The doctor was dying. He knew.
His body had been shot multiple times. He was bleeding profusely, his limbs growing cold, his vision swimming as he raised his own energy pistol and fired back at his assailant.
Beyond, ducking behind a conduit, a furry orange figure clutched his own weapon and called out to the doctor.
"Jeez, come on doc! Let me patch you up!"
The doctor wiped a gob of blood from his mouth and snarled as he slapped it to the ground.
"DAMN YOU, TAILS!" The doctor roared as best he could, coughing with the exertion, "YOU SHOT ME!"
Behind his cover, Miles Prower cursed himself for the hundredth time since his encounter with the doctor. He hadn't meant to... lose it the way he had, hadn't meant to override the stun settings on his weapon... but after seeing Sonic laid low by the doctor's latest battle mech, the tyrannical scientist laughing over what could have been his brother's corpse...
"Eggman, please!" The fox cried back, the trail of Robotnik's blood gleaming in the laboratory lights, tears in his eyes at what he'd done. "I can fix you! I just need you to cooperate!"
"COOPERATE?!" The doctor bellowed, feeling along the wall, supporting his wobbling legs, the pain from his wounds unbearable. He searched around his machines, his inventions, his weapons, for anything that could save him... but there was nothing. He was doomed.
"YOU'VE KILLED ME, TAILS!" The doctor spluttered, his own blood running down his chin, "YOU'VE KILLED ME YOU LITTLE... orange..."
The doctor paused in his dying ranting as he stumbled through his prototype robots storage. Various unfinished models of Badniks remained here, the long-unused form of Mecha-Sonic... and a small, orange figure, more like a plaything in appearance, a single red antenna hanging limply from above wide, staring eyes.
He'd never given this thing a name. It was one of his more 'eccentric' creations, built when he was blind drunk and enraged from another defeat at the hands of the infernal hedgehog, designed to resemble Sonic's adopted brother Tails out of spite. He remembered only its function... to suck the life-force from living beings, store their chaos energy for his own use. He'd never finished it, but...
To suck.. the life force... from living beings...
What about dying beings?
The doctor, his body ruined and expiring and close to death, his mind delirious from blood loss, began to grin wide as an insane thought entered his brain. He scanned around for tools, grabbing at what he could find with his bloodied, cold hands.
"I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, TAILS!" The doctor spat as he worked, rolling up his sleeve and interfacing his arm-implanted computer, linked to his brain, into the systems of the doll-like entity with a clutch of wires. "I'LL GET YOU! NO MATTER WHAT!"
In the back of the lab, following the doctor's trail of blood, Miles Prower swallowed his nerves... and paused, stock still, fur standing on end with fear as the doctor's maniacal laugh echoed from beyond. Tails tried to make himself move, but couldn't. The doctor's laugh was desperately insane, rising to a shrieking crescendo before wheezing out into nothing as quickly as it had started.
Tails waited several seconds, his heart pounding in his ears, before he willed it in him to move. He stepped cautiously through the lab, ears perked, scanning for danger, simply following the doctor's blood like a trail of breadcrumbs.
"D.. Doc?" the fox whispered, pistol at the ready and set to stun, as he rounded a corner into a tight, elongated room. Non-functioning robots lined the walls, some of them recognizable, all of them going ignored by Tails as he entered the dark room... and his eyes landed on the splayed, unmoving form of Doctor Robotnik.
Tails didn't have to check his vitals. He knew the doctor was dead.
The fox lowered his weapon and, heart in his throat, approached the corpse of the tyrannical human. He lowered to the laboratory floor and checked the doctor over anyway, finding no signs of life.
"Oh Chaos..." the fox muttered, ears drooping, "I... I killed him..."
Tails looked at the weapon in his hand, and took a deep breath. What was done was done. No going back now.
The fox looked over the corpse again and moved to leave the dead Robotnik where he was. He had to get back to Sonic, the hedgehog being unconscious and awaiting backup from their teammates as Tails pursued the doctor.
Then he frowned. There were tools scattered around the doctor, on the bench above and around his body, and wires trailed from some kind of implant in his arm... to a small, orange doll-like thing that looked a hell of a lot like...
"Oh, gods..." Tails muttered, reaching out and taking hold of the 'doll' with disgusted fascination, "What.. the heck are you?"
The little orange thing, about half as tall as Tails, was some kind of crude caricature of himself. Held together with stitching, big blue eyes staring from above a stupidly wide smile on its' 'face'. He pressed at the stuffing, finding what felt like a metallic endoskeleton inside. Some kind of strange antenna sat atop its head, with what looked like a red crystal on the end.
A tiny robot, built with a doll-like plush exterior, designed to look like Tails.
"What the heck were you on, Robotnik?"
"Tails? Tails! Come in, Tails!"
Tails jumped in his skin and almost threw the doll across the room as his wrist communicator crackled with the voice of Knuckles, the third member of Team Sonic. Tails tried to calm his beating heart, glaring at the doll in his hand, and raised his communicator to his mouth.
"Yeah..." the fox mumbled, looking into those cold, dead eyes, "Yeah, Knuckles. I'm here."
"Thank the Emeralds! I got Sonic here, he's coming round just fine... where the hell did you get off to?!"
"I... went after Eggman. Wanted to capture him before he got away." Tails licked his lips and forced himself to look away from the creepy doll. "I failed. He's... dead."
"... repeat that, Tails. What did you say?"
"He's dead. Eggman is dead."
"...….okay, Tails. Rendezvous with us and... we'll get out of here, okay?"
"Negative.." Tails responded, setting the doll back on the doctor's chest and standing to his feet, "There's... stuff here that could be of use to us. Technology. And I... don't think we should just leave the body."
"Well, I couldn't give a crap about egghead... but if there's stuff in there you can use, be my guest, Tails. Just don't take too long."
"Fine, Knuckles. I'll be ten minutes." Tails looked back to the weird little doll sitting on Eggman's chest. Again, he reached down and picked it up, regarding it with fascination. "What are you?" He muttered. As though the doll could answer.
He almost had a heart attack as the thing blinked, twitched its head, and spoke.
"Hi! I'm... the Tails Doll! Robotnik prototype special unit zero zero zero! Please input directives!"
Tails held the thing at arms' length, eyes bulging, as the thing again went silent. He leaned his head toward the inert 'Doll' and scrutinized it curiously. "You can talk?"
The thing's head twitched again. "Hi! I'm Tails Doll! Robotnik prototype special unit zero zero zero! Please input directives!"
Jeez, that was creepy. Tails recognised the phrasing as the simple robotic spiel of a mindless machine, but it spoke with such an unnervingly cutesy sing-song voice... it made his fur stand on end.
"I.. am definitely taking a look at you, you creepy little thing..."
The 'Tails Doll' didn't respond, hanging limp in his hand as he turned and marched away, wondering how he was going to explain the doctor's death to Sonic.
Tails didn't notice the brief glow in the eyes of the doll as he rounded the corner, out of sight of the doctor's deceased body.
"And next on Mobotropolis today, a world without Doctor Robotnik. How we can finally sleep safe at night, coming up at nine pm..."
Amy Rose sighed as she stirred her tea, the tv flickering quietly in the background of the kitchen. At the table, staring darkly through the screen, Sonic sat with arms folded, bandage still around his head, a grimace over his face as he absorbed the information from the news.
"Here..." The pink hedgehog padded toward her friend in her slippers, handing him a cup of hot liquid. "It'll make you feel better."
Sonic grunted and gloomily accepted the drink, his good cheer having evaporated with the recent death of Robotnik.
"We were supposed to capture him..." the hedgehog muttered, "Not kill him..."
"Sonic, please..." Amy said, clutching her own tea as she rubbed his shoulder, "It was always going to happen sooner or later... you can't fight against a man like that and pull your punches forever!"
Sonic didn't reply, staring through his tea.
"You need to talk to Miles..." Amy said, giving his blue fur a squeeze, "He... thinks you hate him now... you don't hate him, do you?"
Sonic didn't reply, seemingly unwilling to pursue the subject with her.
She sighed. "I don't know what I can do to help you, Sonic..." she said, turning and slapping over the kitchen floor in her slippers, "But if you need anything... you know where I am, okay?"
sonic offered her a single nod in reply, the blue hedgehog looking more miserable than she had seem him in years.
Again, Amy breathed deep, and left the kitchen to retire to the spare room of the brothers' house, leaving Sonic to brood by himself.
The blue hedgehog, alone now, raised himself from his chair and ambled over to the tv. He glared at the screen, before reaching out and flicking the switch. The screen went black, leaving him looking at his own reflection.
Amy was right. He needed to talk to his little brother. Sonic checked the time on the wall mounted clock. It was still early evening, Tails would almost certainly still be awake.
The hedgehog set his drink down, and made for the workshop where his brother would be.
Sonic made his way through the workshop, passing stacks of spare parts, tools, half-constructed inventions... all the kinds of things the young engineer needed to perform his work. He found the fox in question, head in hand, idly clicking at his console while a tv flickered to his left. Displaying the news, no doubt.
Sonic cleared his throat before he approached, causing orange ears to flicker. "Hey, little buddy..." the hedgehog said lightly, padding over the workshop floor, "What you... uh, doin'?"
Tails briefly glanced at his adopted brother with big, bloodshot eyes. Big bags hung beneath the lids. He clearly hadn't slept much since... the incident a couple of days previously.
"Nothing much..." The fox replied glumly, grabbing a flask of something - not caffeine, Sonic hoped - and taking a drink. "Just going through some of Robotnik's data... he's not gonna need it any more, after all..."
"Oh," replied Sonic, ambling toward the console and leaning over his brother, inspecting the information on the screen. He didn't understand it, but had to break the ice somehow. "Anything... uh, interesting?"
Tails just looked at him tiredly. "He was a mad scientist with an insane imagination and plans to dominate the world..." the fox replied bluntly, "So yeah, there's more here than just his shopping list and bank statements."
"Hey, there's no need to get like that, buddy..."
Tails shrugged. "Sorry... I guess I don't need to give you any more reason to hate me..."
Sonic pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Look, Tails... I don't hate you... it was always going to come to this one day..."
"So you think I did the right thing?" Tails scoffed, "Killing Robotnik? I thought we were supposed to be better than that?"
"No, Tails..." Sonic replied, "I just... if it had to happen, it should have been me to do it. You're my little brother. You shouldn't have had to be the one to..."
"Pull the trigger?"
"Tails..." Sonic groaned, "Just... please know that I don't hate you... I'm just disappointed in myself for... giving you no choice but to do what you did. If I'd have been more careful, not been so reckless like I always am... we could have beaten Eggman, and captured him... like we were supposed to..."
Tails snorted. "Guess it didn't go that way, huh?"
"I guess not."
The two brothers sat in silence for a few moments, the tv flickering quietly beside them, unsure how to continue their conversation.
"Well, buddy..." Sonic said, leaning away from his brother and stretching, mouth opening in a wide yawn, "I'm gonna hit the hay..." he looked down at his brother with concern, noting Tails' drooped ears and slumped form. "If you need anything dude... just wake me. Okay?"
Tails shrugged, not taking his eyes away from the computer screen. "I'll be fine."
Sonic opened his mouth to say more... but decided it was best to leave smouldering foxes lie for now. He wiped at his nose and turned around... and yelped in surprise as his eyes landed on something he hadn't noticed walking into Tails' 'shop.
"Woah, Sonic?!" Tails spun around in his computer chair and gawped at the suddenly tense hedgehog, "What the heck, man?!"
Sonic, spines raised and eyes wide, held a hand over his heart and took a deep breath as he calmed himself down. "Sorry, dude..." the hedgehog said, as Tails came to stand beside him, "It's just..." he pointed, "Where the heck did you get that?! "
Tails followed his brother's finger to the workbench before them, upon which sat a familiar stuffed, twin-tailed orange figure - the creepy doll-bot he had retrieved from Robotnik's final evil base.
"Oh... that..." Tails muttered, reaching over to grab hold of the thing with both hands. It felt heavier than it had before, though he put that down to his fatigue. "Yeah, real creepy huh? I found it in Robotnik's base. He was holding it when... well, when I found him..."
"Oh..." Sonic replied, leaning close to look into the things vacantly smiling face and dead eyes, "what the heck is it?"
The hedgehog recoiled in shock as the doll leaned its head toward him, blinked, and replied in that familiar childish sing-song voice. "Hi! I'm Tails Doll! Special Eggman Unit zero zero… zero! Awaiting directives! Haha!"
"Dude..." Sonic said, leaning away from the creepy little thing, "That is just... wrong... "
"Tell me about it..." replied Tails, setting the doll back down on the workbench, where it twitched momentarily before slumping lifelessly once more. "Eggman must have been off of his nuts when he made this thing..."
"Why did you think it was a good idea bringing that thing back?" Sonic said, inspecting the doll from afar.
"Dude, seriously?!" Tails replied, as though it was the dumbest question the hedgehog had ever asked, "Sonic, look at the thing! Eggman literally built, like... a robotic voodoo doll of me or something! I had to bring it back, find out why it was made, what Robotnik built it for... why it exists at all! Would you be able to sleep at night not knowing these things if it were a doll of you?!"
"Yeah, buddy!" Sonic shot back, looking at his brother as though he were nuts, "I could quite happily burn the thing and leave it at that!"
"Yeah, well. Some of us actually like the pursuit of knowledge, Sonic!"
"Well, good luck with that, buddy..." the hedgehog replied, eyeing the doll one last time as he backed away, "I'm gonna go get some sleep... don't be too late, okay?" The hedgehog nudged his brother on the arm, and wore a tired grin. "And don't think I hate you... I know you had no choice, okay?"
Tails lowered his head, glaring through his own shoes as his ears drooped, "You would have found a way..." the fox muttered, "I'm a killer, Sonic... I don't want to be a killer..."
"Dude, come here..."
Sonic reached out and embraced his brother, hugging him tight as the fox burst into tears. Tails sobbed heavily for a long time, his older brother's fur becoming wet with tears as Miles buried his face into his chest, slowly stroking the back of his brother's head.
"Hey, dude... it's okay..." Sonic said when Tails had begun to calm himself down, "You did what you had to, okay? Nobody's ever going to judge you for it..."
"I will..." tails sniffled, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.
"Do you need me to sleep with you tonight?" Sonic said carefully, "keep you some company?"
Tails shook his head, swallowing his nerves. "No, Sonic. I'm not a little kid any more. I can cope. One way or another, I'll cope."
"Okay, buddy... whatever you need," Sonic said. He gestured toward the orange doll sitting on the nearby workbench. "Just, uh... watch your back, okay? For spooky dolls?"
Tails snorted and rolled his eyes. "It's a robot, Sonic. A mindless robot. Not a possessed toy. I'm rational, remember?"
"Okay then, mister rational..." Sonic gave his brother's shoulder a final squeeze and made to leave the workshop, "Don't stay up too late, okay? Don't let me catch you up at four am again, futzing around with whatever sci-fi techno mumbo-jumbo you have going on right now!"
"Sure, Sonic..." Tails replied wearily, "Will do..."
"That's my bro!" Sonic said, turning to leave the workshop. "And Tails?"
"Yeah Sonic?"
"Love ya, little buddy... don't ever think otherwise."
Tails shrank a little and nodded, not meeting Sonic's eyes. "Okay... thanks Sonic..."
Sonic did his best to wear a supportive smile, before turning and heading for bed.
He couldn't help but feel like that creepy doll was watching him as he left.
"Tails? Are you awake?"
Amy Rose couldn't sleep. She'd tried. The spare bed at Sonic and Tails' house was too hard, too squeaky, too rough. Oh, and her friends were going through some hard times right now, with Tails having killed Robotnik and all. She couldn't escape the nagging feeling that she could be doing more to help her small friend out at this time.
It was only nine at night. Tails would almost certainly still be awake.
So it was the pink hedgehog found herself, in slippers and gown, carrying two mugs of hot chocolate toward Tails' workshop, doing her best not to spill the hot, sugary drinks. Tails would probably not be up for much talking, but she had to at least show him he was cared for at this time.
"Tails?" Amy called, stepping carefully through the dimly lit workshop, "I've brought you something to drink..."
Amy's heart almost melted as she found, slumped over his workstation with head resting in arms, tails wrapped around himself, her fuzzy orange friend slept soundly before his computers. A tv flickered nearby, several minutes through a report on the death of Doctor Robotnik.
"Tails?" Amy whispered as she quietly approached the slumbering fox. An orange ear twitched, but he otherwise remained utterly comatose. No wonder. He had barely slept these last couple of nights. Amy wondered if she would be able to as well. She had never... killed before, either.
She understood. Tails had said, in his after-action report, that he'd thought Sonic dead from Robotnik's attacks... the cruel Doctor taking ravenous glee in the apparent destruction of his greatest enemy. It had pushed Tails a little too far, and the fox had set his blaster from stun.. to kill. Cue several unexpected shots to the body later, and Robotnik had been found dead in his lab. His reign of tyranny over.
Maybe it was for the best. Maybe somebody should have offed Eggman a long time ago... but it was a horrible shame it had to have been their youngest comrade to take that final step.
Amy sighed, setting a mug of hot chocolate down beside her sleeping friend. When he came round, he could warm it up himself.
Amy made to take a sip of her own hot chocolate... and almost jumped out of her skin as something clattered in the workshop behind her.
She hissed as she spilled warm fluid down her gown, turning with ears perked to scan the dim workshop. She strained her hearing as she quietly stepped forward, thinking she could hear someone back there muttering...
There were clicks and clacks, like somebody rummaging through a tray of cutlery, and Amy fought herself from calling out. There was only Sonic, Tails, and herself in the building right now... and Sonic was fast asleep in bed.
She gripped her hot chocolate tight, ready to throw the steaming liquid into the face of any intruders that might have entered the workshop. Tails had a lot of valuable technology and equipment stowed away in his workshop. It wasn't the first time somebody had tried to rob the young engineer.
She heard it again. A small voice, like a child's, mumbling as small clicks sounded from a storage room beyond. Amy grabbed a nearby hammer in her free hand and, armed with boiling liquid and a blunt weapon, rested her back against the wall beside the open door. Her heart pounded in her chest and her ears strained, picking up more of the small voice.
"No... no good... this won't do... won't do at all..."
Amy winced as something else fell to the floor, accompanied by a small, startled squeak.
"Nng! Stupid... stupid stupid stupid… why doesn't that blasted canine have anything I can use... I'll kill him for this... kill him good..."
That was it. Hesitating no longer, Amy swung into the room and prepared to give their intruder a facefull of boiling hot chocolate and a whack with her hammer to boot.
"Okay, buster! Whoever you are you'd better give up now or you'll have to deal with... me...
The pink hedgehog trailed off and gawped, unable to process what she was looking at. A pair of furiously glowing eyes glared at her from above a wide, smiling face, their owner busily sorting through a box of Tails' tools.
The smile vanished and was replaced with a mouthful of jagged teeth, and Amy Rose dropped her hot chocolate as the intruder unleashed a spine chilling hiss... and lunged for her across the storage room.
Her body hit the floor with a thump, and she moved no more.
"Jeez, Tails..." said Sonic, as his brother worked on the comatose Amy, "Who could have done this?"
Tails raised his goggles and sighed, leaning up from his work. He had done what he could for the pink hedgehog, but she was out cold. For how long, he didn't know. He'd checked her vitals and she was weak... but would recover.
What worried him most was the deep slashes across her face, as though some kind of animal had attacked her with vicious claws.
"I think..." Tails replied, wiping sweat from his brow, "it's more a question of what did this rather than who…"
"Either way... I've never seen claw marks like that" Sonic said, swallowing a lump in his throat at the sight of his comatose friend, "They look like fingernails... are we sure this is just an animal we're talking about?"
"I don't know, Sonic..." Tails said as he ripped off his goggles, ruffling his head fur. The young fox was exhausted, and operating at his limits thanks to their recent events. "I've checked the injuries, there's no sign of infection or anything... she just seems drained, as though something tried to sap all of her Chaos energy... luckily, as far as I can tell, she'll make a full recovery."
Sonic hummed as he stroked his friend's hand. There was nothing romantic between the two hedgehogs, but Sonic cared for his friends deeply. The blue hedgehog frowned as he gestured at Amy's magenta gown. "What's this?" He said, indicating the dark stains all down Amy's clothes, "Is that... blood?"
Tails shook his head. "Hot chocolate. She brought me some. Looks like she spilled her own all over the place when the... whatever it was, attacked her. Heck of a mess back there."
"Okay..." Sonic breathed, "Okay... so what do we do now?"
"Well, I'm going to check my 'shop security systems. If somebody or something got in without me knowing… that's a problem that needs to be addressed. Might be able to find a few more clues as to our little intruder while I'm at it."
"What, you think this is Investigation Station Square? "
"I mean it, Sonic." Tails said, fixing his brother with a glare, "I don't want this happening again. I don't want my friends being... hurt, just because I was too stupid to think of everything."
"You want me to come with?"
"Nah, just take care of Amy. I don't need any distractions while I'm at it."
Sonic huffed. "Well, nice to see you think of me as a distraction..."
Tails shoved his hands into his overalls pockets as he entered the workshop, the dim lights flickering on into a musky orange glow.
He was angry. If he hadn't been asleep, if he'd checked his security systems more often... fortunately, Amy was alive.
Miles padded through the workshop in his usual red and white sneakers, screwing his eyes in the dim light. The bulbs were running low. Another thing he'd put on his to-do list that he still hadn't gotten around to fixing.
At least without Robotnik around, he now had plenty of time for that.
Killer.
Miles tried to bury the horrible, sick feeling in his stomach at the thought of the word. He didn't feel bad for Eggman's sake... the evil old bastard had had it coming too damn long, but why did it have to be him? Of all people, of everyone who had ever fought against the tyrant, it had to be a young fox-child to deliver Robotnik's final death blow.
You tried to save him, though... could have saved him, if he'd let you...
As if that made him any better.
Tails took a deep breath and tried to still his suddenly beating heart, stop the tears forming in his eyes. What was done was done. Robotnik had been a violent, evil maniac, with more than enough blood on his hands, and had got what he deserved in the end. That's all there was to it.
That had to be all there was to it.
Tails shook himself back to reality, forcing himself to remain focused on the task at hand. He had work to do.
The young fox entered the storage room where he had found Amy's comatose body. He remembered the blind terror he had felt when he thought she was dead... and the immense relief that followed when he checked her vitals and found a pulse. He hadn't had time to look around, he'd simply called for Sonic and together the two brothers had carried her to her bed where Tails could steady her.
Now he had time to investigate.
He flicked on the storage room light, again the old bulb offering not much but a dim glow.
Hmm. The first thing he noticed was the far shelves, around which lay scattered tools. Now Tails could be disorganised, but he wasn't in the habit of leaving his tools lying around on the floor, where a spanner and screwdriver now lay. Something, or somebody had to have been rifling through his toolkit. For what purpose, he didn't know.
Then the fox took a step back, remembering the hot chocolate stain on the floor. It had mostly dried by now, but he could still smell the remnants of the sugary drink. Hot chocolate. Amy had been bringing him hot chocolate. She'd worried about him, and in her concern she could have lost her life. His fault, again.
The kit frowned in his melancholy however, as he spotted something... off. Something that caught his interest. He leaned in closer to find...
Shoeprints. Small and faded, but definitely there. Shoeprints that faded away as they led toward the door and out of the storage room. He hadn't noticed that before. Too preoccupied.
His heart beat in the back of his throat as he recognised the shape and the pattern. He looked at his own red and white sneakers, dreading the thoughts that ran through his head... and felt a wave of relief as he found his own feet were far larger than the small prints on the floor of his workshop.
Phew. So he hadn't attacked Amy in some kind of sleep-walking state. That was a relief. He didn't need more guilt on his conscience.
But if it hadn't been him, then...
His fur stood on end as a horrible chill ran through him.
The fox hopped to his feet and stormed into his workshop, where his tv set still flickered. He moved with intent toward the opposite workbench, where the 'Tails doll' remained, sat facing the tv.
Tails grabbed the doll in one hand, checking the thing's feet. Sure enough, right on the bottom of the red and white shoes... brown stains. He took a sniff. Hot chocolate.
"You little..." Tails hissed, almost tearing the thing apart right there. He took pause however, his curiosity getting the better of him, and instead held the thing in both hands as he glared into the lifeless face. He swallowed a lump in his throat.
"Talk." He commanded, glaring into the eyes.
The thing blinked. "Hi! I'm the Tails Doll! Robotnik… specialised unit zero zero one! Please await directives!"
Tails felt a horrible tingle of terror run down his back. "That's not what you've said before..." the fox said through grit teeth. He stared into the stupid, smiling face, looking for any signs of life from the facsimile of himself, finding nothing. He briefly regarded the crystal at the end of the antenna, which remained dim.
"Well..." he continued, hefting the thing in both hands, "I think it's about time..." he now headed over to a workbench, where several of his tools lay. He slammed the doll down on its rump, leaving it in a sitting position, and grabbed a nearby screwdriver. "...I opened you up and took a look inside... what do you think-"
Tails had no time to react as, with no warning and with terrifying spontaneity, the doll's lifeless face became a vicious, enraged scowl, and the thing launched itself directly at him.
"YOU BASTARD!"
Tails screamed as the thing began beating at him with its mitts, screeching into his face, the eyes glowing a fearsome red.
"I'LL KILL YOU, TAILS! I'll KILL YOU YOU LITTLE SHI-"
Tails finally responded by grabbing the suddenly very animated doll beneath the armpits and tearing it from his head, lobbing it across the workshop into a stack of spare parts.
Tails stumbled backward, eyes bulging as he watched the doll right itself, glaring at him with those evil red eyes as it raised its fingerless paws... and steel claws emerged from beneath the stuffing, flexing hungrily. The smiling face widened into a leer, revealing viciously sharp teeth.
"What..?!" Tails managed to sputter, "What the..."
"TAILS?!"
The doll before him appeared to tense at the sound of Sonic's voice echoing through the workshop, and it pointed at him with a steel claw.
"I'll be back for you, Tails!"
Tails could only watch as the doll scampered over the mess of parts and tools and vanished, the only evidence of its existence the pattering of small feet and hands as it hurried away on all fours.
"TAILS!"
Tails leaned himself against a workbench, feeling at the wounds on his face as Sonic shot to his side, just staring at the space where the so-called 'Tails Doll' had been.
"Jeez, dude! What the heck's going on down here?!" Sonic grabbed his brother by the shoulders and tried to turn him, "Crap, what happened to your face?!"
Tails' mouth flapped open as he tried to explain. "It... it was the doll! It was the doll, Sonic!"
Doctor Starline, former friend and apprentice of Doctor Robotnik, read the newspaper for the hundredth time that day. The platypus adjusted his spectacles and sipped at his tea as he scanned the main story.
Hmm. Hard to believe the old bugger was dead.
Starline remembered working under Robotnik, the hopes and the dreams they had shared of ruling this world... that had been a time ago now.
Starline finished his drink and set the mug down along with the paper. He adjusted his maroon gown around himself. Perhaps tonight called for a spot of something stronger. The platypus turned and marched solemnly toward his kitchen, deep in his own hidden lair, his base of operations far smaller and humbler than Robotnik's had always been. He retrieved a bottle of brandy from an overhead cupboard, set a squat glass on the side. He poured himself a couple of fingers' worth and raised the glass.
"Here's to you, Ivo..." the platypus said, "You crazy old fool..."
"Hey, doc! Gonna save some of that for me?!"
Starline almost choked on the brandy as he knocked it back, his attention diverted by the small, childlike voice nearby. He sputtered and coughed, his eyes watering and sinuses burning, steadying himself on the kitchen counter.
"Woah, I guess alcohol really is bad for you!"
There it was again that mocking, childish tone. Starline wiped at his eyes with a handkerchief, scanning his kitchen, eyes finally focusing on...
Something that made him recoil backwards in shock.
There, stood on his kitchen counter... what appeared at first sight to be a stuffed version of Miles Prower, the wretched brother of Sonic the Hedgehog. But this... fox was smaller, plush skin stitched together, eyes glowing red above an eerie shark-toothed leer of a smile. A single antenna wavered between the thing's pointed ears, some kind of gem at the end glowing the same red as the eyes.
"Hi, doc!" The thing waved at him with a fingerless mitt, speaking in that bone-chilling, sing-song giggle, "Long time no see!"
The doctor flapped his mouth in shock. "Wh... what are you?!"
"Hahaha! I think the better question..." the thing giggled as it set itself down on his counter, legs swinging over the side and tails swishing happily, "Is who am I?"
The doctor regarded the doll with fascination, moving closer to it despite himself. "What... do you mean, my curious little friend?"
"Little? HAHAHA! LITTLE!" The thing released a demented cackle, causing Starline to take pause. "I remember when you were the little guy! When we worked together? To rule the world?!"
The doctor remained silent as he calculated, thoughts running through his brain. "No..." he muttered, looking into those evil eyes for any semblance of identity, "It can't be..."
"Come on, doc! I thought you smart! I thought you were reeeeeeeaaaaaaal smart!" The doll spread its arms wide, like a child exaggerating the size of an object, before leaning forward and revealing sharp teeth. "But are you smart enough... to cheat death?!"
Starline's jaw flapped as he dared to make a guess. "... Ivo?"
"BING BING BING! We have a WINNER!" The doll hopped from the counter toward Starline... and hovered in the air before him, clapping its stubby hands together, lower limbs dangling limply as it levitated.
The doctor shook his head in disbelief. "It can't be..." Starline said again, eyeing the doll with bulging eyes, "It's... not possible..."
"Oh, well, gee doc..." The doll replied, setting one 'hand' on its hips and gesturing impatiently, "Why don't you, I dunno, scan me? My Chaos signature should be identical to that of my old body!"
Starline did as he was instructed, retrieving an appropriate device from his lab and scanning the curious little doll. He found, to his shock and disbelief, that the doll was correct. Somehow, some way... the late Doctor Robotnik had transferred his life force, his energy, his soul, into this strange little machine fashioned like a stuffed toy.
"This is unprecedented..." the doctor mumbled, checking his readings again, "This is... astounding..."
"Well, duh..." the doll... Robotnik mocked childishly, hovering over and setting himself on Starline's shoulder like a parrot, "Supergenius here and all?!"
"But... how?" The platypus said, leaning back to regard his old friend's new form in astonishment, "How did you do it?!"
"Oooh, story-time!" Robotnik clapped his mitts again and hovered into the air, lower limbs trailing like those of a flying insect. He set himself down on a nearby table and flopped into a sitting position, reaching out to grab a nearby bottle of whiskey. "You see doc, I made this thing…" he patted at his own outer wrapping of stuffing "When I was rather... 'off my trolley', you might say. It was designed to be deceptively cute and cuddly… lure people in, and then SUCK the life out of them! Like apple juice!"
Robotnik popped the bottle cap off and peered inside with one glowing red eye.
"And then that little brat Tails went and SHOT me! Shot me dead! BANG BANG BANG!" Robotnik spread his small arms theatrically, the evil shark-toothed leer on the doll's face stretching further. "And I was dying! Then I spotted this thing and, well... a little ingenuity, a little reprogramming, a little connecting of my neural implants, and... TA-DA! My body might be dead, but I live on! Pretty cool, huh?!"
Starline winced as the doll discarded the bottle of whiskey, the bottle wobbling dangerously close to the edge of the table. "Would..." The doctor said, hurrying over to prevent his highly expensive whiskey from coating the floor, "Would you like a drink, Doctor?"
"Ha! I don't have a digestive system, silly! It's aaaaalllllllll atificial in here! For now, at least..."
"Oh... Starline replied, raising an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you see doc..." Robotnik hopped to his feet and wandered over the table, carelessly shoving past expensive ornaments and bottles of liquor, "I altered the chaos-sapping abilities of this body before I transferred... I should be able to transfer my essence back into another living host just by making appropriate physical contact! Like MAGIC!"
The doll, inhabited by Robotnik, became disinterested in his surroundings and turned back to face Starline. "I tried to do it already! With the Amy girl! But I can't! I succeeded in draining her and rendering her unconscious, but I couldn't swap over! And you wanna know something else?"
Starline nodded. "What's that, Ivo?"
The doll grinned wider and turned around. "This!""
Starline adjusted his spectacles and leaned in close... astonished to find a long, bleeding cut running across the doll's back, surrounded by bruising.
"I... don't understand..." The platypus mumbled.
"Oh, don't you?! Well how about I explain!" Robotnik spun back around and again patted at his padded torso. "How many robots, or dolls, or whatever, do you know that bleed?! That happened when the Prower brat threw me into a stack of spare bits and pieces! And you know what, Starline? It hurt! It hurt like a son of a bitch!"
Starline hummed, raising his device and gesturing to the doll. "Please turn around so I can get a look at the... wound..."
Robotnik did as he was asked, continuing to rant. "So you see, doc, I don't plan on spending the rest of my life like this. So I need your help, as the next best robotics expert in the whole wide world, to find out what's going on and help me transfer into a new body! Understand?"
Starline looked at the information presented in his data pad, and shook his head incredulously. "Ivo..." he said carefully, "I... might be a genius robotics expert... but this..." He removed his spectacles and gestured to the small orange form that Robotnik's soul now inhabited, "What you've done... is absolutely unprecedented. With a lifetime of study and preparation... I doubt I would be able to replicate what you have achieved with whatever you had to hand on your deathbed!"
The doll cocked its head and blinked, the eyes penetrating Starline like daggers. "Are you telling me..." Robotnik said quietly, "that you can't fix me?"
"Doctor, look at the scans!" Starline, losing his nerves, raised his data pad to face the doll and gestured to the information with a hand, "Your chaos energy, your life force, whatever you want to call it, is merging with your new form! You're becoming flesh and blood again! My hypothesis is that you can't transfer your soul, because your spiritual connection to your body is becoming too strong!" Starline lowered his data pad and fumbled with his spectacles, the eyewear dangling loosely around his neck on their chain. "Ivo..." the platypus said sadly, adjusting his head fur, "There's nothing I can do... I believe you are to be bound to this form for as long as your essence may live. You are welcome to stay here of course, I would appreciate the chance to study-"
"YOU STUPID USELESS FOOOOOOL!"
Starline was cut off as the doll, blind with rage, lunged at him with a hiss and began slashing at his face with steel claws, tearing with vicious teeth, ripping and shredding the platypus's head and face and throat and chest. Starline gurgled as he died, scrambling for anything he could use to desperately tear the doll away from his face... until he slammed backwards to the ground, still twitching, blood running into dark red pools around his body.
"I... am NOT..." Robotnik, steel claws clenched, teeth bared and eyes burning red, stood atop the dead Doctor Starline, seemingly breathing heavily despite his current lack of lungs, "Spending the rest of my days as a stuffed. Little. FREAK!"
He considered the now dead doctor, the platypus missing a substantial amount of his flesh above the chest.
"Hmm..." Robotnik rubbed at his chin with steel claws, "Probably should have kept you alive! Then I could have used you as a test subject to switch back! I'm really, really silly somet-ACK!"
The doll doubled over, clutching its chest, and the wound on its back began to bleed more profusely. And as he kneeled on the chest of the expired Starline, Robotnik felt flesh and veins ripple into being across his body, replacing the stuffing that surrounded the metal endoskeleton.
Then he felt a single, sudden pump of a heartbeat.
"I... have to get out of this body..." he whispered to himself, staring at the steel fingers poking from his mitts, "Before it's too late..."