Dead Metal [Archie Sonic Friend Insert]

[Small Nerd]

I love Bead Worm and look forward to seeing more of him.

 

[Rise Shine]

I was not expecting to love the group chat segment as much as I did, which is saying something when I already expected to love it a lot.

 

[ThatOtherSatori]

Bead Worm is surprisingly entertaining. no clue what they were trying to say with all the emoji towards the end, but hey. (I generally assumed most of their exclamations prior were just interjections along the lines of 'Uh-huh.' 'Yep!' and 'Yeah! You tell 'em!')

 

[weredrago2]

This following information is copied over from SB, where Argidoll made a post on the members of the Super Badnik Group Chat:


For those of you that are curious, here's the roster of the Super Badnik Group Chat.



Davy Sprocket, Henchbot, originating from the same era as Sir Ffuzzy-Logik. He's a crack shot and a real veteran, the only Sub-Boss that has personally tangled with Sonic and survive, if often in pieces. The Henchbots are already well on the way out, as can be seen by Ffuzzy-Logik's decision to go out with a bang. He's doing well enough up in Sand Blast City (turns out a punch clock attitude does a lot for making sure the workload feels light), but everyone knows that the day he's sent off to a nice farm to rust is looming on the horizon.




The High Sheriff, the only canon Robian to be given an actual command position. Formerly Armand D'Coolette, an esteemed general of the Kingdom of Acorn, the High Sheriff has, bluntly, been sent off to rot on foreign soil. Because he's a roboticised enemy with a shell personality installed, Robotnik isn't very eager to give him a strong power base (all the forces he has in the comic are literally just Robians he's wrangled into wielding weapons, which, considering your average robian is basically a zombie mentally, isn't great), and as a result Mercia's Badnik Horde is chronically underfunded. The fact that this lets the local freedom fighters run circles around him because he just doesn't have the forces necessary to catch them is slowly driving the former general stir crazy.




Downunda, like actual Australia, is a resource gold mine, and Crocbot is the brain in charge of pulling it out and sending it where Robotnik needs it to go. The continent is actually pretty vital for fueling the empire's eternal war machine, and Crocbot is accordingly surprisingly clever, despite his outlandish, brutish persona. Too clever apparently, since (and the SI would have no way of knowing this) the Sub-Boss has secretly gone rogue, and is plotting to take over as soon as he can get out from under Robotnik's thumb. He's actually knows his way around machines pretty well, and has developed a device that reprograms any Badnik he puts it on to serve him instead of Robotnik. It takes the form of a bush hat and it gives any machine under the effects an incredibly thick aussie accent, becuase this is Sonic, but it's genuinely impressive. It'd be a pretty good showing, if he uh, didn't get bumped off by Tails, who was, at the time, eight. So round one of taking over the Empire didn't go so well.

The second time, he sent Robotnik a suitcase nuke that would have wiped Robotropolis off the map if it'd gone off.

This is all in the future though, so who knows if that will actually happen in this story. Still, it turns out Crocbot's threat level is actually pretty high, even if he is a goober.




If Crocbot is a thug who's not as dumb as he seens, Octobot is exactly what you get on the tin. He's a brute, an idiot, and a coward who despite being a Super-Badnik with an entire army behind him fails to clear top 5 scariest things in the ocean even if you don't count the Fourty Fathom Freedom Fighters (4F). There's Eel Capone, the the oceanic clam super-hivemind Mother-of-Pearl, Aklut, leader of the "fucking evil psyker orcas that compel people to jump into the water so they can eat them" (weredrago2's exact words), and a handful of random superweapon monsters left behind at the bottom of the ocean from the Forgotten War.

So Octobot's woefully underequipped in every way for his job, but as long as the ships run on time Robotnik probably doesn't care.




Bead Worm isn't a character from the comics, but instead comes from the game Sonic Chaos as the Master Robot of the Gigalopolis Zone. In the game, his gimmick is he throws his segments at you as sonic-sized bouncing projectiles. Unlike the other members of the group chat, Bead Worm is only about as smart as a dog. A dog that can take selfies mind you, but he doesn't really have a good grasp on what he's actually doing most of the time. Bead Worm's actual purpose per our interpretation is as essentially a living control tower. While the 'higher consciousness' vibes, the bulk of his computer systems exist as a complex supercomputer designed to make the routing bombings of the Overlander survivors in the former nation's former capital go off without a hitch. The survivors are trapped in a fully automated hellscape that is slowly but surely narrowing down the space that's safe to exist in, allowing Robotnik to ensure their extinction without having to waste any further time actually plotting their demise.

= = =

And bluntly, yes, if Metal Sonic were to fight any of them straight up the outcome would be measured in seconds. Some of them are clever enough to pull tricks and extend that timer to minutes, and real combat has a chance to be way more chaotic, but it turns out 'can keep up with Sonic' automatically puts you way above most conventional weight classes.

= = = Argi's post ends here.

Bead Worm is surprisingly entertaining. no clue what they were trying to say with all the emoji towards the end, but hey. (I generally assumed most of their exclamations prior were just interjections along the lines of 'Uh-huh.' 'Yep!' and 'Yeah! You tell 'em!')

Click to shrink...

Bead Worm is Bead Worm. What he is saying is an enigma, but he's sure saying it.

Here's an uninterrupted version of Bead Worm's ASCII selfie. Look at him go!

【¡_⌒_¡】
【⦿vv⦿】
<【_⧲_】
【_⧲_】>
<【_⧲_】

 

[Small Nerd]

Bead Worm's actual purpose per our interpretation is as essentially a living control tower. While the 'higher consciousness' vibes, the bulk of his computer systems exist as a complex supercomputer designed to make the routing bombings of the Overlander survivors in the former nation's former capital go off without a hitch. The survivors are trapped in a fully automated hellscape that is slowly but surely narrowing down the space that's safe to exist in, allowing Robotnik to ensure their extinction without having to waste any further time actually plotting their demise.

Click to shrink...

This is so metal, I love it almost as much as I love Bead Worm himself.

 

[KillerFish]

Bead Worm is living his best life.

 

[weredrago2]

Porto Leone had seen better days. The old glories that marked it as the capital of Leonus still stood, mud-brick citadels rising high above the dusty savannah floor. Robotnik hadn't seen fit to tear them all down, but in the past decade, the city walls have been dwarfed by another presence. Factories of steel, great and gleaming, curled around the sandstone streets, looming over the mobian medina's faded architecture.

Life in this place existed in the shadow of Robotnik's takeover, but there was still life yet. Mobians scurried about the city's firmament, heedless or inured to the looming presence of the mechanical threat. Big cats, gazelles, warthogs and meerkats. All manners of creatures. Near the border between the historical district and the new developments ceded to the badniks, I could make out two white rhinos walking in the road; a father and a daughter.

"Daddy, daddy, look!" the child called out, breaking into an exuberant, unsteady run towards something on the ground.

"What is it, dear?"

"It's a flower!" the child called out, reaching down to pluck a blue-stemmed violet from the ground.

The rhino man crouched down to take a look.

"That's a rare one you found."

"It's so pretty. Look, there's more over there!"

There were more flowers in an unkempt corner of the industrial area, on the other side of the allowed zone. An oversight that had yet to be corrected by groundskeeping robians that made their rounds across the metal-plated walkways.

The man knew the rules, and could read the signs, but his daughter was innocent to the consequences of trespassing. Everything not a part of the old city was territory that King Leonus ceded away years ago. None of it was under their elderly liege's jurisdiction, and to go there would abandon any fragile pretense of safety that the medina guaranteed them.

Crossing the line was taboo. Eyes met my own gaze, tinted crimson through the display.

"We should be heading back. It's getting late."

"But it's not even noon!"

"Come along, now."

"Okay," she said dejectedly, unaware of the danger.

Back on the Flying Battery , I sighed. A Surveillance Orb was hardly the best way to see what was going on out there, but I was designated as a top-secret project. Leaving the ship for a casual stroll around town wouldn't do at all.

(It wasn't that I cared personally, but sticking to the letter of my orders was useful as a cover in case someone decided to push.)

Blinking away the feed, I looked down to what I was actually doing. The gear I'd pulled from one of the Flying Battery's propellers was apparently an important one, seeing as the turbine had stopped spinning. I examined it carefully, before tossing it off to the side for the Technosqueeks to claim.

(What happened to that wasn't my problem.)

Reaching in further, I pulled out what I was actually looking for. The propeller's central motor, still sparking from where the wires had been disconnected, spun fruitlessly in my grasp. I shook the excess oil off my talons before sequestering the device into a compartment in my chest.

Checking the list, it seemed that was the last piece needed for the time being. I pulled open one of the airship's many vents, and dropped down into the Flying Battery's bowels.

Catwalks, loops, springs, badniks, flame vents. The Flying Battery was built to kill, but by this point, just by running laps around the ship, I'd become familiar enough to know the place inside out.

(Better than some actual homes I'd lived in. Having a permanently built-in map helped.)

Crossing from one side to the next was a trivial thing, so I took the chance to get a couple circuits in, making sure to skip past the magnetic ceilings. I'd gotten caught on them more than once these past few days. Without the Ring Spark Field to futz my polarities, I would have been stuck indefinitely until Snively retrieved me. And wouldn't that have been embarrassing?

As I zoomed past the scrap heap, one of the reconstituted Ball Hogs from the Casino Night field test gave me a wave.

>Time elapsed: 44.03 seconds.

Not bad. I screeched to a halt next to a particular bulkhead, stopping just short of the proximity mine that was always laid there. As I pushed open the door towards Section 17, I couldn't help but look again at the one beside it.

With my access level, I should have been able to go anywhere on the ship. Should have. If this weren't one of Snively's personal airships, that might even have been true. In reality, there were dozens of places, tunnels, storage rooms, crevices conspicuously missing from the Battery's official schematics, that were sealed off with an encoding entirely separate from Robotnik's networks. Whatever secret weapon Snively was working on, it was something he didn't want me (and just as likely his uncle) to know about.

(In theory, I was playing with fire by letting Snively keep his secrets, but actually blowing it up would have the added problem of more Robotnik's scrutiny on me. It was a delicate balance between the two of us.)

(What a pain. I couldn't wait for it to be done with.)

Making my way down the tunnels, I passed by a group of SWEEPbots in the midst of trying to wrench an unfortunate Crabmeat from the dent in the wall it'd been embedded in. Distracted as they were, I'd already passed them by before they realized and hurriedly saluted the air behind me.

The Motobug responsible for the scattershot of parts littering the alleyway revved a growl at the janitors, but held back from breaking the janitorials for their disrespect.

(Or whatever perceived slight the bloodthirsty motorcycle was angry at today. Experience had taught me that Iacomus liked being mad. Maybe he felt a constant state of road rage kept him sharp.)

I waved my hand, and the augmented Motobug slowly wheeled around, giving one last glare down the hall before following me into my abode.

"Welcome back, boss!" Egg Robo 2424 shouted cheerily, waving about what appeared to be a light bulb on a stick.

Suddenly, the contraption flashed. With a loud zap, a brilliant bolt buried itself into the ceiling, causing the lights to flicker. Under the giant bulb welded onto the base of Ffuzzy-Logik's laser trident were a cylindrical thorax with four wiggling legs and a round head that stared blankly at me.

>Identifying…
>Badnik Identified: Hotaru. \\ Firefly-based lightning discharger. \\

"Finally figured out the trident, I take it?"

"Yep!"

"By sticking a lightbulb on it."

"Any sufficiently-advanced lightbulb is indistinguishable from a trident!" she unexplained.

"I imagine the stabbing part will be a bit more interesting," I noted.

"Stab?" she echoed, mulling over the conundrum of stabbing someone with a lightbulb. "The Hotaru's beam emitter should be able to pierce as well as the original laser trident did."

"And what happens when it runs out of charge?"

"The old trident's tines were too fragile to be suitable for stabbing targets, so you'd have to wait for the laser to recharge again."

I blinked.

"Really. What's even the point of making it a trident then? Don't answer that."

She lowered her raised index finger.

"Understood, sir! Exposition rescinded!"

"Feel free to send me a write-up later if you'd like."

"Affirmative!"

I shook my head in amusement, pulling out the various pieces of junk I'd collected from the ship on my outing, placing them down atop 24's workbench.

"Here are the parts you needed. Anything else, you'll need to negotiate from the Technosqueeks."

"I will exercise caution, boss!"

"Hopefully." I took a closer look at the various gizmos and computers that 24 had set up. "How fare the other projects?"

24 showed me what looked like a half-constructed computer with an attached antenna and travel strap. Next to it was a black brick of plastic covered in buttons and knobs.

"The portable scanner is almost completed, and the modified transceiver is already done!"

The latter project was relatively simple for her to assemble, once I explained what I was looking for: A two-way radio that could receive the same signals that Snively's could, and transmit them if I ever needed to. The more important project was that scanner, which would be necessary to determine not if, but where Robotnik put the failsafe bombs inside my body.

(I'd seen how Ffuzzy-Logik had died. If a Henchbot warranted a failsafe like that, then the personal project shaped like Robotnik's most hated nemesis? For all I knew Robotnik had put in a nuke just to make sure 'priority one' didn't make it out either.)

"See if you can get it done as soon as possible."

Before I could ask if there was anything else 24 needed, a ping went off in my HUD.

>New Message from: Snively
>>Subject: Next Mission.
\\ Your next test has been prepared. Come to the bridge when you're ready to receive it. \\

Honestly, it was about time. It'd been a week now since we'd landed, and Snively and I'd been fairly content to leave each other to their own spaces. Either the test he was working on was even more intensive than the Scrapnik Horde fight had been to set up — doubtful — or Snively had simply filled his holds as much as he could do so with Leonus' tithes. As a result, we hadn't seen each other or even communicated at all since landing. It'd given me space to enact my own plans, at least.

Hmm.

It occurred to me there was a possibility that my strolls across the ship were being taken as a sign that I was getting stir crazy.

(If so. Oops.)

"If you have any other requests, text me. I have business to deal with."

I refocused my attention on the Egg Robo in front of me, who'd already dived back into her current endeavor. The badnik was alternating between blasting chunks out of the wall with the trident and pointing the thing directly into her eye while she tweaked the settings.

"Okay!'

24 hadn't made many requests besides what she needed for the job, but I suspected once she learned what hobbies were, she'd pick up something. Maybe collecting.

(I'd like to see that.)

Zzzap!

(...If she made it that far.)

= = =

"This test of your skills will be different from the last two."

I was back on the bridge, where Snively was being much more forthcoming with how he wanted my training regime to go than previously. I was already getting suspicious.

"In what ways?" I asked.

"The first was a measure of your baseline against Robotnik's combat machines Sonic took down himself, and the second was to examine how well you'd fare against multiple opponents. With the horde commander coordinating what was otherwise a chaotic mob into something you were forced to fight more tactically against."

The bridge's main display changed, from a view outside the city to a map of the outskirts. Zooming further out, I could see a target outlined not too far away from Porto Leone.

"We've received intelligence from Robotnik's Rebellion-Associated Terrorist Sabotage program that a nest of Freedom Fighters has been set up near the Kingdom of Leonus. You have authorization to check out any material from the Flying Battery's stores to wipe them off the map."

If I were organic, I'd have gone still. As it was, I stood there for a few long seconds, going over the details of the assignment. The details of the terrain. The profiles of the potential Freedom Fighters, the odds that the Kingdom of Leonus itself was funding it, all those variables, clicking in place like beads on an abacus.

(...)

"No."

Whatever Snively was expecting me to say, it wasn't that. His left eye twitched.

"What?"

My eyes glowed, and a small holoprojection of a particular memory played in Snively's face.

"After all of the effort I put into his new improvements, I will not have the surprise of Metal Sonic's return be wasted on a half-baked search and destroy mission in the Great Forest!"

I paused the playback, letting the image of Robotnik's growl hover next to Snively's nose for a moment before speaking again. "I believe we all but received direct orders to keep this operation secret. I see no practical difference between this operation and the initial proposal that Dr. Robotnik rejected."

"His concern was that the surprise would be spoiled when you were unveiled against Sonic," Snively finessed. "This rebel camp is on another continent completely. The most trouble they'd give you is with their extreme gear, but the chances of anyone getting away to warn him are practically nil."

I closed the hologram, leaving Snively staring directly into the crimson glow of my own eyes. "Extreme gear."

>Searching Eggnet for: Extreme Gear
>Loading…

Snively changed the screen again while the Eggnet was taking too long. The display split three ways, showing wireframes of a hoverboard, a flying bike, and a weird, horseshoe-shaped craft.

"They're high-speed personal vehicles. The Armada developed the technology and held on to it as a jealously-guarded secret for generations, but deserters and other rogues have been spreading it around. They serve as the fastest way to traverse the Efrikan continent, for the various bandit gangs infesting the deserts and Freedom Fighters alike."

Given the lack of specific models to work from, the 'average' specs given for these vehicles were all over the place, varying from fairly expected of a vehicle in some cases to supersonic in others. None, I couldn't help but note, were faster than me.

"Why do I have subroutines for these?"

"Robotnik wanted you to be prepared in the unlikely, but not infeasable event that Sonic challenged you to a boarding race as an alternative to the standard foot race. For similar, if less likely concerns that they might be necessary, he had me program subroutines for a variety of summer and winter sports so that you'd be able to prove your superiority in all of them."

"Is that why the Egg Robos have hockey teams." I mused.

"IED hockey makes the air transit not seem as long, but we're venturing off topic."

"Are we?" I snapped.

(I had to play this carefully. I could feel my processors speeding up, going a mile a millisecond.)

"This exercise is inordinately risky for what it may teach. If these Freedom Fighters have Extreme Gear, then there is no reason they would not have access to communications technology. The chances of trace exposure are thus almost guaranteed, particularly since there are still indeterminate weeks before my first proper deployment."

I couldn't quite keep the bite out of my tone there, the undercurrent coming out as a metallic growl beneath my words as I continued.

"Weeks in which other Freedom Fighters could investigate and risk exposing my existence before the time is right. This is not Robotnik's direct territory; our control is incomplete. The Kingdom of Leonus has no incentive not to cooperate with Freedom Fighter organisations behind our backs, and the existence of the NICOLE entity means Sonic's team could conceivably trace any sightings of me through our own systems. I imagine they would be on the lookout for another 'Metal Sonic', even after the first model's disastrous deployment."

It was rare for Snively to dig his heels in on anything, but here, now, he did. Was it this specific group of rebels that he needed wiped out, suggesting they were more dangerous than he was letting on, or did he just need me away from the Flying Battery?

"You're blowing their capabilities out of proportion. By all assessment, these are backwards yokels who have been hiding in the mountains for months. They've only recently decided to use what scant mobiums they could cobble together to splurge on vehicles that stand no chance against your speed. You'll have to get used to picking off live targets eventually, and this is the perfect opportunity."

(I pulled myself back, circling the core of black ice that erupted within my head. Picking off live targets, he said.)

(What did he think I'd been doing until now?)

"Is that what this is about then? You—"

We were cut off by a siren blaring. The bridge screens switched to dozens of Surveillance Orb perspectives on the city again, as the ancient gates of Porto Leone were torn down by a heavy hovertruck. The vehicle made a sharp turn and skidded to a stop outside of a crumbling building. From the top, the back, and from the opening it made, an outpouring of grizzly bears in leather armor tore their way into town on custom hoverbikes.

I pulled my talons away from Snively's throat as both our gazes turned to focus on the feed.

"It seems the Bear Pack are feeling daring today," Snively murmured, one hand massaging his neck.

>Searching Eggnet for: [Bear Pack]…
>Answer: \\ Warband of grizzly bears that terrorize Efrika. Known for using ramshackle extreme gear bikes and chain weaponry. Rivals to the Nasty Gang of hyenas. \\

The bear bikers raced past the medina, impeded only by the occasional pedestrian they swatted out of their way with fists and chain flails. They hooked their chains onto whatever they could steal from the industrial zone, prioritizing the egg-shaped storage capsules and anything else that looked valuable at a passing glance. I could outpace them easily if I was out there, but Robotnik's standard lineup was too slow to take down all of the raiders. A few of them were shot down and crashed into stands and market stalls, spreading more havoc in the city to cover the escape of their peers.

They were in and out in a matter of minutes.

"The Bear Pack and their ilk usually aren't so suicidal as to attack one of our assets directly," Snively pondered. "I have to assume they saw the Flying Battery in the docking bay and assumed our Robotropolis-bound cargo made the risk worth it."

"Apparently not enough to strike the ship itself. Do we even have anything they could have used on board?" I responded, like I hadn't almost killed him moments ago.

"Some weapons, a few vehicles. For the most part, the stolen goods would only be useful as scrap and salvage. Turning on most of the stored badniks would only get them killed."

I didn't have anything to say to that, staring into the feed at the damages.

>Estimating Casualties…
>> [3] Badniks destroyed, [17] Badniks damaged, [11] Civilian casualties
> Recalculating…
>> [2] Mobians unsalvageable for roboticisation.

"We'll need to make a reprisal, of course," Snively continued. "To be honest, I was looking for an opportunity to present my uncle some heads on a platter after the whole Power Gem debacle."

(It was an out, I recognized. Snively wanted something to keep Robotnik at bay, and unlike with the Freedom Fighters, nobody was going to miss a couple upstart gangbangers who rode herd where they shouldn't have.)

(It'd just mean more killing.)

"Duly noted. Do they need to be intact?"

(It wasn't anything I hadn't already been doing.)

"It's… a figure of speech," he clarified.

"It doesn't have to be," I responded in turn.

Taking Snively's silence as the tacit acceptance it was, I began walking towards the exit. "I'll need some sort of disguise for this. Ideally one that works against any satellite imagery in addition to whatever scanners might be watching."

(Between NICOLE and the United Federation, the excuse was almost sound.)

"I should have something tailored for you within the hour."

"Contact me when it's ready. I have my own preparations to make."

= = =

"Hello again, sir!" 2424 exclaimed, waving exuberantly from behind her console.

Looking closely at it, I could see the parts of what were once a capsule container sticking out underneath the pile of wires and circuitry. It'd taken her days to put it together.

(Scraped together from pieces of a prison. Poetic.)

Iacomus, for his part, was in docking mode, one eye lazily watching my trajectory as I picked my way over to the centre of the mess.

"Hello, 24." I stepped carefully over a power conduit, making my way closer to where the Egg Robo was working. Her attention had been captured by the monitor she was attaching to her latest project. The scanner, it seemed, was almost complete. "Work going well?"

"Yep! I've al…most… got it!" 2424 held up the device triumphantly. The scanner was a horizontal handheld with a ruddy red paint job. In the center of it was a fuzzy, curved screen, flanked by buttons and switches on both sides of the display. The top had a cartridge slot that was filled by the radio tuner 24 made for me. "There we go! The all-new, all-different 24 Electric is online… for three to five hours of active use, but that's only for this prototype!"

The lights flickered. 24 scratched her head, sheepishly.

"Hmm. Probably shouldn't charge it and the staff at the same time. Then again, maybe if I install another power strip into the power strip…?"

"Allow me," I said, grabbing the stave off the charging port before she could reach it. I spun the weapon around experimentally, feeling the peculiar balance of its composition.

"Unfortunately, it seems like my next mission has been decided," I said, a hint of hesitation worming its way into my tone. I carried on, making sure to keep my eyes fixed upon the Egg Robo as I spoke. "In about an hour, I'll be off the ship, and unable to keep watch over you."

Left alone, Iacomus was dangerous, but if Snively set himself towards an investigation, the Motobug wouldn't be able to guard 24 indefinitely, even assuming that 2424 herself didn't have any override commands built into her that Snively could pull on. Everything she'd done under my orders was incriminating in one way or another. Signs of insubordination, or worse, weakness, that Snively could leverage against me, that Robotnik could use to justify a full wipe.

"I'm grateful for everything you've done for me. It's been a pleasure working with you, these past weeks. You as well, Iacomus, in your own way."

The Motobug snorted hard, exhaust burnishing trails in the air as it watched me closely, rumbling off of his charging port and circling between me and the one I'd set him to protect.

"You know, if I was going to be dismantled today, I'd be dismantled happily!"

(Hah. I was going to miss the company.)

Now, how did I want to do this? It's probably best to start with…

"Iacomus," I called out, flexing my talons as I pulled open the command override function on my UI.

"Hold still."

= = =

>Command Override to: All SWEEPbots, Sector 17.
>>All janitorials to Storage Room 17-C.
\\ Remove all traces of the bodies for incineration. \\

= = =

\\End Chapter Sequence\\

Spoiler: >>RUN: AUTHORS' NOTES

Argidoll: Playing games within games. But not hockey. Just never felt like it. Especially with all the explosives Snively made the Egg Robos use as the puck. It's an interesting puzzle, reconciling little details that Weredrago2 pulled out from the earlier parts of the series and fitting them into a more cohesive tone.

Weredrago2: Oh, 24. We're gonna miss you.

The numbers for the Egg Robos weren't picked by accident. In the case of 2424 and 573, they're both goroawase, a form of Japanese wordplay in which the numbers can be read as different words, phrases, or symbols. 573, for example, can be read as "Ko-Na-Mi," the game studio famous for being gutted to produce pachinko machines. 2424's goroawase equivalent is none other than Puyo Puyo, tying Egg Robo 2424 to Mean Beans because she was the Agent Stone to the Metal SI.

86 just got 86'd. In the business, we call that five-second foreshadowing.

This chapter has been brought to you by Argidoll & weredrago2! For previews, updates, and miscellaneous ramblings, check out the W2 Workshop Zone Discord server.

Beta Reader Credits: C-Moon!

 

[The Chilly One]

Well… that's kinda dark. Watched.

 

[IndustrialVice2]

Well… that's kinda dark. Watched.

Click to shrink...

Yep. Hopefully he's "just" faking their deaths in a particularly gruesome fashion, but still grim.

 

[Xvolts]

I mean, it's entirely possible that he smashed them up, ripped out their AI cores for later reconstruction.

Alternatively, it's a sick way for metal to both metaphorically and literally kill off the ties he has to the empire.

 

[Small Nerd]

"I would have thought the Doctor, given his inclinations, would have simply built a superweapon to annihilate any ability to counterattack."

Snively turned, giving another knowing smile.

"Who said he wouldn't? Why, he might be working on it as we speak."

Click to shrink...

I just noticed this. A superweapon to annihilate opposition, huh? An... ultimate superweapon, perhaps? I wonder.

 

[weredrago2]

Storeroom 17-C was, for the longest time, the storeroom that was never used. When the Flying Battery's schematics were procedurally generated, the storeroom had been set in that coordinates more to fill space than serve a specific purpose. Sandwiched between two core power conduits and the primary Eggnet terminal, there were too many essential systems on every side to risk boring a hole into the ship's structure and connect it to anything useful, but leaving the area unused would have added too much excess weight to the design. The end result was a so-called storage room that was about as far away from anywhere useful in the ship as was physically possible. Most of the badniks stationed on the vessel didn't even know it existed, and the ones that did mostly used it to hide contraband until it could be fenced off.

Then Metal Sonic had set up shop there, and there was even less reason to loiter around the area. In a matter of weeks, the super badnik went from a complete enigma to a terrifyingly known variable. The only lingering question was when the pin on the walking grenade would be pulled.

It was all moot now, of course.

"Looks like a bomb went off in here," Egg Robo 563 complained, poking the slagged remains of the door with a wrench.

The inside of 17-C wasn't much better. There were scattered electronics and machine parts across the walls, floor, and ceiling. A portable Eggnet terminal, disassembled by claws that could move faster than bullets. A personal workshop laid in ruins. A tattered, shredded mattress. Enough disassembled badniks to open up a side hustle, scattered in pieces all over the floor.

"Tell me about it," one of the SWEEPbots muttered, only for a laser blast to skim just above the janitorial's steel-chrome skull.

"No backtalk," 563 grunted, knocking the gun barrel against the side of the menial's dome-plate.

Egg Robo 86, the other technical badniks sent to analyze the scene, picked up a stray fragment off the ground. It held the serial number for one of the victims: Egg Robo 2424.

The primary forensic Caterkillers slithered up to the carcass of a dismembered Egg Robo, his cheap trench coat covered in dust and frayed ends from being dragged across the ground.

"This was the work of a top-shelf model," the badnik monologued. "Real killing machine."

Another Caterkiller crawled up the side of a trash cylinder and retched used fuel oil and loose screws inside of it.

"Is he malfunctioning?" Egg Robo 86 asked.

"Worse," the seasoned Caterkiller autoforensic answered. "He's a rookie."

The rookie Caterkiller was filtered out of his profession by the trash chute's automated incinerator. A passing SWEEPbot pushed him the rest of the way into the tube.

Ignoring his partner's ignominious death, the autoforensic wriggled his way upright, carefully so as to avoid dislodging his hat. He set his face to a grim expression, leaning down to let a passing SWEEPbot light his cigar.

"In either case, I think I have this whole thing kicked wide open."

"You do?" Egg Robo 86 inquired.

"I theorize… it was Metal Sonic."

His brilliant hypothesis was met with dead silence. 563 considered the merits of partaking in some murder himself.

"We already knew that," 86 rejoined.

The Caterkiller wriggled his trenchcoat into a loose approximation of a shrug.

"Well, that's all I'm here for."

He fell back over and crawled away into an unmarked chute.

"Mister Autoforensic, that's not the right—!"

"Go run a scan or something. Lord Snively wants the analysis in his inbox before his dinnertime."

"Why do we even keep him around?" 563 grumbled, glaring as the Classic Badnik fell screaming into the auxiliary incinerator. "Oh, never mind."

86, for their part, returned to fiddling with a handheld console.

"I've got a reading. Says it'll take a while to process."

"Great. More time for IED Hockey. Just hand it off to…"

Egg Robo 563 paused, looking at the nameplate in 86's hands.

"Drat."

The Egg Robo scratched his mouthplate, the finest of Snively's engineering working double-time to decide out the best way to blow off work, before ultimately deciding on betrayal.

"Well, it's your scanner. Meet you at the rink when you're done."

563 jetted off without waiting for an answer, leaving 86 blinking in the dust.

86 looked down at the console in their hands, then over the remains of the room. Then they shoved the handheld into the arms of the nearest SWEEPbot.

"Take this to Lord Snively in ten minutes!" they ordered, before jetting away themselves.

= = =

Loading Bay 2 was a mess. What was once row upon row of silent capsules and pristine vehicles had been overtaken on both sides. On one end was a barely-organized pile of raw materials, barrels of oil and pallets of metal shoved in as tightly as possible. A handful of Egg Robos buzzed around, tying down the more precarious bundles of embezzled goods before the whole lot went up in flames.

The other side of the room had been refurbished into a makeshift salvage operation. The efforts to process the unexpectedly large number of surviving Refurbishniks from Casino Night was now weeks overdue, and was increasingly becoming the short straw on job lots for the ship's crew.

Egg Robo 86 hovered into the overstuffed hangar from the opposite direction of Storeroom 17-C, towards one of the Egg-O-Matics in rotation. The Egg Robo at the desk gave them a wave as they checked in their tag, before turning back to a conversation with the other badniks on duty.

"I just can't get a read on the guy," a nosy Burrobot gossiped to his peer.

"It's the lack of a mouth," the mandibled Crawl theorized. "Makes it hard to judge expressions."

The Burrobot scratched his nose drill as he pondered the thought.

"Couldn't imagine playing against a poker face like that."

Floating to the other side of the desk, 86 filled out the checkout form for the Egg-O-Matic themselves. The vehicle was due to drop off a storage capsule full of new parts and a repair badnik to an Eggnet node in the Rainy Savanna region.

"I get the murder part, I just don't get why he's always going around in laps?" a scrapnik Ball Hog commented to the reject next to them in the refuse pile. "Is he looking for something? He's a Sonic, right? Do we need to make a sacrifice to get him to stop?"

"He's trying to beat his time attack score," a Motobug with a spring sticking out of his back explained sagely.

"His what?"

The Motobug didn't have a neck, so one had to assume he'd shake it disapprovingly if he did.

"You wouldn't understand."

Placing the form neatly into a scanner, the Egg Robo 86 nodded, before making their way towards their assigned Egg-O-Matic for the day, the assigned cargo having already been conveyed beside it. They fastened the heavy chain connecting the storage capsule to the hovercraft, checking to confirm that the gravity engine was tuned to account for lugging the extra weight.

"Hey, when are we getting transferred back to Lord Robotnik?" a Batbrain sticking out from the insides of a Jaws (the back end, surprisingly) asked.

"Don't tell him," a tired looking Newtron said, in reaction to a Shellcracker that raised their claw.

"I wasn't gonna!" the crab badnik said defensively, before she crumpled the Newtron into aluminum foil.

The repair Egg Robo paid no heed as they went about the Egg-O-Matic's pre-flight checks, even as a particularly friction-laden dispute between a pair of machines on different rungs of the authority ladder rose above the din.

"You want me to @%#*ing sweep?!" the scratch-covered SWATbot Commander screamed at the Egg Robo in front of him.

"Yes," the Egg Robo said testily, not bothering to look up at the redesignated squad leader. "Also, your voice-box is malfunctioning."

The former SWATbot's hands went to his throat, and he proceeded to run through a litany of child-unfriendly phrases in an attempt to find one that wouldn't be grawlixed into submission. Unable to beat the censors, he let out a buzzing sigh of defeat.

"...Where do I start, sir?"

"Find some obscure nook or cranny to shove the broom in, I don't care."

In the most direct display of malicious compliance 86 had ever witnessed, the refurbished SWEEPbot started their new assignment by plunging the broom's plastic shaft straight down the Egg Robo's mouth port. It wasn't a clean kill, but it was definitely fatal.

"THAT'S IT!" the now definitely rogue SWEEPbot screeched, etching a new line onto his faceplate. "I'M OVERDUE ON MY TALLY, AND YOU'RE LOOKING SCRATCHABLE!"

"Defect!" one of the security Egg Robos shouted out, pointing a blaster at him.

The AWOLbot was faster, and flipped open his wrist guns to perforate every Egg Robo moving to intercept him. Which was why Egg Robo 86 continued on their assignment as normal.

"THE TALLYMAN COMES FOR YOU!"

Humming a tune to themselves, 86 pulled the Egg-O-Matic's hatch closed. Climbing inside the cockpit, they sealed the window shut right before the cackling SWATbot outside got them next.

"Whew! Busy day today," the Egg Robo exhaled.

They buckled up their seatbelts and flipped on the vehicle's soundproofing, right in time for a blaster-bolt to bounce off the windshield and back into the Tallyman's visor.

"[SUBTITLES UNAVAILABLE]", the SWATbot swore, the specific words unable to be picked up by the captions from the Egg-O-Matic's digital display.

It wasn't clean or fatal, but his accuracy marginally decreased with the loss of his head. The Egg-O-Matic lifted off regardless, sailing past the swarm of Buzz-Bombers that smelted the Tallyman with a hail of plasma balls.

The spheroid hovercraft lifted from the metal floor of the deck and went flying out into the hazy blue skies above Porto Leone. Rising past the city's skyline, the citadel looked evermore like a nest of ants, far away and beyond concern. Even the Flying Battery, crouched over the city like a parasitic jellyfish, seemed evermore distant.

They looked back at everything they once knew, before sliding open the window of the vehicle just enough to toss 86's tag out of it. The badnik fiddled with their voice modulator for a couple of seconds until it went back to her normal tone.

"Golly! Faking our deaths was way easier than I thought!"

"Grph," was Iacomus' elegant reply.

"It's not so bad! For a second there, I thought the boss was going to have us both taken apart!"

The autopilot engaged the autopilot and turned towards the back of the vehicle. 24 reached over to the Egg-O-Matic's back seat, swinging the egg-shaped child seat around to reveal Iacomus' severed head. Next to him was her new lightbulb on a stick.

Iacomus, for his part, just glared.

"Don't be like that! The rest of your body is in the capsule, so I can put you back together when we're at Rainy Savanna, good as used!"

Iacomus glared harder. It was an angry, lidded expression, promising vengeance as soon as he had properly moving parts outside his mandibles.

"Iacomus, you know that I can't give you a cigarette until we land," 24 said. "You need Class 4 authorization to smoke inside a vehicle."

Iacomus' eyes remained affixed on hers. 24's resolve broke first.

"Well, we are still assigned to Metal Sonic, technically speaking and he has Class 2 authorization. You think that should be good enough to count?"

Pulling open the glove box, 24 blanched at the single half-used carton left behind by the previous occupant. Delicately, she pulled out a single cancer stick, lighting it with the vehicle's charging port before placing it delicately in Iacomus' mandibles.

"Just one, alright?"

Iacomus' glare lightened under the sweet nectar of carcinogens, and 24 sighed in relief as she turned back towards the console. Gloved fingers drummed the steering wheel as the silence stretched on.

"..."

"..."

"How about some tunes!" 24 decided, pulling out the radio module from a storage compartment and shoving it into the dashboard. It only took a bit of fiddling to tune the device to the nearest United Federation signal.

"Can you see?
The sun is shinin' on me.
It makes me feel so free,
so alive!
It makes me want to survive!"

Iacomus didn't verbally object to the music.

As the Egg-O-Matic left Porto Leone to the horizon, spatters of rain began to splash atop the windshield. The Rainy Savannah area, 24 knew, was notorious for its constant thunderstorms. Even the Flying Battery had to go extra high to avoid the region, lest the electric buildup fry the airship's engines inside out. A lone Egg-O-Matic might be blasted to dust with a large enough bolt. Local specialty. If they got hit, they were goners.

"And the sky,
it makes me feel so high,
The bad times pass me by
'cause today
is gonna be a brighter day!"

"I should bring us down before we get struck by lightning!" she exclaimed.

"Can you feel the sunshine?
Does it brighten up your day?
Don't you feel that sometimes
You just need to run away?"

With no response but for continued puffing of Iacomus' exhaust ports, she followed her own suggestion, pitching the Egg-O-Matic's flight path closer to ground level. It meant having to swerve around azure acacia canopies, but it was better than getting stranded out in the savannah in a broken hovercraft. Especially now that there was no one who'd be able to pick her up.

"Reach out for the sunshine
Forget about the rain
Just think about the good times
And they will come back again"

"You know, I never thought I'd be assigned a field mission!" 24 stopped to consider what she said. "I guess it never happened, but this is close enough, right?"

"Feel the sunshine…"

Iacomus didn't have anything to add to the conversation, so 24 continued talking.

"Without you,
there's nothing for me to do
Can you feel the sunshine, too?
It's comin' through,
it makes me feel brand new"

"Since I came off the assembly line, I've been working on one odd job or another on the Flying Battery. Shoveling coal into the ship's engines, sorting pieces of used metal and plastic for repurposing, opening automatic doors, target practice—!"

At Iacomus' confused expression, she clarified.

"As the target. It was one of the only times the other Egg Robos let me participate in the games they'd play to pass the time. Having fun is illegal, but Snively likes to bend the rules on a lot of stuff. So we just follow his lead! I was just happy to be included, and I think that's why I wasn't very popular on the ship." The rain pattered across the Egg-O-Matic's bubble. "For looking happy."

"When you're here,
I wish you were always near
'cause everything's so clear
And today
is gonna be a brighter day"

The oncoming rainfall intensified, causing 24 to reroute engine power to the windshield wipers.

"It wasn't all bad, though! I wasn't invited to any of the ship's sports teams, but they always made me make the bombs when they played IED hockey, so I had a lot of experience with repurposing explosives! Never worked with one rated to terminate a super badnik before."

"Can you feel the sunshine?
Does it brighten up your day?
Don't you feel that sometimes
You just need to run away?"

The capsule thunked against one of the trees, causing Iacomus to honk his horn in alarm.

"Sorry!"

She ascended slightly higher.

"Reach out for the sunshine
Forget about the rain
Just think about the good times
And they will come back again"

"Where was I?"

Iacomus sent her a geotag.

"No, not that! Something about a super badnik…? Oh right! Metal Sonic! Everything changed when I met the boss! Metal Sonic wasn't like Snively at all! Or any of the Egg Robos that told me what to do all the time! He… wasn't needlessly cruel and unusual because I was an available target! I don't know what you call that, I'm sure there's a word for it somewhere!"

"When the sun goes down
I feel like I am waiting
For another day
When the clouds go away"

A distant bolt of white took the top off a far-flung tree. Iacomus paused between puffs of nicotine, before sending a confidential data packet through the Egg-O-Matic's systems.

"Nice?" she read aloud, sounding out the word. "Ni~ce? No, I don't think that's right, but thanks for trying."

Iacomus rolled his eyes.

"Can you feel it?
Ooh-hoo…"

"Can you feel it?
Oh…"

"I'm really glad to have met you and the boss. If it wasn't for you two, I don't know what I'd do with myself… except maybe invert the ship's roboticizer and destroy everyone in a fiery explosion so I can finally be included in a group activity FOR ONCE."

"Can you feel the sun—?"

A blinding flash of lightning enveloped their optics, followed by a deafening boom of thunder, and then, silence.

"Uh oh, it looks like the radio module still has some bugs to work out. Anyways, I borrowed the boss' passwords to skim Doctor Robotnik's top-secret weapons designs, and I'm thinking of converting this Egg-O-Matic into an Egg Inferno. What do you think?"

24 turned around, and saw that Iacomus had dropped his cigarette.

"I'll get it!"

She stuck it back between his mandibles. They were extra twitchy, making it harder to keep the thing in place. 24 assumed it was from withdrawal.

"You have to be careful about these. You'll start a fire!"

= = =

The Rainy Savannah Node was, by all metrics, a dump. Even to 24, who hadn't seen much of Mobius outside occasional glances from the Flying Battery's windows, it was obvious the place was barely kept above falling apart. It was already a redundant relay, which, coupled with Efrika's lack of hedgehog-shaped threats to force regular repairs, meant the place was of the lowest priority. Whereas most nodes had concrete walls surrounding the radar tower, this one had a rusty chain-link fence. Indeed, rust seemed to be the watchword for the place, the constant rain the region was infamous for mercilessly corroded any exposed metal. This included, 24 noted, the relay itself, which poked sadly above the tower, rain pooling on its dish and pouring into the tower's gutters.

It was, technically, to specification, barring a few lightning rods jammed haphazardly into the tarmac. It was just also the saddest emplacement 24 had ever seen. If the relay was a badnik, it would've requested a reassignment to the trash compactor.

"It's perfect!" 24 declared.

One of the lightning rods had the blackened remains of a Crabmeat tied to the end of it. Its eye stalks tilted down towards the Egg-O-Matic that landed down on a patch of checkered tarmac.

"Look alive, bots!" the Crabmeat called out, milliseconds before being vaporized by lightning.

24 parked her hovercraft and, in spite of the Motobug's protests, kept Iacomus in his seat as she approached the satellite station. The site's guard detail was sparse, and in an only slightly better condition than the one that was electrocuted. She saw rusty SWATbots and members of the Classics line in such dire states of disrepair that she'd have had issues distinguishing them from the scrapniks back on the airship. The first one that 24 saw was a Buzz-Bomber under a corrugated shelter. Sitting on a rocking chair, seemingly watching a television instead of going on patrol.

"Dang TV's on the fritz," the wingless, stingerless bee badnik mumbled to themselves.

The Egg Robo turned towards the device, which had a massive hole in the screen and was actively sparking. Both the Buzz-Bomber and the television were broken, but had been left on anyway. She ventured past them towards the origin point of loud stomping sounds that emanated from the other side of the base. There was a large, porcine mech stamping the ground. Built like a sumo wrestler, the super badnik overseer stood over twice her size. Tied to the super badnik's head was a large umbrella, to reduce the amount of rain leaking into their positronic brain.

"You there!" the wrestling pig badnik shouted at 24. "State your purpose!"

24 assumed her natural state.

"I was sent as a repair badnik from Flying Battery #2151513, sir!"

"What?"

"Our ship received a request for a repair badnik to provide service to your Eggnet node," 24 explained. "Where would you like me to start?"

The mecha pig tilted forward, looming over her.

"What's one of the green guy's crash test dummies doing out here?" Mecha Pig asked, not so much at 24, but in her general direction.

"Egg Robos can provide a variety of services."

Mecha Pig stamped the ground again, with more fervor to his steps than before.

"No, this has gotta be a mistake!" Mecha Pig insisted. "I need permanent bots and more parts, or we won't make it to the rainy season! Not a loaner that's gonna fly away when I need 'em!"

24 tried to come up with a good excuse for why that wouldn't be the case, but he had a point. Unlike other badniks, the Egg Robos were Snively's personal robots. If she didn't already become a defector, then she would go back to him whenever this 'job' was complete.

"This isn't the rainy season?" she asked, that second part belatedly registering.

"It's the DRY SEASON!" Mecha Pig shouted, before turning around. "I'm calling your ship!"

24's processor raced for a solution to this issue. Thinking back, she tried to think of how her boss solved his problems. While 24 spent more time around Metal Sonic than any other Egg Robo, before she did, she only got to learn about him the same way the others did: Illegal copies of his fights.

The Egg Robo had a moment of inspiration, as she realized exactly how her boss would resolve this.

"Sir, can I convince you to change your mind?"

"No!"

"Okay!"

Anything else Mecha Pig was going to say was left unsaid, as 24 fired a wide-angle beam through his torso with her scepter. The badnik tumbled over and sank into the mud.

"Huh. That wasn't hard at all."

24 looked around for any signs that she was being watched; probably something she should've done first, in hindsight. The Batbrains and other air patrollers were roosting under a covered shelter in standby mode. There was a Splats that almost looked like it was looking her dead in the eyes, but she moved a few feet, and they didn't react. A false alarm.

The Egg Robo shrugged, and retrieved the umbrella hat from the fallen Mecha Pig and plopped it onto the head of the Buzz-Bomber.

"Did you kill the super badnik in charge?" he asked cautiously.

"Nope, and I'll fix the TV when I get back from checking my mail!"

"Works for me."

Entering the main building, 24 logged onto one of the private terminals, entered her credentials, and checked her mail. Only one message, old or new, so she clicked it and played the private audio.

"Hello. Since you're opening this message, I presume you've gotten somewhere safe. Congratulations on your escape. You're free now. If you want to embrace that to the hilt and walk away, I won't blame you for it, although I understand that it can be a bit of a difficult transition."

A pause.

"Either way, things are going to be a little different. New choices, new experiences. New you. You can pick your own name, now. I'll accept whatever you choose, if you contact me again. You know how to find me."

"My own name?"

The boss didn't answer.

"See you on the other side."

24 stared at the screen for several seconds. Then, she replayed the message.

"New you. You can pick your own name, now. I'll accept whatever you choose—"

Stop. Rewind.

"You can pick your own name—"

Pause again.

"How does that work?" 24 asked herself. Then, she remembered she was on the Eggnet. "Oh, duh!"

>Searching Eggnet for: Names

"Wait a minute."

>Searching Eggnet for: Names of Egg Robos?

"What's the worst that can happen if I spend a few minutes on research?"

>Searching Eggnet for: What Are Eggs

"That's crazy."

>Searching Eggnet for: Types of Eggs

>Searching Eggnet for: Egg Puns

Iacomus was left in the child seat for three days.

= = =

\\End Chapter Sequence\\

Spoiler: >>RUN: AUTHORS' NOTES

Argidoll: To everyone who theorized that the SI would be sequestering away their AI cores, good guess. Unfortunately, Metal Sonic doesn't have the knowhow to put either of them back together.

That said, the act of sequestering cores will come up later. A cookie to anyone who guesses who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Weredrago2: Not much to say, except that I enjoy the challenge of translating AOSTH's slapstick against robots to text, while taking it much further than the cartoon ever would.

This chapter has been brought to you by Argidoll & weredrago2! For previews, updates, and miscellaneous ramblings, check out the W2 Workshop Zone Discord server.

Beta Reader Credits: C-Moon and Hellatrix!

 

[ThatOtherSatori]

Poor Iacomus, three whole days without their treasured cigs. they must be absolutely raving by now.

 

[Small Nerd]

2424's feminine and has a number that's a reference to Puyo Puyo. If not for the bit about looking up egg puns, I'd have guessed she'd end up calling herself Arle or Ringo. I'm sure the name she actually chooses will be egg-celent, though.

 

[KillerFish]

Obviously she's going to be "Shelly"! 😜

 

[The Chilly One]

I was absolutely bamboozled. Bravo, OP. Bravo.

 

[Argidoll]

I was absolutely bamboozled. Bravo, OP. Bravo.

Click to shrink...

It'd be pretty silly of the SI to spend all this time letting their only friendly mechanic spend all this time making a personal weapon if she never got the chance to use, wouldn't it?

One of the interesting things that came up in discussion is the SI expects more scrutiny on them than they're getting, because while from the perspective of the SI, they're the Metal Sonic, to everyone else they're just another of the Doctor's special super-badnik projects. So they're getting away with more than they expect. This was a risk, but it was a risk that paid off because nobody cared enough to check.

 

[weredrago2]

The watering hole was quiet. No birdsong chirped through the air, no crickets calling to one another, barely the ruffling of wind in my cloak.

Setting down the bundle I had been carrying, I knelt down and dipped a claw into the water. The blood came off easily, a red cloud rippling, dispersing out into the shallow pools of the desert oasis.

In the end, the Bear Pack hadn't been a threat in the slightest.

After their strike on Porto Leone, the raiders stopped at this watering hole to rest. Should they have been allowed to continue, the Bear Pack would've taken the capsules to a black market chop shop, where one of their peers would attempt to disassemble the stolen goods. Snively was vaguely aware of the process by which they'd take apart Robotnik's technology, to mixed results. The severed pieces of a badnik weren't nearly as valuable as the completed product, but it was much harder to track the original site they'd been taken from, and it was much more difficult for a severed mechanical arm to strangle you after it was disconnected from the AI core. Then, if someone was particularly daring, they could try and staple that free limb onto themselves.

For some, strength was worth any cost. I knew the Freedom Fighters had their own cyborg, though records indicated that she had been partially roboticized as opposed to taking a more manual approach to augmentation.

(I wonder what it felt like, to put that upon yourself. I'd gone from one extreme to the other. Well, it wasn't like I could stick an organic one on and find out.)

I glanced behind me. The Surveillance Orbs and Shutterbugs were watching at what they defined as a safe distance: almost a mile out.

(Well, it wasn't like I didn't lack for options if I did want to invert-cyborg myself.)

I huffed amusedly at the thought, as I scrubbed red stains from my hands, leaving gleaming, seemingly stainless steel to shine under the Efrikan sun.

(In the end, killing isn't that different, no matter the kind. It happens, and then it's done.)

Applying the same tactics to living targets that I'd used against machines had ended up messier than I expected.

(I'd forgotten just how wet a body could be.)

In the end, violence was violence. The only difference was the ease of rebuilding after it was done.

(Killing was the easy way out. The gangers didn't die because of their crimes. Not really, even if their choices were their own. They died because it was simpler for me. Because it was easier to kill them than to dig my heels in against Snively. A compromise of convenience.)

(And habits of convenience were the most insidious of all.)

(Maybe it's better if the killing is messy. More honest. Firing squads were the most humane form of execution, but people preferred the pain of the chair and the poison. Because that way they didn't have to look what they were doing in the eye.)

(Remember the people you've killed. Because they certainly won't forget you.)

I stood, flicking errant droplets of water from my claws, and checked the rest of my body. Any remaining material around my chest had been incinerated by my engine intake, but the black camouflage cloak Snively had provided me flickered where my movements hadn't been able to keep the splashes from making their mark on the fabric.

I actually liked the thing. Once I combed it for bugs, I'd almost certainly keep it. I'd need to ask my ostensible partner-in-crime as to how to maintain it.

Speaking of…

>Opening Live Audio Connection
>>Flying Battery-9281, Command Deck

"Snively. I'm done here. No survivors to account for."

I counted the moments of hesitation before his reply.

Snively: Very well. Return to the Flying Battery when you're finished. <​

Straight and to the point. In text, I noted. Oh well.

I gathered up our present for Dr. Robotnik, and disappeared into the horizon.

= = =

"I'm sure Doctor Robotnik will find your present very… reverential to the classics."

I closed the sack of heads, and glared back at Snively.

"This is what you asked for." I pointed out.

The nose man's left eye twitched a little.

"I would have assumed my uncle would have programmed more flexible language protocols into you, but it doesn't matter. Since you went to the effort, I expect Robotnik will want the photos circulated around the region as a reminder of what happens when he's crossed. Should keep the rest of that gang of hooligans quiet for a good long while. The deed is done, and we can depart from Leonus."

"Where to?" I chose to focus on his last statement.

"Skoal Island," he said simply. "It's a remote area, where there shouldn't be any interruptions. After that, our time together shall be concluded."

Back across the sea again, I noted. Snively was definitely padding for time here. It was also, I noted, probably where whatever Snively was doing behind my back was going to be sprung. Joy.

"I see."

There wasn't much point in asking what he was going to do then. I'd gotten a fairly good bead on Snively by this point. He would either get annoyed at me trying to spoil the 'surprise' or he'd just lie to my face if I tried to pry the answer out of him. So instead, I changed the subject.

"How do I maintain the cloak you've given me?"

"It's machine-washable," he explained, before pointing to a passing Egg Robo. "You, machine! Wash this cloak! It's dripping blood all over my deck!"

A SWEEPbot, in the process of laying down one of those yellow 'wet floor' signs in the hall behind us, slipped on a red puddle and fell out of an open window.

I met the approaching Egg Robo's gaze. By the time they entered range to take the cloak from my person, they realized I wasn't going to give it up. They turned around and left the way they came, to Snively's blatant annoyance.

"I can do my own laundry, thank you." I said, pulling up a map of the ship to try and figure out where the laundry room was supposed to be, if there even was one.

There. Right outside Snively's quarters, tucked just far enough out of sight so he didn't have to watch the badniks handling his undergarments.

To think was to act, and I took off before Snively could stop me.

The path from the command deck to the captain's quarters was actually a new one for me. I'd avoided the route when I'd been doing laps around the airship, in part out of politeness, but mostly because the area wasn't connected much with the rest of the Flying Battery. It was a mostly straight shot down a corridor and up the emergency stairs next to the elevator.

On the way there, I noted several badniks patching up a large hole in one of the storage lockers with welded steel. A long, vertical gash cut through the door. The work of a runaway buzzsaw or pressure cutter?

Curious.

Skidding to a halt outside the laundry room, I pushed open the door, only to see that there was already a load in the washer.

(It was such a mundane inconvenience I had to stop for a moment to process it.)

Sighing, I pulled off the cloak, folding it into a neat, if slightly wet pile and setting it on a nearby coffee table before taking a seat. I checked the settings on the machine. It had multiple presets for Normal, Heavy Duty, Delicate, and Money. Snively had set his batch to Delicate.

That wouldn't be so bad. According to the timer, I only had to wait for another…

Two hours.

Well, in for a penny. It wasn't as if I had anything urgent coming up.

I checked my messages. Nothing from 24 yet.

(I was hopeful, but there was still that knot of worry.)

Scrolling down, I tabbed into the Super Badnik Group Chat. Not long after I had joined, Sprocket had discovered that the ERC had a correspondence poker applet, and had promptly dragged everyone into a game. It was now day four of the second game. I'd been cashed out on the second day.

It turned out that when everyone had a supercomputer in their brain… Octobot still lost round one.

It was kind of amazing.

///

|| Davy Sprocket [Great Desert]: Alright, show your hands.

|| Davy Sprocket [Great Desert]: 🂻 🃋 🃛 🂶 🃕
>[THREE OF A KIND - JACKS]

|| ℌ𝔦𝔤𝔥 𝔖𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔣𝔣 [𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔡𝔬𝔪 𝔬𝔣 𝔐𝔢𝔯𝔠𝔦𝔞]: I vold.

|| Davy Sprocket [Great Desert]: No shame in knowing when to fold 'em.

|| Crocbot [Downunda]: Especially against me.

|| Crocbot [Downunda]: 🂱 🂾 🂽 🂻 🂺
>[ROYAL FLUSH - HEARTS]

|| Octobot [Mobian Sea]: Oh that's hooey right there. You're definitely cheating!

|| Davy Sprocket [Great Desert]: Of course we're cheating! Playing fair is why you got washed up in the first round, you nincombot!

|| Crocbot [Downunda]: One last player hasn't revealed their hand yet.

|| BEAD_WORM [Former Overland]: BEAD WORM.

|| Crocbot [Downunda]: Quit stalling, Bead Worm. You can't beat this hand, so show us what you've got or fork over the chips!

|| BEAD_WORM [Former Overland]: 🂡 🂡 🂡 🂡 🂡
[FLUSH FIVE - ACE OF SPADES]

>[Player Crocbot is at ZERO (0) chips.]

|| Crocbot [Downunda]: …

➜ Crocbot [Downunda] has left the chat.

|| Davy Sprocket [Great Desert]: Holy cannoli.

|| Octobot [Mobian Sea]: HAH!

|| Metal Sonic [Hedgehog Exterminator]: These decks are supposed to be randomized, right?

|| Davy Sprocket [Great Desert]: There's only nine aces in the whole deck. One for each suit, an extra four Aces of Spades for good luck, and one Ace of Acorns because I thought it'd be funny.

|| Davy Sprocket [Great Desert]: Can't believe that one hasn't been drawn yet.

|| ℌ𝔦𝔤𝔥 𝔖𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔣𝔣 [𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔡𝔬𝔪 𝔬𝔣 𝔐𝔢𝔯𝔠𝔦𝔞]: Onto ze next round, zen?

|| BEAD_WORM [Former Overland]: BEAD WORM.

///

Heh.

(It was nice, having a group chat to check in on. Familiar. Even if the circumstances and people were different.)

(I didn't have to check my last friend group for war crimes though. Mostly. Rat Homogenizer notwithstanding.)

Unfortunately, it turned out scrolling through my fairly limited pool of chats and forums only ate up a few minutes, so I'd need something else to pass the time. I checked the Badnik Radar. No one was nearby, and given where I was, it was likely that wouldn't change at least until Snively's laundry was done.

Secure in my surroundings for the moment, I pulled up the systems diagnostic program that 24 had made as a part of the process of removing Robotnik's failsafe bomb. Checking the README, I went down the instructions one by one. First, activate this program, grant admin privilege, then a full reboot…

There was a click—

(As the digital parts of my mind shuttered into the reboot process. I watched as the diagnostic sliced my OS's processes into component pieces, my sensors shifting on and off to recalibrate into the deep access mode.)

\\\

Accessing my internal files couldn't be as simple as opening a folder, apparently. I opened my cameras, and found myself at the center of a blue, geodesic dome surrounded in rows of digital cabinets. A large, semi-butterfly shape enveloped half of the dome, projecting what was still happening in the outside world on IMAX while I did some file sorting. Faint neon glows emanated from every surface, bright lines connecting hyperlinks from one section of the room to the other.

It was things like this that had me pretty convinced that magic was real and an irrevocable part of my life, regardless of what Robotnik's databases very specifically denied.

Bright green, wireframe copies of myself with an economy of polygons zipped between blocky cabinets, folded-up wads of data being passed back and forth in their taloned hands.

I wasn't sure to what extent this visualisation was my power gem… interpreting the diagnostic program's readings, and to what extent this was secretly how technology worked in this universe. The first time I'd discovered it had been an accident. 24 had accidentally shut off my higher consciousness during a system scan. Regardless of how I felt about it, I'd have to get used to it. I had a nasty feeling that it'd be deadly relevant if I ever got hacked.

Tapping a terminal screen nearby, I pulled up the list of files in my system. I'd gotten a decent start at clearing myself of suspicious programs, but decompiled, distended out, there was a good chunk more to go.

Opening the cabinet furthest on the left, I pulled out the oldest file in my OS. The program jittered slightly, before turning into a ball of light and displaying itself on the walls.

A simple 'Hello World' program. Or 'Goodbye World', in this case. I considered tossing it out, but decided against it. It didn't do much. Also there was the odd chance it was important to the functioning of another completely random core system, because that seemed like the kind of thing Robotnik would do.

What else was at the bottom of this hard drive?

I spent subjective hours sorting through the miscellaneous junk Robotnik had left in the recesses of my programming. Most of it was harmless. A game of Snake. A half-written manifesto for gloating purposes at Sonic's funeral (coming any day now). A handful of concept designs for 'upgraded' versions of my chassis.

I set those aside for later.

Others were a bit more ominous. Operation Wasteland: A last-resort personality override protocol, to be activated in the event of his death at Sonic's hands. When activated, Operation Wasteland would compel me and every other badnik to destroy the world. Not simply destroy Sonic, or his friends and loved ones. The entire world, because if Robotnik couldn't have it, then no one could. Apparently, this was a revised version of the original 'failsafe', which was set off by Snively on accident and had to be rescinded with an emergency shutdown.

The other thing of note was a 'greatest hits' reel of roboticizing victims. Mostly, that meant the friends and loved ones of the Acorn Royal Family. I hadn't realized that the High Sheriff was the father of one of the Knothole Freedom Fighters. Or that Sonic's uncle looked exactly like him, with a mustache. It was a lot like watching someone pull the legs off a fly. Regardless of how they wriggled when they defied him, the light in their eyes always went out by the end.

That's what it meant when Robotnik won, after all.

It was… mostly tedious. Work. Necessary, but not particularly interesting. But it gave me something to do, and it had to be done eventually. Preparations, preparations. Without anyone by my side, this was the only way I could really prepare for whatever would happen next.

\\\

In the end, I'd been forced to stop when the timer on the laundry machine went off. Rebooting off the diagnostic, my systems came back online just in time to watch an Egg Robo not quite tiptoe into the room. They floated in on their jetpack, bobbing up and down with care, so as not to draw my ire.

The badnik averted their gaze the moment they saw me, surreptitiously looking away as I tracked them across the laundry room to load Snively's clothes into the dryer.

I considered saying something, but didn't.

They left without a word.

Standing, I made my way over to the laundry machine. Feeding a coin from a tray of laundered money into the mechanism, I paused to figure out what setting the cloak was supposed to match to. Checking the specifications on the material, I noted it was cut from the same stuff as the Flying Battery's own camouflage coverings.

Heavy duty, I decided. The laundry machine had no opinion. The cloak went in without complaint.

The machine went round, and round and round.

I went back to my seat. A notification popped up on my UI. Snively had determined the flight path. It'd take a week for us to get to Skoal Island, despite the fact that a straight flight could get us there in a day.

Another week of this.

Another week of this, and then? One way or another, this would be over.

= = =

\\End Chapter Sequence\\

Spoiler: >>RUN: AUTHORS' NOTES

Weredrago2: Part of me considered toning down the graphic content in this chapter. Then I had the idea for the SWATbot slipping on the puddle, and that went out the window.

Argidoll: Apparently the Flying Battery's camouflage netting absorbs all spectrums of light, and blood. Truly comical amounts of blood. Jokes aside, I went through the plans the SI has, and I realized that most of them did in fact rely on being in contact with 24 (I can't wait to finally use their proper name). As such, once they're done with their mission, and Snively can send an Insta to Robotnik celebrating the boot of authority coming down on someone's head? There's not a lot the SI has left to do without breaking the 'low' profile they're keeping. Thus, laundry.

Weredrago2: We'll let you guys guess on where the idea for the cloak came from. If no one guesses it, we'll tell the thread.

This chapter has been brought to you by Argidoll & weredrago2! For previews, updates, and miscellaneous ramblings, check out the W2 Workshop Zone Discord server.

Beta Reader Credits: C-Moon!

 

[Small Nerd]

I checked the settings on the machine. It had multiple presets for Normal, Heavy Duty, Delicate, and Money.

Click to shrink...

Of course Robotnik's laundering money even though he's probably the one issuing all the money. What's the point in having money if you can't wash it, right?

 

[Rise Shine]

A SWEEPbot, in the process of laying down one of those yellow 'wet floor' signs in the hall behind us, slipped on a red puddle and fell out of an open window.

Click to shrink...

View: https://youtu.be/fhhz7l86KUU
They really gotta close these windows, I think half the damn crew has been lost to them by now.