#hat bot

Soon after I saw Dr Flug, he had a clipboard in hand with another robot pushing a medical trolly behind him covered in equipment. He stood outside my cell for a moment before leaning towards what I could only assume was some kind of communication device as his voice was easily heard despite being on the other side of the cell.

"I will be running medical examinations. Cooperation isn't up for negotiation. Do not test my patience."

He spoke with a similar tone a teacher would use for a disobedient child. Firm and demanding, he didn't ask for subservience he expected it from me. The look in his eyes was a mix of irritation and exhaustion, as if he had to deal with projects that didn't meet his expectations.

"Stand. Up." His command was clear, I followed the order, hobbling to stand, head light from malnutrition, but I did as he asked with a fear that went deep to my bones.

Once I stood properly, I heard the hiss of machinery above me. Turning my head, I saw what looked like a mechanical arm drop from the ceiling. It clamped around my neck with a click, and the force caused me to stumble once more. My hands went to my neck as I felt a cold metal collar sitting neatly over bruised flesh. The metal arm didn't let go, acting like a leash as it stayed firm to hold me in place within the cell.

"Be still. It's simply a precaution. You have a habit of running little bunny." He said with a spark in his eyes as if this were amusing to him.

With that said, the cell door opened from the floor to the ceiling. The glass door rising up, allowing for the hum of machinery to fill the cell as Flug stepped within my cage, causing me to instinctively back away from either fear or respect.

The bot pushed the medical cart behind Flug as he walked towards me. He didn't look up at me while moving his attention to a computer that sat on the cart by his side. I couldn't tell what he was doing as I could only wait with baited breath.

With a final click from his computer, another ceiling compartment opened. What came out confused me. It looked like a small metal hook on the end of a snake like wire. I stared at it, puzzled as to what it was for before turning my head to the sound of footsteps. Flug had in his hands an IV bag and a tube with a needle at the end.

As he approached, my heart began to race, fear making me watch his every move as if he were a lion and I an injured dog. He hung the IV bag on the metal hook and grabbed my arm with a surprising gentleness I did not expect, as he rubbed an alcohol wipe against the vein of my arm before pressing the needle into my skin. The liquid flowing into my blood, giving an oddly soothing feeling despite the deep ache that reached my bones.

"Don't remove this. It's liquid nutrients. You'd only be doing yourself a disservice by not listening, I am a doctor, after all." He spoke his words with an unfamiliar kindness, or maybe it was pity. As if I was nothing more than a pathetic whimpering animal.

I stared at my arm for a moment before letting it drop to my side, looking up at The Doctor, our eyes met. His gaze had an almost intense glint of curiosity and obsession within his glowing pupils. Before he blinked, his eyes returning to the familiar look of professionalism he had before.

He walked back to the medical tray and picked up another small needle similar to the one already in my arm. Yet the tube that was attached to this one led to an empty needle. He approached once more, grabbing my other arm and inserting the needle like he had before. Yet his hands remained on the empty needle, and slowly pulled the plunger to fill the barrel of the syringe full of my crimson blood. Once the needle was removed from the tube, he placed it inside a box that clicked when opened. Grabbing another empty syringe, he repeated the process of collecting my blood 3 more times before he was satisfied with the harvest. Box closed with another click. He pulled the needle from my arm that he used for collection before pressing a cotton ball to the little droplets of blood that leaked from the small wound to stop the bleeding.

I had been so focused on watching his work that I hadn't even noticed the IV bag was empty now. Only realizing the fact when Flug moved to remove it from the hook and tossing it into a tin with the biohazard warning labeled on the side. Without a word, Flug moved much closer to me, but his attention wasn't focused on my face despite how close his was to mine. Only now did I notice my head reached his shoulders. Our height difference was a bit more emphasized when I felt his hand reach my ears atop my head.

He snapped his fingers near my ear, causing them to flick from the sound before he spoke.

"Seemes your ears work well if your surprising obedience wasn't enough to go off of." He huffed a bit in amusement, his body language and tone indicating that he was no longer irritated. But rather, calm or satisfied.

His hand moved to rub the base of my ear, causing me to tense a bit, but I did not move to stop him. From fear or a concerning amount of comfort, I was unsure of the reason for my stillness. Flug's hand moved to the tip of my ear and rubbed his finger against the scar on the very ends of my ears before asking with curiosity.

"What caused these scars? Did someone cut your ears? It looks similar to that of a dogs cropped ears." He asked this simple question while moving his finger back and forth across the scar, causing another twitch from my ear at the unfamiliar feeling.

"Yes, I had cut them myself when I was younger." I honestly expected him to ask more questions, but it seemed he either was uninterested or his curiosity was satisfied, I wasn't sure.

With a hum, Dr. Flug walked back to the cart. Grabbing his clipboard once more and writing something I could not see. Mumbling to himself all the while. After a few minutes of this, he set it neatly onto he cart before focusing on his computer. A few clicks and the mechanisms that hung down retreated back to the ceiling with a mechanical hum. The only indication of them ever being there was the collar that stayed 'round my neck, only now there was a small green light that glowed on and off.

The bot moved the cart outside my cell by the command of Flug's waved hand, with a few strides over to me. The Doctor placed a hand under my chin and lifted my head up to look him in the eye.

"What a curious creature you are." His eyes glinted with pride behind those ominous goggles. His touch a gentle caress against my skin and locks of fur.

Before a moment had passed, he placed a thumb over my jaw and opened my mouth enough for him to place something in my mouth. It was sweet round and hard, a similar flavor to blueberries, along with a pastry I could not identify.

"A reward for your obedience." Flug said with a smile behind his eyes as I let the candy roll on my tongue. "Come now, follow. I still have a few tests to run."

He turned away from me and walked with his arms crossed behind his back. He held his head high with professionalism and pride as he walked past my cell door in confident strides, and I was quick to follow, a slight limp in my step but I hurried to follow no different than a trained dog would. Once out of my cell, I noticed the room was filled with cages like mine. But most were too dark to see if anyone was inside them.

We walked in the opposite direction that led to the lab and instead turned towards another room that was similar in size but had with medical equipment instead of lab equipment. Operation tables and jars holding organs filled the room. A scent of decay and copper filled my nose as I did my best to ignore the hunger in my stomach. As we passed the corpse of a man on an operation table, I spared a glance and saw his entire ribcage was exposed, guts strung across the floor. I had to bite down on the candy to stop from doing something risky. Choosing instead to walk closer behind Dr Flug as we finally made it out of the room.

He made no move to look behind himself back at me, the scraping of my claws against tile enough of an indication of my presence for him to find no use in looking back if I had to guess.

A few more twists and turns led us to a large metal door with a combination lock. Dr Flug grabbed something from his lab coat and swiped it across the lock, a positive sound rung out before the door opened with a hiss. Flug turned to look at me before gesturing me inside with a simple hand motion, I followed the quiet command and stepped inside the room before the door closed and locked behind me.

I was now standing inside a very large and clean room. It was a grey, off-white color. With glints coming from shapes and patterns that covered the entire room from the ceiling to the floor that looked metal. There were squares on the floor that looked like tiles, and I felt a soft, warm air blowing out from the cracks between them. My movements were nervous as I was on high alert, I wasn't exactly the type to like being unsure of my safety.

Looking around, I saw what appeared to be an observation room high up on the walls. A large glass window wrapped around the entire room, although I couldn't see much past the glass with how high up it was. The only acception being the shadows watching with an intimidating gaze that never left me even for a moment.

A loud whirr of machinery brought my attention to a large circular shape on the floor that opened from the center outwards. A platform rose from an underground room, and on it was 3 simple hat bots. They were the small ones. Almost as soon as they entered the room, the bots moved to surround me. My hackles were raised as I was on high alert, and right as they moved towards me with a concerning ferocity, I jumped over one and ran to the other end of the room with them right on my tail.

I stood on all 4 limbs to get on their level, snarling at them in the hopes they wouldn't get any closer, but you can't scare lines of code and bodies made of metal. One of them reached for me with an extending arm, and I was quick to grab it. I threw it at another bot and sent them both across the room with a loud clatter.

The final bot charged at me with a vengeance, but it tripped over its own wheel and face planted onto the floor, causing a loud scraping sound to ring out through the room, giving me a headache. While attempting to collect myself, the bots were surrounding me once more. Ok. This was getting annoying. Screw it I deserve to let off some steam.

"I'm gonna rip you apart." I said my words with a ferocity I honestly didn't expect, and neither did the bots as they seemed taken aback at the tone.

I lunged at one of the bots and landed on it with the torso beneath my heel and its head in my hands. I yanked and pulled till the snapping of metal and wires could be heard echoing off the walls. With a final pull, its head snapped free from its body. Huffing as I tossed its head onto the floor and kicked the noe lifeless body to the side, I turned my attention to the two bots that backed away with what I could only call "fear" in their glowing eyes as they looked upon their now dead brother.

I glared down at them, and they scurried away to a far corner in the room, causing me to roll my eyes in annoyance.

Another loud whirr, another bot to rise from the floor. Yet this wasn't a bot, green crazy hair, manic laughter. No, this wasn't a bot. It was HER. That damned lizard girl jumped off the platform, and not a second after she did, the floor shook. The square shaped pattern underfoot began to rise up, lifting me to a nauseating height followed by several other pillars of various heights and sized rising as if the entire room became an obstacle course. The bright lighting dimmed to a dark orange, which added to the uneasy atmosphere. The only other lighting being the bright red coming from the base of the pillars. The change in the room had my head spinning as I tried to keep my balance on the pillar.

Her manic laughter filled the room as she climbed up to the top of one pillar before jumping to the next, eager to reach me. I decided it would be better for me to fight on the ground, and I did my best not to fall to my DEATH as I stepped to a shorter pillar with zero confidence in myself. Unfortunately, while I wasn't paying attention, she caught up to me. Shoving me and making me stumble as I clutched the top of the short pillar for dear life before falling and landing on another large pillar a few feet off the ground, causing a pain to shoot up from my ankle before I fell on my behind. Luckily, the adrenaline eased the pain a bit.

"Remember Dementia. Go easy on him. I want him to keep all of his limbs." I heard Flug's voice from an unseen speaker. His tone was firm and promised punishment without needing to say it.

"Yeah, yeah, I won't hurt him too badly Doc, don't worry about your new pet hehe~ I wouldn't wanna do anything too bad while Black Hat is watching~" Her tone was playfully annoying.

But it was that last sentence that caused a spike of fear. Black Hat? THE Black Hat?? If he was watching and I failed to beat her, I could be in some serious trouble..

"You only need to survive a few minutes with her. This is the final test." Flug said and I could hear something similar to a clock ticking but I couldn't see a timer from where I stood.

"This is for biting me!!" I heard Dementia's voice but couldn't pinpoint her location until she dropped down from the upper level with a yell, I moved to keep her from dropping directly onto me and I landed on the floor with ease, but Dem was quick to reach me once more as she practically threw herself at me to land a blow.