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Ch. 3 Blueprint
Metal Sonic had to concede, Dr. Robotnik's plan was brilliant. A plan that not only drew on the collective weaknesses of the Sonic team but was also inspired by Metal's own superior design.
"This CYBER, will they be assigned to my team?" Metal Sonic said, a slight tinge of too much hope creeping into his voice.
"No no Metal" The Doctor grins at Metal Sonic, seeing straight into its deepest thoughts. "The plan requires a delicate touch, not the stark influence of you and your dour teammates"
"CYBER will be working with the Shadow Android Squad. Unfortunately, there are only three left, but the team composition will be a fantastic environment to collect the traits that I want" The doctor peers up at his completed design for this new master plan.
"Two of the Shadow Androids are still basically mint condition, still believing that they are the only true Shadow. But the third has that reality shattered from their cracked optic, they know the truth." The Doctor presses a button, and the most wicked-looking 3D printer ever made boots up. "That balance of two bots still under my control, and one who has a few defects will be the best environment for this AI to develop its own 'defects'. Defects which I will be manipulating to get the ones that I want."
"Then I am not needed?". Metal Sonic begins tapping his foot again at the apparent uselessness that this whole scenario brought him.
"You are dismissed, but you and your little team will be needed when the time calls for it". The Doctor smirks and with a sideways kick of his legs, swerves his chair back around to face the computer monitor, and the monstrous 3D printer behind it.
This signified the end of the conversation for Metal Sonic, so he turned to leave with a swing of his arms. Metal Sonic activates his engine, and floats out the door with a slight lean forward.
"What did I expect?". Metal Sonic rolls his red eyes as the door closes behind him.
Dr. Robotnik pulls his goggles back down over his glasses as he watches the sparks fly off of the robot printer in front of him. Starting at the base it prints molted metal into the shape of almonds and begins building up into a curve, emulating the shape of the shoes that many Mobians wear. Each foot was smooth and red, with a white strip across the top. The simple design is broken up by a miniature turbine like the one in Metal Sonic's chest, except it jutted out the top of the foot and ran through, out the back of the heel. After the round ankle joint, the leg runs mostly straight, but the entire outer casing is squarely ridged all the way up to two more bearings for the knees, but on the front of the knees are two red discs that act like kneecaps. The leg then continues with its previous pattern of ridged metal, before connecting to a conical waist, giving the illusion of a skirt. The conical waist points up, stabbing into the round segment that makes up the chest, looking like a slightly smaller version of Metal Sonic's torso. except that, very much like the waist, it is painted a deep purple color, except for the turbines in the chest engine, which are yellow. Two bearings painted a lighter purple make up the shoulders, and connect to arms that look much like the legs, plain ridged steel, with elbows that look like red buttons. Leading to four-fingered hands painted white like gloves. The whole robot is topped with a neck with the same ridged texture and dull steel color as the arms and legs. This connects to a round, Mobian-like head. On the back of the head is a row of five spikes pointing down, above that, a row of three spikes pointing down, and finally near the top was a single spike pointing up and out. The whole head is painted the same purple color as the torso, except for the eyes and the area around the mouth. The face was structured much like a normal Mobian, except the eyes were black with red irises, and the area around the mouth was the same dull steel color as the arms. The face included a mouth and eyebrows, fully capable of expression. On the left side of its head, painted in orange, is the face-like symbol of Dr. Eggman. Overall it looks like a completely symmetrical, robotic, noseless, female hedgehog Mobian.
"Perfect". Dr. Robotnik smirks and then leans down towards his keyboard. His nimble fingers type loudly across the keyboard for about five seconds until the words "Uploading Data" appear on the screen.
—-
Metal Sonic flies slowly down the hall away from Dr. Robotnik's lab. Metal Sonic's engine whirred softly, the cruising speed at which he was traveling didn't require much output from his engine to maintain. His clawed fingers tinked against his palms as he clenched his fists. He wasn't exactly eager to return to his team. They were all dull and weak. The only bot possibly worth talking to was being built by his boss right now, and Metal Sonic wouldn't be able to interact with them. The Shadow Android team wasn't one that he and his team crossed paths with often, and even then only from a distance. Two of them were your average Shadow Androids, but the third was aware of just how fake it was. Metal Sonic considered that third one, the one with the cracked eye, to be the most like himself. Except for a few things, the android is dumber and weaker than he is and it seems to have little will to live, which Metal Sonic doesn't respect. The other two are stuck to their basic programming like every other robot in this facility.
"Typical". Metal Sonic grumbles to himself. He couldn't believe it, a robot with similar mental and physical abilities as he was being built and he wouldn't even be able to interact with it. Not only that, but the robot was going to be programmed to like Sonic.
Metal Sonic sets himself back on the ground and switches to walking, he wasn't keen on getting back to his metal subordinates quickly. He was this close to ruling the world, but now he's just another guard robot with a mountain of obedience programming. He was sick of it, doing the same thing every day, being the boss of other robots who have little more sentience than a toaster. This whole situation was beneath him, and he was tired of being cooped up. In an act of aggression, his engine whirrs to life, and he rises quickly in the hallway, aiming to smash his body right through the ceiling. He was going to bust out of here, away from these useless metal halls, and he was going to find Sonic and he was going to kill him!
Unfortunately, halfway up his obedience programming kicks in and his turbine cuts off. He briefly arcs upward through the air before arcing back downwards and colliding with the ground. He skids for about 20 feet before coming to a sparking halt, laying with his arms limp on the floor. Metal Sonic slowly regains control of his functions and stands up, one hand goes to his head. Not because his head hurts, but because his blue paint has been scraped off from where he skidded across the floor. He turns back, his red eyes focused on the long scratches down the hallway from where he skidded to a halt. The Doctor would definitely notice. Metal Sonic begins making his way back to his post at a faster pace. He hoped that the Doctor simply laughed it off as his obedience programming functioning as intended.
As Metal Sonic enters the security room that houses his team, Mecha Sonic looks up but doesn't say anything. Mecha Knuckles and Silver Sonic don't acknowledge his entry at all. Mecha Sonic stares at Metal Sonic as if to say "How did it go?". Metal just grunts somewhat angrily and tilts his head down and away, somewhat like a suspicious teenager, trying to hide the scraped-off paint. Mecha Sonic looks back down at its feet, letting the subject go. Metal Sonic marches over to his charging station and plugs himself in. He glared across the room at Silver Sonic since that useless hunk of junk was powered by a chaos emerald. Metal Sonic wasn't, so he has to plug himself in periodically. He may have been a bit hasty in his moment of rage, where would he even go? Even if he was capable of escaping of his own volition. Metal Sonic settles himself in front of the single security monitor that adorns the security room and stares at the blank hallways. A Badnik here or there clunking its way towards its objective. But Metal Sonic narrows his eyes as he watches the squad of Shadow Androids make their way down a hall, which he calculates is in the direction of Doctor Robotnik's office. Most likely on their way to fulfill their role in the twisted plan the Doctor had concocted
