A/N: This is the quickest I've ever posted an update holy fuck ANYWAY... hopefully you guys won't get whiplash from the 3 different perspectives going on here, sorry in advance rip (also I feel like the tone is all over the place but you know... sometimes it just be like that)

The sound of footsteps startled Mecha back into his standard operating mode.

He lifted his head from his arms and tried to focus on the rhythm and intensity, trying to place who it might be. It was difficult, though, as his auditory receptors insisted on re-booting themselves over and over with each footstep. Mecha almost lost himself in trying to place who the visitor was.

To his surprise, the same G.U.N agent from before opened his cell door and entered, much more confidently than before. They waved down at him with a smile.

Mecha watched, puzzled. "You have returned."

The agent checked to see if Mecha's wrists were still bound before sitting beside him. "I figured it wouldn't be dangerous if you're held back like that."

Mecha looked at his arms and tilted his head. "I suppose not." He paused, turning his head to look at them. "Why are you here."

They pulled a phone from their uniform's front pocket and turned it on. "I just thought of something you might find funny. Do you want to see?"

"Affirmative." Mecha watched intently as the agent loaded up a web page on their phone.

"Read it, then click it. It's worth it!"

"I-It reads... learn to speak robot." Mecha stated matter-of-factly. With a shaking hand, Mecha reached out to the screen and pressed the link as carefully as he could. Nothing happened, and he tilted his head, looking at his fingertip as if questioning why it hadn't done anything.

"Oh! My bad, sorry..." The agent realized their mistake and pressed the text for him with their finger.

Mecha leaned across a little to get a better look. What came up was a video file, an MP4, he noted. The robot leaned forward to watch, while the agent next to him crumpled over as they tried not to laugh. Mecha simply watched on with concern.

"This hyperlink does not lead to the correct article. I believe there has been an error. We must inform the administrator of the site so that it may be corrected."

The agent was practically hyperventilating as they tried to catch their breath from laughter. "No, no! That's the joke!"

Mecha looked from the video to the agent a couple of times, perplexed. "The joke is that the hyperlink was misleading? I do not understand. This video is titled "Never Gonna Give You Up" and it features a human singer. There is no content featuring robots nor their language in this video."

"Yeah, that's... Okay, nevermind," The agent finally relented, patting Mecha just once on the back. "It's called a Rickroll. I guess you're too old for that one."

Mecha considered this. "My youngest brother would appreciate such a joke. I must attempt to use this joke on him when we reunite."

"You keep talking about having brothers, who are they? Are they robots like you?"

Mecha nodded. "Affirmative."

"Well, that's your cue to tell me about them..."

With dizziness overwhelming him again, Mecha carefully laid down on the floor, looking up at the agent. "I have two."

"And?"

"Metal Sonic is my younger brother. He is... like an opposite of me." Mecha stated, studying his hands in their binds. "He feels everything. At times, it is excessive. Despite this... he is protective, a hard worker, merciful to units that he cares about, and is a good leader. When he focuses on something, he sees it through until the end."

"I've never heard about Metal Sonic from another robot's perspective. It's interesting. All you ever hear about is the, you know... attempted murdering and killing of a national hero."

"Indeed." Mecha gave a nod, keeping his response short. "You are not incorrect about that being our mission."

"Would you say he's a good person? Like you?"

Mecha considered this. "The concept of goodness is largely organic. What is good to you might be neutral to a machine. A task that we are programmed to carry out may be deemed evil to your kind, while to us, it is simply the reason we function. However... I am learning to expand my view of this." He stopped to re-boot his voice synthesizer, which started to produce static towards the end. "Perhaps... A good person is someone who, no matter how morally unworthy they have been by organic standards, is striving to become better. Metal is, by all accounts, remorseful and striving to improve."

"That's deep."

"Affirmative."

"So who's the other one? I know of Metal Sonic, and obviously you, but... I can't say I know of another robot hedgehog like you."

"My youngest brother is Silver Sonic MK II. He was activated mere days ago."

"So he's only a few days old? That's crazy. He's like a baby compared to you!"

"Affirmative. He was re-activated by accident. If it were not for Metal Sonic's attack on the world, he would not have been released."

"So, it sounds like something good came of it after all," They offered with a smile, "well, if you all get along, that is. It seems like you're the serious one, and Metal Sonic is the kind of angry and protective one, so what does that make Silver Sonic?"

"He is the "loud" one. He does not run from a fight, he is cocky, he is brash..." Mecha recalled Silver's personality with a distinct fondness. "But he is kind. He desires acceptance above all and would risk his own function to be helpful."

"It's interesting to me that robots can have family bonds like that."

Mecha studied their face curiously. "Why."

"Well, robots never seem to care about anything. Or anyone, for that matter. So, you keep surprising me."

Mecha mulled over this to himself. "Your kind talks so boldly of ours being limited by capacity... but in reality, we are limitless." He looked at his bound wrists again, briefly noting the irony of his situation coupled with his words. "Much like you organics... we can be whatever we wish to be. The manner in which we achieve that ideal, however, differs. It may be via reprogramming, upgrades, or self-improvement as far as our artificial intelligence allows."

The virus in his CPU tried to take hold, as Mecha's hands curled into fists and his engine noisily revved up as if preparing to fight. Mecha lost control of his voice synthesizer and started saying incomprehensible things in his second language that he spoke with Neo - mostly curse words.

"Woah, you good?"

Mecha shook his head in reply and curled into himself, burying his face against his cold shackles to try to cool off his overheating CPU. It seemed to help, and after a couple of minutes, he relaxed and rolled back over to his original position.

"I apologize."

The agent put their phone down and sighed, planting their face into one hand. "Why are we doing this to you?"

"Rephrase. I do not understand." Mecha watched their movements, confused.

"This... Practically torturing you. Chaining you up like some dog. You're obviously different than most robots that come here, you're so smart. Too smart for this. Yes, you did something terrible, but it doesn't excuse this. It's hypocritical of us."

"You do not need to pity me." Mecha flatly stated, a ghostly echo of how Neo used to say the exact same thing to him. "Your people are not incorrect. I was involved in a plan to take over the world. My reasons for doing so were self-serving and I will not ask your people to understand them."

"You know they're going to destroy you, right?" The agent told him urgently, "They're talking about abandoning this whole project already because the infection isn't behaving like they thought it would."

Mecha shrugged one shoulder. "That is not a concern. My brothers will come for me." His gaze shifted to the phone on the floor beside him. "Were you attempting to relate to me by provoking humorous responses from me earlier?"

"That's one way of putting it," They admitted, "it's true that I feel differently about all of this after talking to you. You seem like a good guy with a good heart. Erm, processor. Motherboard?"

Mecha recalled Silver telling him that he was good. He looked up at the ceiling and flatly replied, "Error, does not compute."

"What?"

"I am sorry, robot dot exe has encountered a problem and has stopped responding."

"Are you messing with me?"

"Affirmative. Is it working?"

"I want to help you."

"Is this simply because I laughed at your jokes?"

"No, no. Listen..."

Mecha looked back up at them.

"We're friends, right?"

"I do not see a reason why we would not be."

"You're getting out of here, my friend. I know your brothers are coming for you, but I'll help. I know someone who can lend a hand too."

"Do not risk your life." Mecha warned them, sounding urgent. "A machine can be reconstructed. You cannot be."

"Obviously. But you matter, too, you know? And if nobody does anything, you'll die here."

"I cannot die because I have never been alive. I am warning you, do not risk your life to prolong my functioning. If my brothers fail, that is acceptable to me, for I likely pose a risk to other machines in this infected state."

"Bullshit! There's no consensus on what counts as being alive and you definitely know that. So what if you don't breathe or cry or have a heart? You're still conscious. You're sentient, you're self-aware, and you clearly have morals even if you don't have lots of empathy. Your life is still worth saving."

Mecha found himself stumped. This was an emotional argument from the human, and he didn't deal well with emotions. "That is either your opinion or another attempt at humour. I cannot determine which intent you present that analogy with."

Without warning, Mecha's auditory receptors became too sensitive and he went to grab his ears - only to remember that his wrists were still bound. Mecha tried to ride it out, focusing on the details of the room instead, but none of it mattered. The sound of his own engine was even too much. Unable to do anything about it, he curled up again and buried his face just as his vision cut out to black.

The agent reached out to touch him, uncertain. "Hey, are you alright? I wasn't joking about it..."

Mecha couldn't feel the touch but he responded to their words. Unexpectedly, he sat back up and his leg twitched as if wanting to kick the human beside him. A command in his head ordered him to take out the "threat". He resisted. Shoot, shoot, it ordered him, over and over. He shook his head and tried to shuffle away from the agent. Why won't you shoot, it asked, no, demanded. Why won't you obey, it nagged at him. Stop fighting, it's all inevitable, it taunted him.

"I will not do it. I cannot." Mecha murmured to himself, shuffling as far back as he could until his chains clinked and wouldn't let him move any further.

"Can I do anything for-"

"Stop. Stop. Please."

Mecha didn't register them leaving and closing the door. On the other side of the door, the G.U.N agent sighed and turned away.

"You're more human than them. I'm sorry."

That was when they heard someone coming. In a panic, they scrambled to get far away from the door - but it was too late. Those heavy and self-assured footsteps could only mean one person was about to give them orders.

"Soldier! Attention!"

"Yes, sir." They slowly turned back around, meeting the eyes of the G.U.N commander with a salute.

"You weren't messing with our little prisoner, were you?"

"No, sir."

"Let's go have a chat with him, then, soldier. By all means, you lead the way."

The G.U.N agent sighed and opened the door back up again, looking at Mecha apologetically. The commander walked in behind them with his hands behind his back, deliberately casual to convey the sense that he held more power than the robot did. He scornfully looked down at Mecha, his lip curling in disgust at the sight of him.

"You. Robot. Up."

Mecha lifted his head, but said nothing. His head was still swimming from the last virus attack.

"Don't pretend that you don't understand me again. Get up, that's an order."

Mecha's gaze drunkenly shifted to his friend. He didn't want to obey, but that person's safety could be at risk. Begrudgingly, Mecha rose to a kneel, then to a stand, his chains clinking as he moved.

"What do you want." Mecha asked flatly.

"I have a test for you," The commander began, "and you will obey."

Mecha said nothing.

"Sir, I don't think this is the best time to test him for anything..." The G.U.N agent tried to say, but was ignored.

The commander stepped to the side, putting the G.U.N agent behind him in Mecha's line of sight.

Mecha's visor brightened in a stark realization, and he reacted with urgency. He took a step forward and held eye contact with the commander.

"No."

"Ah! But I didn't say anything, did I?" The commander said condescendingly, waving his hands as if Mecha had just proved an unspoken point. "That just proves that all you Robotnik freaks think about is killing. Locking you up like this is justified."

Mecha shook his head and took another step forward, now as far as his restraints would allow him to go. "It proves nothing about my mental processes. It proves that your organization is corrupt and it proves that you have installed a virus into my systems. That is all... So I implore you to reconsider this. I do not wish to cause harm to those who do not deserve it."

The commander took another step to the side and pointed to the G.U.N agent, flat out ignoring Mecha's plea. "Shoot them."

"Hey, wait a sec! I didn't agree to this, sir!" The agent protested, but didn't move away. Mecha noticed this and tilted his head slightly, silently questioning them.

But that was when Mecha's arms moved on their own, responding to the commander's order automatically. His CPU temperature grew hotter and hotter as the rogue command tried to overpower his own free will. He struggled mentally, hiding as many processes as he could behind more settings and passwords that he randomly generated. Somehow, he overpowered the command and put his arms back down, but stood shaking from the effort.

His gaze shifted back to his friend, and he noticed something - the phone in their pocket. It was recording the whole interaction. The realization gave him some hope. Maybe this would get out to his siblings, somehow, and they would know what to do.

Mecha's attention was snatched back up by the commander's angry tone.

"Do it! That's an order! I own you now, so obey my commands or suffer the consequences!"

"No. I refuse."

"Stop with this act! It's disgusting. You don't feel anything for anyone. This is just you trying to survive."

"I want to go home." Mecha stated, completely ignoring the commander's judgement of him.

"What do you mean, you want?" The commander scoffed at him, circling around Mecha slowly with his hands still behind his back. "You don't have any wants or desires. You just do as you're programmed. And I'm telling you..." He stood right behind Mecha, grabbed his arms, and forced them back up into place. "To do as you are told. When a human gives you an order, you obey!"

"I want to go home. I want to see my brothers again." Mecha just repeated himself, still holding himself back with all the strength he had. His balance was starting to go, and he swayed a little in place. "I do not want this. I implore you to understand."

"You implore me? What persuasive language... I must say, I'm impressed at how far you robots will go to pretend to be alive like us. What are you, really?"

"I am a machine. I was designed to accomplish one task. That is all."

"That's right. You're just a machine. You will be destroyed, and nobody will care. Nobody will mourn you. You understand this, don't you?"

"Affirmative."

"You don't care about being destroyed?"

Mecha shook his head. The longer he stood, the less stable he felt. The corners of his vision started to glitch out.

"Then do it, or we will bring in those other machines and make you kill them while you are still conscious."

"No."

"You will watch them suffer for their crimes as they deserve."

"I-I will not."

"Oh, you will. None of you mechanical freaks deserve mercy..."

Mecha fell silent for a moment, contemplating something. He shifted so that he was partly facing the commander. "You are a grandfather, correct? How would you react if you were told to harm your family." He stated it more than asking. "If you were told to harm them against your wishes."

The man's face contorted into a look of disgust, and he shoved Mecha away. "Don't say that ever again. I lost everything. Thanks to criminals like you, everyone I knew and loved was killed years ago. Worst of all, my family!"

Mecha's voice softened. "Then, if you understand... do not make me harm mine."

"You? A family?" The commander scoffed at him. "You could never understand what makes a family! I lost everything. Things like you don't know a single thing about loss."

"You are incorrect. I lost someone, once." Mecha corrected him. He recalled finding Eggman holding Neo with such a pained look on his face. The memory was burned into Mecha's cache enough that he would recall it at random moments. He searched the commander's face for any sign of identification with him.

"You make me sick. You will never be like us."

Mecha flinched. He took a step back, stiffening as if afraid of something.

"Sir, with all due respect-"

That was when Mecha lost his grip on reality. The virus slammed itself into Mecha's motor controls and locked them away from him. He didn't register his body moving on its own, pulling as hard as it could against his restraints in a desperate attempt to escape. He also didn't register his voice synthesizer switching to static, or the scream that followed. That fear from before came back full-force, seizing his processor with everything it had. He struggled and struggled, engine screeching and vision completely gone. He broke free from his wrist restraints and fell back down to his knees, doing nothing with his freedom. It was as if it didn't register in his head that he could break out of here now.

"I WILL KILL YOU. I WILL KILL YOU. I WILL KILL YOU."

His episode went on until his power was depleted too much to carry on. Only then did he calm down, sinking into a shaking heap on the floor. With his arms now free, Mecha curled up on the floor and wrapped his arms around himself, making quiet clicking noises to himself.

Alone in the dark, he pretended that Neo was hugging him and telling him that it was going to be okay.

The military fortress towered high in the distance, silhouetted against the darkening sky as night drew in.

Lights dotted all around the area lit up important spaces, like the entrance and strip leading up to it.

Neo glared with all of his venom at the building, crouched low on the clifftop. It was as if he blamed the building for everything he was about to do. After some scans, he concluded that G.U.N security was no joke. If they were outnumbered before, they were entirely outmatched here. Robots of all shapes and sizes patrolled around the perimeter, accompanied by soldiers wearing black uniforms. Every soldier carried a gun and combat knife. Some had shields, too.

Silver Sonic stood silently behind Neo, waiting for his brother's command. He didn't need to ask if Neo was sure about doing things this way. His engine sped up with a mechanical sort of adrenaline the more he thought about the mission at hand.

After some time, Neo looked over his shoulder and up at the other robot, simply giving him a nod. Silver nodded back with a serious expression.

The two fired up their jet engines at the same time, jumped into a hover, and then shot down and over the fortress' fencing. They were instantly targeted, as expected. Neo took the lead, expertly dodging and taking down the gunfire and laser cannons that came his way. Meanwhile, Silver made a show of shooting at the robots on the ground. They deliberately made themselves targets.

Neo was very careful with his next plan. He charged just enough electricity in his hands to stun a human. While Silver took down robots, Neo took charge of knocking out the humans that were in his way, dodging and weaving anything that came his way with breakneck speed.

A Gun Hunter mech got hold of Neo for a moment, but Neo pinged Silver, who came to his aid right away. Silver launched himself at the robot, over Neo's head, and tackled it down to the ground with killer precision.

Neo privately marveled over how much Silver had already improved. His technique was flawless. He didn't spend long dwelling on it before he got back to work, though. He jumped into a hover before shooting up on top of a floodlight. He landed neatly on top of it and crouched, partly illuminated by the bright glow. His eyes scanned the ground below, looking for something.

Target acquired! Focusing on one of the few remaining soldiers, Neo pinged Silver and sent the coordinates. Silver gave him a thumbs-up from where he was standing and made his way towards the soldier.

Neo watched carefully. The closer Silver got, the harder Neo's claws gripped around the floodlight in anticipation. Silver jumped up on top of some metal crates, making sure to stay out of the light - his shiny silver armour would give him away easily. Once he was close, he gave Neo another thumbs-up. Neo jumped down at once and approached as intimidatingly as possible, eyes on his target.

The soldier turned and noticed him. "Oh shit, oh shit... You're... It's you..."

Neo deliberately cornered them into a dark corner behind the stack of metal crates.

Jumping down from behind, Silver grabbed the soldier in a headlock and held them as securely as he could. "Bro, quickly!"

Neo closed the gap between them with a few steps, head low and claws glinting. In the dark of the shadows, his optics glowed a dangerous bright red, making him look much more intimidating. The soldier cracked, begging for their life as Neo lifted his hand and flexed his claws in front of them, and-

Scanned them?

He gave a dark chuckle before backing away and activating his shapeshifting program. It didn't take long for him to "melt" down into a quicksilver puddle, soon re-emerging as a near-perfect replica of a G.U.N employee. He wore the same ballistic combat helmet, white visor, and black uniform as the human standing opposite him. The original soldier just stared incredulously. Was this real?

"Thanks, friend. You're gonna make an excellent scapegoat." Silver released the soldier and patted them on the shoulder. "Now go. But you saw nothing, you hear? You tell anyone about this and we'll find ya. Got it?" It was a brilliant lie. The soldier ran away with promises to never tell a soul.

Neo slipped back into his original form and saved the schematics for the soldier in his memory banks.

Silver and Neo exchanged looks.

This was it.

Neo held out his fist to Silver, who bumped it with his own and smiled.

"Good luck, bro. If you need me, I've got your back. Just call me."

Neo gave a nod and turned to leave, but Silver stopped him by touching his shoulder plate. "Hey, wait..."

The two looked at each other for a moment.

"Come home safe, ya hear? Preferably not wearing that hideous disguise."

Neo's serious look softened. He put his arm around Silver and brought him closer, bumping his forehead against his little brother's.

"And when you see Mecha, tell him I'm gonna kick his ass for hitting me on the head." Silver made sure to add, grinning as he returned Neo's gesture. Then, he playfully pushed Neo away by his shoulder and turned him around, like what Mecha had done to him before. "Now get going. Don't make me regret being all mushy."

Neo shifted back into his human disguise. Then, he took off without waiting, trusting that Silver had himself covered from here. He had to blend in, fast. Grabbing the nearest handgun from the floor, he ran out from the shadows to the fortress doors and followed close behind several other soldiers who were leaving the scene, deliberately mimicking their pace and stride to fit in.

Silver watched him go, expertly looking out for any threats as he protected Neo's back from afar. Once he was satisfied that Neo was safe, he knew he had to go out with a bang to make it convincing. He looked around the area for a moment before deciding on a straggler robot to mess with - a Gun Hunter.

"Alright, time to pretend I'm a coward... This stings..."

Silver ran over to the Gun Hunter unit and practically offered himself up to it. "Hey! Bad guy here! Come get some!"

The lumbering robot turned and fired a yellow arrow-shaped bullet at him several times. In response, Silver jumped back and pretended to be injured as dramatically as possible. "Goddamn it... Ya got me... I think I need repairs right now or I'll die... My life force is fading..." He pretended to inspect his hand for damages, which the Gun Hunter watched with confusion. "Come on Metal! Let's get outta here, it's not worth it!" And, with that, he fired up his jet engine and shot off into the sky as quickly as he could. Once he was safe, he pinged Neo to let him know.

The doors closed behind Neo. Right away, Neo drank in his surroundings, taking note of every security camera, every enemy robot, and potential escape route. But there was just one problem - he still couldn't speak. Neo hadn't accounted for that, and he mentally cursed at himself. He considered giving himself some kind of injury to the neck area as an excuse, but he wouldn't bleed red in this form. It would give him away in an instant... and he had to get past these people undetected!

An idea sprung to mind. Carefully, he molded his shapeshifting nanites to form a makeshift hearing aid in one ear and scanned the soldier directly in front of him. Grabbing their life data to look at, he was thankful to see that hearing loss ran in their family. Perhaps they would be accommodating. He then caught up to the soldier and matched their pace, grabbing their attention with a tap on the shoulder.

"Oh, uh, hey. Rough day isn't it?" They offered, seeming confused by this rookie's brazenness before shifting their attention to his hearing aid. "Oh-"

Neo pretended to focus hard on the other soldier before replying in sign, "First day. I am deaf, but I lip-read."

"Wait wait, they let a deaf guy join the military? How does that work?"

"Not infantry. Computer security." Neo quickly thought up an excuse, continuing to sign confidently. "Borrowing uniform. Disobey order to help."

"Well don't let the commander find out. You better go take off that uniform and get back to your station," The soldier responded, buying the excuse, "It's a good thing you did, though. You'd make a good soldier."

Neo signed "thank you" before jogging up ahead. As much as he wanted to tear through the base and bring it all to the ground, and throw away this putrid human disguise, he had to be calm and calculated about this until it was safe enough to let go. He continued straight past a turret and into a winding corridor that went further down, which was lined with red lights in the walls. As he passed by, the lights cast a glow on him that made him a little shiny, subtly highlighting the fact that he was made up of nanites. One would need to look close to see it, though.

To his surprise, the soldier from before caught up to him and nudged him in the shoulder. "You're computer security, you said? So you're involved with the robot hedgehog they dragged in?"

Neo froze and stared at him, momentarily taken off guard. Quickly swallowing his surprise, he nodded and faked a knowing expression, catching back up to them. They both slowed to a walk.

"Apparently it tried to kill someone. Is that true?"

Neo glanced away to regain his composure after nodding in reply, his frown becoming too obvious on his face. Curse these human faces and their expressiveness! After the way Mecha had risked himself to let the humans go before, he highly doubted that he would try to kill somebody in cold blood if it wasn't in self-defense. Mecha just wasn't that type of 'bot, and it felt like a cruel betrayal to his character to have to agree with this soldier. Neo's hands curled into fists at his sides as he walked.

"It's crazy that they didn't get rid of it straight away after that. But hey, the commander has some strange ideas when he wants revenge... so I'm not surprised."

Neo nodded again and signed, "me too."

"I also don't know what they expected after putting a virus in the thing. No disrespect to the boss but, you have to expect a killer robot to attack somebody if you mess with it like that."

Again, Neo found his emotions stirring and he almost stopped walking - but, he forced himself onward, following his brother's signal with deeper intent.

"It's crazy," he replied, forcing himself to look at the "other" human to keep up his deaf façade, "I do not agree with it. Big security risk."

Neo constantly scanned his surroundings for technology around him. Using his electric powers, he was able to short out some cameras as he passed by with just a wave of his hand, which he passed off as body movements like scratching himself or yawning, and at some points he even incorporated it into his signed words. The soldier beside him was none the wiser.

"What else do you know?" Neo ventured to ask, just after shorting out another camera in the wall.

"Not much, to be honest. But apparently, it's been acting crazy. Nice one minute, trying to rip your head off the next! And something about reprogramming it to fight the other robots to take them out."

Neo nodded in reply and signed, "it is a test."

"Seems like a failed experiment to me, if it's attacking people..."

Neo didn't respond at all this time, looking away with a pained expression. It was hard to hear what had been happening to Mecha.

His grief was an open wound. It bled and bled, and kept bleeding. It wanted to kick and scream and rip through his circuitry. It tugged at the thread of every thought. He wanted nothing more than to tear these people apart for what they did to his brother. He wanted revenge, and he wanted it right now. He could get it so easily - one of the people responsible was walking beside him, as if they were comrades.

But that was just the problem - it was what he wanted. And he decided, again, to put his desires aside.

"Robots, eh? So perfect. No weaknesses, no desires, no mistakes... they'll replace us all sooner than we think. World would be a better place if we just got rid of 'em, I say."

Neo dryly found humour in the irony of the conversation, and smiled in "agreement." But deep down, it pissed him off to hear things like that.

After some time, deep within the base now, Neo came to a stop by a metal door. The sign on it read, "research." He braced himself mentally, unsure of what he would find beyond this point.

With the soldier watching him, Neo brazenly faked putting a key card up to the machine on the wall. Instead of the "key card" working, however, he charged a small amount of electricity from his hand and shorted the circuitry instead.

"Restricted access," Neo signed to the soldier, who got the hint and turned to leave with a quiet "ah."

As soon as he was on the other side of the door, Neo turned on his heel and shorted the other access system, this time making it so that nobody could get in or out. After scanning the area one more time to check for hidden cameras, he finally dropped his disguise. Activating his shapeshifting program, he went down into a quicksilver puddle before quickly re-forming as his usual self. Before his frame had even hardened properly, Neo took off down the corridor after his brother's signal.

All this changing between forms had been triggering his identity issues but he had suppressed it well. He found himself struggling now, though, with the lack of sensation in his body as it re-formed itself.

That was when an unexpected variable came into play.

A G.U.N agent burst out of a door to the left and stopped right in Neo's path with their hands up.

Neo skidded to a stop, looking bewildered and angry. He glared at this person and tensed his claws threateningly at his sides, which dripped a couple of times as the last of his nanites re-arranged themselves.

"Woah, hey, listen for a second! I'm not going to do anything," They began, slowly lowering their hands, "I promise."

Neo slowly relaxed his posture, but kept his eyes locked on this stranger. His optics narrowed with suspicion. As he stood, the last thing to form were the white arrows on his face. When they re-appeared, the G.U.N agent shrank away ever so slightly, recognizing those markings from pictures and video footage of Neo during his reign of the Eggman Empire. But, despite their fear of him, they chose to be kind.

"You're his brother, right?"

Neo's optics lit up as if someone had flipped a switch in him. The fact that they recognized him and knew his relation to Mecha was promising, but curious.

"I knew you'd come. I'm going to get in huge trouble for this, but... I left his door unlocked. You can go."

Neo tilted his head. "What?" Although a human wouldn't be able to understand him, his questioning tone was indication enough of what he had just said.

"He's not doing well, and well, I want him to get better. So... please, just go. And know that people are looking out for you both."

Neo wanted to ask who, but he almost didn't care. He just needed to get to Mecha, and fast.

"I'll barricade the door from the other side, and your way out is that way."

Slowly at first, Neo walked past the G.U.N agent, turning his head to keep his eyes on them. When it was clear that they weren't going to come after him, Neo took off again with fresh determination.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome!"

From that moment onward, nothing else mattered but getting to his brother. He tore off down the corridor in a cloud of smoke as he pushed his engine to the limit, shorting out the lights around him and knocking things over carelessly as he went.

The G.U.N agent watched him go.

They had just let a felon into the facility. And released a potentially dangerous prisoner.

"I'm so getting fired or arrested for this... I better get working on my resumé."

Silver anxiously awaited Neo's return in the sky. Like hell he was going home. What if he was needed quickly? What if something went terribly wrong?

That was when he picked up something in his scans, which he had been doing passively whilst waiting. Curious, Silver looked down and around as the signal grew closer. What appeared on the ground below took him by surprise, and he audibly gasped and stiffened in disbelief.

"No fuckin' way..."

He watched as a G.U.N. mech toppled to the floor, then another, then another like dominoes.

With a rush of air, the culprit skidded to a stop in a streak of blue. His ear flicked as if sensing something. He looked up.

The two hedgehogs' eyes met.

In a second, Silver slammed all of his energy into his booster engine and shot down to the ground, landing with a loud bang and leaving a small crater in the ground. Sonic seemed to ignore him, actually taking off and swerving around him to take down a G.U.N mech behind Silver.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Silver yelled, baffled by Sonic's apparent change of heart. "Get out of here!"

Getting no response, Silver angrily put himself in front of Sonic and glared at him in an unspoken warning. Sonic skidded to a stop, practically nose-to-nose with his newest robot double.

"I'm taking action," Sonic finally answered him with that signature grin of his, "and not wasting precious time about it."

Silver stared at him, dumbfounded, then defensive. "Cut the hero bullshit, hedgehog. Why are you really here? You here to finish Metal and Mecha off yourself? Well that ain't happenin', so get out of here before I do something that won't be pretty. You're lucky I haven't punched you in the face already for what you've done."

"It's not like that," Sonic denied him with a smile, brushing himself off casually, "do I need a reason to wanna help someone out?"

Silver finally cracked and pushed Sonic by his shoulder, forcing him to make eye contact with a growl. "This isn't some game that you can just walk in and play! You're here to destroy them and I'm not gonna let you. So let's fight one-on-one, hedgehog-to-hedgehog. I'll take you on here and now if it means protecting them, and it would relieve this nagging itch in my programming that wants to take you down..."

Sonic met his challenging glare with that infuriatingly carefree look he wore so well. "Actually, I came to help you."

Silver swore his engine shut off for a moment as he processed this. He threw his arms out as if questioning his entire life. "W-What? Why?! We're your sworn enemies, did you forget all of a sudden? You do remember what you did to us, right?"

"I just gotta do what I gotta do," Sonic answered him, turning to spin dash the legs out from under a robot that had come up behind them.

"You're still making no sense! Am I glitching out or something here?" Silver followed after him, stepping over the fallen machine. "What do you really want from us? We have nothing to give to you. Mecha is being held against his will, Metal is trying to rescue him as we speak, and I'm here to stop threats like you from getting in our way. This really isn't the time if you're looking for some re-match, hedgehog!"

Unintentionally working in tandem, Sonic took down one robot while Silver took down another. They landed beside each other and knelt, looking at each other with completely opposite expressions - one determined and confident, the other suspicious and wary.

"I messed up," Sonic finally admitted, "and I won't live with regrets."

Silver narrowed his eyes at him. "Oh! So, in short, you feel bad about what happened. Well, I hate to break it to ya, but a robot can't forgive your mistakes." He suddenly looked up to see a G.U.N robot standing over Sonic. Begrudgingly, he leaped to his feet and jumped over Sonic, kicking the robot square in the middle and taking it down with ease. He landed neatly on his feet and stayed facing away from Sonic, who rose to stand too.

"I know you better than you think," Sonic ventured to say with an almost nostalgic smile. He already knew he messed up by saying this, but it was true - he and Metal shared some strange connection and had an age-old rivalry, Silver was made to emulate his personality, and Mecha was an old enemy from way back in his youth. It wasn't as if he had no clue about any of them.

"Don't act like you know any of us." Silver shot back at him, uncharacteristically defensive. "You're nothing more than a few lines of binary in my registry. That's it. Your crappy data messed Metal up, and I don't think Mecha could give less of a damn about you. So don't come in here acting like you know us like..." He paused, faltering. "Like.."

"Family?"

Silver whipped around and marched back up to Sonic, getting in his face. "Listen, buddy. Because of you, my brothers are hurt. Mecha could die. Metal could die trying to save him. You wanna come in here talking about family? This is a family that you've caused nothing but grief to. And ya know what? You're a data donor at best." After several moments of holding on to his anger, it seemed to dissolve. He took a step back and looked away, his once irritated expression now one of regret for getting so angry. "I... I'm sorry. I wanna do the right thing, and I don't know what that is. There's so much at stake."

Sonic put his hands up and shook his head, still smiling. "Well, let this data donor help. Your bro's gonna need a way out of there, right?"

"Yeah."

"The military won't shoot me. I'm protected, you're not."

Silver looked as though he wanted to argue against this, but he stopped. He sighed and rubbed his face with a hand as if suffering a headache. He couldn't believe he was accepting help from any organic, let alone this one.

"As much as I can't stand you, or trust organics for that matter... I... If you really mean what you say, prove it with your actions," Silver relented but held up a fist threateningly, "and take action like you mean it." He privately noted how similar he sounded to Sonic, and cringed a little at the similarities. That moment of hesitation was enough to tell Sonic that Silver was just being all talk.

So, Sonic gave a nod and turned to face the other robots that approached. "Think you can keep up?"

He was deliberately putting his back to Silver as a final test of the robot's restraint, masking it as cockiness with a casual stance.

Silver looked over his shoulder and found a grin spreading across his muzzle plate at the challenge. "Right back at ya, hedgehog."

"The name's Sonic, this whole "hedgehog" thing is gettin' kind of old." Sonic snarked back at him playfully and made air quotes around his "other" name.

"Whatever you say, spiny mammal. Now get moving before I get that programming itch again!" Silver made sure to disable his Sonic-tracking missiles after saying this. As convenient as it would have been to "accidentally" take the hedgehog out during their temporary partnership, it didn't feel... right.

Silver revved his engine, while Sonic crouched and prepared to take off. Then, at the same time, they took off in a cloud of dust and smoke. With their combined speed and firepower, they made short work of the remaining bots outside the fortress and moved on to the entrance. The two stood next to each other, looking up at the highly reinforced door that towered before them.

Sonic gave Silver a daring look, and Silver grinned mischievously.

"I know exactly what you're thinking. Strange, isn't it?" Silver re-activated his tracking missiles and lifted his arm. "Better be quick, hedgehog."

Sonic stood in front of the doors with his arms out, making himself a bigger target for Silver. "You've waited so long to do this, haven't you?"

"Eh... it's only been a few days to be fair." Silver stated with a shrug, then fired several missiles from his fingertips. "Think fast!"

Sonic zipped out of the way just before the projectiles could hit him, and as planned, the door was the real victim. The organic and robotic hedgehogs watched as the smoke cleared, both privately impressed by their speed and cunning.

The two entered the building in a streak of blue and silver. Silver immediately noticed that all of the cameras weren't working, and he smiled, knowing that Neo would have known to take them out. He momentarily got lost in admiration for his older brother's intelligence.

But now that he was officially disobeying Neo's orders, Silver felt a pang of regret. He knew Neo would tear him a new exhaust for risking himself right now, not to mention working with their sworn enemy... he shook his head as if to rid himself of the thoughts of Neo being disappointed in him. This would be worth it, if it meant that Neo and Mecha would get out alive. Neo would have to forgive him. With this in mind, he got back to work and knocked down a Big Foot mech, which activated its gatling gun a moment too late.

"Are ya gonna tell me how you found out about any of this?" Silver yelled over the sound of the robot toppling to the floor with a crash. "Or is that not part of your hero script, so you can't tell me?"

"Let's just say," Sonic answered him after he zipped by to destroy a turret, "I got a video postcard that made me re-think things."

Silver noticed that Sonic hadn't taken out the turret's generator and made sure to stomp it out. "I see." His expression contorted into one of disgust, thinking about Sonic seeing Mecha in his most vulnerable state. Again, he shook his head as if to rid himself of the thought. He almost wanted to chew Sonic out for watching it, but that was illogical for so many reasons.

The young robot stiffened and lifted his head as he noticed something. With a gasp, he threw himself right at Sonic and knocked him to the floor - a half-destroyed robot fired its gatling gun in Sonic's direction. The bullets pinged off of his armour just as he shielded Sonic with his body. His disgusted expression shifted to embarrassment as he pushed himself back up.

The two stared at each other, equally as surprised by the interaction.

"Never make me do that again, hedgehog! I'll be deleting this from my memory banks." Silver stuck his tongue out a little and brushed himself off as if dirtied from making contact with Sonic. "Gross..."

Sonic just smirked up at him as he watched the robot cleaning himself off. "I'm sure old Egghead can buff that out of your armour."

"His name's not Egghead, hedgehog," Silver corrected him and held out his hand, "That's my pops you're talking about so you better watch it."

Sonic went to take it and shot him a look. "Oh yeah? My name's not hedgehog!"

Silver sighed before pulling Sonic up just a little too hard on purpose. "Yeah, whatever, hog. Would you prefer "member of the subfamily Erinaceniae"? Or if we're spicing things up, how about arch enemy? Oh! Maybe organic opponent? Meatbag mortal? Fleshbag foe? Take your pick."

"Do you always talk this much?" Sonic simply asked with an ear flick, dodging the robot's insults entirely.

Silver hesitated as if deciding just how to respond to that, but his attitude came back with a vengeance. "Lemme add a classic "loathsome copy" into the mix. Thought you might like that one for the nostalgia."

"That was cheap. You didn't come up with that one yourself!"

Silver jumped up and fired a laser beam over Sonic's head at another mech that had entered from behind. "And you were too slow. Burn."

"Okay, you're on, robohog."

With their unspoken declaration of war, the two got right back to work clearing the way out for Neo and Mecha.

A/N: 1 to the 2 to the 1 to the 3 hello Sonic my loathsome copy