Okay—~⭐️!!
I promised I would share about some of my AU for Dr. Starline-or, how things could have gone a bit earlier in his life, and even though I’ve decided to rework a few things to make sure I’m making the story as good as I can make it, here’s a bit of it.
(…WHO AM I KIDDING, THERE’S A LOT OF IT.
But please give it a read anyways! I promise it’s good!)
I don’t really have a name for this AU, yet (if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!) but it takes place before the IDW comics, probably by a few years at least.
⭐️ Premise: Dr. Starline enters a competition of inventors and innovators with the hopes of using it to gain Eggman’s attention, and finds something there that he was not expecting to.
As I have it, Starline is not quite the level of mad doctor we see of him from the comics quite yet.
He’s still poised and a lone wolf, sometimes trying to mimic Eggman in his way of thinking, but hasn’t reached the level of “try to murder hedgehogs with a bomb” or “Operation: Remaster” yet.
So.. still redeemable.
At this point, he’s already attempted to get the Doctor’s attention multiple times over the years, but has had little luck each time. However, this completion has a big tech name backing it, and he expects Eggman will be closely paying attention to it as a result of it. A perfect opportunity to get him on his radar.
While there, he meets Rivet, a sly and energetic cat inventor who he seems to naturally click with. And over the course of the prelims, a surprisingly friendly rivalry grows between them to get into the competition and win the top spot.
⭐️(Side Note: This is because Starline’s not too worried about losing to her, but he admires her tenacious spirit considering her origins were largely non-technological.)
Unsurprisingly, they both get in, and it’s announced that those who made it in are now going to have to form teams. Of course, Starline— having his ego, as well as a reluctance to work with others due to his upbringing being comprised of him being bullied and treated poorly for his interests—isn’t thrilled.
But, not ready to give up his dream yet, he does his usual, “What would Eggman do?”, and decides to team up with people who he thinks might have the most potential and be the easiest to manipulate into doing what he wants.
⭐️ (Side Note: He does not have his hypno glove at this point! That would make things too easy.) (.. Despite him probably having it before the warp topaz in canon. MOVING ON!)
This lands him on Rivet, her brother Charge, a tiny rat named Hex, his bulldog friend Lug, and a firefly named Cello.
Starline assigns himself as the leader of the group, due to his elevated knowledge and experience in the three fields they’re working with— robotics, chemistry, and biology. But as he attempts to get them on board to.. essentially let him run the whole show, tensions and conflicts quickly mount as they begin to push back.
At his wits end after a few days of arguments and fights, he ends up confiding in Rivet and Charge to ask for their insight, seeing as they themselves have been a team for a very long time. The Amp Twins explain to him what teamwork actually is and how to accomplish it, which Starline realizes is a completely foreign concept to him because he’s always worked alone.
Despite his ego hating having to make sacrifices to get this team to work, Starline gives in and takes their advice by changing his tactics. Tracking the team down one by one to talk to them and try to understand why they’re fighting him.
To his surprise, it works! He lets them express themselves and in doing so, discovers that.. these people aren’t so different from him. All of them have great skill, but have been hurt in a similar fashion as he was, and are here, just trying to accomplish their dreams.
The conversations make him sit with his thoughts. He empathizes with them. Encourages them, because that’s what he himself wished someone had done for him. And.. while the depth of his reasoning for doing so is still very much selfish and because he wants to win, he still finds he’s also being.. genuine.
Needless to say, he reluctantly gives up some control to let the others bring their ideas to the table, and his plan works. They all end up working.. surprisingly well together, and even end up teaching him a few things.
Huh. That’s new.
Over the next few weeks that pass, Starline slowly grows more and more relaxed, softening up around the edges as he experiences what having a good supportive group of like-minded people around him is like.
They.. appreciate him. They.. respect him. They treat him well.
And he’s.. not used to this. Not used to people wanting to hear his ideas. Not used to being able to have scientific debates with someone who understands what he’s saying. Not used to being dragged out of the lab by a cheerful purple cat to join her and the others for a dinner in the town. Not used to his smiles being real.
By end of the competition, they’re all quite close as a team, working together in comfortable tandem.
Starline at one point even admits to himself that he actually would consider the group to be.. his friends. They make him feel welcome and appreciated like no one ever has, which is—at the depth of who he is as a character—what he has always wanted and yearned for.
But.. there is still the matter of Eggman.
One thing I want to establish very firmly is that, while Starline opens up more to the others and has moments of being a genuinely sweet person, he is still very much an Eggman fanboy whose dream of working by his side one day has not disappeared.
This is his struggle. His Achilles heel, so to speak.
Because throughout the whole competition, Starline never actually tells the group WHO his inspration is.
They know he has one. They know that’s why he’s here; to gain the attention and recognition of the man by winning the competition. They’ve heard his excited rants about this ‘genius’ and all the brilliant and inspiring things he’s done.
But they don’t know it’s Eggman.
At first Starline keeps his fascination on the downlow, only because he knows he’ll be working with people in the competition who have been affected by the Doctor, and doesn’t want to sabotage his chances of winning. But as he meets the others and gets closer and closer with them, it becomes more about fear and guilt.
He doesn’t want to admit it— Him? Afraid? Guilty?? Never.
But.
What if they were to find out? They’d turn on him for sure. He’d get dumped by the group, just like before when he was growing up. Shamed and left isolated and alone.
Again.
By getting too close, he’s caught himself in a trap. He’s torn between two different lives he could lead. He finds himself slowly beginning to question which one he wants more.
It makes him hesitate when they ask him to form an official team with them after the competition is over. Prevents him from being able to be as open and honest as he might like. Keeps him from being closer to Rivet like he knows they both want.
And even though they know there’s hesitation there, they (particularly Rivet) never stop trying to reach out to him.
Eventually though, the truth does come out and he has to finally make a drastic choice..
…But I think I’ll leave that bit for next time ;)
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