ARAAT5: Resurrection

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A Rose And A Thorn 5: Resurrection

Co-Written by Harley Quinn hyenaholic and Froggy22651

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Harley: The fifth story in the series. Do not read if you don’t like...

Froggy: Canon Characters taking second place...

Harley: Dead Characters coming back from the dead...

Froggy: Or ARAAT4.

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Chapter One: Heartbeat

Eggman walked along the halls of ARK. Just over one month ago Shadow had gone on a little trip up to the ARK and brought back a ‘sister’. He wasn’t bothered about whether she had been accepted by Sonic and his furry, freaky friends, since she hadn’t participated in any attacks against him. She didn’t seem like the public type at all.

All that concerned him was that his research on Mirage made him wish he’d found her first. Found her and used her.

Of course, he hadn’t. So now he had to think up something new. He’d gone into the files of ARK. Forget Ultimate Lifeforms, he had pulled out data on everyone and everything that had ever set foot on ARK. And finally he’d found something. At first it had seemed like nothing, but the more he’d pulled on it and its life, it had become more and more apparent that he could use it.

Against all the odds, it had survived for over 57 years aboard this ghost colony in stasis. It hadn’t been removed from stasis at first because that would result in almost instant death, and then the ARK had been deserted and nobody had bothered to investigate it.

He looked up at the label on the cyrostasis tube.

Project: Midnight.

~~~

Thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. That was the first thing he sensed in the darkness, the deep, rhythmic beating of his heart. It still beat; he still lived. How? He had no idea, and his mind wasn't working well enough to contemplate it. All he knew was the beating, the cold dark, and a dull, distant, eternal pain...

The darkness parted, and he opened his working eye. His blurred vision picked up the sight of grey, sterile walls and colourful forms moving past him with a quiet, mechanical whir. A plastic mask over his face gently pushed air into his lungs, and the quiet beeping of a heart monitor reached his good ear. Glancing to the side, he saw an IV in his arm. Looking to the other side, he only saw bandaged remains, before he was claimed again...

The darkness released him again. He wished it hadn't. He hurt all over. Not a sharp pain, like fresh wounds from battle, but a general ache all over his body...

He drifted in and out, little changing with each awakening, except for the aches and pains and dull feeling of being drugged. Eventually, he was disconnected from the respirator and could breathe on his own, so he was sure that they were fixing him somehow. Gradually, the burnt places on his body didn't feel so raw.

In and out, in and out. Breathe. Aching, confusion, smooth and cold, rough and warm, something heavy hanging on. Tingles of returning feeling, bright lights and oppressive shadows...

"Urgh..." he groaned softly, awakening again. Perhaps this time he wouldn’t slip back into unconsciousness. Opening his eyes, he realized that he could see clearly again. He didn't think that was possible... did they fix the other side of his face? Or maybe... maybe it had all been some feverish nightmare...

He then noticed that when he blinked, he could only feel one eyelid come down... strange. And where before he had only felt a numb absence, there was the sense of something new, "H-hello?" he called out weakly, his voice raspy and dry.

"Good, you're awake," a man's voice rasped, "You made it through nine separate operations - I'm impressed."

"Operations... I was hurt? Yes... yes, I remember. I remember everything… The troops on the ARK. That walker and the missile..." His body tensed up, a cold feeling in his belly, "Mirage. Did she get away? Where is she? Is she alright?" he turned his head to look at the brightly-dressed, moustached, obese, bald man who was speaking to him, and thought that he looked strangely familiar, "Where is she?"

"Project Midnight... perhaps we should start from the beginning," said the man, "I am Doctor Ivo Robotnik, grandson of Gerald Robotnik. It's been 57 years since the incident aboard the ARK. I found you in a stasis tube, where GUN had presumably left you to rot. I am not fond of them - in fact I hate them. After what they did to you and your friends, I thought you might help me - which is why I took you back down to Earth and had your body reconstructed."

"Reconstructed? What do you..." The echidna stopped mid-question as he began to get out of bed. He realized that he was propping himself up on his right arm. He didn't have a right arm any more. Sitting up, he slowly raised the limb that shouldn't be there. Where before he had a dark blue, furry arm ending in a hand with five fingers, it was now a silvery blue, and made of metal, ending in a three-fingered hand painted red, and with blades where his knuckles would have been. He breathed a single word, "Mirror."

Doctor Eggman Robotnik picked up a small mirror, "Now I warn you," he said calmly, holding the mirror back, "The scarring from burns was extensive and permanent. And much of your body was irreparable using conventional surgery. I did the best I could but... what you see may shock you..."

"Give me the damn mirror!" Midnight snarled, rapidly coming to the end of his already short fuse.

Eggman handed him the mirror quickly, "I did the best I could," he repeated, "You must understand, however, that your right arm and leg were burnt right down to the skeleton, you suffered third, fourth, fifth, and sixth degree burns to your right side, and your right eye had pretty much melted..." he continued.

Snatching the mirror away from the human, the echidna looked at his own face. The left side was pretty much as he remembered it. Dark blue fur, a grey, steely eye, smooth muzzle, dreadlocks... But the other, right side of his face was, in a word, hideous. It was covered in thick, ugly scar tissue. His fur was totally missing in huge patches, and it would probably never grow back. His right eye was gone, and in its place was a silver, implanted orb with a glowing red lens, completely devoid of emotion. The dreadlocks on that side that had been burned clean off had been replaced with metal ones. Where his ear had been was a mechanical sensor and yet more metal plating.

Looking down his body, the echidna warrior saw more ugly scaring down the right side, tough and almost devoid of feeling. As he looked down further, his burned leg ended just below the knee and continued with silver steel and a red-painted shoe. The same went for his other leg, although it still retained fur, since it had not been burned so badly. Staring in disbelief at his ruined, altered body, the echidna reached to touch the hard steel and thick, ugly scars with his biological left hand. His jaw clinched in anger, and a low growl emerged from his throat. His mechanical hand tightened around the mirror, causing cracks to form until the fragile object simply shattered to pieces.

"I doubt GUN could have done a better job - in fact, I doubt they'd have tried," Doctor Eggman told him, "Replacing your arm and legs with working metal duplicates was the easy part - hooking it up to your nervous system was the real challenge. It may feel odd right now, but after some time has passed, you'll wonder how you ever lived without metal limbs!"

The blue echidna turned and slipped off of the bed, standing up unsteadily, partly because of the drugs still wearing off and partially because of the new weight of his legs. Running his metal hand over various surfaces, sensors in it told him if it was hot or cold, hard or soft, smooth or rough, but it was nothing compared to the feeling in his left hand. He took a few short steps before stumbling with his heavy metal limbs, "You call this an improvement?!"

"Well, it's an improvement to your condition previously," Eggman answered, "I don't like to brag but... I did practically bring you back from the dead. Furthermore, I’ve extended your biological life considerably - by at least a hundred years."

"Yeah, I suppose you did. Thanks,” replied the echidna emotionlessly. Turning around to face the human, he said, "You still haven't answered my question. Where. Is. Mirage?"

"Ah. Mirage. Project Mirage... was deemed far too dangerous to allow her continued existence," Eggman replied. He had spent some time thinking up this lie, "So GUN had her terminated. Then they cloned her and started again, this time with different behavioural conditioning - in other words, without you."

Blinking, the echidna reeled back in shock, hearing his blood pounding painfully in his ears as he tried to grasp what the doctor had told him. Shaking his head, his dreadlocks flying about, he breathed, "No... No, it's not true... it can't be..."

"It is true," Eggman wore on his face what he hoped was a grieving expression, although in fact it made him look as if he had just suffered a painful bowel movement, "Her clone is now an agent for GUN. I would not lie to you about something so serious," he added.

"No... no... I saved her life, she got away, I know it. I know it..." he whispered, a tear running down his cheek from his left eye.

"And then GUN had her killed," Eggman repeated, "I read about your... interactions with her. And I am deeply sorry for your loss."

"NO!!" the echidna screamed, reaching out with his mechanical arm to grasp Eggman's coat and lift him bodily into the air, "She's alive! You're a LIAR!!!"

"Well, yes, in a sense she is alive," Eggman said, not wishing to antagonise an echidna capable of lifting about 300lbs of lard without noticing, "In the same sense that the echidna that you were cloned from is alive in you. But to be completely accurate, she's dead."

“No!” The echidna bellowed in rage and hurled the doctor through the doorway. Spotting the nearest piece of equipment, he snarled and smashed it to pieces with his new, stronger, ugly robot arm. He screamed and shouted and snarled as he went around the room, hitting, smashing, crushing, and venting his hopeless anger and loss any way he could, the tears streaming down his face, "NO!!"

Eggman got back to his feet. He'd expected the echidna to be angry, even destructive after hearing this, but this was even better than he’d hoped for, "I can see you're angry, Project Midnight!" he shouted above the noise, "But trashing my surgery isn't going to change anything!"

The cybernetic echidna ignored him, smashing everything in the room until there was nothing left to smash. And then he kept going, crushing and beating on the pieces until finally, he leaned against the wall and slumped to the ground, his head hung low pitifully, quietly sobbing, tears trickling down one cheek.

"You poor boy," Eggman risked stepping into the room, treading shredded metal and broken glass under his boots, "I see now how much she really meant to you."

"Everything,” he whispered, "She meant everything to me. Without her... I'm nothing."

"You are only nothing if you believe yourself to be nothing," Eggman Robotnik admonished him, "Now what are you going to do - sit around weeping over a dead woman, or are you going to do something about your emotional pain?"

"Do something?" he whispered, running his hands through the broken pieces of equipment, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do..." The echidna rose to his feet slowly, his face a portrait of hate and raw fury. "I'm going to find the ones responsible for her death, and I'm going to make them suffer as I have suffered. Before the end, they are going to be begging me for death, and when they do, I will deny them that release, just as it was denied me."

"Yes, yes, but things have changed," Eggman said quickly, "The danger of going up against them is greater. They have convinced many people to trust them. Project Shadow is just one of them."

"Shadow... I remember him,” mused the cyborg as he slowly paced across the room, "A powerful opponent, but a foolish one if he sided with those murderers. If he stands in my way, I will find a way to crush him like the others."

"Oh, and there are the so-called Heroes of Earth," Eggman added, "They've been quite obstructive to my goal of bringing down GUN."

"Do they not know of the atrocities that the arrogant, merciless organization has committed?!" asked the cyborg echidna, facing the doctor, "What kind of deluded minds could possibly aid them?!"

"Gullible, easily dissuaded minds," Doctor Eggman told him, "Of course, the clone was easily brainwashed... she'll do anything for them now."

"They cloned her... they actually made some soulless copy of her for their own benefit. Those bastards!" the echidna snarled in rage.

Eggman Robotnik decided not to push the fact that Midnight was a clone himself, "Yes, it's awful, but hey, what are you going to do?" he said calmly.

"Kill her. Kill everyone associated with her. Kill her creators. Kill her allies,” he snarled, pacing back and forth like a hungry predator.

"Hmmm... yes," the Doctor replied, "If it will ease your pain, I'll help you to do that," he said. It will be a spiffy distraction, he thought.

"Obviously, you are not just doing this out of generosity,” the cyborg pointed out, "You are human, too, and I've learned much of your kind’s nature. What is it you want in return?"

"Why, Project Midnight, I thought I already told you that I am Professor Gerald's grandson," Doctor Eggman Robotnik answered, "GUN killed my cousin Maria and executed my grandfather; my role model. Seeing one of their experiments destroy them utterly will be revenge of the sweetest kind." This was at least partly true.

The echidna smirked grimly, starting to understand the doctor's point of view. "I see. Then we should both work together to make them pay. However... my name is not Midnight."

"Well, that's what it said on the tube," Doctor Eggman Robotnik told the echidna.

"It was incorrect,” he replied, the smirk leaving his face, "Midnight was the name those scientists and Mirage called me, and I will not accept it, not now that they are dead. My name is Quilla."

"Very well, Quilla," Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik nodded, "Go out into the world and do as you please. Oh, and I'd appreciate it if you reported back to me every so often..."

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Harley: Well, here we go. Life, as ever, is intensely complicated, especially when vengeful cyborg echidnas who happen to be Knuckles' dad come along.