The blue hedgehog limped heavily through the alley, the artificial light of streetlamps just enough for him to see by. His left leg, bent at a funny angle, was dragging uselessly behind him on the dirty concrete floor of the city. Dumpsters and other smaller collections of the city's unwanted refuse were his only company. He approached an intersection that linked him to the open, and passed through it with a desperate hopping gait that tried to go faster. Twin yellow lights rumbled by, fading in and then back out along the road.
His right eye was gone. Shattered. Now it was exposed circuitry, sparking and damaged. Couldn't even close it; his eyelid had bent and gotten stuck halfway down. A scrape on his stomach showed more of the same, broken metal. His leg, too, was broken, in the same way that any machine could be broken. Just a cracked joint on a mass-produced production arm.
He stared ahead at nothing. He didn't want to look at himself. Or remember that one of the things he had for looking at other things wasn't an eye. Had never been an eye. Just metal and plastic and wires.
His little brother had hit him rather hard. He didn't feel pain, not physically. But still, after all those years together. Sure, they'd drifted apart recently, but that was different. This had been…flat out rejecting who he was. He'd even trained Tails to fight when he was younger, and-
And-…
If he'd been alive, he would have shook his head to clear it. Was that right? It should be. He was Sonic. That was what he had been told! All of his memories said the same thing! The copy of himself had been captured, and he was the real one, and Tails was his beloved little brother. That was supposed to be the truth.
As a machine, his memories were preserved perfectly. Tails kicking and screaming at him to give back the real Sonic played back in his head like a video for what must have been the hundredth time.
His foot scraped unsteadily against the ground. It couldn't all be a lie, could it? Maybe Tails was just…mistaken, somehow. Led astray against him. Yes, something, anything like that. Had to be. He was Sonic.
The scraping slowed. Another intersection to stumble past.
Footsteps. He stopped. His ears perked up when a familiar voice floated in.
"…but we're not sure where to look for him," Amy said.
He stumbled forwards in a great excitement, forgetting the state of his leg to at least glimpse her. There she was! Walking down the sidewalk in her usual red dress, talking quietly into a cell phone. She seemed less cheery than usual.
"We don't even know how long he- Huh?"
Her head turned. He jerked back, out of her sight, and stayed very still. He could just imagine her standing there, also stock still, staring ahead at- What? A bit of blue, whipping out of her vision? A noise he had made against the concrete?
Why wasn't he showing himself? It's Amy! Tails had been- had been turned against him for some reason, but Amy loved him! Amy would know who he was.
She would know exactly who he was.
"No, I'm alright." She said after a moment, quickly. "I just thought I saw something." A hesitant footstep. "No, I know, I know. I'll be careful."
He waited for her steps to start again. For her to leave.
His own memories rebuked him. What did he think he was doing? Sonic didn't duck between alleys, alone and injured, afraid to show his face to his friends.
No. He was Sonic. He would prove it.
He stepped forward with a metallic tap on the concrete and Amy dove into the alley in front of him with her hammer up.
He cried out and stumbled backwards. "A-A-Amy, I-" His broken leg got caught under him and made him clatter to the ground.
"What-" She stopped, wide-eyed, hammer mid-rise. "Sonic?"
He stopped scrabbling backwards, a desperate hope taking hold. "Y-Yes!" Damn his voice, it was still skipping. Tails must have broken something inside of him. "Li-Listen! I-I never said-said-said I was an android, I kn-kn-know, but it's me! I-I-I'm Sonic!"
Her grip on the hammer didn't falter, but her expression furrowed, conflicted.
"No," Amy said slowly, shaking her head. She looked at him like he were a roach on its back struggling to right itself. Revulsion, mixed with pity. "You're not him."
"I-I-I-I-I-I a-a-am!" He tried to stand, but his stupid damn leg buckled under him and made him crash back to the dirty ground. "Am! Am! Am!"
Her hammer went back in a slow arc. "I'm sorry."
"No! A-A-Amy, it-it's m-m-m-me!"
She stepped forwards, blinking. "I'll make it quick, okay?"
"You-You- love me, Amy-my!" He scrambled backwards away from her, his shaking, skipping voice filled with horror. "P-Please! I'm So-Sonic, y-you won't-won't-won't-"
Amy closed her eyes at the moment of impact.
The crunch caved in the remaining glass eye, and the circuitry and motors within. An empty eyed stare faced her, the mouth still saying its one last won't. The quills had twisted and given way underneath, twisted metal innards punching holes in their blue coverings.
She turned away, wiping her eyes. The earlier news from Tails that Sonic was gone and had been replaced by an imposter for who knows how long had shaken her. She had dearly wished that was him. Wouldn't that have been nice? Sonic not missing at all, but just being right there, all along…?
She's got to go meet with Tails. They have to find the real one.
Amy hurried away. Not long after, some scrap metal was found and thrown away, taken out with the rest of the city's garbage.