Palmtree Panic, Sector-25A

6:43 A.M.

At the tender of age of 'who gives a crap', Eggman Unit#235-UL, formerly Mytyl Kamizono or whoever she was at the moment, was once again wishing she got the same lobotomy everyone else was subjected to.

In the past, her current living situation would have been used as parody in some critique about her former country's oppressive work culture, but parody often gets turned into reality without proper oversight, and she had been living in a Poe's Law-esque nightmare for….ugh, it didn't matter anymore. So many people were fired, either out of a cannon or actually set on fire, so many replaced, and you couldn't tell when or where, and if anyone was still sane after all these years after living through all this, she'd be impressed! And she'd shake them down to get whatever it was they had on them to make them so stupidly optimistic.

While she refused to remember how long it's been since…all this began, she did remember how long she had been stationed at this particular sector, a full three years. Sector 25-A, room B of floor 33, all the way in the confusingly named 'Palmtree Panic' on what Eggman just as stupidly called the 'Neo Egg Planet Zone'.

Even with the way he wa snow, Eggman was gonna Eggman.

How in the world she managed to survive for so long was beyond her understanding, evil demon girl and murderous former father figure aside. If it wasn't for mom's military training, and all that other crap that was used to suck up to pompous, annoying people as rich as they were, she never would have had the patience and maturity to understand the sheer levels of screwed that she would experience if she stepped out of line.

E-UNIT235UL STARTUP SEQUENCE INITIATED.

BOOTING USER BIOS

"Nnnggghhh" Funny; she almost forgot that she had this one. It has been a while, after all. As the last vestiges of sleep began to escape and she slowly came back to reality, she could hear the pounding rain outside and it made her grimace. It wasn't because she was hydrophobic or anything, it was that the raindrops here were about as powerful as a car sized chunk of hail. Pollution can do awful things to water density, and the constant THUD! THUD! THUD! over and over again in your ear became a nice alternative to the outlawed ASMR, once you got treated for tinnitus of course.

She woke up at 6:45 AM, no earlier, no later. Having been trained since she was 13 to get up at this exact same time by Mom, she simply got out of bed without a hint of drowsiness, same as her roommates, and headed to the bathroom.

She hid her grimace at the dark red coloration of the bathroom as she took her shower and cleaned herself of the runoff. There were very few bright colors in this world anymore, except for the primary ones. They stood at attention as the EggShower Head, which yes, had Eggman's face as the nozzle, sprayed them all with cleaning fluid. God she remembered when water used to be blue. The only reason she could tell that the water was being sprayed on her after the fluid was sprayed was because she remembered how it looked in the 1st place.

They all left their room and exited out into the hallway, 2nd to leave at 7:00, not a single second off. Seconds later the other room doors opened. One at a time the occupants filed out of their room, wearing the same exact thing she was. She and the others marched silently, not saying a word, their minds focused on their daily tasks.

They headed to their assigned elevators and got in. Some went up, some went down, and today it seemed she was in the latter camp as she found herself at the 2nd floor train depot, and it was when she saw the new methods of transportation years back that Mytyl realized that something had gone terribly wrong.

There used to be giant rollercoasters with some 3d render of Eggman on the holoscreen acting like an immature,, bleating jackass, laughing about how he took over without them noticing, often eating delicious, exquisite gourmet food that she wished she had the pleasure of saying that she used to dineon. Oddly enough, the 3d render looked more human than the actual thing, which was what they all got when everything changed.

For example, the train station? All white. Not like any normal person could even tell: she herself could only guess that due to the fact that everything was the exact same shade of light red. Any personality or character was smoothed out to be the most generic, future-tech looking facility, with Eggman's logo reduced to just his head without any flourishes or his theme music blaring everywhere. It was all silent, even the train.

And speaking of, the trains were just as smooth, looking more like long lines of white goo expertly plastered over an actual train rather than a functioning vehicle. Of course they still worked, the doors opened when you got near them, they ran on tracks like a train should, but it was just so unsettling. You'd think after years, and years, and years, of seeing his stupid mustahed face every goddamn where, that this would be a breath of fresh air, but no! It was far worse!

The Egg Pawns were all smooth and white, with thinner limbs and a single red monoeye. That clean, generic future aesthetic carried over to everything Eggman related, and it didn't help her unease as the 3 foot tall robots ushered her and everyone else into their designated train cars. She sat down, put the harness on, and soon she could barely feel the train moving. She didn't even want to imagine the body crushing speeds it was traveling at right now.

|Good morning fellow Eggman Subjects.|She remembered when Asimov described Eggman, how different he was since Eden kidnapped him, but it still was so unnerving to see the monster he saw that day. |And welcome to the Planet Egg Progress Report.| Tuning him out, she still couldn't believe what she was seeing. He was still fat, yes, but he was so much leaner, gruffer…and in a way, more realistic looking? Let's not mince words; before his kidnapping Eggman looked like a cartoon character straight out of an old Disney cartoon, there was no denying that. But this guy looked like a real good Eggman Cosplayer! An anorexic, liver spot ridden Cosplayer!The only cartoonish things about him were those weird giant, soda bottle, nipple looking things where his coat buttons used to be. This…this wasn't natural at all.

|...The Wacky Workbench BIOS files have-| Ugh, he's still talking. Being the studious woman she was, Mytyl used her enslavement to listen and soak in all the information Eggman was giving, just so she could stay alive in case it proved useful. |..And when my BIOS files…| Instead it was just a bunch of gibberish. The Quartz Quadrant Sector was working on programming, and he kept mixing up who's who every single time! If anyone here still had their brains working properly, they learned to ignore him. Hell, he usually changed which Zone did what; just last year she was a farmer!

MESSAGE RECEIVED

The real information came on their suit's HUD. sighing,she opened the file, ready to see what she had to do today.

Glory to the Eggman Empire...

8AM-12PM

SECURITY DETAIL IN SECTOR 23-A. SONIC LEVEL CLEARANCE GRANTED(ITEMS: 1 POCKET KNIFE, 1 EXPIRED CHILI DOG)

12-12:45

BREAK

12:45-1:00

RECITE THE EGGMAN EMPIRE OATH

1:00-1:45

CLEAN EXHAUST RESIDUE IN DEATH EGG CHAMBER 34 IN SECTOR 23-A

REPLACE POWER COUPLING FOR EMERGENCY FILTERS IN SECTOR 23-A. FOREMAN# 24454-ZETA WILL GIVE YOU FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS

And so on and so forth it went, just a bunch of cleaning. Did anyone actually do any computer work? Make the parts? Were they all just glorified janitors?! She'd ask around, but no one liked to talk anymore, which was perfectly understandable! She didn't want to hear her 'voice' either!

{The train to EggStation Alpha 152 will be arriving soon.}The train's AI announced. Wow, he must have been talking for a long time! {We are now entering Zone 2. I repeat, we are entering Zone 2. All passengers heading for Eggman Works Site Beta, #445643322, please get ready to depart.}

'Oh crap!' They were going there today?! She quickly made sure that she was wrapped in her seatbelt/full body bindings as the train adjusted to the new gravity. This was more of a force of habit rather than a safety precaution from outside threats, as the trains themselves were built to make transporting slaves like her to their workstations as painlessly as possible. After 20 years. Case in point: Zone 2 of Eggman Empire, Sector 223: Collision Chaos.

She could barely feel the train shift by this point in her life, every one of its cars affected by this Zone's strange form of gravity. Right is left and left is right was the saying here, and so the same thing could be said for up and down.

From the one way window at the seat opposite hers, she could see nothing but factories for miles on what used to be the ground, now the ceiling, and the sky that was currently the ground. She had no idea how this place worked, but what you built in the sky was reflected on the ground and vice versa, and it only happened on this part of the planet.

Each and every building was the exact same shape and height as its counterparts above or below them, and each spewed out their filthy, goopy smog from their plumes and chimneys at the exact same time. And the colors…it almost made her miss the crimson. The sky on the ceiling and floor was a disgusting dark yellow, reminding her of what unhealthy urine looked like in those old med books she used to read. The light from the suns -which she still didn't understand how that was possible given there was only one sun- was refracted through the pollution, giving the entire city its dark yellow tint. She remembered when teh terraforming started here, when Eggman got bored of shoving all the nature and beauty they'd never get to experience again right in their faces, 24/7, until it just got monotonous. The lakes that used to run throughout the city, under the highways and acting as roads themselves for the various boat companies -owned by Eggman and not for public use- and for animals -which had Eggman's mustaches, even the bald ones- to feed and drink at, were now a disgusting brown that flowed from the pipes of the many factories with the ferocity of a raging river.

It wasn't hard to miss a person or two being swept up from the streets and into the polluted water, drowning almost instantly due to the air sapping poisons within, and that's if you're lucky! If anyone managed to come out 'alive'...it'd be best for the security robots to get you before the poisons had their way with your body. It was something that everyone, from the oldest man to the youngest child knew was a possibility, often an inevitability. If they got swept up, it didn't matter who they were, just go on your merry way.


Cars were a silly myth in this day and age. The rollercoasters and theme park esque designs had long since been torn down, replaced with the stale, possibly white aesthetic. None of his flair, just generic roadways, trucks, hovertanks, all of them with Eggman's face on their fronts. They were the only bit of color in this awful, awful place, a bright red eyesore made up of some material that allowed its coloration to always be visibly red even through the colored tints of the 7 Zones. There were buses, the front of which shaped like that monster's head, the front window for the driver located in his smiling, wide open mouth, and his mustache flared out on the sides, made up of some crimson energy that kept flowing out, even when the buses were turned off.

People got in one at a time, single file, every hour on the hour. They kept their heads down, their bodies covered in pollution-proof red raincoats that looked almost black thanks to the tinting, and once the bus was full, they were off. She looked at one section of the city and saw what used to be a large community center and a park. It wasn't the best place to go, but it helped her acclimate to this world whenever she visited, and the kids there were always so nice and sweet. That was during what she was going to assume to be a lucid moment from their dictator. Now it was just another factory, same as the rest, and she couldn't even tell if the people in the raincoats heading in through the front entrance were the kids she used to know!

There used to be a point where she couldn't take this, where she would have looked away, holding her knees to her chest and cried. When was the last time she had been able to do that though? She honestly couldn't tell you for the life of her.


Ogilvie Maurice de Aleena III (Sonic the Hedgehog)

1991-2005

Miles Tails Prower (Tails)

1994-2005

Knuckles the Echidna(Real name Unknown)

?-2005

A freshly made chili dog with all the fixings,homemade mint candy, and grapes from her vineyard, made just the way all three liked them.

With wrinkled hands she placed the items on the graves, closing her eyes and praying for their souls. Taken from them as Eggman died and was replaced by that thing wearing his skin, she couldn't begin to imagine how lucky they were, saved from It's control, free from the fate that all Mobians and humans now shared.

If one were to look up through the thick trees of this hidden grave and into the sky, you would see the massive albatross over the world's head that her children and their children had grown up with. It was a massive, holographic countdown timer, brought into existence minutes after the conquered planet Earth was in Mobius's airspace, as big as the doctor's Death Egg. it was in the shape of the Eggman Empire logo, and where the mouth should be was a timer that was counting down.

7:55:44

And today was the last day for whatever Eggman was planning. But what could he possibly have planned? If he took over earth, then certainly there was nothing stopping him from strip mining the planet in a few months, making a fleet, capturing a few military bases and then just working his way up! There wasn't a single advantage she could think of to…this! Was it his ego?! Why would he even-

"GRK!" She clenched her heart, the wrinkles on her face strained from stress and pain. Her graying hair and long, lapine ears flowed in the wind. "Dang it.." Gotta watch the ticker. Thats how her baby girl lost her life. "Cheese, let's go." They have a dinner to plan. Man, woman, child, and no matter the race, ethnicity, or species, they were all going to spend their last day alive happy!

And Cream the Rabbit always strove to do her best.


Collision Chaos, Sector 4

7:55 A.M.

{We have arrived at Zone 2. I repeat: we have arrived at Zone 2.}

Mytyl finally got off the train, standing perfectly still in the sea of other poor souls as a more detailed list of their instructions for this period were laid out via holo-screens only they could see.

And then the daily weeding out. A questionnaire appeared in front of her, all of them filled with details only people that worked in her sector would know. And if you didn't keep up with this information, it just gave Eggman a good excuse to get rid of you.

Q. HOW DO YOU ACTIVATE EGGTERMINAL OS VERSION 5.4? TYPE IN THE 400 KEY PASSWORD MANUALLY. KEYLOGGERS AND BOTS USED WILL BE SEEN AS SIGNS OF DEFIANCE, AND THE USER WILL BE TERMINATED/

Q. WHAT ARE THE PASSWORDS FOR YOUR SHIFT? LIST EVERY PASSWORD CHANGE FOR EVERY 10 MINUTES. KEYLOGGERS AND BOTS USED WILL BE SEEN AS SIGNS OF DEFIANCE, AND THE USER WILL BE TERMINATED/

Q. WHAT IS THE PROPER TEMPERATURE FOR VALVES 14-A-16-B?

Q. WHAT ARE THE PASSWORDS TO PREVENT TODAY'S SUIT LOCKDOWN? LIST EVERY PASSWORD CHANGE FOR EVERY 20 MINUTES.

So on, so forth, yadda yadda yadda. Mom, bless her soul wherever she was, made her memorize far worse as elementary school prep!

"W-WAIT I ENTERED THE PASSWORD RIGHT! I ENTERED AAAAAAGGGHH!" Sadly the same cannot be said for anyone else. Sixteen people just died, though where in the sea of people she couldn't- "AAAGGH!" Oh, there's one, right next to her.

Well a couple minutes later, and the herd was thinned. She counted -one, six, thirteen- 40 people on the floor with 32 remaining. Well that's good; a lot less dead this time than the last. So either a lot of stupid people, or a lot of spies, just met their end. Could be a mix of both, could be one or the other, she didn't care.

For now, she had work to do


Egg Sector 23-A

9:45 AM

Hovering 400 feet above a crimson pit the size of sixteen city blocks via a hard light platform colored red -obviously- with the Eggman Empire logo emblazoned on it, Mytyl went to work at her station, another 'glorious' day under the 'protection' of Dr. Eggman. With a massive pipe above, equally as large as the abyss below, acting as the ceiling, she didn't want to imagine how hard her job would be without this mask on. She had learned pretty quickly how they worked, and how they reacted to emotional stimuli, shocking you when you were doing a piss poor job, and releasing endorphins into your central nervous system as a motivator to keep going.

Thankfully these masks weren't that good at reading facial tics. Oh they'd know if you were being sneaky, but by this point in her life, the definition of subtle could best be compared to a drunken horny elephant; so barely anyone knew what subtlety was anymore as it was mostly phased and trained out of them, and therefore the mad doctor didn't need to program his facial recognition software that well in that regard.

That and she had a decent level of knowledge and power when it came to hacking electronics. Oh she had plenty of years to exploit the gift Mephiles left in her suit.

If he hadn't been lazy about programming the masks, she would have tripped the alarms with all the illegal ocular commands she was performing with her eyes darting across the holo-visors as she worked. 'Let's see..' Circuit Board 43 in that sector was performing at the recommended settings, electrical flow between it and circuit boards 44-50 were at non lethal levels, and the piping….'Ugh.' She paused what she was actually doing to do the job that was keeping her alive. She hated trying to talk to the screw-ups

CONNECTING TO THE EGGNET SERVER 1

USER: BUTTERFLY IS ONLINE

USER:DELTARON456678988 IS ONLINE

USER: BUTTERFLY : WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!

USER:DELTARON456678988: HUH?

USER: BUTTERFLY : WHAT DO YOU MEAN HUH?! YOU FUDGED THE ENTIRE LOGIC CHAIN FOR THIS SECTOR! THE ENTIRE SECTOR! IF WE DON'T FIX IT SOON, EGGMAN'S GOING TO KILL ALL OF US!

USER:DELTARON456678988: EH? LOOK, I FOLLOWED THE DIRECTIONS, IT'S ALL GOOD!

Oh god, another victim. How many people did Eggman's global lobotomy miss? He talked just like the doctor's top enforcer, or at least whatever facsimile of him existed in the man's decrepit memories. This poor fool must have screwed up a lot to get an alteration this severe. He wasn't going to live past the day if this failure is reported, but hopefully she could knock some sense into him.

USER: BUTTERFLY : IT!IS!BURNING! THE GODDAMN EMERGENCY TEAM IS ON ITS WAY TO PUT OUT THE FIRE YOU CAUSED! AND WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN WHEN THEY SEE WHICH SECTOR IS AT FAULT?! HUH?!

USER:DELTARON456678988: SO WHAT? IT ALWAYS BURNS WHEN I USE IT! WHY ELSE DO YOU THINK I GOT PROMOTED?

...Yep...Just who was this guy to get on Eggman's bad side this much?

USER: BUTTERFLY : SONIC LEVEL CLEARANCE IS BOTTOM OF THE BIN, IDIOT!

USER:DELTARON456678988: BRUH, THAT'S A MAJOR LIE, DUDE! SONIC-LEVEL CLEARANCE IS TOTALLY AWESOME! YOU GET TO GO ANYWHERE YOU WANT, DO WHAT YOU WANT, AND YOU CAN EVEN TALK LIKE THE BLUE DUDE!

AKA you're glorified janitors, and she was pretty sure she was managing a sewage line or clone disposal facility. Eggman's AI placed most of the most grunt work on those poor souls and they couldn't go out in the streets without everyone being legally required to spit on them and laugh.

The fact that they needed these masks to even breathe caused that tradition to stop filled her with disgust at the notion that that was an improvement. Don't get her wrong, she'd never miss going out in public wearing the Quills of Disgust, the Shoes of Stupidity and the Gloves of Embarrassment, but this wasn't the way to go about it!

And she knew it wasn't Eggman who ended it, because the humiliation would be far, far worse!

USER:DELTARON456678988: WHOEVER TOLD YOU THAT SONIC-CLASS WAS A WASH TOTALLY PULLED THE RUG OVER YOUR EYES!

USER: BUTTERFLY : I HATE YOU. GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON WHY I SHOULDN'T REPORT YOU. ONE LIFE FOR 30 SOUNDS GOOD TO ME.

USER:DELTARON456678988: IT'S ALL GOOD, MY AWESOMELICIOUS DUDE! YOU GOTTA GO WITH THE EGGSTER, LET HIM SHOW YOU THE WAY! THAT'S HOW I UNDERSTOOD HOW THE WORLD WORKED! GOT MY BRAIN FIXED UP,MY WEIRDO TAILS CUT OFF, AND MY PLANE'S NOW THIS AWESOME LAWN ORNAMENT!

...OH. 'Oh my god.' Oh..oh this was a mercy kill now. Zonda knew a lot about these creatures, and assumed a lot of other things. Like how do they love? If their hands and heads were so disproportionate, did that mean-no, no, nope! She was ending that train of thought right then and there!

USER: BUTTERFLY HAS CONTACT EGGSUPPORT (ATTACHMENT: REPORT# )

And reported. At least with these, Eggman won't make another clone of a past hero to bastardize like this. At least until the afternoon show during lunch. Eggman had a lot of them in storage.

USER: BUTTERFLY : YOU'RE RIGHT! I DIDN'T SEE IT YOUR WAY! I AM SO SORRY! LET ME GET BACK TO WORK AND LEAD BY YOUR EXAMPLE!

She closed the chat and didn't bother to reply. She also ignored the screams of agony a couple seconds later as a pile of ash fell into the crimson abyss. Another day, another reject. Continuing her work, she activated an app on her suit's OS via eye movement and opened it.


CONNECTING TO THE EGGNET SERVER 4

USER: BUTTERFLY

PASSWORD: ****************************************************************

ROTTYEGG CODEC DETECTED

CONNECTING TO SCRAMBLED1

USER: BUTTERFLY IS ONLINE

USER: PORCUPINE IS ONLINE

USER: BOLTMAN IS ONLINE

USER: BUTTERFLY : I'M HERE. SOME IDIOT ALMOST GOT THE ENTIRE SECTOR THRASHED FOR INCOMPETENCE, SO THAT TOOK A BIT.

USER:PORCUPINE: IT'S GETTING WORSE, HUH?

USER: BUTTERFLY: THE DEATH TOLL KEEPS RISING DAY AFTER DAY IN MY AREA. BOLTMAN,HOW IS IT IN YOUR SECTOR?

USER: BOLTMAN : SOME IDIOT FORGOT TO STAB THE BLUE PLUSHIE 33 DEGREES WHERE HE SHOULD HAVE, AND THE ENTIRE DEPARTMENT GOT SACKED AND REPLACED. I'M PRETTY SURE I'M THE ONLY ONE THERE THAT ISN'T A REPLICA.

USER:PORCUPINE: DAMN. EGGMAN'S GETTING MORE AND MORE UNSTABLE. HOW ARE YOUR PROJECTS COMING ALONG?(FILE:PROGRESS REPORT )

USER: BOLTMAN : (FILE PROGRESS REPORT: )

USER: BUTTERFLY : HERE (FILE PROGRESS REPORT: ) I'LL READ IT DURING THE ANTHEM. THAT THING'S SO ROUTINE BY THIS POINT THAT I'VE DONE IT BLINDFOLDED PLENTY OF TIMES.

USER: BOLTMAN : YOU KNOW DAMN WELL THAT'S A BAD IDEA AND YOU KNOW IT. STOP SHOWING OFF.

USER: BUTTERFLY :BITE ME.

USER:PORCUPINE: HE'S RIGHT. WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT UNTIL THE PLANET EGG IS COMPLETE. WE NEED TO DO THIS, AND WE NEED TO DO THIS TONIGHT!

USER: BOLTMAN : WHAT?!

USER:BUTTERFLY:ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! You said 10 years! 10! YEARS!

USER:PORCUPINE: SADLY I'M NOT. BY MIDNIGHT, EGGMAN WILL HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OVER LITTLE PLANET'S TEMPORAL NETWORK, AND ONCE THAT'S DONE… I'M SURE YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN.

USER: BOLTMAN : DAMN IT! WE'RE NOT READY! WE CAN'T SEND EVERYTHING BACK WITH WHAT WE HAVE!

USER:PORCUPINE: WHICH IS WHY WE'RE GOING WITH PLAN B!

USER: BUTTERFLY :I SEE...SO THIS IS IT THEN….

USER:PORCUPINE: I'M AFRAID SO. ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE READY?

USER: BUTTERFLY :YES. I HAVE A BROTHER I WANT TO SET STRAIGHT. THIS WILL BE A GREAT WAY TO DO IT. AND I'VE MEMORIZED THE CODING TO FEED INTO LOLA WHEN I GO BACK.

USER: BOLTMAN : GOOD NEWS ON SOME END AT LEAST. MY PROBATIONARY OFFICERS HAVE GOTTEN LAX THANKS TO ME GIVING THEM A WORKAROUND TO EGGMAN'S SURVEILLANCE. I'LL BE ABLE TO MOVE FREELY FOR AN HOUR, AND NO MORE.

USER:PORCUPINE: AN HOUR'S ALL WE NEED. IN FACT, WE'LL BE ABLE TO MOVE AS FREELY AS WE WANT ME.

ERROR! ERROR! EGGNET SWEEP DETECTED!

USER:PORCUPINE: DAMN IT!(USER:PORCUPINE HAS LOGGED OFF)

(USER: BOLTMAN HAS LOGGED OFF)

(USER: BUTTERFLY HAS LOGGED OFF)


Mytyl continued her diligent task of maintaining whatever part of the Planet Egg this was, hiding every bit of her anticipation as she could. 'This is it!' The last day, and far sooner than she thought. Either they did this tonight, or the entire planet stayed like this forever.

And not just Earth either. Both worlds were counting on them; and they didn't have much time!


According to the history files, Quartz Quadrant used to be the ruins of a large mining civilization that ran all the way from Beijing to Japan. Some of the purest, cleanest water he had ever seen ran through it's caves and dilapidated aqueducts, and though the beauty was ruined by the strange...polka-dotted rocks, Boltman could admit that it was indeed beautiful.

Key word being here was. Now it's still clean waters were being used to purify the food supply for the entire planet, and Boltman, AKA Asimov, former leader of the Adept freedom organization Q.U.I.L.L and former president of Sumeragi, was just like every other farmer here, wearing the same exact suit as the others as he directed a hover tractor with the manure for today to its designated spot, using the menu in his mask. The sky, everything really, was covered in an azure tint, making the shriveled looking grain he and everyone else had been forced to stomach look even less appetizing, the light highlighting each and every tiny, leaky orifice on the trypophobia inducing plants.

Statues of Eggman watched over them, figuratively and literally. It was nighttime on this part of the planet, as seen by the darker hue of the tint, and so the statues, as well as the constellations that made up his face in the night sky, were keeping very careful watch over everyone. One false move and who knows how Eggman would decide to kill you. If you looked into the distance, you could see the various mountain ranges with Eggman's face either sculpted from their remains, or the entire mountain itself was carved into a 1:1 statue of him bigger than every skyscraper, and yes every single one, the fat Bastard wanted everyone to know that. He was everywhere, he had an ego and by god he wanted you to know it.

It would be so easy to get out of this mess, and destroy every bit of this disgusting farmland in a single blow. He could do it too! His powers weren't extracted like the rest of his kind, and they were getting stronger and stronger each day the longer he stayed in this blue tinting. But that's the funny thing about being enslaved for years under a dictator that controlled every aspect of your life; you couldn't do anything unless you found a crack to slip through, a chunk in the armor as it were.

This wasn't like in those schlocky anime where you suddenly got a power boost from your misery, some sappy speech inspires the masses,or any of that drivel.

He tried all of that, and got pretty far. He freed the Kamizono, Gunvolt, and the blue creature, took their weapons, and had them trained centimeters before Eggman's face. Then he blinked. He saw Eggman above him, his face and smile covered and illuminated by the dim light of the doctor's room he found himself strapped down in, and that's when he started screaming. Eight hours of agony later and all four of his limbs were replaced, with a fifth one, a massive hand, strapped to his back, absorbing his Septima by the hour so that he couldn't use his powers.

And it wasn't just him suffering either; all Adepts, no matter how weak their Septimas, had been subjected to this, and worse. Some were injected with an unknown chemical to punish them for using their powers, others had random crap grafted on them like he had. And he did mean random. To his right was a former Eden Adept, one with a Septima so strong that he could have qualified for the cult's Grimwald 7 elite forces. He was a massive ocean fanatic, and would go on tirades about the pollution their new 'master' had subjected to his beloved body of water.

Everyone could agree that Eggman having enough of his talking was the best thing to happen to their miserable lives. The Adept known as Milas was once a seed planter for this garden. Now he was the seed planter of this garden. There was no reason for Eggman to make his lower half that of a mermaid and force him to go around in a giant fishbowl seed planting machine supported by a hovertank, but he did, and yet the victim seemed somewhat happy with it. Enough to shut up, at least.

Though this man did seem somewhat familiar to him, he couldn't place where though…

But like he did with many captors before, Asimov found a way around his restrictions, thanks to a certain demon. The software Mephiles provided before his foolhardy assault and subsequent torture, combined with his own ability to interface with and control electronics, allowed him to hide the true extent of his power, and most importantly, the sheer level of growth he experienced over the years.

Eggman never did learn about the other ability his powers gave him, and Mephiles made sure the suit never picked it up over the years, because even as corrupted as he was, Eggman was gonna Eggman, and all Asimov had to do to prevent Eggman from actually reading his findings was to make up a bunch of crap about how that long dead cyclops was better than him in every way. Using other failed software attacks by now long dead freedom fighters to test the limits of the suit's OS over the years, and with their time limit moved up so quickly, he had no choice but to put the backdoors he found and made to use.

And then things could change...for the future. He was far older now, not that much wiser, but while the cynicism that fueled his hatred for the weaker portion of his species had not waned, he had learned that things could be a lot worse. And Porcupine showed just how much worse things could get. Oh he saw it all…

Killing his adoptive son, turning on his allies when they objected to his plans… oh well, win some, lose some. He would probably mourn Moniqua for a second, but then get back to his goal; progress waited for no one, after all. But it was what he saw next that horrified him, thanks to that damn stone. Words such as 'the Butterfly Effect', 'Falcon Quills', and the Luminous Avenger, all of which painted a horrifying picture of his life had he succeeded with his ambitions. And he was shown what he would become, over and over again.

And then there was his magnum opus, the final middle finger to ..His throat still burned whenever he remembered how Butterfly reacted to seeing that. It was the last time they could act freely in these damn suits. It was a good thing that this disgusting slop he was farming made his Septima stronger, otherwise he wasn't sure how Mephiles would have been able to reattach his head. He could still feel the phantom pains from where she started to strangle him.

Honestly, if he didn't get so sentimental over Q.U.I.L.L, valuing Gunvolt's and the other's opinions on this supposed 'hedgehog' ,he would have simply killed the creature and taken his time traveling capabilities for himself, and would probably be a much better ruler than that AI parody of Adept freedom and supremacy he would have become. But as said, enslavement, along with time, and his cynicism, plus his hatred, lots of hatred, had turned into a self loathing man, with a deep disgust for the weak coward he would have become.


Palmtree Panic, Sector-25A

17:10

Once she was back home, Mytyl greeted her roommates and went to the bathroom to wash up. In reality she was going to get one last look at what she became before everything changed. Even after all these years, Eggman never got rid of the locks to permanently lock them in the suits; he wanted to make sure they all saw his 'improvements.'

With a loud hiss from her mask restraints, she placed it on the bathroom sink, and just stared in the mirror.

What could she have been like before Eggman? What would she have looked like? Mom said she was always very pretty, skin as white as snow and hair so soft and beautiful. Mom would often spend hours with her doing her hair while being the efficient taskmaster she was, making sure she was hitting the books while also looking good, and before her brother left, Lola used to help. It was so funny watching the tiny floating ball try to help around the house, and her earnestness always brought a smile to her face. Sickness didn't deter her burgeoning beauty, and neither did whatever happened to her in that Eden place, but Eggman's ego? Oh definitely! Whether you were Caucasian, African American, or Japanese, Eggman's ego trounced all of that. All were equal in his eyes, because he made everyone see through his eyes!

"I'll never have to see your face again." She only enjoyed speaking for just a few months before that fat bastard took over the world, and now she hated it every time she had to open her mouth! She couldn't even remember her own voice, it's been so long!

Dead or alive, this ended tonight, and she would never have to worry about this ever, ever again!


Metallic Madness, Final Sector

17:50

Metallic Madness, headquarters of the EggMan Empire's Earth base, and the vanguard for the invasion of the planet Mobius.

Through the emerald green tint that covered the Zone, Porcupine, AKA Mephiles, watched robot workers, each the size of trucks, load crate after crate from the hover transports into giant ships the size of city blocks. Thousands of these aircrafts were at the base, and by midnight, there would be nothing anyone could do to stop the mad, warped doctor. The Chaos Emeralds were in the doctor's hands, all seven bathing the world in their differently colored glows, and the Time Stones? Aside from himself, the only other people who know how to use them and Little Planet's temporal powers were the now dead blue hero, and the altered doctor.

The foolish human's predilection for interfering with the cosmic balance, taking things no mortal should be able to grasp, was what wrought this hell, both for him, and the world itself. A demon here, a strange ruby from Angel Island there, mix it up with a pesky hedgehog and a sexually confused child cult leader that a certain demon had a bit too much fun puppetting, and now you have the current situation as is.

Only two people were needed to end this farce of a rule, and with their help, everything would return to the way they should have been. Or they would all die trying. Well, the humans would.

'5 hours to midnight…' Time to begin. While he could have done this at any other time, it would have only worked once, and then that would be the end of him. Right now, he had no choice.

With a mouthless grimace, He straightened his dress and warped to the green Chaos Emerald's chamber,incinerating the guards there with his black flames, and walked up to where the emerald was kept. The generator itself could take up six city blocks, a testament to Eggman's genius, if you didn't know how technically proficient the man was. To do what this one Chaos Emerald was accomplishing, Eggman could have easily built a generator the size of his bloated stomach to accomplish the same task at a far more efficient rate, but then how could he have made it in the shape of his giant gaping smile? The green Chaos Energy was being pumped from the Emerald, as seen in the generator's left eye, and recycled in the right eye. The mustaches were antennae that sent the Chaos Energy to the designated spots in Metallic Madness, and the nose was where the Emerald was kept. As for everything else, it was just pure aesthetics, nothing more.

"It's time to end this." He said, his voice deep and controlled, and not at all like Eggma's slaves. He wondered how Mytyl and Asimov would react to having their own voices again after so many years? Well with Mytyl, she'd better get used to it, and fast. Raising his hand and clenching his fist, the nose of the generator broke and he quickly floated up to the Chaos Emerald and placed his hand on it. 'At least you're more agreeable than those blasted stones.' Calming himself, he quickly poured his power into the green gem and uttered only two words:

"CHAOS….CONTROL!"


THOOOOOoooonnnnnn

Mytyl's eyes shot open the second she heard the power went out. There should have been an alert for her suit to switch to attack mode, and a hard light firearm should have materialized in her hand, but there was nothing.

She could hear muffled screaming from her room. Nervously getting out of her bed, she went to her roommates and took a look at them as their screaming went silent. "Suit lockdown." That shouldn't be happening in the advent of a power outage. In fact, she should be hearing everyone mobilizing to figure out just what the heck happened! 'Was this Porcupine's doing?' He did say to trust him… A quick walk to the door showed that it wasn't budging. Even the reserve power was knocked out.

[MESSAGE FROM PORCUPINE! EGGNET CENTRAL COMMAND, PRIORITY CUBOT!]

"WHAT?!" That was for a planet wide emergency mobilization! How in the world did he get enough clearance to initiate one of those! Well fuck it, things were gonna end today anyway! If this was a trap, might as well let it end here!

USER: BUTTERFLY IS ONLINE

USER: PORCUPINE IS ONLINE

USER: BUTTERFLY : DID YOU DO THIS, PORCUPINE?!

USER:PORCUPINE: YES.

USER: BUTTERFLY : HOW DID YOU DO ALL THIS?!

USER:PORCUPINE: A GLITCH IN THE FUELING PROCESS FOR EGGMAN'S SHIPS ALLOWED ME TO GET INTO THE EMERALD CHAMBER AND ACCESS THE NETWORK WITHOUT TRIPPING ANY ALARMS.

USER: BOLTMAN IS ONLINE

USER: BOLTMAN : SO THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED. I ASSUME THIS IS TEMPORARY?

USER:PORCUPINE: YES. WE HAVE PRECISELY ONE HOUR AND 57 MINUTES UNTIL THE EMERGENCY POWER RETURNS, AND WHEN THAT HAPPENS, THE BEING CALLING ITSELF EGGMAN WILL USE HIS FULL POWER AGAINST THIS ENTIRE PLANET FOR THIS OFFENSE. NO MORE ORIGINALS WILL BE LEFT, ONLY CLONES.

Asimov grimaced as he hijacked one of the Security Sector's Eggmobiles and used his powers to turn it on, watching as the woman he stole the vehicle from melted into goo. There were only a few real people left. Whatever humanity was left in that abomination kept originals alive out of a sense of warped sense of mercy, laziness, lack of motivation, and the humor from watching wannabe resistance fighters scheme and plot. Do your work, or be replaced: that was the ethos everyone lived by nowadays, And that warning was probably the last semblance of the original man before the thing fully took over.

USER: BOLTMAN : I'M HEADING TO METALLIC MADNESS RIGHT NOW.

USER:PORCUPINE; NO NEED FOR THAT. REMEMBER, I HAVE A CHAOS EMERALD.

Mytyl was confused "What does that have to do with-" She paused. "WHAT THE HELL?!" Where was she?! She was just in her room a second ago, literally a second! "I-I-I" She took a second to reorient herself and take a look at her surroundings.

It was a massive room, able to fit an entire skyscraper within it comfortably, because the words Eggman and small were incompatible. It was crimson red, like everything else in this godforsaken world, and statues of eggman lined the walls, acting as symbolic support structures. And it was obvious that these statues were built early into the doctor's reign as well. How did she know? They were all uncomfortably muscular, grins adorning their faces that would fit perfectly on the type of macho man who thought they were god's gift to women, and the mustaches on the statues were perfectly immaculate. Whatever material Eggman used to build well everything, was used to build this place. There was an air of loneliness to this room, and yet it looked spic and span despite no one obviously visiting this egopolis of their own free will. "This...this is….."

"Metallic Madness Central Command." Mytyl winced, hearing a voice she never wanted to hear. It sounded like everyone else's but she could recognize him from anywhere. "It's been a while, Kamizono."

"...Asimov." The two sized each other up, the girl looking away and grimacing. "Whatever." This was no time for grudges. "Where are you,Mephiles?"

An inky black ball appeared in front of them, coalescing into a 4 foot figure that formed into an mouthless, 11 year old Asian girl. She was completely black and white, everything from her hair to her skin monochrome. Asimov recognized the appearance of this figure far too well, and it looked like a parody of the girl it was supposed to be. The thick, blonde, waist length hair that curled on both ends and ended with pink tips looked like a six pronged fork with white tips at the end. The floppy black bow on top of its head looked like devil horns, and the sleeveless, double breasted dress was a metallic gray and white, more metal than cloth, with spikes lining the skirt end like a durian.

"You two look well." The demon said, his voice a deep, booming baritone. He was one of the few beings left alive who wasn't a victim of the doctor's ego, and without him, this little plan wouldn't be possible. "We have little time to waste. We must hurry, or the last 80 years will be for nothing!."


The two altered humans followed the possible demon up the massive staircase. For 16 minutes they walked in silence,the only sounds being their footsteps and the thud, thud, thud, of the raindrops hitting the roof outside.

"Eggman still has not woken up." He told the two as they all stopped in front of a massive, truck sized, door, shaped like the doctor's face, of course. "The semi omnipotence granted to him by his thievery has halted for now. Now is the time I can safely tell you everything."

With a loud BOOM, the massive door was shattered like glass, revealing a glowing, translucent pane behind it, with the Eggman logo on the front. "And it starts by getting rid of this. I assume you still know what this is, right Asimov?"

The man nodded. It'd been so many years since he saw a Hexapyle. "I assume you want me to do the honors?"

"I figured you would have some pent up rage."

"Indeed." Asimov raised his hand, and in its palm was a ball of pure electricity. Saying nothing, he shot it out, dismantling the hexagonal barrier and shaking the entirety of the room around them. It was as if, say, in a video game, the texture files for a given area glitched out for a second before everything returned to normal. "That wasn't very satisfying." Then again, nothing made him happy since Eggman came back. More statues met their gazes as they walked, this time in disturbingly exotic and ridiculous poses, and it was getting harder and harder for the two humans to not look at this expensive self indulgence out of sheer disgust.

With only an hour and 20 minutes left, the three of them came across an empty room a little out of the way. "Shall we proceed?" Mephiles asked. "This is only Act 1 of our finale after all."