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“My best friend the robot,
A robot made of metals I made to be my best friend
He never steals my things
He never calls me ugly
And he's my best friend so he goes everywhere with me
One day I'll be smart enough to make my robot best friend”
-
The little navy colored Hedgehog with quills done in twin tails was desperately reaching for stapled together pieces of paper being held above her reach.
“Give it back! That’s mine!” Tears fell down her face, as they often did. These mean girls took her book, the little piece of poetry she made with her heart about her biggest dream, a dream these girls weren't very thrilled by.
“Oh come on, it's so funny Malloni! You want to have a friend who's a robot? that's so weird!” The girl passed it to another bully.
“It's not weird!” Malloni cried, making her way to the other girl, trying to reach for her makeshift book again “A robot would make for the perfect best friend, unlike you guys! You're just mean!”
“Maybe people would hate you less if you stopped crying all the time you baby!” Said the girl who held her booklet, who ended up pushing away Malloni due to her proximity, in Malloni's stumble, she felt something press up against her short quills and go “OOOWW!!”
“Oh my gosh! Look what you did!” Said the one gripping her papers.
“I-I'm sorry I didn't mean to!” The little hedgehog tried to speak but nobody would hear her.
In a rage, the girl behind her grabbed onto her pigtails and began pulling on them “UGH! Cut these horrible quills shorter! This is why you spiky lot don't have friends!”
“STOP STOP!!” Malloni could only scream and cry harder from the pain. Until one of the other girls finally got their friend to stop.
“Quit it Lizzy, she'll hurt you again! Let's tell the teacher!”
Lizzy finally let go of her quills, leaving them messy and undone, Malloni got to watch as they tore her book to shreds and threw it in the garbage before they ran off screaming for their teacher with accusatory remarks about her.
With no courage to chase after them to defend herself, all she did was sit there and cry as always … ‘it was bad anyways’.
-
Malloni sat down drinking some boxed apple juice while staring at the piece of paper in her hand, a resignation notice, she wrote it weeks ago but still hadn't told Dr. Robotnik about it, she was unsure if she actually wanted to go through with this, she doesn't have anywhere else to stay unless she went back to her parents home and heaven knows that would be hell on earth, she doesn't even know if they're still together, completely losing contact ever since she left to work for Eggman.
She hated this job, it was risky, she barely got any pay as an intern, and she was complicit in harming others, but every time the thought of leaving crossed her mind, she went back on the choice, she's just going to end up hurting people some different way, it's not going to change if she just stops working for Eggman, besides nobody would willingly take in someone as annoying as her and she didn't have money to rent a house, there's millions of other better techies out there, she wouldn't find a job anyway, she could only see herself sleeping in some alley, probably starving, and yeah, maybe it's what she deserves, but the thought was terrifying.
“There you are! The least annoying blue hedgehog I know!” Eggman's voice snapped her off those thoughts, she held the paper closer to herself so he couldn't see its contents.
“How many other blue hedgehogs do you know?”
“FUNNY YOU ASK! Come with me, I need to show you something!” He hurried Mal off her chair, she gave no push back and followed the doctor, who didn't seem interested in the note she held at all.
“I'm only showing this to you since, well, as my assistant, I'll be needing you to deal with some minor things about it for me, maybe some bug fixes, maintenance, cleaning, but it should be your easiest job yet!” He babbled.
Malloni looked unsure at her note, maybe she could check this last project and be done with working for him, she was pretty curious.
They took the elevator that went into the deepest part of the eggbase, one she didn't visit too often, as it was where Eggman spent most of his days, a massive lab with hundreds of projects, prototypes, all his favorite tools, everything one might need to make machines of havoc, it was also an absolute mess.
She could see a huge tube structure in the middle end of the room with something inside it. Many wires were going towards it, but she couldn't tell just what was inside.
Finally, the elevator stopped, the freezing cold of the room made itself known very quickly upon the opening of the doors.
“This has been my top secret project for a while now, my masterpiece, the thing that will finally take down that pesky hedgehog once and for all!” Eggman beamed proudly while walking Malloni towards the curious structure.
As they got closer, she could make out more of what she was looking at, it had the characteristic shine of one of Eggman's machines, but with so much hyping from Dr Eggman, this was certainly not an average badnik.
“BEHOLD, MY MOST BRILLIANT INVENTION!” Eggman yelled before revealing his pride and joy. “Metal Sonic”
She could see now, the screen shaped like eyes, with red glowing pupils seemingly staring directly at her, it was exactly as she thought, a robot with a sleek, glistening marine blue and yellow paint, his claws were as sharp as the heartbeats within her in this moment.
“A machine made not to go toe to toe with Sonic, but surpass him, I built him using data from Sonic's thoughts but removed all that nonsense about heroism and *eugh* freedom. Furthermore! …” Eggman kept going on about his new invention, but this is about everything that Malloni heard before it all turned into background noise.
This robot, it was so captivating, from the way he looked around the room, obviously curious about his surroundings, to the way his body could so seamlessly turn into various weapons on the Doctor's command, he was Metal, but it all felt so … alive.
Malloni's brain went back to that old dream of hers, was this her opportunity being handed on a silver platter? Her best friend? … Maybe, but her dream might've morphed into something else at that moment, by how hot her face felt just looking at this incredible piece of machinery.
“So …” Eggman finished his rambling to speak directly to the starry eyed hedgehog in the room. “What do you think? By the look in your face I'd say you're quite awe-struck by my genius work!”
“He's perfect” She sighed wistfully, a hand gripping tightly on her chest and the paper she held, if only that would quiet her racing heart and thoughts.
“Isn't he?! Now, he's not quite done yet, which is why I need a little help while I finalize his code, but don't touch anything I don't want you touching, I don't want you to ruin my organized mess, got it?”
“It would be an honor, sir!” Malloni jumped with a certain kind of joy stranger to her.
“Great! Just uhh” Eggman pointed at the paper she's been holding onto this entire time. "What do you have there? You've been holding it like your life depended on it this entire time”.
“Groceries!” She lied “We are uhh … out of coffee”
“COFFEE?! WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO EARLIER?! Go get it then! You know I can't work without my caffeine, GO!” He demanded “And make sure to get the brand right this time, got it?”
“RIGHT SIR THANK YOU SIR! PRAISE THE EGGMAN EMPIRE!” She blurted out before running to the elevator to complete her new, thankfully simple task.
The image of that robot didn't leave her mind the entire way out, the entire day actually. She just knew that getting to work on him would literally be a dream come true, whatever that dream might be now.
On her way out of the base, she took another look at her resignation letter, ripped it to pieces, and threw it on the nearest trash can, before she skipped her way to the closest grocery store, completely forgetting what she even said was missing.