A Metal Sonic-focused one shot.

This was originally going to be one thing. Then another. And then it settled on what it is now. As I wrote it, I was assailed with ideas.

I hope you enjoy what you read.

Its systems do not stop running. Ever. Perpetual energy supplies let it operate endlessly. This allows the machine to do things most machines do not. As it cannot stop, it cannot stop processing information about everything. Everything its sensors pick up on, it begins to process information based on it. Anything the optical sensors see, they immediately begin processing information based on.

It is completely unable to stop. Even if it wanted to stop processing, it could not. This is not a thought process that one can simply put an end to. If the machine focuses on something else, it will focus on it at the same time it's focusing on its other processes. Multitasking is a skill machines have mastered to an art by design. Artisans to a craft they did not ask for.

And once a machine begins to process information, it does not stop. It cannot stop processing the data, and trying to figure out answers that don't exist for the average organic.

Metal Sonic cannot stop. It processes information based on the weather, air pressure, humidity… these are processes that started close to its activation. The machine must always keep these factors in mind, for even the smallest element in the world around it could hinder success. The processes on weather data is only one set of many processes. A countless number of them. Taking into account outside elements to the machine, and processing data without stop to assure it is aware of the world around it.

Metal Sonic turns its head slightly, to face the north-east. Snow. In every direction. This direction included. Nothing alive out there, just a simple, blank flurry of white. The event is known as a whiteout. It knows this from checking against old weather data, a database it is constantly adding to. It knows that a whiteout is uncommon in this region, almost completely unheard of. The sight of organic beings is worthless in such conditions. Their depth perception slowly becomes skewed, their orientation and balance fails them. Unable to see past the flurry of snow, they have no point of reference for their vision. Metal Sonic did not have any faults in its equilibrium. It had methods of flawless navigation other than sight. It was designed to be better than organics in every way.

Better than him in every way.

The robot raised its metallic claw, reaching it out into the snow. The snow seems to attempt to push it around, like a force of nature that wishes this robot to kneel to it. Just like the organics.

Metal Sonic waved its hand out, in an act of defiance against nature. It moved how it chose to, not how the world dictated it would.

The machine had odd processes in its systems. Like any of Robotnik's machines, a level of sentience was bestowed upon Metal Sonic. The sentience was actually a useful tool. It allowed the machine to make situational choices a simple computer program could not. The "Master File" kept the machine in check. And, of course, if that failed to control it, there was the anger Robotnik had programmed into its sentience. An unending well of hatred for Sonic the Hedgehog. A simple mention of the name would anger the machine. Sightings could cause the systems to heat up. In the midst of a fight with the target, Metal Sonic's chassis would be burning to the touch.

It moved how its anger dictated it to, not how the world chose it to.

Metal Sonic stopped, going over that line of reasoning. It was not a new discovery. Robotnik had designed it to endlessly process information. So of course it would have discovered that its "Master File" and the "Anger Program" were intended to control the machine. The Doctor was beneficial to Metal Sonic's desire – Need. It was a need. – to kill Sonic.

It knew it was a pawn. A puppet. A tool.

It was better than any organic, though. It realized that it was being used. An organic was too simple minded to realize as much. It knew that if it could find a way to simply not need the Doctor, it could be free of the "Master File". It knew that if Sonic was dead, the "Anger Program" would no longer have a trigger. If Sonic died, it would no longer need Robotnik's help to eliminate him. It would be free, if Sonic died. However, there was the matter of the Doctor having too many fail-safes in place in case just such happened. So, the robot could not kill Sonic. Not until the fail-safes were eliminated as a threat. This did not so much mean eliminating them as just no longer being affected by them. It was an arduous task, trying to find the immunity. Until it did, it could not kill him.

It made this realization soon after it realized it was a puppet. It could not kill Sonic if it meant Robotnik would no longer find him useful, or if freedom was not possible afterwards. Its anger still existed, however. It had to prevent itself from killing him while still having the need to kill him. In recent battles, it had purposefully sabotaged itself. It had to do this cleverly, in ways that insured Robotnik would not know what was going on.

It made the machine even angrier, having to play up a charade to make sure it survived. Survival was something that nature did far better than it did, it seemed. Many individual specimens died. But this was irrelevant to the bigger picture. Species survived, adapted, improved. On the grand scheme of things, nature was better at survival than the machine was.

The machine survived, but not as easily. The effort it took was almost not worth it. It almost seemed more worth it to simply kill Sonic and be finished.

Metal Sonic angrily swiped its metal claw at the snow. Nature was taunting it now. Showing off what it had, and what the robot could not have. An ease in simplicity. In life. Freedom. The ability to experience touch, temperature, and sensations without the need to have its machinery constantly whirr on about it. Without the constant need to calculate what each sensation and event in the surrounding world meant.

The simplicity of skin.

Skin was a fantastic organ. It was the largest organ animals had. It allowed the reception of touch, the sensation of feeling. The ability to understand the exact textures of the wood off the bark of a tree, without having to analyze, scan, and process data. It would reach the same conclusion with a lesser economy of effort. There was data that it did not collect. Data that Metal Sonic did. But…

How did the exact composition of the wood help the machine?

The claw stayed out, in the snowfall. It calculated and processed the data of the snow endlessly. The exact texture. The temperature.

But the machine did not feel the touch of the snow against itself. It did not know what it was like to feel the snow land against your head, or the chill of the cold air against your body. It knew that the weather was keeping its systems cool. They were heating, the "Anger Program" acting up. This weather made it easier to operate. Ironically enough, Metal was finding it easier to function and run in conditions organics could not survive in.

Power was intoxicating. A line of thought the machine kept going back to. As it was, it was powerful. Able to outdo simple organics in terms of travel, combat, navigation, exploration, investigation… it was simply more powerful.

But this power came with a complexity of existence, and a lack of freedom. It came with days like this, where Robotnik was toiling away in his base of operations, and Metal Sonic used his scouting leniencies to do as it pleased for even a small time.

It looked to the horizon. Or, as much of it as the machine could process as existing. Even though its ability to navigate in these conditions was better than that of an organic, it could still be hindered. This would not stop it, though. Internal compasses, and an exact record of every movement the machine made, would make it an impossibility to get lost. It started walking, a slow march through the snow.

Its experiment needed to be checked on.

At some point, the machine entered a woodland. The weather was still making it hard to tell, but the trees made sight-based navigation easier than before, breaking the snowfall and wind. Organics would still have trouble. It would still be hard for them to navigate. The machine had little trouble.

But it wanted to feel that trouble. To have that struggle.

Its power, though, was too great to just cast aside…

It found a simple, snow covered rock wall. Found was not exactly the right word, though. Over the course of the experiment, it had been here a countless number of times. It started pushing the snow drift out of the way, clearing it off the wall quickly. Well, faster than an organic could. Definitely faster.

Once this was done, it stared at the stone wall. It was, in actuality, connecting to and manipulating a program behind the wall. A system only it could enter and use. Once the clearance codes were input, the wall slid open, the robot walking in. It shut behind Metal Sonic, and the robot walked through a short, but dark hallway.

It entered a circular room, cut from stone. Machinery and lights filled this room. Pipelines filtered air in. Air systems further kept the air warm, and at a stable level.

The most important point in the room, however, was in the middle of it.

A small, moss-filled pit. A single egg lay inside. Metal looked to the screens along the walls, checking vitals, growth rate, the egg's temperature…

It was a simple experiment.

Metal Sonic could feel anger. It knew this. It could feel that emotion. If it could feel anger, it reasoned, then it could also feel pride. Accomplishment. Joy. Happiness. If it could feel one emotion, it could, reasonably speaking, learn to feel the others. Or could, but simply never had before. It knew it could feel confusion. It felt that when comparing its desire to retain its power to the desire to feel what the lesser life forms did. It felt frustration. When it fought Sonic, and the hedgehog beat Metal of his own accord. Or when the machine had to sabotage its own mission.

It did not know if it could feel what was described as a positive reaction, however. The egg was to test this. It was stolen from Robotnik, in an abstract sense. It was Robotnik that had collected the samples to clone an echidna. It was Robotnik who, in his spare time, had come up with a method to clone said echidna, and get the egg to hatch. It was the Doctor that devised the method. Metal Sonic simply repurposed the method as a means to an entirely different end than what Robotnik had intended on conceptualizing the project.

It was a simple test. Metal Sonic was trying to goad from itself a positive emotional reaction. By hatching the egg, and seeing that it lived, it would have accomplished something. By successfully cloning a specimen of the properly, and almost extinct, echidna race, it would accomplish something scientifically. Even though Robotnik had already done so on paper, the actual application of the method was far more important. Working on paper was one thing, even if the person conceptualizing the plan is the greatest scientific mind the world has ever known.

Metal Sonic had researched. Parents were supposed to feel a great happiness, love, and pride for their offspring. While this was crude in comparison to an organic having children, supposedly, foster parents felt a similar kinship.

The robot would, if the kinship connection did not work, at least feel some sort of satisfaction in the scientific accomplishment it would have made. Hopefully.

Almost an hour of silent work went by. The egg would, if everything was successful, hatch soon. It was close. But the robot had to return, to avoid any suspicion. There was a chance, every time it left, that it would miss the hatching. That it would return to find the creature already alive, crawling, living. It would be contained to a small area, of course. The chamber was prepared to support the creature. It would provide milk in a series of predesignated basins. It would live long enough for the machine to see it at least once. The problem, simply, was that the machine did not think missing it hatch would be good for the purpose of the experiment. It angered it that nature could not be better controlled, and more predictable. It was a frustrating prospect that all of the work might be for naught.

It started to make its way towards the exit, leaving for the day. The experiment could possibly fail, without the machine even being aware that it –

It turned on the first sounds of cracking, shaking, greater levels of movement than the egg normally had. Its sensors picked up on these signs on their own.

It was going to hatch.

Metal Sonic watched, silently. The only sounds were those from the machines that kept whirring and working, and the egg itself.

As the animal started to poke out from the shell, the robot got slightly closer. With each bit of eggshell that fell, it inched nearer, to observe the process. To run the data.

As the echidna hatched, Metal Sonic considered the experiment a success. It felt… a vague satisfaction at the successful cloning. That the creature lived. A scientific accomplishment.

It then, grimly, realized that this was a satisfaction it had felt before. Each time a successful hit was landed on Sonic. Each time it outdid the target. It already had satisfaction. This satisfaction, this sense of accomplishment, had always been overridden by its anger. And thus, it had associated the feeling with anger. Not as its own emotional reaction.

The experiment was a failure. Unless the machine started to feel a kinship connection, this was all a waste of its time.

The echidna had hatched. It was trying to crawl around, eyes closed. Perhaps it couldn't open them yet. It needed food. A part of the scientific aspect was a failure, then. The cloning was manipulated, and the creature was supposed to hatch in a state that it was fully capable of sustaining itself. Akin to a reptilian. The scientific satisfaction was dampened. It still succeeded in the cloning, and the creation. But it did not go exactly as planned.

Things almost never went exactly as planned. But this experiment was important. Why could it have not gone without a problem?

Metal Sonic reached for the creature, picking it up. It would not reach the basins on its own at the time. Not that the creature was worth this effort to maintain. It existed to elicit the reaction, and it was failing to do so. What would it do with the echidna?

… The echidna was reacting to being picked up. Negatively. Metal Sonic's claws were harsh, cold, metallic. The echidna was not prepared. It could not have been. It felt as if it was going to be attacked.

The robot stared.

The echidna gathered so much data from touch. A hatchling. A baby had collected such data within moments. It took the robot a greater economy of effort than a newborn to collect data on how its claws affected living things.

Why did nature mock the machine?

Why did it taunt Metal Sonic?

Why –

There was hardly a sound. Perhaps some slight squishing. Metal regained focus, the "Anger Program" dying down slowly.

…

It dropped the bloody mess from its hands.

It stood, and started moving towards the exit.

"Experiment: Failed."

A/N: A big shout out to you, dear reader, for sticking it through to the end. I greatly hope you enjoyed what you read.

If you please, go ahead and leave a review. They are greatly appreciated.

Merry Christmas!

- Snowy Angle