Evil Overlords Have Feelings Too
by Jenifer Irwin

Part 2

"Hah! Take that, ya useless aliens!" Robotnik cackled as another rocket blasted an enemy UFO to pieces, twisted metal raining down around the Steel Snake as it soared through the wreckage. High above the earth, saucer-like spacecraft swarmed the odd serpentine vehicle, shooting at it only to miss most of the time due to its speed and flexibility.

"Arashi, 5 o'clock!" he exclaimed, sensing the approaching UFO. The woman next to him swiveled the seat to face almost completely backwards, firing a rocket at the other vehicle and blowing it to smithereens. She grinned as she turned to face forward again, shooting at yet another vehicle that zipped by.

The Steel Snake took a sudden downward dive, although Robotnik knew that'd be a mistake. He was out to confuse and baffle the enemy, however, and the results couldn't be so bad... wellll, ok, maybe it could. Both of the occupants turned green and groaned with nausea. After all, no matter how much you've driven high tech machines of destruction, your stomach is never going to get used to going in one direction while the rest of your body is suddenly jerked downward at 800 miles an hour. Especially not 15 minutes after a large breakfast.

Miraculously, they managed to keep from painting the inside of the pod with the morning meal, and Arashi put a hand on Robotnik's arm. "Don't ever do that again," she said, gasping slightly for breath. "Oh, trust me, I won't," he replied, firing a rocket at a UFO, but it missed. Having to consume your food a second time to keep from losing it would affect anyone's aim.

The UFOs around them all stopped shooting for some strange reason. Robotnik and Arashi briefly paused, wondering what was going on, before one craft after another began to hurtle towards them, kamikaze-style, attempting to smash into the pod on the Steel Snake's back that the humans were riding in.

"Hold your gut, this could get bumpy," Robotnik said, knowing that mere shooting wasn't going to take care of 5 large UFOs screaming towards the pod at once. The entire Steel Snake began thrashing wildly about, slamming enemy craft in half with its tail or knocking them away with enough damage to prevent them from ever doing anything right again. Arashi grunted a few times as the snake lurched about, threatening to pull her through her restraining belt no matter how good quality it was.

"You had the right idea with these racing harnesses," she said loudly over the sound of explosions, reaching up to tighten the harness a bit.

The Steel Snake's head darted around, snapping a UFO up in its mouth and flinging it away while tail-smacking another one downward, sending it blazing towards the earth. Citizens watched on television as satellites took live footage of the battle, amazed at the destructive power that this one man was able to create. They began to wonder how, through all those years, a hedgehog and a fox were able to stop Robotnik, up until his new friend arrived and instilled enough common sense, and perhaps confidence, in him for him to just finally kill Sonic with no real ceremony when he had the chance. The citizens--who were left after world takeover, anyway--thanked their lucky stars that they weren't part of the dead majority who resisted when the evil genius began his unstoppable campaign. Strangely enough, after he actually took over, things weren't so bad... probably because he just got bored, since he had it all now. They never thought they'd be thanking him for defending their lives against another enemy... on second thought, this was probably just another excuse for him to blow stuff up.

**

The intense battling dulled Robotnik and Arashi's awareness of anything around it, and they didn't notice the giant mother ship that now loomed nearby. The leader of the entire alien army peered closely at the occupants of the single craft that was destroying all of his troops.

"The human male is grotesquely fat... Zork, what is with these humans and their increasing obesity? I thought we brainwashed enough of them into becoming health nuts long ago. I want graceful, healthy people to watch! If I wanted to observe fat people I'd just watch the hippopotami on the Serengeti!" the alien leader grumbled.

Zork shook his head slightly. "Sir, I think we've got more to worry about with that guy other than the fact that he's eaten one too many candy bars. Watch him a little more closely. And the girl, too. Do you notice anything strange about them... regarding how the craft is moving?"

The leader, Takar, watched a little more intently, temporarily disabling all senses but sight as he enhanced his vision. Zork was right... something wasn't... where were the flight controls?

His senses returning to normal, Takar gasped. "The humans... they've found a way to build mind-controlled machines!? Zork, we engineered that possibility out of their genes long ago!? What happened!?"
"I think he's a mutation, sir."
"He better NOT have had any children!"
"I don't think any woman could ever be that desperate, sir."
"Whatever. I want him--alive! And... 'prepared.'"

**

"No more games, fat man," a strange voice floated through Robotnik's head, distracting him momentarily. A UFO smashed into his side of the pod, shattering all over the place, but luckily the pod held up. Arashi gasped as a field of energy surrounded the Steel Snake. "What the..."

On televisions across the world, people watched, stunned, as the Steel Snake was slowly dragged on a tractor beam up toward the mother ship. No matter how hard the snake's jets burned, it couldn't even budge from the beam. An air lock opened up on the mother ship and swallowed up the Snake along with all the other alien craft, and it was silent.

**

The struggle with the Steel Snake inside the ship was harder than the aliens expected. It thrashed madly about, smashing aliens that it didn't snap up and swallow whole, blowing the walls of the indoor hangar away with rockets. Two aliens managed to grab the snake's nose and tail with remote-controlled tractor beams, stretching the vehicle out taut across the hangar. It was pulled so tightly that it couldn't even twitch, but Robotnik and Arashi refused to give up, continuing to fire rockets all over the place.

Through cameras attached to the aliens that were swarming around inside the hangar, Takar watched the destruction and sighed. "Zork, remind me to never allow human IQ to go above 150 or human determination and willpower to... exist."
"Well, sir, it's an entertaining show, is it not?"
"It probably would be, but... I thought the good guys always got limited ammo? They should have run out by now."
"They're actually bad guys in the entire scheme of things, sir. Bad guys always have infinite ammo until the one moment where its existence is more crucial than anything... at which point it all evaporates, or the launching mechanisms malfunction, or something along those lines."
"Can we engineer a premature One Crucial Moment?"
"I'm afraid not, sir."
Takar sighed.

For hours, Robotnik and Arashi continuously fired rockets at anyone who approached their ship. She glanced over at him at one point and asked, "Hey, Ivo, are you okay?" He looked as if he were in a great deal of pain, and he suddenly let his hands drop from the triggers of the dual rocket launchers. "I can't shoot anymore... Why, why does my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome have to act up NOW!?" He whined in agony as he rocked back and forth slightly, clutching his right wrist, which was in the most pain.

Try as she might, Arashi couldn't hold off all of the aliens by herself, especially since she couldn't shoot in the directions that Robotnik could. The aliens managed to jump up on his side of the pod and pry it open. Arashi still refused to give up, grabbing a laser gun out of the holster on Robotnik's hip and starting to shoot furiously at the green men who had climbed onto the pod. She shrunk back slightly, ceasing fire as the ones who were shot didn't even get scratched.

"Oh, please, we evolved an immunity to laser fire a long time ago," one of the aliens said boredly, dragging her out of the pod and taking the gun away. "Use a tractor beam on him, there's no way we're going to be able to lift him out by ourselves," someone said, and the aliens pulled Robotnik out of the pod in the recommended fashion.

The two humans' belongings were confiscated and they were led handcuffed through several corridors. One of the aliens leading Robotnik turned to his partner and said, "Hmm, Zork said we needed to... 'prepare' this man, right?" The partner nodded, realizing he had forgotten, and said, "Alright, this way," to Robotnik as they started to lead him down a separate corridor.

"Wait a minute... 'Prepare!?' What are you talking about? Where are you taking him!?" Arashi yelled worriedly, wondering what they were going to do with her evil genius hero. The aliens that were leading her snickered and said, "You'll see, you'll see," as they took her to a holding cell. They had to restrain her as they injected her with a powerful sleeping agent, then locked her in the cell and left.

**

The next morning, Arashi woke up slowly, taking at least a half hour to fight off the lingering affects of whatever they injected her with the day before. She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes for a while. Upon opening them, she screamed in shock.

This caused Robotnik to stir, and he took quite a while to wake up too before sitting up on the cot across the cell from Arashi's. He felt kind of strange. Blinking through bleary eyes, he glanced over at her, puzzled at the shocked expression frozen on her face. "What?"

Getting no response, he reached up to scratch an itch on the back of his neck.

That was odd. He actually had a neck.

Looking down at himself, he screamed too. "I have FEET!?!?"

The doctor stood up, holding his arms out to his sides as he twisted around, looking at himself. He was... thin. He was correctly proportioned. What had they done to him!?

"What in the world..." he muttered to himself, amazed. "They even got my clothes cut down to the right fit..."

He looked up at Arashi, who still looked dumbfounded. She glanced at the hallway behind him through the bars, hearing footsteps. Having heard the screams, a pair of aliens were heading down the corridor to find out what was going on and take the humans to Takar.

"What seems to be the problem?" one of the aliens asked when they reached the cell.

"Oh... nothing," Robotnik said, dusting his coat off. His appearance was changed so much by the loss of all the fat that he was probably barely recognizable, but on the other hand, he'd never felt so fit in his life. Besides the fact, he could just eat his way back to obesity later.

"Well, then, come along," the alien said, opening the cell and grabbing the two, leading them down the hallway and out of the cell block. They were taken through several more corridors and into the heart of the ship, where a large door opened to reveal a grand chamber. Within the chamber was a throne, several control panels, desks, bookcases, a snack bar and a few tables with chairs.

A very important-looking alien turned from a large window to look at Robotnik and Arashi. "Ah. Excellent. They prepared you quite well. You're going to be much more tolerable to talk to... I can't stand fat people." He walked over calmly, arms folded within his robes, and circled the humans, eyeing them appraisingly. They got a good, long look at one of these aliens for the first time as they looked back at him. This race of aliens was roughly the same height as Robotnik, and had elegant appearances, light green skin, and looked more or less human. They also had a distinct British accent.

"I'm Takar, Ykrian Leader. You two would be?" the leader asked.

"Emperor Ivo Robotnik and Empress Arashi Codiv," Robotnik answered, arrogantly. Arashi nudged him hard in the ribs. Now wasn't the time to be arrogant.

"I... see," Takar said, seeming suddenly worried for some reason. He poked Robotnik in the chest, saying, "You... haven't had any children, have you?"

"I must have a pretty high tolerance for pain if I managed that, because I don't remember anything of the sort, no," the doctor replied, snickering. He winced slightly as Arashi jammed her elbow into his side again. Takar sighed and shook his head.

"On to what I really brought you in here for... I've noticed, Robotnik, that you managed to create a vehicle that's controlled by mind power alone... tell me, how did you do this?"

Robotnik thought for a moment, then replied, "I'll tell you if you'll leave my planet alone." Arashi stood silently, hoping Takar would agree. If the aliens didn't know how to do such things and were trying to get the knowledge from Robotnik... well, no telling what they'd end up doing with it. She then wondered, amusedly, who Earth would distrust more with the knowledge--Robotnik or the aliens?

Irritated suddenly, the alien drew a very advanced-looking laser gun on Robotnik. "No one attempts to bargain with me... Give me one good reason not to kill you right now."

"Because there wouldn't be much of a story then, would there?"

Takar lowered the gun swiftly, an even more irritated look on his face. "You have a point. Curse you. Of course, I may not be able to kill you--or, I'm assuming, your little cohort here--but I can do worse. Much worse." He grinned chillingly. "Do you realize, Mr. Robotnik, that--"

"Dr. Robotnik," the mad scientist interrupted.

"Dr. Robotnik, that I could suck the information out of your head if I wanted to? And do you realize how painful of a process that is? After all, even us aliens haven't been able to develop a program that can easily hack into the files of a man's very brain. And having live electrical wires stuck into your ears and nose usually doesn't sit well with most people. Not to worry, though, we keep them alive... barely. Now then, I've come up with a wonderful idea... I believe I'm going to remove all information that the common housefly isn't able to retain, then lower your IQ to a nice, stable... 2 or so. Then we won't have to worry about you anymore. How does that sound?"

Robotnik looked over at Arashi, alarmed. She gulped loudly.

"I'll give you two minutes to speak with your friend here before I turn him into a human vegetable," Takar said in a bored tone, turning to walk over and look out the window. He took a small device out of his pocket and started speaking into it in a low voice, too low for either of them to make out what he was saying.

"Ivo, what are we going to do!?" Arashi asked worriedly, grabbing him by the arms. He looked around, mumbling, "I'm not sure, but I do know one thing--this is going to be a challenge. No inept guards, no vents to crawl through, nothing that Evil Overlords usually fail at..."

"There has to be something! You can't just get your brains sucked out! It's not meant to be!"

Takar turned around, frowning. "Wait a minute. You're psychic? Are you? Seriously?" He seemed worried. "Humans are gaining incredible abilities at an astonishing rate! Why has my army allowed this to happen!?" His paranoia was obvious.

"No, I'm not psychic," Arashi said, fearful that he'd try to suck her brains out too. "I just... don't think... that you should do this to him."

Several flying saucers began to descend to earth, seen through the window as Takar peered at Arashi with distrust. "Oh well. Carry on," he said, turning back towards the window.

Arashi looked helplessly at Robotnik. "Come on... use that mind of yours, we gotta get out of here." The doctor shook his head slightly, saying in a lower voice, "I'll just have to see what develops."

Takar turned around and said, "Alright, time's up, let's go," and started towards Robotnik. Arashi took a step forward and hugged the doctor abruptly. Predictably, he made no move to hug back. Evil Overlords, Especially Those Under Pressure And Trying To Be Macho, don't hug.

"I'm gonna miss you, you know... you were my only real friend."

Takar rolled his eyes in disgust. "Oh, how positively gushy. Come on, you old fool, let's get this over with," he said, grabbing Robotnik by the arm and pulling him away from Arashi, handing him over to two guards that showed up. "Suck'is brains out," he said, smirking, then turned to Arashi. "And you... I think you'd be excellent for producing the heir to my throne. Have to carry on the family line and continue terrorizing planets, you know. And it's not easy for the Ykrian race to reproduce, so we have to pick the best humans we can find..."

He didn't know why, he didn't know how, but that sent Robotnik into a rage. "What!?" Somehow, he got the strength to break from the two guards' grip and race across the room at Takar, slamming into him. The sudden movement surprised everyone--the doctor had been able to outrun Sonic while fleeing, even when he was fat. He was even faster than that now, and had the alien leader on the floor instantly, pummeling him with his fists. "You're not gonna take my friend as your concubine! Die! Die! Die!"

After some struggling, the guards managed to pull Robotnik off of a rather bruised Takar, who stood up, fuming. "Make sure the procedure is extra painful for our bald guest," the alien spat, glaring at Robotnik. He couldn't, however, stop himself from looking away a bit fearfully from the hateful glare that was returned.

Arashi was dumbfounded as she watched the guards drag a struggling Robotnik away. She never thought that mere words about her would have made him explode like that.

"I hope your heir kills you in your sleep! No, I hope he wakes you up and kills you SLOWLY! With a rusty spoon!" came the mad scientist's yell, echoing down the hall a few seconds later.

"I believe I'm going to go watch this," Takar said, glancing at Arashi. "Do make yourself comfortable, because you're going to remain here for the rest of your life." He smiled a mocking smile and left the room, the door securely shutting behind him.

A thorough examination of the room turned up absolutely no way out, and Arashi sat down on a chair helplessly. Very soon after, the screams began. Terrible screams. Pained, yet angry, shrieks that could only be those of Robotnik getting his brains sucked out through live electric wires. She put her face in her hands and tried very hard to keep from crying.

Takar grinned in satisfaction as he watched the helpless scientist jerk back and forth, most movement restrained by tough leather straps that held him to the table. Sparks danced around his head, tearing primal screams of agony out of his lungs, but his expression never shifted to the true, submissive, helpless agony that most others' did. It just got more enraged. After several minutes, Takar realized that the two technicians sitting at the control panel had been getting increasingly more confused as time went on. Robotnik's expression kept getting fiercer, his screams more angry, though he was supposed to be too stupid to even notice the pain anymore a long time ago.

"What's going on?" Takar asked, walking around towards the other two aliens. One of them started to speak with the nervous hesitation of a 15-year-old geek who has social difficulties.

"Well, sir, we have a... problem... Uh... this program we bought, from Evil Aliens Inc... I-it's only compatible with Windows 98 or higher and... we never upgraded from 95 on this machine... Uh... it caused an illegal operation, and..." He looked at another screen, which read: "IQ: 532."

And the number was rising.

"540 IQ?!! YOU IDIOTS!" Takar screamed, pounding both of them into unconscious heaps before pulling the plug on the computer as Robotnik's IQ ticked just past 600. There was no telling what other than the IQ could have been enhanced or otherwise affected.

"Curses! Enjoy your super-mind while you can, doctor, because I'm installing Windows 98 as soon as I can find a copy!" the alien snarled, storming out of the room and shouting as he hurried down the hallway.

Arashi was sure Robotnik was a goner when she heard the pained screams stop, but then she heard the irritated yelling of Takar. "Get me a bloody copy of Windows 98! NOW! We've got a very dangerous individual on the ship, and for the record, it's not me for once!" he shouted. Arashi stood up and hurried to the door to listen to the commotion a little closer.

"Sir! I found a copy!"

"Excellent. Alright, let's install it! It's a good thing our machines can install these things so quickly..."

About two minutes of silence passed.

"WHERE'S THE BLOODY MANUAL!? STUPID REGISTRATION CODES ARE ALWAYS ON THE MANUAL!"

Arashi couldn't help but start laughing. The sounds of rooms being ransacked for one little book were heard all over the base. The door she was standing next to opened suddenly and Takar practically walked over her as he headed for his throne and other furniture, pulling drawers completely out and dumping them on the floor as he searched furiously.

Ah, the One Crucial Mistake of every antagonist had arrived for Takar. He left the door open.

Arashi hurried out of the door and down the hallway where she'd heard Robotnik's screams. The aliens she passed by were too intent on finding that book to really notice her, and she slipped into the room quickly. There, stretched on a table and held with many straps, was Robotnik, panting heavily from the lingering agony of what he'd just gone through. Arashi quickly pulled the wires out of his ears and nose, wincing at his yelps of pain, then started unbuckling the straps and freeing him. He sat up slowly, trying to get his bearings as he glanced around.

Even through his dark glasses, Arashi could see inspiration flash into Robotnik's eyes, and he quickly stood up, crossed the room and pressed the button that shut the door tightly. He grabbed one of the wires that they'd used on him and knelt down next to the door, very carefully inching the wire under it, sticking it up against the mechanisms that controlled the door's movement. Then he stood up and moved back over to the computer.

"What are you doing...?" Arashi tilted her head, wondering how he had made it out of that ordeal with his mind intact. He grinned at her, picked up the power cord, shoved it into the wall outlet, and switched the computer on. The door made a few whining, sputtering noises, then shorted out. It could no longer be opened normally.

Arashi sat up on the table, bewildered. "Why'd you trap us in here?" she asked worriedly, wondering if he'd just plain gone nuts instead of becoming a vegetable. He started ripping the computer apart, putting different parts in separate piles on the floor. "To keep them from getting in here before I'm done, of course," he said as he left the power supply of the machine intact, grabbing one of the live wires.

Using the heat from the wire (and thanking his lucky stars that he made these special heat-resistant, non-conductive gloves long ago), Robotnik quickly reconstructed some of the chips and boards, then fused a bunch of the parts together into a device that was big enough to fit in his palm. All the while, the aliens were pounding at the reinforced door with a battering ram, trying to knock it down. Arashi looked worriedly at the door, which was starting to cave inward--just a few more minutes would see it wide open.

Just a few more pieces and the device was finished. Robotnik dropped the wire, tapping a few keys on the front of the device.

Suddenly, he disappeared and reappeared across the room, standing next to Arashi.

She barely had time to blink before he grabbed her arm and pressed a few more buttons with his free hand, just as the door blew open and Takar burst into the room, manual in hand. "What the?!" he yelled, but not over Robotnik's triumphant laugh as the two humans disappeared in a brilliant flash of light.

**

Tired of the same old failed world takeovers? Sick of that unlikely hero thwarting all your plans? Well, worry no more, Evil Overlords, the Steel Snake has arrived! Equipped with rocket launchers, bombs, and movement easily controlled by one's mind, you won't be disappointed. For a limited time only, the surgery to plant the chip in your head is FREE!

Offervoidwhereprohibited.Freesurgerydoesnotincludeanasthesiaoranexperiencedsurgeon.EvilOverlordsIncisnotresponsibleforpersonalinjury,death,insanityoranythingelsethatmightbecausedbyyouusing,comingincontactwith,lookingat,thinkingabout,orbeingadistantrelativeofsomeonewhoownstheSteelSnake.Allrightsreservedandstuff.

**

The hum of extreme amounts of energy filled the air just before Robotnik and Arashi flickered into existence in the kitchen of his base. He grinned evilly and pressed a button on his warping device, turning it off before he tucked it into his pocket.

"Hey... what happened, I thought they sucked your brains out...?" Arashi asked, looking up at him in awe.

"Quite the opposite, actually," he said as he dusted his hands off arrogantly. "Their computer malfunctioned and it actually doubled my IQ." He pulled a cell phone off of its recharging device on the wall and dialed something on it, then put it up to his ear and waited a moment.

"Yes, Mr. Gates? I never thought I'd be saying this, but--thanks. You're part of the reason I'm not a half-dead pile of flesh who can no longer move or speak or realize he's even alive. What's that?" he asked, ambling back and forth a few paces as he talked. "A free copy of Windows XP? Thanks, but I'll pass. I like Windows 98. But you know, I'd -love- an autographed copy of Office 2000. That's, ah... Well, I don't really have a street. You know that giant floating hunk of metal over the Robotnik Mountains? Yes, the mountain range named after me? Send it to that base. Thanks!" He shut the phone off, chuckling to himself. "If only my hacked copy had the little robot office assistant, I wouldn't have had to ask for that."

Arashi stared at him. "How did you know his number?"

"I'm not entirely sure..." Robotnik tugged on his moustache idly, a little confused.

They suddenly heard a gasp and a hauntingly familiar voice yell, "Egg--...man...!?"

The two whirled towards the door. "What the!? Sonic!?!?" they yelled in unison.

There stood Sonic, who took a slight step back and motioned for Tails to stay behind him. "Some aliens brought us back to life! I thought they said you were being held captive and getting your brains sucked out, not your fat!"

Robotnik smirked. "It's impossible to suck out brains that are such high quality," he replied, snickering. "Oh, and don't you worry, the fat will return. I don't feel right," he said as he very slowly backed up towards the nearest counter drawers. "Now, I presume you're here looking for the chaos emeralds that I took off your corpse..."

"Exactly," the hedgehog answered, a little suspiciously.

"I'm surprised you decided to come to the kitchen to look," Robotnik said, backing up with a look of fear on his face since he was unarmed after transporting back from the alien ship. "I never thought anyone would be searching here... it's a pretty unlikely place, you know. But, you guessed right, because I do have one in here... I figured one would search in some forgotten room, like the gym room... But just don't attack me, and I'll hand it over," he said as he slowly opened a drawer and reached in, making it look like he was afraid and had intentions of getting an emerald as he searched around.

Then he added, "Here it... oh, wait a second, look what I have," and very quickly pulled out a laser gun from the drawer, shooting Sonic and Tails through their heads in rapid succession. They slumped to the floor, death coming so quickly that neither of them felt a thing.

Bet you thought this was going to be another long, drawn-out battle, didn't you? Well, ultra-geniuses who had their IQ recently doubled by a flaw in an aggressor's brain-sucking machine don't do long, drawn-out battles.

"You've got good aim, you know," Arashi complimented, grinning.

"Indeed," he replied matter-of-factly as he pondered. "The aliens are very unlikely to make it into the base. I don't really care about the rest of the world anymore. We'll rest here for a while and figure out what to do about these aliens... after I tend to my little problem." He looked over at the refrigerator with a sense of purpose. Arashi nodded, saying, "I'm going to go move the emeralds to another room, since you said where they were. Where should I put them?"

"Put them in the toilet tank of the northwestern hemisphere of the base."

Arashi thought about that for a minute. "That's a good idea," she mused, then ran off, stepping deftly over the two corpses in the doorway.

**

"Now, let's see here... I need to pick the foods which are the most fattening, because I can only eat so much before I end up hurling all over the place," Robotnik mumbled thoughtfully to himself as he pushed containers of food aside in the refrigerator to examine other ones. Deciding this wasn't good enough, he called out a robot, told it what he wanted, and had it get to work.

Arashi hurried into the kitchen a while later, saying, "Something... smells... GOOD!" Robotnik snickered a bit evilly as he started on the fifth slice of extremely fattening pizza sitting before him. The pizza was so big it was nearly hanging off the sides of the table.

Arashi sat down and dug in, tearing off a slice and starting to eat. "Man, you really know how to live," she said. "One thing's for sure... I mighta cheered you on in killing Sonic and Tails, but I do have to thank them for bringing me here, at least." She turned towards the door, where the bodies still lay, and exclaimed cheerfully, "Thanks!" before going back to her feeding frenzy.

"I suppose I should have them disposed of before they either start stinking up the place or they're brought back to life again. F300, incinerate them," Robotnik said, gesturing. The cleaning robot turned and headed towards the door, studiously carrying out its task, dragging the two animals away to the incinerator room.

The cell phone, left on the counter, started to ring. Robotnik grabbed it nonchalantly and raised it to his ear as he pressed a button and asked, "Yeah?"

Arashi listened curiously to the side of the conversation that she could hear. "Not now, I'm eating. No, I'm not going to come back for my ship. But, thank you for reminding me about it," Robotnik said, swallowing a bite of pizza whole. "No, you can't have Arashi! I don't care WHAT kind of truce you're offering, you can't have her!" Inspiration flashed over his face and he grinned evilly, shifting a bit and propping an elbow on the table. "I bet you're just jealous. You can't even get a female of your own race to even be friends with you, let alone be your Queen. And then some bald, fat slob easily gains a friend just for being diabolical. Is that what this is all about, Takar?"

The doctor grinned continuously, and the alien on the other line was shouting profanities in his own language so loudly that even Arashi could hear it.

"Whassa matter? Poor little alien is feeling lonely? Always having to make yourself look perfect just to have no results?" Robotnik asked in a 'poor baby' tone, which quickly shifted to a triumphant evilness. "Being an evil ruler is all about personality and wit! What's that? You're going to come and get me? OooOoOoh, scary. I'll be waiting, lime boy." He took the phone away from his ear and pressed a button, turning it off. "Hah!"

Arashi giggled and kept eating, feeling quite proud of Robotnik. He had a lot more attitude than before, with even more intelligence and cunning now to back it up. Now he just had to solve his only remaining problem--being thin. She could see that even now he was scheming as he gulped down a few more slices of pizza, studying them briefly on occasion. He got that look as if he were staring through the slices instead of at them, and eventually rolled his chair over to the microwave.

After some brief studying of the microwave, Robotnik tore apart various appliances such as blenders, can openers and toasters, then took a screwdriver and proceeded to modify the microwave beyond recognition. Then he took the portion of pizza that he figured Arashi couldn't eat, stuffed it all into the funnel of the device, and turned it on. It went into a frenzy, whining and shaking, with bubbles even floating out of the funnel after a bit, but eventually it stopped. A small compartment similar to the change slot on a soda machine caught a small red pill that resulted. Robotnik grabbed the pill and swallowed it.

"What was that all about?" Arashi asked, bewildered.

"Oh, it follows the same principles that this does. Women have the ability to a much greater extent than men do, to shove lots of stuff into a very small space," he explained, taking her backpack and proceeding to pull various items out of it, such as hair gel, 3 bottles of Mountain Dew, a couple of hard drives, a set of computer speakers, a monitor, an empty computer case, several manuals on programming, a laptop, a small desk, a leather office chair, a Corvette convertible, an aircraft carrier, and a Game Boy Advance. After that, he stared into the pack dubiously, feeling something pulling on him. Hard. Quickly, he stuffed all the items back into it, musing something about black holes, and gave it back.

"Anyway, I can make small pills that'll fatten me up in no time with no effort," he added, opening the refrigerator. Tons of food went into the microwave contraption, and he consumed the pill that was created from it.

Yawning, he turned and said, "I think it's time we retired for the night."

The two went to their bedrooms and made sure the doors were well shut in case of alien invasion, and went to bed.

**

At about 6 AM, a low rumbling woke Robotnik up. He found, much to his satisfaction, that he'd become nice and fat overnight. His clothing was ripped and destroyed by now, and he changed into a new suit of identical design, having a heck of a time getting the buttons and zippers closed. His concerns now lay with what was going on in the base. He quickly hurried to his security monitors and checked them all out, but nothing was in the base.

When he checked the periscope that gave a full view of everything around the outside of the base, he realized that he was in great danger. His entire base was in great danger. The alien mother ship was hovering several hundred feet above it, sending a strange blue force field whirling down around it. Something at the center of the bottom of the alien craft was charging up. Oh, look! Another cliché method the aliens use for destruction!

"Arashi! They're going to blow up the base!" Robotnik yelled into a nearby intercom microphone, badly masking his fear. He hesitated for a moment, an idea flashing into his mind. "Get up and follow me!"

Running out of his room, he waited for a couple seconds and saw Arashi stumble tiredly out of her room, still trying to get her bearings but looking alarmed. He grabbed her arm and practically dragged her through the base in a flat-out sprint, swiping any rings he saw along the way. After a moment, she was awake enough to run herself and started collecting rings too, tossing them over to him.

"What's going on? Where are we going?" she yelled over the alarms that blared loudly in their ears.

"The aliens! They've come back with their mother ship and are charging up a giant plasma ball to blow up the base! We have to get to the chaos emeralds--they're the only way we're getting out of this alive!" Adrenaline pumping furiously, Robotnik knew there were only a couple of minutes left before the base was blown to smithereens. He put all his effort into running faster, nearly leaving Arashi behind.

"Ivo! Your warping device!"
"Why didn't I think of that?" He grabbed her shoulder, pulled out the warp device and warped them both to the toilet that had the emeralds. Throwing the lid off the tank, he fished out all seven emeralds and looked at them in confusion and worry. "I don't know how to do this... But now's a pretty darn good time to figure it out, eh?" he said, mostly to himself as water dripped through his fingers.

The young programmer watched in bewilderment as Robotnik concentrated hard on the emeralds, as if trying to find something in them that wasn't visible to the naked eye. The base rumbled and groaned under the atmospheric pressure that was building up. Robotnik looked around worriedly, then desperately stared at the emeralds again. He started examining one at a time, a frantic look growing apparent on his face.

When he concentrated very hard on the red one... something clicked. This wasn't about a high IQ, this was about inner will and drive. The red gem flared brilliantly as he felt something seem to snap into place between him and it. The rest of the emeralds rose into the air and started spinning around him in a neat ring, increasing in speed as time went on.

Arashi stared in awe as she realized what was happening. She stepped back as Robotnik started to glow a faint red, his eyes shut tightly as the glow started to intensify until it blinded her, at which point she had to shield her eyes. She began to hear diabolical laughter that started out normally, but... changed. It echoed, eventually, where it didn't before.

When the light faded to a tolerable intensity, Arashi lowered her hand from her eyes and turned, looking up at what the mad scientist had been transformed into.

A robot, ten feet tall and with Robotnik's unmistakable mustache, glasses, goggles and smirk, stood there cracking mechanical knuckles. It had the build of a giant, muscular human, and it had designs on it that mimicked Robotnik's normal clothing. It kept glowing a faint red, too.

"So, this is what it feels like... I'll bask in it later--for now, I've got to go destroy that ship before my ring supply runs out!" Ultra Robotnik exclaimed, warping himself and Arashi to the highest of the Silent Hills... without even using his transportation device.

"You'll be safe here," the robotic doctor said in a mechanized version of his human voice. "But you'll still have a great view of the battle! Use these." He opened his chest plate, revealing mechanical odds and ends of all sorts, and pulled out a pair of strong telescope-goggles, handing them to Arashi. She put them on, listening as Robotnik briefly told her how to operate them.

"Oh... and if anything happens to me," he said, "Use this. Tap random buttons and think of where you want to go. The buttons are to confuse enemies and bewilder readers." He pulled out the teleportation device and handed it to her.

With that, he disappeared in a brilliant flash of crimson light.

The plasma ball under the ship was getting bigger and bigger, and Robotnik realized he had left something very important in his base. If it did blow up, he didn't want them to be lost... He warped into the base, then warped back to the Silent Hills, set down 4 frightened chao next to Arashi, and back to the base he went.

At a speed that would leave any fighter jet in the dust, so to speak, Robotnik blazed up towards the ship, slamming into the underside of it and seeing if he could break through. That was a mistake.

He had fallen halfway to the ground before he recovered from his dazed state, and decided that another course of action should be taken. The plasma ball was growing rapidly and roiling menacingly above the base as it threatened to destroy it. As he hovered there in thought, about a dozen flying saucers descended out of the hangar that opened up and flew at him quickly. He smirked slightly and moved over to meet them, forgetting the plasma ball for a moment as he waited for one of them to make a move. They seemed very reluctant.

One brave alien zipped away from its hovering spot and strafed past him, shooting a rocket at him. He dodged out of the way easily and raced towards the attacker, kicking the UFO so hard that it flipped over and started spinning, uncontrollably, towards the ground. Two others began to attack him, but when he punched through the glass of one vehicle and pulled the occupant out, the other hesitated.

"AAGH! No! Please, large scary madman, have mercy! I... I didn't mean to electrocute your brain! I'm serious! Takar made me do it! He put me through more torture than anyone could ever bear once when I wouldn't suck someone's brains out! I begged him to kill me because I couldn't take it anymore but he wouldn't! Please, don't hurt me, I'm very vulnerable and easily emotionally scarred!" The alien thrashed in Robotnik's grip, and as he looked down at it, he realized it was the same one who described the problem with the computer to Takar.

"Well... You should be more worried about him than about me, right? I don't torture people, I just turn them into robots, or kill them. But I should have mercy on you. So, do you want to go back home?" Robotnik asked curiously. The alien gasped, paled and shook his head slightly. "No... n-no..."

"Why not?"
"Well, because... because... of him..."
"Well, you begged him to kill you, and I'm willing to do that, so what would you rather have?"
The alien looked around frantically, trying to avoid the subject.
"You're lying to me, aren't you? He doesn't really torture you, does he?" Robotnik asked, sounding like a parent gently chiding his son. "That was just something to get me to feel sorry for you and let you go, right?"
The alien nodded, gulping as he desperately admitted his lie, hoping perhaps the doctor would have mercy on him for doing so.
"All right. I'll let you go." Robotnik smiled pleasantly and did just that, letting the alien plummet towards the ground hundreds of feet below. Silly alien.

All of the other ships immediately retreated back into the mother craft. Robotnik's ego swelled far beyond comprehension, until he realized that the plasma ball was still charging up.

Far away on the Silent Hills, Arashi held Devlin the Devil Chao tightly, afraid for Robotnik's life. She watched through the telescope goggles as the doctor hovered about in the air for a moment, then darted up towards the charging mechanism on the bottom of the ship. What was he DOING!? He was heading right for the plasma ball with no apparent intentions of changing his course! He looked pretty sure of himself, but...

Robotnik knew he could make it through the plasma before any significant damage was dealt. He blazed through the air, eventually into the giant ball, and smashed into the charging mechanism, hoping he could just get out of there before the really big final explosion came. Forks of green lightning danced around the damaged equipment as the ball of plasma shuddered. Somehow, Robotnik knew that was a mistake, but it would still destroy the ship.

Lucky that he couldn't feel pain, the doctor darted away from the charger and tried to get out of the plasma ball before anything nasty happened... he didn't.

Arashi's jaw dropped in horror as she watched the gigantic explosion consume ship, base and Robotnik. The force of it was so great that she could feel the shock wave 50 miles away, and it completely leveled the mountain range.

"IVO!" Arashi shouted in despair at the mushroom cloud that grew where the menacing base used to be. The four chao that were with her stared, not comprehending what had happened, but the looks on their faces meant that they knew it wasn't good.

Arashi pulled out the transportation device, grabbed up all the chao and pressed a few random buttons, warping just outside of the border of the cloud. She ran into it, yelling for Robotnik and coughing, waving her arms to try to clear the dust. Eventually she realized she'd run too far, and had no idea where she was. She ran frantically for a moment, then fell over a hunk of metal, smacking her head on a boulder, and everything went black.

The dust was finally beginning to clear. The four chao sat crying, looking at the huge amount of rubble and destruction. They were the only thing that could be heard. It was otherwise silent.

After a long while, something moved within the rubble. Slowly, a few hunks of metal shifted and clanked as they fell against a rock here, a panel there. A white-gloved hand reached out, clawing at the side of the boulder in exhaustion. Robotnik, now reverted to his normal form, dragged himself out from under 300 pounds of steel, coughing and wheezing. A scene like this was usually reserved for good guys.

The exhausted, injured doctor dragged himself several feet before he realized someone was standing nearby. He looked up and found a man dressed in grey and black, holding a box and looking confused.

"Um... This is where the Robotnik Mountains... were, right? Uh, are you Doctor Ivo Robotnik?" When the man got a nod in reply, he held the box out. "Here's your copy of Office 2000." With that, he hurried away.

Robotnik crawled across the ground, panting, stopping to rest several times. At one point, he raised his head to glance around, and his heart stopped for an instant upon seeing the crumpled form of Arashi lying nearby.

"Arashi! What happened to you? Don't tell me you were here during the explosion!" the doctor yelled, moving over to her. He hesitated, then shook her shoulder.

Upon waking up, Arashi looked up and her eyes widened in amazement. "You MADE it! I thought you were a goner for sure! I can't believe you made it!" They stood up and he braced himself for the hug. Strangely enough, it never came. Looking down at her, she had the oddest expression on her face as she grabbed the front of his coat, drawing closer to him, her gaze locking with his. ...oh, no...

Suddenly, she started to shake him extremely violently. "DON'T YOU EVER PULL ANY KIND OF STUNT LIKE THAT AGAIN! NEVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN! ARRGHHH!"

He felt so relieved to get yelled at instead of what had appeared was about to take place.

**

Robotnik wandered mournfully through the ruins with Arashi, shaking his head sadly. That base had been his home for years. He had the design perfected, and now it was all gone. He would have to start from scratch all over again. The four little chao toddled along behind the pair, looking around with wide eyes.

A thought struck him. He wondered... was it still...?

Arashi jumped with a gasp as metal and stone scraped and creaked, shoved out of the way, and the Steel Snake rose up behind her. Blinking dust out of its cold eyes, it flicked its tongue.

The two world leaders looked at each other, quirking slight smiles. Collecting up the chao, they hopped into the pod on the snake's back and flew away to make a new home elsewhere.

**

Several days later, another hand dragged its owner from the rubble. Takar emerged from what used to be the incinerator room, clutching a handful of ashes.

"I'm not going to forget this, Ivo Robotnik!"

He stared at the sky, growling and panting.

"...I'm not going to forget it!"