The following short story is based on characters created
and/or copyrighted by SEGA! Enterprises, DiC
Productions, Archie Comic Publishers, Fleetway Comic
Publishers, and the Taki Corporation. All
other characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery.
The author gives full permission to distribute this work
freely, as long as no alterations are made and the exchange of monetary units
is not involved. Any questions, comments, suggestions, or complaints should be
sent to esn1g@earthlink.net. Thank you.
"If you practice an art, be proud of it and make it
proud of you."
-Maxwell Anderson
Rolling with the Punches
by Roland Lowery
"Snively, you little gutter rat! I want answers, and I want them now! What in the hell is going on down there?!"
"EEP!" Snively nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his uncle's voice. He automatically assumed a cringing posture, fretfully wringing his hands between nervous pulls at his turtleneck sweater's collar. "Er, I, uh, that is to say," he stammered, "I'm afraid that something has gone terribly wrong with the power source, sir! I believe that the device the hedgehog attached to the inside of the hull has caused a complete core shutdown!"
"WHAT?!"
Dr. Robotnik's voice thundered through the speaker so
loudly, Snively swore that he could feel gusts of wind coming through it. He
hunkered down further and began to stammer even worse.
"I-i-i-it's shutting d-down, s-sir!" he babbled. "I-I-I'm afraid it's n-n-not going t-to make it! It's just . . . I d-don't . . . it's not my flaut!"
A strange look passed over the small man's face for a moment, quickly replaced by terror once more.
"I, uh, mean," he tried to continue, "I mean, it's not my . . . heh . . . heheh . . . it's not my . . . heheh . . . bahahahahahahaha!!!"
This time his horrified look disappeared completely as he disintegrated into deranged giggles and held his side with his hands as if they might split open from his gales of laughter. He tried vainly to wipe away the tears of mirth streaming down his cheeks, but they were quickly replaced by more. Eventually, his hysterical fit caused his legs to buckle, forcing him to sit hard on the floor. For some reason, the sudden pain in his posterior also caught him as insanely funny and he burst into fresh hysterics.
Gradually, Snively's laughing fit degenerated into a series of hacking coughs, and he began to calm down.
"Heheh," he chuckled, wiping away the last of the tears, "' . . . not my flaut' . . . that's a keeper, heheheh . . . "
Picking himself off the ground and sniffing in a cleansing breath, he managed to collect himself fully and reached over for his computer screen. With a deft flick of the wrist, he hit "retry" and said "One more time, shall we?"
"Snively?" Robotnik's synthesized voice murmured menacingly. "What is that?"
Snively quickly pretended to tap a few buttons on an imaginary console, glanced over an imaginary readout, and said, cautiously, "I . . . I believe that would be the hedgehog, sir . . . "
To the casual outside observer, Snively's normal morning ritual would, of course, seem like utter madness. That fact that this observation would be one hundred percent true, however, would never deter him from completing it every daybreak without fail, for Snively lived in a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world.
His uncle, the not-so-good Doctor Julian Ivo Robotnik, was a deathly violent man when things were not going his way, and that was most of the time when Sonic The Hedgehog and the Freedom Fighters were involved. In order to keep Robotnik from going completely off the deep end as well as keep his own scrawny neck attached to his shoulders, Snively had long ago perfected the art of being the perfect cringing, babbling, toadying, whining scapegoat.
At first he'd tried deflecting his uncle's wrath onto the SWATbots, or the computer consoles, or any other non-organic surface that happened to be around. Unfortunately, Robotnik's anger was merely fueled by bashing object that couldn't actually feel pain. Eventually he'd snap and kill Snively - the only other pain receptor around - outright.
So the diminutive man chose pain over death. He learned how cower, whimper, take a hit, and feign unconsciousness, all to keep everything in Robotropolis running smoothly.
But perfection didn't happen overnight. It had taken several years of practice practice practice to attain the standards he held to a decade after Robotnik's political coup. And so with his digital recordings of the fat tyrant's favorite terrifying threats, menacing questions, and horrifying bellows of rage, Snively continued to practice every morning, praying that he'd never slip in his duties as pathetic human target #1.
"No! No, sir! P-p-please! I didn't mean for it t-to happen! Urk!"
With surprising quickness, Snively reached up, grabbed himself but the collar, and threw himself at the nearest wall of his room. He smacked into the metal with a resounding thap! and fell to the floor in a heap. He then rolled over, propped his head up on his hand, and drummed his fingers on the floor.
"Hmm," he mumbled to himself. "If I turn my head a little more to the right . . . maybe I can bruise my cheekbone up a bit more . . . "
He picked himself up with rugged determination and performed the move seven more times until he was satisfied with his technique. Taking a quick look in his bathroom mirror, he grinned widely at the slight purplish spot spreading just under his right eye. When Robotnik threw him much harder later on in the day, it would turn into a massive splotch and possibly even break the skin, which would be quite satisfactory. As it was, the bruise he'd given himself would be unnoticeable within a half-hour, avoiding any awkward questions.
Snively tittered for a moment, imagining himself telling Robotnik that he was bruised because he was abusing himself.
"'I, uh, I fell down the stairs'," he said in a goofy voice into the mirror, "'uh, into a doorknob.'"
He continued giggling for a few moments while he wiped at his face with a damp cloth, then sighed as he leaned over and placed his hands on either side of the sink. He looked up at his reflection in the mirror again, took a deep breath, and smirked slightly.
"Ah, you magnificent bastard," he said to himself. "The things you do for that man." He leaned in further, conspiratorially. "That stupid, stupid man," he amended, grinning wickedly.
With a quick turn on his heel, Snively tossed the towel into the bathroom hamper and briskly made his way out to the hallway outside his quarters. He had a full day ahead of him, and it wouldn't do to be late. Or, not too late, anyway.
Dr. Robotnik would need a few warm up swings to start the
day off right, after all.
END.
Roland Lowery
esn1g@earthlink.net