Tag 29 - Robotnik JR.
Title: Didn't Fit In
"It was just as well that Junior left, Your Rottenness. He didn't fit in here, anyway."
"Silence!" Robotnik glowered at Scratch, who at least had the dignity to recoil and look as though he'd done something wrong. "How dare you speak out against my son, you miserable metalhead? He was ten times the robot you'll ever be!"
"Yeah, well, at least I know my place," Scratch muttered. "And besides, he ran off to help that hedgehog! At least I haven't done that!"
"Yeah!" Grounder agreed. "Not even Coconuts does that!"
"Yeah!" Coconuts chimed in, and Robotnik could feel a headache coming on. "I've never helped that miserable hedgehog, not once! And I didn't try to kill off Junior, either! I should get a promotion for that, right? Right? A promotion's in store for me, right?"
"Yeah right, Coconuts!" Scratch screeched. "The day you get a promotion is the day the hedgehog decides to willingly serve our supreme leader, haHA-ha-HAAA!"
"Maybe he will!" Coconuts yelled. "Maybe I'll convince him to, and that's how I'll get my promotion! You just watch! I'll make it happen!"
"No you won't, 'cause Scratch and I will catch the hedgehog first! You'll see! And we'll do it faster than Junior ever could, 'cause now Junior's friends with him, right, Your Ultimate Nastiness?" Grounder looked up at Robotnik with all the hopefulness of a young child on Christmas morning, and Robotnik had the urge to throw the robot into an active volcano.
"If all three of you don't get out of my face this instant," he hissed in his most dangerous voice, "then the only opponents the hedgehog will have to face will be burning piles of scrap metal."
". . . and the burning piles of scrap metal will be us, right, Your Evilness?" Grounder asked in a tiny voice. Robotnik only made it to "one" in his count to three before he exploded.
"GET OUT!" All three robots beat a hasty retreat for the exit, each loudly blaming the other two for the explosion of his temper, and Robotnik sank into a chair, wiping one hand across his sweaty brow.
Well, there was one thing that Scratch was right about it when it came to Junior. He really hadn't fit in after all. He didn't constantly compete for Robotnik's affection like the other three (and indeed, seemed not to care whether he had it or not), nor was he loud and aggressive, nor did he constantly fail . . . truth be told, he really didn't fit in with his "brothers" after all.
All the same, Robotnik missed him.
