Work Text:
When the bells of shame have faded
And I remain reviled
Let vengeance roar for blood and war
Behind a scornful smile
“Stone!?” Robotnik called, looking for the misplaced rock on which his pareidolia had superimposed the features of his henchman. He’s well aware of that fact, but he is also extremely bored. So projecting onto the rock occupies him briefly, distracting him from true madness. Only slightly perturbed (it isn’t like his heartrate is elevated or he’s sweating with nerves because he’s worried it is lost), he searches his base camp for the elusive chunk. “It’s a rock, for sediment’s sake! It’s not like it grew legs and left!” It would never leave. Just like its namesake. Robotnik very quickly forces that invasive thought from his mind.
At last he finds it under a large, low mushroom head that had turned towards the rising sun, obscuring the rock from immediate sight. Robotnik picks it up, turning and orienting it to his preferred imagining of where the face is. “Sleeping in are we!?” he snarks. “Einstein forbid we actually get to work so I can get off this cess-stool!” he grouses as he tucks the offending lump of gabbro under his arm. The rock placidly takes his aggression. Not at all as satisfying as when it’s directed to someone who reacts. This was not a lesson Robotnik was expecting to learn in his forced solitude. He had long preferred machines for the explicit reason that they lacked responses other than those he programmed. But apparently having power over something was even more satisfying when the thing in question was aware it was in your grasp.
Robotnik had been happy working for the government. They gave him funding and lab space to create to his heart’s content. But they had also owned him, dictated what he could create with precious little extra to pursue his own projects. And thus when he gets back, he plans to be the owner instead.
He had no illusions of what his homecoming would be like. The government had likely appropriated his files, effectively deleting his existence. All his precious work was probably confiscated, doled out to incompetent hands in various departments per protocol. That dithering Smith in R&D (HAH! A shadow of Robotnik’s dedicated branch) probably couldn’t wait to get his hands on some of Robotnik’s toys.
Thus had Robotnik’s list of priorities been created:
- Get off this spore-tacularly hideous planet.
- Find his agent who probably knew where to:
- Find his property (he’d better!).
- Take revenge on the hedgehog.
- Develop his tech without government interference in order to:
- Take over the world.
Possibly several worlds, now that he knew about interstellar travel that he wouldn’t have to invent himself. He gnashed his teeth at the thought of owing that little nugget of information to the space eulipotyphlan.
The vow, the kin, the rival
A vision violent, vile
These questions three have haunted me
Since I was but a child
As Robotnik worked, the background of his mind continuously turned over his to-do list. He fantasized about all the ways he was going to visit ruination on that bioluminescent beastie. Much like he had the bully in elementary school. His glorious mustache curled as he thought of that buffoon. Like any other bully, the boy had tried to increase his standing among his peers by picking on the loner. Robotnik had no family or friends, and he never paid it any mind. It was inconsequential to his life’s plans. But apparently to young children (or humanity in general), anything Other is to be feared and ridiculed.
The bully (I never cared what his name was) started with mere taunting. Robotnik tried to tune him out, focused on his latest gadget. The bully wasn’t satisfied with that, so he had grabbed little Ivo’s shirt, forcing him to make eye contact. Wanting to just be left alone, Robotnik had muttered something about inbreeding being the source of the neanderthal’s genetic code, which had earned him the first and only black eye of his life. Until Thomas, that is. Maybe he needs some good ol’ revenge too, but I digress. The point of the reflection is that the bully challenged Robotnik’s world view. And it was not to his liking. And so his life goals were tweaked to be in alignment with also making sure his world view was forced to his specs.
The hedgehog is the first since that bully to upend his worldview so. But Robotnik smiled with glee as he fine-tuned his make-shift tower, readying it for the power source provided by said hedgehog. The creature had been the instrument of his banishment but was also the key to his triumphant return.
So much I have lost and so much I resent
My spite became the steps upon the stairway of descent
The beacon was finished, his preparations were in place. It was time to take back his life. He was positively giddy as he connected the quill and started the next stage.
Let it all burn down around us
Let the cruel consume the just
Let the sin we swim in drown us
Let the world shatter
Into dust
Nothing else matters
Only us
He better have my latte ready, Robotnik thought as the blast threw him from the platform to the spongy earth below.
***
When kings have long been buried
When vows have long been lost
When the night brings fear then the lion’s tears
Shall fall on fire and frost
Agent Stone looked at the readout on the laptop. Everything was coming together.
The last time he’d seen the doctor, he’d been zipping him up into his flight suit and watching him launch the prototype pod. He had remained with the mobile lab, monitoring the events through various sensors Robotnik had installed on his pod. He watched as Robotnik got pummeled by a glowing blue wrecking ball, and his heart lurched into his throat as he saw the pod from the same perspective as Robotnik slide backwards past a golden circlet and then the feed cut off. Robotnik was gone, and Stone couldn’t breathe.
The day after Robotnik disappeared, Commander Walters summoned Agent Stone to his office to bluntly deliver the news that everything Robotnik left behind was to be packed up and put into storage until it could be decided who and where would get it.
“Sir, doesn’t the doctor deserve some benefit of the doubt that he will be back?” Stone had asked, trying to hide his irritation at the commander’s and the government at large’s presumptions. “After all his years of loyal service?”
Commander Walters’s face hardened. “Robotnik went rogue in his pursuit of the creature.”
“He was following orders!” Stone said, getting a little heated, filtering his full response to only about 10%.
“And caused untold collateral damage in the process!” Walters growled back. “He’s a rogue element, and if he ever manages to return from wherever it is he went, he will be treated as the highest threat to national security.”
Stone’s kneejerk reaction was to argue (honestly maybe more than that), but then he had a thought, all but confirmed by Walters’s next statement, so he kept a tight hold on his demeanor, pretending to acknowledge Walters’s order.
“Your last duty as his assistant will be to bag and tag every piece of his labs, both the large facility as well as the mobile one. You will codify and collate, you will close it down,” Walters ordered, secure he had regained control of the situation. “In the meantime, Robotnik’s records will be scrubbed. He will cease to exist.” Stone’s heart stopped a moment. “Afterwards, you will be reassigned. You will sign an NDA and disavow any knowledge of the person once known as Ivo Robotnik.”
With that, Walters dismissed him. Stone had kept his face neutral and agreed to the orders, his mind abuzz by the time he walked out of the office, making plans. As the only one who knew the doctor’s resources, Stone’s last task in his current position would be to organize and execute said packing and storage. That also meant he was the only one who could preserve the doctor’s legacy properly. It was the realization that had forced his mouth shut when he had wanted to argue with Walters further. In the end he had to agree to help dismantle what the doctor had left behind because it was the only way it could be reborn when he returned. WHEN he returned, the agent further emphasized to himself. On his way back to the lab, he was already formulating his plan.
Luckily the doctor had several data and equipment backups of which the government was not aware. He needed Robotnik’s and his laptops to organize the data bundles and coordinate the packing and storage, but then they would be the last pieces of equipment turned in. Until then, he put them to good use.
He followed the instructions Commander Walters’s assistant had relayed to him, setting up the government-contracted movers who would be crating the larger items and boxing up the rest. They were destined for a confidential storage site, but once Stone got the tracking materials, he used the laptop and the logging program to set up his own program on a cloned machine the doctor had prepared for just such an emergency. Everything was tracked by computer chips with IDs, so he programmed the chips to generate new numbers of his choosing about a month after they would be first scanned. He should have an appropriate location to rehome them by then. The government can’t do anything quickly (except erase a person the moment they become inconvenient, Stone thought sardonically), so it would take a while for them to go through the inventory and decide how to redistribute Robotnik’s assets. By then it would all be long gone. Stone grinned sharply to himself at the thought. It would be the proverbial middle finger he had so longed to give Walters in his office.
After everything was packed and gone, Stone tendered his resignation to Commander Walters, citing some inanity about burnout. Walters tried to counteroffer, but Stone adamantly refused. After all, he had bigger work to do. Walters still made him sign the NDA about Robotnik’s existence, but Stone didn’t care. It wasn’t like he was going to be around anyone worth talking about the doctor to, and when the doctor returned, maybe Stone could make Walters eat the NDA.
This hopeless doomed devotion
The poison that I crave
I jilt the new to return to you
Endure you till my grave
And I’m no man of honor, my guilt runs dark and deep
My oaths betray each other till there’s nothing left to keep
Once the government had finished its investigation of Green Hills, it was completely off their radar. By the time Stone was able to find a suitable location to set up shop, they had moved on like the greatest mind of their age hadn’t been ripped away from them. In the aftermath of the damage to downtown San Francisco, the government completely obfuscated the facts. True, it wasn’t as though any cameras could pick up clear images of just what was happening, and similar videos posted around the world generated a plethora of conspiracy theories, but the government took no responsibility for anything. They came up with some lame cover story for the events and moved on, finding something else with which to distract the masses.
After retrieving the doctor’s tech from storage with the modified codes, he was able to store it across several of the doctor’s safe houses. Luckily Robotnik had never fully trusted the government. Stone used some of the tech from the mobile lab to set up his surveillance of Green Hills, hiding it in his new coffee shop. When the doctor returned, he would need to know what the hedgehog had been up to, and he would need his tech ready and at his fingertips. He was not on the doctor’s level, but after working with him for several years, Stone could manage this much. After all, they say it only takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, and Stone had cleared that in the first three years with the doctor.
All that aside, Stone needed to be close to the last known whereabouts of Robotnik. He tried to investigate the area where the pod disappeared, but his skills or the tech just weren’t up to the task. After all, he was dealing with a number of unknown variables. Even a genius like Robotnik couldn’t prepare his tech to deal with a scenario in which he was banished through an interstellar portal. Although logically Stone understood the limitations, he couldn’t help feel like he wasn’t doing enough to help the doctor get home. He was spinning his wheels in this backwoods Podunk.
There were also drawbacks to being the new stranger in a small town like this. There was no end to “nice folk” wanting to know all about him. His polished appearance was anachronistic among the rustic backdrop. Besides the sheriff’s wife, he was probably the only other minority in the whole town. Half the reason he did such good business was due to looky-loos who came to bother him. He treated them all with a polite, demure attitude, letting none of his irritation show; it would only work counter to his plans.
As the months went by, the strain became harder and harder to bear. Stone didn’t have any photos of the doctor. He practiced his coffee art to fill the void. As he stared down at his work forlornly, his reverie was shattered by a spoon violently mixing up the drink. Tossing the spoon down with a muttered “freak,” the customer took the cup and went to sit down. Ah yes, there were also those types in this small town. Stone had gotten a modicum of harassment from folks like that. Luckily no one had physically threatened him yet or he’d have to blow his cover by putting them in their place. He just resolutely wiped the counter clean while thinking that wasn’t even your cup, jackass.
As he replaced one of the drip coffees, he ruminated on why he felt such loyalty to Robotnik. As an orphan himself who had also aged out of the system without being adopted, he had no familial ties. When he learned Robotnik had endured a similar situation, he immediately understood a little more where Robotnik was coming from. He was set apart from humanity by his keen intellect, had probably had that distance shoved in his face on multiple occasions, and thus internalized it, forcing others away so he could be in control of the outcomes. That realization was the moment he started to consider himself truly Robotnik’s aide as opposed to a government goon. He saw how the government officials treated him like a dangerous toy, something to show off to politicians and private investors, but something to keep at a distance lest it explode. That had suited Robotnik just fine, but it had angered Stone on his behalf. They truly had no idea what an asset they had. Robotnik deserved to have someone in his corner for a change. Stone’s shift in attitude must have been apparent in his work, because gradually Robotnik started allowing him inside his inner orbit. He was the only agent, for example, allowed to ride along in the mobile lab.
And thus it was a no brainer when he left his government job and moved out here to the sticks to set up shop and a vigil. And yet, Stone looks around the coffee shop and wonders if he is doing the right thing. His loyalty to the government had been deeply conditioned. But that all changed when they betrayed the doctor. He knew where his loyalties laid, but with each passing day he questioned whether he was doing it all for nothing. Could he endure another eight months, a year, several years behind this counter? His hope was being strained, and he started to wonder if he could set up remote surveillance here. But if the doctor had to return to the point where he disappeared, Stone needed to be here. However, he wondered if his soul could last that long.
And then the message came.
Let it all burn down around us
Let the cruel consume the just
Let the sin we swim in drown us
Let the world shatter
Into dust
Nothing else matters
Only us
“I have to close early! Everybody out! Thank you for visiting the Mean Bean!”
***
And they will raze our towers
And spit upon our names
And the ravens black over the fields of ash
Will whisper our tales of shame
The death egg toppled, taking Robotnik and Stone with it. Stone awoke amidst the rubble just in time to see one of the nameless soldiers investigating the debris come around a corner. Stone ambushed him, stealing his uniform and stashing the body.
The doctor wasn’t far from him; he was lucky to find him before the grunt did and radioed it in. His heart lodged in his throat at seeing the debris crushing Robotnik. Stumbling, he desperately lurched forward to heave the steel off the doctor’s chest. He gently picked him up, tears blurring his vision as he desperately checked for signs of life. A faint wheezing met his ears, and he was able to calm himself down and reenter soldier mode to assess and prioritize. The doctor’s body was mangled, but leaving him here wasn’t an option. As carefully as he could, Stone lifted him into a fireman carry and extracted him from the devastation, getting as far away from the searching goons as possible before finding somewhere safe to hide Robotnik outside of their search perimeter. Then he went back in.
Watching the soldiers crawl over the doctor’s brilliance like ants filled him with anger. Hearing them talk about Robotnik like he was insane had his finger itching for the trigger of his borrowed gun. But he forced himself to calm down and took immense pleasure in hearing them incorrectly guess that Robotnik was gone once and for all. Apparently they didn’t care about confirming with a body. Sloppy. He couldn’t wait for them to find out how wrong they were. Having heard enough, he made his way to the vehicles, climbed in, and drove away and around to where he had left Robotnik.
So let it all burn down around us
Let the cruel consume the just
Let the sin we swim in drown us
Let the world shatter
Into dust
Nothing else matters
Only us