Phantasms and Falsehoods

Part 10 - Eggman the Not-so-Vile Villain

The fourth period bell rang, and Infinite immediately leapt up from his seat, snatching his binder and sparing two seconds to ensure it slid inside his bag properly before swinging his sack over his shoulders and slipping out into the hall. He barely paid attention to the looming figure that pursued his heels.

The jackal zipped through the hall, not pausing until he reached a branch of the hallway lined with lockers. He abruptly stopped as the person chasing him caught up, and tilted his head so they knew he saw them.

"Infinite, boy, you run fast..." Eggman huffed softly, setting down his briefcase.

The jackal crossed his arms, refusing to turn around. "That shouldn't be a problem for you if you've once outran the blue blur himself."

The doctor noted the edge to his voice and sighed, his head hanging. "So, I see we're still doing the cold-shoulder thing."

"Isn't Team Dark supposed to be escorting you between classes or something?"

"No, I'm just under examination. They'll choose a random class to watch me from the back of the room. Usually it's Shadow or Rouge, Omega seems to be around a lot less."

"I don't blame him," Infinite shot back, uncrossing his arms and instead peered inside his bag, trying to seem distracted.

"Doctor, stop bothering Infinite," a bored voice came from behind Eggman.

"Oh, speak of the devil, it was Shadow's turn this time..." The insane genius turned to look at him. "I wasn't bothering him-!"

"Oh, I'm sure you weren't. Guess that's why he decided to stick around." The edgy hedgehog commented sarcastically, looking past the doctor. Eggman turned back to Infinite to see no one there.

"Aw, darn you, you scared him off."

"I scared him off?" Shadow smiled darkly and strode past him. "Come on, doc, what's your next class?"

"Lunch," the doctor answered, to which Shadow scoffed, "I think you can handle sitting alone by yourself," and left the round man behind.

Eggman glared after the hedgehog, his spiked mustache twitching in agitation. He checked himself and resumed on to the cafeteria, glancing down at his schedule to check the room number. The doctor found his destination rather quickly, grabbed his lunch from the line in front of the counters, and looked across the vast room, filled with line after line of school-cafeteria tables. A majority of them were full of chattering baddies, some he recognized, some he had no idea about. His eyes immediately spotted the jackal he had been trying to talk to minutes ago.

Infinite sat somewhat distanced away from the mass crowd, across from two of his Jackal Squad Members, the girl and the headbanded boy, and although Eggman recognized their faces, he had never actually bothered to learn all their names. He huffed quietly, knowing there was no way he could approach the jackal when he was with backup.

"Still trying to win him back?" A gruff voice sounded beside him.

Zavok leaned against the wall, his tray sitting on one of the windowsills of the barricaded, tinted windows. He barely picked at his beef jerky as he gazed at Eggman intently, somewhat amused by the doctor's position.

Eggman scoffed quietly, angling his body away from him. "Win who back?"

The Zeti's eyes darted over at the jackal they had both been stalking. "Don't play dumb, we were both watching him."

"Well you admit to watching him... Wait, why were you watching him?"

Zavok smiled at the irony of the doctor's words. "He's got a team. I've got a team. Plus, we both hate you."

Eggman ignored his insult and instead turned towards him, suddenly intrigued. "You want to form an alliance with him?"

"Yep. We're all in the after-school janitorial club."

"Eyck! Why on Mobius would you want to clean up other people's trash?"

The Zeti tilted his head, amused, as though there was some inside joke he knew which he wasn't letting on. "Don't know. Something about it lets you look inside yourself. Think about what kind of filth you yourself might've left behind for others."

The doctor's eyes looked back at Infinite, but the blue tint of his glasses didn't allow anyone to notice. The jackal's friends had spotted them and were now warning Infinite, he could tell, but the jackal waved for them to calm down, and he began talking. About what, the doctor couldn't tell.

"Don't look now but it looks like his friend have seen us," he let on to Zavok, who shrugged.

"What are they going to do? We're just standing here."

"Hey, I though you said you hated me," Eggman suddenly brought up. "So why are you talking to me?"

The Zeti's grin widened. "I thought you might like to know about the after-school club he's in."

"And why...?"

"Well duh, you join the CCC and you have a chance to get closer to him."

"But isn't his entire squad there as well?"

"During the meetings, yes. We work in individual rooms when we're actually cleaning, though."

Eggman's mustache slowly lifted into a devious smile. "You're an interesting one, Zavok..."

The Zeti just shrugged, leaning back against the wall again. "I just think you'll like the club."

Suddenly one of the jackals were walking past them. It was the headbanded one, disappointingly, but he glanced away from them as he carried his tray to the trashcan. Then he stopped, directly in front of them.

"Yeah, they can totally see you from here!" He called across the lunchroom to his group, drawing several Mobians' attentions.

"Do you mind?" Zavok said softly. "We were just having a conversation."

"Yeah, sure you were, creepos." The headbanded jackal squinted his eyes suspiciously at them, dumping his empty tray, then turned on his heel and sped back to his group. When people's eyes were no longer on them, the two looked back over and saw Infinite give Jay a tired look before the younger jackal walked around the end of the table and sat back down beside the she-jackal. He noticed them looking and gave them finger-eyes, glaring. Infinite put a hand over his own face and sighed, closing his eyes.

"Infinite doesn't seem very worried," Zavok commented, "that we're basically watching him."

"He's been through so much I doubt he cares about trivial things anymore."

"You consider being stalked as a trivial thing?"

Eggman shifted his weight, finally starting his lunch. It was essentially breakfast, comprising of an omelet and a side of a large amount of potato nuggets. He hadn't bothered getting a milk carton or any sort of beverage.

"Well there are worse things that have happened to him."

Zavok eyed his omelet. "Isn't that essentially cannibalism?"

Eggman stopped, realized what he meant, and forced out an angry laugh. "Oh-ho, aren't you a clown? No, I am a human, this is an egg. There is not any sort of cannibalism going on here." He stabbed the omelet with his plastic fork. "Eggman was just a nickname Sonic gave to me."

"And you seem to have completely embraced it," the Zeti responded, eyeing him.

"Have we had this conversation before...?"

"I don't remember if we did." Zavok shrugged. "My team and I were too busy being forced against our wills to do your bidding."

Eggman was about to make a retort, but then just sighed and looked down. "Sorry about that."

"Thank you for apologizing." The Zeti replied, not implying whether he forgave the doctor for their past scuffles or not. He looked coolly past Eggman towards the jackal who sat halfway across the room from them. "It won't be as easy with Infinite though, I'm sure."

With that comment he strode past the doctor, dumped his tray, and left the cafeteria, presumably to spend the rest of his free period elsewhere.