Chapter Text
Could you be called a traitor? A traitor to your people, working for the same human that’s terrorized you planet for ages? Helping the reason that so many mobians lost their homes, lives, and freedoms and were forced to rebuild through the great restoration.
Yes. Yes you could. And you knew for a fact that you were one.
But could anyone blame you? After Eggman destroyed and took over the world most economies tanked, most infrastructure and social programs fractured. And entire cities were literally left homeless. Then after that there was the zombot plague. And even before all of this your forefathers were turned into mindless robots en masse. It was a steady job, with benefits– and most importantly, with the man who was causing the world all of this grief. If you can't beat them, join them! When in Rome, do as the Romans do. And all of those good fun sayings.
If you worked for him, you could be spared the fate that everyone outside of these metal walls were forced to endure. It’s not like a (y/species) could get much respect out there anyway. All you had to do was work. Robots could be programmed to do tedious, repetitive, and strenuous task that most Mobians could not do. But, regardless of popular beliefs. Robots could not think for themselves. They had nothing in terms of creativity. They could only take previous information, inputs, and problems that they have encountered, and try to use that to solve future problems. They couldn’t understand things intuitively like an organic.
Eggman only needed you to help imagine solutions that he couldn’t. For someone to understand his joint work, how the structures he built his robots with were far superior to anything found in nature. For ideas on how to solve issues like the strain and recoil his robots take from sonic without lowering their speed and cost effectiveness. Robots were good for numbers, power, and precision. Organics were great for being stubborn until finding a viable solution.
Why and when you started working for the mad genius is probably the thing that’s most damning of all. You never came here to bask in Eggman's glory like that weird, albino platypus. You came because you saw a beautiful godlike visage in blue chrome. The giant draconic form looking down at the planet and all of its creatures like they were the insignificant ants that they were. And knowing before that, the god-like figure was named metal sonic– the only thing in this world that gave that pompous hero a mach 5 run for his money. And that beautiful image was created by none other than Eggman.
Gods there was something really wrong with you huh. Deciding your career path in life simply because you feared it being worse and because you though a robot was cool? Maybe you belonged here. What ever!
All that mattered was you were safe, you had a stable job. And you had a purpose. You could create, and design to your heart's content. You could help someone create more robots and beings that were just superior to what nature could provide, and someone finally appreciated it–
“(Y/N) YOU ANIMALISTIC WHELP.” You flinched as the shrill voice sounded through your watch. Ah… boss man. “Please report to workshop 12 NOW. I have a job for you.”
… you couldn’t say that the doctor was the nicest man. Especially after Starline betrayed him. But at least his malcontent for short stack furries was as far as it seemingly went.
“UM– yes. Yes doctor, I’ll be right up.” You dryly replied out. Workshop 12 was on the ground floor. And you were given a small office in the lowest depths of the basement that used to be an old broom closet. Which he had no use for now because he invented roombas with lasers!
Regardless, workshop 12 was where his favorite robots and mechs were dragged in when they got smashed beyond comprehension. It was usually the work of sonic and his friends who turned all of Eggman's favorite toys into the world's worst jigsaw puzzle. Heonly trusted himself in there, you had no clue why he needed you. Hopefully he won’t be too short at you for taking a few minutes to get up there. The base was huge and you were arguably the furthest away from it as you could be in the building.
Trudging your way up several flights of stairs and to one of the only elevators you had clearance to, sparing his works in progress, the room was empty! No eggman, no smashed bots, nothing. This was strange to say the least. You feel like you were a little kid again doing something mommy told you not to.
“I’m here, doctor. Where are you?” You asked to your watch after a pregnant period of silence and waiting passed.
“Ah, you're finally here. Well I can’t expect you to be as quick as my marvelous creations. I’m currently not in the base. And neither is Orbot.” He explained.
“What about Cubot?” You asked.
“What about Cubot?” He shot back.
“...” Sigh. “Nothing. Continue sir.”
“I’m out at testing site B.” HE WASN’T EVEN IN THE BUILDING AND YOU DIDN’T KNOW?! “Mechanical marvels don’t tweak themselves. I was doing work on a new device while Metal Sonic was to retrieve important information from the mountains but–”
“Sonic and his friends were in the area for chao racing.” Yes you watched the news. Its not like he felt the need to brief his staff when it consisted of only one organic currently.
A low growl showed he was fairly displeased about being cut off. You could already imagine his face scrunched up, with furrowed eyebrows and a tilted mustache.
“Yes. Anyway, be prepared to start repairing him until I make it back, I would opt to do it myself but these need to be taken care of asap. Even someone like you could handle that.” After all him and his boundless intellect hired you. And eggman does NOT make mistakes.
“Be prepared, his ETA is 11 minutes. Do not. Disappoint.” And just as quickly as he called to yell at you, he hung up. Yelling at you.
He barely trusted you to do repairs around the base without being micromanaged, even to this day he kept the cameras pointed towards you when you were fixing moto-bugs and cater-killers. And now he suddenly wants you to fix his prized creation? His baby? The most perfect being that you could imagine? If you fucked this up he would have your neck… wait. You were being entrusted to fix a perfect–
You were brought out of your paranoid and mildly panicked state hearing a sheer metal sound hit the concrete outside. Whipping your head around you saw crumpled cobalt chrome, dented metal, and cracked, angry, red eyes staring back at you. Lights and diodes hanging on by a few measly wires, exposed chassis, and missing bolts and exterior exo-plating looked you in your field of view. As the robot dragged himself into the garage, he glowered at you as he shuffled by and laid down on the table next to you.
Right. Right… fix… a perfect creation. How hard could it be? Tools– tools. You knew eggman had special tools for metal sonic, and not being trusted to do much else but polish them you knew exactly where they were– wow the situation must be dire if you were the one doing this.
“Man. Sonic did a number on you today.” You spoke out into open air.
No response but a glaring red optic following you.
“I’ll need to run an internal diagnostic on your hard and soft ware.”
Eerie, angry silence, as you plugged in a wire to Metal Sonics exposed hard drive port. You were pretty sure the wireless transmitter that would’ve let you do it from a data pad was damaged.
“I might need to turn you off to safely work on you.” Like wise you were sure that the remote shut down option might not have been working. “Don't worry. I promised eggman I would take good care of you–”
You reached for one of the switches in his chassis before feeling a cold, stinging presence on your wrist. His claws gently dug into your skin as he held it in place. Preventing you from turning him off. You didn’t even see him move to grab you and hold your hand in place. He could definitely have snapped it if he felt like it. You sweated a little, trying to pull your hand away to no avail.
And an annoyed and heated whirr from his turbine made it clear. You had to fix the world's most perfect creation, with his own eyes judging you every step of the way.
Uh oh.