Chapter Text
Prologue: Morning
Scheduled Start Up Active
Booting…
Initializing…
Activating…
Power Up Complete.
Good Morning, Metal!
A mechanical arm lifted with a groggy recklessness, as if trying to wave his own systems away. He sat motionless for a long moment. The book lying across his face fell to the ground when he finally gave in and sat up. The rest of his encyclopedia collection covered every surface around him. His clumsy attempts to regain his bearings sent a few of them to the floor. He muttered to himself.
All those times he’d worried about Tails working late into the night and now he was doing it too. The fox pup must be rubbing off on him more than he expected.
He looked around as his systems caught up. His memory banks eventually supplied an explanation. He’d been looking into the history of the Eggman Empire’s attacks on mobian villages. He vaguely remembered dismissing an alert without bothering to acknowledge it. At least three alerts, actually. And then he went offline mid-sentence.
He felt the back of his head. Yep. There was the charging cable. Tails must have found him passed out and slumped back in his chair. Which meant he probably had a lecture coming. Tails didn’t want him pushing his limits like that. He didn’t understand why. He was a robot. He didn’t have to worry about all those organic weaknesses like exhaustion.
Unless his battery failed in the middle of a race. Sonic still wouldn’t let him live that one down.
But he was back to full charge now, so no harm done. Yet.
He brought up his schedule.
Reminders:
Hero’s Festival
Repairs
Tails mentioned wanting waffles.
At least he knew how to make it up to Tails.
He freed himself from the charger, stacked his books up neatly, gave his frog plush a pat on the head, and set out for another day of trying to understand these strange organics.