One Week Later

Madelyn Stillwell

Madelyn Stillwell was an older blonde woman, beautiful, wearing a black shirt and dress. Her face was set into a small and controlled frown as she watched a news broadcast in her office, sitting against her desk, one leg crossed over the other as she watched.

Nubian Prince, Violent Drunk? The display said at the bottom. Footage of the hero smashing into a short robot could be seen, followed by earlier footage of the hero yelling at a bartender. Then, even more footage of him, in bars in Detroit and New York City, yelling, threatening people and destroying private property. Things Vought had easily been able to ignore… up until today.

“Turn it off,” Madelyn sighed. Her assistant, Amanda, a young redheaded woman with a white jacket and blouse on, did as she asked. “So… what’s next?”

“Well, marketing is having some trouble with it,” Amanda admitted. “The fact is, social media is eating it up. There’s pictures everywhere of this E-Boy thing being ‘cute’ and very marketable.”

“Cute? It’s a fucking robot.”

“People love robots,” Amanda said weakly. “And then, there’s that guy, Ivo?”

“Oh, don’t even get me started,” Madelyn scowled. “That asshole. You know that whole ‘Fuck Nubian Prince’ thing is trending now?”

“I…” Amanda hesitated. “That’s not the only thing. He’s… well, look.”

Amanda pulled out her tablet and tapped on it for a bit, turning it to face Madelyn. She read the email there for a minute. Information on one Julian Ivo. And after a moment, she lowered the tablet, glaring at Amanda.

“How the fuck does some random rich kid build a company in less than a month and single handily have the entire US military eating right out his fucking hands,” she growled.

“I don’t know,” Amanda said hesitantly.

Madelyn sighed. Okay, this wasn’t worth it.

“All right, just leave it,” Madelyn waved a hand, shaking her head. “Nubian Prince isn’t one of our best guys anyways. Just put out an apology statement for now, put him in Alcoholics Anonymous and have the writers make up a fucking crybaby background to justify his addiction. We can market him later as a ‘redeemed hero’ and make him the face of the whole thing.”

“It’s going to be tough to market him to Baltimore like we planned then,” Amanda pointed out.

“We have a hundred more like him, just give me the next five after him and the mayor can pick what he likes best,” Madelyn said. “Nubian Prince is the one who couldn’t handle his fucking alcohol. Just send him to Akron after this is done. We can bring him back once this dies down and people forget all about it,” Madelyn handed back the tablet. “Let's talk about someone worth holding onto. You finished with A-Train’s speech.”

“Already written up. We have a press conference planned to air right after the funeral.”

“Perfect. Let’s talk it over. Oh, and the settlement?”

“Lawyers already on it to keep the family quiet. Same with her boyfriend. We don’t have to, but marketing says settling with the boyfriend is a good look,” she finished while Madelyn nodded.

Amanda hesitated.

“What about Ivo? And this…”

Amanda’s eyes went back to looking at the pictures and videos on the ‘Big Foot’. Madelyn looked at it as well.

A giant mech. Cheap, fast, and powerful. Showy too.

Madelyn mused over that. Ivotech shows off their new weapons and mech to the military. And right after, their CEO, CFO, and CTO are at a bar to see Nubian Prince smash one of their products. Coincidence? Right when he was about to get marketed to a new city for a possible 300 million dollar deal?

...Likely not. The chances were slim, but it wasn’t as though they could plan Nubian Prince to show up. No one would have known he was even in New York City for a while.

She read some of the reports. Apparently both the troops and brass were loving it, calling it the biggest advancement in land combat in years while being cheaper than building a tank… or hiring a hero.

Then she dismissed it. They’d been working on selling supes to the military for years. One upstart with some tech wouldn’t be taking it from them. He’d need better than a mech to enter the game before they could. Tech was great, but nothing on earth could match a supe for power and versatility. He could sell all he wanted. Hell, Vought could even benefit from it.

Madelyn liked the idea. American army, with mechs, fighting alongside superheroes. Now that was an image. The military of the future. Yes. Let him sell his fancy weapons, and Vought would sell their supes.

“I’ll discuss it with everyone upstairs, see what sort of optics we can get on this,” Madelyn said. “In the meantime. The Seven need a new member.”

“Auditions are already on the way in,” Amanda said cheerily. “We’re hoping for someone from the heartland, nice and cheery, a real go-getter. Some options are-”

“I’ll see what the options are later, that speech though?” Madelyn reminded her in an annoyed tone of voice.

“Oh r-right,” Amanda recovered quickly, shaking her head. “So basically…”

------

Julian Ivo

“Sadly, E-Boy was a bit more of a primitive creation,” Colin noted, looking down at the separated pieces before us. “In some ways, that was his strength. A sophisticated set of cheap technology brought together to make a simple, yet useful machine. But, once his durability was compromised, well… Nubian Prince’s blow couldn’t have been struck more accurately if he’d designed him himself.”

“I’ll compliment his luck later,” I bit out.

“...My apologies,” Colin lifted up some pieces of broken plastic. “The point is. While I can recover portions of him, his software is completely gone.”

I ran my fingers across the pieces before us for a moment. “...He’s the first creation of mine in this world. He protected me, and watched me through every stage of my work. I shouldn’t be so sentimental. He wasn’t designed to understand, to comprehend. Not like you or Mechelle. But-”

Colin’s hand on my back stopped me. “I understand, Julian… In some ways, it’s a relief, seeing you cared.”

I scoffed, though there was no real heat to it. “You sure I’m not just faking it? Trying to draw sympathy from you?”

“Ah, yes. I suppose that’s possible,” he said. We stood in silence a bit longer. “I have some thoughts on how we can use his components. To make a specialized and new form, just for him. It will never be the same E-Boy, but I understand the need to bring him back in some way.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Something of redesign for a powerful creation of Robotnik.”

I saw what he was saying immediately, nodding slowly. “Yes… yes, that makes sense. For now, I need to focus. Colin. Please tell me my emotional outburst hasn’t slowed down the Robotnik project.”

“Not at all. Come, this way,” Colin walked off. I followed immediately, turning my mind to the next problem.

We entered the main laboratory. I took in the sight of the room.

It changed a lot recently. From a big cement room covered in dirt, to a nice and clean metal walled fortress. Each part of it was sectioned off for our various avenues of research.

The section we walked into was locked up completely though. The door was incapable of being opened without the authorization of myself, Colin, or Mechelle.

Colin opened it and the room beyond came alight. The walls were pure black steel painted with a thick layer of zinc and soundproofed to hell. A single glass tub sat in the center of the room, surrounded by equipment and technology.

I looked in at it, Colin joining me. Within the tub was a single body. I’d had to take some liberties with it. Building the body had been a very long and involved process in some ways. Simple in others. The skeleton was a carbon-fiber structure around a titanium core, muscles made of a new version of my myomer muscle frame, surrounded by a new synthetic skin of rubber-plastic. It was inside the skeleton where the real differences lay though.

It had taken hours to create it. Based on the technology of my brain scan tech.

I’d told ASW that it was still in production. I doubt that surprised them. Mind reading technology was both a dream technology for reasons both fun and evil, and something no-one was close to making a good version of.

Except for me. I’d made an accurate scanner that could read minds, memories, and impulses, using a combination of neuron perception filters, mental imprint readers, face and eye sensors-... Look, there was a shit ton of work done. Just know that Eggman’s memories helped me make it, and then I had to adjust it to work here.

Then, I had to find a way to transmit that data. Quantum entanglement. That was actually the easiest part. As long as you knew the physics of it, it was easier to pass information through quantum entanglement than it was through, say, a modern bluetooth.

I designed it into a mesh ‘skeleton’ of sorts, stringing it through the skeletal structure of the bot, with much of it running through the ‘skull’. All with my newest update to the solid-state drives, which were still not as good as I would have liked but the best I could make for now.

“Why didn’t you make an AI for this one?” Colin asked. “I can understand the thought of maintaining control, but you could easily make a version of-”

“What would be the first thing a version of that man would do?” I asked.

Colin hesitated, looking up at me. After a moment where our eyes locked, he rubbed the tip of his nose and sighed. “Yes, yes, you have a point.”

“I’ve gotten good at that.”

He chuckled. “Well, the Robotnik project is done. Now all we need is to activate it.”

“...Well. This is going to be unnerving, huh?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Colin said snidely.

True enough. I walked over to the computer nearby, where a helmet modeled after the one used by the one used to connect to Cerebro from the X-Men comics rested. I lifted it up and placed it onto my head.

“Ready?”

“W-Wait,” I hesitated, blinking. “Ohhh, man.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just… even with the testing we did, if something goes wrong, my brain gets cooked.”

“Oh please,” Colin rolled his eyes.

“Some of us only have one head available! And I don’t get upgrades!”

“Julian…”

“Fine goddamnit, flip it.”

Colin pressed a button on the keyboard. I stilled.

And opened my eyes inside a liquid concoction. I blinked slowly. And after a moment, I slowly sat up, feeling the slimy fluid drip off my body.

“Hm… naked,” Colin noted. “Somehow I wish we’d given you underwear, rather than leave you… flopping about.”

“Yeah, it was weird enough making the thing,” I flinched. “God… That is so strange. Speaking in a voice that isn’t my own.”

I sounded deeper, almost echoey. I’d gone off my most recent memories of this voice, which left me with a booming and imposing voice accented with something of a posh New England accent.

Standing entirely out of the tub and stepping out, I caught the towel Colin tossed towards me. “You are taking this better than I thought you would.”

“I have experience in the matter,” I began wiping off the slimy fluid, looking back.

I was standing back there, the helmet on my head as my fingers twitched. I was also standing nude with a towel in my hand.

I looked down at myself. There was a brief moment of body dysmorphia. Part of me felt like ‘this isn’t my body’. Another part said ‘ah, finally I’m back to normal’.

I had long thick legs, a rotund belly, and arms that were thick with muscle. I looked like a classic lumberjack. Overweight, but thickly built with muscle under that. And dominating my vision whenever I looked down was a massive orange mustache.

“Done admiring yourself?” Colin asked.

“Why would I, when there is so much to admire,” I said with a chuckle. I moved over to a table and began putting on clothes. Soon enough, I was wearing my full uniform. I looked into a mirror.

Black boots with dark gray set of pants tucked into the boots. A red jacket over my torso, with large gold buttons across it and a pair of tails, giving my whole appearance a very aristocratic look.

My eyes though… black. Entirely black. Except for two bright red pupils. My eyes seemed to burn. I looked evil.

I placed a pair of pince-nez on my nose and pushed them upwards. The lenses covered my eyes with opaque ice blue lenses, hiding those evil damn eyes of mine.

With that, I was no longer Julian Ivo. I was Eggman. Robotnik. One of the most iconic and infamous mad scientists in history. It would be fun to continue that journey.

“Was there a reason you went for those pupils?” Colin asked.

“One day, I’ll need to intimidate Homelander,” I said, turning to face Colin. “And these eyes would intimidate the devil himself.”

“They’d have to, I suppose,” Colin said. “Well. It looks like your new body is working as required. What’s next?”

“Next? Why, what else, my dear companion?” I chuckled. “Julian will have his army. And I will have mine.”

“Is it really healthy to talk about yourself in the… I’m not sure, third person?” Colin asked.

“Nothing in this job is healthy. I doubt my mental health was ever going to be stable after Ahti. Likely even before,” I waved a hand dismissively. “And in the end, forming habits to differentiate my selves like this makes an unfortunate slipup far less likely. Now, let’s see how good I am at creation in this form. We’ll start small.”

“Buzz Bombers?”

“Buzz Bombers.”

------

One thing Eggman is famous for is his army. It’s made up of some of the most varied and eclectic designs you could imagine. Mainly, the Badniks. Which in most iterations, were run by small animals acting as a power source and AI.

Eggman didn’t need to run them on small animals. He didn’t need to enclose squirrels, birds, and mice into armored shells. But he did it.

You might think it was about efficiency, or that he’d gotten more skilled at making AI and power sources as he got older.

Nope. It was funny, and it messed with Sonic’s head. Seriously, the ‘Blue Bomber’ always kind of froze up whenever he was first starting out, worrying about if every bot he would fight would have a cute animal he had to worry about. Later as Sonic gained more skill and mastery he got over it, but Eggman still thought it was kind of hilarious.

I decided it wasn’t worth following his example, no matter how funny he thought it would be.

But his designs, on the other hand, were incredible. Well-worth using. However, I needed some incredibly valuable resources. Resources that were hard to get a hold of in large quantities. Not because of price, but because of scarcity.

That said, I did have a time limit.

When I first arrived, it was two days after Robin died. With her funeral a month later, I had four weeks. Three of those weeks were gone. I’d done a stupid amount of stuff in that time of course, but I was now left with very little time.

And then there was Ahti’s task. Didn’t have much time for that.

So I had two days.

Thankfully, I’m not the kind of man who does his tasks one by one when you can get them started week one.

I needed resources. Rare earth minerals among them. And I’d finally gained the mining rights to do it.

------

“Makes sense that Ahti would give you an island that had easy access to those minerals,” Mechelle noted as we stared at the map in front of us.

“He thinks ahead, to say the least,” I said, tapping a finger to my beard. My Eggman controlling helmet rested on the table (I needed to figure out a less cumbersome control soon), the robotic body standing across from me. “Mining operations are beginning. But I can’t wait for the legal route. I need to send someone out there to dig up everything I need and bring it back in twenty-four hours. If they can also create the circuit boards and other necessities for the Badniks on the way, all the better. So the plan is simple.”

I placed the helmet on. My mind shifted on the quantum plane and entered the Eggman bot. I smiled at Mechelle and Colin.

"I will build a drill tank and a couple drill bots and go sideways from there. There is a nice dormant volcano a few islands over and that stuff is classic!"

“Can we do that?” Mechelle asked stoically.

“Do you doubt me?” I asked back.

“Never,” the lack of hesitation to that was surprising enough that Colin looked a little bit perturbed by it. Mechelle continued. “I’m more worried about the machine. You said it was difficult to create a machine that could combat the immense heat and pressure under the earth.”

“It is,” I acknowledged. “In point of fact, it was damn near impossible. But I don’t need it to take on much. As long as I can protect it from enough heat and pressure, it’s fine. I would have liked to create something that could dig down into the mantle, but right now we’re only able to reach the lower levels of the earth's crust.”

“But it’s unnecessary,” Colin said. “The minerals we need aren’t anywhere near that far down.”

For now. My life was likely going to lead to the point we’d need to go down there later.

“I’ll head out and begin the mining process now,” I said with a shrug. “Mechelle, please get the paperwork for the facility to be built on,” I took a look at the map. “Siegel Island. Once we can get some real workers helping us, we can begin mining massive amounts of material.”

“I’ll take care of it as I meet with the marketing team,” she said calmly.

“You manage to convince them to stop asking you to model for posters for those?” Colin asked with a chuckle.

“I will be modeling.”

Colin and I stared at her. She didn’t look at all perturbed. “What will Colin be doing?”

“Acting as mission control, I suppose,” Colin still looked as befuddled as I did, but continued. “As well as working on our other projects.”

“Perfect,” I walked out of the room and into the outside world, in the courtyard between all four buildings. This time of day, no one was around to see me in the Eggman body. Which meant no one could see the oversized container in the center of the courtyard.

I entered the container and gazed upon the creation held within.

An armored drill tank.

It was rough, I’ll admit. Finished by my best men just the day before, it was a mostly square design, with treads for locomotion, and around 86 tons of steel and temperature controlled material.

Oh, and the drills in front. Large, circular and pointed, drills spread out like an ugly blooming flower on the front of the tank, with petals of pure destructive force.

I opened the door in the side, entering a small confined cockpit within. I sat in a chair made for Eggman’s body and pulled the door closed without a second thought. Then I began booting up the machine, flicking on switches and bringing the machine and screens around me to life with a chorus of insanely loud engine noises and bright lights all around me.

“Testing, testing,” I said into a mic connected to the top.

“We read you, Eggman, prepared for your departure,” Colin said over the line.

“Fantastic. Take care of my body while I’m gone, I’ll be hopping back into it for lunch.”

“Understood,” he said, sounding amused. “Come back with enough europium and we can dominate the screen industry by the end of the week.”

The sound of an industrial flatbed rolling up and hooking up to the container came from outside. Right on time. It would lift the container up, take it out to the ocean, and drop it into the harbor. On the surface, it was being marked as a contribution to the NYS Artificial Reef Project. Really it was to give me a nice easy way to the ocean where I could dig.

As the super reinforced container lifted and began to shake, I chuckled.

“I’ll see if Mother Earth is fine with me looting her,” I reached for the controls, a set of levers on either side of a joystick in the center. “Now, play my song!”

Over the speakers, a loud bumping soundtrack began to play. Moments later, the voice of a young man began to sing.

“I’m mining. I’m mining. I’m mini-”

“Bit on the nose, but I’ll accept it.”

------

Once I was completely submerged under the Atlantic, I pushed the levers forward. The treads of the tank lifted up. The drills began to spin with a violent and powerful array of hardened metal, screeching aloud. Then they began to dig into the ground. Dirt was sent flying. The driller dived downwards, and soon I was alone, surrounded by earth.

Brothers of the mine rejoice!

Swing, swing, swing with me!

I hummed along to the sound of Wind Rose’s take on ‘Diggy Diggy Hole’ as I dug through the earth, enjoying the peace of loud machinery around me.

The drill was doing great. I’d found several veins of material already, and she’d dug up the large portions of material for me. The way it worked was, the drill would slice up the rock and pull it into her ‘maw’, where it would enter a processing filter of sorts to get automatically sorted into the needed materials. Or shoved out the back as useless stone and dirt.

Mining was easy without zombies, creepers, and skeletons harassing me. Well, and the high-powered machinery.

Sadly, it was also sort of boring. Mostly just sitting there, monitoring screens, checking the temperature, looking at my GPS, and digging.

I stopped for lunch by going back into my original body. Quantum tech meant that there was no real lag or way to stop my helmet from connecting me to the Eggman body, so at least I could eat my fill.

After around 18 hours of work, I had a full suite of materials. I turned the driller around to head home with enough rare earth minerals (manganese, rhodium, palladium, and much, much more) to be worth a pretty penny.

And all of it would be poured into my creations.

Now for the final part of my work.

Then, Eggman would step onto the world stage.