Chapter Text
In and out.
He told himself to breathe, just like that. Calm, concise, just like Sally would tell him. Sally wasn’t here, of course. He was alone.
Sonic reminded himself this as he stared at what could only be described as a living nightmare. Ivo Robotnik was capable of many atrocities, but they were typically straightforward; self evident in their terrible purpose. The roboticizer, for one, was a machine you took one look at and understood what demise it would cause. The swatbots, too, left nothing to the imagination when they were chasing you down empty, cold corridors. This, however, Sonic wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Hedgehog,” came that familiar, terrible voice. Beckoning and all-encompassing, not from one source but like some malevolent and omnipotent God; all around him, sending every hair on his body standing on end. His ears swiveled erratically, trying to pinpoint the source of his voice, before his body whipped around to follow, heartbeat kicking up. Green eyes flicked, frantic, around every corner of the unusually empty, massive room. Every inch was hard, unforgiving metal. It felt suddenly like a massive cage, intended for him.
He was here to destroy it. It was a fairly straightforward mission, honestly.
“How kind of you to join me,” said Robotnik, and his voice, not distorted through surrounding speakers, was now much clearer, much closer. Sonic jerked around to find the man, and found him not projected from a screen, as he usually was, but there. In the flesh— and the parts of him that were metal. From this far, he seemed smaller, towering over the room from the balcony like that. Sonic imagined he himself looked even smaller.
“What have you done?” said Sonic, with a low growl, every part of him bristling, every fiber ready for attack. At the thoughtful pause that followed his words, Sonic flung out his arm, gesturing toward— whatever the hell he’d been looking at. “Don’t play stupid— I mean this.”
No distractions. That’s what Sally had drilled into him. Don’t get distracted. Don’t fall for red herrings. But when the look of genuine confusion rippled over the overlord’s familiar face, Sonic felt coldness seep into him.
“What the devil are you rambling about?” Robotnik snapped, hands gripping the rail of the balcony he stood on, his metal hand, stronger, nearly bending the material in his grasp.
“Don’t lie to me!” Sonic growled, and though he shouldn’t have, he felt compelled to follow Robotnik’s stupefied gaze, back behind him, toward the anomaly. It seemed perhaps to only even exist when he looked at it from a specific angle, immaterial and intangible. Like a rift in the very atmosphere around them, wavering. Sonic’s body prickled near it, instinct telling him not to go near it. That like a black hole, it might suck in whatever it took, and never give it back.
“You think if I was responsible for that,” said Robotnik, slowly, “I wouldn’t be currently using it against you?”
Nevermind that Robotnik wouldn’t know how to use whatever it was. His readings told him nothing but errors, frustratingly.
And Sonic, sensing that Robotnik was just as in the dark as he was, decided to flaunt the uncertainty as weakness, and he burst forward in a sudden explosion of speed. The doctor’s voice, swearing colorfully, and the once empty room filled with enough swatbots to choke out the entirety of Robotropolis. All for him.
“Get that hedgehog!” Robotnik was snarling. It didn’t matter. Just like whatever bizarre anomaly that had appeared within Robotnik’s lair didn’t matter. All that mattered was the warm buzz of the power ring in his hand, driving him reckless and headfirst into the fray, spines sawing through robots with ease. He fixed his sights on the doctor, in person and in reach for once, and would let nothing stop him.
Sonic had never killed another living person in his life. He wanted to kill Robotnik.
“I’ll end you!” Robotnik was shouting at him, a reflection of Sonic’s own thoughts, full of hatred, full of unbridled, inevitable frustration. Both of them with a goal in sight, on each other.
“You can’t,” said Sonic, and shot up, quills raised, not even deterred by the robotic entourage surrounding his nemesis to protect him. He was so close, and then—
Blackness.
Nausea struck him violently, and he felt suddenly like he’d been ripped out of the very fabric of this world. Losing all sense of direction, all sense of anything, Sonic couldn’t tell if he was surrounded by blackness or if he’d simply lost his sense of sight, too.
It was at once an endless stretch of time and a split second too fast to recall with any clarity. Pain registered everywhere, no specific part of him that ached or throbbed. Something indescribable, something on a molecular level, like every atom of his body had been torn nearly apart and glued together again, leaving him with a full bodied exhaustion.
And then, his sight returned. Feeling returned. Slower, hearing returned, too. He registered, after long seconds, that he was face down on a hard floor. Not metal. Wood. It was warmer now, too.
And brighter. Sonic fought back the feeling like his skull being split apart with a wedge and hammer and forced his eyes open, assaulted by bright, natural light. A room. Not the dark, cold corridor of Robotnik’s lair.
A workshop, in which an entire side of the building was open to the world. It was daytime, when Sonic had left the Freedom Headquarters at night. The sunny light exposing him like sun creeping over some blemish on the landscape and the sounds of birds outside was at odds with how horrible he felt.
Where the hell was he?
For all the time that hedgehog spent making a mess of his workshop, Ivo “Tinker” Robotnik wished that the little menace had learned to respect even the most basic safety measures. No, blue quills did not count as personal protective equipment. No, safety goggles were not optional. And no, “just getting a closer look” was not the best course of action when a gash appeared to carve through reality itself.
Despite Tinker’s (well-deserved) reputation for being cantankerous, for getting lost in his work, for pursuing avenues of scientific research that might be more safely confined to science fiction, there was no one more qualified to investigate just such an anomaly. Within hours of its appearance, he’d set up his mobile lab close enough to get clear readings, even strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of something on the other side. It had been quite some time since he’d been confronted with a real mystery, and it lit his blood on fire.
And like a moth to flame, along came Sonic. Anyone else who interfered with Tinker’s work was prone to getting tossed ass-over-teakettle out of the lab. And yes, Tinker had done that with Sonic a few times, but the stubborn little rat kept coming back. More than that, Tinker felt—well, he couldn’t quite put a word on it. Responsible, perhaps. When his old colleague passed on, Tinker had promised to keep an eye on his nephew. Sonic had already turned eighteen by then, but it had comforted Chuck to learn that someone would be watching out for him. Chaos knows why. Tinker was utterly incapable of keeping Sonic out of trouble, could barely have a conversation without it turning into an argument. And yet Sonic kept coming back, not unlike a stray cat demanding to be fed, even if all Tinker could offer was an opportunity for mischief.
As such, Tinker could not be less surprised to see a sky-blue blur darting between the barricades he’d set up around the rift. Unsurprised, but still upset and appalled. He was already shouting as he grabbed a pair of puncture-proof gloves and charged out of the mobile lab.
Luckily, Sonic was distracted by the rift, tilting his head to watch as it appeared to vanish at certain angles. The rest of him was uncharacteristically still, an easy target as Tinker grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. “Wha— Hey!” His legs kicked uselessly in midair as Tinker held him out at arm’s length and hauled him away from the rift.
“How many times?” Tinker said. “How many times do I have to tell you that lab safety is nothing to goof about? Especially when dealing with completely unknown phenomena. Is that your idea of a joke? Oh yes, hilarious, stick your nose into a tear in spacetime and roll the cosmic dice! That’ll show me.”
Back in the mobile lab, Tinker dropped Sonic onto his desk. The hedgehog jumped up, quills bristling, but the tornado of sass he was sure to unleash was drowned out by an alarm from the scanners trained on the rift. Just for a moment, Tinker forgot all about Sonic as he turned his attention to the display. The readings went haywire for just a few long moments, and then there was silence. When Tinker looked up, the rift was gone, and so was the Sonic he knew.
The Sonic that Tinker knew had vanished, seemingly into thin air. Not even a stray blue quill to indicate where he’d just been standing. His attitude, his impatience, his little voice rising suddenly, Tinker’s name in alarm making it halfway out of his mouth— gone.
That wasn’t to say that there were no blue hedgehogs in sight.
Sonic awoke to hearing his name shouted, jerking him out of the falsely blissful new environment he’d been dumped in. That voice. That voice. Like a hair trigger response, every hair and quill on Sonic’s body raised, and he forced himself with monumental effort to push his face up off the ground and take stock of himself, as well as his new surroundings. He lifted his heavy, throbbing head—
And faced his arch nemesis. Or perhaps, some version of him. A disguise? A trick? That face, familiar yet not all the same, the expression pinched with concern and confusion.
He didn’t think. He just acted.
Sonic’s lips curled back over his teeth and he exploded forward with a momentum that could never normally be achieved from total standstill except in cases where his adrenaline was spiked. Smaller than the doctor that he was, he still easily toppled the huge man over from the sheer force of his impact. For whatever reason, Robotnik was wearing shades now, hiding his eyes. In fact, he wasn’t wearing any of his usual attire. It didn’t matter. Sonic felt his own small backpack go askew on his back from the movement, and thought, I should still have some power rings, or at least one detonator left, I can use them. He fisted his hands in the doctor’s coat instead, only because—
He wasn’t fighting back yet. In fact, his army of swatbots weren’t even here. There was no one and nothing throwing themselves at Sonic, trying to capture him. Instead of making him feel safe, it made him feel uneasy.
“What did you do,” he snarled. “What did you do, Robotnik! Where are we!”
This Sonic was not the same mischievous bundle of joy that trailed after Tinker everywhere he went. No, this Sonic— he was totally foreign in every sense of the word. Every sharp, jagged quill was raised, longer and more unkempt than Tinker was used to seeing.
That fur, not pale, sky blue, but a deep and roughened royal pelt that was littered with scars. A few of which were very prominent. An uneven x-shape cut across the side of his face; a jagged chunk of one ear near the base left the small appendage looking odd and misshapen; cutting across his chest and rib cage was a much longer stretch of scar tissue that had clearly come from some massive slice. One thigh, straddled over Robotnik’s chest, wrapped in thick, rough scarring from an injury that appeared to have nearly taken the entire limb.
And this up close, almost nose to shiny black nose, those burning eyes boring down onto him were so green. Furious, the hedgehog released one hand to reach back and fish something out; a small, circular, metal device, which while crude in its construction, left little to the imagination with the current timer frozen in red numbers on the tiny square screen.
“Answer me,” said Sonic, “Before I detonate this and run before you can even think to disengage it.”
Sonic's voice cut through the chaos as it changed abruptly from indignant to alarmed, then went silent halfway through Tinker's name. Tinker felt the same alarm as he whirled around. Something was terribly wrong, but he couldn't yet wrap his mind around what it was.
"Sonic? Sonic!" It was Sonic, that much was clear, even with his fur stained a darker blue, his quills tense and ragged, his lips curled around a pained snarl. Tinker dropped to one knee beside him, placing a hand on his side to keep him still in case he was injured. Instead, Sonic lifted himself up on shaking arms, raised his head to look Tinker in the eye.
Instead of coal-black, this Sonic's eyes were burning green. His face was still undeniably Sonic's, until it twisted into an expression of primal fury.
Before Tinker could realize what it meant, Sonic lunged. He hadn't gotten any larger since Tinker had hauled him away from the rift by his scruff, but he exploded forward at an acceleration that defied the laws of physics. Tinker would have stood a better chance against a tidal wave. The impact knocked the wind out of him and turned a thousand questions to a single wheeze. A thousand more rushed in to take their place, but Tinker's focus now was to throw out his hands, at least shielding his face even if he couldn't quite bring himself to strike back. Not that he was sure he could.
'Robotnik.' Sonic never called him 'Robotnik.'
Several details clicked into place, revealing what should have been impossible. This was not his Sonic, and Tinker was not his Robotnik. Judging by the murder in this Sonic’s bright eyes, this was not a problem that could be solved by gently grabbing him by the scruff.
In the span of a heartbeat, Tinker weighed his options. He kept weapons, of course, but the nearest one was tucked away on the other side of the workshop. He may be able to improvise one with the equipment he had on hand, but even if this wasn’t his Sonic, he doubted he could bring himself to actually harm him. In either case, the scars scratched across his pelt spoke to many hard-won fights. Even trying to subdue him could prove a deadly mistake. That left diplomacy, a skill that had gone rather rusty in recent decades. But he didn’t have much choice, and the high stakes were written in glowing red numbers.
What sadistic god had given Sonic—any Sonic—explosives? Tinker recoiled at the sight of it, barely resisting the urge to grab this strange, vicious Sonic by the straps of his backpack and shake him. ‘Have you lost your mind?’ he wanted to say. Instead he said, “What did I do? This is exactly why I told you—“
That wasn’t much better. Tinker bit back the thorough scolding that was sure to get him killed. Besides, this wasn’t the Sonic that had ignored his instructions and placed himself in danger.
Something inside him twisted painfully. The last he’d heard of his Sonic was a cry of his name, abruptly silenced.
“Let me try that again,” he said, carefully softening his voice. “I’m not who you think I am. I won’t have any conclusive answers without further experimentation, but I have a hypothesis, if that will convince you to put the bomb down.”
All of Sonic’s quills raised with anger when Tinker’s voice raised, narrowing his eyes as he considered his words.
And felt his entire world tilt out of axis.
Something inevitable and awful crashed over him, the confirmation of what he knew instinctually to be true. This wasn’t his world. This wasn’t the Robotnik he knew. *He* didn’t belong here.
He wasn’t the ‘Sonic’ of this place.
The hedgehog stared down at him in a horrified stupor, and pulled suddenly back with a jerk, dropping the inactive detonator to the grass beside them as if burned. Sonic scrambled up and off the doctor, and was standing now at a distance, watching him warily. Unease translated all over, quills bristling, green eyes tracking all over him.
“What?” he choked out, and finally tearing his eyes away from the man, looked around himself in a clear daze. Confusion. This world…was beautiful. Even with the scientific equipment set up, the naturalistic construction of the building didn’t detract from the nature around them. All around him, greenery and flowers and the far away sounds of small birds, chirping away in the nearby forest.
Not at all like his own world. In this very spot, across the universe, a massive, dreary, jutting empire of metal resided here in the dead of night. It made Sonic dizzy with nausea again, panic making his heart race.
“Where am I?” he croaked, as taken in by the wonderful environment as he was terrified by it. “Robotnik, he was just there, right in front of me— the swatbots were there—” He featured in a wide arc to his right, reimagining whatever scene he’d been entangled with. “And it was night, and—“ He began pacing now, searching for some phantom man, some phantom environment that wasn’t here. “And my friends, they were waiting for me, and I was going to kill him, I was gonna do it!”
Frustration and rage made him lose it. He’d been so close. Closer than he’d ever been before. He’d never gotten his hands on Robotnik, but he’d been close enough to see the fury in the man’s red eyes. Close enough to hear the gasp leave his mouth when Sonic lunged. He could’ve done it. He could’ve killed him.
A snarl of anger communicated this anguish, reaching up to clutch at his own ears, trying to stave off the feeling of total failure.
“He was right there!” Sonic cried, scraping his claws over his ears. “I had him, I was going to finally end it!”
Tears weren’t useful. He wouldn’t cry— but he felt the first real temptation to in a long time. If only because he needed to find his way back home, and fast, he shoved them back and turned glassy green eyes onto this strange, foreign version of his most loathed enemy.
“I want answers,” he rasped, pointing at him. “I want answers now. Who the hell are you?”
Sonic let the bomb drop harmlessly to the floor, but Tinker wasn’t convinced that he was any less volatile. This Sonic couldn’t be more different from the one Tinker knew, as if he’d traded in a mischievous puppy for a cornered coyote. He stood, slowly, avoiding any sudden moves. Until Sonic spoke, and the more he described the world he’d come from, the less Tinker cared about anything other than dragging his Sonic back across the rift.
(And yet, despite everything, this Sonic looked just enough like his Sonic that he found himself fighting the urge to lay a hand on his shoulder, to find whatever had so upset him and break it down to atoms.)
Tinker met Sonic’s glare without flinching. “You weren’t far off the mark. I am Robotnik, though not the one you’re familiar with. I have been studying an anomaly that I now believe is a gateway to a parallel universe. Now, if you still want to try and kill me, may I politely request that you wait until I can bring my Sonic home safely.”
He shouldn’t make assumptions. He had no evidence whatsoever as to where Sonic had gone. But the sinking feeling in his chest told him that he knew exactly where Sonic was.
He pushed past the other Sonic (he’d have to come up with a better way to talk about them) to get to his desk. Pouring over the readings, he prayed for any small sign that the anomaly was still there, waiting to be reopened. A scientist shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but he already knew what he would find.
Sonic stood, baffled at his answer, though…he wasn’t sure what he’d been hoping for. Watching him, he wanted to take his anger out. He balled his hands into fists, but couldn’t make himself step forward and attack. Not with the doctor’s back turned, hunched over his desk.
This…wasn’t his Robotnik. It was obvious now. He looked different, for one. Generally they appeared the same, but this Robotnik seemed less intimidating. Much less so. Broad and strong, he had less the air like a lord sitting in a grand armchair than what he appeared now to be— a scientist, or an explorer or some kind. Sonic’s eyes tracked the movement when the man pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. The flannel, worn and strange on someone Sonic had presumed to be a mad villain, seemed barely to contain the bulk of his forearms.
Sonic’s gaze fell away and he turned, briefly considering running. But…run to where? He had no clue where he was, or what running would accomplish. As nervous as this doppelgänger’s presence made him, it was unwise to run from the only person who could probably find the answers he needed.
When the doctor turned next away from his readings, Sonic was sat on the ground, an arm curled around his knees, his back to the workshop. He was in a stunned daze, unable to fully process what had happened. The stark contrast of this place, sunny and warm and filled with life compared to the dreary metal wasteland he’d just been in, the jarring transition from heat of battle to peaceful inaction.
Sonic was breathing very deeply, trying not to panic, even as his hands trembled. Sally and the others are waiting for me. I have to get back. Please, don’t let Robotnik find them…
After a long stretch of silence, Sonic finally spoke up, his voice sounding far away, even to himself.
“What is this place?” he asked, a near whisper, difficult to hear. “It isn’t…it isn’t like the state of my world at all.”
Time passed in a haze, one that Tinker knew well. He lost himself to frantic, single-minded focus, and the setting sun ceased to exist. Nothing existed outside himself, the anomalous data, and Sonic—whatever side of existence he found himself. The more Tinker studied, the more questions he had, and the euphoria of a challenge took shape as a mountain he dreaded to climb. He had ideas, experiments that might answer some of his questions or open up new ones, but no swift solutions. No cosmic “undo” that would drag Sonic back through the rift. No, this project was going to take time, and Tinker could only pray that Sonic would hold on until then. That he wasn’t already too late.
Sonic’s voice snapped him out of it. Somehow, Tinker wasn’t surprised to see that he hadn’t left. Maybe some things were the same. Maybe every Sonic would hover around him, even if they didn’t quite understand why.
“We’re in old Mobotropolis,” he said. “I don’t know what your history looks like, but this city is thousands of years old. Around here are mostly archeological sites, but…” he pointed out over a distant hill, where the horizon seemed to sparkle. Chaos, when had the sun begun to set? “You can almost see the modern skyline from here.”
If the Sonics were as different as night and day, Tinker and Robotnik were fire and ice. They had the same face, the same voice. Tinker spoke with a certain sharpness, as if he always had something more important he’d rather be doing. But he still pointed out the city lights, and he studied the unfamiliar Sonic intently, and he felt a lump of guilt as he realized that it wasn’t just his Sonic he should have been worried about.
“Are you hurt?” The subject change was abrupt, his tone gruff as ever.
“Thousands…?” It was enough to steal the breath from Sonic’s chest. He couldn’t believe it. A world where someone, at sometime, had taken over a city? Had it once looked like his own world? Had there been rebels, and a war?
But perhaps not. After all, if this world’s Robotnik had come thousands of years after the fact, the history must have been different.
Swallowing, Sonic didn’t know how to answer his concern. If it truly was concern. Sonic turned where he sat to lean back and look at him, squinting a little against the fading sunlight. For a long moment, Sonic didn’t answer. He just stared up at him, green eyes searching his face. So familiar, but so foreign in its…
Kindness was the closest word for it, though the man didn’t seem overly joyful. But he didn’t have to be friendly to be kind. If his world’s Robotnik was half machine, no beating heart to grasp empathy, this Robotnik felt human.
Sonic’s gaze wavered and flickered away, bouncing around, before settling down on some small flower he’d crushed under his rear earlier.
“No,” he said, because…he didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t, technically. The hurt in his heart was nothing that could be fixed. Or the residual ache in his body from the previous fight. “No,” repeated Sonic, quieter. “I’m fine.”
He squared his shoulders, uttering words he’d said probably thousands of times. I’m fine. There wasn’t room for another answer. He’d sat here for how long? Hours? Staring off dumbly, doing absolutely nothing to get back home. Only now did he realize his heart had finally stopped racing, or that the anxious nausea of before had dissipated— mostly.
Warily, Sonic lifted himself onto his feet, his body stiff, a small imprint in the grass from where he’d sat unmoving. In the heat of the moment, the doctor hadn’t realized there was a slight size difference. This Sonic, older and more experienced, was slightly bigger. And all the same, he was still so small next to him, and he fidgeted with the strap of his backpack, idly.
“I would go, but—“ Sonic’s jaw tightened, clearly struggling with the words he was trying to push out. Like ripping off a bandaid, he had to say them, something slightly defeated in his voice as he gestured vaguely to their surroundings. “…I don’t know where I am. Or where to go.” His eyes flickered nervously toward where Tinker had set up the mobile site where the strange rift had formed. He was looking everywhere but directly into Tinker’s face. “Do you have an idea of how I can go back?”
Tinker knew Sonic well enough to know that this one was lying. No Sonic could sit, quiet and motionless for hours and be ‘fine.’ Tinker didn’t push.
“You’re welcome to stay,” he said. “I don’t know how long it will take to fix this, but I’ll find a way.”
He took a step back, inviting Sonic further into his home, where the workshop gave way to a living space. Small, cluttered, strangely cozy. With its wood walls and bits and pieces of projects tucked into every corner, it resembled Sonic’s home in Knothole far more than the severe, soot-stained towers of Robotropolis. “I’ve done as much as I can on an empty stomach. You must be hungry too.”
Sonic did look hungry, and not just in the usual sense. The way his eyes tracked Tinker relentlessly, he was continually reminded of a cornered animal, half-feral and deciding whether to bite or bolt for the treeline. The lattice of scars on his body made it clear he’d chosen to bite plenty of times before—or that he’d had no choice.
Tinker tried not to think of his own Sonic, with his soft blue fur that had never been marred than anything worse than a scrape or bloody nose. He tried not to think of what the thing that left its mark on that cobalt pelt would do to his periwinkle.
“And while we’re at it,” he said. “You can tell me what the other Robotnik did to make you so determined to kill him.”
Sonic reacted warily to the invitation, as well as to his words. Like a stray with nowhere to go, he hovered at the entryway into the workshop, one hand gripping tight at the worn strap of his bag, the other balled into a fist at his side. Distrusting, but with no other option but to do just that.
Finally, the soft sound of careful, sneakered steps followed Tinker inside, ears pricked with interest as he glanced about. When he thought Tinker wasn’t paying attention, he stepped in a little closer to look at some small trinket or invention, poking at the odd jutting object here and there, withdrawing his hand quickly when Tinker’s boots scraped against the floor. With the larger robotics, Sonic made a wide circle around them, less interested in investigating those.
Sonic’s stomach was beyond growling, having given up over an hour ago, too anxious to even pay his body mind. Now he was just painfully empty and ravenous, and ultimately hunger drove him to follow after the doctor.
“What haven’t you done?” was his reply, slightly snappish, before his teeth clicked shut, quills bristling defensively. After a moment, he slid his bag off his shoulder to hold it by the strap at his side instead. He made a face. “I guess you’re not him, though.” A non-apology, but probably the best Tinker would get from him for now. Sonic’s green gaze slid away.
Being around him had him on edge. He’d never been this close to his own Robotnik…not ever. He’d been this close just hours ago, ready to kill. But otherwise, the man had always held himself at a distance. Far above, far away. Sometimes not even in the same area; sometimes just a projection. Tinker, by contrast, was asking to be followed. And this close, Sonic’s nose could pick up all the ways in which the doctor was a man, not machine. This cozy little half home, half workshop was lived in. He could smell the wood and oil and the slightly metallic tang of old working tools. Even this close, he could smell some scent on Tinker. It was…disturbing inviting. Almost pleasant. From the outside, the scent of trees and grass and the slight stuffy smell of seasonal, allergenic weeds and flowers cling to him.
“He’s a monster,” he said, flippantly, like it was obvious. “A dictator. A robot-loving freak who wants all of us to be his little projects. Maybe my world looked like yours at some point…but not anymore. I wouldn’t know.” Sonic finally looked back at him, and then his gaze snagged, nodding toward him. “You don’t have a metal arm.”
Perhaps it was a risky move, inviting the half-feral hedgehog indoors. With a roof overhead and four walls closing him in, the temptation to lash out only seemed to grow. Tinker prepared a peace offering; two bowls of leftover chili. Sonic had helpfully contributed by sprinkling in extra cayenne whenever Tinker wasn’t looking. He couldn’t get through two bites before his eyes began to water, but Sonic couldn’t get enough. Hopefully some things transcended the boundaries between universes.
“Not the first time I’ve been called a robot-loving freak,” Tinker said. He tried not to resent the blame placed on him for the actions of someone else entirely. Because it wasn’t someone else, was it? Tinker habitually struggled to place himself in another man’s shoes, but it was disturbingly easy to imagine what would drive him down the dark path Sonic described. A dictator? Within the boundaries of his workshop, perhaps. Robot-loving freak? No arguments there. Making everyone into a project? Well… not everyone. But Tinker couldn’t resist trying to fix something that was broken.
Tinker took the chili out of the microwave and set the more generous portion in front of Sonic. He moved quickly, as the hot bowl seared his delicate organic fingertips. The statement caught him off-guard. He glanced down at his hand as if to make sure it was as he remembered it. “The ones I was born with work just fine,” he said dryly. “I might consider it if arthritis becomes a problem, but until then…”
However proud he was of his craftsmanship, the idea of removing a part of himself and replacing it—not for any medical reason but for what? Vanity? Self-loathing? Tinker’s hands suddenly felt very cold. He wrapped them around his bowl, still too hot to comfortably touch.
“If my Sonic—“ Tinker stopped, scowled. “No, there has to be a more efficient way to distinguish between you two. Let’s call you… Cobalt—your fur is a darker shade of blue—and he can be Periwinkle. As I was saying…”
He almost didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “If Periwinkle traded places with you, is he in danger?”
Sonic’s ear twitched when Tinker suggested the nickname, lifting a brow as if to say, really? But he didn’t question it. His gaze dragged away to zero in on the food, the chili smelling good and enticing. His stomach growled, noisily. Sitting at the small table, he joined him, nose twitching as he smelled the contents before plucking up his spoon.
He almost wanted to laugh. It was such a ridiculous question, and the answer went without saying. But looking around this this world, at this Robotnik— this place knew nothing of the horrors that waited across the universe.
Sonic prodded at his food with his spoon, reluctant to eat, even though he was hungry.
“My world hasn’t had a normal spring or summer in over a decade,” he said. “The rain kills anything too delicate to withstand the acidity. Flowers, weeds— most plants in a hundred mile radius can’t thrive around the cities. By the time it’s afternoon, it’s almost night from how thick the smog is.”
Finally, he made himself bring a spoonful of food to his mouth, closing his eyes. It tasted good. It tasted better than good. The spice made his mouth water for more in a way most food back home didn’t, and he eagerly took a second bite, letting the heat suffuse throughout his body.
Glancing up at the doctor’s face, his licked his lips before continuing. “My Robotnik can’t stand living things. I think if he didn’t want to risk his mind going entirely, he’d make himself a robot, too.” His jaw clenched, as if recalling some specific memory. His last remaining family, Chuck, being roboticized. His friend Bunnie nearly falling to the same fate, though half her body would never be the same again. Other Freedom Fighters, punished. Executed in every way except by death.
“I’ve outrun him so far,” he said, again, forcing himself to speak on things he was clearly uncomfortable hashing out. It could’ve been he just didn’t want to talk about Robotnik in general; it could’ve also been the discomfort of discussing this with another version of him. “He’s never caught me. Not fully.” Not to say he was entirely without a track record of nearly getting caught. The scars spoke well enough to that. He waved his spoon around. “If he’s a Sonic, he should be able to outrun him, too.”
But Sonic didn’t say it with any confidence, his face still pinched, a tiny frown on his mouth. His scarred ear, torn and misshapen, flicked backward. A dark thought unfolded in his mind, and it translated all over his body, setting his spoon down into the bowl and sitting back. His gaze on Tinker was scrutinizing.
“If you’re this different from my Robotnik,” said Sonic, “Then your Sonic—“ He cut himself off, dreading the worst. He couldn’t fathom a version of himself friendly with any Robotnik. He had no idea what he was like, but he wasn’t hopeful. Eyeing a piece of meat in his chili, Sonic stabbed it with his spoon.
“We need to get him back, as soon as possible.”
Sonic didn’t know why he smelled smoke. He remembered only a vague sense that something was terribly wrong. Maybe something in Tinker’s mad science lab had finally gone and blown up. Maybe that was why Sonic’s body ached, and he couldn’t tell between up and down. Whatever it was, surely Tinker would be able to fix it, wouldn’t he?
Sonic couldn’t hear any birds. He lay on bare concrete, while a hellish din made his ears ring. When he cracked his eyes open, he saw a huge metal hand reaching toward him.
His reflexes took over, ignoring his aching muscles as he vaulted to his feet, twisting out of reach. The hand belonged to a metal thing like he’d never seen outside a tv show; a robotic soldier, three times his height, its expressionless face fixed on him with sinister intent. It wasn’t alone.
Sonic, no stranger to picking a fight with a much larger rival, hopped up and slammed his feet into the robot’s chest. A kick that would have knocked a mobian through a table only made it stumble back as Sonic darted between the legs of another. There must have been hundreds of them, crowding the cavernous room, surrounding him and trying to grab him. If they were even slightly quicker, they would have succeeded. And then one of them shot at him. He narrowly dodged the blast of laser fire that carved a hole through the armor of another bot. Sonic didn’t want to think about what such a blast would do to him.
He heard a familiar voice. He didn’t stop to listen to what that voice was saying, or consider what it might mean. He didn’t think, just raced through the deadly labyrinth of metal hands toward the person he both blamed and trusted to fix whatever the hell was going on. Sonic leaped up on a nearby railing so that he could tower over Tinker, quills bristling and eyes mad with fight-or-flight panic and fury. “What the fuck did you do, old man?” he shouted.
And then he became uncharacteristically quiet, his eyes locked on Tinker’s. One, to be precise: the black surface etched with red circuitry.
Robotnik was virtually never at a loss for words. He was also rarely taken by surprise, but now he was beginning to think that perhaps that blue rat’s interest in the strange anomaly was well founded.
Robotnik stared back at a Sonic that seemed to be his own— but up close was markedly different.
A hand, an arm of solid metal, shot out faster than Sonic had ever known Tinker capable of moving, a crushing iron grip squeezing around a small throat. That one black, artificial eye, to match the artificial limb choking him, locked onto the startled blue face. In Robotnik’s vision, he could see under the surface of that blue hide, see the data that told him this was not the same hedgehog he was accompanied with fighting. Height, weight, and internal readings were all just slightly off. A few inches shorter, a few pounds shaven off due to lesser muscle mass.
And the obvious, was that baby blue fur, unmarred by scarring, and watery black eyes wide and terrified on him. Black. Not green.
“Old man?” Robotnik sneered, slowly, in a rumbling voice that was far more sinister than any tone Tinker had ever taken with him. “Who are you calling old man, you vile pest?” He squeezed harder, and pulled Sonic off the railing so he was clutching him by the throat, holding him off the ground. He was remarkably light. Slowly, a dangerous intrigue caused a glint in his gaze. “You imposter.”
It would take him time to figure it out, but as he glanced about, he realized as his swatbots moved in confused strides, his Sonic was missing.
Robotnik threw the hedgehog to the unforgivingly hard, cold floor, and was immediately pinned there by two swatbots holding him down.
This Robotnik…was not Mr. Tinker. He seemed at first glance to be the same, yet something about his presence gave off a sheer, intimidating, and oppressive quality, like leaning back to look up a mountain. Gone was the outdoorsy science lab Sonic knew well, replaced with an unbearably ominous and empty world of steel. And this Robotnik, sinister and malevolent, at its epicenter as this world’s singular overlord.
“You will think very carefully about insulting me, you rancid little pest,” he drawled, carefully watching him, ensuring he wouldn’t get away. He looked him over, again, seeing no trace of familiar scarring. Every scar that Robotnik knew well by memory, because he’d put them there, marked by the beast. There were no such marks on this hedgehog.
“You must be Sonic,” he wondered aloud. “But you cannot be him. You, with your feeble attempt at attacking and soft, unmarked body— what trickery is this, imposter?”
Sonic still couldn’t comprehend the danger he was in, but he got his first lesson as Robotnik’s hand clamped around his throat. Sonic’s eyes widened and filled with reflexive tears. He clawed at Robotnik’s grip, kicked helplessly at the air.
Even if the two Sonics had been identical in appearance, Robotnik would know that this one was a stranger, because with the last of his breath he squeaked out, “Sorry! I’m sorry, T—“ His voice became a feeble wheeze. He hadn’t even meant it as an insult. ‘Old Man.’ He’d called Tinker worse than that every day since they’d known each other. And even on the rare occasion Tinker lost his temper, he’d never, he’d never…
Sonic’s vision blurred. His thrashing weakened. Robotnik threw him to the ground, and the SWATbots descended on him as he was still trying to catch his breath with ragged gasps. The SWATbots didn’t seem to notice or care that this Sonic was less dangerous than the one they knew. They bound his wrists and ankles with chains so heavy he could barely even crawl. One planted a metal foot on his back, pinning him to the floor, while no fewer than five trained their weapons on him. As if he didn’t already feel so, so small, staring up at mountainous man from the floor. As if the venom in Robotnik’s voice wasn’t enough to freeze Sonic in place, chained or no.
A small, stubborn voice in his head still believed that the man who looked so much like Tinker would fix this. Whatever this was. He had to. He had to.
“It’s not a trick!” Sonic pleaded, his voice ragged and bruised. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know where I am. I’m sorry I fucked up your experiment and I’m sorry I’m not your Sonic but I won’t cause any more problems. I just wanna go home—Doc, please,I won’t bother you anymore if you help me go home.” Sonic didn’t cry very often. Certainly not since his uncle passed. But his black eyes shone as he came dangerously close.
Robotnik’s malicious gaze narrowed as he squinted down at the squirming blue menace, every pathetic plea falling from his mouth only piling on more evidence that this indeed was not the Sonic he’d known. Not even close to it.
Slowly, the man circled, observing his captured prey from every angle. For that surely was what this creature was. Not an enemy, not even a worthy opponent. He begged rather than try and fight the swatbots holding him, as if he didn’t know how. As if he didn’t think he had the strength to. The size difference couldn’t have been all that great, and yet this hedgehog seemed so, so much smaller to him.
“…No, you certainly will not be bothering me anymore,” he said, thoughtfully as he stopped once more to stand where he’d been, arms folded behind his back. “Not when I put an end to your life; have you heard of a roboticizer, my foul little friend?”
The swatbots on cue lifted Sonic up off the steel floor, hauling him as easily as a small piece of luggage. Two on either side, gripping his arms. The other, pointing its weapon persuasively at the back of a spiny blue head. When they tried to drag him off toward the very room Robotnik had referred to, he lifted up one gloved hand to stop their progress, a wordless order to halt.
“…But before I do that,” Robotnik went on, a menacing lack of all empathy for the swell of moisture in Sonic’s eyes. “I will find out where you came from, and if this world’s vermin is truly missing, or if you’ve played some trick after all.” He stepped in close, leaning down quite far to face the hedgehog up close. Rather than stirring pity, those unshed tears were as sweet as ambrosia to him. They excited him, to see even an off-brand version of his greatest nemesis begging for his life, and terrified in a way Robotnik strived to incite in him for years.
“How do you know me?” He decided to ask the thing he was most curious about in the moment, reaching up to jab a finger in that rapidly heaving peach chest. His gaze slid sideways where the bots were holding him still, catching a flash of red on Sonic’s arm. Not a wound— a red handkerchief, tied around his upper arm. Idly, he plucked at it as he waited for his answer.
Sonic’s mouth could move as fast as his feet, and he was in a dead sprint. There had to be some combination of words that would make this twisted reflection of his friend realize that this was just a misunderstanding. That Sonic really didn’t mean to cause any trouble. That he needed help and was scared to admit just how scared he was starting to be.
Instead… “What? No no no, are you fucking crazy?” Of course Sonic didn’t know what a roboticizer was, but he knew—or thought he knew—what “an end to your life” meant. He started to thrash once again, but stopped when he felt the muzzle of a SWATbot’s blaster jam into the back of his skull. He froze, his breath too-quick, wheezing on the exhale. His chest heaved, his heart hammering like a rabbit’s.
Robotnik leaned in close, and Sonic wondered for a sickening moment if he had been wrong. That this man scared nothing with Tinker except a passing resemblance. But up close, there was no denying it. Even when Sonic tried to focus on the differences, he couldn’t banish the terrible certainty that this was exactly who he appeared to be.
“Tinker,” Sonic pleaded. “I’ve known you for ages. You were my uncle’s best friend. You’re a good person, even when I get on your nerves.” The red cloth around his arm was proof of that. Sonic seized on it. “You gave me that bandana, you know? Sort of. I got cut on one of your machines and you patched me up. I dunno why I kept it but you never seemed to mind.” Sonic swallowed a lump in his throat, a sudden, intense longing that hurt to think about. He tried to sound sure of what he was saying. “You’ve never hurt me before and you’re not gonna hurt me now.” He failed to sound certain.
The more Sonic babbled, clearly terrified, the more Robotnik filched understanding. He understood that he truly was dealing with a completely different world’s version of his enemy.
Though this hedgehog was not his enemy, not at all. His fear was palpable. Delicious. A heady terror reflected in those big black eyes that he had only dreamt of inflicting in green ones for years.
The hand plucking at the bandana paused, and red eyes slowly turned to lock back onto Sonic’s, the words sinking in. A sly and malicious smirk stretched across his lips; normally, Sonic’s incessant talking annoyed him. Now, he delighted in how the fear drove him to word vomit, clearly desperate and clinging to whoever the hell ‘Tinker’ was.
“Clearly,” he said, as he wedged one thick, gloved finger under the red material, tugging it down to look underneath. Smooth, unmarried peach fur. Whatever cut had been there had healed over nicely and left no mark. Robotnik tugged it back into place, he grin deepening. “Clearly this ‘Tinker’ never hurt you. But let me educate you, little rodent.” That same gloved hand trailed up to squeeze his fingers on either side of Sonic’s face, bruising force. Leaning close, he was close enough that his breath puffed warm across Sonic’s muzzle as he sneered, “I am not a Tinker. My name is Ivo Robotnik, and you will refer to me as such.”
Just until he got the answers he needed, at any rate. He released the hedgehog’s face, a little forcefully, as he straightened once more, turning the words over in his mind. Distracted, even as his gaze lingered on his unexpected guest. A world where they were friends? Robotnik had befriended that old coot Chuck rather than end him? Even worse, he’d befriended the nephew? It was enough to make him shudder with distaste. He loathed Mobians, loathed any and all living things that only served to get in his way. He couldn’t fathom taking one under his wing, tolerating the brat’s invasiveness of his laboratory.
Robotnik shook his head minutely, and the urge to crush this little vermin under his heel was halted by a growing fascination of this bizarre and foreign version of his nemesis. Proof of a multiverse Robotnik had yet to explore. Perhaps even standing before him was the key to such a gateway to allow him to more easily rule this world under an iron fist.
Or even multiple worlds.
Dangerous intrigue glinted in his gaze, that one synthetic black and red eye more invasive and probing than any hand could be.
With a wordless order, the SWATbots followed him as he left the corridor, hauling up their small charge so he was lifted entirely off the ground and simply carried, effortlessly, leading them toward where Robotnik really wanted him; the lab.
“Tell me about this…world of yours,” came his voice, menacing in it’s almost hushed quality. “This Tinker, too. Pathetic as he sounds— what has he accomplished on your own planet?”
Thickheaded as he could be, usually on purpose, usually when Tinker was trying to tell him something, Sonic was starting to learn. He recoiled, half expecting another choking hand around his throat. Instead he was forced to look his captor in the eye. To his credit, he didn’t flinch at the bruising grip. didn’t let the tears in his eyes spill down his cheeks. He locked eyes with Robotnik, quills raised, lips curled with the first spark of defiance. Still a Sonic, though soft and naive the way this world’s Sonic hadn’t been in a very long time. Perhaps he could change, given the chance. He wouldn’t get that chance.
Now if only he could stop shaking. Sonic yelped as the SWATbots hauled him off his feet. Struggling only earned him chafed wrists and the deafening rattle of chains. Even if he could miraculously slip his bindings, the bots’ literal iron grip was just as oppressive. Still, Sonic struggled, because it was in his nature, and because he now knew that he didn’t want to go anywhere this twisted Tinker took him.
“Watch who you’re calling pathetic,” Sonic snapped, without thinking for even a second about his tone or the inevitable consequences. “His lab doesn’t smell like a sewage leak, AND he can get his dick sucked without programming a robot to do it. How’s that for accomplishments?”
His voice still trembled as he spoke, but once the sass started, the rest was just muscle memory. It felt good, felt right to shoot off at the mouth, to watch Robotnik’s smug intrigue twist into fury. So long as Sonic didn’t think about the price he was sure to pay.
And the price he’d pay would be great, indeed.
Robotnik’s expression rearranged into surprise at the little burst of rebellion, the hedgehog evidently finding his bearings enough to do that much, before it morphed further into fury at the audacity.
Sonic had only a moment to revel in the satisfaction of pricking his captor into anger before he was hauled easily up and thrown down to his back up on a new surface. Not the floor, but a table, though it was equally hard and unforgiving as the floor would’ve been. It was solid, cold steel without the mercy of cushioning, tossed there carelessly like a satchel or some other object incapable of feeling. Robotnik’s sneer was mean as he ordered Sonic held down. Not strapped, but one bot at each end, holding down his small wrists and ankles in each hand so he was held slightly spread-eagled.
To his side came Robotnik, leaning over him, his mustache curled with total contempt. How his identical face to the kindly Tinker could be so wholly transformed by hatred was a thing to be marveled at, just like seeing real fear transform this little hedgehog was something that had gripped his attention and couldn’t be released.
“I see you still share his penchant for running his foul little mouth,” he spat. “You are alike.”
It made him curious about his own doppelgänger. His mind snagged on the ribald, lewd words thrust out by his nemesis, surprising to hear from his mouth. Such an immature insult.
“You are refreshingly artless,” he snorted. “Juvenile. Moronic. You don’t know what situation you’re in, so you?” Robotnik shook his head, his mood smoothed over by his own thoughts, his mean smile returning, chuckling quietly. Almost fondly, he said, “You poor, dumb animal. You don’t understand at all. That’s fine, I’ll help you understand.”
Robotnik gestured to another SWATbot that waited with endless patience, and it approached immediately.
“His shoes,” said Robotnik, with great pleasure. “Take them. You’re free to throw them out— he won’t be needing them.”
As the bot dutifully moved to do this, slipping them off as carelessly and unhesitatingly as it did every other mundane task ordered of it. Utterly heedless to the hedgehog’s struggling or pleading.
“You can’t run very fast without those,” Robotnik drawled with a great deal of self-satisfaction, having only dreamt of being able to throw away filthy red sneakers and render Sonic unable to run — or run his feet to blood and bone if he did try. “So we’ll begin there until your usefulness to me has expired. Let’s try this again.”
He leaned down once more, arms folded primly behind his back.
“What is the nature of your…proximity to this Robotnik?” he asked, curiosity piqued despite the faintly reviling nature of Sonic’s crude jabs. “Why hasn’t he killed your and your wretched kind?”
The impact against the table knocked Sonic’s breath out of him, earning Robotnik a few precious moments of silence. At least when pinned face-down, Sonic had enjoyed the small, primitive comfort that his quills remained between him and the predators looming over him. Now his quills bent awkwardly against steel as they tried to stiffen and flex, as Sonic tried to curl against the bots’ unyielding grip. With his soft underbelly forcibly exposed, his panic ratcheted even higher.
There was a wild look in his eyes. “Poor, dumb animal.” Sonic couldn’t argue, he was too busy baring his teeth, making a sound like a rattlesnake’s tail in the back of his throat. He twisted and shouted as the SWATbot tugged off his shoes. With a particularly desperate jerk, he freed one of his legs long enough to drive his heel into the bot’s chest. He left a paw-sized dent in its armor; an impressive feat, and entirely useless. The SWATbot didn’t so much as recoil.
“No no no!” Sonic shouted, his voice strident as he swung wildly between fight and flight, helpless to do either. It was only his lightning-fast reflexes that had kept the SWATbots from grabbing him as soon as he arrived in this awful place. As one carried away his shoes, he knew that even if he managed to wriggle free, he wouldn’t be able to stay that way.
Sonic didn’t answer Robotnik’s first question. He only answered the second because it gave him an opening to sink his teeth into a gap in Robotnik’s armor. Metaphorically speaking, of course. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he spat. “I dunno, maybe it’s because he knows how to act like a fucking human being. Maybe it’s because he’s not overcompensating for an overcooked spaghetti noodle micropenis! Maybe you’re the cheap knock-off, did you ever think of that? Hell, I bet the other Sonic is there right now tellin’ him what a loser you are!”
If his voice broke mid-sentence, it was only because Robotnik was still looking at him like a cougar deciding which part of its prey to tear into. He pushed away any thoughts of the other Sonic filling the space he’d left behind.
Robotnik continued to stare down at his prey, gaze narrowing sharply, unamused. And yet— he was secretly so very amused by this little hedgehog. He was much more endearing when he could actually be held down. Not so when he was running amok, wrecking havoc.
“I’ll admit,” he said, not deigning to bother replying to anything Sonic said directly, “I’m mildly impressed with your…meager attempts to struggle. Though it both chagrins and pleases me to tell you that were your true counterpart here, he would likely have escaped by now.”
There was suddenly a sharp, stinging pain across Sonic’s cheek that turned his head momentarily sideways, until he was blinking in a stupor, realizing after the heat radiated across his hot face that he’d been slapped. The blow had the intended effect of stunning more so than hurting, though it did hurt. As Sonic blinked back into awareness, Robotnik went on.
“But that only shows me that whatever world you come from, it is inferior, because you are inferior.” As if suddenly amused by something, Robotnik smirked, though it lacked any warmth or mirth. “And so is this pathetic Tinker you speak of. You seem remarkably…” He paused, turning over the words, peering down at him. “…Enamored.”
The very idea was a little repulsive to him. When he thought of his own Sonic, he thought only of the desire to grind him under his heel. To see despair written all over him as Robotnik took away all that was precious to him, again and again. He couldn’t fathom a version of himself that could think anything else, but if that world’s Sonic was this soft, he dreaded to think of what kind of pathetic sap that world’s version of himself must have been like. Particularly to earn the undying defense of the blue rat, even in faced with danger.
No matter. Robotnik enjoyed the look that overcame Sonic’s face at that little accusation, but now that thought had seeded in his mind, and he felt something Robotnik rarely felt— baffled.
With his organic hand, perhaps mercifully, Robotnik brought his hand up to grip Sonic’s chin, his gloved fingers digging into his cheeks hard, forcing the little face up, those defiant black eyes meeting his.
“Last chance, hedgehog,” he said, slowly. “You’ll be useful to me, if you know what’s good for you.”
Sonic didn’t want to hear anything Robotnik had to say. He only fell abruptly silent when his head snapped to the side, followed by a sharp pain across his cheek. It didn’t hurt as much as being choked by an iron hand or dragged around by the SWATbots, and yet that, of all things, startled the tears out of his eyes. They spilled down his cheeks, even as Sonic bared his teeth in a furious snarl he’d never realized he was capable of. He tightened his grip on anger to avoid thinking about the bruise blossoming across his cheek. Or that Tinker would never hit him, had never hit him, not like this.
The SWATbots tightened their grip as Sonic tried with all his strength to smack that smug look off Robotnik’s face. He didn’t know what he was talking about. Anyone would be enamored with Tinker if they were forced to deal with his asshole knockoff. Never mind that when Sonic longed for home, all he could picture was that familiar workshop.
“Enamored, schmenamored! I’m the only one who gets to talk shit about that old man—“
Once again he went quiet as Robotnik’s hand shot toward him. This time the pain was dull and barely made him flinch. He looked up at Robotnik with salty rivers running down his cheeks and fire in his eyes. He barely heard Robotnik speak over the pounding of his heart, the roar in his ears that felt like it was coming from somewhere impossibly deep within.
Sonic twisted his head and bit down as hard as he could. His teeth tore fabric before sinking into the meat of Robotnik’s hand, and he locked his jaw, refusing to let go. The taste of copper on his tongue stoked his anger into a frenzy. A vicious snarl echoed between his ears, and it took a moment to realize that the sound was coming from his throat.
There was an immediate and resounding shout, halfway between a colorful curse and an enraged snarl. The little shit had bitten him!
Tiny, sharp teeth pierced through the thin fabric of his glove, and Robotnik had half a mind to deprive the animal of his teeth completely. When he tore his hand away with a vicious snarl, tiny droplets of blood welled through when he inspected it. He sneered.
“Barbaric little pest,” he snapped, dropping his hand, turning his spiteful gaze back to the hedgehog on his table. He didn’t immediately hit him, but observed him. A small amount of blood had transferred itself onto his lips, just a tiny smear, and he noted the self satisfied expression in his eyes, even full of tears as they were.
He would wipe that face clean of any joy, by the end of tonight.
“Let me make one thing very clear for you, hedgehog,” he said, slowly, “This ‘Tinker’ you speak of will not hold a candle to what I’m capable of.” Calmly, he made a motion with his hand, and the SWATbots were turning Sonic over, flipping him until he was belly down and squirming helplessly.
“If you’d like to fight for his honor,” Robotnik continued, his voice now retreating, accompanied by the heavy steps of boots across the metal floor. “Then by all means, do fight it. It will make things all the more interesting for me.”
In the room was a great furnace, burning hot and meant for melting down parts he often reused, tossing them in while he worked endlessly in the lab. Now, though, a wonderful idea sparked into his mind. His gaze slid over to a metal instrument lying strewn over his desk; a rod, his empire logo beveled at one flat end. Normally reserved for marking robotics he himself had not created but took for his own. He picked it from the table’s surface with consideration, a wicked glee unfolding within himself as he held the end into the furnace until it glowed red hot.
“If you want to behave like an animal,” said Robotnik, approaching the examination table, letting the hedgehog see exactly what he held in his hand, “Then I’ll brand you like one.”
The heat made the air around it waver, and he let it hover momentarily above the exposed, blue rear, casting its vicious glow before he let it descend.
Sonic didn’t hear a word Robotnik said. He didn’t hear anything past the blood pounding in his ears, the breath clawing out of his throat as a rattling growl. He didn’t care. Blood smeared across his lips and all he cared about was the adrenaline-soaked thrill, and the need to tear his limbs free so he could give the fight or flight mania somewhere to go.
He tried to bite the SWATbots as they adjusted their grip. Fortunately for his teeth, he didn’t succeed. They flipped him over and pinned him on his belly. Logically he knew it couldn’t be for anything good, but for the briefest moment it felt like an improvement. He tried to curl up, and failing that, all of his spines stood on end and he locked eyes on Robotnik, daring him to give him a chance to bite again.
Eons ago, humans had driven the wild back with torches. Sonic felt that same primal terror now, but there was nowhere to go. He put two and two together a moment before Robotnik said it aloud, and his own fire sputtered. "No," Sonic said. "No no no no..." The stubborn creature, some part of him still hoped against all odds for mercy, even as he felt the that radiating heat come closer, closer. His pleading only stopped when a SWATbot shoved a rubber bit between his teeth.
At first, Sonic didn't feel a thing, a sensory overload error making his skin go numb. Then he screamed. He screamed until his voice was raw and he couldn't breathe. He didn't pass out, kept awake and alert by strength he didn't know he had. Unconsciousness, just another mercy that lingered out of reach.
Tears flooded down his muzzle, pooling on the table beneath his cheek. His jaw clenched tight, his teeth leaving jagged imprints in the rubber gag. It did nothing to muffle the whimpers that spilled out of him, marking each fresh wave of agony.
Robotnik would never forget that scream, primal and powerful from such a small body. His lips curled into a mean sneer, satisfied that the mark would scar before he lifted the branding iron, inspecting it.
Through singed blue fur, burned into his skin, was the mark of Robotnik’s own face. The brand of his empire. He chuckled quietly to himself, setting the rod aside on the tabletop with a noisy clatter, taking in the state of his enemy. The tearful face he committed to memory, mentally imagining causing such anguish on his very own Sonic. Adding to the map of scarring.
“There,” said Robotnik, resting a hand just above the burning brand, peering down to see that his hand rested just under that quivering, tucked tail. “No longer unmarred, are you?” He moved his hand experimentally, relishing in the way the hedgehog shivered violently. He motioned for the SWATbot standing to attention to remove the gag from Sonic’s mouth, so he could hear the painful intake of air, small ribcage expanding sharply.
Slightly mesmerized, Robotnik realized he’d never physically touched his enemy before. Not in all the years they’d fought. It was always Sonic, thwarting him from afar. Sonic, wrecking his creations. Never like this. Lying here, at the mercy of Robotnik’s exploration.
“Marked by the beast,” chuckled Robotnik, his hand lingering as he slid it off the tense thigh. “You’re property, now, nothing more. Perhaps I will keep you alive for now.”
Stepping closer to Sonic’s head, he leaned down to look directly at him, his one cybernetic the cold and cruel.
“Welcome to the Empire, Sonic.”