Robotropolis- Jail Cell Blues

After awhile of fruitless struggling, Merce had finally resigned himself to being lead by the group of strange robots. His speed and strength just weren't up to being able to handle them in his current form, so instead, he turned his focus onto the escape plan.

As soon as the android had hit the floor he'd sprung back up, grabbing at the barred doors and glaring at the guards that stayed behind. A low growl emanated from the back of his throat. Stepping back he quickly looked over the cell for something - anything - of potential use.

Of course nothing obvious presented itself. Momentarily at a loss, he stalked the length of the cell angrily. How had they found them?! As far as he knew no one had seen them. Unless Dash had deceived him he couldn't possibly - oh. OH. Merce suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, a look of mortification. His signal. He hadn't masked his signal. They must have come looking for him when he failed to bring Rush in. He buried his face into his palm - How could he overlook something like that?! He may as well have had a neon sign welded to him!

"What are they going to do with us?" he finally muttered to Dash.

Reprogrammed. The artificial hedgehog stiffened when he heard that word. Any self-respecting sentient robot considered their programming sacred - after all, it was the very center of what gave a robot the capacity to even think at all.

"Why would they touch your programming?" he asked with an air of dire importance.

Merce pressed his lips together into a thin line, looking even more concerned by this new information. At least he had the ability to pass for an organic. A quick glance over at Rush's inactive form, however...

Grunting, the android took to pacing about much like a caged animal. "Who are these Freedom Fighters? And besides that... if you have free will why did you bother to help me after I had reassembled you anyway? You have made it... very clear you do not like my--" he glanced at Rush's offline form. "--double."

Merce blinked in surprise at this revelation, glancing at the guards when Dash had. The information about the Freedom Fighters was interesting - potentially useful.

However, it was the other part of the tenrec's explanation that struck him. "Oh," he stopped pacing and rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. "I... was not aware."

He scrunched his mouth, taking a moment to consider what to do with this information. His expression went blank. "If you were not required to manually obey my orders you would not pose a threat to me, would you?"

The android hummed quietly to himself as he considered his options. Though he found the idea of ordering someone like RK or Ishnt to run into a wall a few times amusing, in reality, the idea of forcibly controlling another sentient robot like that just felt... wrong.

Besides. He hated to admit it, but any assistance he could acquire right now would be immensely useful... and earning someone's trust was invaluable.

"Alright then..." he said, folding his arms. "If that is the case then... I hereby order you to ignore any orders you may have been given prior to now, and to ignore any orders you may be given after."

Having finished speaking, he glanced up at the ceiling in thought, then strolled over to the bench opposite of Dash and sat down, clasping his hands together in his lap.

"Now then..." he began, speaking in a hushed tone. "The truth is that I could break all of us out of here very easily. However," he glanced nonchalantly between the guards and Rush. "The repercussions created by my methods would be most unfavorable and I would prefer to avoid them. Are you aware of any other means we may escape by?"

The android just shrugged in response to Dash's gratitude. "Do not make me regret that decision." I am already putting far more trust into you than I am comfortable with.

His frown returned, deeper than ever, at the answer he received. For a long moment he sat there silently in contemplation. Finally pushing a foot out he gave Rush a nudge. Still offline. He glanced back at Dash.

"My body is comprised of nanite technology. So, to a limited degree, I am able to shapeshift. If I liquefy my form I can melt through the bars, assume one of my other forms and quickly dispose of the guards. From there I happened to notice the access code used for our cell door. Unfortunately," he glanced over at a security camera outside the cell and jerked his head toward it. "By doing so I will compromise my identity to this Julian, and if I can help it I would really prefer to avoid that."

He gave an irritated sigh. "The challenge after that is where to even go. I cannot begin to describe how frustrating it is to have a useless GPS. How on earth do organics navigate?!"

Hmm... Perhaps if I could access a network terminal...

Merce made a face. "I would sooner reveal my identity to Julian than to him."

The fake hedgehog rubbed a hand along the side of his face. This situation was really starting to get to him.

Dash jumped a bit in his seat when the corgi-bot began to stir, and gained a look of concern when it became obvious that the bot was in very bad condition. "Hey, is he going to be alright?"

Had he not been distracted by the corgi's plight, maybe he'd of heard the incoming footsteps. However, he didn't, and the sudden appearance of a certain dictator caught him by surprise.


Julian Robotnik himself stood in front of the cell, a wide troll like grin spread from ear to ear. He'd been taking care of some intruders not that long ago, but when he'd heard that Sonic the Hedgehog himself had been captured, he'd dropped everything he was doing (figuratively, he placed Snively in charge, actually) to come see. However, his grin faltered as his gaze fixated on the blue hedgehog in the cell.

"You- ... you're not Sonic."

Rush's blank expression showed no relief upon discovering that Merce was okay and had not been harmed by the SWATbots, though what was left of his mind registered it as a good thing. Mission Objective -- Protect Organic Lifeform, Accomplished.

His auditory sensors strained to comprehend what the hedgehog was saying. They mostly failed. He attempted to re-route power to them to increase the sound quality, and his ears spat sparks as something came loose in his head. His auditory sensors abruptly stopped working at all, along with half the fiber-optic muscles in his face. He was now deaf and partially paralyzed.

The deep overwhelming silence beat down on the robocorgi like water pressure at the bottom of the ocean. One of the few systems that still worked at something close to full capacity -- his radar -- detected a biological presence nearby and notified him with a small alert in one corner of his optics, almost buried under the tremendous amount of frantic warnings his system was giving him as it desperately sought to sustain his essential functions.

Rush's eyes swiveled around as they sought out the target, his CPU pondering the likelihood of it being his father. Had his emotions been functioning, he might even have hoped for such. But as it was, his system calculated the odds, analyzed them, and filed them away with detached logic.

The odds were proven right, as his eyes finally spotted a rotund human standing in front of the cell. Rush felt no reaction to this. He was blank and empty inside.

One side of his mouth opened as he made another attempt to speak.

"01010111 01001000 01100101 01110010 01000101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01100111 01111010 01111010 01111010 01110010 01101011 00101110 00101110 00101110 01101001 00101101 01101001 00101101 01101001 00101101 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01110011 00101101 01110011 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101100 01100111 00100000 01100001 01101011 01101100 01101011 01100100 01101100 00101110 00101110 00101110 01100110 01100110 01100111 01101000 01100111 01101011 00101110 00101110 00101110 01110011 01100011 01110010 01000101 01000101 01000101 01000101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01100110 00101101 01100110 00101101 01100110 01000001 01110100 01101000 01000101 01110010 00111111"

Rush was unable to hear his voice suddenly rising dangerously high in pitch. He continued speaking.

"01000100 00101101 01100100 00101101 01100100 01000001 01101101 01100001 01000111 01000101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01100010 01110010 01100101 01100101 01110000 01100110 01111010 01111010 01111010 01110010 01110100 00100000 01100111 01101001 01111001 01110000 01110100 01110010 01101101 01101110 01100010 01100111 01110001 01110001 01110001 00101110 00101110 00101110 01100011 01110010 01101001 00101101 01100011 01110010 01101001 00101101 01100011 01110010 01101001 00101101 01100011 01010010 01001001 01010100 01101001 01100011 01100001 01001100 01001100 00101110 00101110 00101110 01101101 01000001 01101100 01100110 01110101 01110101 01010101 01010101 01101110 01100011 01010100 01001001 01001111 01101110--"

Those would be his last words, as with a sudden puff of smoke from his throat, Rush's voice box burnt itself out. His jaw hung slack on the side that had been previously moving, allowing the black cloud its freedom.

"My name is Merce Shandar, and I would be here because your servants threw me in here," he said flatly. "I presume that you are Julian Robotnik?"

His eyes drifted over to Rush as the guards entered and began to retrieve him with a look of mistrust. "Will you allow me to accompany him? If you have any further questions for me I will answer what I can in transit. I have a few of my own, actually."