A/N: Thank you so much for reading this far, I really appreciate your time! TLDR of this chapter: Sonic questions everything, and Metal Sonic is still a bit of a prick (but with added trauma).

Sonic and his friends celebrated their victory.

Sonic's heart swelled with pride as he and his teammates walked through the street, met with the cheers of grateful civilians. Against all the odds and a near-impossible goal, everybody had pulled through and saved the world once more. Before reaching Sonic's house, the teams said their farewells and went back to their own homes. Knuckles was the last to leave, making sure to fist bump his comrades before taking off. Sonic stood outside, making sure to wave everybody goodbye one by one.

As soon as his front door shut, Sonic leaned against it and slowly sank down to the floor. He let out a long breath, like he didn't even know he'd been holding it in, and nodded to himself with a small, satisfied smile.

It was good to be home and warm again.

Tails joined him, plopping down at his side. "You okay Sonic?"

Sonic inclined his head to one side to meet the kitsune's eyes and gave a grin. "Yeah, lil' bro. I knew we could do it, but, man..."

Tails nodded in agreement, scratching the back of his head as he recalled the battle. "Yeah, there were a few times where I even thought we'd get hit!"

"Nah lil' buddy, I'd never let that happen to you. Never." Sonic reached over and scrubbed the kitsune's head with one fist and a playful growl.

"Hey, off, off!" Tails protested, playfully pushing the blue hedgehog away.

The two laughed to themselves for a while before falling quiet, and thoughtful.

"Do you think he'll be back any time soon?" Tails asked jokingly.

Sonic shrugged and gave a half-smile, palms upturned. "Chaos knows lil' bro. But if he comes back, well, we just gotta defeat him again."

"I just know we can do it again if we have to!" Tails added in agreement, bumping his fist to Sonic's.

Sonic gave the kitsune a confident wink, stretched his arms, and then jumped to his feet.

"Right! Come on T, let's get some grub. I'm hungry after all this fightin'!"

Together, the duo prepared themselves chilli dogs in celebration in the kitchen, before sitting on the floor with their prized meals.

"Something was different this time, wasn't it Sonic?" Tails piped up over his mouthful of food.

Sonic gave him a long look, almost pretending not to know what his little brother was talking about. "Huh?"

"You know... with him."

At this, the hedgehog gave a sigh and studied his chilli dog, holding it in one hand.

"Yeah, I guess so lil' bro. I dunno how much you saw or heard, but... I almost felt kinda bad for the guy."

Sonic's eyes trailed from his hand and up to his arms as he spoke, which sported subtle bruises and scratches from the battle in the sky.

"He deserved it Sonic! He was gonna hurt everyone if we didn't do anything." Tails offered cheerfully, getting up to put together another plate of food for himself.

With Tails' back to him, Sonic rested his chin on his hand and sighed with a sad smile. Tails must not have seen anything after all to be this optimistic.

"Yeah, you're prob'ly right, Tails. We did the right thing..."

He couldn't tell the boy what he had heard, nor did he want to.

Suddenly the hedgehog wasn't hungry anymore, the hungry hole in his belly now replaced by a churning pit.

The screams of his enemy would probably haunt him for the next few days.

Had he gone too far? Could he really trash Eggman's robots the same way he always had done?

Deflating into his hand, Sonic closed his eyes and tried his best to forget this whole mess.

In the cold confines of Eggman's flagship, two very different brothers tried to find their own relief.

Tried.

"Do not waste your energy." Neo grumbled, at first refusing to let his sibling help piece him back together.

Mecha was not qualified in any way to handle repairs, but he was certainly about to try anyway.

He stayed silent, kneeling down in front of the smaller robot.

Neo met his unfeeling stare with his own angry one and held it.

"Leave me. The Doctor will disassemble me upon his return anyway."

Mecha held his silence, unafraid of his brother's temper and cynicism. From past experience he had learned that arguing with the smaller robot led to inefficient outcomes. So, he was now trying a new approach to get his own way.

Unlike Mecha, Neo couldn't stand silence, and he broke first.

"If you must tamper with my function, you would do well to simply shut me down for good."

Mecha considered this, before giving a dry reply of his own, "You wish to shut down, therefore, suspending your processes to energy conservation mode to allow for basic repairs should not be an issue to you."

"How are those two things connected in any manner?" Neo grumbled back at him.

"Energy conservation mode is somewhat similar to shutdown." Mecha simply stated, leaving Neo to connect the dots himself.

Neo considered this too, before relenting to his brother's logic. "Affirmative."

Exhausted, Neo finally welcomed the serenity of energy conservation mode.

It was the closest simulation of sleep for a robot - with energy only diverted to his core components, everything else slowed to a crawl.

It helped to reduce the amount of energy consumed by core processes and suspended any unnecessary background processes that had been running. He rarely used energy conservation mode - it was better to be online at all times to monitor the hedgehog's location, or to improve his battle techniques, of course.

Mecha got straight to work.

Using deep learning techniques, he had watched Eggman's repair work and tried to learn from this over the years. He just hadn't had a chance to apply his knowledge yet. Every so often, he paused to consult his memory banks a little deeper before making his next move.

Although he could not re-paint the robot's armour or re-attach any missing appendages right now, he did his best to connect any broken wires and took notes on his overall condition for Eggman to see to, if he even would.

If he could name an emotion here, it would probably be hope.

Once he was done, he sat down beside his robotic sibling and began some new research into repairs.

There was just one problem with Neo's sleep mode.

Now, with no background processes running and all energy diverted solely to his CPU, certain images flooded his mind.

The hedgehog's spines glowed hot yellow, invincible, unscathed.

He watched Neo suffer.

Neo screamed. A deafening, deeply painful scream. He clawed at the deck with the last of his strength as his form reverted. Each regression was more humiliating. Metal Overlord, to Metal Madness, to Neo Metal, then to his base form. Each regression was more humiliating.

Now, the robot's body was marred with deep dents, two open holes in his back, missing fingers and cracked eyes. Black oil and melting paint dripped from his engine intake and back onto the deck. His legs refused to function, so there was no running away.

The other heroes were probably watching his demise, but he couldn't tell past the glitches in his vision, nor could he bring himself to care anymore. His vision failed him for another moment, and he clawed at his own face before seeming to lose power and falling still. He was sure he could hear a voice before him, but could not make out a word of what it said. He didn't have the willpower to focus his auditory sensors anyway. The robot turned his head, slowly, before resting his cheek plate against the deck plating.

That familiar, sickly yellow glow grew closer, reflected off the metal floor.

The hedgehog.

Sonic stopped a short distance away, evaluating the situation, before slowly walking closer. "Metal Sonic?"

Neo did not respond.

Sonic took a few steps closer, relaxing slightly as it seemed his foe was incapacitated.

"Metal Sonic. It sucks that it had to come to this... I wish we could have been friends somehow, despite everything."

Sonic crouched down to his level, wearing a solemn but somehow proud look on his face.

Pride that he had won and saved everybody else, but... was that pity, too?

Neo refused to meet his gaze.

Pity. Disgusting pity! Neo couldn't stand it. He would rather have Sonic end this now.

"I am defeated. I am done being ssstomped on and humiliated. I sssurrender. You wished to kill me, so d-do it!"

Sonic was taken aback, and his ears flattened against his head. His expression changed to one of hurt and confusion. "Metal Sonic, I can't do that. Sure, we're enemies, but I..."

This made Neo furious. How dare he just stand there.

Suddenly, the robot jolted upright and made a swipe at Sonic's legs, who jumped back in shock. The robot screamed and begged out at him. His vision completely blacked out and his voice synthesizer seemed to break down with static.

Pain overwhelmed him once again.

He couldn't take it.

"I surrender! Kill me! Please! I beg you, don't just stand there, please, please..."

Sonic's eyes widened.

In this moment, Neo's voice sounded just like his.

The robot started yelling nonsense as errors flooded his systems.

Finally, he was reduced to his usual beeps and clicks, unable to scream anymore.

Sonic turned on his heel and ran, feeling a sick pit in his stomach.

This was too much. It was too real. He ran as far as he could, not willing himself to look back.

No amount of feigned confidence could bring him to do this.

The next minutes were a blur to Neo, but when he came to, he was definitely being moved around. He willed his optics back online for a few difficult moments, meeting Omega and Shadow's faces. In his confusion, Neo assumed there was some kind of handoff going on. Maybe he was being given away to a lab for testing, or to Eggman for re-programming, or maybe he was heading for a trash compactor.

For another moment, his auditory sensors came back online, and to his surprise...

"Do not worry. We are going home, now."

Finally, Neo was clutched in the familiar purple arms of his brother.

The ex-overlord awoke with a start and jolted into a defensive stance.

All his systems were slammed into high-performance mode.

His eyes darted about to meet every tiny light in the room, but none matched that in his "nightmare."

It was quiet, too.

Slowly, the robot relaxed his stance and slowed his mental processes.

It was safe, and he was alone.

It was okay.

It's okay.

He rubbed his arms as if self-soothing and re-read the time, date, and GPS of his location several times.

01:27. 01:27. 01:27. 01:27. 01:28.

Before, it was such trivial data, but now...

"Neo?"

That familiar monotone voice was all too welcome this time.

Neo had terrorized so many other people that he knew exactly how it was done. But for some reason, he didn't want Mecha to fear him. He wanted Mecha to continue liking him in this innocent, almost neutral way, unafraid even when he was at his worst.

Worst... Neo thought back to his defeat and a heavy weight hit him. He didn't know what to do with emotions this extreme. Anger just wasn't enough. It didn't help him cope. Not anymore. It only hurt, and fuelled some deep-seated pain inside him.

No matter how angry he was, the hedgehog was always going to outclass him.

No matter how bitter he was, the hedgehog was always going to beat him down.

The hedgehog was always going to be a part of him, always tormenting him.

Why did Mecha even take him back in, despite everything?

Some awful new feeling arose deep inside him. He had no name for it, no matter how many times he ran diagnostics on whatever files he could find. It was beyond anger, and it made him want nothing more than to curl up in some dark corner somewhere. Neo pressed his hands to his head, shut off his optics, and waited for this new form of misery to pass.

Was this grief?

Mecha rose to a kneeling position beside him. "Are you..."

"No, I am not okay, and no, there is nothing you can do for me."

"... What is your status?" Mecha tried, after several moments of silence.

"Terrible. That is my status." Neo murmured, keeping his head in his hands and optics shut off.

Clearly, this wasn't helpful to Mecha, who ran a scan over his sibling's form in response.

"Do not invade my privacy," Neo managed to growl out, finally pushing the other robot away with one hand as his optics returned to their usual red. "Have you not the decency to allow me to speak for myself? You are just as bad as the Doctor."

Mecha backed off and rose to his feet. He probably should have apologized, but he did not know how to, or if it was even appropriate.

The two stayed in silence for several moments, and Neo's hands returned to his head.

"My memory is faulty. I do not recall what transpired after I fell," Neo finally offered. "It is as if... I was not present."

Mecha inclined his head, uncharacteristically expressive. Another gesture learned from his brother, most probably. "Continue."

Neo lowered his hands and studied them. "Perhaps my memory banks were damaged upon impact. But that does not explain the images I saw. The things that I heard..." he looked up to Mecha before continuing. "That was not my voice, and no audio files in my memory banks resemble it."

Mecha considered this. "How many users are logged into your central processing unit?"

Neo stared at him, dumbfounded at the question. "What? I am the sole user of my processing unit unless the Doctor remotely controls me in some manner, which he has not done for several years. You might as well be logged in too, with the amount of prying you do."

Mecha shrugged his shoulder, ignoring that final remark. "I considered a trojan virus but upon scanning your systems earlier I found none. It is peculiar."

Neo would have given a sarcastic grin if he could, but just scoffed irritably instead. "Perhaps you are the faulty one."

Why was Mecha so hell-bent on putting up with him anyway? He had done nothing for him. Maybe it was some twisted form of robot Stockholm syndrome. Or perhaps Mecha's memory was faulty, too.

The attention of both robots was drawn to the doorway upon hearing noises outside.

An Egg Pawn scuttled past the open door. A few seconds later, they backtracked and peered in. Upon seeing Neo, they let out a beep of alarm and fled to the nearest corridor.

Such a display of fear had once filled Neo with so much pride.

In a way, it still did - he loved holding power over others that way. The thrill of having others do his bidding, having them fear and respect him, gave him purpose. It was something other than hunting that cursed hedgehog, something other than the confusion in his own head.

But what good was it now? He didn't even want to function anymore.

In fact, he wished that Mecha would just leave him be so that his power would eventually deplete to nothing.

Why did nobody understand that he was done with all of this? Maybe it was some sick joke that everyone else was in on but him.

Neo's legs moved to walk out of the room before he willed them to.

"Brother?" Mecha asked, taken aback by his sibling's sudden departure.

"There is something I must attend to." Neo simply replied, disappearing into the black depths of the ship.

Mecha found himself starting after his sibling but he quickly stopped himself, conflicted.

Maybe if he could feel like Neo did, he would know what to do right now.