Chaos Born

Adding Petrol To A Fire

Eggman was watching with interest as Metal Sonic, having still not moved an inch since settling in the room, was staring, unmovably, at Sonic, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his 'cage'. The blue hedgehog was gazing right back at his metal counterpart, the occassional twitch of his ears and eyes being the only indication that something secret was going on.

"What are you two talking about?" Eggman asked slowly, smiling to himself.

Sonic only twisted an ear in his direction to indicate he had heard him.

"...Who said we were talking?" he asked back, eyes still transfixed on Metal.

Sonic's scans were complete now and Eggman was waiting for the computer to process and upload the results. He was aimlessly stroking the desk with his gloved finger.

"I built Metal and I know you very well," he boasted, "I can tell when there's a sneaky conversation going on."

In truth, the fact that Metal had worked out how to project his thoughts to Sonic wasn't originally intended. The Life Data that Eggman had been lucky enough to extract from Sonic was meant to give Metal the skills to anticipate and prepare for Sonic's iminent attacks, where possible, and to pinpoint Sonic more effectively when the 'Mach 1 and Beyond' hedgehog was an incomprehensible blur - the ultimate moving target. The somewhat 'Sixth Sense' had become mutual between them and had progressed and grown into an almost telepathic bond.

Eggman had never given Metal a mouth, deeming that the one thing of Sonic's that he didn't want to replicate was his lippy attitude, and so the closest that anyone else had come to hearing 'a voice', as such, was a borrowed aesthetic tone that Metal had downloaded from another computer and that simply sounded like a Text-To-Speech voice.

No-one but Sonic had heard the true voice of Metal and Eggman had still not worked out if he was envious of that or not.

"...You know I'm not going to be staying here very long, don't you?"

Eggman shook his thoughts away. 

"Of course I do," he answered seriously, "Ira is a spoilt brat that reckons he's got this 'evil villainy' in the bag. Doesn't know the first thing about catching hedgehogs."

Sonic had climbed back onto his feet, having finished his private exchange with Metal, and was presenting a perfect Sonic 'smirk'. 

"Neither do you."

Eggman looked a little indignant. 

"I know more than him," he protested, "I told him you would break yourself out of there or someone would do it for you and I look forward to you proving me right. No pressure."

"Actually wanting me to break out..." Sonic laughed in amusement, "Never thought our time together would come to this, Egghead."

"I know you'll make quite a show of it, as is your style, but please don't wreck the place too much. I'm..." Eggman chuckled, "Well, I'm rather fond of the old lair."

Sonic glanced around sceptically. "...Where are we? I never asked."

"This... Pardon? Oh, er, this is Ira's room." Eggman was partially distracted by Sonic's results coming through. It amazed him that he had never had this oppurtunity before in his life. "Probably why you don't know it."

Sonic shook his head. 

"I meant... Outside," he reiterated, "Where are we?"

Eggman glanced up. His malicious smile was back.

"...Christmas Isle," he replied, "...Welcome home."

He didn't expect those words to mean anything to Sonic; the poor wretched creature wouldn't remember anything of his early years.