Sonic Aftermath

[Sorry for the long wait. I've been busy trying to fix up an old laptop I want to sell to a friend.]

Some time after evacuating Robotropolis, what remained of Robotnik's Egg Fleet fled into the mountains overlooking the grasslands. Robotnik has begun construction on a new base in preparation for a counter-strike against all of those who have attacked him...

---

Robotnik sipped from gigantic-sized mug of hot cocoa, as he looked down from a ledge into the grassy valley below. Wind whipped a blizzard of snow around him, but he paid it no mind as he wore an impressive scarlet coat with a furred collar, along with an equally fuzzy cap on top of his bald head. In spite of the weather, he definitely felt most comfortable standing there on a mountain top.

It felt amazing to be breathing fresh air out here. He never realized what he was missing out on always living in that polluted city. Robotnik thought he'd almost feel bad about having to tear up these gorgeous mountains to make his new base. Almost. In any case he turned around to walk into a cave. It ended with a brand new door that looked like it came straight from a massive bank vault. Unseen gears built into the walls grinded against each other and the door slowly opened to allow him inside.

He promptly got blasted with a wave of heat as he stepped inside, and quickly passed the coat and hat to a nearby maintenance bot. The bot quickly stopped its job and followed after the doctor. It was night and day compared to outside. In here, steel catwalks snaked through rock tunnels, with steel girders holding up the tunnel walls. Before long he arrived in a huge open space taken up by a lake of hot lava in the center. Various pipes ran down into the lava to generators ringing the space around the pool of liquid rock. It was very fortunate he'd found such a power source to build a new base around. Construction could proceed very quickly this way.

He stepped over to a railing overlooking the liquid hot lava, as he continued to sip the cocoa.

He wondered what Rampage was doing. It'd been a little while since Rampage had collapsed on the bridge of the Egg Carrier, so he'd spent much of that time in the small medical bay getting treatment to get back up to snuff.

Robotnik looked on approvingly as Rampage tossed the humanoid bot right into the lava pit. It started to melt and sink slowly into the liquid hot rock. He gave Rampage a little clap.

"I think you should try stone putting sometime Rampage. You'd probably enjoy it. Although I'd imagine cybernetics are outlawed from any serious competition. Not to mention I can't picture you wearing a kilt."

Robotnik sighed, as he closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Like I've got time to properly design new robots while I'm busy building our new evil volcano lair. Evil volcano lairs don't build themselves you know." He waved his hand around at metallic catwalks and infrastructure around them. "Had to sacrifice a few of my aerial battleships so I could use their generators to power this new base. But I digress."

He looked over at the now almost unidentifiable hunk of metal melting into the liquid hot lava.

"Maybe now that the power situation has been worked out, I can begin on getting you new prototypes. I just need to skip over to my new lab underneath the peak next door."

In the interest of preventing his base's destruction by a pesky Freedom Fighter causing this volcano to erupt, Robotnik had actually built the main complex underneath the neighboring peak instead of inside the peak with the volcano. If there's one thing he knew from spy fiction, it's that evil volcano lairs were usually destroyed by the good guy causing the volcano to overload. So the main complex would be without its main power source, but at least it would not be instantly destroyed in such an event.

"At the rate do-gooders find my bases and secret plans, I would not be surprised if there was a Freedom Fighter outside our door right now. And they always seem to do it completely by blind luck too, as if guided by invisible hands. I wish I had that guiding hand on my side when I'm trying to conquer the planet."

He paced away from the edge of the lava pit and waved for Rampage to follow. They would start walking towards a large metallic door, which opened as Robotnik approached. A long tunnel straight through the rock laid before them. This was the tunnel to the peak that made up the other half of White Dome, Robotnik's tentative name for his new base.