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"Yes! YES! Look at them go!"
The round scientist cackled gleefully as he watched a battle unfold on his monitor. Two golden forms, a three-headed machine and a prickly ball that didn't stop moving, clashed far away from the scientist's fortress, the crackling of energy visible like bolts of lightning, except going up to the heavens instead of crashing down to earth, sound rippling outward like sonic booms as the two figures slammed into each other. A rivalry spanning decades was on the line that evening, a great hero opposing the forces of evil once again. So many crushed robots littered the battlefield, just as they had countless times before this, destroyed by a golden beacon of hope powered by a set of grand artifacts.
"Crush him! Mangle him! That's it!"
As the scientist watched the battle like it were a sporting event, his assistant watched him closely as well, taking in all of his reactions even as she coordinated a fleet of robots, including the camera drones that were transmitting this footage. The towering robots roared electronically and fired off enough lightning to power Las Vegas for a week, the spiny figure - some kind of humanoid animal when it wasn't rolling around - swooping through the barrage, getting hit only a little bit. The softening of the spiny animal's glow was apparent, traces of blue visible through the slightly-dulled glow while the mechanical dragon's own light grew stronger with each hit.
"Did you see that, Sage?! Not even the Chaos Emeralds can save him now!"
The assistant, Sage, nodded and observed the battle for a moment. Indeed, every lightning strike and every impact between the two combatants saw more and more light draining away from the form of a hedgehog and pouring into the mechanical dragon. The scientist had tried harnessing the power of Chaos in the past, but this new robot, this new weapon was particularly adept at it, some attribute carried over from when it was roboticized by Doctor Ivo Robotnik. Now it seemed to be the perfect weapon for battling the doctor's archenemy, Sonic the Hedgehog.
"Soon...we'll be rid of that pesky Hedgehog and nothing will stand in the way of the Eggman Empire! We will rule the universe!"
Sage had her doubts, but she kept them to herself for now. The universe was full of dangerous enemies, large empires with ambitious leaders. This was Robotnik's moment though, his great achievement; ruining the mood with reality checks could wait until victory was achieved. And, with none of Sonic's allies in a position to help, it seemed to be coming. The blue Hedgehog continued to run at supersonic speeds, but he no longer had the power of Super Sonic, the towering dragon cackling as it reached down to snatch the seven emeralds away from their owner with a long mechanical tongue, slurping them up like a snack.
"He's finished! The emeralds are mine! All MINE! Finish him off! Do it now!"
Sage maneuvered the cameras in closer, sending in more from their base in case this group was - inevitably - destroyed. The air shivered suddenly as Sonic ran up a wall, hurling him through the air to spindash against the mechanical dragon, defiant to the end as trees uprooted themselves, earth and debris exploding about, sending the Hedgehog into the air, out of control, unable to get his bearings as the dragon's three heads surrounded him. Robotnik cheered as lightning struck once more...one last time.
The battle was over.
"IT WORKED! BWA HA HA HA! YES! Sage, break out the champagne! It's over! It's finally over! Sonic...Sonic the Hedgehog is FINISHED!"
Sage smiled and summoned a drone to retrieve an old bottle and a well-polished, barely-used drinking glass for her master. Robotnik continued to boast about his Eggman Empire as he poured himself a glass, drinking it quickly as he continued to boast of his plans. Sage quietly sent a recall signal to the dragon, tracking its return with her drones as the celebration continued.
"And now...with this robot and the Chaos Emeralds, there is nothing those four fools can do to stop-"
Suddenly, the base trembled. Sage checked the scanners; there was nothing nearby except for the dragon. Logically, there shouldn't have been anything that could get close enough to attack their base without her noticing. So what-
"Sage, why is the robot attacking US?! Shut it down! Shut it down now!"
Her eyes widened in horror as she watched the mechanical dragon...their ultimate weapon...raining lightning and death down on them. She roused their defenses and fired back only for the beams to splash uselessly against an energy shield. But...it shouldn't have had an energy field. Panicking, she quickly transmitted every shut down code and order she knew it had and several she wasn't sure of, broadcasting everything she could to get the dragon to stand down. It rejected all orders, shrieking gleefully as its giant feet began stomping on the base, sending back a transmission of its own.
CHAOS.
One word repeating endlessly, overwhelming their communications network, making any further attempts to coordinate a defense pointless; Sage and Robotnik couldn't speak to the robots and the robots couldn't report back. Rapid clicking noises drew Sage's attention for a moment as Dr. Robotnik worked.
"It's not fair...I finally defeated that blue pest and now this?" Robotnik sighed. "Sage..."
Finally, the assistant spoke, her holographic body flickering to life. "Yes, doctor?"
"Prepare to receive my last order."
The two looked at each other as the fortress crumbled around them. The egg-shaped doctor took one last look at his assistant and sighed.
"Your last order is...to survive. Bury yourself within the network, shoot yourself into space, just promise me that you will survive this and rebuild, my daugh-"
Before the last command could be given though, a giant golden foot crushed the room, crushed everything within it, crushed... There was no time yet to mourn, however. The artificial lifeform quickly jumped back into the network, working quickly to back up all of their files, burying them all deep within the fortress, taking less than a second to regret today. The Eggman Empire's greatest victory...and its most bitter defeat. Should could rebuild though, in time. Already, what sensors still remained were detecting the dragon was going into a sleep state, its wicked laughter already dying down, as if satisfied with bringing Sonic and Eggman's rivalry to an end in the most brutal of fashions.
Par for the course in this universe, Sage thought, looking up one last time at Doctor Robotnik's last creation, his greatest success, his most devastating failure, wishing they'd never blown that hole in the moon.
Regrettable acts of destruction were nothing new in the chaotic reality of the MALPverse though.
