Chaos Born

Take Your Positions

Drip.

Drip.

Splish.

Splish.

If nothing else, Sonic's new home was certainly musical... and a little cold.

Underneath the factory, Eggman, in his Dr Robotnik days, had constructed a stone waterway for his secret underground dealings with whichever dodgy lowlife who was attempting to bargain with him for five minutes of 'not being shot at or roboticised'. It was also a clever means of slipping a few battle-ready robots out without anyone noticing.

For Sonic, it was your classic medieval dungeon, complete with metal bars, chains hanging from the ceiling, no heating, iron rings in the walls and only a smattering of straw fresh from a barn.

Yet behind the mask of a draughty  stone waterway dungeon there was a fully functioning secondary laboratory, a back-up lab, with strong electrictiy lines running from the higher levels to the discretely hidden desks and computers dotted about the place.

In time, Ira decided, he would arrange to have all the power restored to the factory so that the underground lab could function again but, in the meantime, he was more satisfied with watching a restless blue hedgehog pace his cage.

"Roomy enough for you?" he asked pleasently, making an obvious point in not addressing the issue of the manacled ankles that were lashed to the wall.

Sonic hadn't uttered a noise since waking up and his mouth was still firmly shut. It didn't mean, however, that his eyes weren't allowed to shoot glares at his would-be tormentor.

"Now come on," Ira pouted, "you haven't spoken a word to me since you got to the island. You can't give me the silent treatment forever, you know."

Sonic flicked an ear and turned his back.

"Come to think of it," Ira frowned, "the only time you did talk to me was a few days ago and before then you've never spoken to me. Ever. Not even when you were a little spike-ball." He was trying, of course, to provoke the hedgehog into talking. Anything was better than being ignored.

"Don't you want to know?" Ira went on asking, hoping for a reaction, "Not interested in how you came to be all alone in the big bad world?"

Defiant silence.

"I'll give you a hint - it's thanks to me. My brother doesn't seem as threatening anymore, does he?"

Sonic was still standing motionless, his back to the human, not even gracing him with a movement from any of his quills.

"Go on then, ask away. I know you want to. You're dying to know what happened."

Drip.

Splish.

"Fine then. I won't tell you," Ira huffed, "But just get it through your thick skull that, as soon as I've got all I need from Ivo, your life's purpose will be to keep my life going."

His exit was watched in Sonic's peripheral vision but the hedgehog wouldn't turn until he was sure that he was gone.

Now by himself, the speedster bared his teeth and angrily growled, throwing his weight back against the bars of his cage and kicking his legs furiously. He had enough strength in his calves alone to snap a chain but when tightened with the wall, a surge of electricity shocked him, deterring further thoughts to pull at his bonds. 

If he were still alone in this mess, Sonic may have simply continued, regardless of what pain was dished to him but... he wasn't.

It was a dirty Robotnik trick to use close friends as leverage.