Metallic Need
Season 2: Chapter 2
By: Cutegirlmayra (It's difficult. Trying to do Tumblr Prompts and get those done while also wanting to go over my fanfiction edits and updates. I'm working on so many different things -Like Youtube videos and what not- But I really do want to get these things done. So, without further ado, here's the next installment of Robot Feelies~)
Omochao started scanning the unfamiliar and fake green turf. 'If I can destroy Neo Metal Sonic's base… he won't be able to rebuild his supports, or himself for that matter… That's what I'll do then!' Omochao looked confidently towards what appeared to be a slate leading into the compounds. 'This will help my friends!'
She continued to struggle turning the turf over with her still sparking frame, but she managed to move the corner of the turf off of the slate enough to slide it open.
"…Hmm?" She noticed the slate would have naturally opened through what appeared to be a magnetic signal. "Ah!"
She tried to access her old programming assets, and just managed to send a link to the wireless slate that had it fully expose the landing platforms below. They rose in layers, showing three…
Omochao, for some unknown reason, felt her heart ache.
"Ohhh…" He simulated an organic whine, slinking into the base and letting the slate close itself through her faint signal.
She floated around, afraid as her memories began to return to her.
Though it was clearly a new place, the dark and metallic surroundings were enough to leave her sorrowful. She carefully looked for cameras, scanning as she passed.
She froze and trembled in her robotic sockets at the repair rooms… "Uwh-ah-wah-wah!" she flailed her arms at all the instruments that could tear her metallic frame to shreds, bolting off down the hallway and keeping her eye lights as slits, hoping to just scan and not have to see anything.
She scanned the new electrical board.
She paused, turning to a door with a single 'x'd window in it. A small square… and a strange signal she felt from outside…
"Is this..?" Omochao held itself a moment, "No, no… I shouldn't do this to myself! I should find the main electrical room and-"
SIGNAL IDENTIFIED: METAL AMY RESTIGSTERED.
Omochao froze.
The words blinked on her eye scanners, then showed a faint pink blob moving within the room, sitting on the ground, and looking around.
Metal Amy's scanners also triggered the same response, they belonged to an earlier model, but how could that be?
She turned to the door.
The two stared at the steel wall between them… confused, intrigued…
For one, it was an entrance to what she could only calculate as a great flaw.
For another,… the exit to freedom and all she had ever longed for… Whatever was on the other side, was hope.
"Who's there?" Metal Amy rose up, her metal alloy that allowed her to emote and move like an organic effortlessly lifted her weighted ton body as though she were a fairy, and her synthetic hair gracefully flowed with the new movement.
Her eyes, still shining green, continued to scan the little blue blob her scanners had picked up on.
"…I know you know." She stated, carefully taking the clothes around her and pulling them in front of her, "I know you sense me."
Omochao didn't want to conclude what this all meant. What Neo Metal Sonic had done. What horrible existence this poor replica must have endured at her expense.
But it wasn't her anymore.
"You don't know me. You can't know me… huhrmm…" Omochao's noise was from fear, not wanting to accept what could be beyond that door… "I'm… I'm Omochao now!"
"…O-? Omo…chao?" Metal Amy tilted her head, "Like the teardrop lifeforms? The transforming energy that the God, Chaos, protects? But you're robotic, and my techonology—limited as it may be—knows who you are."
Omochao shook its head, "That me is just memories now… just wants and desires, there the past! They're not who I am anymore! I'm Omochao! Omochao!" The robot couldn't handle all these complexed emotions being triggered by her heart programming. It gripped its head, not willing to listen.
Metal Amy could hear the different vocal patterns, the simulated emotions, and immediately her eyes widened and the green light intensified. She raced as far as the chains would allow her too. "Please! You have to get me out of here!" the desperateness of her voice… could it… be?
"You… You sound organic." Omochao stopped shaking a moment, though her propeller kept her airborn, it began to falter slightly as her energy waned.
"Get me out of here!" Metal Amy pushed against the chains repeatedly. TANG. TANG. TANG. Loud echoes of what Omochao knew only to be torture responded in her mind with each struggle from Metal Amy's actions…
"No… No, no! This isn't my fate! I escaped! Tails saved me!" she shook her head, "I'm Omochao! I'm Omochao!"
Metal Amy, on all fours, kept shoving against the chains holding her back. TANG. TANG. "Help me!" she pleaded. "You and I are one!"
"No!" Omochao turned away, her bulgy hands grabbing her teardrop head that mimicked that of an ordinary Chao.
Then, her scanners picked up on movement. A dark blue blob showing up on the location where a signal was being sent to the slate.
Metal Amy froze, her eyes showing terror, "He's coming… his battery is low… the others didn't make it." She looked to the chain, tugging on it repeatedly. "Urk! Ha!" she kept fighting, even being beaten, this meant that some part of her survived Metal Sonic's revenge.
She might not have completely lost.
She might not have lost her freedom yet.
"Omochao," She lightly called, "Run!"
Like a deer in the headlights, Omochao's eyes remained glowing a low yellow towards the main hallways entrance.
"Omochao!" Metal Amy cried out just a bit louder than before, but the base began to come to life. Lights flickered on in the giant electrical storage unit she was tied too. A raining torment she knew too well…
"He'll need me…" her eyes dimmed just like Omochao's as she looked to the electrical balls that slowly lowered from the top of the roof… the electrical spikes that twirled towards them from the sides, and the electrical shocks that they sent to the giant receptors.
Her eyes trembled… "Get out of here…" She muttered. "Please…" she retreated quickly to her last position, remaining like stone and moving her fabric exactly back to how it last was registered in her memory.
She gripped at her legs and held them up close to herself, seeing his signal approaching, and shut her eyes closed with a clank! of her metal eyelids.
Omochao shook out of it, looking around for a place to hide itself and its signal.
"The black ceiling vaults." Metal Amy indicated and sent a close-ranged signal to her, showing Omochao that above the ceiling was a way to keep the electricity from blasting through to the outside.
If Omochao hid behind them, the electrical current, and any signal for that matter, wouldn't be detected.
She took one last look to the door… before flying up and removing the ceiling as stealthily as a little robot with no fingers could, suction-cupping it with magnetic force to her hands and then moving it away and back as she entered inside it.
Just like Metal Amy had stated, the installed vents weren't meant for airflow, but electrical flow. She knew not to touch the slate, and quickly positioned herself on a beam just above it.
She peered down, using her detection scanners to connect with the electrical pulses being sparked from inside… and watched the blobs from within…
Suddenly, the black slate triggered and her signal was bounced off, now the signal kept disconnecting and reconnecting, making her head hurt at struggling to keep herself hidden but able to see.
'Guess I'll use my hearing…' Omochao rubbed its head, but then powered down to save battery and shut down all unnecessary movement.
For now, it was survival. A waiting game…
The door had a complicated system keeping it highly secured and unlockable… but that made the anxious anticipation of it all even worse on Metal Amy.
She heard the clicks. All the knobs and screws unbolting from their place.
Then the harsh sound of the door slamming against the inside wall, and the two husks of metallic bodies crash to the ground.
Neo Metal Sonic walked with poise and purpose… adjusting the metal plating around his cuffs back into their proper positioning.
He just stared at her… in quiet rage.
She didn't know what was on his mind, but she knew what the drill was… She kept herself huddled in herself, now aware that company was present…
Neo Metal Sonic paused, looking back to Metal Knuckles and Metal Tails's bodies, "…Haven't I assured you before?"
She flinched, turning her head away.
He briskly strode over to her, flapping his cape around his waist back and grabbing her head, yanking her up to his blaring red eyes.
"You won't ever have to suffer their fate… I've already destroyed all that you made of yourself once… you are now completely my creation… but look at you, still grasping the air of lost—errored—data like a phantom for some past life."
Omochao listened for the harshness, the metal hiss… but his voice was completely robotized… or was it?
His eyes drooped down, "But you wouldn't know anything else… would you?"
His words caught her by surprise as Metal Amy's eyes opened and she looked up at him.
Did he know..?
He stared at her… "Do you?" his grip on her bendable bangs and hoist her up more to his leaned-in height. "Would you!?" his arm, like a hooked rope being thrown to scale an ancient castle, secured itself around her waist and forced her up to him even further.
The sound vibrated through Omochao, but due to her systems being shutdown, her physical being didn't react…
'So… Not all of his obsessions are destroyed.' Omochao concluded, and for the first time in a long time, she thought of herself as Metal Amy.
She pictured her previous form, gripping the edge of the pipe, looking down at the electrified black slate that kept the energy in the ceiling of the other room from escaping, and also simultaneously powering the rest of the base's facilities.
The other her, however… was within the grasp of her mortal enemy.
The robot that created her, sickly adored her, and ended up destroying her once and for all… at least, that's what she had once thought.
Before all this…
What did he salvage? How could he have salvaged it? Her chip… her body… it didn't make sense.
She had supposed Tails's wireless download was all there would be left of her, but now…
Omochao figuratively shook its head free of such thoughts, 'It can't be… does he know who I am?' It corrected itself, 'W-what… I was?'
His anger subsided somewhat, as fast as it had come, it had simmered with the sparking whiplash of the antenna above pulsing the electricity through the conducting balls that magnified the electrical reach across the room… but for now, it was only above them.
"No…" He loosened his grip, letting her go and petting the top of her head as he stood. "How could you know…"
He let the tip of her hair begin to fall in sections, letting his finger curl under it and glide across it as it descended back into its bent position that resembled Amy Rose's appearance.
"That's why none of this…" He moved away from her, "Is going to make any sense to you…" he moved to the electrical box near the door, "These two still have energy left over… let's drain it… shall we?"
He clicked in some codes before turning to look over his black shoulder guards towards her, gripping a switch as each finger slowly and with great precision took its place to land a firm grip on the lever…
Metal Amy watched the sadistic eyes dim its glow… She closed her eyes in defeat as the electrical spikes began to descend when he slammed the lever down and electricity began to fire like a beam spread along the two sparking balls that cascaded lightning down, more powerful and dangerous than the electric shower ever could manage, more spread out than its small tubed space from before… and lastly, the electrical beam that the spikes now carried…
Neo Metal Sonic grabbed the two scraped bodies and threw their heads to compile around her. They barely bounced, due to their weight, but the heads rolled as much as they could without being stopped by their protruding metallic noses, all situating around her.
He was out of the beam's fire, but fully turned and folded his arms, waiting for the part he enjoyed the most…
Metal Amy's eyes opened to a thick, deep glare that seemed to penetrate through him.
If she wasn't careful… he'd know what they meant.
But instead, when the electrical beam finally reached her, she arched her back and cried out as the millions upon millions of small, vibrating antenna inside her body electrified inside of her and began to store, painfully, the electricity in a burst of light.
Her body, made to conduct upon an unimaginable scale, absorbed the electricity in a spectacular light. Her soft fabric was lighting up like flickers of white static that one would find if they skimmed their leg under their covers in the night. Her body glowed with the excess electricity as her joints sparked and body twitched under the impressive display of electrical conduction.
Once the beam cut off, the electricity transferred successfully, Neo Metal Sonic arched his stride around the beams, eyeing her for what he had seen.
He hasn't seen rebellion in her for a long,… long time.
She refused to be emotional around him, just a silent robot slave that huddled in her corner, refusing to be interesting to him.
But in that moment, that one glare, a passion soared through him.
That error… he thought he had disciplined it appropriately long ago, but something seemed unmastered and undetained… as though he refused to fully lose it's touch.
The electric sparks of lightning fell around him but never touched.
Her body twitched with the bolted sparks that were so great, it barely could remain in her body.
Like his own personal amusement, he lifted up his claw, "And now, you are alive!" he laughed at his joke, knowing full well that's not what she intended when she wanted to feel organic.
Omochao couldn't bare anymore, but knew it had to save battery. Curiosity plagued the little robotic, and the terror of his monstrosity, the contraption of epic portions were more than she thought his ambition or reasoning would ever be possible of.
It was more than an obsession now…
It was pure madness.
He fell to his knees in front of her, grabbing her cheeks and having the electricity spark through his arms as he reeled back, his engine reeving and fighting through the hot electrical intake to lean forward and shove her face to him, moving around as to conduct further smoke and electrical transfer while she recharged him.
Even though Omochao couldn't see, it knew. It knew without a doubt what existence her double-ganger must have been put through to please such unrobotic hungers.
Pure evil … She couldn't even fight anymore…
Metal Amy endured the touch, the pain, and was surprised by how aggressive this go around was.
He must have been referring to the machine known as Omochao, if it was a part of her that survived, then it would make sense why he was using her as a conduit for his unchanneled errors…
The scrapping sounds of hot metal against one another gave great emotion to Omochao. This was far worse then anything she had endured, and the way her replica pleaded…
It was too much.
The electricity from the two balls suddenly began to focus, one tip to another, as the lighting honed its points onto the most conductive metal in the room…
Metal Amy cried out again as Neo Metal Sonic dug himself closer to her, his engine chest grinding against the sides of her soft hide and tearing into where the wires and other metal frame lay… but he didn't stop there…
His hands pierced her back as the new opening created a pathway for the entering lightning to fling out like bullet hole wings behind her.
The metal below magnetized towards the air… as the spikes accended, so did they…
With Metal Knuckles and Metal Tails's corpses spinning and turning in the air around the two, Neo Metal Sonic continued to recharge as Metal Amy was once again the revolving door of pain of pleasure.
Absorbing and distributing.
When the sparks show subsided, Neo Metal Sonic held her limp frame that continued to spark with added quakes while Metal Knuckles and Metal Tails flopped back to the ground, burnt and blackened by the whole ordeal.
With just enough rubber coating, Metal Amy's exterior looked rather unfazed by the electrocution other than her stomach now ripped in a circle and her back having torn holes now gapping with electrical shocks that ran all over her body. It was like skipping electrical snakes all along her form…
When the magnetism subsided, Neo Metal Sonic's flames from his jetpacks engaged, lowering them to the ground… safely.
He enjoyed the electrical aftermath, after all, her systems would be fried for awhile… so he could enjoy the light shocks as he pleased…
"Haa… not today." He seemed to be cutting the session short, pretending to breath out a sigh of relief before skimming his head over her own.
"I have an nuisance to capture." He gently laid her down, "But I'll leave this filthy trash with you." He gestured to the metallic scrap littered around her. "Consider it… company." He flourished his long, jointed claws as though making a comedic joke again.
He began to depart, as Metal Amy wobbled while trying to pick her upper-body off the ground.
There was faint sobbing… Omochao's systems didn't turn on till the door shut and locked, and Neo Metal Sonic's heavy footfalls disappeared down the hallway…
Omochao turned everything on then, shivering and whimpering as it flew towards the door.
"That electric shower…" it began, nervous to speak with her after such an ordeal. "Even I couldn't have survived that immense recharging… are… Are you okay?" she called from beyond the door…
Metal Amy, still recovering, flinched at that realization.
Actual company…
"I… I never wish to feel again." She was so out of it, but the sparks slithered along her back and made her groan in distaste at their sensation. "He wants me to feel it all… the pain and the pleasure… the torture and the love…"
"That's not love!" Omochao sped up to the window, though worried about security, so she didn't touch it.
"That's error!"
"What would you know..?" She slowly turned to the door, "Unless you were me."
"I'm…" Omochao still didn't want to admit it. "I'm Omo-"
"No, you're not." She stared at the figure at the door, too hurt to care about its image.
It was free. It was beyond the door…
"I may be functioning… but I'm no better off than them!" She gestured to the fallen robot pieces around her. "I'm just a toy… an imprisoned victory relived time and time again… but you… you are free."
"I'm Omochao!" Now it didn't care, it placed its hands against the window, banging on it.
"You're the one that he wants to capture… aren't you? But I'm the original chip… He salvaged me. He spared the heart system and twisted it to his ways… But you… You are-"
"Omochao!"
"Free! Free to never have to feel or be used and humiliated! You haven't fully lost everything… you're not a slave to his desires!"
Omochao shook its head repeatedly, pounding on the window. "No, no, no!" Omochao began to flee, its primary objective was to destroy this place, not get caught up in a puppet's drama!
But… it couldn't help it. She couldn't help it. It was all too real to back down from.
Of course she didn't want to be tortured like that. Of course she didn't want to imagine a universe where she wasn't saved by Tails's ingenuity… But she was forced too now.
She hovered back towards the window, spacing out as she looked at the needles across from one another on opposite sides, envisioning the moment she had heard and what must have occurred.
"…Divert your eyes, then. Leave me to my suffering." Metal Amy turned away, unable to keep trying for mercy… "We're all robots… I was foolish to have wished for more. Metal Sonic was just trying to enlighten me the matter. He may be an awful master… but I would have been happier if Eggman had constructed me."
Such blasphemy, if Neo Metal Sonic was still around to hear it.
But Omochao's heart programming couldn't bare this ugly scene any longer.
Omochao looked down, "You… You want revenge?"
Metal Amy's eyes streaked across the space, turning rapidly to Omochao, "Yes. More than my own existence. I would give anything to destroy him."
Omochao thought about this…
"But that's what ruined you last time. It's not about revenge or destroying. It's about enlightening the other back… even by force, if necessary."
"I'm not programmed for forgiving." Metal Amy's eyes turned red. "As soon as I get released, I will rebuild myself with all the weapons I have been denied. I will claim my pure heart system back, and then… then I will blast this base and all within it to smithereens!" she clutched her fist, the electrical sparking intensifying at that center-point.
Omochao shook her head, "I only want to free you… show you a life outside of this pain and madness… I want… to give what I have and share it with you."
"So, then,... you admit you are me." She looked up, "The me that got away…"
"No." Omochao simulated taking a deep, chest-filled breath. Then eyed the window with a savage look, "I'm Omochao!"
She rammed herself against the window repeatedly, knowing it was hard to break, and self-exploding wouldn't be the answer right now.
With each hit, her systems did cause an explosion, scrapping off more and more of her outer shell and leaving the grey roots of her being exposed.
Metal Amy watched the struggle, amazed that she would actually self-sacrifice to help her other in this time of great need.
"You're…" she paused, her eyes shifting back to a green glow. "You're dying for me…" a new care she had not felt before lit up her systems and caused some joy to ring through her antennas.
She stopped sparking, deciding to store the energy… she would need it,… after all.
"Don't stop… keep pushing!" The chains had held her in place during the magnetized portion of the charging, but now they were back to heavy weights that she tugged at and tried to break free from. "Re… Rraugh!"
As the two struggled, Metal Amy noticed some pieces of the fallen support could add her escape.
She took some apart and began to take the heated metal, and with the gap in the chain squares and the hard exterior of Metal Knuckles and Metal Tails's parts, she was able to strain and rip the red hot metal just enough to leave it weaker.
She then grabbed one of their feet and tore it off, banging against it to try and break free.
Then it happened.
She turned to see Omochao had exploded through the window, landing on its belly and trying to desperately crawl towards her.
She abandoned her previous attempts at the chain and crawled towards her too. If a robot could cry, she would have been bailing by now. "Omochao… you… you're…"
She laid on the floor and reached her hand forward, desperate to be free, and longing to know the life Omochao must have had.
Omochao continued its pathetic crawl towards her, its gears making considerable noise as it tried to slowly get up and inch closer. "Find… Tails. Tell him… you're..." As she continued, she sparked with a low battery.
The top of her head, the part where the dark blue and top of the head meet, popped up slowly as her eyes plating moved with it. Below, the lights of her eyes, and once Metal Amy finger tips could just barely reach, a microchip clicked out with just enough space to clear the gap and let Metal Amy's two fingers grip it. "You're Omochao… now. I'm Omochao… Ooommoochaooo…"
As Omochao powered down, a true sacrifice for the sake of her newly found 'tragic sister', Metal Amy quickly placed the chip in her memory slot.
All the wonderful memories left her with uncontrollable joy and sorrows. Grateful for the data, she also deleted some of her own data and replaced it with Omochao's heart data, and then, the data from Tails.
"Finally. At last. This nightmare can end!" she was now a true hybrid, but with the prominently tortured side still present and dominant over her other memories she now possessed.
She transferred the heart system to her other memory card, plucked it out, and inserted it into Omochao.
She finished breaking the chain and held Omochao close, having a newfound respect and love for the body before turning her attention to the scrap metal around her and the large, horizontal electrical spires…
"…Now your nightmare begins… Neo Metal Sonic."
In the control room, Neo Metal Sonic was fixated on finding Omochao. Through recorded footage, he couldn't find a single point of evidence that assured him it was backup data that had survived.
But the image of Omochao raising its head up, Metal Amy's exact action when defying him once and for all… it made the oil in his wires boil and tumble over itself.
He still had oil for other purposes, even in this form. It meant he could still explode from Sonic and his friend's assaults, but it didn't faze him. He wouldn't explode, but Sonic might.
"The design is so worthless!" He could barely stand watching the blue insect in the footage, growing more infuriated at its patheticness. "It's illogical! Why would she pick it over mine own? Mine was of pure brilliance and necessity!" He raised a hand to look at it, seeing it twitch as though longing to possess her in that form again. "She was glorious!" He spiked the control panel, his electricity short-circuiting the rest of the board.
"Gah!" he withdrew it.
"SYSTEMS DETECTING ERRORS. DECONSTRUCTING ERRORS RAPID GROWTH NOW."
Behind him, another computer engaged, as cords rippled through the air and connecting into him.
"Hmph." He lifted his arm for one of the cords to connect, "Make it quick…"
He was limp for a moment but then rebooted, seeming to clear him of his 'simulated emotions'.
"Now, where were we…" He turned to the now fuzzy black and white screen of the main computer. "Find me that blue pest…" As the cords detached from his body, a robotic hum sounded through him. "If I had two batteries… Two rooms…"
"SYSTEM DETECTING ERRORS. DECONSTRUCTING-"
He threw an energy blast behind him, not even looking as the computer exploded and he once again adjusted the cuffs on his arms, positioning them to be less crooked.
"Computer, give me a location… not excuses…" His voice sounded metallic… but there was something off-putting about the recent drainage of data he had just endured…
However, as the third computer booted up, it revealed to the side of him that there was no sighting of the robot…
"…It must be cloaking my technology." He concluding, watching the radar scan and the images flash around with the signal Neo Metal Sonic had obtained beforehand. He knew he could connect with her… but how?
He tried, but nothing.
He folded his arms, not liking to be patient…
"Where are Sonic and his friends?" His face remained emotionless, looking to the corner of his eye as the computer then showed him a familiar scene…
Sonic and the gang were moving through the forest, looking for any sign of Omochao…
"He's not here, either." Amy's defeated tone turned Sonic's attention to her.
"Don't worry," He gave her a thumbs up and iconic wink her way, "He's a tough little guy! We'll find him."
"I don't know…" Tails put down his device, tucking it away into his tails. "If Neo caught on to who she really was…"
Sonic smiled, walking over to his friend and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "He doesn't. Trust me." He based this off his previous battle with him. "I'm sure the little tike just got lost somewhere."
"You insist we refer to Omochao as a robot, but I can't help but thinking 'He' isn't the right way to address her…" Knuckles chimed in, kicking over a rock in annoyance. "We've been trying to keep her secret for so long. Isn't it about time we ended this already!?"
"Any idea where Metal me keeps all his stuff?" Sonic lowered his eyelids and shrugged out his arms and hands, showing Knuckles how ridiculous that sounded. "Look, M.A. is a cute nickname, but even Tails said it would have been to obvious. Omochao means Occupied Metal Outlet Chao, right?" Sonic turned to Tails.
"Umm… basically, I wanted it to be an escape for M.A., but I didn't have the material or technology to craft her into what she once was. It wasn't really meant to cover her or anything, just to keep her free, you know?" Tails gestured with his hands before Amy shrieked.
The three turned as she pointed to the lifted turf of grass. "I think… I think I found their hideout!" her eyes showed her surprise and slight hesitation, trembling with the uneasy feeling that death could be right below her. "I knew I didn't like Metal Sonic, but this Sonic's even more deadly than the last!"
"Well, that's obvious." Sonic sped over to her, patting her back for a job well done at finding the untraceable base. "One of them we race with." He teased, "The other we race against the clock to deal with."
"Enough jokes," Knuckles grumbled, looking down at the steel slate and punching at it. "HEY, METAL FACE. OPEN UP AND FIGHT US LIKE A REAL MAN!" he continued to pound into the metal as Tails quickly intervened.
"Knuckles, stop! It's not a doorbell and we really don't want him knowing we're here and found his base!" Tails waved his arms around, looking worried at how much noise Knuckles was creating.
"Besides, he's not a 'real' anything." Sonic mimicked the bunny ears and then nudged Amy, silently chuckling at his own joke as she just smiled fondly to him, almost dipping into herself as if saying, 'Oh, you kid.'.
"Let's worry about M- I mean, Omochao for now, okay?" Tails held his hands out with a sweat drop on the side of his face while Knuckles clenched his teeth down and subsided.
"Hurrfh. Fine then. But I thought we were doing this to get our buddy back, anyway. Does it matter if he knows we're all here?" He looked to Tails, then to Sonic.
Sonic gave a lighthearted smirk with a charming tilt of his head, as though he wouldn't mind either way. He was here for the fun of the fight, not minding how the fight would happen, only that he would emerge victorious after the fact.
He was more engaged about the process though, as Tails may explain it.
Amy worriedly put her hands together, turning to Tails and walking over to him, causing all eyes to be turned to her.
"Please… I can't bear the thought of what he'd do to her if he found out she was still alive…"
The other boys's ears dipped a little, but quickly perked up as they bent their head down in nods and looked away.
"Don't worry, Amy." Tails responded, solemnly.
"That's not gonna happen." Sonic leaned into her eye-line and winked, bringing energy back to the conversation.
"Yeah… one scratch on her head, and we'll have him licking up dust from the trash heap!" Knuckles cracked his knuckles, bursting with fighting spirit as well.
Sonic turned to the slate, "But first… let's give him a friendly hello."
"We should make a plan-" Tails began, but Amy cut him off.
"First." She finished his sentence, giving Sonic a kind look as though saying, 'You know not to rush in, let's talk about it.'.
Sonic frowned at her subtle meaning, and rolled his eyes, turning to Tails with a pout on his face. "And what exactly do you want us to do?" he complained, but gave in to the slight coaxing.
Tails's face lit up, pointing up a finger, "I've got an idea!"
"You always do." Knuckles rotated his shoulder, getting ready before folding his arms and giving a hardy smirk to match the atmosphere.
Amy cutely tucked her hands behind her back and leaned with a tilt, eagerly wanting to hear as well, but deciding to remain somewhat in the back of the group.
"So they found me…" Neo Metal Sonic couldn't hear anything, but he wondered why the tarp was moved in the first place. "Never mind that, they're here now…" He went to prepare before the computer sounded again.
"SYSTEM BREACH. CONFINING ALL POSSIBLE ESCAPES."
"What?!" He stepped back, seeing the entire room blacken as black steel doors slammed at different rhythmic speeds around the room. "They're not in yet, and that pathetic fox boy doesn't have the technology or sense to break through my code… What's going on… Computer!"
In the repair room, Metal Amy's eyes shone red as she hung with robotic arms with different contraptions on them rebuilding her form.
"I know I shouldn't be obsessed with power…" she muttered, another piece of her ripped out, and the receptor antennas begin broken off and yanked out of her being. "I know I should want to enjoy this perfected heart of mine… sing songs and pick daises with it…" the machines mercilessly made fast work, the blueprints on the screen showing a hacking software while simultaneously creating a new form based on Neo Metal Sonic's design.
"…I'm aware and grateful for all the lives that I've lived… the experiences they've shown me." The machines finished as the cords released her, oil and defensive plates molding from hot liquid and being adjusted onto her without so much as a hesitance while they soaked her in the metal alloy that steamed off her hide, destroying the synthetic makeup of her previous tortured form.
"I'm done chasing after what Amy Rose had that I didn't… I'm ready to embrace the metallic entity that I am. No exceptions!" She burst through the cooling metal that began to solidify over her as the machines then started charging out and opening channels for her eyes, ears, and every other place that created her image.
She still had Amy's look, but it was sharper. The angles of defensive plating and obvious weaponry were much more visible, less for appearance sake…
She had the black cape crossed over her chest and flare out behind her, the spikes on her shoes and wrist bracelets as well as her dress's tips. The plating matched Amy's dress, but the sharp black shoulder guards and long black slate dipping down from her waist and sitting on the dress was very much reminiscent of Neo Metal Sonic. She had silver arrows and her quills were now upwards and elongated.
"It's time for a new life!" She spiked out her hands, sharp claws to match his own deadly pair… "I'm tried of being defenseless! Tried of feeling! I'm jealous of his power, but of what all my other forms had, too! Omochao had friends… My first creation's life could choose against her programming… now… I'll have the power to torture him!"
She was coated and panted in a matter of seconds, spreading herself to be finished and then garnished with a shine.
"If he worships my design so much… then what will he flatter about my own reinvention?" She looked herself over, pleased with how she turned out.
And best of all?
No pain.
Suddenly, the reoccurring thought as she began to see her reflection in the metal walls…
'Don't fall into this again… It's a rollercoaster you know doesn't end anywhere near where you'd like to envision it does. You'll only hurt yourself more. Please. You know better than this. All life desires to be just that. Life. It's a basic need. Shelter, food, even love and friendship. To be understood and understand another. To be appreciated and to be appreciate in return. Metallic or not, you need your heart. Don't ever forget, you're Omochao.'
Her eyes bent as she looked at the weapon she had made herself into.
"I'm…" she looked at her hands, stretched out in front of her as her red eyes turned green again with a soft hum.
'Don't accidentally,… because of your abuse…
…Become him.'
Her eyes blasted red as electricity sparked from her core and instead of an engine, a hammer morphed from her chest with the alloy she had obtained. It was very reminiscent of Metal Sonic's copy and morph ability, liquidizing metal to form a new shape.
The red of her chest retained its red pigment and shape as a newly designed Hammer with its own functions now constructed itself, bending and locking into place with the hot, liquid alloy.
Once solidified, she held a stance, fixing Neo Metal Sonic's location in her scanners and grabbing Omochao's form that had also been repaired exactly as it was.
With something even more deadly harbored inside it.
"I'm Neo Metal Amy, Now. And no system on this miserable planet is going to change that!"
At Eggman's base… The booby traps that would have killed any normal passerby didn't trip up Eggman. He played an oldie but a goodie on his headset and seemed to ballerina fiasco the place up with dance moves and all.
Tripping the wire on purpose only to throw a bomb and shimmy back to his giant digger machine and continue his unstoppable advance deeper into the mine.
His head nodded to the music as he relaxed back after hacking and outsmarting every trap and gadget thrown his way.
Then the computers lit up the screen with a thousand lights.
He grinned as the lights bounced off his teeth.
He turned off the music and looked back behind him.
There seemed to be the rusted Metal Tails and Metal Knuckles robots. Another version long abandoned?
"With how Metal treats his subordinates, it's not hard to imagine." Eggman thought out loud, "I used the scraps of the last Metal Silver Sonic to create that annoying SA-55 but the leftover sass was too much. I suppose..?" He grinned over to the husks… "Nah, I've learned my lesson." He started to move on…
"Yonk!" he grabbed both of the metal bodies and threw them in the back. "Hmm… It's not like I didn't like the orb shape of SA-55… But I wouldn't mind a square look either…" He began to design in his head as he dug further.
But then…
"What the-!?" His digger hit something, something so hard it wouldn't budge back against the granite nor be broken by its spiraling force. "This alloy hasn't been too terribly difficult to mine, otherwise, Metal wouldn't bother, hohoho!" He mocked his last creation but then squinted through his glasses to see a faint red glow…
Then stripes of black.
Then a magenta glow as the reality around Eggman began to distort, and his computers began to file reports of strange portal-level power, the magnitude of which could rival that of the Master Emerald.
Then Eggman looked… intrigued.
Metal Sonic, waiting outside as though bored without expression, had his arms folded and face facing away from the cave.
When the reality shifted, he turned his head and positioned himself at the front of the cave. The doctor's life force was unchanged, so he wasn't activated completely, but he looked to see a small Rosy the Rascal behind him.
She cutely stared at him.
Having reviewed previous data from his other self, he tilted his head at this strange apparition.
It held a heartbeat.
She smiled sweetly at him.
He fixed his head back into place, found a flower morphing into reality through the unknown power's energy, and went to pluck it.
He handed it to her.
She took it, excitedly smelling it.
When it moved from her face, he held up the ray gun on his arm and fired it at the flower.
She stepped back, appalled by what he had done, before he lowered the gun.
In his mind, it was so predictable.
'To gain your trust is like giving food to a stray.' He communicated electronically, but the little hedgehog girl didn't seem to be able to pick up on the communication wave.
He angled his head down… turning hostile.
'I'm not interested in anything other than being the best Sonic created… and to do that, I must make her trust me…'
Another bundle of three flowers appeared at his feet, and not taking his eyes off of this strange, scared little girl—he bent down and plucked them.
In one grab, he held all the flowers in his hands, and extended them to her.
Her eyes reflected the bright, windmill flowers in his hand, but she shook her head to him, and turned her face away.
'…Good.' His eyes blared. 'You've taught me that you don't fall for the same trick twice.' He let the flowers go, falling to the ground.
'Since she was based around you… I must calculated carefully. Strategize. I heard she once used it to survive… I'll use it to excel and best them all.' More flowers emerged, and he picked them up.
He stepped towards her, presenting them again. 'Now… Let's see how forgiving you are…'
To him, the flowers were like his previous metal lives. If she was hurt by the last two, then maybe…
She looked up at him, unsure.
He bent to a knee.
She looked confused, but selected one beautiful flower out of the bouquet of them, and then scurried off.
Cubes formed around the area… reality distorted further in unchecked power as he looked around, and the flowers glitches out of reality.
'…Excellent.' He let his hand flex out in a robotic way, no longer having to keep them in that form due to their non-existence now.
He rose up from his knee, watching her race away…
'If you can accept another form of that which harmed you before… then perhaps I can give you want you've always wanted… while also succeeding in my ultimate objective.' He stared at her fading image, watching it glitch out of existence.
'…What did he want in you so desperately?' he thought then. 'Illogical. Why would he value a counterfeit Amy Rose above his own objective to destroy Sonic? How could he dare object his creator, Doctor Eggman, and betray his own functions? He was errored from the beginning…' he folded his arms again, as the reality turned to Metal Overlord behind him and upon the cave, roaring fiercely as it reeled its head around and then concentrated on his lone frame…
Metal Sonic just angled his body in a snotty—I don't care—attitude at the monster.
'He considers this power?' Metal Sonic mocked his former lives, looking up at the contraption. 'She was right. Wit is far more powerful.' He then mimicked Sonic's wagging finger to the Metallic Beast.
'How foolish. Sonic would never consider power, nor love for that matter.' Metal Sonic then powered up and took off to fight his past…
'If I am to be a better Sonic… I must first be what Sonic could never be…' He dodged the attacks that blasted the ground below him, making him confused but curious about how this newfound energy worked.
He then spiked through Metal Overload, but it turned his spikes towards its back, where Metal Sonic then grabbed two of its wires and strangled the head into breaking and exploding.
He landed after the tricky, not even bothering to dust himself off as the contraption came crumbling down as fast as it had appeared.
Rapidly, Metal Sonic wasn't done yet.
He speedily turned it into scrapmetal, causing a ruckus of dust to form over the sky… leaving nothing to be seen, and only the noises of destruction to be heard.
Walking out of the dust cloud, he flicked his two, sharded claws together to make sparks at each snap.
'I'll become what he dreads to someday realize…' Metal Sonic then looked to the cave, seeing Eggman's heat signature reaching down and clumsily climbing down his digger machine to reach the object projecting living images that could hurt and feel.
He didn't blink, he didn't show any emotion.
'I'll become-'
He was cutoff when a giggle arose behind him.
He turned around, shocked by what he saw.
'No.' he stated.
The robotic Rosy the Rascal approached him, sparking her cheeks as though blushing.
'Stop it.' He glared fiercely.
Flowers sprung up in power and cubes that solidified into metalizied shapes.
He threw an arm up over his face, seeing her bend down to pick them up.
He was silent, his eyes shaking at her actions.
She took the flowers…
And presented them to him.
Though it would take time to mine the substance fully and shape it into a pure gem, Eggman was giddy with excitement and possibility. He was so glad to have found it~
He held its uncut power with black gloves and watched it shine and create a sound that vibrated through the cave, ringing all the way out to where a shaken Metal Sonic stood, cutting off its power and turning dormant again almost instantly.
Metal Sonic slowly… with great hesitance, looked to her and began to take the flowers… but then she was gone.
He looked to his hand.
'…Perhaps my flaw is thinking too much.' He concluded, not admitting that an unknown power source had owned his metallic thoughts and defeated him in his own scheming. 'I'll leave most of that to the Doctor.' He about-faced and folded his arms… but looked at his hand again.
It was as though he was still wondering… Wondering why he bothered reaching for the flowers in the first place… if they meant he was falling for his own deceptions?
"My, my…" Eggman beamed from within the cave, his eyes shining with the redish, magenta glow of the object he held in his hands…
"What a ruby."
(It truly is a rollercoaster. What do you think? Is the timeline shaping up for ya, yet? Stay tuned for more exciting and perilous action-dramas in… Metallic Need!)