Sonic Haven
Season 1 - Episode 4
"The Prisoner"
Julian kept his head held high as he walked through the wooden double doors and into the elaborate royal courthouse. The King of the Acorn Kingdom within which Julian resided had chosen to personally oversee this trial due to how incredible the circumstances surrounding it were. Now he'd have to look the King in the face and explain to him his plans, nay, his vision of society.
The officers on either side of him walked him down the central aisle and sat him down, yellow jumpsuit and all, into the chair behind the defendant's desk. Sitting across from him was Charles, a man he'd come to feel rather contemptuous for over the last few days, and his lawyer. Julian had no such lawyer as he'd decided to speak for himself. This was not a time to mince words after all.
The door in the back of the courtroom opened and King Maximillian Acorn came through dressed in royal blue and holding his brass scepter. He straightened his crown on top of his brown furred head and sat down, then looked Julian right in the eyes as the bailiff next to him announced the start of the trial.
"The great and honorable King of the Acorn Kingdom, Maximillian Acorn presides. May the truth come out and so shall justice be done unto thou." The second part of the declaration was a special addition that had been added centuries ago by Maximillian's forefathers as they felt it would stress the need for truth and justice to be served and not one's own self-interest. This was especially the case when the King himself was deciding the case. The statement was supposed to assure the populace that the King was not abusing his power to further his own ends.
King Acorn asked the question Julian had been waiting the last several days for. "Julian Nikolas. You have been charged with public endangerment and sedition. How do you plea?"
Julian wasn't phased one bit. "Guilty." Which was true, from a certain point of view anyway. He didn't necessarily see these as crimes when he'd committed them, more as necessary evils. He'd lamented the workforce and lack of assertiveness of the general populace, but didn't believe they couldn't be fixed. He was also proposing how to fix it, which was where the public endangerment charge came from. Though he saw this as a low risk, high reward option for fixing society, most people would not see it that way.
The King started the actual trial the following day and the prosecution pulled no punches. The radicalized statements came at him fast and furious.
"What were you planning on doing with those suits?"
"Using them to create a tireless workforce out of those who could not work."
"What would happen to the people in those suits?"
"They would be kept in a comatose state, being cared for by the internal parts of the suit."
"For the rest of their lives?"
"No, the suit can be removed by an outside individual quite safely."
"And you would do this against their will?"
"I was hoping they'd volunteer for the honor. Not to mention that they'd probably come out healthier than when they went in."
"An honor?"
"Yes. They would be part of something never before seen and accomplish things not thought possible before. Technology, culture, healthcare, security. These would all be improved by the robotic mobians."
"That's terrible! What do you have to say for yourself?"
Now Julian had a chance to explain his point of view, he'd been waiting all trial for this. "How can something that brings benefit to so many be considered terrible? I'm not killing these individuals, I'm essentially using them as a hired workforce to create a better society. Improving their health would be their payment." He turned and looked at the King. "May I present my case?"
"You may." The King replied.
Julian stood up and proceeded to walk to the middle of the courtroom. He addressed King Acorn specifically as he began. "Your majesty, right now in your kingdom there are hundreds of roads being rebuilt, dozens of buildings being erected, public parks in many areas, as well as several other things all of which need to be maintained or remodeled. Sometimes doing this work is dangerous or the workers hired don't do the work good enough. This is to speak nothing of the several departments that serve the public such as police officers, firefighters, EMTs, transportation workers, librarians… So on and so forth. All of these could be filled with individuals who would do the best possible job, have no problems while at the workplace, would not complain about what they were doing, and would be treated as if they were sitting inside of a clinic while on the clock."
He then turned to face the crowd and continued. "On top of that, all of these workers would either be individuals who could not already work, or would be able to leave the suit upon being released by a qualified individual.
"Roboticization is the way of the future, and it will bring about a society that shows it as such."
The trial went on for several more sessions over the next couple of weeks, but Julian's case never got any stronger. The prosecution tore him down and showed just how barbaric his proposed society would be. People in the back of the courtroom became incensed at his vision and started screaming insults at him.
During the final court session, in which the King would announce his verdict, the people were especially uproarious. One hedgehog who'd attended all of the sessions since day one had finally had enough and was scratching and clawing to get past the police officer standing guard in the courtroom so that he could throttle Julian.
The officer tried to calm down the light blue hedgehog who was maybe half his weight. "You need to calm down sir." He said sternly.
"Calm down?" The hedgehog asked in a mocking tone. "I can't calm down! My grandmother is one of the people that 'Robot Nick' wants to turn into mindless slaves! How do we know that they won't be used to do things against their will; like, say, take over a country?"
"Your question is a good one." Julian said in a low tone. "Though highly irrelevant. They could, of course, be used for such a thing. But that would never be necessary."
The officer grabbed the hedgehog, who still refused to take his seat, and started to drag him out of the courthouse. "You'll never get away with this you monster!"
"I'm not a monster." Julian replied in a calm tone. "I, sir, am a visionary. You call me 'Robot Nick.' Though you mean it as an insult, from henceforth I shall wear it as a badge of honor. I hereby request that from now on I be referred to as Julian Robotnik."
"It's been three months since the conviction of Julian Nikolas." The blonde newswoman began. "The same man who would later come to be known as Julian Robotnik, the shortened form of a nickname given to him while on trial. Since the trial, Robotnik has been serving his twenty five year sentence at the Oaktown Penitentiary. While there he was diagnosed clinically insane by the local psychiatrist and was put into solitary confinement for extended periods of time. As of this afternoon however, that all changed.
"Robotnik is now being transported to the Mobitropolis Maximum Security Prison due to rising concern from the public. Channel Four reporter Chris..." Her voice trailed off as Sonic lost interest.
He rolled his eyes. "Good grief, it's been three months and the news anchors still won't shut up about it."
"Well, what do you expect?" Tails asked with a shrug. "It's not every day that you hear about a real mad scientist."
Sonic walked across the gray carpet in his apartment and opened the window, taking in a deep breath of fresh air as he did so. He then turned back to Tails with a smirk on his face. "So, you ready?"
"For what?" Tails asked as he stood up from the small metal table and stretched, already assuming that this was going to involve running of some kind.
"You don't think I invited you over here just to hang out do you?" Sonic said as he tightened the buckles on his shiny red shoes.
Tails smiled knowingly. "Nah, I know you better than that. Where you goin'?"
Sonic pointed out the window to the city in the distance. "Mobitropolis. I was gonna go see the new Chao in Space movie. Figured you might wanna come with me."
"Are you kidding?" Tails said as he walked over to the door. "I love Chao in Space!" He chuckled. "I thought that you wanted to drag me all the way to Central City again."
"I do wanna go back, but not today." He reached into his small white refrigerator and tossed Tails a bottle of water. "Now come on, I'm buying and I wanna get there before they run out of popcorn." His tone was jokingly harsh. He did like popcorn, but he was mostly just teasing and Tails knew it.
"Alright, alright…" Tails held his hands up in surrender as they walked down the dusty staircase and out the front door of the apartment building. Sonic had a bad habit of dragging him wherever he went. Truthfully, he didn't mind, he loved hanging out with Sonic. But sometimes he was a lot to handle!
The best part about having Sonic as a friend was that he knew he could be tough to deal with and did everything he could to make it up to others, like taking them to the movies, even though he usually couldn't stand them. He rarely made it to the end of them, especially if they were more than two hours long. But he went because his friends, including Tails, who loved movies, wanted to go and he wanted to be with his friends.
So they took off down the street, out of town, and onto the highway that stretched from Knothole City to Mobitropolis. The day was perfect for a run; sun overhead, light traffic on the road, no crosswind which would knock Tails off track. As they reached the halfway point to the city, they also passed an armored car.
Inside the black vehicle were two human guards wearing gray shirts, black pants, and black caps that simply said "SECURITY" in bold white letters on the front. The guard on the passenger side turned to the driver and asked: "What's up with him?" Pointing to the prisoner in the back.
"Dunno." The driver replied. "He's been quiet all day."
Julian, who was seated in the back compartment and chained to the wall of the vehicle, could hear every word of their conversation. He smiled to himself. "You fools will get what's coming to you." He said in a chilling tone.
The driver turned his head to speak over his shoulder. "Is that so? I don't know if you've noticed what's goin' on here so let me clear the air for ya. You're goin' to a nice place where they'll take care uh ya an make sure you don't hurt anybody. It's gonna be nice."
"Say what you will." Julian grumbled. "But I'll soon be free. Then we'll see who's going to be taken care of."
"Last I checked you were tied to a wall." The guard replied. "How are you gonna escape?"
Julian smiled. "You have no idea what a literally tireless workforce can accomplish in just three months."
As he finished speaking, a dark shadow fell over the black vehicle, wrapping it in darkness. It couldn't be a cloud, it was too well defined and moved too much.
The guard on the passenger side started rolling down his window to take a look outside. "What's up with this? They didn't forecast a storm or anything." He popped his head out and looked up, then dropped his mouth open in shock.
At the same time, the shadow fell over Sonic and Tails, who also stopped and turned to face the eclipse. What they saw made them gasp in both astonishment and horror.
A long triangular shaped metallic object was flying through the air above the highway and blocking out the sunlight. Its smooth bottom split open and let out a steel tentacle that latched onto the back of the armored car and ripped it into the air.
"Tails, get to Mobitropolis and warn the people!" Sonic yelled.
Tails didn't respond, he just pointed in shock as the metallic arm dropped the car, letting it fall back to the ground. Sonic knew that if the people in that car slammed into the dirt, the impact would most likely kill them. So he wasted no time!
Reality seemed to start moving at a snail's pace as Sonic's enhanced speed and perception kicked in. He ran toward the falling car, jumped, then rolled into a ball and smashed through the passenger side window. However, his speed was going to carry him out the far side, so he stretched out his quills and used them to cut the seatbelts that were holding the guards in place. Then he broke through the driver's door, ripping the whole thing off as he was flung from the vehicle.
He landed as smoothly as possible, then quickly turned around and dashed back into the car, this time slightly slower so that he could rescue the passengers. He jumped through the hole on the driver's side and planted his feet on the seat across from him to stop himself and grab both
occupants. He knew that ripping them out the other side would have been just as damaging to them as crashing into the ground. So instead he busted the windshield with a violent kick and drug both of the guards through the newly created exit just as the front end of the car was beginning to compress from the impact. In doing so, he transferred the kinetic energy of the fall from vertical to horizontal in an arc that was certainly rough, but survivable.
He slowly came to a stop about fifty feet from where the vehicle had landed and dropped the two guards as they both tried desperately to keep from throwing up. He then turned to Tails, who was still standing there in disbelief.
The young fox shook his head to bring himself back to reality, then asked: "Wasn't that the armored transport that was supposed to be taking Julian Robotnik to the Mobitropolis Maximum Security Prison?"
"I think so." Sonic replied as he rubbed his chin in thought. "But he wasn't in there."
"Well then where did he go?" Tails asked.
Sonic shook his head. "Doesn't matter right now. We need to get to Mobitropolis, we can figure the rest out later."
Tails nodded, and the two of them started once again running towards the city in the distance.
Robotnik unhooked himself from the harness that had been fastened to the metallic arm as Snively stood in the doorway watching.
Robotnik growled at Snively once he finally got himself free. "Where have you been Snively?"
Snively tried to hide his fear. "You told me to wait for the right moment, so I did."
"At least we can finally get underway." Robotnik moved onto the bridge of the ship and sat down in the command chair.
"Are we taking Mobitropolis sir?" Snively asked with the slightest quiver in his voice.
"Indeed we are Snively." Robotnik said in his now iconic low tone.
"And once we're done, you'll help me find the rest of the Chaos Emeralds?" Snively asked.
Robotnik nodded. "As promised. Now, bring me up to speed Snively. And quickly; we have a city to enlighten." He watched the skyline come closer and closer as they made their way to Mobitropolis. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought that he could see a blue streak making its way down the highway ahead of him. But it didn't matter, not at this moment. After all, what harm could it be to him?