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Sage knew her father well. Both from spending time with him and the years of research she had been given to pick apart and analyze. Of him, of his machines, how he thought, how he acted, his motives, ambitions, plans, everything. All so that she could help him reach those dreams.
Sage knew her father well enough to know that, even in all of his brilliance, even as he created things that worked on cold hard logic, he often didn’t abide by that logic himself. He was incredible, but also incredibly human.
In her files, she saw many notations of one “Doctor Starline”, a previous apprentice to Eggman. His adoration with the doctor turned to frustration as he noted hole after hole in Eggman’s plans, eventually ending in them becoming enemies.
Sage had picked up on similar patterns that Dr. Starline did during her analyses, she noted.
Often he chose to rush his plans, he was overconfident, he didn’t plan far enough ahead or he planned so far ahead that he never took errors along the way into account. He was similar to Sonic in that way, though he’d never admit it. His plans were much less meticulous and much more versatile. Perhaps that was a side effect of being enemies with someone as versatile as Sonic.
But Sage did not see these as frustrating flaws as the late Starline did. No, there was a method to her father’s madness. He would not change his ways to be more practical, because that was not the way he wanted to win. It was a game, a test of his intelligence and his versatility to match the hedgehog. His way of proving that it was Eggman, in all his impractical spectacle and flaws and humanity that could carve the world into his vision.
And his vision was theme parks. Because he liked theme parks.
It was admirable, it was wonderful, and it was horrifically confusing to an AI who was supposed to optimize Eggman’s plans as much as possible.
All of this ran through her mind as she hovered over her father’s shoulders, watching him sketch the blueprints of a new robot model. It was just a generic badnik, one that could be used as cannon fodder.
“Father. Permission to ask a question?”
“Permission granted,” He said, huffing as he scratched out an arm he just drew. “Just get me a pencil with a better eraser while you're at it.”
She nodded, fetching a fresh pencil to replace his old one. She held it in her hands, fiddling with the wood awkwardly.
“Well? Out with it.”
“I was curious about your fascination with theme parks.”
The question was a bit out of left field. He was expecting something about his current badnik design, not that. Eggman twisted his mustache with one hand, the other hovering the pencil above the blueprints.
He searched for the answer before settling on, “I like theme parks.”
She had heard this before, reviewing older conversations. She knew that he wanted to create one, despite its impractical use of resources, and she did not mind that. The doctor’s methods were not something she questioned.
“Why do you like theme parks?”
Eggman hummed, settling down the pencil. “I’m not sure I have an answer for that. I just enjoy them.”
It was obvious she didn’t seem satisfied with that answer, playing with the unused pencil with a confused frown. “I suppose I do not see the objective use for theme parks.”
There was a long, drawn out pause.
“Would you like to?”
Sage perked up.
“Yes.”
---
Sage stepped down into the virtual model, watching in awe as rides twisted and whirled, lights flashed, the ambient noise of an excited crowd, ringing bells and music filled the air.
Eggman watched from behind the screen with pride, chiming in like a park manager over a loudspeaker. “I use this as my proof of concept for a physical location. I like to incorporate some of these designs into a lot of my schemes- I’m sure Sonic’s had a go on more than one of these rides.”
Sage definitely could recognize some of these from older files. But seeing it so up close, so grand- she was standing to scale with how large these machines would be in real life, and it was breathtaking.
“Are the rides… functional, as scaled down models?”
“Why of course they are!” He chuckled. “I made sure before I imported you into the program.” He neglected to mention he also made them safe for a person to ride, because he did not want to throw Sage into something meant to harm hedgehogs her size.
“So… I could ride them?”
“Anything you’d like to do in the park, my dear, it’s fully functional. And there’s no lines.”
Sage chose not to float, grounded in the scene as she excitedly sprinted into the park. She decided to start with a carousel- of course, adorned with various badniks rather than horses.
She hung on tight atop a large motobug, a grin of sheer excitement unlike anything an AI could do cracking on her face.
As he saw his little girl light up with glee, Eggman knew just why he liked theme parks so much.