Evil Overlords Have Feelings Too
by Jenifer Irwin

Part 4

"No... no... can't be, I... ah... rkk..."

Something shattered. Perhaps a glass of Dr Pepper or something was knocked off the end table by a thrashing arm. Arashi was worried... How in the world could Ivo be having a nightmare?

"Noooooo..." A low sob was heard. That did it. Arashi hacked into the door's security system and quickly got into his room, moving over to the bed and sitting down on the side of it, shaking his shoulder. Ivo Robotnik sat up with a yelp of surprise, sweating and gasping for breath. "What!? Is someone attacking the base?! What's going--"

"No, you just had a nightmare or something... what were you dreaming?" Arashi asked, concerned.

Trying to catch his breath, the doctor thought for a moment, starting to talk. "I dreamed... I dreamed I... was blue, spiky, and had an incredible craving for chili dogs! I dreamed I was Sonic! Aauuuughhh! ...of course, a chili dog does sound pretty good right about now."

Dr. Robotnik dragged himself out of the bed and headed for the door, leaving a very concerned Arashi sitting on the bed. "But wouldn't you like turkey or pizza more?" she asked curiously.

"No... Chili dogs, with just the right amount of spice in the chili... ohh, yeah," he replied, walking out of the door and turning down the hall towards the kitchen. He seemed to have unusual bounce and quickness to his step.

Okay, so maybe it just reminded him of them and there's nothing to worry about, Arashi thought to herself, standing up to follow him. She still did worry, though. She just had a feeling that this wasn't good.

In the kitchen, everything seemed to go fairly normal. Robotnik made about 30 chili dogs and then sat down at the table with them, grabbing a can of Pepsi from the refrigerator. He and Arashi started to dig in, with him eating so quickly she feared she'd have to fight him for them, and started snickering as she raced along with him.

Whoawhoawhoawhoa back up back up backupbackup, she thought to herself on her fifth chili dog, looking at the can of Pepsi that Robotnik had.

"You didn't get a Dr Pepper?"
"Nah, Pepsi sounded better. And it is!"

Arashi fell out of her chair and hit the floor with a sound *THUNK*, out cold.

**

"Ivo, you were eating SONIC food! Sonic drinks Pepsi! You drink Dr Pepper! What's up with you?" Arashi asked worriedly, moving backwards as she stayed ahead of him, practically pouncing on him with questions as he walked quickly down the hall. "Are you feeling alright!? Has anything strange happened lately? Why are you walking so fast!?"

"I'm just in a hurry, that's all," Robotnik replied, seeming confused. "And so what if I ate a Sonic meal? Can't be any worse than eating Sonic himself, right? Heh heh. I've felt so much better ever since I turned Sonic, Takar and Tails all into pills and ate them..."

...was that just her, or did Arashi detect a fleeting instant of a British accent there...

Oh, god. Pulling on her hair, she froze in a shocked stance as she watched Ivo continue down the hallway.

It had been a month since Robotnik's victory over the alien Ykrian leader, Takar, and the two usual adversaries, who had teamed up with the alien to help try to destroy him. Arashi had been killed in an explosion Super Takar caused, but she was later brought back to life by Robotnik, who went into his Ultra form out of pure rage. They raced to Takar's earth-based lab, and while Takar actually got there first, he had a bit of a... braking problem, and Robotnik peeled him off of a tree two miles away from the base a while later.

In an effort to get rid of his enemies once and for all, Robotnik had used a pill-making machine he created to turn all three of them into pills, then gulped them down.

It looked, however, like that had backfired, and he was absorbing some of their qualities... Oh, man, oh man, no no no no, Arashi thought to herself, trying to figure out a way to stop this.

**

Four confused chao watched as Robotnik practically ran from place to place, fixing any broken things in their chamber, quickly tossing them food. He didn't stop to pet them but for a few seconds each before he hurried out. Turning the corner, he ran right into Arashi, tripping and falling. Both went to the floor, Arashi emitting a strained screech as he fell right on her, practically flattening her.

"...ow," was all she managed to choke out as Robotnik said simply, "Oops. So that's why my teachers always yelled at me for running in the hallway..."

Robotnik stood up, dusting himself off, and extended a hand to help Arashi back to her feet. She stumbled a couple of steps, gasping for air. After all, having a 500-pound man fall flat on his face--on you--isn't going to leave you totally unscathed.

After waiting for Arashi to recover (tapping his foot during the time), Robotnik hurried towards his lab. Arashi had to push herself to keep up, thinking to herself, Okay, this is already getting out of hand. I've got to find some way to stop this before it gets any worse...

Ivo passed by a mirror on his way to the lab, then stopped, turned, and looked in the mirror again. He put a fist on his hip and scratched his head, saying, "Ugh... I can't stand fat people. I need to lose weight."

Arashi executed an anime-style freak-out move, sweat flying from her head, and fainted.

As Robotnik dragged the unconscious woman into his lab, he sighed slightly and headed for the soda machine on the wall. He pulled out a Mountain Dew and walked back over to Arashi, kneeling down and shaking her shoulder. When she finally woke up, she grabbed the front of his coat and shook him, saying, "You've got to pull yourself together! You're losing it!"

"Am not," he protested.

"Yes you are! Tell me, doctor, what would you rather do right now... Take over the world, or run through Green Hill?"

When Robotnik took a moment to think about that, Arashi knew all was lost, and leaned her forehead on his shoulder with a sigh. "You're not the Ivo I used to know."

"How so?"

"You keep acting like Sonic, and you just talked like Takar a few minutes ago."

Robotnik grabbed Arashi's arms, almost tightly enough to hurt, and growled, "I am not acting like Sonic." She looked up at him, fearfulness of him entering her eyes for the first time. The chills he got from inducing fear knocked him back into his own semblance of sanity and he blinked as he realized what he had done.

"Oh, Arashi, I--" he started apologetically, but she pulled away from him and stood up, saying, "I think... I need to go." She gave him a confused, worried look, then hurried from the room when he reached towards her, saying, "Wait, Arashi..."

**

Arashi walked along the sandy shores of the underground base, hands in her pockets, shoulders slightly hunched forward. She glanced up at the base, which was rebuilt after being destroyed by Takar, and looked even better now than it did before. But there was something different about it, now. Ivo had never scared her so much, even the first time she met him, when he was waving a laser gun in her face. At that time, she knew the normal Robotnik doesn't shoot people without a decent reason, especially those who might have some useful information. It wasn't like her to walk out so quickly, but she was afraid. She knew he was unstable. Somehow, his enemies lived on within him. It seemed impossible for that to be true, because he had turned them into pills and eaten them--how could it have actually affected his personality and his mind? Now two good and two evil personalities were battling it out in his head for control over him. So far, Sonic and Takar had revealed themselves--Tails was sure to show up soon, and the situation was likely to get worse very quickly.

Could she risk staying with him in this state? He had an IQ of 600, and the combined powers of four incredibly powerful people. He was also prone to mood swings and sudden changes in personality--now that she thought of it, Arashi had noticed traces of this only a few days after Ivo had eaten the pills. The traits were only really surfacing with such obviousness just recently, though.

This made him extremely dangerous.

She knew he didn't mean to scare her, didn't mean to grab her and shake her by the shoulders, but people do a lot of things they don't mean to do when something they can't control has a hold of them.

Arashi sighed and sat down on a boulder, staring at her shoes as she wondered what to do.

**

Inside the base, Robotnik sat at one of his desks, holding his head in his hands. His thoughts were fuzzy and whirling madly in his mind as he tried to compose himself. He was angry one second, but didn't care the next. One moment he wanted a Dr Pepper, the next he wanted a Mountain Dew. Did I hurt her? Eh, she'll be okay... I hate myself, what have I done? I wonder if there's any chicken left in the fridge. I think everybody should be green. What am I doing sitting around when I could be running? I should research the chaos emeralds some more. Diet Pepsi sucks. What could I add to the Steel Snake to make it better? Arashi's mad, I should go apologize. I bet giant tarantulas with lots of venom could be useful in taking over the world. Where's my pencil?

In the back of his mind, Robotnik was struggling to obliterate the random thoughts and regain control over himself, but it was useless. The harder he tried, the more prevalent they became. He sat for almost 10 minutes, motionless, until he finally screamed and slammed his head into the desk as hard as he could.

Surprisingly, when he sat up, his mind was absolutely clear.

"That bloody hurt," he muttered to himself in a perfect British accent, rubbing his head. Once he recovered from the pain, he glanced around and stood up, then headed over to the Steel Snake to work on it.

Grinning silently, the doctor added many an interesting gadget to his prized vehicle, including a built-in warp device, a CD player and a resurrection device in case he ever had need to bring someone back from the dead. While he was putting the finishing touches on it, he felt something behind him.

Arashi jumped back, putting her hands behind her back as Ivo whirled around suddenly, raising an eyebrow slightly. "Ah, hello," he said, smiling oddly... just like Takar did. "Terribly sorry to have frightened you back there, I suppose I just lost it. Happens to everyone," he said, chuckling. "Have you got something behind your back?" he asked in an amused tone.

"Um... no, I just... um... heh," Arashi stammered nervously. She looked up at him hesitantly, then stepped forward, putting her arms around him. "I know you didn't mean to scare me, Ivo. And I'm sorry for walking out." She smiled slightly, carefully inching her hands up his back.

"Oh, completely understandable. I'm sure most would do the same in your posit--ERK!" Robotnik wavered, stunned, after Arashi grabbed his head and slammed it into the side of the Steel Snake as hard as she could. *CLANG*

"...ow," the doctor managed to say after he recovered, sounding just like his normal self. "What did you do that for?"

"No reason, dear," Arashi said, grinning, and her tactic worked perfectly as planned--instead of inquiring further about having his skull smashed against a large piece of metal, Robotnik went into slight shock at being called 'dear,' and glanced around nervously. He was so cute when he was afraid of his own feelings!

"Well, um... yeah... ah... I'm just gonna go back to work on the Snake here, I'd like to put in a DVD player..."

Arashi turned and walked over to the soda machine, pulling out a Mountain Dew. So, slamming him in the head changes his personalities... this could get interesting. But I still have to find a way to extract those personalities from him. I gotta find out exactly what does what with him.

There had been no sound coming from Robotnik at all for the past moment as Arashi enjoyed her drink, and she turned suddenly when she heard metal plates being ripped apart and tossed to the floor. "Ivo... what are you doing?" He appeared to be dismantling the entire ship!

"I've got an idea," he replied with a grin as he pulled the Snake's head off and tossed it to the floor, prying it open and jamming his broken screwdriver into it, popping out a small computer chip. He pocketed the chip, then ripped the Snake the rest of the way apart, leaving only the seating pod.

Using parts from the dismantled snake, the doctor constructed a jet system for the pod, still keeping it small, only about the size of his infamous escape pod (with seats for two, anyway). He flipped up the lid and sat down in the pod, placing the chip in an extremely armored compartment in the floor of the vehicle, then jumped back out and installed several robotic arms into the ship that had small building tools on the end of them. Finished with that, he tore apart a nearby computer. Soon, he had another small teleportation device constructed--this one even smaller than the first one he made, and with a tiny satellite on the top. Repeating the process on another computer, he made a second device.

Arashi leaned against the wall, watching curiously, wondering what he was doing. After completing the second teleportation device, Ivo walked over towards her and asked, "Can I have your backpack?"

Arashi pulled off the backpack and handed it to him, watching as he opened it and dropped the device into it, then handed it back. "Thanks."

Ivo walked back over to the fairly bare-looking craft, which rose up in the air and tilted its lower side towards him as he approached it. He opened up a panel and snapped the teleportation device into a compartment, then closed the panel and dusted his hands off, heading over to where Arashi was standing.

"What was that all about?" the bewildered programmer asked.
Robotnik grinned and held up a hand, signaling her to wait just a little longer, then turned towards the craft and concentrated. "Check THIS out," he said, and the robotic arms with tools suddenly began drilling and attaching parts that appeared out of thin air. Within seconds, a giant arachnid-like robot stood there, flexing its legs menacingly. Ivo concentrated some more and the robot changed itself into a Steel Snake again, then into a huge likeness of himself, then into a huge likeness of Sonic, then into a tank, then into a fighter jet...

Arashi, overwhelmed by the sheer coolness of this, fainted. Just as consciousness was leaving her, she could feel someone catching her, preventing her from hitting the floor.

**

When she awoke, Arashi found herself strapped into her usual seat in the ship. Ivo was sitting in his seat, playing Minesweeper on the on-board computer. He looked over at her, grinning slightly as he completed another 5-second game. "So, I take it you like the new design."

"How does it work!?" Arashi asked, bewildered.

"The ship accepts commands from the chip in my head, then puts them into the on-board teleporter. The teleporter sends signals to the one in your backpack, which then warps whatever parts are needed out of your backpack and to the proper area on the ship according to the blueprints that the onboard computer instantaneously draws up and gives it. Then I can quickly use the ship's tools to fasten the new parts on, and voila... The Shapechanger 6000. Any parts that are no longer needed are sent back to your backpack by the onboard teleporter."

"Genius..."

"What else did you expect?" Ivo asked, grinning. "How about a test ride?"

Soon, the craft rose up out of the entrance shaft to the giant cave and turned itself into something that resembled an SR-71 jet, but could go much faster and higher. Banking right, it swung upwards into the sky, heading towards the orange sunset as it gained speed.

A sonic boom ripped through the air of the nearby city as the jet quickly tore through the sound barrier, a sharp, black silhouette rising up higher and higher in the sky. People knew that not just anyone had a private jet, especially not one that looked completely customized. Robotnik had to be the one driving that thing.

The jet climbed quickly, eventually rising to the point where the sky was black above and blue below. Ivo shut off the engines and the vehicle coasted effortlessly, now in orbit. He glanced over at Arashi with a slight grin.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" the mad scientist asked, gesturing to the huge, blue-and-white sphere under them.

"Yeah," the programmer said wistfully.

"I would have never thought that before you came alo--... um... before... like, six months ago."
"Really?" Arashi asked, smiling slightly at him.
"...Yeah," Ivo said after a moment of thought. He looked over at her, gazing deeply into her eyes. That's funny... he never noticed how odd, yet captivating, of a color they were. Grey, with a trace of a blue tint to it. "Your eyes are so--" he said before he could catch himself. She smiled dreamily up at him with a look that sent... something... through him. He didn't know what it was or where it came from, but it felt better than anything he'd ever felt from inducing fear and panic in other people. He lost control over his own feelings and stared back as he slowly leaned towards her. She tilted her head and closed her eyes, waiting in anticipation, and he closed his own eyes...

Just as their lips met, a satellite smashed into the ship, sending it spinning wildly out of control and burning through the atmosphere towards the ground. Robotnik screamed, but there was no hint of fear at all in the scream--simply pure frustration and anger at the really bad timing of that stupid satellite.

Like the fastest bird in the world, the ship dove straight down at mind-boggling speed. Robotnik concentrated on getting it to flare the jets and pull up, and while he did get it pulled straight safely, they had been going so fast that they traveled quite a ways downward in just a few seconds. He muttered something nasty about satellites and stared out of his side of the ship as it flew gracefully through the air.

Arashi could tell he was ticked. The one time he worked up the guts to really show his true feelings for her, something like that had to happen. She was pretty ticked too, but put that anger in the back of her mind so she could concentrate on more important things--like trying to get him to lose control over his emotions again. It was possible, now she knew. She never thought she would see the day that Ivo would move to kiss her, not the other way around.

Ivo drummed his fingers on the arm of his seat and muttered, "I'm hungry," banking the jet to the right towards a city. After it came out of its turn, the craft's jet parts evaporated into thin air and it was left as the normal escape-pod vehicle. It floated down to a little-used street and turned into a strange-looking car, then drove through the city to the nearest restaurant.

As he pulled up to the speaker, the cashier asked for his order. "Yes, I'm Dr. Ivo Robotnik, and as long as you cooperate and give me what I want for free, there will be no trouble. Now then, I'd like 20 half-pound hamburgers, 20 orders of fries and two chocolate milkshakes. To go." Without waiting for a response, he drove up to the window.

The cashier was rolling her eyes as the odd-looking car pulled up, but she froze when she looked out and saw who was driving it. She thought she was seeing things, then looked up at the poster on the wall. It was one of those posters that directed employees to remain calm, follow directions and such in case of a robbery, but added to the list of situations and things to do was a picture of Robotnik and a notice in bright red: "ALWAYS GIVE THIS MAN FREE FOOD!"

Ivo looked up at the cashier expectantly, and she stared back in fear for a moment before turning and yelling, "HURRY UP! IT'S DR. IVO ROBOTNIK!" to the rest of the employees. Ivo and Arashi could hear frenzied screams and see pieces of food flying around, and the restaurant got very hot inside as the cooking was turned up full throttle.

Fortunately, this gave Ivo those familiar chills from inducing fear, and his mood was already improving. He waited patiently, but didn't have to for long, since the food was piled into his arms within a minute, every bit of it. He smiled pleasantly at the frightened cashier and said, "Thank you," then drove off. Well, at least he was polite if you cooperated and demonstrated an adequate amount of fear in the process.

As Ivo drove thoughtfully along the city streets, he propped the side of his face on his fist, leaning his elbow against the armrest. He looked a little unhappy, but not overly so. His expression told that he knew what happened with the satellite wasn't that big of a deal.

Before he knew it, he was sitting at a turn onto a highway. Arashi watched as he sat up, brow furrowing slightly... then a huge, evil grin cracked on his face. Concentration started to show in that look, and the Shapechanger made a few modifications to itself... then roared with extremely powerful jets as they were briefly flared. The car sat there, silent, for a few more seconds, and then Ivo's grin widened as it tore out of the curve, gaining speed at an incredible rate as it headed down the highway, tires screaming and smoking. People who saw and heard this got the heck out of the way.

"Music?" Ivo asked, pressing a few buttons on the CD player, and appropriately, started to play some hard rock to go along with the journey. Arashi watched in awe as the scenery flew past with other cars and frightened expressions.

Guys like fast cars, and Ivo was no exception. He had the Shapechanger build itself a steering wheel just so he could use that for the full effect, and if it looked like he would be reaching top speed soon, he just built more jets on. The car screamed down the highway at well over 3000 miles an hour for a couple of minutes, then Ivo slowed down to about 300 miles an hour and turned onto a winding country road. He steered the car effortlessly, sending it through turns that couldn't possibly be navigated by normal cars going this fast.

Arashi picked up one of the cartons of french fries and started to eat, watching the scenery blur past. There were houses dotting the side of the road, but at random and sometimes sparse intervals. They were just little country houses, nothing special. People sitting out on their porches were amazed to see the black car go blazing past their homes, and a couple of them started to call tabloid newspapers, claiming they'd seen an alien-made car.

In a way, it was true, considering Robotnik was 1/4 Takar.

After a few minutes of driving, the Shapechanger turned back into a normal pod and zipped into a lonely forest. Soon, Ivo and Arashi were alone in the middle of nowhere. He rode around for a couple minutes, looking for a nice place to stop, and found a huge log sitting by a river. The pod was parked by a nearby tree, and the two sat down on the log to eat the food they'd robbed from the restaurant.

"This river is nice. But you know, it'd be much better if there was a nice big oil spill nearby about 3 days ago," Ivo commented. "There's nothing like a smoothly flowing river of oil and dead fish to soothe the senses." He was dead serious, which made Arashi crack up laughing.
"What?" Ivo asked, confused.
"Nothing, nothing," Arashi replied, grinning up at him.
"I don't understand why people want to conserve nature so much... I mean, sure, nature is nice, but it's much nicer when it gleams with metal or a sheen of oil, you know what I'm saying? It's just..." He sighed, unable to really describe his extreme love for machinery to the fullest. He looked down at Arashi, watching the light reflecting from the water dance in her eyes.
"You know, Arashi, I..." He stumbled on his words, already starting to feel awkward again. She smiled up at him, putting her arms around him and leaning her head on his shoulder. Without another word, he put his arm around her and sighed blissfully, staring at the river.

"Well, well, well, isn't this just sickeningly romantic," a hauntingly familiar voice with that unmistakable British accent said from behind them. Both froze, but Ivo started to quickly concentrate to send the Shapechanger into action. Then there was a brilliant flash of light and a loud *POP* followed by electrical crackling, and he fell to the ground in agony, clutching his head and groaning in pain. Behind them, Takar took a strange device away from the Shapechanger, which fell to the ground utterly silent and lifeless. Arashi grabbed Ivo and asked in extreme worry, "What's wrong!? Are you alright!? Ivo!"
"Shapechanger... computer chips... my head... Arashi, it hurts, it hurts," he groaned, almost to the point of sobbing, as he fell over on his side, effectively incapacitated.

A tractor beam grabbed Ivo and lifted him into the air, holding him there, and Takar placed the beam's projector on a nearby rock. Then he grabbed Arashi and easily overpowered her attempts to get away, quickly tying her up with a space-age 'rope' of sorts that was super strong. She kicked and screamed for him to stop, but he coldly went about tying her up the rest of the way so she wouldn't flail so much anymore, then knocked her unconscious and tossed her unceremoniously into the alien pod that floated out of the trees on his mental command. He moved over to Ivo, knocking him out swiftly, then taking anything out of his pockets that he could possibly use to get out of his current situation, tossing a few wrenches and other tools to the ground.

After waiting a few minutes, Ivo woke up and Takar continued his plot.

"One of two things is going to happen now, Ivo," Takar said as he stood in front of the helpless doctor. "You'll crack and give up because you don't have Arashi, or not having her will cause you to become angry and fight me harder. I do hope it's the second one."
"Why... how did you... but I ate you..." Ivo managed to wheeze, still in great pain, but some of it was wearing off.
"Come now, Ivo, you don't think I would be stupid enough to allow myself to be killed forever, do you? Perhaps this is a good time to stress you out more and let you in on the truth of the matter..."
"Wha...?"
"Ivo..." Takar said, pausing dramatically...

"I am your father."

Ivo forgot about his headache altogether and stared at Takar, blinking in disbelief.

"Then why aren't I the heir to the bloody Ykrian throne!?" he asked, growling and thrashing where the beam held him in the air. Takar started to laugh.

"Ah, there's hope for you after all, still thinking about power! You see, Ivo... You are a genetically engineered life form that I created to give myself a challenge in life. I am immortal, and I have been alive for thousands of years. Many times I've died, but I came back, with the help of my machinery and genetic engineering skills. Whenever I die, a device on my home planet takes the DNA samples I've given it of myself and creates a new version of me! I have a chip in my head too, and it's always sending records of what I experience back to that machine so that I retain everything that has happened, even through death. I have taken on many forms in the past, even had several clones of myself roaming the planet and doing evil at times. I'm more evil than you could ever hope to be, Ivo, but you're the most evil thing besides myself that I've managed to create..." Takar glared at the doctor, as if scolding him. "And I am not going to let that change."

"But it hasn't! What are you talking about?!" Ivo protested, flailing again.

"Oh, yes it has. There are things even I can't control, and one of those things is love. Love can change a person. It can turn the most evil and nasty of people into a goody two-shoes if they're not careful, and you are not being careful, I've seen it. I engineered you to be an ugly old bird so the chances of someone being attracted to you would be slim, but it seems Arashi here was one in a trillion. I tried to engineer the capacity for love out of your body, but there's only so much one can do with the physical end of that. The rest of it is out of my hands... unless I can keep your beloved away from you, and make you bitter. That may just even improve matters! I couldn't stand to lose the only person who has ever given me a challenge in my lifetime, you know."

"Dad was nothing like this! You couldn't possibly be him!"

"That's correct, because 'dad' was just a crafted memory. Do you remember Shadow the Hedgehog? Do you remember, when you found the files on Project Shadow-2, how some of his memories were crafted? You are exactly the same way, Ivo. I built you just like I built him, with a base of my own DNA, and then I added different things for different qualities... Except I dropped one of my mustache hairs in the Life Box to complete you, and a hedgehog quill in for him." Takar folded his arms over his chest, smiling smugly. "And then when they executed me for doing such dangerous work, I just brought myself back to life and came back to the planet after enhancing myself a bit."

Ivo stared at Takar, not comprehending, but then he finally put all the data together. His eyes widened in disbelief as he asked in an awed voice, "Professor Gerald Robotnik...?"

"The one and only."

Without another word, Takar jumped into his ship and flew away, abducting Arashi and leaving Ivo hanging on the tractor beam.

**

My god... he's my father, or who I previously knew as my grandfather... It makes perfect sense... Grandpa knew how to make lifeforms really well... and my memories, he's right, they are just crafted, because I remember my childhood much different than I remember eating dinner last night, it's like... it's like the childhood memories are hollow, or just missing something... and it's like they're in black and white... I'm just... I'm just a pawn for his entertainment... he's been acting like a completely different person all along, with a great cover... all of those other 'aliens,' they must be his creations, my brothers... Shadow is my brother... anything living that Takar has created is my sibling...

Facts ran through Ivo's head at a dizzying rate as he just stayed there on the tractor beam, utterly helpless. He was too overwhelmed at first to realize what had just taken place, but when he finally realized that Arashi had been taken from him and there was nothing he could presently do about it, he began what would become many hours of fitful sobbing. His head still hurt. He didn't have a mind-controlled machine to bring to him. He was in the middle of a forest, not remembering which direction he came from, completely lost, and held up with a tractor beam whose battery could last for days, even weeks. Worst of all, he didn't have Arashi by his side.

He just stayed hanging there, wallowing in despair beyond belief.

For the first time in his life, Ivo gave up.