creatures had no chance against him, that he could erase their little lives with the flick of a switch.

What he hated was how they put their names in the same sentence so often that it was almost against nature to not do so anymore. How Sonic's name clung to his like a stubborn dog.

"Sonic the Hedgehog…" the fat man echoed, every syllable dripping with poison. He forced out a laugh, as if to show that the name meant nothing to him. "Don't you know the fate of heroes? They never die of old age, boy." The word came out so sharply that the man straightened, like a commander barking orders at a soldier. "No, they always meet their end at the hands of the villain. And aren't I just that to you? Nothing but a villain," he spat.

The man remained silent, almost stubbornly so. As if Robotnik didn't know how to break a stubborn man. He had done it before. He had made them betray their friends, commit crimes beyond their wildest nightmares, beg until their throats were sore. He thought about doing that for a moment, to watch this man thrashing about in pain, trying to rip off his own skin to keep himself sane…

But something about the stubborn set of his lips made Robotnik pause. Stupid, stupid boy. Clinging to Sonic's name, as if it would protect him.

He didn't need to waste his time on single-minded children.

"But you do amuse me." His face set into the only sickly sweet imitation of a genuine smile that it knew. "Tell your commander this: Ivo Robotnik accepts his offer."

He saw the man's eyes narrow with sudden suspicion. "No strings attached?" Ahh, at least he had something of a brain.

"Oh, maybe I do have a condition or two." His smile broadened, showing white teeth. "But why should I tell them to you, when you obviously cannot refuse my services?"

The man had no answer for that.

Satisfaction. It was the only emotion that suited Robotnik. "Alright, then. I suppose I shall be seeing you later. I am a very busy man – and even busier now, with this elaborate scheme."

Despair and desperation shone very clearly on his face, and they were only magnified in Robotnik's eyes. "I… yes. Yes, th-" He choked. "G.U.N thanks you for your services."

The screen went black.

Ivo let the smile stay there, too pleased to let it be snuffed out. And what did he have to be displeased about? He had the most powerful organization in the world at his feet – even if they didn't know it yet. He would just need to adjust the numbers a little…

"Warning… Warning…"

The Doctor whipped around, the voice startling him from his thoughts.

"Warning… Warning…"

Sirens blared out their song, colouring the room a bright red. He saw his badniks rising quickly, their discipline unparalled by any living being.

"Warning… Warning…"

"What is it?" he snapped at the voice, irritated. He didn't like to be interrupted when he was in the middle of planning. The feeling was not at all different from being pulled away during the climax of a particularly successful experiment.

By the way of an answer, the lenses of his glasses flashed, and then delicately laid a single screenshot directly taken from the numerous security cameras throughout his base.

Quickly, the Doctor's smile returned. He put the tips of his fingers together, eyeing the screenshot as hungrily and as greedily as a king at a feast prepared especially in his honour.

"Oh? Now isn't this just perfect…"

Bleeding kind of really sucked.

The shadows held their breath for a moment when a cold, metal figure clanked by the creature they were hiding. The blue creature shrank back, quills clattering softly – or maybe the darkness itself was dragging him deeper into their cloak of safety.

When the clanks faded away, the creature sank down on the ground for a moment, closing his eyes and clutching the side of his hip.

'Great going, Sonic. Now what are you going to do?'

A small part of him protested that it was only a lucky hit. After all, Sonic the Hedgehog didn't get shot. It simply didn't happen.

Sonic slowly inched himself back up, sucking air through his teeth when pain sliced up his side. Funny the ways things worked. Even though the bullet had only rammed through his hip, his whole right side seemed to be aching.

He pressed his hip against the metal of the computer beside him, letting the cold soothe his painful wound. One would think that Sonic would be able to shake off an injury like this, but he couldn't remember the last time that he had actually been hurt beyond a few scrapes or bruises. Actually seeing his blood soaking through his fur felt undeniably wrong.

'It was only a lucky shot… Only a lucky shot…' Sonic was sure of it. Not only was it lucky, it was so cheap. Since when did badniks hit you from behind? Didn't they usually stop and stare at him when he was tearing through their metallic counterparts?

He leaned in towards his shadowy corner again when five flying metal wasps buzzed past him. His breathing was loud in his ears, and he was surprised that they hadn't simply heard how thunderously his heart was pounding. Surely it was loud enough to cut through the bellowing of the sirens around him?

Sirens. He was used to Robotnik's way of greeting him. 'I wonder how many badniks Eggman is sending my way this time? A hundred? A thousand?' Sonic smirked. No matter how many Eggman sent, it was never enough to catch him.

So one little flesh wound wouldn't stop him now, right?

Sonic forced his fingers to unclutch themselves from his hip. It really wasn't that bad. Except maybe the fact that he probably had a couple hundred robots on his trail, and he wasn't exactly fit for running, he was fine. Sort of.

The sirens kept wailing in the background.

"Warning… Warning… Warning…"

And through it, he suddenly heard an extremely high-pitched whistling that nearly disappeared off the edge of his hearing.

He ducked, blurring out of sight, just as a sharp knife stuck into the wall where his head would've been.

Without any time to think, he rolled to his left, out of the corner he had been hiding in. He heard knives thumping out his path as they wedged themselves deeply into the concrete floor beneath him. Eggman's machine world tumbled end over end in his vision as he kept rolling, the room flashing a bright red and the blood roaring in his ears.

He grounded to a halt, scarring the floor with a long, black skid mark. He saw his attackers – the wasps that had flown past him, their washed-out green eyes staring at his own. They buzzed furiously, their wings screaming as they twitched their heads back and forth, and aimed their stingers at him.

"Wasps that shoot knives. Eggman just keeps getting better and better, doesn't he?" Sonic asked the machines quizzically, as if they would care to answer.

In response, they shot at him again.

Five set of knives sliced the air, aiming for his face. Sonic smirked, waiting… waiting…

Just as they almost touched him, he curled himself into a ball, and the knives bounced off his body as, for a split second, his quills sheathed him like hardened armour.

The wasps barely had time to register what had happened before Sonic tore through them, their bodies becoming merely scraps on the floor. But Sonic didn't get a chance to celebrate his victory. He hissed when his hip throbbed a steady rhythm against his bones. 'Okay, maybe I'm not exactly fine.'

Quite suddenly, the alarms stopped.

Sonic froze, his body tensing. 'Wha-'

He heard clapping.

"Bravo Sonic! I must say that you put on quite a show."

Sonic let his tense stance relax. He looked around casually, as if disembodied voices talked to him everyday. "Seriously, Eggman. Knife-shooting wasps? What happened to lasers and guns?"

He heard him chuckle, but there was no humour in his voice. "Actually, Sonic, they are not knives. Knives have handles, and these are merely small, double-sided blades." His voice crackled, like he was chewing static as he spoke. "Now what did I do to receive the great honour of having your presence in my base?"

"Oh, you know, the usual." The room was eerily empty. He let his eyes sweep around in a full circle. "Thievery, destruction… the Chaos Emeralds." He saw his own reflection repeated thousands of times as the numerous amounts of dark computer screens echoed his image. Many, many eyes seemed to be watching him, eyes that crept up the walls and carefully disappeared into the ceiling, as dark and as high as the night sky.

"The Chaos Emerald?" Sonic snorted at Robotnik's attempt to sound innocent. "Now who told you that I had that?"

"Do the words 'giant battleship,' 'raining robots,' and 'five hundred square acres of torn up jungle' mean anything to you?" Sonic asked mockingly. The fur on the back of his neck raised, his eyes stinging as he tried not to blink. Something had to happen soon. Something… "That's what Tails told me anyway."

"Ah, that dratted fox-boy," Eggman muttered, casually insulting Tails. "Maybe I should take more care to shoot him out of the sky."

Sonic didn't answer, though his tongue itched to throw another comment at him. His ear twitched. What was that he could hear in the background? Humming… very quiet, but there somewhere…

The room lit up again. Doors slammed shut around him, sealing off all his exits with a very final-sounding slam. Lasers were pointing in every direction, scattered carelessly across the room, hopelessly tangled and unmaneuverable. Sonic stood stock-still. One of the red beams was precariously close to his stomach, and if he took too deep a breath…

"Move an inch, Sonic, and the roof will come tumbling down on you, no doubt crushing your tiny little bones."

Eggman sounded absolutely delighted with himself. Sonic cursed silently. 'Lucky shot… again.'

"You don't mind destroying a whole room to get rid of me? I feel proud of myself." He could barely move his mouth without nearly brushing one of those lasers! His heart drummed madly. If it beat any harder, it might shake his chest too much and they would touch the lasers… And he was starting to feel terrible, his hip pulsating with vengeance now that his rush of adrenaline was starting to fade.

"How long can you stay still, Sonic? Aren't your legs already itching to run?"

Sonic felt a twinge of annoyance. Mind games were not something that he liked – he almost preferred his bleeding hip, even if it did make running hurt. Not to mention that one of the red beams was bouncing off one of the knives stuck in the ground and nearly blinding him…

Sonic smiled.

"What?" Robotnik's voice tensed. So he could see him.

'All the better,' Sonic thought.

"What?" Robotnik asked him again, now sounding angry.

Sonic laughed. "Oh, sorry. I was wondering what the best way to explain my plan to escape you was, but I think that I should just show you."

"What are you talking abo-"

Sonic flung out his hand. Multiple lasers pointed at him, and there was a whining sound that shreed across the room. Then a rumble… and a crack that split through Sonic's eardrums.

"Fool! You won't make it out alive!"

Sonic ignored Eggman's raging voice, and dove for two of the knives that were stuck deeply into the floor. He clenched both fists around the two of them, and yanked as hard as he could.

Blood spurted out the palms of his hands, and what felt like liquid fire spasmed fiercely through his them up his arms. His cry of pain was drowned out as pebbles and dust started to rain down on him. He could taste iron, as if the blood was flooding itself into his mouth. His lungs seemed to go into overtime, and the world around him sharpened to the point of near distortion. His scalp seemed to pull tighter around his skull, forcing him skywards…

But there was no time to marvel at that. He yanked again, and the ground finally let the knives go reluctantly. He ran full-pelt towards the sides of the room, and, just as the first big pieces of ceiling started to crash down around him, he stuck one in deeply into the wall.

"Hey, Eggman! How's this for foolish? Double-edged climbing knives."

A/N: So... How is it? Just to let you know, Frozen Nitrogen did some heavy editing with Robotnik's part. Not that I'm complaining - his Robotniks from his stories ROCK. And if you've read his stories before, you could probably see the influence already XD So a round of applause goes to him XD

Sorry again for the lateness... and umm... don't expect chapter 2 any time soon DX

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