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Chapter 2: Like an EggRobo on legs
Night-time.
Sonic had begun his long journey to the Aquatic Ruin Zone already.
Doctor Robotnik sat in his chair, deep in thought.
He knew that somehow Sonic had destroyed the Grabber with wheels, or the Fetcher as he called it. He knew it because the signal
from the Fetcher's radar had disappeared. And that either meant Sonic had smashed it or it had self- destructed. And neither
of those methods would bring Tails to Robotnik.
Robotnik entered a code into his PC that would send a small fleet of
Whisp Badniks to the Aquatic Ruin Zone. Sonic hadn't bargained on the fact that there was a component of the Fetcher he didn't
destroy- a tiny microphone that relayed everything back to Robotnik perfectly.
Robotnik flicked open a panel. Inside
was a diagram of his face and an arrow underneath it. Below was a button, which Robotnik pushed. Sonic may have deactivated
Robotnik's arrow shooting machines in the Aquatic Ruins, but they'd just been reactivated. Should that horrible hedgehog or
any of his outlaw friends pass through his marvellous system, an arrow would be fired at them at top speed!
Robotnik
decided to go for a walk around his EggBase, as he had called it. Even Robotnik was beginning to get disturbed by his strange
obsession with eggs, caused by the malfunctioning Retro Orbital Chaos Compressor all those years ago.
He walked over
to a lift door and pressed the CALL button. Within seconds the lift had arrived. He stepped in and pressed 7- FACTORY FLOOR
to see how his robot workers were getting on at building new Troopers.
What he saw when he stepped out of the lift
on floor seven did not amuse him at all. Robots with sparks flying were running around haywire destroying everything.
"WHAT
ON MOBIUS IS GOING ON, HERE?" bellowed the mad doctor.
Suddenly a voice cut in through the tanoy system, "Hey, lardy-
hope you like the way we hacked your computer! We think we did it to a 'T'!"
Robotnik recognised the voice as that
of Tekno the Canary. He had once been Tekno's employer, until she had turned against him. She was sentenced to death by him,
but was freed by Shortfuse the Cybernik.
Ever since then, she had been a constant thorn in Robotnik's fat side. She
knew many of his command codes- codes that could not be altered under fear of Badnik malfunction. She knew the location of
many of his buildings. She had been one of the most useful allies to Sonic over the years. Robotnik knew this. Robotnik disliked
this.
The voice continued, "Just in case you're too dumb to figure out, you've been hacked by Porker Lewis and Tekno!"
There followed laughter from Tekno and Porker. Robotnik was seething.
It would cost him time to get his factory back
under control again. Time he needed to get the emeralds. So, while he set to work, he got his most useful Badnik to get them
for him.
He sent for EggRobo. Many years ago, Knuckles believed he had destroyed EggRobo. Wrong. That was an EggRobo
in his place. This is the EggRobo. EggRobo knew how to pick missions, alright.
Robotnik's greatest Badnik likeness
this side of Commander Brutus. This EggRobo also respected his master, however. But even better still, this EggRobo could
think up plans that were good. This helped Robotnik greatly.
So, Robotnik sent EggRobo to the Floating Island, where
Porker Lewis and Knuckles were currently asleep.
Whilst he watched EggRobo leave, he set to work on the factory again.
All the robots were shut down and then had their circuits fiddled with in some way and then were rebooted. Then they all had
to be reprogrammed as they had had their programming erased after being hacked.
Simply put, Robotnik was not best chuffed.
About
half an hour later, EggRobo landed on the Floating Island. He guided his Egg-O-Matic into the Emerald Chamber and activated
the vacuum that was attached to it. However, as he had broken through the island's forcefield, he had alerted the robot guardian
of the chamber, who had relayed a signal to Porker's alarm clock.
However, it used a warning tone, meaning that at
the end of this chain of events, Porker had woken Knuckles and now both were in the chamber with EggRobo.
"Ah, Knuckles.
We meet again" EggRobo smirked
"Cut the corny dialogue, EggRobo. I thought I destroyed you"
"No, that was an
EggRobo in my place, I am the EggRobo. I know how to.Look have you been reading any of this so far?"
"Huh? Reading?"
"No,
of course not. You're to stupid to understand"
"Understand what, rustbucket?"
"That doesn't matter," EggRobo
finally decided- thank goodness, otherwise it would have made this a very confusing story, "what matters is that I steal these
emeralds. And now that my vacuum is at full power, I do believe I'll do just that!"
With that, EggRobo sucked up the
green Chaos Emerald into his vacuum bag.
"I won't let you do it!" Knuckles yelled as he ran an jumped at the bag before
tearing a huge hole in it with his namesakes.
"Argh! No! I'm going to escape with this emerald, whether you like it
or not!" EggRobo grabbed the emerald and held it with him in the Egg-O- Matic's cockpit. He decided then was a wise time to
withdraw and shot off down a Zoom Tube.
"No!" Knuckles yelled, "I have to stop him! Robot, where is he?"
The
robot guardian replied with, "According to all sensors, EggRobo is no longer on the Floating Island. However, it is quite
possible to keep the island in the sky with the current amount of emerald power"
"Thank goodness for that," Knuckles
said, relieved, "Porker- fetch your laptop. I need you to send a message to Amy to get Sonic"
"The Aquatic
Ruins? Why?"
Knuckles couldn't believe his ears. Why had Amy told him that Sonic was going to the Aquatic Ruins. It
made no sense- it wasn't possible. He was tired. He reasoned that was the cause of his frustration.
"I'm not sure,
he got one of the Emerald Hill Folk to relay a message back to us simply saying that was where he was going"
"I can't
believe this. The green Chaos Emerald has just been stolen and the person who can help the most is absolutely nowhere near
where I need him to be. I'm just going to have to go to the Aquatic Ruins myself" with that, Knuckles closed the link to the
Emerald Hill Base.
"Porker, I'm going to have to go to the Aquatic Ruins. Take care of the place whilst I'm gone and
just call for the guardian robots if you need any help"
Porker looked worried. Long ago, he had had a nervous breakdown.
He had so much pressure on him he decided to leave Sonic's side to go and live with Knuckles on the Floating Island, a place
of tranquility at least.
However, he had known there were drawbacks to this. Tranquility, maybe occasionally, but the
Chaos Emeralds were a very big target to people like Robotnik. It seemed that trouble followed Porker Lewis everywhere he
went.
"Don't worry, Porker," Knuckles tried to calm the pig, "the robot guardians are near indestructable, remember?"
Yes,
thought Porker, but I'm not.
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