The foundation shook violently from a strange wave of light cyan energy that pulsed from a hidden room locked behind two metal doors, causing every scrap of metal and furniture to vibrate and lightly bounce amongst the long white steeled halls of the massive facility.
It was a typical day for anyone who's worked here really. I mean, that is if you consider strangely sentient metallic machines, or rather robots people of course.
All of these machines, most of them known as badniks, were all under the control of one genius, yet flawed, but still the mastermind of schemes, " Doctor Ivo Robotnik". Or otherwise commonly known as Dr. Eggman.
He's had a fair share of failures and mistakes, but nothing was gonna stop this madman from defeating the one thing he hated and despised the most:
His nemesis, Sonic.
How can one abnormal blue hedgehog foil so much of his plans? How was he always the one ruining his glorious moments?
The doctor has had enough of the blue hedgehog, as he always has and carried on with his plans to use an ultimate weapon to work in his favor to destroy his irritable nemesis and finally attempt to conquer the world...Again.

In the view of Eggman's closest employees however, Orbot, who was tasked with cleaning duty at the moment alongside with his work partner yet also best friend, Cubot, knew exactly how this was gonna go:

Sonic is gonna swoop in, destroy everything that Dr. Eggman has worked so hard for and foil the doctor's plans before they all get beat up and forced to retreat with an ultimate defeat. You know, the classics of Villains and heroes.

It was always like this

Every.

Single.

Time.

Now does this change anything about these two 'bumbling imbeciles' as Eggman may call them to have second thoughts in working with their power hungry boss?

Of course!

But are they going to leave Eggman and quit their jobs?

Ha, you would think.

Not that it would've been good anyway if they did officially quit and rebelled.
They had no place to go, no place for them with a reason to even be there. There were just too many options to do yet with no successful leads that would last them for long. After all, they are known to mess things up due to their 'complete foolery'.

It was all just overwhelming to think of.

So, the two geometric robots stayed close to their master, assisting in whatever evil schemes the doctor has planned next to take over the world. Which...Inevitably always fails because of one blue hedgehog.

What a surprise woooo

Though as of now, the robots shall finish their cleaning duty and complete the various tasks that they were prompted to do from their master.
Orbot gripped firmly on the rather long sticked broom he was using to sweep the metal scraps into small heaps. His red semi-spherical cap glinting against the perfectly lined lights shining above him as he swept the broom back and forth before his gray framed lensed eyes glancing back up to see Cubot doing...whatever he's doing nowadays.

"Cubot, what are you doing over there?"

The cyan pupiless eyed robot hovered over to check on his yellow cubed shaped work partner yet also best friend who seems to be 'busy' trying to kick over a trash bin. Which, Cubot ultimately fails to do because just like Orbot himself, he's got no legs.

It's quite hurtful to think about.

"Ahh! I'm going to kick over this trash bin, watch me!!"

Cubot with a determined look on his face as he tries to nudge the lower part of his body to kick over the trash bin but with no avail, grunting in frustration each time as he tries to do so. He just couldn't seem to quite reach it...oh if only he had legs.

"Cubot, that's not what you should be doing! Dr. Eggman would not be very pleased with us being distracted again."

Orbot's tone firm as he says those words and floats over to Cubot and simply with a slight nudge with his gloved hand, tips the trash bin down for him, still holding the broom with his other free hand. The trash bin dully clattered against the ground, its small contents being some dust and nails spilling out of it.

"Aww, but I almost had it this time!"

Cubot with his hands in fists as he lowered his head down disappointingly. Orbot just sighs before handing Cubot his broom.

"We're on cleaning duty, remember? So we must keep cleaning if we want to finish these tasks that Dr. Eggman has given us."

Cubot takes the broom and stares at it, his head slightly tilted to the side as he makes some light mechanical buzzing noises, scratching his head with his other hand. His face painted with clear confusion as he blinked.

"Uhhhh hmmmm..."

He blinked once again then briefly looked around the area before realization finally clicked.

"Oh...oh yeah! I remember!"

He lightly bounced up in the air  before quickly dashing off to a random corner of the room to clear up some metal scraps.

"You stay here then Cubot, I shall be right back to get another broom!"

Orbot floats away to the janitor's closet where Dr. Eggman stores all of the cleaning supplies. Though, he does rather take his precious time going there because honestly, as much as he loved cleaning, letting Cubot do most of the work also felt better too.

Once making it to his destination, he opened the rather small janitor's closet and received the broom before casually floating back to the direction that he came from to regroup with Cubot. On his way there, there was a sudden light cyan energy pulse that passed through him, making him and the whole foundation vibrate as he jolted in surprise before glancing back at the direction of where it came from and sighing.

"Brrrr-"

Orbot buzzed as he shook the vibration's chills off of himself before letting out yet another sigh.

"Oh my, it seems that Dr. Eggman's machine gets more unstable each day!"

He thinks out loud, wondering why his boss hasn't really done anything to fix it properly yet as he ran down his red gloved hand over his smooth round head to empathize with his words.

"If only Dr. Eggman would take the time to repair the machine, this place won't be in such an awful mess!"

He glances at the nearby passing machines patrolling the hallway facility, or rather badniks as they are identified as. One badnik resembled a red and cyan colored ladybug except with one large wheel attached below their main part, and expressing a very, very angry menacing look. They were classified as a Motor bug.
Their patrolling partner, that being another machine resembling some form of a flying bug, like that of a wasp that's cyan colored with their metal stinger always poised towards the front, their mechanical wings somehow able to lift up the rest of their robotic body in the air.
They were classified as a Buzz bomber.

"Wouldn't you both agree?"

Orbot asked the two, which the Motor bug and Buzz bomber just glanced back at him briefly before moving on with their patrol, ignoring him completely.

"Ah...well I guess see you two later then! You're both doing quite an amazing  job on your patrol by the way! Uh, keep up the good work!"

He turns and gives them a sincere wave before slowly lowering it down, watching the two badniks not giving much of a response and taking a turn to patrol a different part of the facility's hallway.

"Heh heh..."

His expression turns to much more a slightly awkward look, despite his attempts in talking to any of the badniks that Dr. Eggman has built, they never really ever respond back. The only ever badniks he even has the closest interaction to was his amazing and outstanding big bro,
Metal Sonic.

Or Metal, Sonic's counterpart, Ultimate Overlord...take your pick.

Metal Sonic, or big bro as Orbot may call him, is a very deadly machine created by Dr. Eggman himself with the sole purpose of destroying and surpassing Dr. Eggman's arch-nemesis and also his own personal rival, Sonic, the blue hedgehog who has the ability of extreme speeds and with surprisingly great strength and experience in combat. Metal Sonic always seemed to be the opposite of what Sonic is in personality. Metal was more cold, merciless, and violent.

But Metal wasn't here in the facility with him and Cubot right now, he was lingering off somewhere who knows where? Probably plotting something himself to go against Sonic as always.

Suddenly the speakers in the facility crackled to life, revealing a voice that's gruff and stern though yet devious yelling through the microphones within the walls.

"CUBOT AND ORBOT, COME MEET ME IN THE MAIN CONTROL ROOM THIS INSTANT."

Ah, now that would be the sound of Cubot and Orbot's boss, their creator and brilliant mastermind, Dr. Eggman.

Best to retrieve Cubot now.

Orbot quickened his pace, entering back to the area where he last saw Cubot. Cubot was indeed still in the same place where he left him.

"Heyy!"

Cubot, his eye lens making an expression as if he were glaring, approaching towards Orbot.

"What took you so long? I've been sweeping for ages!"

He flung both of his arms out, still luckily holding the broom that Orbot had given to him earlier.

"Cubot, Dr. Eggman has called us, haven't you heard?"

Orbot remarked, ignoring Cubot's complaints.

"Oh, was that the boss? I thought that was the milkman!"

Orbot sighs as he facepalms, tired of Cubot's clear idiocy at times.

"No Cubot, there's no more milkman remember? He got termi-...fired for a while now!"

Cubot lowers his arms down as he gives him a blank face, blinking.

"Oh no! Someone cooked the milkman? WHEN??!! And who did it?"

Then he suddenly just dropped the broom he was holding, his eyes widened in surprise.

"No Cubot...that's not what I meant-"

This led to another facepalm from Orbot as he sighed, wanting to get this over with as he suddenly grabbed Cubot's arm and started to drag him to the direction of the main control room as Dr. Eggman had instructed them to go.

"We better not keep our boss from waiting any longer, he'll be quite furious if we were to be late!"

And thus, Orbot goes to the main control room of the facility, hazily dragging Cubot along as he then was met by two large metallic doors. There was a keypad just right beside it as he entered the specific combinations of numbers to which the massive door beeps, allowing the two robots in.

The main control room was rather massive, there were twelve large screens all neatly lined up in three different rows, all of them showing through each of the cameras stationed in specific areas around the facility. The walls and floors were also no doubt metallic and made out of steel, there was a large hovering figure turned back against the incoming Cubot and Orbot, sitting on what seems to be a spinning chair with its backrest rather large in height and width.

"Hmmm..."

There goes that gruff voice again, but it was much clearer this time than it was spoken from the speakers.

"Took you two bucket of bolts long enough to come here"

The voice was certainly not friendly, it sounded firm, hostile. The figure then turned around, their gut rather large than an average person should have, the glasses that they wore were making it look like their eyes were glowing a piercing light blue through the darkened room, their surprisingly large bushy mustache stretching just about some lengths away from their face.

"Doctor Eggman! What have you called us in for sir?"

Orbot asked sincerely, releasing his grip from Cubot as the two robots approached their master.

"I have a task for the both of you, and it is very simple. So do not disappoint me."

Dr. Eggman stands up from his chair, his height just about exactly seven feet, looming over the rather shorter robots. Both Cubot and Orbot were almost just about three feet in height, just three times shorter than their master.

"So uhhh what's the task then er...boss?"

Cubot asked, blinking, his head slightly tilted to the side.

"I want you two idiots to insert these chips into the weapon,"

Dr. Eggman pulls out two rather small chips no larger than his hand, their texture the classic green and the intricate primary colored wires that embedded on them glowed faintly. The chips both had some strange labels on each of them to which the two robots could not quite see yet unless up close.

"Don't question it. Just get the job done. Now."

He holds out the two strange chips with his one large gloved hand for Cubot and Orbot to receive it. Orbot, knowing to just get this over with, takes one of the chips from his master's hand.

"Uhhhhhh why do we have to bring these? They look so small you could just...eat them! And oh no! It's a choking hazard for the baby robots too! Also can't one of us just carry two at a time? Also what do thes-"

Cubot was suddenly cut off as a large metal wrench was harshly flung at the side of his back, causing him to take quite a hit and stagger a bit behind.

"Have I not made myself CLEAR? I said to not question it you idiot. Now GO."

Dr. Eggman, not in the mood to deal with Cubot's talkativeness as he pointed towards the door out of the main control room, getting impatient with his two henchmen already despite them doing barely anything.

"Brrrzzzt"

Cubot's head spun forward at exactly around 360 degrees rotation, letting out a slight computery whirl sound, signaling that something had changed in his unstable program before his head rotated back to normal as he opened his eyes again and spoke with a far more annoying, irritable, and raspy energetic voice.

"Alright, got it bosss!"

And there he dashes off with the chip in one hand to the room of the weapon Eggman was speaking of. The same weapon that has been emitting the strange cyan force fields all over the facility for days on end.

"My, it seems like Cubot's voice chip has broken once again."

Orbot, stating the obvious, glanced back at the direction of where his work partner exited off to. Dr. Eggman, tired and displeased of their sloppy performance, just sighs, running a hand over his face as he grumbled.

"And Orbot, be sure to fix Cubot's voice chip while you're at it. I just can't stand that irritating voice."

Dr. Eggman ordered, clearly showing displeasure and agitation. Orbot gave his master a firm nod.

"Will do, sir!"

And retracts his whole body till he's able to transform into a circular ball and roll to the direction of where Cubot took off to. Orbot continued to roll in this state, going at a rather decently quick pace as he eventually catches up to Cubot who has already entered the area of where Dr. Eggman stored one of his deadliest weapons to use against Sonic. It was most certainly his newest creation. And it was the two's job, Orbot and Cubot to somehow play a role in completing it by inserting the two chips in.  

Now the real question is, will they be able to do it without fail?

"Cubot, where are you heading off to? The machinery is just right here in front of us as Eggman has instructed us to go to."

He gestures to the rather cubed shaped chamber. The actual machine was actually concealed inside of this massive titanium cube, no one was permitted to get inside to take a look at the weapon. Especially not two idiots running around like fools as Eggman himself may state. However, Orbot does know for a fact that there are the controls that connect to whatever machine was concealed inside of this massive cube. He's been here at least two times by now.

"Cubot...?"

Orbot hovers over to a yellow and black colored cube with two gray framed eyes on them being spotted not too far away from the concealed machine.

"Cubot what's wrong? Has something terrible happened?"

Cubot immediately extracts out of his cube like form and back to his original one, his voice chip still very much broken from the hit from earlier.

"I can't find that chip anywheree!!"

His voice crackled as he waved his arms side to side, looking as though he was searching for the chip that he just lost somewhere before eventually giving up almost immediately.

"Oh hmm...well that's quite a problem."

Orbot exclaimed as he then so too, decided to help Cubot look around for the missing chip he's lost for a couple of seconds before just shrugging.

"Ah, it can't matter much. I'm sure we can find a proper replacement for it."

Wanting to use the shortcut to pretend that they have inserted both of the chips into the machine's controls instead of spending an hour looking for it, Orbot looks at the chip that he still had in his hand, inspecting it closely.
The scale and shape of the chip wasn't all too unfamiliar or non- identical to the other previous chips that's been created. These could always be easily mistaken as a voice chip even due to its common coloration and how small it was...

"Hmmm...perhaps we can put in a different chip instead. Cubot, come over here. I believe I have come up with an idea we can use to complete this task."

Orbot gestures to Cubot to come to him, the yellow robot gives a confused look, scratching his head as he hovers over to Orbot.

"Huh?"

Once Cubot stationed himself still, Orbot went behind him and opened up the small delicate hatch attached to the top back of his best friend's back, the hatch allowing him to access Cubot's voice chip, which was obviously broken.
Orbot starts to hum out a certain soft tone as he casually and carefully removes his friend's voice chip.

"There!"

He holds up Cubot's broken voice chip, which looked rather slightly dented to the side. The coloration of the voice chip being emitted in a rather strange pattern, clearly damaged.

"This shall d-"

Before Orbot could say anything else, a large wave of the cyan forcefield surpassed them, and since they were much nearer to the machine that was emitting it, the two of them were caught in the crossfire of the vibration rather more effectively as they both got knocked back in the air against the wall rather harshly, causing Orbot to drop Cubot's broken voice chip and making it scatter amongst the ground.
Cubot remained silent due to the absence of his voice chip though it was clear that he looked rather frantic as the moment he landed back down on flat ground from the impact, he immediately cowered away, leaving the area, shaken.

"Cubot wait!"

Before Orbot even has the chance to talk to him, Cubot has already left the room of the machine.

"Oh dear...I suppose I will need to finish the job then."

Wanting to get this over with, he hovered over and leaned down to some corner to where he had last seen the broken voice chip that he had dropped during the harsh impact. He put his hand within the small corner as he then felt a chip..wait no, two chips as he took it out, seeing the two chips as almost identical. One of them being Cubot's voice chip and the other being the chip that Cubot himself lost not too long ago.

Another wave hits, this time making Orbot crash against the wall with an immediate force, leaving a small dent on the side of his head.

Orbot, not wanting to increase any more chances of being severely damaged and be trapped within the area range of the secret weapon, quickly went over to the machine's controls and randomly inserted two out of the three chips that he had in possession and immediately left the room, assuming he's got Cubot's broken voice chip with him.
As he exited, he retracted his whole body into a ball and started to roll away to where he saw Cubot run off to.
As if things were already bad enough, the speakers of the facility crackled to life once again, this time the alarm initiative was activated, causing the facility to all blare red, creating loud beeping sounds. A warning alert that some intruders have discovered the top of the facility's base.
"ATTENTION TO ALL EGGFORCERS, THAT VERMIN OF A HEDGEHOG HAS FOUND THE FACILITY BASE. ALL BADNIKS GO AFTER SONIC AND HIS ALLIES ABOVE THE SURFACE, DESTROY THEM ONCE AND FOR ALL."

Oh dear...We won't have much time now before Sonic reaches us.

Hordes of different badniks, each resembling some form of an animal or even Dr. Eggman himself, can be seen coming in and out of the hallways of the facility to deal with the stubborn yet dangerous blue hedgehog up on the surface along with no doubt several of his friends as well, trying to prevent the enemies from coming to the lowest levels of the facility.

"Cubot? Cubot! Where have you gone?"

Orbot scanned around the chaotic hallways that was blaring red till eventually he does end up finding his friend who has tucked himself inside in his cubeform, staying still as a cube in the middle of the hallways where all the badniks were hurrying over to distract or attempt to destroy the hedgehog and his friends as much as they possibly could.
Neither of the robots knew how and when the hedgehog had managed to find and infiltrate this specific base, but it was clear that they had to be on the move.

"Cubot! It's best we locate back to Dr. Eggman now, he acquires for our service!"

Cubot in his cube shaped form blinks then extracts his body out of his current state, not being able to speak due to the absence of his voice chip as he felt his hand towards his neck where his vocal cords are. That is...if robots even counted as having vocal cords in the first place. Orbot sighs as he holds up the chip for Cubot.

"I will put this back in once we get to the boss Cubot, let's hurry on now!"

So then Cubot following Orbot made their way to the doctor's location that he had given out to them, potentially leading them back full circle to the same exact room with the titanium box concealing the powerful machine inside. They were both here not too long ago either. The box however seems to be vibrating much more now as well as the alarms around the facility continues to blare red, the sounds of the loud beeping still consistent. The sounds of the metallic clanking of the badniks can be heard from outside of the area.

"Uh...why exactly have you taken us back here Dr. Eggman?"

Orbot asks in question as he starts to help insert the chip into Cubot's voice box so he can speak again. The doctor, wearing his typical large red coat with the two silver buttons and yellow sleeved cuffs, slowly makes a wide grin as he turns to look at Orbot.

"It's time to activate the ultimate weapon"

Orbot's eyes slightly widened in surprise. He knew practically anyone who cared to know that the machine was certainly very unstable. It's been proven so due to the strange force fields it's been emitting throughout the facility for days ever since it was created.

"Well sir, that is incredibly a foolish idea since the machine is unsta-"

He was suddenly interrupted by Dr. Eggman yelling back at him with a tone so fierce and harsh.

"You think I don't know that you idiot?! Well luckily, that's what those two chips I have given you both earlier are for, they were the final pieces of the puzzle to stabilize the machine."

He glances back at the shaking titanium cube, which seems to threaten to burst out and explode due to how intense it was vibrating.

"Now quit gawking around and activate the other controls, I'll handle the main one."

The doctor instructed as he put on his egg goggles, which had a dark green lens to them unlike the blue-ish lensed glasses that he always wore. Orbot hovered over to one of the control sets while Cubot, who strangely hasn't said anything this entire time despite the Chip being inserted into his voice box, goes to the other side controls. There were three different control areas surrounding the titanium cube that contained the strange machine inside, whatever it was, it was clearly charging up some sort of a extreme energy that's been stored up for so long.
The main control was being handled by Eggman, the left side of the other controls handled by Cubot and the right by Orbot himself. Orbot has practiced and collected the data for this drill specifically, Eggman has taught them the process before. So he was able to press the right triggers and buttons rather easily. For Cubot however, it took him a bit more time before he managed to catch on.
Once everything was set, a metal stand coming out from the ground appears next to Eggman, revealing a red button.

"And let this be..."

Dr. Eggman's voice started to rise in volume as his grin became wider, one of his hands curled into a fist in the air, that very fist hovering over the blinking red button.

"THE BEGINNING OF THE EGGMANEMPIRE."

There was a loud click of the button as the doctor triumphantly brought his fist down onto the object. But...it didn't seem to have gone the way it was intended to as the titanium cube starts to heat up, shown by the light spreads of red forming from the insides of the cube...some strange cyan pixels starts to leak out from underneath until eventually, the machine gave out one final time, letting out the strongest yet the most impactful forcefield it has ever emitted as the cube suddenly bursts open, its large metal parts each hitting Cubot and Orbot aside due to them being stationed at the sides of the controls, knocking them over to the walls harshly and shutting down their computer systems temporarily.

And as for Eggman...

Let's just say that he just suddenly vanished after that blinding wave of white light that came out of the machine, no traces of him at all. Previous records of him all erased for whatever reason unknown...
This force field, however, emitted by the machine went through the entire planet. Now everyone has experienced the strange force that just came past them. Leaving the world shaken by the forcefield's strong vibration that it left upon its wake.
Some buildings collapsed, certain areas on the ground cracked opened into ravines, a sudden shift of change in the atmosphere occurred.

The mysterious  machine may have given out and broken down but there was also this strange thing that it left behind...something that was bubbling, steaming, glitching. Just underneath all of the metal rubble, something was brought upon to this world as it started to spread from the facility...

Something sinister.

And the world may have become a flesh foundry of its own.

...

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[Author's Note]
Updates may or may not be slow.
It really depends on my motivation and mood really.
This AU is going to purely exist because I want to have a bit more fun in writing again. And I'm glad I was able to write something I could look back to in the future.
It's fun studying and writing these characters. Even if it may go inaccurate and turn out rather wonky. I'm gonna try my best to put lots of effort to each character's accuracy and developments as this story progresses.

I will add images on the prologue sometime in the future. But since I wanted to have some taste in writing again, the prologue was released with no pictures.

And to those who's reading this, congratulations! You are a true reader who somehow decided to stick around with one heck of a paragraph or whatever strange concept I decided to share through words.
Thank you. And I can't say that enough to express it. You guys are truly amazing.
Have a decent day or night. Squishy going offline now.