Iblis
The capsule had translucent red walls coated in a viscous polymer liquid. Purple LEDs covered with gel filters belched a chemical green glow onto the sleek walls, bleaching the room in nausea inducing light. A cross section of sleek metal pipes created a lactic work diagram on the ceiling. White mist poured out of the exhaust ports to fill the emptiness with thick fumes.
The grinding of great machines echoed distantly from behind the thin walls. Like the breathing of a great beast, the entire room groaned with animated energy. The wet, humid air only reinforced the sensation of having been swallowed by a monster and trapped within its fleshy pink bowels.
Clashing against this carnal drop back were the sleek, intricate machines that dominated the center focus. Mirrors were positioned in specific angles all over the room. Mathematically positioned, the reflective planes amplified the image of the central module.
Impressions in the ground allowed a small ring of shallow water to form about the machine's base. The base itself was a complex factory of circuitry packed into a compact box. Grooves within the metal connected to the legs of a chair made of hundreds of thousands of wires.
Emperor Ivo Robotnik lounged upon the summit of his vast intellect as if it were a throne. The oppressive lighting casted harsh shadows across his pallored face. His eyes were dark pits burrowed in a face swollen with fat. For pupils, he showed only small red blimps which seemed to glow in the darkness of the room.
Robotnik took in a series of shallow breaths. The air was so thick that it took several heaves for him to fill his lungs. Each effort made his chest burn. Robotnik wanted to wipe away the collection of sweat that clung to his forehead, but moving his heavy arms took too much energy. So instead, he leaned back further, turning his head slightly so he could look into one of the mirrors.
In the glass, he saw an oppressively fat figure laying half raised upon the chair of wires. Enlarged by the scattered reflection, Robotnik appeared like a gelatinous slug, supersized by sickness. His skin appeared sickly and green because of the repulsive light. His swollen face hardly registered as human.
Robotnik ignored these distressing signs and focused on the machine beneath him. A display upon the base showed forth the progress of the charging meter. 91%. Robotnik sighed and twisted anxiously on the chair. The movement appeared like the squirming of an upturned maggot.
The pain would be greater this time. Robotnik did not need Valom to tell him that. Robotnik's hands twisted. The involuntary spasms were fixtures of the ordeal. There was nothing he could do about them, his subconscious body was reacting with dread to what was about to take place. Robotnik could not dilute the pain with drugs or the amplifier would not work. He needed his senses at full capacity.
Almost on cue, metallic handcuffs sprang out of the metal base and coiled themselves around Robotnik's massive limbs. He winced as the metal pushed down on his skin. Swollen and bruised as they were, his wrists and ankles could hardly endure the lightest touch.
Tears welled in his eyes as he fought back the temptation to fling off his restraints. Not that he could. Now that the program had been initiated, there was no going back. Auto progression had been one of the first fail-safes that he had been forced to implement. When subjected to physical pain, no one, not even the strongest will could choose to endure it. Pain was the great destroyer. Therefore, Robotnik had to code in a switch that prevented him from terminating the program once he was locked in.
This did not prevent the buckets of anxious sweat from dripping down his body. Robotnik had always been fat, but his recent inflation had made his body almost useless. The faintest effort had him gasping for air, and he would break out into rancid sweat without warning.
His heart was racing beneath his chest. Strangely, Robotnik felt that the rhythm matched the beat of the generators that powered his device. Their constant drumming was what made the red walls tremble.
Robotnik had lost all control of his body now. His feet twisted incessantly while his fingers scratched at their metal cages. Every fiber of his physical being was in full panic mode. Sparked by fear, adrenaline surged throughout his body. Robotnik's stomach twisted into a painful knot as bile shot up his throat. His boils loosened and the smell mingled with the thick fog of the room.
He jerked his head and checked the mirror again. 99%. Click. Robotnik's back seized up as gears fired to life. A ceiling panel located directly above his head receded. Pink light burst through the foggy darkness as a metallic device, shaped almost like a crown, descended from the opening. Eidolon had twelve needle thin appendages joined to the circuit. The needles fit perfectly along the base of Robotnik's skull. He cringed back as the cold metal kissed his skin.
There was a brief moment of stillness. Robotnik's heart kicked into overdrive. Every nerve in his body tensed up. Suddenly, the needle-like arms started to move. Robotnik could feel them gliding across his head, searching for a smooth point of skin. Without warning they punctured through his skull all at once. Robotnik's jaw seized up as his body was flooded with pain. He thrashed faintly, his reflections all mirroring his movements.
The pink light intensified. Sol Gems were crushed, liquified and pushed through little tubes which connected Eidolon to the ceiling. Robotnik let out a faint moan of apprehension. The needles injected the fluid into Robotnik's head. The room went black. All of Robotnik's higher functions went dark. His arms jerked and his mouth hung open, but he could not feel or experience anything.
Darkness materialized into a sea of stars. Robotnik's mind traveled across space. He flew past a burning sun and watched as it slowly collapsed upon itself. A bright burst of light washed over him, and suddenly he was back on Arvana. The imperial city lay before him. He watched as its buildings rose and fell. New streets were implemented, a city of archaic preservation transformed into a city of the future. Ideas for better street design, for better travel, for better machines, raced through his mind. The information flooded him so quickly he hardly had a moment to take it all in. One second he designed a utopia, the next he was genetically engineering his own species.
Nothing was impossible. Robotnik was completely overwhelmed by a feeling of infinity. His knowledge swelled until it contained a world, a solar system, a galaxy, the universe was next ,and even that felt like just the beginning of his limits. Limit itself did not exist. It could not be fathomed. Robotnik was pulled from thought to thought. His mind could not take it all in, it had to frame it, make what he was seeing solid. A vast library materialized in front of him. Golden shelves languished under the weight of a million books. Robotnik opened one and saw that the book itself carried a library of books. He could fall through the pages, entering a never ending puzzle of knowledge. Yet, Robotnik was not intimidated. He felt that he could learn it all.
Something pulled against him. Robotnik's mind was turned and he allowed himself to be carried away. He returned to Arvana. His machines delved into the core of the planet. Great behemoths of industrial technology pulsed into the molten depths. Robotnik was pulled away again. He soared above the skies, above the heights of the imperial city.
There he saw it hovering in the orbit of Arvana. A great spherical orb, many times larger than the Space Colony Ark. Robotnik entered the space station. His mind penetrated through the metal walls, and entered the very circuits of the machine. Coherent reality melted away. Robotnik saw numbers, he could sense the interchange of thermodynamics, and the collision of individual particles. He saw the machine as it really was. Its complexity was beyond anything that he had ever made before, in fact, beyond anything that existed.
For that entire space station was but one living machine; Iblis. Thousands of times more complex than the human mind, it could not be created by a human. Fathoming its design required the intellect of ages, the very foundational knowledge of the universe. Robotnik peeked behind the curtain. His mind pulled back the fabric of reality, exposing the world of matter to reveal what lay beneath. He could see it all, second by second the full extent of Iblis was revealed to him.
But that vision was fading. As soon as he was aware of it, the world darkened. Robotnik felt himself pulled down a long dark tunnel. The knowledge that seemed so accessible to him a moment ago faded away. His restricted human brain could not hold on. Pressure built behind his temples urging him to open his eyes. He was about to give into that temptation when everything suddenly stopped.
Robotnik stood in an empty void. The ground beneath him was made of glass beyond which multicolored clouds swirled in a cosmic dance. Robotnik looked above him and saw a canopy of floating water hovering suspended in the air. The Firmament divided the void and the world beyond which seemed to contain the entire microcosm. Robotnik felt the ground beneath him tremble. The glass fractured and bent upward. Robotnik saw his own reflection staring back at him. He turned and saw that the image multiplied endlessly in every direction. He gazed back at his copy and turned his head. The reflection did the same, however, there was the faintest delay. Robotnik looked closer and saw that his reflection did not match him exactly. Its build was slightly slimmer and the eyes darker.
Upon noticing this, his attention was drawn away. Far in the distance, he saw one of his reflections vanish in a puff of black smoke. A paralyzing fear stole over him. Robotnik could not move or turn his head. One by one his reflections were swallowed by the darkness. Robotnik's fear swelled as the void started to shake. The sound of shattered glass echoed overhead, growing in pitch until Robotnik could no longer behold any other sensation. His reflection vanished, consumed by the dark shadow. Robotnik was alone in the void now. A tower of blackness loomed over him. The swirling mass took the shape of a devouring beast. It lunged towards him.
The red room slowly blinked into focus. Robotnik stirred. He winced as the needles withdrew from his skull. Sound and sensation slowly returned as the metal crown returned to its housing. The metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles unfastened. Robotnik braced himself as waves of pain washed over him. The cumulative sensations made him sick. He leaned over the side of his chair and hurled onto the floor.
For several seconds, he could do nothing but wait for the pain to lessen. He tried to recall everything he had seen, to pin down the specifications of the designs. This proved difficult as his mind kept turning back to the void and the wall of darkness. What had that been? In all his time using the device he had never seen anything like that before.
There was a harmonic hiss as the doors to the capsule opened. Industrial white light leaked into the dark expanse. Valom limped into the room. The owl made it three paces before he had to cover his mouth and nose with his wing. "Your majesty?" He croaked. "Are you alright?"
Robotnik found it difficult to speak. His tongue felt stiff and heavy. There was a strange sensitivity to his teeth that made his gums ache. "Your majesty?" Braving the foul odors, Valom came closer.
"I'm fine," Robotnik grunted.
Valom continued to inspect the emperor with a skeptical look on his face. "Perhaps you should go to the medical officer-"
Robotnik shook his head. "No, I must return to Arvana at once."
Valom's eyes flashed. "Does that mean- it is ready then?"
Robotnik leaned forward. The mounting discomfort threatened to make him hurl a second time. With a colossal effort of will, he focused his attention on the owl. "I must make a final adjustment, but then…yes, it will be ready."
Valom teetered from one leg to the other. "That's great! With the power of Arvana's sun your arsenal will be unbeatable. This is truly an accomplishment that will echo throughout the universe!"
The emperor did not smile. "Go and prepare for a jump. We will leave within the hour."
Valom quickly rushed to obey the emperor's orders. As soon as he had gone, Robotnik turned and spat out a ball of phlegm. He was shaking all over. Sweat and filth filled the insides of his clothes. It doesn't matter. His current body was just a vessel whose destination was now in sight.
Robotnik sighed and leaned back into the chair. Valom's concerns had not been without merit. Though he had survived this session, Robotnik knew he could not use Eidolon again. His body had already deteriorated to the point of almost complete paralysis. The strain on his body had been severe, far outstripping Robotnik's earlier predictions.
All his muscles had atrophied greatly because of the exposure to the liquified Sol Gems. This had led to a universal swelling of the emperor's joints. Robotnik had gained nearly a hundred pounds. His once slender arms and legs had turned into elephantine blobs of flesh. His feet were hardly recognizable and could hardly support his busted frame.
This damage to his physical body however, was nothing compared to his brain. Multiple tumors had formed within his gray matter. The effort of pulling out his consciousness had actually stretched the tissue, causing lumps and ball-like knots to form in his head. Robotnik had been forced to perform surgery on himself. His skull had to be broken open to allow for the expanding tissue. His fragile head was usually protected by a helmet. Now however, his head lay bare. A visceral fissure spread across the cap of his head exposing white bits of bone and brain.
It doesn't matter. Robotnik said again. The triumphant emergence of Sonic on Arvana had accelerated the emperor's plans, forcing him to drastically reduce the delays between sessions with the machine. This had made the side effects exponentially worse, but that was a sacrifice Robotnik was willing to make. His body just had to last until the device was ready. That moment would come soon. Eidolon had just given him the final piece of the puzzle.
With that hope in mind, Robotnik made a call for his assistants. Ten imperial science corp members arrived along with his floating Egg Mobile. It took the effort of all ten officers to move the emperor from his soiled chair and onto his mobile unit. Once he could move for himself, Robotnik withdrew to his private quarters.
Jormungand was the largest airship Robotnik had ever created. Specifically, one hundred times larger than the Egg Carrier, Robotnik's private quarters consisted of three distinct villas, and a bath house as large as a swimming pool.
The emperor parked his Egg Mobile outside the water and was lowered gently into the warm current. His new human servants helped rid him of his frayed clothing. Robotnik's eyes welled with fresh tears as his sensitive joints were submerged into the water. His servant girls could hardly stand to even look at his deformed, discolored body. Robotnik didn't care. Though they would never thank him, by choosing them for himself he had spared these prisoners from a far worse fate.
It took half an hour for him to be cleaned and robed in fresh clothes. Still weak from his ordeal, Robotnik prepared a serum which he injected into his arms. The drugs helped lessen the pain and sent warmth throughout his body. Robotnik covered his hulking frame in a regal purple cloak lined with white fur. He sucked in and held up his girdle with a silver belt adorned with sparkling gems. Lastly, Robotnik donned the Crown of Manre, the imperial diadem. The emperor had made his own enhancements to the crown by fitting Sol Gems into the grooves and adding a metallic cap that served to protect Robotnik's frail cranium.
Robotnik left his quarters and headed for the bridge. The size of Jormungand was such that it required mid level elevators to get around quickly. These bridges would move at super speed, allowing Robotnik to reach his command center as quickly as possible. He parked his Egg Mobile outside the doors and headed in on foot.
The doors slid open to reveal a dome shaped bridge with massive wall sized view screens. A walkway was raised over the dozens of mini consoles where the imperial pilots were stationed. The emperor's presence made all work come to a swift stop. All eyes turned to Robotnik. Arms were crossed over chests and everyone knelt. At the end of the walkway, overlooking the main view screen was Valom.
The owl knelt at Robotnik's knee. "Everything is almost ready. We can jump at your command."
The emperor waved his hand, signaling for all to rise. Valom shook slightly as his old limbs trembled from the effort. Beyond the viewscreen, Robotnik could see the smoke clouded ruins of Central City. He strode forward and placed his hands behind his back. A frown creased his lips. Conquering Earth had been too easy. His plans had been subtle and carefully implemented. Every contingency had been accounted for. Yet, despite this, Robotnik had not actually expected things to play out as easily as they had done.
Years of failure and defeat had soured Robotnik's spirit, sapping his bones of their vitality. Victory did not bring any remedy. As operations on earth hastened to their allotted outcome, Robotnik had waited for some sense of accomplishment or jubilation, but it had eluded him. Instead, he had been left with a heavy weight of emptiness. Earth had always been his birthright. It was only natural that Robotnik would return here, and make this the true origin and first capital of his galactic empire. He had imagined this sequence for years, dreaming and pining for its fruition. When it came, it proved a hollow victory.
GUN's defensive forces had surrendered as soon as Robotnik's command ship entered U.F airspace. The emperor had hoped that pushing Argus Smith so far would demoralize the military, but it had worked a little too well. Things had gotten so bad, that a battle had broken out between opposing factions within GUN, leading to the hasty destruction of the Eclipse Canon. When Robotnik's forces arrived, GUN was in no position to resist him.
Robotnik had been forced to scramble military communications and replace calls for surrender with A.I generated commands for last stand combat. Even as GUN's soldiers tried to lay down their arms, Robotnik's own forces planted explosives in the basement of Argus Smith's highrise, as well as other notable GUN strongholds. As the proxy battles grew desperate and GUN's defeat became certain, the bombs were detonated. The blast destroyed three-quarters of Central City, and it was all accredited to GUN remnants who would rather destroy their own homeland than surrender their power.
At this point, earth's populations and media had been so scrambled by misinformation and lies, they would believe anything. Even as Robontik's imperial armies launched simultaneous attacks on all GUN bases, Argus' conspiracy was leaked onto the internet. Chaos gripped the earth for three days, as the proxy war between Robotnik and GUN raged. Bit by bit, all the crimes of Argus Smith were revealed to the world. Protests erupted in every major city. World governments were torn apart as civil wars broke out in the nations that had colluded with GUN.
Using this smokescreen of chaos, Robotnik crystallized as the hero of the moment. He had revealed the conspiracy behind GUN and their desire for a new world order. His forces had managed to subdue GUN, preventing its armies from destroying more cities rather than face defeat.
When the three days were over, and the dust had settled, Robotnik's imperial armies had covered the world and subdued all the protestors and rebels. In a televised event, Robotnik brought forth the evidence against GUN. He showed the world the destroyed ruins of the Eclipse Canon and played the clips of Argus planning his map of world domination. With a heavy heart, Robotnik called for peace on the earth. Hundreds of thousands had died, but further fighting would only increase the bodycount.
Justice would come swiftly. Despite Robotnik's outward call for peace, he knew that the people must be satisfied with blood. Trials were held in every major U.F territory. Thousands were rounded up, some with connections to GUN, some were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It didn't matter. The masses just needed to see heads roll.
From here, the playbook was simple. Robotnik knew how to harness fear to control the public. He had learned that lesson all too well as emperor of Arvana. Though the stage was different, the lines were all the same. Perhaps that is why he felt no satisfaction now. Earth had always been his to conquer, Robotnik had always known that but had never been given the chance to prove it.
All that had ever stood in his way was Sonic and his brood of idiot friends. Robotnik had obfuscated the problem of Sonic by luring the hedgehog away from the planet. As for the others, GUN had seen to them. The bulk of the work had been done by Robotnik's puppets, but that could not be helped. He could not allow his own pride to get in his way now. Earth had fallen, but perhaps the cost was such that Robotnik would never get the satisfaction of having taken over it himself.
Conquest was his role as emperor, but Robotnik always thought of himself as a scientist first. His chest swelled as he looked down upon the flattened city. In his mind's eye, he could picture an industrial labyrinth that extended beyond the horizon. Within only a few short years, Robotnik could transform the earth into a living battery. The energy he would amass would be enough to power his more ambitious endeavors.
It felt appropriate for the earth to serve as the initial fuel of his conquest of the galaxy. Years ago he thought that he wanted to control the planet, but his time away had erased his sentimentality about the blue orb. Earth was not special after all, not on the cosmic scale. It, and its people were disposable. Instead, the earth would be consumed, transformed into pure energy and used to power Robotnik further along to his ultimate goal; an interstellar empire. Earth would die, giving its life for Robotnik's dream, a celestial oblation.
A faint smile pushed at the edges of Robotnik's mouth. He imagined himself in a hundred years. His empire would have already extended beyond the outer edges of the galaxy. The earth's sun would be encased in a dyson sphere, powering his intergalactic array of satellites and space stations. Robotnik's power would be limitless, and his intellect would have surpassed the cumulative knowledge of the universe. At that time, perhaps Robotnik would create the earth anew. Using his vast armada of tools and his keen understanding of microbiology, he would fashion a new world. Step by anxious step, he would ensure that this planet mirrored the evolution of the earth at every stage. It would be his pet project.
Robotnik turned away from the screen. "Take us back," He growled.
Valom hastened to relay the command. A chair descended from the ceiling and Robotnik mounted the captain's thorne. He felt the entire ship shudder as its warp cores ignited. Without warning, Robotnik was flung back into his headrest as everything zipped forward. The sensation lasted only a few seconds. Beyond the view screen, the ruins of Central City had vanished. Robotnik now gazed out at a sea of stars.
He rose from his throne and gazed out the leftward windows. There he could see the blue and green hued planet of Arvana. Like the earth, Arvana was dominated by oceans but with only three continents dotting the surface.
Hovering above the planet, concealed within a synchronized orbit with Arvana's sun, a colossal space station loomed up on the viewscreen: Iblis, the greatest and most advanced invention of Robotnik's lifetime. Its surface of fusion metals sparkled beneath the rays of Arvana's sun highlighting the intricate patterns of circuitry and shimmering panels. In a fitting compliment to his titanic intellect, Iblis dwarfed any human construction. A thousand of Robotnik's Death Eggs could have fit easily in the hangers.
Robotnik and Valom took a shuttle over to Iblis. The docking bay doors opened with a faint shudder as they landed. Within Iblis' vast corridors, the hum of machinery pulsed through the floor and walls, a testament to the ceaseless and innumerable operations that fuel Iblis' existence. Bio-organic A.I systems employed the full extent of their advanced systems into every facet of Iblis' operations, ensuring flawless efficiency and seamless integration of its functions.
Valom waited outside as Robotnik proceeded alone into the core. Red light bathed the white walls of the twisting corridors. His main laboratory was located in the direct center of the spherical space station. The room was divided into two sections, one black, one white. Massive terminals housing super advanced computer systems dominated the dark half. The flashing buttons of the various consoles flashed upon the ceiling as Robotnik walked past them. He stood in front of the glass wall that divided the room. White light bathed his visage as he gazed into the void.
The heart of Iblis existed in a state beyond ordinary definition. Though it appeared as though the room was merely an extension of the one beyond, the space beyond the glass was not definite. Like a scar in the fabric of reality, the white void tore through the mundane restrictions of time and space. It was not defined by either category, neither existing in a location nor subject to the passing of time. Despite the contradiction of its very nature, the void was not empty.
When Robotnik had discovered Sol Gems on Arvana he thought he had found the purest form of energy in the universe. The vital life force of a planet, condensed into gems of energy, which when used offered stupendous levels of power, at seemingly no cost. Or so, Robotnik had thought. The locals of district thirteen whined about legends of a vengeful deity who would inflict wrath upon the people if they abused the power of the Sol Gems. Robotnik had written these stories off as fables meant to scare society into stagnation.
However, his own scans of the planet soon revealed that there had been a grain of truth in the stories. As his engineers mined the planet for Sol Gems, seismic activity on Arvana increased. Geothermal scans revealed that something was responding to Robotnik's interference. This discovery completely shifted Robotnik's understanding of terrestrial systems.
Studying the energy at the heart of Arvana soon became an obsession. Robotnik had never imagined that planetary evolution could ever reach such a stage. The more he studied, the more Robotnik was blown away by Arvana's complexity. When Robotnik's machines punctured into the well of energy inside the core of the planet, something had responded. A defensive impulse, controlled by the conscious vitality of the planet, started to gather energy and store it away.
Leaks of this stored energy would explode out onto the surface in a rush of fire and sulfur. Robotnik's scientists detected an energy within the flames that far outstripped even the power of the Sol Gems. At last he understood. Aravana was not a dead pile of rocks floating through space, but a living organism. To defend its vital energies, the planet was preparing to unleash a cataclysmic flame that would purge the surface of all invaders. The process was similar to how the human body would cause a fever to burn out invasive viruses.
Of course the inhabitants of the planet never discovered this. Blinded by religious devotion and distracted by wars, they lacked the ingenuity to peer behind the curtain. Solaris was not a god, merely the impulsive drive of the planet to retain its equilibrium. The Flames of Disaster were not the consequences of imagined sins, but the natural result of disturbing the environment. Once Robotnik understood this, he had found the final piece of the puzzle. For no myth would be complete without the cunning serpent, without the trickster.
Unlike with most of their religion, the Thirteens guarded this final revelation with total secrecy. Dozens of priests had to be taken into Mesto's dungeons and unzipped for the full truth to be broken out of them. After many days of torture the truth had been revealed, the last figure in the pantheon of Soleanna, the dark rival of the king of Eternal Flame, the demon who had convinced the ancient people to abuse the Sol Gems in the first place; Iblis.
Within the white void stood a primordial black effigy, a golem with huge, clumsy limbs and fat, oval shaped head. Its crude facial features were carved amateurishly into the rock. The monument manifested the ghost of the brutish arts of early humanity. Upon its head resided a mechanical crown with needle sharp points. The golem served as Eidom's counterpart. Dozens of wires were attached to its crown and then fed into the floor connecting it to the wider system that made up the entirety of Iblis.
The white void shuddered. Something caused the room to tremble slightly every few seconds. Robotnik looked above the effigy to the thing floating far above it. An enormous human heart, layered with red flesh, beat without organs or body to support it. In the half seconds between beats, Robotnik could see the faint outline of a colossal being. Its body was made out of the void, with faint blue veins pulsing within it.
Robotnik had seized upon the discovery of Iblis with the full fervor of his intellect. Like Solaris, the legend of Iblis contained a kernel of truth buried beneath legend and religious drivel. In reality, Iblis was nothing more than a parasitic force within Arvana. It consumed the byproduct of the Flames of Disaster, feeding upon the very destructive energy Arvana employed as a defense of last resort. The two forces, Solaris and Iblis, were locked in an eternal dance, where Iblis would push the planet to the edge of disaster, so as to feed upon the energies that were released.
The emperor had studied Iblis intently, and by a miracle of science and engineering had turned that primal, alien-conscious energy, into physical form. However, he had not achieved his vision without much sacrifice. For the first time in his life, Robotnik had found his own intellect to be his limiting factor. He had all the resources he could possibly ask for, but he could not comprehend the nature of Iblis and Solaris, and the more he studied them, the more he felt his inability. The forces within the planet were far older than he was, and had reached a state of near perfect evolutionary achievement. If Robotnik was to cross that gap, he had to break through his mortal limitations.
His first attempt was to create a host of artificial intelligence systems to codify and process the intelligence data he was recording from Iblis. However, this proved impossible as the sheer scope of the data outstripped the computing power of even his most powerful units. This failure was what led to the creation of Eidolon. The machine mapped Robotnik's own neural networks into a cognitive augmentation matrix and joined it with the consciousness of Iblis.
Doing so brought about the severe risk that Robotnik's mind would be unable to handle the connection. Valom had warned him that the danger was simply too great, but Robotnik had not listened. He trusted that his mind, more sophisticated and potent than any computer, could endure the synthesis. Robotnik had been half right. His mind had endured, and the use of Eidolon allowed him to design the schematics of the physical Iblis. The unity of their combined intelligence surpassed anything in the known universe. What they had created together was nothing short of a miracle. Space, form, life, these were the elementary foundations of the universe, impossible to replicate, until now. All that remained was the final vital spark of energy that would reify his new creature.
That will come soon. Robotnik walked over to his main computer. Green light flashed upon his face as he plugged in the final calculations. Never before had Robotnik strayed so far off the established path of what could be termed usual science. His journey in Arvana had opened his eyes to whole new possibilities. The synthesis with Iblis had led to results that he could hardly understand. The white void, the golem, and the celestial heart, it was as if the concepts of his mind had suddenly been given tangible reality. He had been forced to shake off the constraints of his analytical mind, as he found that rational thinking could not interact with the primal instinct of Iblis. Never before had Robotnik poured more of himself into a creation. It had cost him his body, but all his work had paid off. Project Solaris was done.
Robotnik checked the console. The energy build up within Arvana was nearing critical mass. Soon, Solaris would unleash that energy to purge the planet. However, when that happened, Iblis would trigger and Robotnik's masterpiece would do its work. The Flames of Disaster would be absorbed and transmitted to the heart of Iblis. Then, once that ultimate power had been contained, Robotnik would step into the void. He would merge himself with the power within, claiming the energy for himself. The union would destroy his moral body and create him anew, transforming him into an immortal being with nigh unlimited power. His apotheosis would signal the beginning of a new universe.
Robotnik flexed his hands, he could almost feel the vigor of godhood at his fingertips. He allowed himself a moment to relish his achievement. Robotnik checked the computer one last time, to see when his day of victory would come. Seven Days.
Creek. The intercom chimed, and Valom's voice issued out of it. "Your majesty, we just got a report from earth. They've broken through GUN's security systems and we have the feed from the battle at the fortress….you will want to see this."
Robotnik grimaced. He felt a slight unease rise inside him. "I am done here," He answered back.
Back aboard Jormungand, Robotnik sat at his desk in his main office. He opened up his computer as the decrypted files flashed on the screen. Robotnik watched in mounting rage as the true events of the battle of GUN fortress were revealed to him. U.F's vice president had lied to him. There had not been a civil war amongst GUN soldiers. The true culprits behind the attack on the Eclipse Canon were the same insufferable pests who had stopped him so many times before. All of Sonic's friends were still alive. Worse still, some of Robotnik's own creations including Metal Sonic had allied themselves with Robotnik's enemies.
"Take us back to earth," He ordered as he returned to the bridge.
"Your majesty," Valom stammered. "Mesto has reported that the princess of the Thirteens is ready to enter the city. I thought you intended to treat with her-"
Robotnik cut him off. "Tell Mesto he will have to handle the negotiations on his own. Make sure he understands that he is not to make any aggressive moves without my say so. We must return to earth straight away."
Valom bowed and hastened to obey the order. Robotnik mounted his captain's chair and flexed his hand. Despite his wrath, he felt a strange sense of relief. He would have his chance to personally avenge himself against those pests afterall. The emperor would take immense satisfaction in parading the corpses of Tails and Knuckles in front of Sonic. But first he would need to reestablish control of his old empire.