Chapter Text
The hardest part about tyranny was the overabundance of yes-men.
With no heads to punt into orbit for the unmitigated gall to dare question his genius…it left him… lacking …shall we say…in the actual genius department at times.
Robotnik watches the filthy bag of bones and shedding fur he’d snatched up for all this trouble breathe heavily onto the thick glass of its containment unit and draw pictures in the fog like it couldn’t be bothered with the entire urgent hostage situation he’d worked for months to plan-
His pride refuses to let him admit this was a stupid idea.
Rather, instead-a calculated risk he’d been willing to enact for the potential but vast reward. He couldn’t help himself these days…whether or not he actually enjoyed the thrill of the gamble mattered little in the end because he would’ve (and has) given anything for those emeralds.
And that hedgehog was going to collect them all for him, knowing full well his adversary to be too young to yet fully appreciate the adrenaline of a good bet.
A wide smile cracked and split evenly across his face at the sentiment.
No, he’ll play it safe and do as he’s told, if he truly cared at all for-
A prolonged squeaking sound effectively derails his train of thought, and he whips around to find the creature’s finger dragging slowly across the glass which was bad enough, but the line wasn’t even straight-
“Stop that-!” He pounds a fist against the unit, causing it to shake, and to his amusement, the creature falls back startled and directly against a crude drawing of what looked to be Sonic, smudging it to the point at which it was unrecognizable.
There’s only irritation where he’d expected fear. Demanded it.
He grasps the edges of the glass and violently rocked the unit with all his pent-up frustration. The weightless creature met each pane of glass with a different part of his body until he was too battered and disoriented to stand.
“That’ll teach you, you-! Whatever it is that you are-!”
The creature sighs as it sits up, but it’s too fragile to hear through the thick glass. It fogged again the slightest amount, but before he could get angry again at such blatant insubordination, it writes something.
sliaT
“Wh-? You wrote it backwards, you imbecile-”
The prisoner only regarded him with confusion, studying its scribbled letters as if it hadn’t understood what it’d done wrong.
He’s not sure who he pities more at this point; the freak so clueless and cursed with a name so horrid it was as if its parents wanted him to fail, or him for getting stuck babysitting somehow in spite of all the preparations that still desperately needed making.
The headache begins to set in, and it’s an easy choice.
“No matter…your utility is not substantial enough for me to care. However, ” he points to the smeared, but no less disgustingly affectionate portrait, “if I see that unauthorized hedgehog in here again, I’ll use it for target practice, do we understand one another?”
The-Tails…nodded like it understood, although he wasn’t ultimately convinced because it immediately goes back to its drawing and kicks it slightly so that the container vibrates, then looks up at him quizzically, as if to ask “you can hurt a picture?”
He doesn’t have the time or the energy to hunt for malice or sarcasm and chalks it up to extreme stupidity.
It reminds him of something the hedgehog said as he sped away with his hostage in tow that he’d paid little mind to until now.
“Leave him-! Please, he’s just a kid-!”
Extreme stupidity and children went hand-in-hand, he supposes.
It mattered not how young the Tails is: simply put, if Sonic wanted it to live out the rest of its incompetent days, he’d better make good on his end of the exchange.
Yes…a victory he’ll soon savor without needless interruptions…for a prisoner that refuses to speak it manages to be nearly as annoying as the hedgehog himself.
It’s that exact devotion in return he’s banking on.
His point made, he leaves, eager as he was to indulge in a bit of premature celebration, there was too much work to be done to waste his signature sneer on one too dense to appreciate it.
Certain that the creature would have no trouble entertaining itself, he wastes no further time, disappearing into a labyrinth of his own design, determined that the next time that miserable animal saw him, he’d surely emerge with a twinkle in his eye and quills beneath his boots.
He could imagine it now…the child rendered immobile by a transfixed awe surely worthy of his own foggy little portrait, or ten-!
…He really should have known better.
While his plans are flawless by design, very rarely do they reach that level of perfection in the execution phase.
It starts innocuously enough with a mission to retrieve a missing tool he’d assumed to have carelessly left in the control room unattended, and ends with much of the same.
But his tool wasn’t supposed to be using tools.
And yet there the child sat regardless, mindlessly twirling his missing wrench in between its fingers.
The glass in front of his face was scratched and scuffed, as though it’d tried to break through it with the tool and failed, its audacity made worse by the fact it didn’t even try to hide what it’d done.
His jaw trembles as he tries to stay his temper, but he’d been looking all over for that- countless hours of efficiency wasted only for it to end up in the hands of a blunt fool with no greater understanding for what it s intended purpose was to be-
If the cretin wasn’t to be bothered, he’d just go and bother it himself.
“If I may again remind you how futile your efforts are,” he hisses, but the Tails only stares him down through the gouges in the glass it made and it makes him even angrier, “allow me to demonstrate.”
He grabs the sides of the glass once again, too blinded by rage to realize that the vacancy in the creature’s eyes is no longer there when it braces itself for something with a disconcerting amount of focus. Though, as he began to rock the container around again, there’s something off about it…it leaned much heavier on him than he remembered it doing the last time…
He catches a flash of yellow as the creature shoves what looked to be a handle to something into its glove, but before he could discern what it is, he notices the way Tails’ legs tense as it tries to keep upright as if it’d been anticipating this…
The base.
As he lifts he realizes there’s a widening gap between the metal base and the glass that should not be there-and as soon as he looks at the creature’s drawn expression he knows exactly what it intends to do.
The wretched thing had detached it somehow-
He relinquishes the glass just as the Tails leaps, and to his absolute delight, its timing is just off to the effect that it smashes its face against the panel instead finding the freedom it was likely hoping for.
All the while he tries to hide the fact that his heart is pounding, his brain is racing, and his pits are sweating at the mere suggestion of being almost outsmarted by a child.
He watches as the fetid creature holds its bleeding nose, more upset than scared at the lost opportunity, and casts him a glance that could melt steel.
He’s not swayed. Rather, the smile on his face doubles and shines just as brightly as the droplets that form in the little thing’s eyes because as he sees this Tails for what it really was for the first time…the playing field begins to level just the smallest amount.
Petty bullying became warranted, and all bets were off because underneath its pathetic facade was a mind, underbaked and dim now, maybe, but still sharp enough to one day rival his own.
Or at least that’s how he justified it to himself to assuage his ego for underestimating his prisoner at such a crucial stage…
“My little double-tailed troublemaker- ” he hums, feigning a great deal of composure and not at all considering cramming this ugly brat into a robot and calling it a day, “I do believe you have something of mine. Hand it over, now .”
Surely knowing it couldn’t possibly lift the container up by itself, it reluctantly passes the stolen wrench through the tiny hatch he’d been using to feed it with.
His anger is momentarily forgotten as he looks it over, ensuring the etched initials on the surface of the metal hadn’t been damaged somehow. A small sigh of relief escapes him as he thumbs over the familiar “G. R.” he’d become accustomed to, but it’s gone as soon as he notices the freak is eying him strangely.
“This, you thief, is a family heirloom, ” he waves the wrench clenched in his fist pointedly, “Ah, but I wouldn’t expect you to understand; you have no family.”
His anger is permanently forgotten when the creature’s brittle obstinance splinters and cracks to reveal something far more helpless and raw upon its sunken face.
Yes, he could benefit from a different approach…one that gave him a distinct advantage over simpleminded fools who held trivial matters like approval and belonging over self-sufficiency.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice the way you trail behind…and look where it got you. Do you honestly believe your loyalty will be rewarded? That you’re worth all the trouble you’ve caused? He’s about to lose everything, and it will have been all your fault.”
Blood and tears dribble slowly down the thing’s face, and although he should be satisfied with his handiwork, there’s something a twinge familiar he recognizes deep within the shrouded annals of his memories…
He feels the sharp edges of those initials always , whether or not he was wielding his grandfather’s old tools.
“It’s a pity you chain yourself to mediocrity,” he starts before he can think better of it, “do you even know what it is to be free?”
He knows intimately what it is to exist in the inescapable shadow of his beloved hero who never even deserved him anyways…dare he say he feels a touch of sympathy…?
“I can change that.” He smiles…and there’s that fear he’d been waiting for.
“Show me what you’re capable of-show those ingrates what you really think of them. Help me, and I will truly set you free. Only then will you be able to have what was never yours.”
Plans could change…here he was taking another unnecessary gamble but the look on that blue rat’s face would be well worth the effort it would take to chase those emeralds down all over again-
The creature only blinks, then slowly removes the gnarled yellow handle of what looked to be a piece of junk with a phillips head attached to it from one of its misshapen gloves.
“You’ll never have to hide again…” He coaxes, sure he’s got the child’s full attention now in spite of the way its twin appendages fidget restlessly.
It looks at the screwdriver with a pained fondness, then back at the ghost of the beloved portrait it’d stained with its own blood.
Then into his eyes.
So be it.
In a swift motion, it throws the tool out of the hatch and it skitters a good distance away . Perhaps it was a blow meant for him, had he not already been anticipating it.
“Suit yourself.” He chirps, walking over to collect the fallen tool to find it one of those interesting kinds that had a removable bit.
Ignoring the creature’s blood, he flipped it to the flathead side.
Back to Plan A, then. Maybe he’ll find a use for this, yet.
“But I must warn you,” he flippantly calls over his shoulder, “if you don’t behave from now on, I won’t hesitate to jettison you into space, understood?”
He knows it won’t. Hopefully this empty threat will be enough to keep it in line until he finds the time to heavily fortify its containment unit.
Always something…as if there weren’t enough to do around here…
The creature’s turned away from him by now, curled into a ball, tiny hands over its ears, but by the way they twitch he knows it’s still listening intently.
“I’m a hologram specialist, you know…" he lies, sweetly, "You really think the hedgehog will be able to tell the difference? He’ll never notice you were even gone.”
The little freak finally breaks, shivering and crying and whatever else bratty children did when their temper tantrums didn’t work.
At least he got a screwdriver out of it.
He hums to himself, satisfied that the Tails will surely keep itself occupied with this meltdown for the next little while, at least until mealtime.
He had much to do still.
If the young creature wasn’t willing to live up to its full potential, well, he certainly wouldn’t waste any more of his own trying to convince it not to make the same mistakes.
Yes, if he knew Sonic, he’d be here sooner rather than later with the emeralds he so desperately craved.
And the sooner this miserable child was out of his hair, the better.