Chaos Born

The Book of Revelations

"So, you've made your return public," Ira was saying, reclining on a lounge seat with a recently emptied wine glass in his hand, "What do you intend to do now?"

"Nothing." 

His brother's reply took Ira by surprise. Sensing his younger brother's bewildered gaze boring into his neck, Eggman swivelled round in his high back chair.

 "I'll let them stew," he explained, "GUN has no idea about our research. They weren't around during the times when you and I roamed freely, doing what we liked, supporting natural selection..."

"One of us did, Ivo," Ira breathed, his jaw clentching discretely, "One of us lapped up the life of luxury and knowledge whilst the other wasted 5 years trying to find a wretched baby hedgehog."

Eggman sensed the hostility and he smiled at it. 

"Well, you'll be satisfied to know that I paid my price in wasting a further 20 years going after the same hedgehog. It should be your turn now."

"Should?"

"I say that because it isn't." Eggman then laughed, wheeling back to finish scribbling down something on a crumpled sheet of paper. "You couldn't bag a little scrap of a hoglet. What chance do you think you have now that he's a grown adult with full control of his abilities? No, you take it easy, little brother; with you at my side again, I feel that I might finally put in some real effort to unearth the secret of Sonic the Hedgehog."

Ira carefully placed the wine glass on the table beside him.

"If I'm not going back out there to finish what I started," he murmured slowly and supiciously, "then who is?"

Eggman leant back, the chair beneath him groaning in protest. 

"Well, no-one yet," he murmured back, "But, I suppose the really obvious answer to that..." A cunning shine appeared in Eggman's hidden pupils, and he slowly turned back, cocking an overly bushy eyebrow, "I've never shown you my greatest creation, have I?"

It seemed a rather random question but, since he knew his brother's mind to be constantly in a state of insane flux, Ira had learnt to cope with it. In answer to Eggman's question, Ira shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know. You said that so often about your inventions."

"Ah, but that was before. Even I ackowledge that I have never built anything as great as this since its birth. You must see." The rotuned genius scientist climbed up to his feet and beckoned with a surprisingly elegant hand. "Orbot? Cubot? You come too. Come say hello to the Black Sheep of your robotic 'brotherhood'."

The last thing the two robot lackeys were hoping was to step a servo back in, what they had privately come to refer as, the Crypt.

At the very end of the enormouse chamber, two metal doors were set with no inscription of any kind save for one small keypad with a screen.

"You know, through all the years I've known this place, it remained a mystery to me as to what you kept behind here," Ira had said, hiding his great excitement.

Eggman still said nothing. He gazed into the screen and typed in a code that none of them saw. Then the great doors slid ominously open, years of dust and neglect rising up to water the eyes of the organics as a neon blue glow shone out from the wires in the walls, bathing them all in an unnatural light.

"Cast your eyes on that, Ira," Eggman grinned darkly, pride emanating from his spectacles.

Ira looked.

"...Oh, Ivo..." he sighed in legitamite awe, unable to find the right words.

Orbot and Cubot, who had no breath to spare, simply stared.