Through The Crack: Part 2 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Glimpse of the Past

Eggman zoomed over the jungle in his Eggpod, scanning the treeline for a sign of the ruins his scoutbots had detected earlier. After a couple more minutes of searching, he found it sitting in the middle of a courtyard. His lifterbots were already there as was the prototype to his new line of robots, E-99 Proto. Upon landing, E-99 came over to greet him.

"All hail the great Dr. Robotnik!" said the robot, saluting.

Eggman gave E-99 a once over. The tan robot was tall and gangly with one hand replaced with a gun and the other remaining hand having only three fingers. On the robots back was a crude and bulky jetpack. Eggman made a mental note to change that design quirk when he finally began building the actual E-Series line of robots. Maybe he could replace it with wirelessly connected jet boosters?

"Are the lifterbots ready in case we need them?" Eggman asked, climbing out of his Eggpod and steadying himself upon the ground.

"Affirmative, Dr. Robotnik," answered E-99, "the lifterbots are warmed up and ready to serve."

Eggman glanced over at the lifterbots. Their designs were actually quite simple really. They were basically forklifts that could hover and operate without anyone controlling them. Simple, but effective. Looking at them now, they did indeed look ready to go.

"Good," Eggman said, beginning to walk towards the temple. "Come on, let's see what these ruins have in store for us."

As Eggman, E-99, and the two lifterbots climbed the steps, Eggman began studying the architecture. The temple itself was pyramidal in shape and on either side of the base of the large and very steep staircase were statues of someone sitting in a throne or chair. Something about this temple seemed familiar to Eggman but he couldn't put his finger on what exactly that something was.

At the top of staircase was the entrance, but it was blocked by what appeared to be a large stone snake head. Upon reaching it, Eggman tried everything he could think of to try and open it, but it just wouldn't budge. Just before he could order E-99 to blast it open with his gun hand, the snake's mouth opened, revealing a long, dark passageway.

Eggman scratched his head. "E-99, analyze the entrance and tell me how exactly that snake head opened."

"Yes Dr. Robotnik," E-99 replied. After a couple of seconds, he added, "Data inconclusive. Cause of opening unknown."

"How odd," whispered Eggman, frowning.

"Should we abort the mission, sir?" asked E-99.

"No, we must continue," Eggman said, clearing his head of all the questions. "E-99, turn on your flashlight." He turned back towards the lifterbots. "You guys do the same."

"Yes Dr. Robotnik!" chorused the lifterbots' deep, robotic voices as they and E-99 all switched on their flashlights. The area in front of them was instantly bathed in a bright, white light.

"Onward!" exclaimed Eggman, walking into the corridor with the others following behind single file.

The corridor itself was pretty barren. Every couple of feet, there would be a torch on each wall which, when passed, would light up and illuminate the corridor behind them. Not exactly the most useful way to do it. Probably would've been better if they lit up before they got to them but, hey, it helped if they had to run back the way they came... which Eggman fervently hoped didn't need to happen.

After walking for a good five minutes, they came to a point where the corridor sloped down and to the left. After another five minutes of walking, the corridor sloped down and to the left once again. It continued like this for nearly an hour until the corridor opened up into an extremely large and decidedly dark room, the only light coming from the robots' flashlights. The sounds of rushing water could be heard far below them.

Upon entering the chamber, all the torches in the entire room lit up. The group was on a platform and seemed to be very high up. Eggman crept up to the edge and looked down. They were indeed very high up, nearly 100 feet above the ground it looked like! There were platforms every so often along the walls and some of these even had corridors going back into the walls. On some of the walls were panels with glowing purple arrows on them which lead to many different platforms along the walls. At the very bottom of the chamber, taking up half the floor space, was a pond with holes in the walls letting the water flow in and out. That must have been the source of the sound. Also at the bottom of the chamber, was what appeared to be a large switch and, on the opposite wall from where Eggman was standing, there was a huge, ornately carved door.

"Sir, my analysis concludes that we are over 100 feet above the ground," E-99 said suddenly, making Eggman jump.

"Yes," retorted Eggman, annoyed at the robot for scaring him, "I can see that."

"A fall from this height could be fatal," continued E-99.

"No, you think?" Eggman asked sarcastically, turning to face him.

"Yes I do," E-99 said, not detecting the sarcasm.

Eggman facepalmed. "Ugh." After removing his hand from his face, Eggman looked from E-99 to the bottom of the chamber. "E-99, do you think you could fly me down there?"

"It would probably stretch my load-bearing capacity to its limit... but yes, I should be able to," replied E-99.

"Excelle-- wait, what did you say?"

"I said that yes I can fly you down there Dr. Robotnik."

Eggman squinted at the robot. "That's what I thought you said." He looked past E-99 at the lifterbots. "You two, follow us!" Eggman shouted, his voice magnified because of the echoes caused by the largeness of the chamber.

E-99 placed his hand and his gun hand under Eggman's armpits, securing his grasp. His jetpack started itself with a loud bang and he and Eggman began descending towards the ground closest to the door. Behind them, they could hear the lifterbots put their hover engines into overdrive so that they too could descend. After about a minute, E-99 landed on solid ground and his jetpack disengaged with another loud bang. eggman revised his earlier mental note so that he would remember to definitely change the jetpack for future E-Series robots. That banging noise was very annoying.

A couple of seconds passed until the two lifterbots landed and Eggman opened the large, ornate door. The room on the other side of of the door wasn't nearly as big as the chamber they'd just left. The group stood on a small walkway surrounded by water. The end of the walkway opened up into a platform with a pedestal going along the length of the opposite wall. On the opposite wall, and the walls to the group's left and right, was a mural that depicted a large ater serpent laying waste to a devastated city. The sight chilled Eggman to his core; he'd seen something like this once before, a couple years back on Angel Island when he'd still believed in his ultimately worthless Death Egg. The mural on Angel Island had depicted his own downfall at the hands of Sonic, his mortal enemy. That was mural had been crafted by the echidnas, a highly advanced race who became nearly extinct. There was only one surviving echidna, Knuckles, and he guarded the Master Emerald on Angel Island. Because of the similarities between both murals, Eggman guessed the mural in front of him had been made by the very same echidnas.

"I will go analyze the mural and the pedestal," said E-99, making Eggman jump once again.

"Would you stop that!?" Eggman exclaimed, glaring at the oblivious robot.

As soon as E-99 took one step forward, a long, pointy stone spear shot out of the wall to their right and impaled him straight through his chassis, killing his power supply and barely missing the jetpack's fuel tank. E-99 immediately crumpled to the ground, his green eyes dying out. Eggman bent over, carefully removed the spike, and opened up E-99's chest plate. The small bird that had been inside powering E-99, commonly known as a Flicky, was dead, impaled by the spike; the bird's blood stained the walls and equipment inside of E-99's chassis. Eggman slammed the chest plate shut.

Eggman turned back to the lifterbots. "Watch out for booby traps!" he shouted.

He immediately began walking towards the pedestal, kicking E-99's corpse into the water and avoiding any suspicious looking floor tiles. Upon reaching the wall-length pedestal, Eggman gazed at the stone tablets resting upon it. He recognized the heiroglyphics written on the tablets instantly; it was the language of the echidnas. During his time on Angel Island, Knuckles had taught him a couple words. The only words Eggman understood on the tablets were 'God', 'of', 'Destruction', 'unleash', 'Chaos', and 'Master Emerald', but that was enough for Eggman. He now had the perfect scheme to build Robotnikland, if he could control the beast once it was unleashed, which Eggman had full confidence he could do.

"Lifterbots!" yelled Eggman over his shoulder, "bring these tablets to the Egg Carrier, I'm going to study them some more!" Meanwhile, he was going to pay a visit to Angel Island. Eggman glanced up at the water serpent mural one last time and smiled.

He had a god of destruction to unleash.

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Now, standing in front of Discord's statue, in a universe run by talking ponies, with a time-traveling alien beside him, Eggman rolled the memory over in his head, as well as all the subsequent times he had tried to release divine beasts. Chaos, Solaris, Biolizard, Dark Gaia, all these plans had ended in the monsters sending him and his plans into oblivion. Every time, Sonic had to be the one to defeat them and save the day. Here, in another world, he was faced with the same thing: should he release another monster? All previous attempts had ended in failure, could he risk everything and all his outlook changes on another gamble?

"Is something wrong?" the Doctor asked, seeing the indecision on Eggman's face.

"I just... I just need to... collect my thoughts," answered Eggman, putting his face into his hands and shaking his head.

The Doctor smiled sympathetically. "Yeah, this pony world is a lot to take in. I'm going back to the TARDIS, come back when you're ready. Take your time. If you don't want to visit Ponyville after this, then really take your time because I haven't exactly figured out how to get you back home yet."

As the Doctor walked away, Eggman looked up at the statue again. He'd come so far, made the decision to change his ways, how could he give all that up? He'd even made a friend! Thinking of the Doctor made Eggman take the TARDIS key out of his pocket. Looking it over, Eggman realized this was a sign of trust. The Doctor trusted him enough to give him a key to a machine that could travel almost anywhere he wanted... that decided it. He wouldn't try to release Discord. Besides, Eggman didn't even know how to release Discord.

Suddenly, there was an extremely loud boom from behind that caused Eggman to jump, the TARDIS key flying from his hand and landing on the statue's foot. Eggman immediately turned around. In the distance, he could see a large, cobalt blue shockwave and, running from it at an incredible speed, was a blue dot speeding towards a small town. Eggman recognized that blue blur, for only one thing could ever run that fast: Sonic the Hedgehog.

Eggman's mind was suddenly filled with an anger so intense his head felt as though it would burst. How did he, of all people, get here!? This changed everything; he had to get revenge on that little blue rodent for causing him years of pain and suffering. Eggman glanced up at the statue again. No, he wouldn't release Discord, he'd do this himself. Eggman picked the key up off the statue's feet and put it in his pocket, not noticing the small crack where the key had been resting. His mind was too full of anger and revenge to notice such trivial things. Eggman began running back to the TARDIS, one mantra repeated in his head over and over:

Change could wait.