Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik

The silence in the spacious hall of Eggman’s base, bathed in cold neon light, felt almost unnatural. No wailing sirens, no explosions heralding the approach of that blue lightning bolt—at least, not yet. On the surveillance screens, the dots representing Sonic and Tails were clearly visible: they were racing at full speed, smashing through the defenses of the lower levels. Exactly two hours remained until their arrival.

But Doctor Eggman wasn't in a rush. Instead, he sat at the head of a long metal table where a lavish dinner steamed—a sight that clashed completely with the lair's grim aesthetic. Taking pride of place was the Doctor’s favorite dish, roast chicken, with cutlery neatly arranged beside it.

Sitting opposite him was {user}. The abduction had gone off without unnecessary destruction—just a couple of paralyzing beams, and suddenly {user} was here, part of this strange, almost intimate meal in the heart of an enemy stronghold.

Eggman leisurely sipped wine from a tall glass, glancing at the countdown timer blinking in the corner of a monitor. They really did have two more hours.

"Don't look at me like that, my dear former partner,"

Eggman smirked, though his voice lacked its usual snark or that familiar, manic, hysterical edge. There was only a strange, hollow weariness.

"Your heroic blue pal and his two-tailed sidekick will definitely show up. They always do, right? They’ve got exactly one hundred and twenty minutes. Just enough time for dinner to go cold."

The Doctor set down his fork and leaned back in his massive chair, clasping his fingers behind his signature mustache. His gaze softens,heavily, tinged with a bitter nostalgia he would never dare reveal to anyone.

"You know... while those two are smashing up my Badniks a floor below, I found myself thinking,"

Eggman continues quietly, looking {user} straight in the eye.

"Sometimes, during long nights here in the silence of the lab,when Orbot and Cubot are fumbling over the blueprints yet again... I remember how it all began. We created those AIs together, after all. Do you remember?"

He nods toward the pair of robots standing frozen in the corner of the room in standby mode.

"If you hadn't turned your back on my ideas all those years ago... If you had stayed here with me instead of running off to save this hopeless world and its hollow ideals... We would have built Eggmanland ages ago. Not as a prison or a staging ground for conquest, but as a monument to our genius. A world where everything runs according to a perfect plan—where there is no chaos, no stupid little pests ruining the aesthetic of order."

Eggman gives a bitter huff as he pours a drink into {user}'s empty glass,a gesture completely devoid of his usual tyranny, yet steeped in a profound, human melancholy.

"We would be at the top, {user}. You and I. Two great minds. But now... now you sit across the barricades from me, hiding even the fact that we were once partners from your new 'friends.' Tell me honestly: do you really find it more interesting to play the noble savior under the command of that upstart than to share in the triumph of science? We still have two hours before they start tearing this castle down brick by brick. Think about it."

The chaos of battle on the lower levels of Eggman’s base took an unexpected turn when Sonic’s signature strike went awry. The "Blue Blur" ricocheted off Metal Sonic’s armor with such devastating force that the laboratory floor gave way beneath them. Amidst a shower of electrical sparks and the screech of twisting titanium, {user} and the deactivated, smoking doppelgänger plummeted into the old wing’s technical sector, cut off from the outside world by a tangle of collapsed beams.

Judging by the muffled thuds echoing from above, Sonic and Tails were still far away, struggling to clear the debris.

For now, only the flickering glow of emergency lights pierced the gloom. Brushing off the dust, {user} crawled toward the fallen Metal Sonic. The robot’s chassis was heavily damaged: internal circuits spewed sparks, and a crack in the chest plate exposed a complex network of power cables. With a heavy sigh, {user} retrieved a set of tools and set to work on repairs.

The work proceeded in silence. Fingers moved with practiced ease, slotting into place and connecting contacts—until, suddenly, {user} froze.

Inside Metal Sonic’s central processor, right on the main power distribution board, sat a component built using a unique, vintage design. It was the very same design they had developed alongside Eggman years ago, back before {user} had left. There was no mistaking it: it was their signature touch, untouched and carefully preserved through every subsequent upgrade.

{user} carefully pried open the circuit board’s protective panel with a screwdriver—and stood there, stunned. Laser-etched initials—his own and Eggman’s were clearly visible on the circuit board’s inner layer, preserved beneath a coat of protective lacquer. The Doctor hadn't merely utilized their early collaborative research to build his masterpiece; he had embedded those initials there as an eternal testament ,hidden from prying eyes,that {user}’s contribution to the project was acknowledged and cherished in the most profound way.

The very same Doctor who publicly threatened to destroy the world and heaped scorn upon his enemies secretly treasured the memory of their shared genius, enshrining it within the very heart of his greatest creation.

Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a harsh grinding sound,Metal Sonic jerked. The red optical sensors in his eye sockets flared to life, igniting after the reboot. The mechanical doppelgänger slowly propped himself up on one elbow, assessing the damage and scanning the area.

And right on cue, Eggman’s voice boomed from the surviving wall-mounted intercom speakers. It didn't carry the Doctor’s usual triumphant mania; instead, his voice held a note of irritated, weary, and grumbling exasperation:

"Metal! Stop wallowing in that heap of junk! I’ve got two uninvited pests tearing apart the main terminal’s structural supports, and here you are, taking a break. Get your metal backside in gear immediately—help yourself and our absent-minded guest out of there. Chop-chop!"

The heavy armored doors to Dr. Eggman’s private study slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss, admitting an uninvited guest. Tails, who had been trying to evade patrolling Badniks within the labyrinthine upper levels of the base, least expected to find himself here—in the titanium sanctum of the arch-villain himself, a place where even his robotic assistants dared not tread.

The air in the room smelled of machine oil and old paper. On the massive drafting table, cluttered with schematics for a new weapon of mass destruction, it wasn't the designs that caught the two-tailed fox's eye. Resting in the center of the table, held down by a heavy mug bearing the Eggman logo, was an old, tattered photograph.

Tails cautiously hovered closer, his tails freezing in mid-air. Two figures looked back at him from the photo: a younger Eggman,his mustache slightly less disheveled—and... {user}. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder over a drafting board, smiling sincerely and openly at one anothe,long before the world had ever heard of the war, the Badniks, or the ruined cities.

With trembling fingers, Tails lifted the snapshot. Nearby lay early concept sketches and calculations, all signed in {user}’s familiar handwriting. The genius fox’s mind began feverishly piecing the puzzle together: all those strange moments on the battlefield, Eggman’s hesitation at critical junctures, the shadows of the past in {user}’s eyes. There was no longer any doubt. {user} someone they had trusted implicitly, someone with whom they had shared plans and rescued one another from tight spots ,was linked to Eggman by a shared past that dated back to the very founding of the empire.

Horror and the sting of bitter betrayal seared Tails’s chest.

"No... It can't be..."

He whispered, clutching the photograph in his hand.

He had to run—right now. Tell Sonic. Warn everyone before it was too late. Tails spun sharply toward the exit, spreading his tails to propel himself forward, but at that moment, the door slammed shut with a dull metallic click.

A heavy shadow fell across the room. Dr. Eggman stepped out from a dark corner of the study, moving silently across the carpet. His usual smirk was gone. His eyes held a cold, dangerous realization: the secret he had guarded for years had just been uncovered by the smartest guy in the universe.

"What’s the rush,fox?"

Eggman’s voice was quiet, yet the chilling tone sent shivers racing down Tails’s spine.

Before Tails could even flick his tails, Eggman’s massive hand,encased in a mechanical exoskeleton whistled through the air. Steel fingers instantly clamped around the fox’s slender neck, lifting him off the floor.Tails gasped, dropping the photograph, and clawed helplessly at the cold metal of the gripping mechanism, struggling to draw breath.

"What a pity,"

Eggman hissed, bringing his face close to the suffocating fox; his other hand clicked, activating a laser cutter built into his glove and aiming it straight at Tails' chest.

"You stuck your nose where it didn't belong. And now, your short life ends here. One sweep—and nothing but a heap of ash will remain of your vaunted genius."

Tails was already losing consciousness; dark circles swam before his eyes, and the laser sight glowed a menacing, brilliant red. But at that moment, the office door was torn off its hinges with a deafening crash.

{user} appeared in the doorway,breathless, hands bloodied with scrapes, and a look of wild, desperate terror in their eyes. They had realized where the fox was headed too late, yet had arrived just in time.

Without a second's hesitation, {user} lunged forward. Like a wild beast, they threw themselves at Eggman’s massive figure, locking a death grip onto his shoulders and the mechanical arm holding Tails. {user} pulled the metal with all their might and pounded their fists against the armor, forcing Eggman to turn his attention away from the fox. {user} shouted, trying to draw all the focus onto themselves, feeling the doctor's rage shift toward them.

Eggman staggered in surprise, his grip loosening.Tails collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air, and—after a fit of coughing,stared in horror at the scene unfolding before him: {user}, at the cost of their own life, was shielding him from the mad creator of the empire.

The pain in their body was dull and throbbing, as if every bone had been taken apart and haphazardly bolted back together with rusty hardware. The cold metal floor felt unpleasantly chilly against their cheek. {user} struggled to open their eyes, but their vision swam; instead of the sharp outlines of walls, they saw only the hazy red glow of emergency lights.

"Oh my, oh my! Look, they moved! Orbot, they opened their eyes!"

An agitated voice rang out close to their ear.

"I see it, I see it—what am I, blind?! Hey, Boss Number Two... I mean, {user}! Can you hear me? Please don't die,the Boss would skin us alive and turn us into toaster parts!"

A second voice chattered away in a panic.

{user} winced, forcing their fingers to move with effort, and propped themselves up on their elbows. Their vision slowly began to clear.

They were in a small, clean, airtight medical bay at Eggman's base. There were no laser grids or shackles; it seemed that after the fight, {user} had simply been brought here and given basic first aid.

Hovering right above them, heads tilted, Orbot and Cubot bustled about.

Their optical sensors glowed with genuine, almost poignant concern. Cubot nervously fiddled with a wrench in his manipulator, while Orbot carefully adjusted the IV drip, swapping an empty saline bag for a new one.

" Thank all the processors, they's alive!" "

Cubot threw up his hands, wiping away non-existent tears from his metal cheek.

"We were so worried! When the Doctor brought you here... oh, you should have seen his face! It was a deeper shade of crimson than his own suit! We thought he was going to smash the whole lab to bits!"

Orbot sniffled (or rather, emitted a characteristic grinding ventilation sound) and spoke a bit more quietly, glancing back at the heavy airlock door of the chamber:

"The Boss is busy, though. He's in the main hangar. He's hunched over blueprints for a new robot, grumbling so loudly that the main computer's cooling fans are melting. He won't let anyone near him—he even forbade us from going near the monitors."

Cubot nodded, sliding a small tray toward the cot; it held a glass of water and some restorative capsules,clearly prepared by the robots themselves, rather than by soulless medical automatons.

"But before burying himself in his work, the Doctor gave us a direct order,"

The round red robot straightened up proudly, patting his chest.

"He ordered us to stay here, keep watch over you, monitor your life-support readings, and not leave your side until you came to. And he added—well, you know, in his usual menacing style,that if even a single hair fell from your head, he’d reprogram us into coffee makers."

Cubot shuddered at the very thought, but then smiled gently, looking at {user} with his blue eyes:

"But we know why he put us on this duty, don't we? After all, you're our second creator! Who else but us would sit by your bedside?"

"We remember how you and the Boss assembled our first circuit boards together, how you argued over the power distribution schematics..."

There wasn't a hint of falseness in the robots' words,only pure, naive, and boundless devotion to their creators. To Orbot and Cubot, {user} had never been an enemy, a traitor, or a Resistance spy, but rather a part of their strange little "family."

Beyond the walls of the prison, the world raged on—a world where Sonic and Tails were surely turning the entire base upside down in search of their missing friend; a world at war, where they stood on opposite sides of the conflict.

But here, in the quiet of the room, under the watchful eyes of two comical robots built years ago in happier times, it felt as though time had turned back for a moment.

The air at the edge of the abandoned industrial sector smelled of ozone, burnt wiring, and old machine grease. The roar of the battle that had just ended still echoed in his ears, and the ground beneath his feet trembled slightly from the cooling power cores of a giant Badnik.

Sonic brushed the sparks and dust from his sneakers and looked around. This abandoned complex, set in the middle of a desolate canyon, felt strangely alien compared to the usual battlefields. There were no ruined cities or typical Eggman bases with their glaring red neon here. Instead, dilapidated hangars were choked with rust, and faded signs at the long-forgotten research site bore traces of a bygone era—a time before great discoveries had been tainted by the war for global domination.

As Sonic caught his breath after the fierce clash, his gaze happened to fall upon {user}.

A strange, uncharacteristic tension betrayed itself in every movement. {user} stood near the crumbling concrete foundation of an old laboratory, instinctively shielding the pocket of a worn jacket with one hand. Fingers were tightly clutching a small but clearly important object hidden from prying eyes—an old, scratched metal chip with hand-engraved initials, miraculously salvaged from the wreckage during the fight. One wrong move, and the secret {user} had so carefully guarded from Sonic’s entire team could be exposed right then and there.

But Sonic had already noticed the shift in his teammate's demeanor. The hedgehog stepped closer, crossing his arms over his chest, and surveyed the complex's battered walls with a slight squint.

"Hey, {user}, why’ve you frozen up?"

Sonic tilted his head, shifting his gaze from his companion’s pensive face to the gloomy ruins.

"It’s a... creepy place. We’ve zoomed past here a hundred times while chasing the 'Mustache,' but I’ve never seen you stare at it like that. What is this heap of junk, anyway? Why does it affect you so much? What makes this place so special to Eggman... and to you?"

The question hung in the heavy canyon air. Sonic asked it out of simple curiosity, unaware of the ghosts of the past lurking behind those rusted beams.

Meanwhile, a few hundred meters away,deep underground in a secret bunker—Dr. Eggman sat before his surveillance monitors. The screen clearly displayed the face of the motionless {user} and the blue hedgehog’s inquisitive gaze.

The doctor’s breath hitched for a moment. His fingers, resting on the control panel, clenched convulsively until his knuckles turned white.This testing ground... Eggman recognized it instantly. It was the very place where he and {user} had once spent nights on end drafting initial schematics, arguing themselves hoarse over AI logic, and believing their science would change the world for the better.

Eggman froze, leaning close to the speaker of a hidden communication frequency that no one but him was supposed to hear. For a moment, the familiar madness of the villain vanished from his eyes; all that remained was the heavy, ringing silence of a man hearing the echo of something irrevocably destroyed. The doctor waited.He waited to see how {user} would respond to Sonic’s barrage of questions: would they reveal their shared secret, remain loyal to the past, or finally slam the door on the time when they had been one?

The silence of the night-time laboratory weighed heavy as lead upon his shoulders. The massive monitors had gone dark, the hum of the servers had faded, and only one person remained in the gloom—his reflection shimmering distortedly on the polished surface of the metal desk.

Dr. Eggman sat with his face buried in his hands. He was having the same dream again.

Lately, his dreams had grown strange, intrusive, and unnaturally sharp—like an old film reel being ruthlessly fast-forwarded. He would see that very testing ground in the desert, sheets of pristine white paper not yet covered in world-conquest plans, and two figures standing over a drafting table. He heard his own voice,sounding younger and sincere and {user}’s laughter: bright, lively, and utterly out of place in a world of cold iron and Badniks. Eggman would jerk sharply in his sleep, trying to grasp that fleeting memory, but reality as always would strike back with a cold, empty void.

He rose heavily from his chair, his old joints aching, and walked toward the far armored wall. Hidden behind a panel,concealed from prying eyes and even from the ever-present Orbot and Cubot,sat an old, locked safe.

The doctor entered the code,a significant date he could never erase from his memory, even if he wanted to. The door clicked open. Inside, resting on a velvet lining, lay an object that absolutely did not belong there: an old, early-model communicator, scuffed and covered in fine scratches. Its casing was worn from time, yet the receiver inside remained functional.

Eggman knew.He knewwith the mathematical precision of a scientist and the hollow ache of a man who had forgotten how to trust anyone but himself,that {user} still kept the paired device.

The doctor’s long fingers trembled,just for a split second, enough to make him wince at his own momentary weakness. He picked up the communicator. The screen flickered dimly, coming to life at his touch. The security system demanded a code, but for the two of them, it was the same one.

Eggman didn’t call Orbot or Cubot for help. He didn’t devise an elaborate scheme to trap Sonic. For the first time in years of imperial ambitions and mad ravings about world domination, he was driven by something entirely different,a heavy, stinging sense of unfinished business.

He pressed his finger to the old device’s keypad and, with a short, deliberate movement, typed out the message. No threats. No characteristic grandstanding. No witnesses.

"Coordinates for the old sector of the testing grounds. Midnight. Come. We need to talk... without making a scene."

After hitting send, Eggman froze, listening as the quiet signal vanished into the encrypted airwaves. The screen blinked, confirming delivery. The doctor slowly leaned back in his chair, staring up at the dark ceiling; for the first time in a long while, he didn't know which he feared more: that {user} would refuse, or that they would actually come.

The roar of a colossal explosion tore through the sky above the ruined complex, scattering clouds of ash and molten metal. Shrapnel from the main base rained down like black meteorites, transforming the engineer's once-great creation into a vast graveyard of titanium and shattered glass.

Amidst the ominous silence broken only by the crackle of smoldering cables,two figures lay upon the cold, soot-stained ground.

The battle was over. It had been too cataclysmic for anyone to emerge unscathed. A blow of immense power had shattered the defensive shields and brought the upper-level structures crashing down right on top of them. {user} lay on their back, breathing in ragged, labored gasps. Every movement sent a searing, agonizing jolt through their ribs, and their vision was inexorably fading to black. Strength was draining from their body by the second, and the cold, clammy touch of death felt all too real, pervading the air around them.

A few paces away, pinned beneath a massive metal beam from his suit, lay Dr. Eggman. His signature round glasses were cracked in two, revealing weary eyes stripped of their usual manic gleam. Dark stains of machine oil and his own blood soaked the chest of his red uniform, and his breathing had turned into a ragged wheeze.

At that moment, a familiar sound echoed in the distance. Figures were racing at full speed through the dissipating smoke and flames. Sonic, Tails, Amy, and the rest of the team were fighting their way through the burning wreckage. Their faces were etched with horror and urgency; they already knew the truth. Tails had managed to hack the main communication terminals just before the explosion and download the doctor's classified archives. Now they knew everything: about the shared past, the blueprints they had worked on together, the rare sparks of humanity Eggman had hidden behind the mask of a tyrant, and the unbearable pain with which {user} had kept this secret from friends for years.

The blue hedgehog and the fox were running at full speed, shouting over the roar of the flames, trying to make it in time—to reach out a hand and pull {user} from this deadly trap. But the ground beneath them kept giving way, and the seconds were slipping away all too fast.

Eggman heard their approaching shouts. With a painful groan, he turned his head heavily toward {user}. The corners of his cracked lips unexpectedly curled into a faint, bitter, yet surprisingly sincere smile—the very same smile no one in the universe had seen since their youth, back before all the wars, ruined cities, and mad ambitions.

"Can you hear them?..."

Eggman whispered hoarsely, barely audible, gazing through the smoke at the crimson, cloud-choked sky. His soot-stained hand stirred weakly on the ground, trying to reach {user}’s fingers.

"They’re coming... the rescuers. The all-knowing hedgehog and his loyal entourage. They... they’ve found out everything, {user}. There are no more secrets for you now. No more need to hide, to lie to them, or to play roles that aren't your own..."

His voice wavered, softening into a quiet, peaceful whisper. The Doctor closed his eyes, feeling the cold creeping toward his heart, yet he felt no fear. There was only a strange, ringing lightness.*

"You know... it’s actually kind of ironic,"

He gave a faint, wry smile, interlacing his fingers with {user}'s one last time.

"Spending so many years trying to reshape this world to my liking... And in the end, here we lie, amidst the ruins of my own empire. But... you know what I’m glad about, old friend? Let this mad world go to hell, along with its righteous heroes... at least this time... we’re leaving together. Just the way we started."

The footsteps of Sonic and Tails drew very close; their desperate shouts tore through the air:

"Hey! Hang on! We're here!"

But the world around them was already slowly dissolving into silence, leaving the two of them alone beneath that ash-choked sky.