Ch. 6: Discontent

Silver Sonic blasts across the floor, leaning in like it's going in for the kill. Metal Sonic easily dodges, kicking off his heels backward and into the air. Silver Sonic slams into the wall, but as it turns, it's already too late. Metal Sonic spins into a ball, smashing into Silver Sonic's forehead, and sending him smashing into the wall that was just behind him. Silver Sonic tries to right itself, but Metal Sonic is already there. Metal Sonic drags a clawed hand across Silver Sonic's chest, causing the bot to shut down. Metal Sonic takes a step back, admiring his handy work. Suddenly he catches the familiar gleam of Silver Sonic's power source. The dull gleam of a chaos emerald glows red against his silver face, casting his red eyes in a brighter glow. Suddenly Metal Sonic feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns to see the burning orange visor that is Mecha Sonic's face, and the taller bot looks down at Metal Sonic silently. Metal Sonic growls, turning away from Silver Sonic, and pulling his shoulder from Mecha Sonic's grip. Mecha Sonic puts his hand down, the orange light of his eye drifting back over to his fallen comrade. As Mecha Sonic picks up Silver Sonic, the message of "Training complete" rings over the intercom. Metal Sonic crosses his arms, watching Mecha Sonic place Silver Sonic into the repair station. Metal Sonic makes an angry, but somewhat defeated noise as he watches the chaos emerald disappear under new plating.

Metal Sonic decides to focus on something else to be angry about. "Weak," he comments, looking at the dented body of Silver Sonic. "If only I could fight the real Sonic…".

Metal Sonic slowly turns to look at Mecha Knuckles, who is standing uncomfortably close, staring right at him as its engine rumbles softly.

"Gah" Metal Sonic makes a somewhat disgusted noise, as he moves to the opposite side of the room, over to the security screens. He flipped through the channels to the upper floors, seeing the second security team and its four bots. He stares at the purple one named CYBER, she is a robot built with a copy of his base code. The thought of having an actual conversation with another being of similar intelligence intrigued him, especially because of his boring predicament. Suddenly the screen in front of him is filled with the glaring visage of Dr. Robotnik.

"Metal!" The doctor shouts.

Metal Sonic tilts his head back as if to say something but gets cut off.

"As you were made aware in this morning's meeting, Sonic the Hedgehog and his little girlfriend Amy were fighting thugs this morning on the streets" Eggman places both of his hands on the table in front of him, leaning forward to create large upside down L's with his arms. "I need you to send Mecha Sonic down there and see if it can collect any DNA samples, get to it!" Without awaiting a response, Eggman shuts off the message, the computer monitor returning to a view of a now empty hallway.

Metal Sonic clenches his fist, turning to face his two subordinates. "Mecha Sonic, prepare Mecha Knuckles for an excursion" He walks to the middle of the room in a commanding manner.

Mecha Sonic clanks over to Mecha Knuckles, who is already waiting with his arms out to the sides. Mecha Sonic does a quick scan of Mecha Knuckles, and then turns back to Metal Sonic. "Mecha Knuckles' disguise is completely intact" Mecha Sonic looks back up at Metal Sonic as Mecha Knuckles approaches the door.

Metal Sonic stares, somewhat hatefully at Mecha Sonic "Go walk Mecha Knuckles out"

Mecha Sonic doesn't question it, he just follows Mecha Knuckles out the door. Once they are gone, Metal Sonic walks swiftly to the repair station, staring at the offline body of Silver Sonic. A little nozzle splits off from the repair machine and points itself at the spot on Metal Sonic's forehead where the blue paint was scratched off. Metal Sonic swats the nozzle aside with the back of his hand, and plunges his clawed hand into the repair machine. When he withdraws his hand, he's clutching a canister of blue paint. He lifts the canister and sprays over his scratched paint job. Once he's satisfied, he sets the canister back into the machine and watches with some amusement as the repair machine repairs itself. He scratches at his index finger with the claw on his thumb, removing the excess paint that dripped on his hand. He looks up from his hand when Silver Sonic's repairs finish. Silver Sonic's eyes come back on, and it swings its spiked hands and heads forward, dislodging itself from the repair station. It stares at Metal Sonic blankly. No hard feelings, except for the hate oozing from Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic turns sharply and marches back to the computer monitors.

"I wish The Doctor would scrap all of you" spits Metal Sonic. He reactivates the security cameras to watch the goings on of the base, particularly to stalk the new purple robot.

It was CYBER's first day of patrol, the four bots on the security team took an elevator all the way up to deck 1. As the elevator opens, Dextral and Sinister step out at the same time, shoulder to shoulder. The walls are a similar chrome color to the command deck, except for evenly spaced green 1s are evenly spaced out on the walls.

"Scuff, you've got newbie," Dextral says over his shoulder, walking down the hallway to the right in tandem with Sinister.

Scuff turns to CYBER. "We patrol in duos, or in my case, alone before you came along". His head is turned so that only the undamaged part of his face shows to CYBER.

"I have a question, Scuff" CYBER says curiously, circling around to reach for Scuff's damaged half. "Why don't you just repair your eye with the station?"

"It's complicated" Scuff places his hand over the bad half of his face and takes a diagonal step back to avoid CYBER's touch.

Suddenly they both turn when they hear a clang. Looking down the hall, they see Dextral standing with his arms crossed over a motobug that has been tipped on its side. The motobug flails its arms, as Dextral lets out a soft chuckle, Sinister watching with a cruel smile. Eventually, the two turn, leaving the motobug helpless as they turn the corner. Scuff glances over to the motobug, he walks over at a calm pace and places his right hand on the motobug. He tips the motobug back onto its wheel. The motobug doesn't say anything, simply briskly wheeling off down the left side of the hallway without so much as a thank you. CYBER walks up, her mouth open slightly in surprise from the tender act Scuff just completed.

"You want to know why I don't fix my eye?" Scuff says, turning his good eye back to look at CYBER.

CYBER closes her mouth, nodding.

Scuff nods in return "It's because… despite how much I may hate it, it keeps me humble".

"Humble?" CYBER tilts her head.

Scuff stands up from his kneeling position "I am well aware of the fact that I am not the real Shadow". He turns and starts walking in the opposite direction that Dextral and Sinister walked, gesturing for CYBER to follow. "Unlike the others, I am completely aware of this fact and am therefore capable of introspection" he rounds the corner, CYBER right beside him. "You see, all Shadow Androids attempt to emulate the real Shadow as best they can. I am no exception" his hand comes up as he walks, absentmindedly tapping his bad eye. "Dextral copies his rudeness and Sinister copies his coldness, but I know what Shadow is really like" he puts his hand down, stopping suddenly to face CYBER dead on. "I know that Shadow is secretly a kind-hearted individual" he faces CYBER with both his good and bad eyes now visible.

CYBER raises a metal eyebrow "If you know you are a copy of him, then why are you trying to, well, copy him?"

"There has to be a reason that I was modeled after him" Scuff looks straight up as if the fluorescent lights will answer him. "Other than him being the ultimate life form of course".

"Why do you think that he's secretly this nice guy when the other two think the opposite?" CYBER says, crossing her arms in a curious fashion, not a judgemental one.

"Because I have spent countless hours studying him, his actions in the bigger picture rather than just moment to moment," Scuff says enthusiastically, a bit like a fanboy.

CYBER was more focused on the first half of his sentence than the second half "Study him? How?"

"Oh, the computer in our security office can access the internet," Scuff says, calming down his fanboy rant.

"Wait, it can?" CYBER says, shocked and intrigued.

"Yes, it can," Scuff says affirmatively. "Now come on, we better get our patrol started before we get in trouble.

The two silently turn forward and begin walking, but silently this time. CYBER was immensely curious about the internet, and what information it could give her on that Sonic the Hedgehog.

Knuckles paced back and forth. "So, Tails, remind me where the seven Chaos emeralds are being kept again?" he holds up the Master Emerald, recently retrieved from the vault.

Tails puts a finger on his chin, reaching back into his memory "Well, let's see, both Sonic and I have one, both are in the vault". "Shadow has one, Amy's hidden one in her house, we gave one to Blaze, and we have Chaotix holding one" Tails scratches his head.

"Why don't we keep em' all together in case we need to use them?" Knuckles says, examining the Master Emerald with his newly calibrated night vision goggles.

"Because Eggman has the last one, and without all of them together, they're more valuable spread out," Tails says, hanging up some tools on the wall.

"Oh," Knuckles pauses, looking down. "That makes sense".

Suddenly, Sonic zips in through the door, the breeze that comes in behind him shuts the door without Sonic even touching it. "Hey guys," Sonic says walking nonchalantly into the workshop.

"That was quick," Knuckles says, pulling off his night vision goggles once again.

"It was already cleaned up by the time I got there," Sonic says, stopping to rub a speck of mud off his shoe with his other shoe.

"Really?" Tails said, turning away from his wall of tools and walking over to Sonic.

"Yeah, Amy was there, she had it handled," Sonic says, shrugging and shaking his head. "And of course, she asked me on a date again" he rolls his eyes.

Knuckles, holding the master emerald under one arm, points at Sonic with the hand that has the goggles in it, "C'mon Sonic, she's been chasing you for years, why don't you indulge her a bit?".

Sonic scoffs, placing his hands on his hips.

"Well," Tails says. "If you're so bored Sonic, why don't you try it?"

"Um…" Sonic looks around for anything mildly eye-catching in the workshop. "If nothing interesting happens in a week, then I guess I'll do it"

Sonic would only last five days.

Thanks for reading!