Eggspediant. Ch1.

[Start.]

Waking up, Robotnik realises that he must've fallen asleep in his chair. Irritating, that can cause chafing.

Another thing he realises is that he… Is honestly kind of a piece of garbage.

"A class six apocalypse? What was I thinking? Of all the stupid plans. And my voice! I sound as if I'm trying to be a Saturday morning villain! Though, considering the circumstances I suppose I am. Things to work on. Cluck!"

The chicken robot springs to life, staring up at him expectantly.

"Send out a message, updates shall be going through the empire." Plans are flowing through his head. How to mitigate the damage, new power supplies. Even ways to stop Sonic if he particularly feels like it.

"Maybe later, for now focus on the bigger picture. I am seen as a monster by most of the world, and have enslaved almost all of it. How to mitigate this without quote on quote showing weakness." He hems, his voice coming out hazy. "Something to fix, the pollution. How anyone likes the smell of smog I'll never understand."

Before he can get too in depth into his planning, his nephew walks through the door. 'Suddenly having a full personality shift could be jarring. But I can stand to at least not beat or berate him.'

Studying his console, he activates the chair's hydraulics, slowly coming down to the floor. 'Right on episode one hmm? Or is this issue one? Questions for later.'

The chair shifts, and he finds himself facing a rather nervous young man. "Snivelly. I would like a status report. And an explanation for how Sonic made it through my defenses." Quick, and straight to the point. No beration. That should work for now.

Snivelly… Colin's? Snivelly's eyes widen as the orders come through, likely expecting something worse, before he nods his head. "Of course sir. We currently have one freedom fighter caught after he was lost in the tunnels. As for how they got through, we believe that sonic and two others infiltrated via an air duct."

Robotnik reclines in his chair, nodding his head. "I see. I want you to put motion sensors into the air ducts from now on. It will give us an easier time to detect them. Bring in the prisoner."

Snivelly bows, with a bit more respect than expected, before turning towards the door. Cat has clearly seen better days. Which is odd, as SWATbots are meant to simply detain someone, not harm them more than needed. Perhaps he's a scrapper.

He hems again, the hazy sound grating on his own ears. "Snivelly, take the SWATbots and go put in the modifications to the air ducts. Make sure they won't trigger from our own units. After that you are dismissed for the day. SWATbots, put this one in a chair, and remove his cuffs."

Unfortunately for Cat, and his own feelings on the matter, the chairs in the room have restraints bolted on. At least his neck won't feel as painful.

Snivelly and the SWATbots file out of the room, and Robotnik finds himself alone with the freedom fighter called Cat. "Hello old boy. I'd say you probably shouldn't be running around in air ducts, but you'd likely not listen to me. I am going to make you an offer, and I'd prefer if you took it."

Cat looks like he's about to open his mouth to automatically refuse. Robotnik will need to talk over him. Great, how rude. "Now before you automatically refuse out of principle old boy, I want to outline the offer. I get more out of having the brats you follow around, NOT dead in my air ducts, or my construction sites. Since I know you won't be able to stop them from doing their freedom fighter routine, I want you to be my liaison. I give you food, parts, whatever you need, and you make sure that they actually think things through whenever they go along with one of their silly schemes instead of rushing in and getting killed. There is a reason my SWATbots are usually set to detain old boy, I want that to be made perfectly clear. Cleaning up corpses is such dirty business, especially small ones. Am I clear?"

Cat seems to do a double take at my tirade, likely re-evaluating everything he thinks he knows about me. Good. "You… You want to give me stuff that Knothole needs, and your only condition is not having to clean up if one of the kids gets really badly hurt? That's it? No little scheme locked in there?"

Robotnik leans forward, and it has an appropriate, if irritating effect, on Cat, making him move back against the chair he's in. "Cat. I have you at my mercy. I could easily get information out of you with things you've never even thought of. This is one of the best deals you will ever get out of me. You get your freedom when Sonic comes for you, and you get food, water, and anything else your little group needs. All I am asking you is that you make sure that I don't have to clean up bits and pieces of the brats. Take. The. Deal. Cat."

Cat looks around, and would likely be hemming and hawing if he wasn't in front of Robotnik. Not a negotiator then, Robotnik has already tempted him. "I… I get to choose where the drop zone is, yeah?" Ah good, old boy's gone straight ahead with it.

"Of course you do, old boy. I know you aren't going to give away the location of Knothole to me. Cluck, give him a wrist communicator." The robot chicken quickly follows his orders, jumping down from his perch on top of the revolving chair and onto Cat's arm. "This may sting slightly, old boy."

Cat looks confused at that. "Why would it- YEOW!" As he speaks, Cluck quickly clamps down onto his arm, the jagged edges of its beak breaking off bits of his fur before leaving a communicator hidden underneath most of his arm fluff. Robotnik smiles, though he can already guess it's more of a satisfied smirk.

"Just remember, old boy. Keep it discreet, and between you, and me." Robotnik reaches into his pocket, throwing a key at Cat's lap. "When your restraints are removed, take that and use it once Sonic arrives. Make up a lie about how you got it. Then get out of Robotropolis. I don't care what you do once that is done, but I expect at the very least a bi-weekly report. Am I clear, old boy?"

Cat quakes in his seat, before letting out a shuddering sigh. "Yes… Sir." The word seems to produce an almost visceral disgust in Cat, and Robotnik has to smother another grin. While the implications are horrible, it's almost funny in a sad way.

"Good. Now, I shall call in the SWATbots to escort you to your cell. Sonic should find you within the hour." Robotnik presses a button on the side of his chair, two SWATbots quickly filing in and being careful to remove the restraints on Cat, who springs for the key as soon as they are removed. "Your fear is understandable, but unwarranted at this moment Cat. I've already gotten what I wanted. SWATbots, please escort our new employee to his cell. When Sonic shows up, minimal resistance that doesn't involve you letting yourselves get destroyed. Go."

The bots quickly salute him, before strong-arming Cat out of the room. Once the door is closed, Robotnik feels himself sag, letting out a wheezy sigh as he does. "That came far too naturally. IQ of 300, and easily able to talk to people. Without my megalomania, I'd say I was the pinnacle of humanity. Then again, I can run half as fast as Sonic despite being a rotund gargantuan self crippled fleshbag. So that likely has to count for something."

He stands up, moving from the chair and beginning to go through a few exercises. "Lets see if I can still touch my toes. And one, and two." He repeats this for ten minutes, until an alert beeps on one of his screens. Walking forward, he activates it, seeing a blue blur speed through the city. "Right on time Sonic. Get your friend out of there. Now lets see, if you're here then that means that the coward and the princess should be in the swamp. Damn, not enough time to actually build something to discreetly assist them. Perhaps…"

Moving over to a specific console, he sees his Stealth Robotic Operating Systems modelled one through seven. "Activating mark one. New orders, observe Dark Swamp. Deactivate when seen by the hedgehog with landing thrusters activated. Perhaps he won't look a gift horse in the mouth. Or perhaps he'll just destroy it. No matter, I suppose. Back to the workout.

[Break.]

Cat wonders, as he's escorted to his cell, just how he let Robotnik talk him around. Oh sure, most of the things Robotnik said weren't heinous, but it HAS to be some kind of plot. Like the communicator could be a tracking device or something when he turned it on. Yeah, that makes sense.

Looking around Robotropolis, specifically this section, he wonders if Robotnik is taking him to a cell in this area to mess with his mind. He can see the street corner he always played on just one block down, back when it was mobotropolis. Back when he was just a kitten.

This cell had to have been planned for him the second he was found, no doubt about it. The exact key to his cell, the cell block being near his first home. There was way too much to just be coincidence.

Which means that if he'd refused, he'd be marching towards the gallows the second he got here. At least that's a cold comfort to making a deal with that monster Robotnik. At least his demands were kind of reasonable. Just make sure that he doesn't have to scrape bits of the kids off of his stupid tunnels or construction sites.

So why does he feel so dirty for taking that deal? He didn't sell out his friends, or the rest of the resistance. He just took a deal to make sure he could get food, water, and medicine whenever they needed it. By getting a Robotnik communicator implanted onto and into his arm.

He sighs, rubbing his hands against his face. Today really just isn't his day.

The cell however is as he expected. Spartan, uncomfortable, generally just miserable to be in. Now all he has to do is wait for Sonic, and then he can get out of here and warn him about what could happen to Sally and Antoine.

Thankfully he doesn't have to stay in the cell and get left to his fate. With this key he can at least help Sonic get to them and break the surveillance bots. Robotnik might've been able to get him in a moment of weakness, but that don't mean that Cat's gonna lay on his back and purr!

Hell, he could bust himself out of here right now and go give Robotnik a piece of his mind! Robotnik hasn't caught anyone else, so he can't afford to replace Cat, so Cat could get away with just about anything, right up to slapping him in the face. That'd be a great time.

Cat is so lost in his daydream that when Sonic finally shows up, his "psst" causes Cat to jump two feet in the air before landing back on the bed harshly. "Jeez louise Sonic, you scared the heck out of me."

He gets up, moving to the cell door. "Yeah, sorry about that Cat, I came to bust you outta here so we could jet over to Sally and Antoine. C'mon." Sonic is his usual exuberant self, and Cat can't help but smile. The bad choices are all for the kids like him.

That's what he'll tell himself anyway.

Taking the key, he puts his hand through the cell bars, quickly unlocking it. At Sonic's questioning stare, he shrugs. "I stole it from one of the junkers that brought me here. Now c'mon, let's get outta here before more SWATbots show up."

Sonic squints at him for a bit, and Cat feels a new onset of guilt. "Why didn't you break out before Cat?"

The question makes him blink, before he looks at Sonic like he's an idiot. "Sonic, I'm old, and you expect me to bust out of a guarded compound by myself, without getting caught and roboticized?"

Sonic sheepishly scratches behind his head, before quickly getting back into his serious mode. Alright, here's hoping that what he saw on Robotnik's monitor isn't wrong. "Okay Sonic, Sally and Antoine both got to the Dark Swamp. Robotnik's probably seen them on his surveillance by now, so we gotta get there quick. C'mon and let's go!"

As they quickly file into an elevator, the door isn't quite shut before a blue taser laser is firing at them through the gap. "Damn junkbots! C'mon stupid elevator, go faster!"

Thankfully the door closes before long. Unfortunately that means-. "Hey Cat, looks like they know we're here. Y'know what that means." Sonic's grin really doesn't do wonders for Cat's blood pressure.

"You get way too much of a kick outta making me want to blow chunks kid."

[Break.]

As he goes over the code that the old him made for his SWATbots, and the roboticizers outwash, Robotnik finds himself almost… Disappointed? He was expecting the code to be incredibly sophisticated, but just looking at it he figures that Sonic could probably reprogram his bots if the brat just sat down and looked at a coding manual for a day or two.

"No wonder the SWATbots can't hit anything, this coding is absolute garbage! Aiming calibration off by an input lag of THREE SECONDS! WHY THE HELL WOULD I WRITE THIS TRASH!"

His temper flares, and he just barely refrains from destroying the offending screen. He takes a moment to let out a calming hazy breath, before his irritation returns in full. "I'll need to work on things. Make a robot that takes in carbon and distributes it near living trees. Another issue is making sure that run off from the factories don't leak into the water supply. Water power is usable, and power generation isn't quite an issue. I could probably find and steal the master emerald from Knuckles if I ever got desperate enough to sink an island into the ocean. Though why the Echidnas made their home fly I'll never know. Bunch of paranoid wackos. Heh."

He pours over the code, making edits here and there but keeping it to make sure that the SWATbots only detain organic life non lethally. He did promise Cat, and while it's for his own sanity too, it is best to keep with his promises.

"Now let's see here. Writing out code won't take me longer than a few days, hopefully anyway, so I can have an egg tree bot work on that rather quickly. Now I'll need to set up tree farms, and make sure that there aren't any pollutants like lead falloff in the ground. Anything else that's springing to attention at the mome-!" His voice abruptly cuts off as he remembers Charles. Charles is a genius, and while he hates Robotnik the hedgehog would jump at the opportunity to help people.

"Of course! Now then. Designation, Hedgehog, Charles the. Report to Robotnik palace."

While his mood has improved, he still has to wait for Charles to actually make it to the palace. So he begins his exercises again. "No matter what, I'm not going to look like a fat sack of trash anymore. Image is important, especially with what I intend to do. Perhaps I should just clone a new body, look like that Boom Eggman. He always was one of my preferred designs."

Cluck is likely looking at him strangely, but hasn't done anything to indicate that this is out of the norm. Small mercies of Robotnik's normally manic personality.

After what feels like only five minutes, but his personal clock tells him, is easily over thirty, the door opens, and he can see Charles' roboticized form walk in. He can also see the well hidden disgust in the visor Charles' eyes were replaced with. Good, though also surprising. Is he supposed to be aware at this point in time?

"Ah, Charles my boy. Just the man I wanted to see. Come come, have a seat. Cluck, you are dismissed for the day, I want you to watch over the assembly line for imperfections."

Charles sits down in the seat that Cat was in previously, though without the manacles attached. Cluck quickly flies off while Robotnik takes his seat. "Now, Charles my boy. I'm sure you're wondering why exactly I've called you here. I shall make it simple. I know that you aren't under my control. Not fully anyway."

He can see Charles' eyes flash for a moment, and Robotnik realises he's likely startled him. No matter. "Do not worry yourself Charles. I never followed through because it wasn't an issue. No, what I have called you here for today is far more important than your silly little acts of rebellion."

He can feel Charles' scrutiny, and can't help but feel pride for his old partner. "What are you playing at Julian? You expect me to believe you don't care about knowing there was a spy in your ranks?"

Robotnik chuckles, the sound menacing to his robotic ears. "To be honest, I'm more impressed you resisted the effects of the roboticizer Charles. You have an incredible will. But no, I have called you here today to assist me in correcting some of my mistakes. I want you to help me build robots that will fix the environmental damage that I have caused."

Charles' visor slowly shutters downwards, a good approximation of a squint on his robotic face. "I'm listening, Julian. Start talking."

All as he'd hoped and planned.

[End.]