The ocean was quiet at night.
Too quiet.
Eggman hadn't slept in five days. Not a nap. Not even a moment leaning back in the chair to rest his eyes. Every hour wasted was an hour the world's vultures could close in. He'd been running on a vicious cocktail of caffeine, adrenaline, and sheer stubbornness. His human body would have collapsed by now, but this was Eggman's body — augmented, resilient, deceptively efficient when pushed to the brink.
The undercarriage of the fortress was complete. A massive steel disk reinforced with segmented hull plating floated in drydock, the final welding arcs still glowing faintly. Above it, towering modular segments stacked into the skeleton of a small, self-sustaining ocean platform — far from the sprawling megastructures Eggman could one day create, but enough to hold his first headquarters.
But the real work… was inside.
Five Days Without Sleep was a nightmare itself...
Every hallway in the fortress interior smelled faintly of oil, solder, and ozone. Crates of salvaged robotics lined the walls. Nanofabricators hummed. Mechanical arms whirred as they assembled plates, joints, and circuits into sleek, rounded humanoid shapes.
The first project completed was a swarm of Egglusion Drones — Mysterio-inspired aerial machines that projected full-scale, high-definition holograms with layered light, sound, and even artificial atmospheric distortion. They were flawless from a distance, and nearly flawless up close unless someone tried to physically touch them.
And Eggman had made thousands.
He'd programmed them with two rules:
Maintain the illusion of a heavily armed, gigantic ocean fortress bristling with weapons.
If approached, open fire with twin energy pistols to "sell" the illusion.
It was bluff and theater — the drones could only maintain fire for short bursts before overheating and shutting down for cooling. Against an actual navy fleet, they'd melt in minutes. But the goal wasn't to win a war — it was to avoid one. Fear was cheaper than firepower.
The second project was born from another fear entirely.
Baymax — not the cuddly inflatable cartoon, but a hybridized design. Eggman had merged the gentle, medical AI from the original concept with his own cybernetic engineering. The result was a near-indestructible, human-sized medical assistant built from lightweight armor, equipped with surgical-grade repair tools, advanced first aid programs, and a personal energy shield. They were designed to save his life in the event of assassination attempts, sudden injuries… or the inevitable times he'd push himself too far.
Thirty Baymax units were completed in five days. Ten were assigned to him personally. The rest patrolled the corridors, scanning for intruders.
The fifth night bled into dawn without ceremony. The floating platform detached from the drydock, massive ballast tanks shifting as the fortress began its slow crawl out to sea.
The shipyard owner watched from the pier, arms crossed, beer in hand, as the steel giant receded into the fog. He didn't wave. Eggman didn't either.
By midmorning, the fortress crossed into international waters. Eggman exhaled for the first time in days. Not relief — not yet — but a milestone. The Egglusion drones immediately went into position, creating the holographic skin of a fortress that looked ten times bigger than the real one.
The fake fortress loomed over the waves like a mechanical city from another world. Gun turrets tracked invisible targets. Launch bays hissed steam. Searchlights cut across the clouds.
The real fortress — hidden just beneath the illusion — was far smaller. A self-contained floating town with clean corridors, repair bays, fabrication labs, and residential quarters for… well, just him. No actual artillery yet. No true defenses beyond a handful of energy turrets. But from the outside? It looked like a floating death machine.
Eggman hadn't even finished his first cup of coffee before the boats arrived.
By the time the sun cleared the horizon, there were two dozen vessels forming a ring around the "fortress." Civilian yachts with cameras mounted to the rails. Coast Guard cutters. Private military ships from nameless corporations. Fishing trawlers just trying to get a look.
And behind them, larger ships on the horizon — naval silhouettes.
Eggman sipped his coffee and watched through the live feeds as the Egglusion drones did their work. On command, the illusionary Eggman — a towering, thirty-foot-tall hologram in a massive red mech suit — appeared on the deck of the fake fortress. His voice boomed over loudspeakers, layered with just enough digital distortion to sound inhuman.
"Vessels, identify yourselves."
The nearest Coast Guard cutter crackled to life over the radio. "This is United States Coast Guard vessel Aurora. You are occupying an unauthorized structure in open waters. Identify yourself and state your purpose."
Eggman grinned behind the control console, took another sip, and pressed the transmit key.
"I am Doctor Ivo Robotnik. You may know me as Eggman. And I am not in your jurisdiction."
Murmurs erupted across the comms. The Aurora came back a minute later, voice harder now.
"This structure constitutes a potential security threat to U.S. naval operations. We request you surrender for questioning."
The holographic Eggman leaned forward menacingly, mechanical eyes glowing brighter.
"I repeat~~~" the voice boomed, dragging the syllables like a taunt, "I am not in your jurisdiction."
The real Eggman hit a switch, and the holographic projection shifted. Behind him, in perfect simulated scale, the words EGGMAN LAND flared to life in crimson neon across the fortress façade.
"This," the hologram declared, "is the sovereign nation of Eggman Land — the first free country of the modern era, owned and governed by me. Any violation of my borders will be considered an act of war."
Silence on the comms.
Then the chatter began — dozens of ships talking at once, commanders yelling over each other, questions firing across every available channel.
From the civilian boats, he could see the news cameras already zooming in. The words "Eggman Land" would be plastered across the internet before the hour was up. And that was exactly what he wanted.
Eggman muted the comms and leaned back in his chair, sipping coffee again. This was how you bought time. Not by winning battles, but by creating enough uncertainty that nobody wanted to take the first shot.
The drones' cooling cycles were already starting to stagger — he had to rotate them to avoid weapon shutdowns. The illusion wouldn't hold forever. But it didn't have to. All it had to do was last long enough for the politicians to start arguing about jurisdiction, legality, and whether they could afford to be the ones to fire first.
Because in the game of geopolitics, fear was the ultimate firewall.
And Eggman had just installed it.