The base never truly slept. It only held its breath.
Deep beneath steel and circuitry, where warning lights blinked like tired stars, a small room glowed warm in defiance of the metal world around it. Pots lined the windowsill and shelves. Basil. Mint. A stubborn sunflower leaning toward a lamp. Soil under fingernails was a quiet rebellion here.
She knelt on the floor, sixteen and careful, coaxing life out of a place designed to conquer it.
Footsteps thundered down the corridor. Heavy. Dramatic. Unsubtle.
Dr. Ivo Robotnik entered like a storm wearing goggles.
“Who touched the thermostat?” he barked, mustache bristling. “This entire wing is two degrees warmer than optimal! Two degrees!” He paused mid-rant, eyes landing on the room. On the green. On the calm.
His voice stalled.
“…Why,” he said slowly, adjusting his glasses, “is there a fern in my command center.”
She didn’t look up at first. She was misting the leaves, gentle as a promise. “It was wilting near the reactors. It needed quieter air.”
Eggman scoffed, folding his arms. “Plants do not belong in fortresses of genius and domination.”
The fern rustled, visibly thriving.
He stared at it. Then at her. Then away.
“Hmph.”
He turned, paced, turned again. The usual bluster tried to rally, but it couldn’t quite find its footing in a room that smelled like damp earth instead of oil.
“You’ll attract pests,” he muttered.
“They keep me company.”
Silence stretched. Machines hummed beyond the walls. Somewhere, a robot booted up with military precision.
Eggman sighed. A long one. The kind that peeled the villain back to the man underneath.
“…You remind me to eat,” he said gruffly, as if accusing her of a crime. “And now this place smells less like doom.”
She smiled, small and private, and finally looked up at him.
He cleared his throat, straightened his coat. “I suppose,” he added, voice low and awkward, “that if the world is going to tremble before my brilliance, it might as well do so with adequate oxygen.”
He reached out, hesitated, then gently adjusted the angle of the sunflower so it faced the lamp better.
Don’t tell anyone, his posture said.
She didn’t.
The base exhaled.