Chapter Text
Dig. Dig. Dig.
For minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, that had been his life.
Gloves abandoned, dragging cape torn, and knees and fingers calloused from the effects of labor. His facial hair was fringed all about, most of it missing while the remaining bits were split, greasy, and overall unkempt.
His body was stained with odors and deprived of its once round shape. It had been so long, and no more did his spectacles work for his tired sight.
Down his scarred hands his eyes dragged as he recalled his former companions. Had they not been with him, he might’ve never gotten a head start on the great excavation.
And what fools had Sonic and his friends been, for they’d left him with one of many keys to return. Relentlessly they’d worked, constantly whining but soon learning to be silent as they carved the alternate earth and deprived it of its minerals.
How senseless were they to think they could get rid of the most intellectual mind in the world? And to leave him in a world full of rich minerals. It had taken time for him to gather enough materials, but he’d left most of his work to his former lackeys.
They’d dug and dug and dug deep into the ground until their machinery was almost to its dying point. He’d cut their spans short, as he’d need to use them as well.
The man glanced to his side at the red and yellow metallic plates, guts of wires and bolts splayed across a new mechanism with the sharp similar to a large pistol. His sore back voiced its pains as he turned again to continue digging. No longer did his worn and odor stained clothes fit him.
Red sleeves dragged on the ground as he dug. Suddenly, a flash of pink crossed his mind and tore whatever of a heart he had left. He manipulated his memory to offer him a feeling of resentment and hatred.
So much potential wasted at the hands of Sonic the Hedgehog. Dirt crunched under his fingers and palms as he began to dig more furiously, uncaring for the nails he chipped. He remembered hearing her laugh and exclamations at his projects; how amazed she was to see another one of his machines come to life.
She was strong, courageous, and loyal. Her ability to wield her hammer was uncanny, and her quick thinking unparalleled. She’d been the best thing for him to ever hold, and down she went under the influence of a hedgehog with just one grin. Along with her, his precious empire. He thought the affection he’d granted her was enough to keep her in place, but a different kind of love she’d yearned for.
The man continued to scrabble at the terrain, seeming as desperate as a dog as he bore his emotions into the alternate earth. She was foolish. As much as he hated to admit it, even the brightest of minds made mistakes every now and then. But what made him different from all other minds was that he had the ability to learn from those mistakes.
Eggman arose, no longer in royal attire but with no less the dignity of the emperor he was fated to be. To the recycled bits of Orbot and Cubot he went, their metal frames glistening with starlight.
The Grim—as Eggman called it—hadn’t been the worst place to be sent, but he was tired of the missing sunsets and sunrises. No color changed in the dark sky as stars dotted it endlessly.
He picked the pistol from the ground, sliding his calloused fingers over his intricate work. Before Tails had sent him through the gateway, Eggman had committed every slope, ridge, etch, and estimated length of the fox’s gadget to memory. For years it’d been his only focus, and now it was finally complete.
It rattled as he brought it over to the mining site formed over the years.
The gadgets were the same in every detail possible, except for one thing.
To the most recent crater Eggman ventured. One thing made them significantly different, and that was the red orb he scooped from the ground. It vibrated with energy between his fingertips and glowed violently.
A lip-cracking grin spread over his aged face as he shoved it into the center of a satellite disc that had once been Orbot’s jaw. The machine vibrated and forced his hand back at the magnetic force it used to stick against his pistol-like gadget.
He turned, widening his stance before shooting a blast of energy into the air before him. The trigger was made from what could’ve been either robots’ inner switches, and below the pressure of his finger it folded.
From the air red cracks of lighting electricity were produced, and an oval shape formed. Through it, he could see Amy herself, mouth opened in mid-laugh and eyes closed as the sun shone down on her and the sky-blue hoglet in her arms. To her right was Sonic, wind burns decorating the sides of his eyes and a bandana adorned around his neck. His bright green eyes matched those of the hoglet’s—they weren’t pale like Amy’s, but exactly like Sonic’s. Anger burned deep within his worn stomach, and Eggman switched a knob on the side of his gadget.
What was different from his machine and the fox’s was that Eggman created gateways through times, and not worlds. He had. More power, as time was a braid in reality. Some places moved faster or slower in the end, but in the end it wasn’t hard to jump from one world to another while changing scenery.
Closer he stepped, and as his shoe made contact with the time he’d chosen, the energy in the air hissed. One more step, and then another, until again he was home.
Eggman was back.