After losing another fight to Sonic, Metal Sonic was lying on the ground of the forest near Tails' workshop, trying to get up from it in confused annoyance. His left arm was injured with a dislocated shoulder, and most of his body had various dents on it from the fight. Sonic rolled his eyes and said, " Why do you bother trying to fight me anymore? I've beaten you every single time! You're obviously never gonna win! So why don't you just give up and quit embarrassing yourself? "
Succeeding in standing himself up, Metal replied unhappily, " I told you, it's because that's my purpose in life. It's why I was created. My only goal is to defeat you. " He stood up while holding his arm in pain.
Sonic rolled his eyes and said, " And then what? " Metal was about to run off and return home when he realized what had just been said. " Huh? " he said in confusion.
" What do you plan to do after I die? I mean, sooner or later, I'm gonna die, whether it be because you somehow killed me or I died of old age or whatever. I'm not gonna live forever. So what are you gonna do without me? Have you thought about what you'd like to do in the case that your number one priority gets taken care of? " Sonic questioned with his arms crossed, having no respect for him at all. He wasn't surprised at all by Metal's confused reaction. Metal Sonic had never thought about what he'd do if something ever happened to Sonic. More importantly, he had never thought about what he'd like to do if something ever happened to Sonic. " Um... " he replied in confusion, looking unhappy at how he hadn't even considered what to do after that.
Expecting this reaction, Sonic rolled his eyes at him and said, " Haven't thought that far ahead? " Metal shook his head reluctantly. Sonic deadpanned, " Of course not. You know why? Because you're just another one of Eggman's mindless robots. You don't think for yourself, because you can't think for yourself. You can't think about what you'd like to do outside of what he's told you to, you don't have any independence in that regard, because you're only a slave to your programming. And you wonder why I think I'm better than you. You can't think outside the box! You're just a machine. "
" I'm not a machine! I'm a robot! There's a difference! " Metal Sonic exclaimed in annoyance. He disagreed with everything Sonic had said, but that was the most important one. He didn't want to believe he was only capable of doing what Eggman wanted him to do. " If I can't think for myself, then why was I able to lock Eggman in a room two years ago and face you myself? He never programmed me to do that, but I decided to on my own! He doesn't control me! I have my own mind! I can make my own decisions whether he wants me to or not! " Metal pointed out in annoyance.
Sonic scoffed and said, " And what did you do after that? Exactly the same thing Eggman did that he always failed miserably at. You weren't thinking for yourself, you were just doing what he did, and taking his goals as your own! You never wanted to take over the world, Eggman did. Even if you did try to be independent, you'd just imitate your master instead of being your own person like you should be. Because you can't be your own person. That's why you never thought about what you'd do after your number one priority was dealt with, because you don't have anything you'd like to do other than kill me. What would you do? Face it, you'd be lost without me. What if the thing that did me in wasn't you? Then you'd spend your entire existence having never fulfilled your purpose or proven that you've somehow surpassed me, because you never got the chance to defeat me! What if Eggman somehow killed me with one of his traps? What if I got ambushed and killed by one of his weakest robots? " Sonic chuckled, knowing how unlikely that was to happen.
" That'll never happen! " Metal Sonic exclaimed, looking more panicked than angry at him. Sonic's words really were sinking in. " Why not? " Sonic asked with his arms crossed, having no respect for him.
Metal Sonic deadpanned, " Eggman's an incompetent idiot who has failed at every attempt to kill you that he's carried out. Every single one of his plans has failed, even the ones that I was told to help with. And you are someone who possesses the amount of extraordinary luck that allows you to survive trillions of attempts on his life. With that in mind, the chances of an incompetent idiot like Eggman actually succeeding in killing you are pitifully low, especially with one of his weakest robots. " After insulting his master, he actually rolled his eyes, causing Sonic to smile a little in amusement and approval at Metal being smart enough to know that Eggman wasn't worthy of being admired.
" True, that is very unlikely. But if it were to happen, how would you react? How would you react to me getting done in by someone else, when you've spent your entire existence trying as hard as you could to beat me? " Sonic asked. Clearly having just thought about it, Metal Sonic gasped, twitched and looked stressed out as he said angrily, " I WOULD NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN! "
Sonic chuckled with a smile, causing Metal Sonic to look embarrassed and clarify resentfully,
" Not that I'd ever need to save you from anything, because with the amount of luck that you have, the chances that you'd get killed by someone other than me are at 0%. "
" Well, like it or not, Metal, I'm gonna die someday. So you need to start thinking about what you'd like to do if anything happens to me, because I'm not gonna be around forever, " he replied. And just like that, Sonic ran back home at the speed of sound, leaving Metal in the forest clutching his injured shoulder and looking stressed out.
After a few seconds, Metal Sonic sighed wearily, and went from annoyed with Sonic to worried. He started heading home, in deep thought about what Sonic had said. He was right. Sonic wasn't going to last forever. Whether Eggman managed to kill him by some sheer stroke of luck or he died of old age, Sonic was eventually going to die, and considering the amount of things that could potentially kill him, the likeliness that the thing that would eventually kill him would be Metal Sonic, was starting to look smaller and smaller. Sonic had said that one of the things that made him superior to him was the fact that he could think outside the box and make his own decisions. If he wanted to prove him wrong about him being superior to him, Metal had to make a decision of his own, one that wouldn't just be him copying Sonic or Eggman. If something happened to Sonic, one decision he could make was to choose to leave Eggman's side. Would that be the best decision for him?
He thought back to what Sonic had told him. " Have you thought about what you'd like to do in the case that your number one priority gets taken care of? " Upon thinking back to that, Metal was annoyed at just remembering how condescending Sonic was when he said that. His tone and facial expression and body language were all conveying his opinion that he was looking at an inferior version of himself. He couldn't stand the idea that he was inferior to Sonic, a pathetic wannabe obsolete from the day he was made, and the idea that Sonic had no respect for him upset him even more. Ever since his first loss to Sonic, that possibility was constantly on his mind, to the point where he was obsessed with proving it wrong, and it made him miserable.
But one of the things that really stood out to him about that condescending question was the word, " like. " What would he like to do? It wasn't just asking him what he would be expected to do, or what he would be obligated to do. It was asking him to think about what he'd like. What decision about his life would bring him satisfaction and enjoyment? If he thought purely about what he was expected to do, then he thought about what Eggman programmed into him as his number two priority; serving Eggman, which right now and probably forever meant helping him in his futile plans to take over the world. That was what his number two priority was expected to be. That was what he was expected to focus on if anything happened to Sonic. But was that what he'd like to do?
Did he like working for that idiot? No. He was okay with it at first, mostly because of his selfishness and apathy making him not care about Eggman's evil deeds as long as he did nothing evil to him. But seeing Eggman fail again and again and again for years made him lose all respect for him. And part of the reason he failed was because he didn't try as hard as he should've tried at accomplishing his major goal. He seemed content with just toying with Sonic and playing around with him, trying to have fun while accomplishing his goal out of hedonism and arrogance, which only served to make it easier for Sonic to defeat him. He remembered being told that the reason Sonic beat Chaos 6 was because Eggman thought it would be a good idea to drop onto the Egg Carrier things that could freeze and harm Chaos 6. It would be more likely for Eggman to win if he actually tried as hard as he could to accomplish his goal instead of just looking at the simple solution and thinking, " No, that would be anticlimatic! I need a plan worthy of my genius! " and then thinking of a plan so overcomplicated that it fails to work, failing to account for everything, leaving himself open to failure. Metal thought about how Eggman kept sending inferior robots after Sonic while only sending his " greatest creation " out once in a blue moon. Why? Was it because he failed, and so he lost a lot of faith in him, to the point of being reluctant to ever use him again? Then why did Eggman repair him to begin with instead of just scrapping him like he did with Mecha Sonic, and why did he keep using robots and techniques that failed him instead of improving?
He didn't like working for Eggman. The man was an idiot. Helping him take over the world was what he was expected to do, but it wasn't what he would like to do. How could that imbecile make a competent ruler of the world? He couldn't even run a city, let alone a planet. So his delusional incompetence would only make the world worse. Metal Sonic sighed and shook his head thinking about it. Sometimes he was actually embarrassed to be on the same side as someone so stupid. He didn't find it satisfying doing what he said, he just did it to avoid getting into trouble.
That was it right there. To avoid getting into trouble. If he angered Eggman by disobeying him too much, his personality would get reprogrammed, which he was creeped out by the idea of. From a robot's perspective, it was worse than brainwashing; it was having your identity ripped away from you and essentially killing you by taking away what made you who you were as an individual.
He remembered what happened after he lost the Metal Overlord fight. He was more miserable than he had ever been in his life. He lost all motivation to do anything. His confidence was shattered. He was so depressed that he told Eggman to scrap him because he was a failure. But Eggman refused to scrap him. He said to him, " Are you out of your mind?! I can't scrap you, you're my greatest creation! " He told him that despite what just happened, he didn't hate him, and he wasn't going to give up on him any time soon. His reprogramming of him got his motivation back and gave him back some of his confidence, but he failed to make him completely obedient to him like he wanted to.
Whether Eggman liked it or not, he still had free will. With the kind of advanced AI he was given in order to be able to be a match to Sonic, free will was something he had as the direct result of being able to make his own decisions. It wasn't just a byproduct, it was required. If Eggman made him completely obedient to him, he would have no choice but to put up with a robot who would only do something if his master specifically told him to do it. If he wanted him to fight Sonic, he'd have to tell him what to do in the fight first, and Sonic would quickly figure out his attack patttern and win through his sheer unpredictability, because while he did things on a whim, a robot with no free will would only fight by following a battle plan he had been given in advance. He would have no way to adapt to a new situation and solve problems all on his own, because he wouldn't make a decision unless Eggman specifically told him to. A robot with no free will could never beat Sonic.
That was why he was given the ability to make decisions on his own about what to do depending on the situation at hand, with his programming to defeat Sonic as just guidelines and suggestions for him coupled with the threat of punishment if he refused to follow them. He could adapt to a new situation and see patterns and problem solve, all because he had free will, which allowed him to make his own decisions. Sonic was wrong. He wasn't just a slave to his programming. He was more than that.
His programming was just a set of instructions that he could choose to follow. It was his instincts; he would follow them if he was made to make a split-second decision without being given the time to think about what he'd like to do. He could still choose not to do what he was programmed to do, because the programming of how he was supposed to behave wasn't forcing him to behave that way. But he had to think about it first; without giving it any thought, he'd instinctively do what he was programmed to. He'd have to spend a long time making a decision contradictory to or outside of his programming in order for it to be a decision he'd do without thinking.
But even though Eggman failed to reprogram him into being unquestionably obedient the last time, that didn't mean he wouldn't try to change his personality to make him admire him. Metal Sonic didn't want to take that risk. Was it worth risking such serious consequences just to make the decision to go off on his own if his number one priority was taken care of? He didn't care about his " number two priority " at all, but his number one priority was something he practically obsessed over, and if he fulfilled it, where would his motivation go if he had nothing left to motivate him? He didn't have the drive and motivation to want to dedicate the rest of his life to just helping Eggman take over the world; sooner or later, he'd snap and want out. The very idea of spending his entire life just helping Eggman in his futile plans sounded mind-numbingly boring. But was it worth it to risk going alone? His only other option was just destroying himself, which was starting to look like the best idea.
On the one hand, he knew that he didn't want to be stuck working for that idiot all his life. He didn't want to be cooped up in Eggman's base serving someone incompetent and not experiencing what the world has to offer. There had to be more to life than that. He could tolerate working for Eggman right now, but just the thought of working for him for his entire life with a goal that he didn't care about irritated him to no end. Eighty years or more of wasting his time helping Eggman with his futile plans? How would that be satisfying? It sounded mind-numbingly boring at best, and unbearably irritating at worst. He would eventually go from just rolling his eyes at Eggman's idiocy to being extremely annoyed by it and wanting nothing to do with it.
But on the other hand, there were still benefits to working for Eggman. That idiot gave him a safe place to live, and repaired him and gave him maintenance. If he leaves him, where's he gonna go? He's got nothing else and nobody else. While on principle he should've left Eggman's side because it was the right thing to do, was that really practical?
Where would he live if not Eggman's base? It's not like anyone would rent out an apartment to Eggman's most infamous robot, and he didn't want to be homeless and have no proper shelter from lightning storms and no safe place to sleep! He had to deserve better than that! In Eggman's base, he had his own bedroom with his own posessions. He didn't want to lose any of that! Having no home would make his life even worse, especially when winter came and he had no place to go for shelter from the cold. While it did require extreme temperatures to actually damage him, he was still programmed to be bothered by the cold, and the freezing winds of winter were not something he wanted to put up with on a daily basis. And since he'd be spending all of his time running from Eggman trying to avoid getting caught by him and reprogrammed, he wouldn't be able to have anything close to a home because he'd be constantly on the run. Would he even be able to sleep? Or would Eggman simply wait for him to fall asleep and then capture him at night? He might be able to find somewhere to hide to recharge, but what if he picked the wrong location? How could he even know what the wrong location was? Would there even be a right one? Eggman could find him anywhere on the globe. He wasn't going to be safe no matter where he went. Even Angel Island would not be a safe place for him to hide. He would send his mechs everywhere to look for him, and if the mechs that found him sent out a distress signal after finding out, his location would be revealed, and he'd have to find another place to hide.
What if he got damaged? What if he sustained damage while trying to avoid being captured by Eggman? Who would repair him, Tails? Most certainly not, especially if he actually succeeded in killing Sonic. Injuries would be debilitating, and sustaining enough damage to the point of deactivation would be inevitable and terrifying. Either Eggman would find him and scrap him, Eggman would find him and reprogram him, Tails would find him and reprogram him, or even if he did find the right hiding place, nobody would find him at all and he'd spend the rest of his existence as a broken down robot never waking up again. But at least if that happened, he'd get to keep his individual identity, as opposed to having it taken away from him and replaced with another one by being reprogrammed, suffering a fate worse than death. Eggman would send armies of robots after him to try and take him down, not to mention Sonic and his friends would be going after him as well, and he would only be able to evade them for so long; eventually, he would end up damaged to the point of needing repairs, or at best, damaged beyond repair, because then Eggman couldn't reprogram him and send him back to his miserable life as his robot slave.
If he left Eggman, he'd have to live on his own. He'd have no one to support him, no one to confide in, no one to turn to if things went wrong. If he went off on his own, while he wouldn't have to work for an idiot anymore, he'd still be suffering from the consequences of having no one, literally no one, on his side. He would eventually have to deal with the problem of unbearable loneliness, something that would wreck havoc on his psyche. He'd rather be surrounded by idiots than be all alone for the rest of his existence.
He'd have to figure out everything on his own. And while being forced to try to accomplish a goal he didn't care about for 80 years sounded boring, being stuck with absolutely nothing to do sounded even more boring. Even if he did go off on his own, what would he actually do to pass the time? While he loved the idea of being able to spend far more than just 30 minutes every day fighting - going from daily combat training to fighting mechs sent to capture him - he knew that simply fighting alone wasn't stimulating enough for him. What else would he do to pass the time? He wouldn't have all day to spend fighting, after all. So what would he do in the meantime? Trying to fight Sonic would be too risky, only serving to get him damaged to the point of needing repairs whether he won or lost, and resulting in him being found and reprogrammed after deactivating, costing him the freedom he briefly managed to get and barely enjoyed.
Independence meant the closest to freedom that he'd ever get. But was freedom worth being alone? Was freedom worth striving for if it meant a life of isolation, danger and boredom? If that was the only alternative to working for Eggman without the goal of defeating Sonic to motivate him, was Sonic being defeated truly something to look forward to? Would it truly be worth being rid of the burden of Sonic's existence on him if it ruined his own life?
Without Sonic around, he'd have nothing to do, no goals that he cared about that he could actually accomplish. He'd have no reason to live. True, leaving Eggman would mean he'd get to experience things he could never experience working for Eggman, but what would he actually do? Explore the world? How could he, when everywhere he'd go, he'd be pestered by Eggman trying to reprogram him, Sonic's friends trying to destroy him, and everyone else just running in fear of him and not letting him have any fun? He couldn't go out in public without starting a panic. He couldn't ever try to explore the world the way Sonic did when leaving Eggman's side would make him public enemy number one, with everyone from Eggman to Sonic and his friends to the governments of the world considering him to be a dangerous menace and trying to eliminate him at all costs.
He thought about the logical and pragmatic reasons against going off on his own, and sighed unhappily. If he got hurt, no one would bother to repair him if they found him at all. As much as it annoyed him feeling like he was surrounded by idiots, he didn't want to be completely alone. And while he would get to experience more of the world than he would cooped up in the base, he still wouldn't get to experience as much of it as Sonic. He'd be constantly on the run, from Eggman and Sonic's friends, the former trying to reprogram him and the latter trying to stop him from doing what they'd assume to be an evil plan. He wouldn't be able to watch TV or go on the Internet or read any books or anything, because he'd never get to have that kind of life with the reputation he has. Leaving Eggman wouldn't make Sonic's friends stop hating him, so he'd have no one if he left. All he would have as a reward would be a lonely existence where he would be constantly on the run from people trying to reprogram or destroy him, having nothing to do but run across the world looking for places to hide to recharge and fight off any mechs trying to destroy him. What was the point of that? He would be losing everything and gaining nothing. As miserable as his life as Eggman's robot slave was, at least it had some benefits. By leaving Eggman, he would lose the very few good things in his life, and replace them with even more misery.
His only other alternative to spending his entire life working for an idiot, was destroying himself as soon as something happened to Sonic, which was starting to look like the best idea. Perhaps he would jump into a volcano; there were plenty of those around. If he self-terminated, he would get rid of his problems in a way that wouldn't give him more suffering; instead, it would end all of it, albeit while ripping him away from the few good things in his life by making him unable to experience them or their absence. No matter what decision he made with his life, his life would always be miserable. The only way he could end his suffering would be to end it by destroying himself. He soon thought up a plan on how to do that. He would find a volcano and boost until he was directly over it while he was so low on battery that he would soon fall into sleep mode against his will, making him fall into the lava without being conscious to experience it or try to save himself. But he wasn't going to do that until it was absolutely certain that Sonic was dead. If anything happened to Sonic, he'd have no reason to keep on living, so the only thing he could do to end his misery was to destroy himself. That thought depressed him, but it also gave him hope. He finally had a plan.
Metal Sonic sighed wearily, having gotten back to home base, and decided that he would make that decision when the time comes. For now, it was business as usual. He was far from satisfied with the way his life was - completely miserable, actually - but the status quo still provided a form of stability to his life that seemed comforting in contrast to the isolation, boredom and uncertainty of trying to survive on his own. Unless there was a way for him to just go to a different dimension where he didn't have that bad reputation, there was no way that he could have a happy life. That thought made him angry, and made him envy Sonic all the more. As he went into his small bedroom with nothing but a bed, a closet, and a couple of books that Sonic had read, he grumbled enviously, " That guy has no idea how lucky he is... "