Chapter Text
The pollutants in the night sky blocked any starlight from reaching the city below. The only illumination came from candle light and the searchlights of drones flying above.
The city was decimated. Many buildings had been reduced to rubble. The buildings that were still standing were full of holes and cracks. Some of them had even partially collapsed. The people hid in the ruined buildings in the hopes of avoiding the vengeful gaze of Doctor Robotnik the Technopope.
A cloaked woman walked through the ruined city. She carefully avoided the craters and unexploded bombshells that littered the street. The woman would, every now and then, look over her shoulder.
Eventually, she reached a motel. The motel was a single story, concrete building that had clearly been caught in the bombings. The walls were riddled with cracks and holes. The biggest of which were haphazardly covered with wood and nails.
The woman walked toward a wooden door, labeled “02” in black paint. She knocked on the door three times. After a brief pause, two more times. She waited until she heard the door unlock. The woman entered a small motel room. The paint was chipping off the concrete walls. The room had a single bed with sheets that had numerous mismatched patches of cloth sewn into them.
“Were you followed?” asked the red armadillo blue, human-sized centipede.
“What do you take me for, hun?” asked the woman, “I’m a professional.”
As she said this, she took off the cloak, revealing a human-sized yellow cat green star-nosed mole. She threw the cloak onto a nightstand, before sitting on the bed.
“Did you manage to find Sonic Gomez?” asked the armadillo centipede.
“I asked around,” replied the cat star-nosed mole, “Turns out, Badniks the Techquisition did a raid on his apartment and tried to arrest him. It turned into a fight and Sonic Gomez bit the big one, thanks to a well-timed frag grenade.”
“Another soul claimed by Robotnik the Technopope. How many Freedom Fighters Resistie members are left?”
“Uh, there’s you and me. And that’s it.”
“Goddamn. That accursed Robotnik Technopope ruins everything he touches. Only if we could somehow kill him. Then, all this madness would end.”
“But wouldn’t Badniks the Techquisition still be around?”
“Actually, no. Before she died, Rogue Scarlet discovered Robotnik the Technopope programmed all of his robots to kill themselves if he should die so no one else could use them.”
A silence fell over the two Freedom Fighters Resistie members. The armadillo centipede sat there brooding, lost in his thoughts. The cat mole just looked at him.
“Hey, Mighty Brawnso,” said the cat mole, “There’s something I wanted to tell you.”
“Yeah, Honey Stella?” replied the armadillo centipede, without looking at her.
Honey Stella placed her hand onto Mighty’s Brawnso’s. Mighty’s Brawnso looked at his hand. When he saw what was on it, he blushed, before looking Honey Stella in the face.
Honey Stella said, “Mighty Brawnso, I love...”
BOOM! A cloud of dust filled the room. Mighty Brawnso and Honey Stella were startled. Several beams of red light pierced through the cloud. The duo jumped off the bed.
The cloud parted to reveal a hole blown through the wall, revealing several robots. Some were humanoids. Others resembled military equipment. They all had electronic eyes that projected red beams of light. It was the Badniks Techquisition!
Mighty Brawnso lunged toward the robots. He unleashed a torrent of punches, which pierced the metal hides of the sinister machines. Driven by adrenaline, Mighty Brawnso ripped the head off of one of the robots.
In retaliation, the decapitated robot sprayed Mighty Brawnso with a green gas. A sense of drowsiness washed over the punching armadillo centipede. He tried to fight the urge to sleep. Suddenly, a hammer hit him in the back of the head, knocking him out cold.
“GOOD JOB,” said a Badnik Techquisitor shaped like a wine barrel, “TAKE HIM TO DOCTOR ROBOTNIK THE TECHNOPOPE.”
A humanoid robot, who had a hammer in place of a left hand, picked up Mighty Brawnso and slung the armadillo centipede over his shoulder. As the robot and Mighty Brawnso left, the other robots searched the motel for Honey Stella yet they couldn’t find heads or tails of her.
***
The throne room was the size of a gymnasium. Scattered throughout the room was a variety of Badniks Techquisitors of all shapes and sizes. At one end of the room was a pair of massive stone doors. At the other end was a silver throne with red cushions. One of the chair’s arms had a plethora of buttons on it.
Sitting in the chair was Doctor Robotnik the Technopope. He was a rotund skinny man, wearing a red jacket and black pants blue robes with a similarly colored pope hat, albeit with the cross replaced with a yellow gear symbol. Doctor Robotnik The Technopope looked gleefully at the center of the room.
At the center of the room, Mighty Brawnso was tied up and dangled from a crane. He had been positioned above a vat, which was full of robot sharks with glowing red eyes. The pseudo-shark swam around the pool, eagerly awaiting their meal of dissent flesh.
“We had our fun,” said Robotnik the Technopope, “but now you die.”
Robotnik The Technopope reached for a button on this throne. His finger was a mere centimeter from the button when…
Knock. Knock.
“Who is it?” cried Robotnik the Technopope, “I’m busy!”
“Pizza delivery,” said a voice behind the stone door.
“Oh, finally! Come in!”
A person entered the room. She wore a red baseball hat and shirt that said "Mario’s Pizza". The delivery person carried a pizza box. She walked past the vat and Mighty Brawnso. The delivery girl walked up to Robotnik’s the Technopope’s throne and handed him the box.
“It’s been more than thirty minutes, so I guess it’s free,” said Robotnik the Technopope, jokingly.
“Of course,” replied the delivery girl.
Doctor Robotnik The Technopope opened the box. It triggered a mechanism in the box then…
BOOM! The mad dictator was consumed by explosive fire. His body was blown to pieces. Blood splattered everywhere while bits of flesh and organs were scattered across the room.
“DOCTOR ROBOTNIK THE TECHNOPOPE IS DEAD,” noted one Badnik Techquisitor, “ACTIVATING SELF-DESTRUCTION PROTOCOL.”
All the robots in the room pulled out revolvers. They aimed the revolvers at their head before shooting themselves in unison. Even the robotic sharks pulled out revolvers and shot themselves. Soon, the delivery girl and the Mighty Brawnso were the only ones left alive.
“You’ve killed Robotnik the Technopope and saved us all!” said Mighty Brawnso, “But who are you?”
“Ah Mighty Brawnso,” said the delivery girl as she removed her hat, “You don’t recognize me?”
“Honey Stella?! What the heck happened?”
“You see, I was trying to sneak into the palace church so I could chuck a bomb at old Eggman Gearhead when I noticed the pizza delivery guy. So, I knocked him out and sold his clothes. I removed the pizza and placed a bomb in it.”
As she spoke, Honey Stella pressed some buttons on the throne. In response to the input, the crane moved Mighty Brawnso away from the vat, before lowering him onto the floor. When Mighty Brawnso was safely on the ground, Honey Stella untied him.
“Wow, that was brilliant,” said Mighty Brawnso, “I don’t know how to thank...”
Honey Stella pulled Mighty Brawnso close and smooched him. Although surprised, he began smooching her back. The two lovers fell to the floor and began passionately making out, right next to the dead remains of Doctor Robotnik the Technopope.
Sure, they lost all their friends and allies, had no idea how to run a government, created a massive power vacuum and were rushing headfirst into an uncertain future. But, at that moment, that didn’t matter. What mattered was the intimacy between the two lovers.