Okay, guys! Here's that next chapter I promised you guys! I have a bit of an Authors Note on the bottom, so read on to find out what it is!
3
Trickery
In a small security room lit by a dim blue light and blinking buttons, an odd game of Go-Fish was taking place between two robots. One of them was sphere-based and black with the top half of his head, joints, and his 'gloves' a crimson red. It had blue 'teeth' and narrowed blue eyes, and his body was mainly a large 'joint' with one end connected to his head and the other end to a bowl-like half-circle with two dips in the front. The other robot was black with the top half of his head, his back, his joints, and his 'gloves' yellow. He was similar in design with the other robot, except he was more cube-shaped.
"Do you have any threes?" the red robot asked the yellow one, looking up from his cards.
"Nope! I do have these weird squigglies, though! Go fish!" the yellow robot exclaimed. With an aggravated sigh, the other one stood up from his 'chair'.
"Cubot, how many times do I have to remind you; the 'squigglies' are threes!"
"Sorry, Orbot! Here 'ya go!" Cubot placed a few cards on the table, peering at the rest of his cards to figure out what to ask for; lines or lines and O's. As Orbot reached over the table to claim his cards, the soft mechanical whirrs and beeps were interrupted by a loud voice on the intercom.
"Orbot! Cubot!" the voice shouted, spooking the two robots and causing their cards to fly everywhere. "Bring the prisoner to me now!"
"Yes, Dr. Eggman!" the two robots said, saluting as if the owner of the voice was standing right in front of them, instead of over the intercom. They sped out of the room, successfully knocking over the card table and scattering cards everywhere. The oblivious pair ignored it and headed towards the Containment Center before their master got impatient.
Inside one of the cells, a golden tabby cat with a thick mane of fur around his head slept in a cot. His eyes flickered on occasion, but that and his ragged breathing was the only sign of life. The two robots had originally found him unconscious at the entrance to the Ground Base, and he hadn't moved since.
"Dr. Eggman probably just wants to Roboticize him—or maybe he needs someone to use as a lab Mobian. I almost feel bad for the guy," Cubot creaked, grabbing the maned tabby's arms and pulling him to the ground.
"If either of those theories were true, and who knows with Doctor Eggman, then he wouldn't want a defective robot or an injured test subject—be careful with him!" Orbot scolded. As Cubot dragged the tabby along towards the Experimenting Room, Orbot simply floated languidly alongside his companion, 'supervising' the transportation of the Mobian from one part of the base to the other. Quite honestly, all the red robot was doing was scolding Cubot's every move without doing any more work than keep his system running.
When the three 'stepped' into the room, a white, roughly egg-shaped chair turned around to reveal a…well, a roughly egg-shaped man. He wore a red and white jacket with yellow cuffs, black pants, and black boots. The man had wrinkly, pale, and sun-deprived skin, while perched on his lip was a greasy, broomstick-looking mustache, though he had no hair on the top of his head. On his long and crooked nose was perched a pair of blue spectacles that successfully hid his eyes.
"So, this is our little guest, is it?" he asked with an evil smirk. "Has he shown any signs of life?" The man sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled against one another.
"Nope; he's as dead as a doorknob!" Cubot announced, ignoring Orbot's soft correction of 'doornail'. Then, tilting his head, he added, "I never really understood that saying. How can something be dead if it wasn't alive in the first place?"
"The same way a robot like you can be dead," Eggman growled, obviously quite annoyed.
"Like, if I run out of batteries or somethin'?"
"Like, if I shred you to pieces and turn you into scrap metal!" Cubot cowered in fear at his master's anger, and even Orbot jumped back a bit, the red robot quietly signaling for his yellow friend to shut up.
"The Mobian is breathing, sire; he's simply not conscious." He stated.
"Still? It's been hours already! Oh well, forget that. What did the analysis reveal?"
"He seems to be very fit, as some would put it, and his suspected strength level is approximately the same as Knuckles', if not Mighty's. He's a well-muscled tabby, and he obviously has seen some fights, though he's not scarred."
"Let's see him in action, then!" The large man grabbed the tabby by the mane, dragging him to the table, and plonked him down unceremoniously. Several of his hairs came off in Eggman's hand.
As Eggman began to attach a few cords to the Mobian, Cubot turned to Orbot and whispered, "And you were mad at me for not being 'careful',"
"I thought he was going to Roboticize him!" Orbot hissed back. "He hates damaged bots, and—" Before the robot could finish his sentence, Eggman pressed a button on the dashboard to a machine, and the tabby's eyes shot open. He looked around with a confused look on his face.
"Great Starclan, that rock did more than just glow…where am I?" he murmured, scratching the back of his head with bare fingers. Then he froze, his eyes wide, and slowly drew his hand out, staring at the furred fingers. When he spoke, his voice was higher than before. "And how did I get like this?"
"Greetings, Mobian," Eggman greeted, stepping out of the shadows he had hidden in, on the unlikely but still possible chance that the tabby had seen him and gone into a rage.
"Moba-what? Who are you?"
"…group huddle!" Eggman hissed. He stepped back into the shadows and bent down to talk with his robotic minions. "He doesn't seem to know who I am. Perhaps I can trick him into a Roboticizer so I'll have a new slave of sorts, though it'd be a shame to waste such a strong cat."
Orbot shrugged. "Or perhaps we should trick him into helping us with our little Sonic problem," he suggested.
"No, that'd never work—hey, maybe we could trick him into helping us destroy Sonic!"
"It's almost as if he took the words right out of my mouth," Orbot's words were accompanied by an exasperated sigh. Whenever his ignorant master couldn't think up of an idea, he'd wait until somebody else said something, take their idea, and use it as his own. About a week ago, Orbot had gotten so tired of this practice that he had considered quitting for a nanosecond. But then he had remembered that it was Eggman who held control of his self-destruct button and not him.
Meanwhile, Eggman tried to walk towards the tabby in a friendly way, but the cat simply became skittish and scampered back. He had watched the little group huddle, and his finely tuned warrior ears had picked up snatches of the short conversation. The words that had interested him most were the words 'slave', 'trick', and 'destroy'. Besides that, although he looked quite a bit like one himself now, the tabby still didn't trust Twolegs.
"Greetings—" Eggman said, holding out his hand for the Mobian cat to shake.
"You said that already, you giant swan's egg," the cat hissed back, lifting his lips over his teeth. "And how can I understand you, anyways? You're a Twoleg, and I'm a cat, and—"
"I know you're a bit confused about where you are, what you are, and why you can understand me. My enemy, Sonic, did this to you. He switched your original form and made you look like this, intending to trick you into becoming his slave, to help him become the dictator of the planet. And in his files, I also found that if he couldn't trick you or you discovered the truth, that he would brainwash you. He's already tricked most of the world into thinking that he's good, and that I'm bad."
"Brainwash? What's that?"
"It's when someone alters your way of thinking, and what's right and wrong, so that you'll trust nobody else but them and do what they tell you to." Doctor Eggman shrugged. "Horrid thing."
"Hmph." The tabby snorted. "But if Sonic changed me, then where is he?"
"I'm part of a very small group that's trying to stop that wretched little hedgehog from becoming ultimate ruler of the whole planet. Before you woke up, I broke into his base and rescued you. Now, if you could help us defeat him, then I may be able to help you get your form back."
After a pause, Lionblaze spoke. "Alright. I'll help you. After all, that fiend may still have my friends…and my siblings."
"There were others?"
"Yes; seven of my Clan mates were around me when that weird green rock started glowing. I hope Sonic doesn't trick them into becoming his slaves…" the tabby murmured. Eggman mentally smirked; he had tricked this stupid cat into working for him!
"I would hope not! Seven friends, you say? There are seven special emeralds that we need to find. They have great power that could both help us find your friends and help Sonic gain control of the planet."
"Emeralds?"
"Yes, emeralds. Chaos Emeralds. They look like this," Dr. Eggman went over to the large computer in the room and pulled up a picture of the seven Chaos Emeralds. Immediately, the tabby's eyes widened. He stood up and touched the screen, pointing at the green emerald.
"This is that glowing green rock I saw! When we got too close, it shot this…this beam of white light into the sky, almost like the light of StarClan. Then there was this flash, and then everything went black…and I woke up here,"
"Sounds like Chaos Control to me," Orbot said, floating out of the shadows. The tabby screeched in fright and ran back to the table he had been on so that there was some sort of barrier between him and the robot.
"What is that thing?!" he hissed, unsheathing his claws and gripping the metal table so hard that it started to bend in where he grabbed it. His claws left furrows in the cold metal.
"That's one of my helpers. He's right; it's probably Chaos Control. It's one of the many abilities a Chaos Emerald has; they can warp things through time and space."
"So if I find another one, I can find my friends and get back home?"
"You got it!" Cubot exclaimed from behind the cat. The tabby screamed and jumped up so high that his claws ended up catching on the ceiling, which was a good five feet above his head. He clung to the ceiling in shock and fear. "Although, those shiny things are pretty hard to find. They don't like being close together; they'll scatter all over the place if they are."
"What are these things?!"
"They're robots. But Cubot's right about one thing; the Chaos Emeralds scatter after all seven are collected. And when they scatter, they're often watched by special guardians who would rather die than give up a Chaos Emerald."
"Tsk! They won't stand a chance against me!" the tabby said, letting go and turning in midair to land in a crouch.
"You sure about that?" Cubot asked, straying a bit closer. "I mean, you're just a little kitten!"
"Yeah, well this 'little kitty' just so happens to be the most proficient fighter ThunderClan can offer."
"Really? That's amazing!" Orbot gasped.
"Let's test you out, then! I've found the location of a Chaos Emerald. It's in one of Sonic's public bases, where he allows the public inside to see all the stuff that he stole. If we can get you there, do you think you'll be able to get the emerald?" Eggman said, typing away at the computer.
"Easy as catching a mouse in a thunderstorm! Sonic won't even know what hit him! But before I do anything, what's your name?" the tabby said, rubbing his hands together and licking his lips as if he was hungry.
"My name is Dr. Ivo Robotnik, but most people call me Eggman. And yours?"
The tabby stood, his eyes flashing. "My name is Lionblaze."
There you go! And now, prepare for the Authors Note!
I now have an Instagram account. Its anipwrites, like my account on here. I post pictures of my dog, drawings I have in my sketchbook, and snapshots of things I see on walks. So if you like me, follow me on Instagram (if you have one.)
Also, this story might be a bit of a long one, but I doubt it'll reach the 50+ chapter point. I seriously think the only stories that'll manage that would be Ask the Warriors, Daring Scourge, and any other reader-request stories I start.
Alright, bye!
~~anipwrites~~