Prologue
Author's note: Hey there! This is my first submission to FiMfiction and my first Pony related fan fic. I'm a fan of both FiM and classic Video Games so I thought a good ol' fashioned crossover was the best way to go. I'm going to test the waters with this to see if people like it. If there's editing or revising that needs to be done, let me know and I'll do my best to listen to critique and write a better story. Thanks and enjoy!
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Nothing. There was nothing.
This place was a void. This place? No, this void was a prison. Oh, how he longed for the grinding of gears, the whirring of gyroscopes, the pumping of pistons, the buzzing of electronics.
But where was nothing. Nothing except an infinite expanse of perfectly flat and blindingly white land stretching forever in all directions until it disappeared into a horizon of equally white nothingness.
Doctor Eggman hated this place. Almost as much as the rodent that trapped him here.
He had long abandoned his temporal doppelganger. While they were working together to exterminate the blue vermin he found his company and equally ingenious mind to be most enjoyable. But since their failure and subsequent banishment to this infernal cage Eggman found the mere presence of past Robotnik to be beyond insufferable. They bickered, belittled and bemoaned one another until neither could tolerate the other any more. They went their separate ways--or what you could define as ‘separate’ in this place--and Eggman had been alone in his wanderings ever since.
Wandering. Forever. Or at least until he perished from starvation. Eggman abhorred the thought. He pushed it back to the depths of his masterfully adept mind whenever it reared its ugly--but inevitable head.
The most brilliant scientist, roboticist, and mastermind ever known...starved to death in an inter-dimensional void.
Eggman really hated this place.
As he trudged forward ad-infinitum into the infinity Eggman thought he saw something curious, something out of place from the corner of his eye. A wisp of condensed air, lingering just above the horizon before vanishing further beyond in the distance.
And it was...pink?
Eggman groaned and held a hand to his head, “Great. Fantastic. Now I’m honestly becoming that crazy.” The fact he was now talking to himself was not helping things, either.
Nonetheless, when Eggman continued forward and was now scanning the horizon more attentively, the pink mass danced tantalizingly in the distance for a brief moment before disappearing once again.
It was too much for a curious mind to take. Eggman changed direction to walk cautiously towards the last visible location of the anomaly. Something was better than nothing in a place where the latter was literal.
As he approached where he thought he had seen the thing, as there was nothing to make reference of any amount of distance traveled, he let out an exasperated groan.
Nothing. Again.
He really was losing his mind, he thought. Despair beginning to overcome his usual air of haughty intellectual superiority. Maybe there really was no way out of this. Maybe escape was futile, and mental, shortly followed by physical expiration was the only outcome that awaited him. Maybe--
Eggman felt something wet fall on the top of his bald head. He blinked beneath his goggles before reaching up with a gloved hand to wipe away the droplet that fell on his pate. When he looked down at his finger it had a brown splotch marring the fabric of the glove. Slowly he brought the finger to his mouth.
It was...chocolate?
Eggman craned his neck upwards. Above him was a small and flamboyantly pink cloud. It hovered mere inches from his head.
He arched a bushy eyebrow, thoroughly perplexed. The first thing he considered was full blown insanity. The physiological effects of existing in a perfect nothingness of empty space had obviously been too much for his gargantuan intellect to process. His mind had now cracked to cope with the horror of his situation and was now generating delusions to lull the great Doctor Eggman into sweet, blathering madness before his timely demise.
However...this pink apparition had seemingly performed a very physical action by dispensing a droplet of liquid cocoa onto Eggman’s head. Something that would be difficult for any delusion to do.
And there was the fact Eggman was still considering all of this with perfect mental clarity that leaved him to believe something more than simple insanity was afoot.
He reached upwards to the cloud, but to his surprise it moved just out of reach. He jumped up as high as his thin legs could propel his...generous mass and took another swing at the anomaly. Yet again it evaded his grasp. The pink cloud then lowered itself in front of Eggman, almost as to taunt him. Eggman spent the next few minutes exasperating himself by chasing after the pink blob of air in a vain attempt to capture it.
It was always too fast, always out of reach. It began to remind of something blue that always did the same. The thought annoyed him. Enraged him.
“Will--you--be--still you ludicrous pink pile of pathetic vapor!” Eggman finally screamed in frustration as he stomped his feet on the ground like a petulant child.
The cloud dissipated.
There was a laugh.
It was a long and hearty guffaw that echoed off into the outstretched oblivion.
It turned Doctor Eggman’s blood cold. The hairs of his long mustache stood erect. The silence that followed the echo lingered for a painfully long moment.
“H-hello? W-who is that? W-w-where are you?” Eggman could not stop his voice from quaking. For the first time he wished that there was nothing instead of something.
“Haw haw haw! Ha, heh hee hee! Haw hah ha!” Another laugh. It sounded closer.
Eggman gulped, pulling at the collar of the jacket he was now sweating in. “Identify y-yourself! I am D-Doctor Eggman!” He sputtered, attempting to sound composed and in control when he obviously was neither. “I...I’m the genius mastermind of the Eggman Empire! I control a vast army of robots--deadly robots!--I am n-not to be trifled with!”
‘So please leave me alone...’ Eggman whimpered to himself.
“Gaw haw haw hee! Don’t get yourself all stirred up, Eggman. It would be a shame to see you scrambled. Personally I prefer sunny side up! Haw ha ha!”
“Who...who are you?” Eggman persisted, calling out into the void.“I demand to know who--or what you are...”
“Oh, you mean little old me? I’m in the same boat as you are. Trapped for eternity in a prison from where there is little chance for escape...” The voice trailed off in farcical mellow-drama. “Although the conditions of my particular prison are bit more...stifling. Stupid pigeons...”
“Pigeons?”
“Heh, nevermind. All you need to know is that I’m your friend. And friends help friends. Meaning I want to help you.”
Eggman raised another eyebrow, at ease that the disembodied voice was--hopefully--not a threat, yet he remained suspicious. “Why me?”
“Ugh...see anyone else around?”
“Oh...good point.”
“Look, this is hard enough for me to do in my current...condition, so use that big brain of yours to pay attention. This may surprise a mortal like you, but I come from another world--”
“Dimension.”
“What?”
Doctor Eggman crossed his arms over his belly, “Dimensions, parallel universes, alternate histories. You’re hardly the first extra-dimensional being I have encountered. Being a genius of such high caliber, I myself have investigated the possible exploitation of the fabric of reality and subsequent cosmic--”
“Blah, blah, blah. You really like the sound of your own voice, egghead. I’m offering you a chance to go to an unspoiled world. Filled with riches and resources beyond your wildest imaginations.”
“Hmmph. I can imagine a lot.” Eggman retorted, remaining skeptical.
“Can you? Take a good look.”
There was a sudden sparking and fizzling of air in front of Eggman’s begoggled eyes. The space in front of him began to twist and warp as churning energies from an unknown power bent reality into a inter-dimensional window. Eggman stepped toward the spectacle in a trance. Beholding a glimpse of a new world.
There were rolling hills of verdant green, fields of lush crops and beds of vibrant flowers. The land was encased by dark tall mountains that stretched far into the sky. There were villages, cities, and a magnificent castle perched precariously upon a mountainous overlook. All across this picturesque landscape it was inhabited by small, colorful...
“Equines...?”
“Heh, heh...ponies.”
“Ponies,” Eggman mused. He had encountered stranger things, he supposed. Heck, the anthropomorphic semi-sentient vermin and rodents he sought to enslave on his own world appeared only slightly more advanced than this medieval civilization of pack animals.
Already Doctor Eggman was calculating the possibilities that could come from putting this world of ponies under the heel of his boot.
“There’s a catch, however.”
Eggman stirred from his inner machinations, “And that is?”
“There are two specific ponies that could be troublesome for you. I’d guess you could call them living Goddesses if you wanted to be polite.”
Eggman would not be so easily dissuaded. Confident his great mind could defeat any foe, “How powerful are we talking about?”
“Oh, you know. Immortal caretakers of the sun and the moon. Controlling moonrise and sunset. Really boring if you ask me.”
It was a substantial ‘catch.’ From what he could tell this would not be as easy as he was lead to believe. Especially after recent...setbacks. Unless...
“I’m going to need help.”
“Ugh." The voice groaned, "Can’t you listen? I already said--”
“Not from you. He’s an acquaintance of mine. He’s a brute and a dimwit, but he leads a substantial army of lesser brutes and greater dimwits.”
“Ahhh,” the voice purred in diabolical anticipation. “A good old fashioned team-up, eh? Now this is going to be fun. I’ll get your egg out of here before you go bad...you get your friend...”
“And you will get us to this new world?”
“Equestria. Heh, hee haw...”
Eggman grinned from ear to ear, “Deal.”
“This is going to be so much...fun.”