Who wants some context?
On Sonic Underground, there’s an episode where Manic has to take care of a baby hedgehog that, spoiler alert, turned up to be a robot created by Robotnik to trick the triplets. By the end of that episode, the baby robot ends up breaking into pieces.
Headcanon: Manic, who gets very attached to the bot in the episode, went to pick up the pieces afterwards. By then, it was too risky to even attempt to repair it; he needed to make sure to take out anything that Robotnik could use to keep using him. Once he left Mobotropolis, after the war ended, he finally could focus on trying to bring the baby hedgebot back, eventually managing to repair it. Manic is now focused on developing Hip even more, creating new bodies for him to mimic normal growth, and trying to give the little robot a life.
