Author's Chapter Notes:

I still do not own anything save what I have claimed in the previous chapters: the plotline, Maria, Zombie, and the personalities of the three robots.


I couldn't believe this. Eggman had had us running all over creation kidnapping children, and he wouldn't even take the time of day to come over and talk to us personally! Instead, I had to converse with his flying TV.

The TV flew around the giant playpen so Eggman could view our hostages. "Excellent!" Eggman chuckled gleefully. "There's Sonic, Silver and Shadow! Any one of them could bring entire countries to their knees, but all of them together? I'll be unstoppable! And do I see young Prower? Ah, the only other living being to come even close to my level of intelligence. With his mind, I can create even more powerful machines for conquest. And…hey, who's that purple cat?"

"He's cute," Robo Knuckles said defensively. "I want him."

The TV swiveled around to look at Robo Knuckles, who was trying to make a pouty face so Eggman would give him what he wanted. Since he was made out of metal and his facial expression was frozen in one state, it didn't really work.

I heard Eggman mutter under his breath, "I thought I fixed that personality glitch!" Then he cleared his throat and said loudly, "Fine. One more loyal minion can't hurt."

"What is our next objective, Master?" I asked, wishing to get away from this place and go back to working on important matters.

"I want you to make sure those miniature nuisances stay there, and to teach them to call me their master," Eggman ordered.

At first, I didn't fully comprehend his demands. "Sir?"

"You heard me," Eggman said, annoyed at having to repeat himself. "Stay there and babysit."

"But…but…but surely you know I cannot possibly guard so many units alone!" I managed to gasp.

"So get Shadow Android and Robo Knuckles to help you," Eggman said, already thinking about something else, no doubt the evil schemes that he could induce these children to commit for him. The TV turned off and I just stood there, much too stunned for my central processors to function properly.

Robo Knuckles and Shadow Android were stunned, too, so for a few moments, there was an awkward silence all around.

I should have recorded that silence. Later on it would prove to be the last time I would have it for much longer than I would ever care to admit.

All of a sudden, Robo Knuckles whooped with joy. "Hey, we get to keep all of 'em!" he said, rushing to the playpen and looking at the toddlers in a way that reminded me of a six-year-old at a pet store, attempting to ascertain which one would be perfect for him to own.

"Ooh, I call dibs on the little bat!" Robo Knuckles squealed, hopping up and down. "And also the purple cat. And I want…"

"We are not calling dibs," I told him sternly. "Our orders are to babysit. We merely provide protection, nourishment, and enforce nap-time. Ergo, we do not, as you say, get to keep them."

"Aw, you're no fun," Robo Knuckles muttered, his whole body seeming to deflate.

"What are we going to do with them?" Shadow Android asked me.

I ran the question through my core matrix. "Part of Master's instructions described teaching them to obey orders. We will commence with programming the baby units," I said confidently. Really, how hard could it be?

I was forgetting that these were living beings, not robots, and therefore it would be quite a daunting task to teach them obedience. As if wishing to remind me of that fact, Sonic the Hedgehog grew bored and started moving around the playpen, until his little eyes fell on a creature that intrigued him.

I was so naïve at the time, that I thought nothing of Sonic walking over to Shadow's Chao, Maria, and picking her up, hugging her so tightly she squeaked in pain as her eyes started to bug out.

Shadow was on the blue-furred trouble maker in an instant. "Leggo Mawia, Sonic!" he snapped, holding out his hand for his pet.

"No!" Sonic put Maria behind his back. "Mine!"

"Leggo Mawia!" Shadow screamed, and kicked Sonic in the shin.

Sonic cried out in pain, or anger, it was hard to tell. He dropped Maria like a ton of bricks and glared at Shadow.

"Meanie!" Sonic yelled, rolling into a little ball and attempting to spin dash the source of his frustration. Surprisingly, Shadow Chaos Controlled away at the last second, causing Sonic to spin dash poor innocent Silver, who certainly didn't remain innocent for long.

"Hey!" Silver glared at Sonic, raised his hand, and Sonic started floating in midair. "You is no scapies dis!" Silver informed the unfortunate hedgehog, who was then thrown into Knuckles' midsection.

"Sonic! You hitties me!" Knuckles snapped, punching Sonic in the shoulder.

Apparently, Amy decided that poor Sonic was obviously being picked on unfairly, for she appeared out of nowhere with her small plastic toy hammer, and started bopping Knuckles on the head with it.

"You weave Sonic awone!" Amy ordered. "I wuvvies him!"

Sonic scrunched up his little face and said, "Go 'way! You give me Amy cooties!"

Across the playpen, Vector Crocodile thought this all looked like fun and wanted to be included, so he jumped up and hit Cream for no apparent reason. Cream burst into tears, and Tails got so upset he bit Vector's arm.

Vector started screaming. This got Charmy excited so he pounced Espio, who disappeared and then reappeared next to Rouge, who he instantly tackled in a way that would make a linebacker for a pro football team turn green with envy. Rouge responded to this by punching him in the face.

It was amazing. Fantastic. How so much chaos and destruction could come from such small creatures in such a short time…it was truly incredible. Also, for some reason, I had believed that their powers would disappear when they had been infantized. Apparently, that assumption was false. They not only possessed their abilities, but they all seemed to have complete control over them.

Even so, order must be maintained. "Cease this wayward activity at once!" I ordered them loudly. I might have well have been spouting Latin, for all they cared.

Sonic had found Shadow, who was sitting next to Big the Cat, and the cobalt blue menace decided that his ebony furred rival must pay for his humiliation.

Sonic raced over to Shadow, who watched him humorlessly, until the toddler was a mere three feet away from him. Then the black-and-red hedgehog stood, took a deep breath, and yelled, "Coco ear!"

It was a good thing Shadow Android was there and managed to yank Sonic out of the way before Shadow's chaos spears made him a Sonic-kabob.

Smirking to himself, Shadow sat back down. Sonic looked up at Shadow Android with annoyance, completely not caring about anything except the fact that while he was being held, he was no longer in a position to beat Shadow up.

Big the Cat looked around at the rough and tumble free-for-all going on around him, and asked, "Have you seein' Fwoggy?" even though the frog was sitting on his lap.

The situation was getting desperate. I was unable to regain order. I looked at my two counterparts, silently pleading for one of them to have a way to calm the toddlers down.

Robo Knuckles had one. "Who wants ice cream?" he called loudly.

The fighting instantly stopped and all twelve toddlers were instantly clamoring around him. "Me! Me!" they all cried at once.

Robo Knuckles looked at us smugly. "I remembered my mom doing that," he explained.

"You don't have a mom," Shadow Android told him. "You were programmed in a factory, remember?"

"So? I was programmed with memories of my mom," Robo Knuckles said, annoyed.

I didn't care, so long as it kept those children quiet.

Five minutes and a tub of ice cream later, the children were sitting obediently around our missions briefing table, each eating a single scoop of ice cream from bowls that were approximately the same size in diameter.

The only two who hadn't gotten their scoop yet was Sonic and Shadow. Robo Knuckles dutifully scooped a single scoop of vanilla ice cream into Sonic's bowl and handed it to him. Since that was the last bowl of that size, he put a single scoop of vanilla ice cream in a slightly larger bowl and handed it to Shadow.

I now know that you cannot do this and expect a toddler's mind to realize that the bowl size does not affect the amount of ice cream one gets.

Sonic eyed Shadow's bowl critically. "Hey! He getties more dan me!" he said accusingly. "I wanties more!"

I attempted to remedy the situation, by explaining that the bowl didn't matter, and proved it by taking the ice cream in Sonic's bowl and dumping it into a bowl larger than Shadow's.

"You see? You still have the same amount of ice cream. You understand?" I asked.

Sonic nodded, a huge grin on his face. "Yes! I gotties more dan him," he said, with true toddler logic.

Well, this was a fact that went over with Shadow like a ton of freaking bricks.

"Hey! You givies him more!" Shadow whined. "Why I no getties more?"

"The bowl size does not affect the amount of ice cream!" I insisted, and, like a fool, I demonstrated by dumping his ice cream into a larger bowl. "Get it?"

Shadow smiled. "Tank you." He said sweetly. Then he turned to Sonic and said in a sing-song voice, "I gotties more dan you, Sonic!"

"WAAAAAAAAAA!" Sonic squealed so loudly that I was certain people in China were pausing and asking, "Did you hear something?" In Chinese, of course, but that's beside the point...

To make a long story short, in a matter of minutes the two were happily eating a single scoop of ice cream out of matching, cleaned out fifty-gallon oil drums.

By the time I got those two settled, Silver had finished him and came to Robo Knuckles, the ice cream scooper, with his empty bowl held like Oliver Twist. "More," he demanded.

"Nope. Sorry, only one scoop per kid," Robo Knuckles said.

Silver's eyes flashed. "More!" he snapped.

"No, it'll make you crazy."

Silver raised his hand Robo Knuckles yelped as he started floating.

"MORE! MORE! MORE! MORE!" Silver accentuated his demands by throwing Robo Knuckles to the ground every time he said the word, 'more.' Finally, Robo Knuckles called uncle, or, more appropriately, ice cream.

"Here!" cried the distraught machine, handing Silver the entire carton of ice cream. "Take it! You're crazy already!"

I held my breath, awaiting more cries of unfairness from Sonic and Shadow. Fortunately, there were none. It didn't matter to them that Silver got to eat out of the ice cream carton. After all, their bowls were bigger.