Scene #8561: In Every Life There Ought To Be A Little Chaos

Owner	Pose
Eggman	Finding the nefarious Doctor Eggman is usually pretty difficult if he doesn't want to be found. There are enough Egg Bases, each governed by an Egg Head, scattered around the various worlds to make it hard to pinpoint where the intellectual center of the Eggman Empire is if you don't already know, or if you don't just break in to a place and find him that way. Petra has access to means, though - among them Cubot, who's not nearly as upset at her as the other two members of the Eggman Empire's elite. All it takes is a quick call to let her know that the Egg Carrier is in drydock repair in the Summer region, hidden at one of the Empire's jungle bases. So it is that Petra can easily find the place. Like every other Eggman Empire base, it's coated with logos of Eggman's face, automatic weaponry, and way too many robots. Unlike every other Eggman Empire base, it's hidden by plants. But when Petra gets close to the place, the robots whirl to point guns at her, and the turrets turn to lock on. Apparently her access really has been revoked.
Petra Soroka	Petra hasn't gone back to the City since stealing the Chaos Emerald from Pumpkin Planet last night. She doesn't have work at L-Corp today, citing other plans, so there's no need for her to be, and technically it's no issue for her to sleep in the woods. The main reason, however, is due to the ever-pressing difficulty of transport without the Kana, and without even having the bike that Angela gifted her, making her trek through the woods and subsequently from the Warpgate nearest to the Egg Empire Base through the jungle, take the better part of twelve hours. Petra's brief spot of cell connection around the Warpgate was used to call Cubot, and besides that, she's been entirely alone while traveling. Even calling out Qetra for conversation didn't help, because she started whining about being tired and bored after barely five minutes in the wilderness. Emerging from the foliage with Pillar of Creation as a walking stick in one hand and the useless transteam gun in the other, Petra is briefly startled when the base's defenses turn on her. After the number of visits she's taken around the Empire, the weaponry practically faded into the background in her mind, and being made suddenly aware of its existence in this particular way is jarring. Petra bites her lip, holding back the little sparkles of tears that immediately build up at the unfriendly greeting. "I'm coming to see him, whether you like it or not." Petra addresses the crowd of robots, unsure if Eggman can hear her through them, or even if they can hear her at all. She holsters the transteam gun to hold Pillar of Creation in both of her hands, spreading Silver along its length and into a levitating halo around her torso, droplets orbiting her like tiny asteroids. When she uses the EGO weapon to pole vault over the defenses towards the entrance, any defensive fire at her is met with the halo swelling up to absorb the shots in the morphmetal mass, defensively forcing her way through but not retaliating.
Eggman	The defenses hang there, ominously. While they're still trained on her, they don't open fire, even as she spreads Silver along the length of her weapon. Even as she walks to the door - the Eggman's-stylized-face-shaped-door, because, well, the man has an aesthetic, even if it's a weird one. When she reaches it, it opens with a hiss to allow her in. The robots continue flanking her, but there's at least the sense that she's not going to be shot if she doesn't do anything stupid. As she's ushered into the dark tunnel lit by neon factory signs it almost feels like she's being escorted - but whether as a guest or like a prisoner is hard to tell (even if she herself hasn't actually been imprisoned or restrained in any way). The base twists, turns, and winds. Spikes, springs, all the usual array of surprises, with some weird mechanical chameleons that fade into the background when she passes. It's entirely possible that without an escort she'd get lost in here - and that's even more confirmed when one of the walls slides away to reveal a door, and that door rolls upwards like a Rubik's Cube to reveal a hallway. The whole place is a big stupid puzzle base. That's very Eggman. Finally she's brought into the repair bay. The Egg Carrier sits in drydock, being worked on by dozens of hovering drones. Sitting in his hovering boss chair overseeing it all is the Doctor himself. Near him is a tall, green robot that looks sort of like a lizard in a tuxedo. And, of course, Cubot and Orbot. The tall green robot looks over at Petra with an odd gaze. Then it looks back at the Doctor. "You have a guest, Doctor." Eggman turns. He stares at Petra for a very, very long moment. He runs his fingers along his moustache thoughtfully. Then, "Did the dear Dame Commander finally decide to send you to deal with me permanently? I'm not surprised. I have no doubt you took advantage of some lingering clearances I forgot to wipe to get in here." Cubot pushes his fingers together "...akshally, boss, I invited 'er," he says in a stereotypical Mafioso accent, "I tought youse could make nice an' make up, 'cuz ya been so angry lately after dat party..." Eggman's lip curls upwards. "Angry? I'm not angry. I'm simply unwilling to put up with a time bomb in my midst." "...c'mon, boss, ya angry. So's Orbot. 'sbeen real quiet round 'ere lately. At least hear da dame out, huh?" "...very well." Eggman's hoverchair lowers itself to Petra's level. He leans on his arm, looking at her from behind his glasses. "I'll hear you out."
Petra Soroka	Being escorted actually feels worse than having to fight her way through. Not because of the sense that she's a prisoner, but because it makes her feel like a guest. She isn't welcome here, not even in the way an enemy or prisoner would be. She reabsorbs Pillar of Creation into her arm, along with the rest of her Silver, leaving herself defenseless and small. While being escorted, Petra wraps her arms around herself, increasingly worried about the end of the winding pathway, out of guilty anxiety rather than fear. Even acknowledging that, if he chose to, Eggman could make sure she never escapes from here, the actual consequences of him being angry at her weigh less on her mind than the anger itself. Once she's in the repair bay, Petra quietly waits for Eggman to address her, staring at the unfamiliar robot with her arms still squeezing around her chest. When he does, she exhales, closing her eyes and dropping her arms to lace her fingers together in front of her hips. "I-I'm sorry. About what happened at the party." 'Time bomb' makes Petra wince, gritting her teeth. "I-- I didn't really think about how, the rest of th-them are actually your enemies, because you and Lilian were always kind of friendly, so I-- I'm sorry about T-Tamamo using me to hurt you." "And I'm sorry about hurting you." Petra's eyes fall to the ground, twisting her boot into the floor. The tonal mismatch is palpable, between the supervillain's played-up monologue, and Petra's roughly heartfelt apology. "And you too, Orbot, and Cubot." "Lilian won't send me to fight you. We talked about it. I-- I'm capable of doing both. If I'm helping you, then she's fighting me, because she's a hero and I'm a villain, and that's how it works. And I-- I can prove that."
Eggman	The green chameleon robot in the tuxedo watches her thoughtfully. It taps its chin, but says nothing. Cubot just nods eagerly. Orbot hovers there, arms crossed. "...it is more lively with you around," Orbot admits quietly. "...I believe you." Eggman strokes his moustache again. "Prove that you won't exploit my trust, even if she or Tamamo asks you to? How?"
Petra Soroka	"I, uh-- went to get a thing? Yesterday. Lilian wasn't there, but if she was, she would've been trying to stop me. Since all the heroes were. And I was prepared to fight her if she was." Petra drips some morphmetal onto the ground, and quickly looks up at Eggman to make sure it's okay for her to be fiddling with it. "I just need to get it out of here, if that's okay." Looking at her again as she pulls the quicksilver up into a reflective film, Petra looks like she's gotten the shit beaten out of her. Her jeans are torn, even her jacket is battered and ripped in places. Green stains and twigs cover her legs, though she isn't bleeding or wounded because the silver never allows her to be. "Lilian understands, and agrees. If Tamamo tries to use me against you like that, then Lilian will be angry, and Tamamo won't do things that make that happen. And I'll be angry at her too, obviously. I am angry at her." Petra knocks her knuckles against the mirror, then pulls Qetra out by her wrist while Qetra yawns pathetically. Blearily, she waves at Eggman while retrieving something from her pocket. "Hiii, Doctor." "They, uh, called it a Chaos Emerald? I went to beat up the-- the fox one, the tiny yellow one, and he said it was something you wanted." Petra guides Qetra back inside the mirror with one hand, holding up the glowing green Emerald with the other. "So I-- I got it for you. I hope that's... helpful? As your apprentice?"
Eggman	The Chaos Emerald blazes to life as Petra raises it. It fills the room with a powerful green glow - powerful enough for Eggman's eyebrows to rise, the chameleon-robot to disappear reflexively, and Orbot and Cubot to take shelter as if it's going to explode. Nothing happens other than light, but as Petra holds it, admitting her feelings and her desire for reconciliation, the Emerald cannot help but respond. "Chaos is power, enriched by the heart..." Eggman says, his voice tinged with awe. "One of the seven Emeralds..." He can't take his eyes off it. After a long moment, he reaches out and takes the Emerald from her hands, and it immediately dies down to a duller, quieter pulse. Like a jeweler examining a much more mundane gemstone he raises it to his eye to examine. Then, finally, he says, "...yes. It...is very helpful. Incredibly helpful." There's a moment of Eggman hovering there, staring at the Emerald, and the Emerald pulses with a sudden light again. "...my grandfather was betrayed when he allowed others access to his work. It destroyed him, and my cousin. For a moment there, I felt the curse of the Robotnik family all too keenly. If you swear, truly, that the Dame Commander won't abuse this privilege..." He sets the Emerald down on the dash of his hovering chair-car. "...then..." "...welcome back, apprentice." "Yay!" Cubot throws up his hands delightedly, "I knew it! Youse was just mad at 'er!" Eggman mutters something about replacing Cubot's personality chip with a blender's so he's less mixed-up in the future, but it's half-hearted. "How did you get it, anyway? I haven't seen any Chaos Emeralds since that half-witted hedgehog, that two-tailed twerp, and that insufferable echidna hid them away. You must've done a fine, villainous job." "...tell me about it."
Petra Soroka	Petra waits with bated breath when she hands the Emerald over, clasping her hands behind her back and doing her best not to fidget. When he says it's 'helpful', she breaks out into a tentative smile, still not looking away from him or letting herself move freely. Nodding emphatically at him asking her to swear, not willing to interrupt him talking to say so, it's 'welcome back' that really visibly affects her. She balls her fists up and bounces on her toes, excitedly beaming. "I promise! I do. I'm not the-- the government, or the Paladins, or anything. I'm just-- I want to-- to be your apprentice. So--" Petra darts forwards to wrap Cubot in a hug, lifting him up. Orbot is invited, but not forced, to join, Petra's other outstretched arm either being available to pull him in to the hug, or for a more polite handshake. "Thanks. I'm-- glad to be back." Setting Cubot back down, Petra starts pacing around excitedly, gesturing as she starts to tell the story. Floating globs of quicksilver help Petra mime out the events, clumping together to form a floating sphere like the planetoid. "So! So. I tracked down the fox to this floating city, called Pumpkin Planet? Like, a big sphere, that they all lived inside, flying through the air and turned into a self sustaining ecosystem and city. And that had to be powered by something, right? So the-- god, what's his name? After I defeated him, he started saying all this stuff about how I'll 'never get the Chaos Emerald', and all that, so I decided I had to, you know?" The morphmetal sphere splits open like a slice was taken out of it, exposing the hollow point in the center. "So-- so I went in the core, and there it was, right? And at that point all the heroes showed up to try and stop me, but once I had the Emerald in my Silver, it was like-- I could control every machine on the planet. So I fought them all off-- and Qetra helped too, sort of-- with the terraforming machines and fighting them at the same time, while the whole thing fell down out of the atmosphere." Petra beams at Eggman, very very proud of herself, sending the fascimile of the planetoid crashing into the ground where it explodes into a million droplets. "And I got out with it! So you said, there were seven of those?"
Eggman	Orbot, despite his usual sarcastic dourness, nonetheless moves into the hug. He pats her on the shoulder when she hugs him, reassuring her that, yes, he supposes, he'll get over it too. He's set back down with Cubot and moves around to watch Petra's show. Eggman leans forward to watch. "Tails. That little brat's name is Tails. So, they hid it in a city..." He rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Yes, the Emeralds could easily power a whole city...and with an Emerald in your possession and the properties of your Silverized body, you'd be able to do a great deal more than just control the city, too..." His fingers go to his moustache again as she finishes her story. When the planetoid crashes, he throws open his arms. "Excellent work! I knew you had a villainous streak a mile long. Casualties might be...a bit much, but, that's my credo, not yours, so I'll hardly judge you on that. You're still learning, after all." "I'm quite proud of you, my dear. You've done splendidly." He taps the Emerald and holds it up for her again. It shines, but does not burn out of control. "That's correct. Seven Emeralds, and a unifying Master Emerald. 'The servers are the Seven Chaos,' the writing my grandfather found in some old ruins goes, 'The Controller is the one to unify the Chaos. Chaos is power, enriched by the heart.'" He sets it back down. "Seven Emeralds, each capable of producing unlimited power. We could do a lot with that. And, perhaps, if we find the Master Emerald, we could do even more..." "Plus, my grandfather's journals indicate the presence of an ancient power that surpasses even the Emeralds themselves. If we found that..." Eggman's fingers twitch excitedly. "We could change the game entirely." "What do you say, my dear - are you up for an expedition? And, perhaps, a chance at payback against those who have such twisted hate for you?"
Petra Soroka	Petra pauses in her retelling, as silver droplets streak down her leg and around the room from the destroyed planetoid. "Oh. Well-- I don't think anyone died. Ishirou and the rest set up evacuation routes, which I expected, so either they got all of them out, or they failed to get all of them out because they were distracted by me. Either way, it's on them." "I mean, it's not like I haven't killed people before and won't do it again, but..." The sounds of the Mobian's panic and tears sunk into Petra's mind during those long hours trekking through the wilderness. Faces of individual animal people don't register in her memory, but brief glimpses of two clinging to each other, or holding hands while they run, or a family trying to gather as much as they could from their home while Petra strolled past, do. "Mass murder isn't, like... something I plan on doing. So I do hope they saved everyone." Mystical ruins, seven artifacts, an ancient power beyond all of them... that sounds like a quest. Petra lights up even before Eggman finishes explaining, her entire posture devoted to sheer excitement. "I would love to do that, Doctor."