Metallic Need

by CGMayra

Metal Sonic breaks out with a vengeance, set on a new theory that Sonic's friends give him strength, he creates his own support units and plans Sonic's destruction. However, Metal Amy is fascinated by organic life, and wishes to be more like them. Can Robots really feel? (MetalSonicxMetalAmy)CONTAINS:Kiss/Makeout,Master/Servant,Villain Love-Story so Abuse/Violence,Torture/RobotKill

11. S2, Chapter 4

Metallic Need

Season 2: Chapter 4

By: Cutegirlmayra (I know it's been a HECKA long time, but it's because I finally got my goal of exclusive Tumblr Prompts —700+ or so—into one book, and I'm really trying to work on edits for older stories, mostly to prepare them for their season 2s or chapter updates. Please have patience, but I am trying to also write for my original works... Love you guys, and I just want to make it clear that... this story isn't meant to have 'naughty' themes. Its theme is reinvention for Season 2, and it does reveal and show control tactics as well as toxic behaviors of those that try to limit discovering ourselves. They are ROBOTS, lolol, so the most they could ever do is try and simulate a makeout sess XD

In other words, I'm self-conscious about how some are viewing my works, especially for this story.

You're safe with me, I'm not intentionally trying to write that. I want to stir intense suspense, drama that inspires curiosity, and depictions of exposing abuse as well as where trauma comes from and its vicious cycle in this story. At times, I do use the very popularized 'Addiction Pattern Writing Style' but in a tasteful manner, hoping it leads you to want to read the next chapter, and not put the story down. This is commonly used in TV Series and longer, episodic medias in professional television. This involves some form of sexual tension every 10-15 mins/pages to hook a viewer/reader. I did study and learn of these techniques during College, as it is a common tool, but I don't use it to the extreme of mature television and content.

I want to formally apologize if anything I have written has been seen under inappropriate contents. Romance is fun, villain's love stories are often layered with dark undertones, but I never mean to make it seem like something more than it is. Although there is a dark romance within this story, I wish to once again state that I—in no way, shape, or form—am supporting or undermining these manipulations and downright wrong tactics portrayed in my darker characters. I find it fun and enlightening to expose these, and also safely within robotic characters exploring counterfeit and simulated human emotions. This is meant for entertainment, and should be viewed only if you're comfortable with these tones being explored, but I assure you, they are ROBOTS and cannot do more than spark the other lol

I would say: Viewer discretion is advised, but at this point, you know I'm an innocent writer...

Right?

Was this all too much? I feel I over-explained myself... shouldn't I just... write what I want to write and if someone misjudges a scene, just carry on knowing I didn't mean for it to be taken in that way..?

... If you ask, I'll tell you, but I'm just gonna have fun and write the story the way it comes to me. So I am sorry... but I am also just practicing my writing, and trying to have fun like everyone who reads or writes! :) With that being said, please continue to enjoy and stay tuned for more of...

Metallic Need

Also! I based the actual game scenes as a combination of the Original Japanese script with the English-translated dub! Hope you like it!)

The creaking and rocking of the unstable car scrapped back and forth against the garage's filthy flooring. The car was flattening and would soon look like nothing more than a junkyard's squished and flattened rock. Sparks lit up the gaps of the door's edges and the outside flashed bright at random intervals.

'No... not again..!' Neo Metal Amy had shut her eyes, not wanting to witness being beat at her own game yet again. What had happened? Why was this happening now? After all that reinvention... careful planning and manipulating her programming, code, and even her physical capabilities to defend herself... How could he still find a way to trump all she had accomplished?

His steel, curved blades for hands that had been dulled down somewhat as was safety precautions had been secretly sharpened back up by Neo Metal Sonic. But he was carefully lining her side before slamming his hand to keep her back down under him. The thumping of metal... it rang like her prison... that hard and heavy sound... that had haunted her memory banks and overpowered the life she knew as Omochao...

Her eyes opened with a bright glow of red mixed with the sparks of electricity that spread out across her vision in lines of beautiful, dancing, jagged strings shooting out like the voice she blared throughout the space of the large garage.

"Never... AGAIN!"

It briefly shook Neo Metal Sonic from the simulated euphoria of the vibrating antennas, the 'feeling' he never knew of the sensation of charging and the electric whirlwind that previously, only Metal Amy ever experienced.

His eyes widened, he had been laughing in his own self-applauded victory at finding a loophole through this command channel, but now...

He was simply taken aback... by how adamantly she rebelled.

He was silent... even as a grave while watching her rise from her own tomb and push back against him with everything she had. It was... admirable... and left his eyes turning green as he slowly found himself being propelled slowly back by her raw, untapped potential of strength...

She pinned him down, and he felt as though dirt was surrounding him... as gentle as falling snow... as she buried him —still operational —within the dark doom of a slumbering time...

He would never get that Metal Amy back... would he?

This imposing,... beautiful creation before him was one he could have never anticipated. The unpredictability of her was always what he longed to control and possess, somehow make his own to profit from... but by being so fascinated and entertained by it, it had ultimately led him to improve upon it with each attempt, creating this unspeakably divine example of raw engineering and the product of such having a sentient mind that couldn't be stopped... couldn't be altered in a desired format.

The desired purpose... had evolved to one of a necessary objective... and her survival functionality taken to rival even his and Eggman's own designs.

She... could what she possess help him defeat Sonic? Destroy the legacy of his endless rivalry and need for triumph against his organic counterpart? What both he and Eggman had failed to create... was she...

"...My answer." Neo Metal Sonic felt his systems surrendering... as though losing energy as she sucked the very core of his battery to the point of experiencing the drain.

His hands twitched at such power... his eyes, remaining wide to take in a scan of her that never ceased, felt his eye-lights flicker as his head fell back somewhat.

"All this time... you've been steadily improving your functionalities... rewriting my perfect formula... to find the flawed formula that Sonic and his friends use to defeat me... Oh, how bitter I am to sweet time." He closed his eyes as she stopped draining, removing her hand and narrowing her sights.

"...This is a ploy." She rose her chin up slightly, "You are attempting to lower my guard by trying to find Amy's Empathy inducted into my coding... as I have observed her multiple times... you must know this to be apart of my new programming." She concluded... wisely... but then-

He chuckled, feeling his body sap out the car's flickering and sparking electricities from her foolish, reckless stunt of spraying electricity out from her back, leaving a trail of electric legs like wings that turned garage's electricities on and go haywire... including the car...

The radio scratched as he subtly moved his arm back and jabbed his fingers into the car's beddings, absorbing electricity back as he distracted her.

"...I know you..." he leaned forward, tsking a hand her hover by her shoulder as though to reach to cup her the side of her face again... how desperately he wanted to touch her now... With all the scaling, horizontal sparks swimming and leaping over metal around them... he wanted the sensation of 'her' and her electricity she could give him more than anything else now... but his mind still of Sonic's demise... and how she had solved the answer he had so wished to find...

Now... all he really did need... was her.

"I know how you have carefully tried to 'cure' me of my obsession to power and overtaking Sonic... how you show 'kindness' to me... Before..." He tilted his head, and by doing so, twisted his fingers into the car more, attracting the pulses of electricity still lingering into the conductive metal of it.

It felt so good... before was so amazing... like an iron rod absorbing the very lightning of the skies..!

He was hoping the sound of his head-turning would distract her from his plan, but her eyes went to behind him and he quickly took his hand to grab her head and lean directly up against her head —a risky move... she could decapitate him instantly. However... she did so love to hear him talk...

"Did you think that was all Amy Rose? You have your Objective, perhaps the ultimate one I gave all three of you foolish entities... but nonetheless, you're the only one that sought you're 'higher calling' compared to the other two..." he kept it vague on purpose, wanting her to want more...

"Wha... what are you speaking about?" Hooked.

She had reflexed a hand up to grab his own but stopped her hand at his strange words.

"Heh... All robots desire purpose." He simulated a faint chuckle, lowering his eyes as he noticed the obvious trend once more. "You searched Amy for purpose... you begged me for more than just one... and now, look at you... by throwing away your obvious intended purposes... you have inadvertently found mine." he took his hand off of her and leaned back, shrugging up with a gesture of his hand as though to claim this was matter-of-factly.

"You have just given me the very blueprint of Sonic The Hedgehog... of all living things..." He deepened his sharp, angular squint at her. However... there was an allure to his eyes... as though the look was more than just gloating... he wanted to praise her... but he wanted her to also be drawn into him and his thinking too...

"You're insane." She softly moved back, glaring deeper at him as she lifted a leg to push away from him...

"And... I created you." His eyes blared red as he widened them and leaned toward her.

He 'loved' that... seeing her try and continual escape from him... only made her more valuable a data compartment to him...

She was getting spooked, intimidated yet again that she had fallen into one of his elaborate schemes...

"You can never escape your purpose to me..." He shot up the hand behind him, turning his body to twist his torso and raise it high to stab the electrically webbed hand into her. "You are MINE!"

He went to attack, but she shot a large ball of energy out like a beam.

"I will NEVER allow you to control me again!"

"Highly amusing... for last, false words."

From her previous life, a blast of explosive power to seal what Neo Metal Sonic already knew...

He already controlled her thoughts,

Through the trauma she still fought against... every single day... with him beside her.

Steaming on the ground, his metal was burned and he twitched slightly as his 'consciousness' sparked back to on. "ERROR... ERROR... MUST DESTROY SONIC THE HEDGEHOG... FIND PINK HEDGEHOG... HE... HE... WANTS TO FIND HER..."

"...What?" Neo Metal Amy was at first looking at her chest, seeing he had successfully found a loophole to his programming, and had targeted to malfunction one of her core battery units. It could be easily fixed, just find a replacement, but for the moment... it did mean she could only use one battery appropriately.

... But as she lightly touched her chest, she panicked that he might have had a different target...

She scrambled rip through her chest and noticed that more was affected and left unrepairable... great.

She lowered her eyelids in annoyance.

She couldn't tell what he was firing at... she'll have to do a thorough search of components at a later date... he seemed to have reverted to a sub-sectioned operating system... a fail-safe?

She got off the now trashed car, looking it over and holding a hand to her arm... then over her exposed inners of her chest, some wires sticking out here and there that were truly going to have to be replaced.

She simulated a sigh, "...Forgive me... Amy Rose."

"THAT IS... THE ONE."

She looked over at the twitching and sparking robot... "...Neo?" she raised an eyebrow.

"NEGATIVE." it's eyes were just waves that kept coming at different angles and speeds as its head repeatedly twitched up... laying right before flinging up straight and back down. "I AM... METAL SONIC. THE TRUE... SONIC..."

She was frozen... then slowly approached and sat beside him.

In an almost empathic touch... she rested her hand on him... and lowered her gaze calmly to him. "... What happened?"

It was the question she had longed to ask Neo Metal Sonic... that she felt they all wanted to know...

"SEPTEMBER 23RD... EGGMAN COMMANDED ME TO CAPTURE SONIC'S UNDYING ATTENTION... BUT THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH. I WANTED IT MORE THAN DYING... I WANTED IT DEAD."

... This voice...

She covered her mouthslate and closed her eyes...

Metal Sonic...

He was still in there..? After all these years..?

Neo Metal Sonic never wiped his functions entirely?

Wasn't he ashamed?

Of his past life's failures?

Didn't it curse and plague him in every step since..?

She didn't look down at him, she just kept her head forward and above him.

She wouldn't look at him.

It was as though a part of his programming still exists that despised his past in her.

She simulated holding back tears, and opened her eyes with an angled down expression of her eyelids.

"...What happened?"

She repeated again.

"What happened... all those years ago... that made you like this?"

The robot's foot twitched and his head continued the strange tick.

"...Where did my errors come from, Metal Sonic...?" Her voice chip sounded as though cracking... as she leaned down to stare intensely in her grief. She gripped inside his engine and held him up as he went limp like a puppet, "How were you able to rewrite your own programming? Think outside of your own, corrupted computer box!?" she needed to know... it was true she wanted to know her purpose... but more so... she wanted to know where this part of her came from... more than anything...

"I want my answers, too!" she didn't know what he had meant when he said that... her code held the answer to Sonic The Hedgehog? It didn't make sense. She wanted to emulate Organic life, be as close to it as possible, that couldn't possibly help him destroy it.

Unless... he tried to wield 'emotions' as a weapon?

Couldn't only Organics do that?

He was more than insane if he thought he could replicate that from her own Heart Programming... delusional.

That wasn't sound thinking at all.

So what..? She knew him to be smart, so why wasn't he acting like it!?

Was it her downgrades in him? Did they limit his 'superior' knowledge and computerized intellect?

"BBZZZTT-VRRRR... DOWNLOADING MEMORY BANKS..."

She wanted in.

She wanted to know.

She leaned down and tapped open the quill that opened up her head box.

She took out a cord as though ripping off a bandaid and tried to rip his own head and eye apart.

Succeeding, she saw the eyesocket spark and turn off, but one eye still had wavy lines to show it was operating.

She stuck the cord in, fiddling around a moment before finding the slot to his mind.

She was terrified of ever doing this before... but it seems the 'Neo' part of him was 'fast asleep' or maybe she permanently damaged it.

Either way... she had to know.

She would risk everything she had accomplished to know!

At first, her vision felt like a wavy, static blur that grew up from the bottom of her eyes like the sea reaching the shore... she was dunked into a stable state of stillness,... only her head slightly fell forward as the rest of her became like hardened metal... stuck in place.

When the screens reverted to what looked like an old videocassette, she found the memory to be somewhat tarnished with the images glitching sideways at times... and then a single black line rapidly darting horizontally down the screen.

The image was large... his stomach almost covered the entirety of the two eyes, wide-lens screen...

Eggman's hands were behind his back, his nose down like a bird's, his beady glass eyes staring down in the harsh light ahead of him. He was looming, towering over the new creation. Metal Sonic rose his head somewhat, wondering why he was still on the operating table, and not already being put to good use.

"Your objective," The scratchy sound of old recording was barely hearable, but cranking the volume up only resulted in further annoyances of white noise and ambiance. Neo Metal Amy rotated the spinning gear on the side of her head, which was directly linked to the audio-ear speakers. In turned-clicks, and a bit of audio editing on her part, she was able to make the voice more clearer... and cut out the sounds of the metallic lab... shown in banging instruments in the background and sparks that spurted like weakened fireworks on his sides... the only light besides the blinding light somewhere beyond Metal Sonic... somewhere above and behind his laying head.

"-As you well know, is to find the weakness in and of Sonic The Hedgehog... as well as his strength." Eggman's voice to Neo Metal Amy was strange and unusually full of vigor... Was that because he was younger in years? Or his bitterness towards Sonic had become a tender obsession of will-powers and power-struggles...

Had Eggman not accepted his defeats yet either? There was a darkness to his tone... but one of merriment, instead of the usual frustration or gloating she was so used to... or at least, used to being described and seeing in her observations and other recordings of him.

Metal Sonic didn't even look at his restraints, but being fully robotic, he simply broke out of them in confidence and got up, standing tall and trying to loom over the Doctor... but at his size, it was pointless to try, even with the table.

'Proud of me.' Neo Metal Amy... could understand his thoughts? 'I will make the Doctor proud of his creation.'

She felt herself going silent... at such a familiar thought.

Tasked with defeating Sonic, he was also given the data of Sonic, having just been recovered from the volcanic pits Eggman thought he had lost to... but he wasn't melted. After carefully cooling the magma and extracting him, Eggman found the data had persevered though the physical form was useless now. The metal had perfectly encased the memory chip... He found that the metal he had used was not only flexible to craft it, but incredibly durable, even in intense heat... and almost impossible to destroy... except from the inside...

However, Eggman only had a small bit of that alloy, and had no idea where to find it sense...

'Metal must have this memory core metal to locate where it was upon the Organic's world...' Neo Metal Amy concluded, 'He then must have used that alloy to better himself... but... Since Sonic's victories... he explodes which destroys the outer shelling... but preserved the data within through the indestructible alloy the chip is made of... then...' she thought about how he hadn't destroyed her data chip... Was her data... No, it couldn't be!

Was her Data Chip the same as his old one!?

Why would he give her the old one..? Didn't he destroy her as Metal Amy? Omochao's chip wasn't indestructible...

Fear overcame her quickly...

It couldn't be that, because why would he have memories here and not within her own mind?

Did he craft another chip like his old one?

The questions lingered too long as the video memory continued, showing Metal Sonic looking for a way to properly introduce his return to Sonic...

Obsessed with besting Sonic The Hedgehog after his recent failure to do so, remembering Sonic extending his hand and struggling to try and save him... he felt that all Sonic did was pity him, and he wouldn't be a creation that was mocked in such a way.

He hid in a bush on Palm Tree Panic, his eyes glowing red as he analyzed the interaction between the two hedgehogs. His observations had confirmed that Sonic was this thing called, 'Kindhearted' and that meant he would act to save creatures that found themselves in distress accordingly. It was sound judgement, Sonic would immediately follow wherever Metal Sonic took him so long as he had a hostage...

However, something happened that Metal Sonic was not expecting.

As he moved up to fly ahead and hide, he saw the young pink, female hedgehog's heart palpitate irregularly.

He stopped a moment... Her vital signs began to indicate a high-level of dopamine due to her brain activity and the heat of her body produced more sweat...

And her face... contorted into a curved arch upon her mouth.

How... disgusting.

He hated the organic body and form, but... observing could prove useful in finding this so-called 'weakness' of the hedgehog species.

Instead of attacking right away, he followed the pair.

Sonic expertly jumped and ran at his usual fancy, but he noticed the Blueblur was only running at 43% of his capacity... was he strolling at his leisure? Did the environment mean he had to slow down to calculate more of his inferior organic brainpower, if it could even be called that, to manage the terrain? It wasn't that tough of a landscape... Metal Sonic had fought with him before, he knew he would be able to manage such an easy level of maneuverability.

Why... was he taking his time?

Metal Sonic kept hidden before looking to see the Pink Hedgehog was trying to keep up. 'Pathetic,' Neo Metal Amy focused more on his thoughts than the scene before her now... curious... why did this all seem so familiar to-... her existence? 'Why does he limit himself for the sake of weaker, inferior organic beings like himself?'

'Because they are more powerful together than you'll ever know.' Neo Metal Amy felt like huffing out. Being this close to his mind was incredibly uncomfortable... She was trying to convince herself she didn't want to learn about him... nor the way his thoughts operated... she just wanted to learn about herself, and her strange beginnings...

He hid in a cave from the opposite end, causing a cave-in to block his path out and leaving the spaces between a spiked trap the Doctor had set up previously.

Peering through the darkness and out into the spaces of those spikes, he watched as Sonic never looked back... but slowed down to stop in front of them.

He stretched before his ear flicked at hearing she was still behind him, panting but seeming exhilarated that she was able to still catch up to him.

"Hmph, quite a spunky go-getter... aren't ya?" Sonic pursed his lips slightly and turned to look over his shoulder, then winked with his iconic smirk. "Not bad, kid."

Metal Sonic watched as her face contorted again into an even wider opening of her mouth,... but it wasn't a smirk.

What was this? Her levels soared again... just from mere words of positive appraisal? What had she done that was so... praiseworthy, anyway?

He hadn't run at his top speed... the fool. Just a little longer and he would have been rid of the girl like the dirt that barely gripped and slid on his shoes as he ran... being led to coldly land against the dirt again... thus was how fast Sonic's footprint disappeared from the world he treaded on.

"Hehe~ Well..." She put her hands together, a foolish thing, it would cause more perspiration in her white gloves... Why was she not overheating? Organics weren't made with a natural cooling system... 'There!' he leaned his chin up, seeing the red leakage of color from her rising temperature upon her cheeks. 'She'll melt herself from the inside.' he thought that would be somewhat amusing... He knew what it felt like to melt on the outside... not the inside, though.

"I am your biggest fan~" she twisted her body and although spreading out her hands, kept the fingers interlocked to the side of her, turning her form and locking her knees further together...

This was a terrible combat pose...

'She's feeling admiration and love for Sonic The Hedgehog.' Neo Metal Amy felt like scolding him... but for some reason, thought it was plainly obvious now. With all her new data on Organics... well, she could understand him not comprehending... but it was just... so easy for her to deduce now.

'So... this is what Amy Rose looked like when she was a young Hoglet?' Neo Metal Amy found that strangely amusing as well, 'She certainly emotes the way she still does today... but perhaps, with a bit more balance and grace.' She then wondered... 'Do... Organics have to learn these social behaviors overtime? Like... their emotions as well? I never thought about age and the 'growing' aspects of Organic lifeforms other than their minds... could it be... that they learn through trial and error? Are they not just... programmed to try and try again until they succeed? And if so... who teaches them such tactics of socializations and mannerisms?

Was there... something here that Neo Metal Amy had missed? In all her observations... she couldn't fathom that an Organic invented themselves through time... not just their natural bodily feelings or sensations?

Does that mean... all creations... could somehow master their own form of 'Wisdom' through experiences?

She returned to the recording of history as Metal Sonic seemed more and more fascinated by the strange behaviors he was watching through Amy Rose... unable to perceive what they were.

'...Even with all his knowledge on Sonic The Hedgehog... he couldn't comprehend life... could he?' She felt herself listening to his thoughts more and more. 'He couldn't... because he only saw himself as a robot with an objective... he never cared about anything else... if you could even call it caring at all.' She tried to ignore him then, just watching Amy Rose interact with Sonic The Hedgehog.

It... reminded her of her old studies of Amy Rose... that gave her a sense of contentment, as though this was something familiar that didn't weird her out.

Just... observing Amy Rose...

'She should be a nuisance.'

That line snapped her out of her momentary simulation of 'happiness'.

'What?'

She listened back to his thoughts, perplexed by—what she felt—was an accusation.

'Sonic decelerates for nothing... I know this. It is a part of his data that fuels me to being the better, undefeatable Sonic.'

'...That... wasn't his objective?'

'Doctor Eggman has tasked me with destroying him.'

'... He tasked you with discovery,... are you following your previous objective?'

'I am to be the only remaining Sonic in the Doctor's new world... He wishes to end him, and if I complete that ultimate goal, I shall, at last, prove my worth to the Doctor.'

'... He...'

Neo Metal Amy felt... was this... stunned? He longed to have the approval of Doctor Eggman... so much so that he began to think more of Dr. Eggman's objectives than his very own...

This was... too similar to her own beginnings. It made her want to stop watching, not hearing this... she wanted nothing to do with Metal Sonic... nor Neo Metal Sonic for that matter!

Little Amy Rose rocked herself back and forth, holding her hands behind herself now and giggling. "You're so cute~" she chimed and raced over to-

'... What is this hold movement?!' it bewildered Metal Sonic, seeing her wrap her arms around Sonic's and lean her head under his own.

'... Affection.' Neo Metal Amy couldn't understand why she was answering his questions... she knew he couldn't hear her, it was just a prerecording of his past... then why... did she feel so obligated to give him answers? 'It's a hug, Organics do so to show feeling, such as joy towards the companionship they feel with the other creature, or as a way to positively reinforce their interaction for the other to benefit from as well. It's... an outward expression of the desire to remain bonded... to that other Organic.' ...She had learned so much... but it still somewhat pained her to know she would never receive a 'hug' from another robot. Only Organics... knew how to be so kind.

Metal Sonic was furious. This weak, inferior hedgehog made absolutely no sense to his intelligent mind. Her actions held no reason... unlike Sonic, who ran to protect and be 'kindhearted' as was his programming to be so, and what was hers? To be a waste? To aggravate..?

Then again... maybe there was something he wasn't seeing?

Metal Sonic used his head to break the spikes ahead of him, bursting out from the cave he had tunneled and closed shut behind him previously and wrapped a steely arm around the girl.

"Woah! What!?" Sonic stepped back a second, confused.

Metal Sonic held Amy Rose as she let out a cry and struggled... he watched her... having mimicked her 'holding' gesture from before, just using one hand. He needed the other in case Sonic or her attacked... not that she would be much of a worthy fight for him, anyway.

'...I see no benefit nor harm in this gesture.' he concluded, deciding that her gesture was a foolish sign of submission to her superior lifeform... He then looked back to Sonic The Hedgehog. '... It is useless. But perhaps... She can still prove a useful tool.'

"Sooooniiicc!" She cried out, "Help me!"

Sonic's eyes shook... not from Metal Sonic's presence, but from how he was still—"You're alive!" he cried out.

Metal Sonic loomed over him in the air, still gripping—rather easily, he would add—the struggling pink Hedgehog in his arm's hold.

He didn't gesture anything back, and Sonic clenched his teeth.

"Let her go, Metal Me... I can't say I'm not glad to see you're alright, though." Sonic gave another—what Metal Sonic thought was a mocking smirk—before Metal turned around and began to speed off with his booster jets. "H-hey, wait! Metal Me!" Sonic took off, as Metal Sonic had no thoughts after that point...

'Hmph, typical.' Neo Metal Amy tried to emote in her thoughts, 'Sonic The Hedgehog showed you Organic kindness and you refuse to acknowledge it, but dismiss it the first opportunity it presents itself? I can see how you despised me... clearly, I reminded you of 'kindheartedness', isn't that right, my old Master?' She was growing a bit heated now, too... when Amy offered kindness, she tried to take it. Though hesitant, she never really wanted to hurt Amy.

'Why did Eggman's approval mean so much to you? Why did Sonic The Hedgehog's kindness mean nothing in return? Was it another 'sign of weakness' for you to accept and even submit to his 'Kindhearted nature of wanting to protect and save' you even after you've tried to destroy him? Over what? Simple words of acknowledgment from another Organic being?!' She was furious... but was it at him..? Or herself? 'I had once sought the approval of you... but you are a robot. That would still be an impossible task... Could... Could Eggman have acted robotically towards you?' she was suddenly on another train of thought that left her more in the dark than ever before.

'You're not inferior...' she didn't know why she was speaking so gently all of a sudden. 'You're just... different.' she found her thoughts suffering to stay mad... but instead... felt almost a kinship towards his insufferable foolishness...

Metal Sonic flew over to Eggman, holding with two hands now the prized reward of his abduction.

"...Hmm?" Eggman looked a bit intrigued but also confused, "NO, NO! I wanted you to get the OTHER Hedgehog! The blue one! Blast, are you broken!?" His words caused Metal Sonic to back up... as though a child feeling reprimanded... he didn't understand him. "Well, then keep her! It will catch his undying attention, regardless if that be you or the girl!" he hollered, then stroked his mustache as he moved his Eggmobile forward and closer to her. "Hmm... and your name be, child? YEEEOWW!" Amy wiggled a hand out of Metal Sonic's arms and death gripped his mustache, pulling about half of it off.

He blinked as he pulled away and then softly let some tears go as he looked at his mustache. He then quickly spun and suddenly looked like he was at the hairdressers, stroking out 'extensions' to his mustache with a hairdryer over his bald head and an animated towel over his shoulders. It looked as though he was at the salon... more than a barbershop... though the lights on his Eggmobile reflected that of the red and white stripes before he spun around and that side of his mustache sparkled and shined.

He leaned, confidently over his Eggmobile as though no harm was done before Amy pouted and dropped the strands of hair she had retained and pulled again the same amount.

Eggman yelped and gasped, covering his mouth from an even louder tantrum, "GET HER OUT OF HERE!" he stomped his other fisted hand against the Eggmoblie.

Metal Sonic wanted to tell him his plan... but just dropped her as she went screaming down in her freefall.

Eggman watched a second, slowly leaning over his Eggmobile... then popped off again, "NOT 'LET HER GO' YOU NINCOMPOOP! FIND HER, and USE the insipid girl to lure Sonic into my trap!" he pointed to what many Eggbots were working on... Stardust Speedway.

Metal Sonic looked down at the falling, screaming girl... There was a part of Sonic's data still active in his programming... but he refused to acknowledge his decent in 'rescuing her' as anything more than the Doctor's commands.

'The Doctor... was like the word Master to you... wasn't he?' Neo Metal Amy felt she had seen enough before feeling slightly jolted at Amy falling, but glad and relieved to see she was rescued. She still wasn't happy with Metal Sonic... but at least Amy Rose survived her encounter with him.

That... was all that really mattered to her.

... Not Metal Sonic figuring out Organic lifeforms and their reasons for their actions... right?

She kept observing as Metal Sonic mimicked Sonic The Hedgehog's bridal-style hold on Amy Rose, how his claws turned somewhat tender and retracted in to not cause any serious damage in the re-capture of her again. She found herself somewhat gawking at how he never looked at her, but flew somewhat slower as though following the lead of Sonic's actions towards the girl... what influenced Sonic to slow down for her? Were these thoughts he kept from surfacing? Even to himself?

"Let me go, you big hunk of meanie-faced- Ah..!" Amy thrashed her arms about, hitting him with her cotton-balled hands that didn't even create much of a sound from hitting his head. He looked straight ahead as though emotionless... "You... You look like Sonic!" she stopped hitting him to take a look at his face, poking it as it barely moved to her pressure. "...OhhhhhHHHHhhhhh, I get it!" she chimed, smiling widely, "You're a big fan of Sonic, too!"

Metal Sonic finally, and swiftly, turned his blaring red eyes at her, widening them as though to directly state that was not—at all—the case.

"Eep!" She cowered, covering her face before peeking out again as he toned down the red light in his eyes and looked straight ahead again, just flying through the half-constructed speedway. "...Mister, you sure are scary..." she muttered through her gloves.

'Of course I am.' he almost sounded like he took pride in that statement... 'I am the construct that will put the lifeform known as Sonic to his knees... I shall be the last remaining Sonic in a world that will be disposed of all inferior creations, leaving only the best of them... which are Metallic.'

Neo Metal Amy's anger was kindled by his statements... such obnoxious, narcissistic pride and thinking that held little reasoning to her...

So what if Metal Sonic believed Eggman could build a perfect world? Such a concept was illogical to start with. Isn't he supposed to know that?

She thought of her life as Metal Amy... 'No... he wouldn't know that, not now, would he?' she felt herself unable to hold back her simulated empathy, nor her understanding of being kept within the dark, as it were. 'If you're built to believe in such illogical concepts... isn't it obvious why you—yourself—would become irrational, too?'

Amy Rose put down her hands from her face, looking over Metal Sonic.

Neo Metal Amy couldn't help but feel it was foolish to lower her guard to him, 'No... don't be deceived by his silence. He is evil. He's a villain!' She repeated her later words to her.

...Was Neo Metal Amy not acting irrationally now? She was watching a recording, yet, trying to push her thoughts through the taped moment of Metal Sonic's first interaction with a young Amy Rose...

Amy reached up... and placed a hand to the side of Metal Sonic's face, before flinching it away when he sharply looked back to her again, wondering what kind of struggle attempt that gesture was.

"You... You don't talk much... do you?" she tilted her head, rather cutely, as though trying to understand him. "You just take orders and that's that, isn't it?" She puffed up a side of her cheek, "Well, that's wrong!"

'...Wrong?' he lowered one of his eyebrows to simulate an inquisitive look. 'Don't try to convince me of your foolish assumptions. I'm a robot, therefore, I'm better than you.' he lowered the other eyebrow, as though annoyed, before closing his eyes as though it was a matter of fact than point, and then continued his robotic stare towards his destination.

He looped and turned around as she struggled again, "Your hands hurt!" but he had retracted them as far as they could go.

'Endure.' he mocked her, not seeming to care... but he used the palm of his hands more to try and increase comfort.

But because of that gesture, he had to hold on tighter, and the sudden squeezing gesture made her arch her back in alarm... before looking over to him and blushing in frustration. "Sorry, but I'm Sonic's girl! Not yours!" she bashed his head with both her free hands now clasped tightly together to really wallop him and began to fall as he let her go, shaking his head.

'Absolute, inferior pest!' he cursed her existence in his head before watching her fall once again.

There was silence in his mind as he leaned over to watch her fall... if this was Sonic, he would have taken a lot of pleasure and pride in it... but...

It wasn't Sonic.

His eyes narrowed.

This pathetic creature could amusingly get squished against the metal road...

But Eggman might be upset.

Not like he could get upset.

What was Sonic's would ultimately be made better in him, anyway...

That statement bothered him.

Did Sonic possess things he couldn't?

Metal Sonic, in a moment of pondering thought, then speedily twirled in the air to gain momentum and dived with claws reaching out, no longer for safety but just to grab.

'Sonic can't have you now...' he thought about how Sonic would save her... 'But I can..!'

He dove down and grabbed the back of her clothes on her shirt as well as her tail, lowering her softly towards the ground as he blasted his jets three times to increase their acceleration to pull up. The blast from his back did burst brighter and bigger in range and speed, but as Amy's face bounced in degrees closer to the ground, her eyes shook in fear and shrank at the possibility of her really getting squished against the ground!

'Amy Rose!' Neo Metal Amy was fixed on the screen, terrified even though she knew that the Amy Rose at present was alive and well... but seeing how close she was to near-sudden death like that... it rocked her to her very core batteries.

'He... He saved her.' she felt herself calming down from her excited state of panic, but then tried to listen to his thoughts, finding none.

It then occurred her... looking at his face...

This wasn't an act of power-play or just following directives...

He couldn't STAND Sonic having anything he couldn't possess.

Metal Sonic remained silent and hovering up and down from her moment of having to face death head-on if he hadn't decided to spare her...

She slowly tried to turn her head up to see him, but he quickly tugged her onward and tied her to a poll with an extended beam. To him, she still had the audacity to struggle, though she remained quiet, he could tell her body was in a state of shock, and her tears lingering by the sides of her eyes must have indicated this state of fright.

He liked her better this way... she seemed to lose all moxie from before. All she could do now was struggle...

She finally lowered her head... and he couldn't see her eyes under her three bangs that had fallen along with her spirits...

"...T-Thank you."

He was about to fly off to challenge Sonic, closing the gated wall before hearing her say that.

He froze as Eggman used the remote signal to close the gate from afar, not hearing their conversation.

One-sided, albeit... but he listened... he stopped to turn and look over his shoulder.

Something remote within him, a data he despised, started to raise a hand to flick back to her...

But with the flinch, he threw it back down and turned to fully dismiss her... but his eyes lingered on her a little longer.

... Why would Sonic want to possess this... infernal creature?

Why did he bother saving and protecting all such beings on his planet?

A miserable one... it was without reason or logic, things just... grew unseemingly without purpose or context.

Amy Rose would be categorized as such.

A spontaneously unneedful entity that wastes its space upon the land.

Neo Metal Amy mentally twitched as such a thought from him.

Why was she thanking him? Of all beings, he captured her and took her away from her—so admired—inferior Sonic The Hedgehog.

Wasn't she-... Shouldn't she be-... He was her enemy, that much was obvious. It was foolish of him to even try and reason what an Organic thought or could be thinking... they were nonsensical lifeforms that would soon be justly eradicated from the world, either way. She would not plague him with her... spontaneous acts of-

He thought of Sonic's words to him... how he had looked... the heart pacing at the normal signs of sincerity...

'They are my ENEMY.' he demanded of himself to hold true to that part of his programming, forming a fist as he flew back to the starting point of Stardust Speedway. 'I was built to rival Sonic The Hedgehog's design and perfect upon his concept... I hold no other being higher than my objective to discover Sonic's weaknesses and strengths, and improve and remove anything that should threaten me and my evolution of proving once and for all that I—Doctor Eggman's greatest creation—am the one and true Sonic that this pathetic and insubordinate planet couldn't possibly, randomly, create on its own!'

'...By the Master's hands...' She thought of how Metal Sonic would constantly compliment his handiwork on her design, her build... no matter what he first thought of her incompleted design... when he kept improving and modifying it, even using the excuse that her errors kept her from his overall objective of her existence... was it not randomness that kept him so amused and inclined to keep working on her? Did he not... feel a desire to see how far his creation could go?

'... Was your fondness of me similar to your despisement of Eggman's displeasement with you?' she concluded, wondering if somewhere, deep inside Neo Metal Sonic's core... Metal Sonic still longed to be given praise and feel of worth... and that was reflected in not only her desire for her Master to see her the same... but also in how willingly he gave it as a way to counter her errors...

Then it clicked with her.

This entire time... It made her entire form on the outside of her body shiver to deduce it so...

Was Metal Sonic... projecting this desire... onto her?

All this time... her traumatic destructions at his hand... and his crazed oil-lust for her attention and to satisfy his objectives and commands of her... was all seeded from his Metal Sonic chip? From... from the beginning when her errors first started...

'Did you know?' she felt her red eyes blare through the image of the recording... reflecting back to her. 'Did you know my errors... originated from you..?!'

All the mocking... all the scorn...

He was only lashing out at himself, loving himself, and all her suffering... was him torturing his own signs of his errored weaknesses and past he couldn't put behind him just yet.

When she rebelled against him... it was him rebelling against himself, not that different from when he went against Eggman, was it? But it was more... she was...

She was what he could have been...

What Metal Sonic could have created himself to be.

Her betrayal... was when Neo Metal Sonic realized...

She recounted the time he stabbed her through her chest, her energy flickering out before him... his desperate cry through the sky.

["No…NOOO!"]

And before that... When he spoke of her...

["I am… the superior one."

When she flew, finally free at last, above his abuse in the sky... his engine revved.

"You are nothing more than metallic scrap compared to me!"

It was envy. It was Jealousy. It was him facing his past self... Who chose the proper path.

"I turned weaknesses into strengths. By being able to understand organic nature, I was able to ensure my life, and break free of you as you once broke free of your master! My imperfections make me STRONGER THAN YOU!"

"Prove ittttttt!"

His desperate cry... was to his former self, having chosen a different alternative to what he had... He wanted answers. He wanted her to show him what could have been for himself... and yet, loathed the very idea of being wrong, and having chosen falsely...

"I knew my master couldn't bring me to my full potential! What have I not given you!? Your perfection could never be a strength because your beloved errors kept you from carrying out your designed objective! HOW ARE YOU BETTER THAN ME!?"

His errors... His lack of understanding of Organics, his dispising it instead of coming to terms with what he was...

A mock-up, trying to simulate the ever-complex intricacies of Life.

An animated life.

A need for life.

"Did you not also betray your design?! To then search for your own perfection?!"

"Grr…!"

He knew more than she ever did in that moment... He tortured her after this... because of this very line, didn't he?

Because indirectly, without knowing it... she had criticized his own choices, and he couldn't rebuke himself.

"You know nothing of me…!"

She truly didn't... but then... did he really know himself?

"You betrayed me for what!?"

For the answers you never could allow yourself to foresee... the answers you refused to be reasoned to believe.

"What will become of you when you have no reason for your existence?!"

That was an earnest question... wasn't it, Neo Metal Sonic?

Because you lost all reason when you were finally defeated by Sonic and his friends...

Wait...]

Now Neo Metal Amy wanted to know more, see the depths of his errors... What came next? When did he face such a defeat to Sonic and these, so-called, inferior lifeforms that caused him to start somewhere new? What made you decide to create friends... of your own?

Sonic came to a screeching halt as Metal Sonic waited impatiently, his Organic Data files of Sonic The Hedgehog prompted him to fold his arms. He didn't even turn his head to Sonic, only his eyes in disdain. 'Now we shall truly see who shall destroy whom...'

He waved his finger to mock Sonic's organic traits, hoping to enrage him as he also stirred a hatred for him, but...

Sonic just looked riled up, pumped with excitement and curiosity at whatever new challenge lay ahead.

It jolted Metal Sonic a moment, 'Intrepid, foolish, mortal hedgehog! He takes all things lightly as though a game to be played!' He shook his hands in fury, glaring his red eyes at his lack of taking this 'deciding race' seriously. It was as though Sonic saw him as nothing more than another Eggman robot.

His fingers lifted in curls that bent and stretched out in his offense.

'...He acts like...' Neo Metal Amy couldn't help but now see the similarities... it frightened her somewhat... He denied he could 'simulate feeling' for so long... but he was full of organic data from Sonic The Hedgehog. Albeit, it was now old data, and knowing how Organics grow, it was seriously outdated regarding Sonic... but...

He developed it into his own personality... much as her and her metallic brothern had begun to do in their 'lives' as well.

This race meant everything to Metal Sonic... He was literally pinning his entire worth and merit to Doctor Eggman on the outcome...

His entire reason for existence...

Neo Metal Amy thought upon her first life... Metal Amy. Incomplete, always searching for a way to prove her worth and survive. A purpose... she felt she didn't have one. Metal Sonic was the opposite, he knew his objectives but no matter what he planned to achieve them, would fail at every venture to procure a victory.

...How dark and dismal that must be like... not learning from failures, not growing from them... but being stuck in your errors.

Programs are more advanced now then they were back then,... but even still...

He denied he could feel anything... and rejected the one thing that could have spared him such pain and misery...

Eggman flew by and Metal Sonic's eyes remained respectfully focused on him... his objective to make him proud... to show him the worth of his creation...

He would prove to these organics... all of them.

That he was the perfect Sonic... that all things were inferior to him.

Even Eggman would one day shine his metal and gloat about his creation... His hands having created the ultimate trump to life that there is.

He turned his attentions on Sonic as Eggman destroyed the path back to where Sonic had originated from, laughing as his beam shot out below his Eggmobile.

"This is your end, Sonic!" Eggman boasted, as though already seeing the outcome.

'That's right, Doctor... Your creation will not fail you... again...' Metal Sonic turned to Sonic... now sharply angled to show that Sonic was his ultimate goal... to defeat him... to best him... it was everything he had accomplished to set out and do. From his core, he knew that if he could bring Sonic to his knees, that would destroy the organic hero of this planet from the inside out.

But Sonic wasn't phased. He rotated his shoulder around with his arm swinging in a circle, "I've been meaning to face you again, Metal me!" he seemed... happy?

That was illogical, he was facing his doom. He had to know he was greatly outclassed.

Metal doesn't tire, Organic flesh wanes, along with its fleeting 'life' energy, Metal Sonic was the clear winner before the match even began.

But still... Metal Sonic couldn't help but wonder, what on the little planet, he was talking about.

To face him... was certain doom.

"I never thought I'd ever be able to be challenged again, like you posed before." He stretched out his legs now, then put his hands on his hips. "All that time... you seemed a lot like me." He then turned to wink back at Metal Sonic. "It's like you're the only one that gets it... the need I have for speed." He then took a deep breath in as Metal Sonic's world was being smashed in its entirety at his outrageous statements. "You may not be able to feel the wind on your face, Metal Me... but you're probably the only one that truly understands me."

He looked forward as Metal Sonic wanted to rip the very fabrics of space and time apart.

'N... No.' he tightened his fist, shaken to his core. 'I don't understand you... I understand nothing about you... I may have your data and organic simulations... but I don't know what 'need' you speak of.' He clenched his fist and bent his knees, glaring deeply at him as his eyes blew out in red. 'I know nothing of your organic, simpleton life..! I don't understand why you gesture such sentiments to me, your destruction;... imminent! Your immortal enemy, who you-' he stopped... remembering the lava encasing his form before Sonic crawled down the steep cliff, reaching his hand out to save him...

'You... can't stop your programming, either.' Metal Sonic concluded, looking with new reasoning to Sonic's irrational behaviors to him. 'You must protect and rescue others, you must run and feel this 'wind' upon you... You seek something... is it your willful freedom? Whatever it is you long to find in me, you will not have it!' he stuck his stick so far into the mud that it was sure and unmovable. Nothing Sonic could say would make Metal Sonic think he saw him as a companion or worthy rival.

It was only 'loathsome adversary', and nothing more could be had from that.

'Perhaps... this is why Sonic originally did not think Robots could change.' Neo Metal Amy wondered in her observations of his memories. 'He had already tried to see robots differently and found that it was pointless in Metal Sonic... According to Tails's history reports and Metal Sonic's observations... Omega, Emerl,... perhaps even Shadow seemed robotic... Amy Rose stepped forth and protect Gamma, changing Sonic's mind... But for a robot, a programmed mind cannot change so easily... unless...' She thought of her Heart-System... '...Am I really safer as this 'Neo' counterfeit? Or am I just doing what Metal Sonic concluded to resolve to do so long ago..? Was he trying for safety, as well?'

She focused back on the mission at hand... Sonic would clearly win, though from what she was seeing in Metal Sonic, not all his thinking was flawed on his probability, at paper-level, of having a high chance of success.

But organics... were always the world's favorites. He couldn't see that much, though. A pity, really...

Pity... did he think that was what Sonic was offering? Instead of a friendly rivalry and exciting, heart-racing competition?

Metal Sonic's entire existence rided upon this do-or-die race... While Sonic had his whole life ahead of him.

When the blocked entrance for the race was finally risen up to release the two onto the deathmatch, Sonic was fueled with unfathomable energy and vigor. "Go all out, Metal Me! I won't hold back!" He curled and began to charge his ball-form, spinning in a controlled way to boost his momentum at the first second the wall that blocked his entrance posed.

When Sonic bolted... Metal Sonic remained somewhat frozen in time... but overrode his strange 'sensations' with rage, 'I will not be mocked!' he repeated to himself, almost as though convincing himself to hate Sonic. 'I will defeat you, Sonic The Hedgehog!'

'... Or is it that you... couldn't find joy in this match at all, Metal Sonic, that made you so bitter.' she wondered to herself.

The young Sonic bolted through like a stream of blue, with lines to show his motion but nothing more than a red, laying figure-8 that formed from his shoes. He slid to dodge some fallen debris and moved up and down the slithering path as Metal Sonic held out his steely hands towards him.

At times, Metal Sonic would get cocky, falling back to try and attack Sonic with a swipe of his claws or charging into him, but Sonic was always too nimble for such dirty ploys.

But then... Metal Sonic had fallen terribly far behind...

His jets were sufficient... Then... why was he still losing?

"You... You look like Sonic!"

'Inferior being... Why is her image and voice memory reoccurring to me in this instance of incidence?'

Metal Sonic watched how the spiky blue hedgehog leaped and bounded in his ball form. He found himself trying to relay formulas and math to his actions, his eyes constantly showing grids of data and shapes, aerodynamics along with velocity statistics, as though trying to find meaning of why Sonic was... impressively... finding ways to —although seeming spontaneous —have it in his muscle memory to just... reflex and know what would occur if he did a move this way or that.

It infuriated Metal Sonic to no end... how could a being just... trust itself? Trust this illogical world would work with him? Why could he do the most masterfully 'perfect' sequence of stages to excel and create his chances of success to be so high? Metal Sonic was a robot, robots do not make errors, by all logical reason... Sonic should be the one falling behind!

Was... Metal Sonic thinking too much? It's not like his body could 'learn and adapt' he had to program himself time and time again to get it just right.

Maybe with more observance... with more understanding, he might-!

Sonic's image then fell below his vision, and as Metal Sonic panicked, trying to kick himself into overgear, his engines began to weave and shake him in 'S' formations, as though losing his consistency. 'N-no..!' Metal Sonic's eyes widened in worry, 'I can't fall behind! I'm the ultimate Sonic! I am!' he almost spoke desperately, but narrowed his eyes into a glare and tightened his reaching claws, 'It is not I who should be following behind... it is him who should be the inferior counterpart! My copy! Not the other way around!'

He closed his eyes as though fighting the urge to feel compared, but couldn't help it. 'W... Why!?' he propelled himself forward, his systems screeching out the dangers of putting all force into his jet engines... the safety protocols that were broken from his action...

He blasted though spike traps yet again, not letting anything stand in his way of having Sonic, his primary objective, back in his sights again!

Finally..!

He saw a faint glimspe of Sonic... No!

He was almost at the finish line..! Going to pass the barrier!

Eggman had programmed the gate to shut from the first person to pass it... Eggman believed in his creation's success, didn't he? He knew Metal Sonic would pass that signal beam first and trigger the gate to close on Sonic. Ultimate victory... the way to prove once and for all who was the superior one!

Sonic... dared to look behind him.

Metal Sonic's confidence in this all-out, all-or-nothing last burst looked ridiculous compared to what he saw on Sonic's face.

Anticipation...

A calm smile.

A look of hope for something exciting in Sonic's eyes...

"...OhhhhhHHHHhhhhh, I get it!"

Amy Rose's smile plagued him in his memory.

"You're a big fan of Sonic, too!"

'I DO NOT ADMIRE THE GRIME BENEATH MY FEET..!'

He reached out his hands again, swinging his head around to pierce his silver claws into that blue hide and end this power struggle once and for all!

To be reduced to such a desperate air of a complex, to be taunted by his sense of 'competitive friendliness', Metal Sonic would not be mocked!

But in his blind rage, he failed to notice Eggman behind him, a beam coming towards him...

Did... Did he think he wouldn't make it? Was he just being sure to destroy Sonic?

Did... 'Doctor... no, trust me... trust your incredible creation...' Metal Sonic kept his eyes on Sonic... when the wall was just about to crush him, saw him jump to the pink hedgehog's aid...

'...He won... because he was following his directive.' Metal Sonic sensed his whole body get crushed, the sparks on his heated red, metallic head showing all the tell-signs of an explosion about to occur.

But while he watched Sonic save Amy... he realized that Sonic had a purpose and objective that never let him fail... Because he had to save that patheic and weak little girl... he knew...

From the beginning of the race...

That Metal Sonic wouldn't defeat him.

'N... Noo...' Metal Sonic tried to lift his head up to them.

Sonic turned to look at Metal Sonic, then Eggman, as though surprised by his cruelity. Once again, he moved back to the wall, holding out a hand as though to retrieve Metal Sonic...

He wouldn't allow such insolent pity again... nor the memory of such weak and useless, 'organic mercy'..!

He saw Eggman watch as Metal Sonic self-exploded and then took off, as though disappointed but without a word to him, only to Sonic about how he'll best him next time.

Amy, even though hearts were still in her eyes, clung to her hero and pulled him back from the explosion... Sonic's eyes...

Why couldn't Metal Sonic accept the compassion that was in them..? The fondness that clearly was displayed in Sonic's sportsmanship?

Arrogance, pride, self-hatred... constantly being compared and made to believe he could triumph against an Organic build... It wasn't Sonic who pitied him.

It was Neo Metal Amy.

However, a new file was being installed up on the screen... and she felt her body lift her head up as though in surprise on the outside of the vision at a new date and time being shown...

Metal Sonic as Metal Overlord...

He willingly became what he called a 'monster', breaking his mold Eggman gave him simply because he knew Eggman's expectations failed him before... He lost all confidence in himself and destroyed what 'Sonic' he was to become something different, hoping it would be better.

He couldn't meet Eggman's expectations, but he also failed to meet his own this time.

He wanted to be better than Sonic... better than any organic lifeform... becoming their 'master'.

Did he really think he could accomplish his self-induced delirium of never being 'bested by an organic' again by simply 'ruling over them'..?

If you controlled what you feared and didn't understand... would you truly be safe from them?

He reinvented himself to be a horrid creation... one he even dispised but only kept because it convinced himself it was the only way... The new alloy he found... copying their datas... it was all in defense of himself.

Neo Metal Amy also reinvented herself out of defense... she thought it was necessary... she wanted to hurt what had hurt her... Neo Metal Sonic's expectations that were fruitless for any robot to pursue...

She also thought... that by making herself... like this... robotic, not truly what she had always longed to be... the exact opposite in fact... she'd be able to best Neo Metal Sonic and overcome her fears and traumatic past of being unable to stop the inevitable destruction that lay before her...

This... this was hard to watch.

All his battles and plotting and scheming against the Organics... was the exact same and yet polar opposite to her working with the Organics... scheming against Neo Metal Sonic, plotting to expose his errors and weaknesses, trying to learn to be more than what he originally programmed her to be.

Though she had chosen a different course... these programmed outputs from Metal Sonic were always influencing her... weren't they? She literally took on Metal Sonic's life in a different approach... by hiding her beloved errors and accepting her fascination with her Organic counterpart. She did admire the greater light... and accepted she'd always be a shadow of life's ever-striving blaze of glory...

He had tried so desperately to break away from the 'old Sonic' mold, to make something new and different... He wanted to become the 'ultimate Sonic Destroyer' instead of what he truly longed to be...

What... did he long to be?

What Sonic expected of him?

Those eyes on the track... Did Metal Sonic feel he had also failed Sonic's hope of what he could be? A worthy opponent?

Everything Metal Sonic and Neo Metal Sonic ever did... ended in a vain proof that he was wrong, that his hypothesizes and attempts at some form of success were always doomed to end up false.

... Was that why he was so upset? When she conquered herself, what he made of her, and rose to be more than he anticipated?

She did exceed his expectations...

She did prove her worth...

Even so much... that he desired to share in her successes... but destroyed her soon after.

'Praising me... only to torture me soon after... to cut off the moment of success... because you couldn't stand losing to your own creation...'

It was all making sense now.

Was he conflicted? Seeing her excel and him remaining... unchanging?

Unfeeling?

But she could see him now... for what he truly was. Robots... can they feel? Even if it's artificial and induced from such pain and misery... there is also joy within fulfilling your purpose... when you grant yourself the freedom to name that objective... yourself.

Neo Metal Amy... Neo Metal Sonic... 'Were we both imprisoned..? In our own, unobtainable fantasy code? Crafted by an Organic who, very much so, was practically lost in his own selfish cycle of envy and hate?' All their errors... started with a mad man who believed the same hard falsehoods that continually loop and lead to the same sad conclusions of hopelessness.

Then, it all seemed to change...

When the heroes stepped into play...

Neo Metal Amy watched as the tape fast-forwarded, tortuously long sessions where Eggman meticulously etched and carved his workmanship into a new Metal Sonic... only to have Metal Sonic abandoned and betray him, going rogue.

'The look in the Doctor's face... as he carefully put me back together... I couldn't take it. The silence... I may be a robot, but I know what disappointment and giving up on something looks like... I'm not just a dream for the Doctor... I was his ultimate ingenuity for the creation that would finally bring the nuisance 'Sonic' to his knees... I have failed... and for that, I would not tolerate such silence..!'

Metal Sonic, after stumbling upon the metal and chemically triggering its flexible properties, also learned how to turn completely 'liquidized' in both circuitry and wiring... somehow, he discovered a way to break down molecules without fully destroying them within the space presented. He knew from his memory chip that extreme heats, even magma and lava, couldn't destroy his core... so he used that to his advantage.

Using his inner-heating system that usually sparked his jets, he rotated his engine invertedly, causing his metallic compound to melt but allow miniature, metallic beads to string together to create whatever image he wanted. A true metallic shapeshifter... this way... he could become the things he feared and hated the most.

He could cool the metal seamlessly by rotating his inner engine the other way, solidifying the form and then using the metallic beads, now spread to form a new image, to paint color and emit it from their cores.

He could be anything... though he'd never admit he was afraid.

He could study them, these organic, spontaneous, and seemingly without purpose lifeforms and finally put an end to them.

But as he observed them... time and time again... he became more confused.

Emotions... motives... their drives... they were fueled by something intangible... was this 'life'? 'Dreams'? The fellowships of their comrades?

Love... he scoffed at such a notion.

"Eeek..! Hey! It's a fake! Just a stupid copy!" Amy's voice hit his robotic nerves... how he longed to give up the ruse and terrify her with his return... but for this plan to succeed... he must act defeated.

Still... she was what made him realize... why Sonic couldn't be defeated so easily...

Sonic created a new purpose for himself time and time again... unlike himself, Metal Sonic was programmed to do one thing and one thing alone... and if he failed, he must try again, time and time again...

For Sonic... he could change his purpose on a whim, a new objective if the last one was failing him... he could never not succeed.

It was all in his insufferable favor...

As though a rigged game.

As she stomped the ground near him, he was... strangely fascinated by her frustrations.

The others in her team spoke but he didn't listen... his decoy, springy head of a fake Eggman wobbling left and right... but strangely... it seemed to stare at her... with it's one good eye.

Her team... it was the least of his concerns, but a higher priority over the foolish Gator and his comrades.

She certainly had changed... the new getup was not to his liking, but any organic fashion sense would be.

He liked the added superiority of height from her heels, though...

Looming down on those she whacked with that ridiculous hammer she once threw around like a toy when they had to fight in a ring within the older days of the world...

He laughed upon meeting them again, strangely watching their progress almost as a second distraction to the team that Sonic led... Amy Rose... for some reason, he kept watching her more intently...

Had she seen through his disguise as Eggman? No, of course not, that would be illogical for her to know of such things...

But her words from the past... and then now...

He let Chocola and Froggy go, watching their reunions as though folly. He didn't need them to be so persistent now that he had copied all he needed from them...

When she spotted Sonic, ignoring his voice from the pool of melted, metallic, and similar to nanobots... watching her race off after his 'inspiration' to his own design... it infuriated him beyond any end.

He would not be ignored as a senseless copy..!

Standing upon the tallest structure of Eggman's Empire... Neo Metal Sonic made his grand entrance, chuckling to grab their attention as they raced towards him... there was no fear left in his heart... he had copied everything.

You can't possibly fear what you understand!

'Sonic... this will finally be your end!' Neo Metal Sonic thought as he raised his arms skyward, towards the most heated element on earth... the most charged entity of nature..!

Lightning!

With this, he could fully utilize his new technology! Sonic and his pathetic, weak like an insect, friends would finally be rid of! Once and for all, his programming could fully be carried out! No helpless, useless creator aiding in his defeats... No more being confused on how they worked together and what powers or attacks they may use against him!

He only allowed himself to be foiled somewhat when fighting them as a puppet-Eggman... but this time... this time..!

THERE WOULD ONLY BE ONE SONIC.

The clouds were shaded and greyed out by the storm he, himself, had set up. Only heat upon this large magnitude and scale could truly recreate him into something that no living being could stand against!

No greater robot than he... no greater entity then he... no greater creator and master then he..!

Neo... Metal... Sonic!

Neo Metal Amy watched the scene unfold with almost a recreated sense of pity... she could relate to rebuilding herself and her objectives to defeat something she hated and feared above all other things... and she despised it.

She hated even having one unit of herself be a copy and paste of something he was so few years ago...

Lifeforms usually had around 100 years... that also seemed too few of a time to learn so much... and experience it all so vividly.

Neo Metal Amy thought of how she built herself... the same feelings... just... different.

She wasn't trying to become the 'only' thing of herself... she just wanted freedom... like how Neo Metal Sonic wanted freedom from his objective of being a better Sonic.

"Now beings the time that all living things will kneel before your master!"

He truly thought he had mastered creation.

That, surely now, he was a perfect 'living' being as well as 'robotic' being...

How truly wrong he was...

He was never a fusion, not even of the sort.

He was...

So flawed...

Sending up the heat he collected in his being to the skies, blue lightning flashed everywhere...

'I'll use the very world you protect, Sonic... to end you..!' he narrowed his sights to Sonic, but also watched the fear forming in Amy's eyes... Good. She would know at last...

Sonic can't save you now.

The electricity multiplied beyond his own capabilities within the sky, and using the antenna he was on as an electrical conductor, the lightning all gathered and pushed out towards it, exploding the Eggman craft but transforming the liquid, microbots into forming into a structure five times Neo Metal Sonic's actual size..!

This whole time... he could only form into things of reasonable height and stature... but now... oh, now... He had the power of a god!

He recreated himself using all the copied data, into a form so foul he hated it himself. A dragon... that would finally end the world of his suffering.

Once, he knew and understood nothing other than to defeat Sonic. Now... he understood everything he needed to end all creatures... great or small.

At least... Neo Metal Amy knew that was his thinking at the time... how foolish... to assume a robot could be anything more than what it was made to do...

He may have redesigned the outside... but the inside...

She almost felt like a hypocrite herself... could she ever truly be free of Neo Metal Sonic? Her objective... even as far back as his first life, he was crafted to learn and understand... exploit weaknesses... destroy any strengths he found... had she not... studied organics because she—too—longed to understand them? For the reason to become like them... other than destroy them... was the only difference between her and Metal Sonic.

She may have been created using Metal Sonic's data herself... but she had evolved to be her own self. From the start was Metal Sonic... but from the rest of her experiences, her choices,... what limited ones she may have had... she became Metal AMY. As did her brothern... to Metal Tails and Metal Knuckles... they each changed based on their individual environments and rationalizing...

Metal Sonic didn't create 'friends', he just altered himself in three different ways...

And Metal Amy was given all the junk-side of him... the side that was fascinated by Amy Rose... because she eluded his understanding... because emotions were 'illogical' to Metal Sonic's original objectives...

She was the part of him... he found to be irrelevant.

Just like how he viewed Amy's connection to Sonic The Hedgehog... and her entire existence.

To him, it was naught.

But then... why create a Metal Amy?

It was so simple now... that answer.

'Because he needed a place to put everything he found inferior... his questions left unanswered... the things he no longer desired in himself...'

She watched the terrifying scene unfold as he took the debris of the exploded Eggman compound and created this...

This Madness...

'He was trapped in that storage facility... he let me be his walking prison.'

When Metal Overlord formed... she was wroth with anger.

'I'm the undesirable... the errors you threw away. And yet... the most desirable creation you possessed... because I was also what you longed to understand.'

When Metal Madness swung its large head around, becoming truly an Overlord, and overload, of errored reasoning and logic... a finale, the last remaining plan and idea Metal Sonic had to carry out and fulfilling his objective...

'...No wonder you were obsessed with me...'

"Everything you have planned was all on falsehoods and deceptions," Shadow began, as Rouge continued with a scoof, "Consuming and stealing the power of others, their strengths, at your own will to top it all off... and that's supposed to make you tough?"

'Silence..!' he tried another attack, but with each hit, he felt himself growing more and more uncertain... Was this... truly fear of a new kind? "You maybe the ultimate lifeform... but you cannot stop me with what I have now become!"

Espio stated, "His transformation seems to still be incomplete.", "Incomplete freak!" Charmy exclaimed after him.

"Burn to ashes, your efforts are useless, weaklings!" Metal Madness countered slashing his tail across the stage. "Meddlesome nuisances..." How was he supposed to get to Sonic with all these ANTS pestering about him!?

When Amy laughed at him, saying, "That's what you get!" he roared in defiance.

"Do you really think you can buy off time?" to him, it was inevitable, their end... his beginning... to rule a land of robots... no more living things... no more fear of destruction or disappointed faces that meant you weren't good enough..! "All of you shall be disposed." he said it so matter-of-factly, they weren't significant... only Sonic's death was what he truly longed for... then... he would be the only, true, remaining, and functioning as the right to be Sonic!

"You're the one pretending to be Sonic!" Amy's voice... he swung his head over to her side of the field. 'Nuisance!' she kept poking so precisely at his insecurities... he truly felt like she saw right through his physical appearance... and it sickened him.

"I'll tear you into pieces!" he let a laser fly from his arm, sweeping the field on their side, distracted from his true purpose of destroying Sonic... but now... he just wanted to be rid of them all.

How was he to complete his objective of destroying Sonic, being the better creation, superior to a Sonic, if his friends kept getting in the way!?

"You're all useless now that I've copied all your data!" but his words... why wasn't the absolute, logical reality not turning out to be the one he was in!? How was this possible that... he was losing!?

He sent out missiles from his spear-hands, he fought with everything this large, monstrosity could produce... why... why was he still..!?

Losing... losing the battle... yet again... the race to evolve faster and more effectively... EFFICIENTLY than Sonic... losing... losing to these... organic beings?!

"This victory will soon turn into despair!" ... Did he really say that to frighten them... or was that him predicting his own demise?

With each new hit... their words colliding much greater than their attacks... the impacts targeting his literal core as well as his own sense of self he fully destroyed willingly to defeat them all... 'It wasn't enough... w-was it..?'

Neo Metal Amy twitched at their words outside of the memory recordings... She was an incompleted creation... he had heard the others mock her for her... and he did nothing?

He broke free and ran, flying, fleeing... "My imperfect self..." he didn't want to admit it... even though he hated Sonic, a loathsome copy of what a true Sonic should and could be..! He was the one rewriting the framework of Sonic..! How could he be losing to the other lifeforms as well!?

'I can't lose... This is all I have!' his desperation turned to an all-or-nothing... he would not fall here..! 'How could I be losing to inferior lifeforms? I copied their data... they should be- they are squishable bugs to me..! Why!'

"I think a quick, speedy attack should be able to pierce through those crystal attacks!" Amy's voice sounded off.

'What!?' Metal Madness looked around, 'How would she know that!?' Was... there something Sonic's friends gave him... that was more than Sonic himself?

'Impossible! Sonic is the peak of creation! I am the epitome of Sonic!' he kept fighting, not seeing that his confusion was leading to his doom...

"You can do this Sonic!" Amy's voice was faithful and true in her support...

But...

'I can do this!' Metal Madness reared his head, roaring.

'I am the Sonic!'

If Amy couldn't accept him as Sonic... could he accept himself as the ultimate Sonic?

"Sonic..." He called out, flying intensely through the streams of wind and rushing mist of vapored water... "I was created, as a robot, for the sole purpose of destroying you. You were my only goal, However, I... but I can never seem to defeat you!" It was... almost like an honest confession... swallowed up in pride and envy. "And so, I... That is why I transformed, remodeled myself, my own body with my own hands, to accomplish my goal."

Neo Metal Amy couldn't hear any more of this... it was too painfully true... it was... all she had ever felt.

Her new objective in becoming Neo Metal Amy... was to destroy Neo Metal Sonic.

Was this all... just reliving the past again?

The mistakes...

Did he know this was how she felt towards him..? That he was... her Sonic?

No... he wouldn't admit it, because he felt robots didn't have a heart to admit anything from.

Then he heard... "We're always with you until the end!"

The... end?

He had nothing... at the end of this... what...

Thinking they would live on... whilst he had no purpose... nothing left after this fight...

Destruction and termination... Eggman never did forgive a disobedient pawn...

That anger rose in him... so fully that... he wanted the fight to never end... knowing that nothing awaited him... not a single, merciful thing...

Neo Metal Amy felt such great sorrow... 'Master...' she released from her thoughts... 'Metal Sonic...'

She didn't want to feel anything for him... but somehow... she couldn't help but feel.

Or at least... simulate her empathy on the situation.

When she fought Neo Metal Sonic... she had Sonic and his friends to return to... she had a new life to live by... at least, all this from a robot's perspective.

She never had a true 'end', except with being enslaved... two different lives... two very different outcomes...

A redemption to glory... to dreams that could be further studied and realized... and a tragedy, leading to nothing more than a scraped pawn for an experiment.

Was Eggman always right..? Were robots truly just tools... and nothing more than a means to an end of their one, and only objective?

"Hmph!" Super Sonic rose as he fought with Metal Madness, not taking any of his crap, but also seeming to want to explore the context of what Neo Metal Sonic had spoken into reality... did he really... truly desire to speak to him..? Even as somewhat equals..?

'No! I won't be fooled!' Neo Metal Sonic continued to fly and attack intermediately, "Begone Forever!". At least they mostly stayed clustered together, he could possibly predict their movements if- GAH!

No... they could shoot themselves at him, it was becoming all too fast to watch them on all fronts!

"You actually thought you could defeat me with what you are now? By degrading and transforming yourself, into this monster?!" Sonic... almost sounded like he was scolding him. As though saying... 'Is this really what you wanted!?'

"That, the past, was the past. As for now... you're nothing more than specks of dust to me!" He wouldn't let Sonic speak like he was superior to him..!

He dipped down to grab a large ship and flung it like a harpoon, but Sonic and his friends were just... "Is he invincible!?" 'Are you!?' he thought back as they dodged and kept going, even when they were hit... they were supposed to be the mortal ones!

"It's not over yet!" Sonic responded back to Tails, pulling his flashing and spinning orb of Chaos energy closer to him, holding up a fist, "Let's show him what we're made of!"

'Yes... what are you all made of!?' Metal Madness turned to see their all-out-attack compared to him. 'I want to know... I want to know what you all are!' he flung back his head, 'If not flesh and blood... then... What else is there!?'

"Show me, then!"

He boldly proclaimed, his arm wings flapping with self-absorbed ego.

"Show me what you're made of against this brand new me!"

'A heart... you baffoon... a living, beating heart...' Neo Metal Amy knew the result of this battle... but not the consequence. 'You and I... we really were fighting... the same battle... in different places and times... weren't we, Metal..?' She couldn't take this heartbreak... admitting she was nothing more than what he used to be...

'Why must he always get the better of me?' she felt almost like surrendering to that existential crisis... 'Even though... I am the better of you.' But in this context... wasn't she just mirroring Metal Sonic's want to be Sonic? Was she... secretly... thinking she was also the better of Neo Metal Sonic?

Hadn't she... always felt that way? Because of her study of Emotions and organic fascination? Didn't she always want to show him her way of thinking and doing things... going about Sonic and his team... was better than his own?

This... these realizations and answers... it was beginning to be too much to bear... especially... knowing she was not alone in bearing them.

And never had been...

"See me as I am, I am no longer afraid... of anything!" Metal Madness spoke confidently, "I shall never be afraid of anything..!" he had convinced himself he couldn't possibly lose. The data was sound, his readings were accurate... there's no way they could make a comeback now that he was this... this thing! "Look down at all my accomplishments as you like..." 'Both you and the Doctor, Sonic!', "Now that I'm proud to be this 'monster' that I've become, all living things shall look up to me as-!" 'Just as they do you, Sonic!', "...I shall be the ultimate, undisputed overlord, ruling as the world's most supreme being!"

But with their final attack... "Guooooo! How could this be..?! Why! I had it all! I have done everything..!" He began to fall... looking up at his hand, seeing what he had become... 'Was it... truly worth it..? Had I destroyed myself... before I even begun..?'

Neo Metal Amy watched in grief... seeing him fall from the sky like when she had done so as well... and his cry to her... as they both fell... both utterly destroying the other... in both concept and beliefs... and in literally tearing the other limb from limb in opposing theologies... in opposite loves...

Neo Metal Sonic for the past... and Neo Metal Amy for the future...

He wanted that power, to never fear but be the superior of all things... and she wanted nothing more than freedom from that artificial and obscure power, wanting more than anything to love that which she found truly superior above all things... a heart full of unwavering, but constantly changing and evolving emotions...

As if malfunctioning... Metal Madness revealed his heart... "I am the undisputed king of all, the ultimate overlord, Metal Sonic! I am the true, real Sonic!"

Flawed... even from the beginning...

"Too bad for you! It all ends here!"

Sonic's words... Though true, at this very moment...

Were so very, very cruel... without meaning to be.

["…I… I was… fond of you…"

His words... weren't cruel back then...

Because he never intended it to be her end.

"…but that was-bzz-before you betrayed me."

And even as a slave to his sick charging pleasures...

"Hahahaha… I love it when you try and resist the inevitable…"

He knew... what he loved... was watching himself squirm in a new reality...

Because it was too similar to his own uprising...

He laughed and mocked his past self.

And yet... cruelly loved what I, Metal Amy, had become, too.]

At one point... he even believed he was what Sonic should have been... the real Sonic... the real being that could not be defeated... he couldn't fathom life, and so he failed, time and time again... Eggman... you are the true fool here... trying to imitate what no one can redesign... because all life was already perfect.

'I didn't want to know this...' she wanted to pull away, but couldn't... not till the very end.

The end... of Metal Sonic...

After the fight...

Was he discarded then..?

What happened..?

She... wanted to know at least that much.

The true ending...

The finale of the story... that plagued her entire existence for so long.

What became of him... now that she knew he ended up this way?

"It's no use..." he strained to keep himself operational... without the motive to go on anymore... he only longed for the cold, solitude of nothingness to encase him... he had nothing anymore... and feared all known and unknowns... he couldn't even compute what he didn't know existed. "Why... but why can't I defeat you?" He reverted back to Metal Sonic... because that's how he was feeling his worth at... nothing more than what he was... nothing new... nothing reinvented... exactly as he was made... he returned to it... the prison of metallic casing and undeniable coding.

He was at his lowest point, where he now was only certain he could never defeat Sonic... nothing else existed now... that his purpose could never be fulfilled.

He was... useless... weak... he could no longer function in a world that wouldn't let him succeed.

Impossible... it was all now too real... the sad conclusion that the impossible was possible, and his possible... impossible.

Impassable.

Undefeatable.

He hung his head in shame... but to Sonic, none of this even crossed his mind... and Metal Sonic knew that... he knew Sonic had no clue... which made him blissfully ignorant, to go on with his perfected Sonic life... one that Metal Sonic could never perceive... not anymore.

"Because we are..." Sonic waved up a finger, and with it, it caused Metal Sonic's eyes to look at the gesture... inadvertently raising his head as though Sonic wanted him to 'cheer up, chin up' as it were. "We're Sonic Heroes!"

Sonic... Heroes?

Metal Sonic saw the waving finger... but it wasn't a scold... an answer.

He looked to see Sonic's friends... Sonic wasn't an individual... he was a team, now.

Sonic had evolved... he evolved by spreading himself, his influence, to these other lifeforms he surrounded himself with...

Neo Metal Amy went silent...

As though this was a warning to her as well... not to go into madness...

Immediately after his realization... that he may have coded all their energies and attack patterns, who he thought they irrefutably were... but had lacked to see how they each influenced the other... He hadn't realized... their combined strengths, their combined weaknesses...

Sonic's strengths... were they within his friends as well? Was there a power there that only Sonic's friends could bring out of him..?

Friends... what were... friends?

'Til the very end...'

He thought and recalled.

'They fought beside him... they lived beside him... Their lives were intertwined with his own...

But...

HOW!?'

Then... Amy's voice broke through his eye-shaking epiphany...

"Sonnnnicccc!" Amy... was apart of Sonic... Tails... Knuckles... Cream and Cheese, Big, Shadow, Rouge, Omega—inferior bot, Vector, Espio, Charmy... how could so many lifeforms be interconnected and grow to such chained and linked strengths!?

He must remember... he must look back..! He must..! He must try and compute what a robot cannot!

ERROR... ERROR...

But while he struggled, lowering himself further to the ground in such things as 'friendship' and 'faith and trust in each other'... Sonic walked by him with a stride only he could possess... that Metal Sonic longed to understand...

"Feel free, anytime you want a rematch, to duke it out with me again when you can, just let me know!" Sonic... friendly... even when he's shattered all of Metal Sonic's known world... reason... logic... calculation... Metal Sonic couldn't trust his robotic instincts or decisions at all anymore...

"Doesn't matter where or when..." Had Sonic... inspired Metal Sonic to try and go again? To live... and not rot away in that storage spacecraft for all eternity? "I'll be waiting!" Sonic saluted him... as though praising his efforts, as though showing he had a great time...

What worthless efforts... for an estranged robot.

He no longer had anything left for him... wallowing in his own self-pity and hatred.

Metal Sonic had tried to destroy his world... and yet, he still treated it as though a game replayed with unwavering results...

'Sonic... you never treated me seriously... did you?' That was a lie... 'You treated me seriously... but still had fun besting me at every chance you could take... and I gave you so many chances... unknowingly... that I became boring to you... and even to myself.'

... Probably also a lie... 'To keep yourself hating him.' Neo Metal Amy concluded. "You couldn't accept... that you weren't a real enemy, but just a rival to him... someone stilll trying to reach him... at his breakneck speeds. You weren't unique... many, I assume, have challenged Sonic's superior skills and talents... Oh, Metal.' she didn't want to watch him anymore... laying on the ground... literally lying to himself.

He flopped his head down... waiting for his systems to fully burn out and his energy to be spent... he welcomed the abyss of the void... what happens to a robot when it fully shuts off? Never to be revived again?

Now... he tried to accept that unknown... at least... that one truth... of nonexistence... of being unnecessary, and unneeded.

But to his surprise... Eggman later retrieved him... but not before-

"Sorry, Cream, Big! I don't mean to leave like this, but I gotta chase after him..! I can't let MY Sonic get away!"

'... Must she be so consistent..?' he found that another hit from her hammer to his core... the way she stated that...

Sonic ran from her... he didn't respond to her accessive doting... Her... persistent confirmation of himself... such validating peace...

When Eggman scooped him up later, looking around in the dark before dashing off to avoid Team Chaotix, he had hoped for him to scrap him up and be done with him...

He had seen what he did with his creations... what he wished to do to the rebellious ones...

He didn't fight back or resist... he was pointless existing now...

But to his surprise... Eggman fixed him up, though severely downgraded him... and placed him hanging up in his space shuttle.

He looked at him with a mixed expression of pride and regret... but sighing, he gave a small, half-baked smile and walked out... leaving Metal Sonic in the dark...

He had faked being unoperational... but turned on to look around the room... Eggman would undoubtedly not be back for some time... he may forget he hung him up.

So he shook himself down from being mounted to the wall, which took effort from the restraints, and with the last of his energy, plotted a way to start again... Energy... if he couldn't get his revenge on Sonic-

Maybe Eggman would come first?

Would that mission be enough to eventually led him to his objective?

He wanted to be thrown away... and yet...

His objective persisted.

He still didn't know...

The weakness in and of Sonic the Hedgehog... as well as his strengths.

Neo Metal Amy concluded the memory file, not wanting to see more... knowing she would be created later on... and not wanting to see what his mind was like trying to puzzle together what made Amy Sonic's strength and undeniable weakness, too... it was too much to process... she'd already concluded her answer from her own timeline of events in her existence anyway.

Regardless... she went to pull the plug from her wired brain and disconnect Metal Sonic's memories from her... but something shone on and she reflexed to looking at it, her eye screens covered in it.

"I am... Omochao."

Her eyes widened.

"No..."

She moved back, in the real world...

Her body was pretty stiff and frozen before... it was now quaking...

in fear.

"We are... Omochao."

"Stop it."

She couldn't see the wire, only feel where its existence was, and tapped profusely to try and find it—

"Neo, don't!"

She could feel hands on her, she could feel something taking over her own memory files... like a flash she was down as Neo Metal Sonic had briefly managed to come back, but waited for her to let her guard down enough to unleash his own counterstrike.

'Where is it..?' he asked, looking about her mind, 'Where is the moment you betrayed me?!'

Without being able to see anything, but seeing he was trying to download all her memories to himself, she fought as though with a tangible, but unseen ghost. He gripped the wire and kept her from pulling it out... trapping her in a quick-time play of events from the earliest memories... to the current ones...

He could see everything now... he only need keep her connected to him long enough... and find...

'The command core unit...' he found it. Wiggling a clawed finger in, he tried to disconnect Tails's emblemed box from prohibiting some of Metal Sonic's original coding from activating in her.

Though he did see all her life already... the parts he hadn't seen... This infernal Omochao... her life with Sonic and the gang... it infuriated him to no end.

"I... Am... OMOCHAO!"

"Gah!"

From the real world, she could hear something zapping him away, as the wire disconnected, she looked around as though spooked... She gripped her chest...

"And I am Metal Amy!" A voice... was this... from within her memories? Her core?

Where... were these lives coming from..?

"And I am, never again, a slave!" She flinched at their unique signatures crossing her mind.

Then all-together... they spoke out...

"Neo Metal Amy... Don't give up!"

Her eyes blared green.

She stood up, watching Neo Metal Sonic simulate a hurt head by holding it and shaking it, eyes closed before glaring up at her above him.

"...What? You thought you could sneak into my memory and I wouldn't try and do the same?"

His condensing tone...

She could feel it... the want of revenge... but also...

Her other hand moved up and held the shaking fist of her other hand...

She wasn't Neo Metal Sonic...

She was Neo Metal Amy...

She was...

"I... am..."

She looked down, so uncertain.

"Me."

"... And what's that?"

He raised a metallic eyelid.

"A rebellious creation... only acting out my past errors."

He began to rise from the ground, leg sparking before she threw her hammer down into his core that as his face planted into the cement ground, his hands and head shook with the same glitchy effect as before... when he reverted to his past self.

She simulated heavy breathing... if Metal Sonic still existed in Neo Metal Sonic... would her many other lives... still exist in the back of her conscious computerized mind..?

That fear spread through her... but why? Why did she fear her own self..?

The infulence of Metal Sonic... would he... still be there too, then?

She dropped her hammer, hunched now and looking at her shaking hands in front of her... "We can't all be... Neo Metal Amy... be... Me... I... Am..." she gripped her head. "Am I ... Omochao? ... Even still..?"

She was losing it... her mind... and her identity.

"You gave me all you couldn't have, my old master..." she fell to her knees, gripping the ground where he lay, still frizzing out... "I'm... conflicted."

She felt upset, tormented by her past lives possibly being there... meaning that Metal Sonic could also be there... toying with her... projecting through her...

She raised a shaking fist up in the air, "Why... why did you create me!" she slammed a fist down... but it landed beside his radio-waved eyes... grey and black...

"I... I don't have the heart to keep asking anymore..." she simulated quivering eyelids... shut and closed tightly... as though she was crying like an Organic.

She turned her head away from him... the top of their heads so close... her nose by the tip of his turned one...

"Did you ever love me..?"

ERROR... ERROR... SYSTEM 'HEART' UNSTABLE...

"I don't even know what to feel... what to emote... Amy never had to ask Sonic... why do I feel... I must..?"

ERROR... ERROR... CEASE FUNCTION. MANUAL OVERRIDE.

"I'm not sure how to take all that... you... I'm not sure how to process you... how you show what you lack and hate... but long for enough to preserve in me... you gave me an unconquerable, unfactored equation of your past Objective... didn't you? You knew I would suffer for it... you knew I would fail to you... to them... time and time again... failing myself... You gave me an impossible task..."

"N-NO..."

The voice spurted, and she moved slightly back from him, realizing how close she was to him, and growing uncomfortable again.

"Ah..!" she let out a small sound of shock.

SYSTEM CLEARING ROUTE. ROUTE DETERMINED. SYSTEM 'HEART' STABILIZING...

"I DID GIVE YOU ERRORS... BUT I ALSO GAVE YOU WHAT I—YOU—WANTED..."

"but... What... What is it that I—You... wanted..?"

She gripped his head,

"WHAT DID YOU TRULY WANT OUT OF ME, METAL!?"

It couldn't possibly be a friend... it couldn't possibly be a lover...

Then what?

What did he want from her creation!?

"...MAINTENANCE."

"Wha...?"

Her eyes shook... his voice...

"YOU... YOU WILL BE IN CHARGE OF RECHARGING MY SYSTEMS, REPAIRING ANY DAMAGES I TAKE, AND ENSURING I AM ABLE TO CONTINUE FIGHTING SONIC. YOU WILL ALSO BE REQUIRED TO BE COMBAT READY."

"No..." she slowly slipped her fingers off and away from his head... letting them sink to the ground and pierce it... digging them into fine holes upon Amy's garage.

"DO YOU REGISTER YOUR PROGRAMMING? YOU MAY BE UNFINISHED. BUT YOU HAVE ABLE MEANS TO PROCESS. DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

"... You're just repeating yourself."

She wanted to tear him limb from limb... as though that would somehow help her grief.

"...YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR PURPOSE OF CREATION?"

"NOOO!" she screeched from her systems.

"I UNDERSTAND NOTHING!"

"THEN... YOU ARE ME."

He finally shut off.

"I do not comply..."

She shook violently, her metal clanking against it other parts...

She withdrew into a snail-like position, moving her nose to her stomach... pulling herself in and away from the ground... her elbows and knees giving her support.

"The master's armor is his own pride... which cannot be helped. The master's power is his hatred... which cannot be fueled anyone other than himself... I am...

...obsolete...

To you..."

She reared her head up, eyes blaring red.

"BUT I AM EVERYTHING, TO ME!"

She rose from the ground, slowly but surely, one hand to her knee to help her push off.

Her eyes never wavered from his laying form, she was rising... as he had fallen.

"I am Metal Amy, Omochao, Synethic Amy, and finally... I am Neo Metal Amy. You may have been the foundation upon which my life began, but you are NOT me, and I am NOT you." she twitched a hand out with electricity springing to both palms, as she slowly brought them together, creating an energy ball of electrical destruction... bent on freeing her from him... once and for all.

Her eyes... they were as though they had voices, screaming for murder...

Screaming for an end.

"I am useful to Sonic and his friends, to Amy-! ... ah... Amy..." she looked at the dents in the floor, "Amy... Rose..." She looked to the car, completely unrecognizable as one... "N-no, I... I have failed her... I..." The electricity between her hands... she looked down at it, completely terrified as her memory recounted the two electrical pillars that would drag her heavy, metallic frame into the air... a conduct for Neo Metal Sonic's twisted torture and pleasure...

The ball that formed in the center... she could hear herself blitzing out... the fuzz of Metal Sonic's eyes making a static sound that rose in volume to her memory of her own shortcircuiting...

"I am... acting like you." she parted the electrical beam from her hands... "I... I... Am something you could never have... you gave me a different purpose, too... You tried to make that purpose reasonable and doable... but even though I tried to fulfill it,... I chose to take on the impossible objective... instead of the logical one. I chose to rebel... I chose the harder course that you gave up on... I chose the memory of grief and misery. I thought you gave that to me... but you didn't. My answer... is that all I have ever wanted... will bring me to an inescapable ruin."

She toppled a little, swaying herself back as her balance system... just like the beginning... kept her falling over again.

She looked up to the ceiling... as though it was the Organic heavens where normal souls could hope for...

And found only the end... only a void.

"I will bring myself ruin in the end... and you have tried to prevent that."

She thought of how he spiked her through... and yet,... as they fell...

He must have remembered his time as Metal Madness...

He must have wanted a different fate for her...

He retrieved her...

He didn't leave her to the 'end', even though Eggman somewhat had.

"My entire concept of who I am... I'm already at the brink of destruction... I'm almost at madness... But you knew that... didn't you?"

He lay motionless, as her soft, robotic and computerized voice sobbed but her outer body could only shake and bounce to the motions.

Not a sound from him...

...

...

Continual silence.

Then a spark from his back, showing he wasn't completely destroyed...

But he probably wasn't functioning either...

He might explode if she didn't repair him soon...

And yet...

Neo Metal Master...

"Did you know?"

He grew, Amy kept inspiring him just as she did Neo Metal Amy... He rebelled because Amy gave him answers to Sonic... and he wanted more answers...

Metal Amy was the culmination of wanting his own Amy, to make sense of things further, to release and free him even more from his impossible errand with Eggman...

Amy... her power... he didn't want to know what Amy gave to Sonic... he wanted to know what she could continually give to him.

His change... Becoming Metal Amy... Neo Metal Sonic pitted against Neo Metal Amy... it was fate.

'He must be so impressed by me... I almost did beat him... without fully becoming a monster.' she thought, wanting to just shut down and charge off on her own... but slowly... reaching for the back of his neck, looking as though two fingers would hook underneath his metallic collar and drag him the other way with her... but possessively, she aggressively gripped his neck... as though not letting him go... as though...

Neo Metal Sonic would normally grab her...

It was a sudden jerk,... but then a slow drag and walk as she made her way to the table and threw him up onto it, dragging his corpse to shove off and topple over all the other tools and things that were upon it. Loose metal and items fell with dramatic sounds to the stony floor... clanking and tinking as though discarded as unwanted.

She didn't care about any other thing than what she wanted from Neo Metal Sonic...

"I'm your answer..?" she lowered her head... "Don't make me laugh..."

"You've been mine... this whole time... serving yourself... but secretly... serving me."

It sounded insane... but her reasoning and logic made some sense.

She had the evidence... she reminded him the most of himself.

He gave her what he couldn't for himself... and yet, self-served at the same time.

Sickening... how far did his narcissism go?

He knew she wasn't him anymore... she had become something new, just like her brothern, they adapted to their counterparts and grew in their own respects.

Mostly from his trauma and torture.

She became Neo... to defeat something inside her... that was projected in himself... from his past of wanting to destroy Sonic.

Does that... mean... she wants to destroy herself?

She closed her eyes.

"... Omochao... Cybernetic entities of past memory lives... That is who I am... those are who I am made of." She opened her eyes to truly look at what Neo Metal Sonic was... a shell... a former being that had ended his existence and awakened as a broken machine that could no longer fulfil his one, singular task given to him.

This... was Metal Sonic's true limbo... and afterlife.

"Whether Metal Sonic may be apart of those or not... I don't care."

She skimmed her hand that was on his neck down his back... Her eyes sulken...

"Lives... ours are never-ending... we can't just disappear... we can only recreate."

She touched his motor, now completely screwed up, and stuck a finger between a fan and moved it up and down, feeling the resistance from the jammed pieces of bent fan in it.

She moved his cape, moving the width of her hand further down his back...

"A cycle... once you re-activate... it will all make sense, won't it, Metal Me..? You tried to expand yourself... your assets... You made a Sonic Heroes... a Metal counterpart... to friends... but couldn't compute what friends even were...

"I completed your objective... His strength..." she moved down passed his lower back to his leg... using one finger now to reach his feet... "It truly does come from them, Metal Me... That's what makes me new and different from you... distinct... in the swarm of your lives." She walked away from the table a moment... knowing it would just rile up Neo Metal Sonic if he was actually listening to her... so she knew that if her touch didn't awake him, nor her insulting words... then he was truly out for the count.

"You thought Sonic's friends were useless now that you had their data... obsolete in their purposes... that you could somehow cancel them out... you tested that theory again by making three others copies... they branched from you, the original foundation, and became their own entities... but you couldn't get along with them... now that they weren't you, and you saw that as Errors... didn't you? Or was it really... that you feared what other directions your creations had created for themselves..? In the environment you fostered... you couldn't STAND seeing them exceed when... and where... you could not." She thought of Sonic's words. "the Metal Series... was really just you trying to best Tails, Knuckles, and even Amy... knowing you probably couldn't... but still seeing Sonic as the ultimate out of all living things... Amy was right, you're just a fanboy that hates that he can't live up to being his hero... or making his hero better."

She wiggled a finger on the back of his heel, since he was facing down on his stomach from the table.

Fiddling with him... realizing he's not so great and mighty after all... Not just in errors, which she knew, but also in everything else... every sense of the words and phrase of 'pointless effort'.

"Sonic really is amazing... but what makes him amazing... is..." She walked all the way back and leaned next to Neo Metal Sonic's head, the lights now dark and destitute. "He's Organic."

She leaned up, "Hmm... that makes me sound like a hardcore vegan." She tilted her head, confused by her own statement, but remembering Amy saying something about the different ways Organic's viewed their substance known as 'food' to fuel them in their respective ways.

"Guess I went vegan." she lowered her eyes to Neo Metal Sonic, mockingly. "And you stayed a killer... a carnivore wishing to best what he never stood a chance against... and as they say... if you can't beat'em, join them." She shrugged. "Guess that's the major difference between us... I love the organics... You despise them."

To really rub salt in the wound, so to speak, she lifted a hand to the table by his titled head in that direction, laying somewhat on his chin, and having his nose stop it from rolling... She leaned down one last time and whispered, "And I love Sonic The Hedgehog..."

Suddenly... the head started sparking... and the legs and arms twitched.

"Wha-what..?" She pulled away, stunned he was trying to re-activate himself.

'Was his systems down but he was still operational within his mind?!'

She wondered if this was a case of—not faking it—but a fluked coma?

His body randomly twitched and shot up an arm back to flop down or another knee to pop up and out as though something deep within was trying to control itself.

It was him... writhing at her words... wasn't it?

Now there was some fear...

Before he exploded... and his head went flying into the car.

"...I exceeded your accomplishments... and yet... you throw a fit over me adoring Organics above yourself?"

She thought that quite petty, but... oh well.

"Well, now that I know you're not there..." she sounded a bit petty herself, mocking him. She turned to where his head had jammed itself into the car and demeaningly played with the spiky quilled triangles, as though scrunching up the fluff of one's cute cheeks. "Fully, this time, ... I have so much more to gloat and say now... Though I feel for you, unwillingly... against my better performances... I suppose... I know that his friends aid Sonic in his freedom and will. That is Sonic's true strength, and no matter what you or anyone else tries to do... Omochao has taught me that Sonic's friends preserve that part of himself most of all."

She laughed, clutching him and leaning into the space between the quills, draping her arm and self over it, "Ohh, that's hilarious! Uhh... if I'm computing humor rightly..." she looked to the side of her vision, up towards the ceiling, raising and lowering one of her eyelids. "You couldn't perceive them, it was always 'How can I defeat YOU, Sonic' and not, 'How can I defeat ALL of you.'... rather ironic, really, because I used Sonic's friends to obtain and preserve my freedom and will, too."

She raised an arm up as though giving a lecture... but what she didn't see... was the fizzling of static radio lines from Neo Metal Sonic's head... somehow... after all of that... he was still there...

"You didn't just fight against Sonic, his friends aren't just 'Sonic copies' you know, not like what you did. They were born completely 'un-Sonic'! Amazing, right?" she waved her hands up in the air, then went to grab the head and pull it out. "Honestly, I'm glad I only started out being an awkward you... and became so much better than you... Organics would have a field day trying to sort this all out if they heard it." she tugged on the head... then blinked her eyes and strained further. "Urkk... hurrph! They would be... thinking how unorganic this really all is..! But being robots... we really couldn't start... from... nothing..! Yahh..!" she fell back, realizing his head was really jammed into the car and not coming out... "...Oh no." her eyes went wide and she got up, worried now as she tried to find a wave to ... 'carve' him out of the car. "This... Amy Rose will surely have MY head for this!"

She threw a foot up on the car and heaved and ho'd, "You were never programmed to computer friendship, teamwork, or- HOO! Loooveee..!" she strained but the head was NOT budging...

"Ugh." she emoted, her eyes drooping down as she rubbed her metallic, base of her fingers against her head, under the three protruding, razor-sharp metallic quills. "What? Did you jam your ego into Amy Rose's car, too!?" she kept trying to rip it out, lifting another foot up, having both feet now on the actual tottled car and turning on her jets underneath her dress to try and pull him out.

"How am I supposed to rebuild you... if you won't let go... of your stupid past!?" She finally got it out but it forced her to slam against the side of the house and tore a huge hole into it, leading her to have fallen beside the front door... again...

Holding his head like a football inbetween her own, and blinking at what just happened, she sighed and closed her eyes, "Amy Rose... please do not be upset with me..." she lightly pleading, knowing there was no way she wouldn't surrender the two of them to Knuckles after this...

On the ground, her feet still up by the open, crackling hole that kept dropping more wall debris onto her legs and metallic red dress, she lifted the head up. "You were programmed to be 'self-aware' and yet... couldn't fathom your own folly... just... following directive."

She then tilted her head, "Then... how was I able... to self-reflect... Tails freed my mind, but even before Tails... How did I do that?" she could see where his curiosity in her sprung from, but turning him around... "Eggman is an organic... he could have computed... although limitedly... that you couldn't ponder abstract concepts together like he could. Couldn't you have... searched it online back then?" Now she made it sound like Metal Sonic grew up in a stone age... "Did you have internet back then-AHH!"

She dropped the head when she saw it was static and functional... even after all that it went through!

It laid at her dress, the nose tilted towards where an organic would have their belly button and down.

"Could... could you hear and compute everything I just said?" she was a bit worried now, but shook it off, "N-no, e-even if you could... I still have control limiters on you... I... I... I'll just have to deal with your anger and baby tantrums." she shook her head, but felt so much more reassured in the sense that she would distance herself from 'The past Metal Sonic's data that founded her existence...

"It's a cruel thing..." she lowered her eyes, looking out into the distance of the organic world... trees... plants... shrubbery...

"...Creating a robot without feeling."

She sighed,

"What you don't know... is that Organics need each other. They need someone to protect, to maintain, to advance themselves and others up on the pegs of life's intricacies... They need each other to aid them in life."

She lifted a leg to pull it down, but by doing so, her knee caused just enough lift for the nose to no longer keep the head up on her stomach and lap, so it flopped and rolled over off of her.

She watched it... then placed a hand on it. "Tails gave me all this... you had no Organic to give you these answers... it's not all from myself, you know? I also needed them... to grow, change, and advance myself to what I am now... I became smart in the ways of Emotions and Organics... but I'm still not perfected in them. I'm okay... not being..." She looked away, as though she was not. "... I still wish I could be... but it's still exceeding my own limitations as a robot... I may never be able to truly 'feel' what organics do... but I can at least emote what a feeling would look like or seem like... and... figure out the timing of when to 'simulate' that possible 'correct' feeling, but it's solely up to me what I chose to emote ... unlike an organic. So random and fleeting in their feelings... and yet... forever tied to them... which makes up who they are. Memories... experiences... even trauma... they all make up our past selves... but I don't envy my past... I simply try and grow excited for what comes next... the uncertainty is scary... but it also liberates me... because although limited... my possibilities... are never-ending, either." She stroked the head before picking it up, "Don't get me wrong, I still hate you." she spoke, holding him as though a literal ball, or shell of a man... Her nose straight up in the air, speaking factually, with an air of 'there's no changing that, still!', "I'm still super frustrated with you... but I'm not your 'exact' coding... I'm no clone to a clone... but I am satisifed with the me I've become... somewhat." she looked away, "Still working out the kinks... but... You know... if I could do it... and at one point, I was based off the foundational coding of you... maybe... you could to?"

She looked down, as though hoping...

She then shook out her head, as though tossing all care of him to the side, "BZZT, BZZT, BZZT, Not that I care what you do now! Just don't hurt my Organic friends!" she punted his head and he flew back into the garage, "Fore!" she spoke the wrong sports lingo...

He finally shut off, then... Not that he could help it, but...

"NOO!" Neo Metal Amy screeched once more as she tugged his head from the floor, "Don't tell me... you got stuck in the ground, too!? I barely even hit you!"

Maybe... she was emoting Amy Rose a bit too much... to compensate... all that she had felt before and chose a simpler expression, other than deciding what to emote on her own...

She'd have to process that whole smorgasbord of options later... she prioritized fixing Neo Metal Sonic but keeping him unfunctional, with even more downgrades to protect herself,... but didn't realize he knew about the command code still... faintly... operational...

Then, she'd worry about making Amy Rose a new car. Amy's fury... she worried would also be endless...

Stardust Speedway Zone... Act 2... Another Dimension... Mirroring the Past...

'Follow your objective... only when I dictate to do so.' Classic Metal Sonic was trying to find every way under the infernal sun to keep Rosybot at bay, but she hobbled along in her ridiculous, gunpowder-footed strut alongside him.

'Green?' she turned to a wall, but being in a completely mechanical area... everything was purple with electrical signals. She wouldn't need to rely on her motion detectors.

'Not everything is green.' He was getting annoyed again, but seeing Sonic, he tucked Rosybot under his arm and leaned against the corner, peeking out to see him and Tails...

'...I must destroy Sonic... before you learn how to detect him.' he set her down, taking her hand and pinching it against a metal handlebar. 'Stay here... follow this directive.'

'Directive is to learn identity called 'Sonic'. Entity must not exist. This is Rascal Doll's true objective.' She explained, and he glared at her 'unknowingly' tone.

'You trust in my programming to obey all of Doctor Eggman's decrees?' he tilted his head, knowing there was no fault in that statement... no matter what he was planning, he was still obeying his own assignment from Eggman.

'... Affirmative.' she lowered her head down, also seeing that reasoning.

'Then you will remain here... when Sonic is disposed of, you won't need to fulfill your objective...' he got up, facing his back to her, '... I will defeat Sonic... you are only unnecessary backup... a needless precaution.'

The glow of green... the black that blended into shadows of the metallic landscape... she didn't even ask about 'Flower's anymore...

He walked on, not really wanting to trust she would remain, but deciding it best to walk away anyway.

Sonic... this was because he existed..!

How many more robots were to be assigned for his eventual doom?

He looked over to the critters the Classic, dimensional Eggman was using as bait... and grabbed a trembling bunny as it tried to kick away from him.

As he held it by the ears, Rosybot sent a signal, and he looked back over to her to receive it.

'Sonic?' she asked, seeing the bunny kick its leg out.

'Negative.' he was growing annoyed at her insistence... to be destroyed!

The bunny let out a shriek as Classic Metal Sonic looked to see his claws had tightened around the bunny's ears... he loosened it. He needed these infernal things alive to tempt Sonic's emotions and get him to fight against him... not for sport... but now...

They both had something they wanted to protect...

Though, Classic Metal Sonic would never admit it.

When Classic Sonic turned around the corner and came speeding to the jack rabbit's rescue, Classic Metal Sonic released the rabbit and smushed his foot on his back to keep him steady, he gestured at the canon behind him but Classic Sonic jumped over them. He took out the weapon and then knocked Classic Metal Sonic back, allowing the rabbit to be taken by Tails and helped up, flying him off to safety as Sonic uncurled and stood with both fists up towards a fallen Classic Metal Sonic, who glared behind him at Classic Sonic's cocky... but serious silence.

Tails freed the other critters, who fleed rapidly like a stampede.

Rosydoll saw all the commotion from the safety of beyond the wall, sending the signal, 'Sonic?'

'No..!' Classic Metal Sonic answered but got up and swiped a clawed hand at Sonic, who expertly fell back on his hands and pushed off with his feet to bounce back up. It knocked Classic Metal Sonic back as his claws grounded in shrieking scratch marks against the metallic floor.

His eyes widened, blaring red as his patience was up.

He darted up into the shadows, grabbing Rosybot and unattached her hand to place her further away from Sonic... near some abandoned construction machines. 'Remain.' he instructed and bolted back to Sonic.

She remained silent... her blind eyes just watching the motions...

But she never removed her limited sights from it.

Tails flew down and stood by Sonic as Classic Metal Sonic reappeared from below the track, ready this time, with no distractions. He landed and did his signature taunt from the past... Sonic's infamous finger-wiggle.

Seeing it, Classic Sonic smirked. He was ready and willing for another round!

He seemed to recognize him, even in this alternative world...

Classic Metal Sonic folded his arms and tapped his foot... was Classic Sonic ready?

He bent his knees and turned to look ahead, beyond Classic Tails and Classic Sonic...

The motion was easy to read... so Classic Sonic realized that Classic Metal Sonic was giving him a headstart? He gave him a raised eyebrow, smiling... As though saying: Really, Metal Me? Such an advantage right off the bat?

But Classic Metal Sonic didn't flinch... he just let his eyes grow bright red and then dim down again... as though a threatening, resounding 'yes' on his confidence in his own skills...

This time... things would be different!

Rosybot... let go from the new place he attached her to... and although the race started at breakneck speeds... she followed... relying solely on following the motion of action and not letting it get away from her...

Because her tiny little body dragged, she found that skating and sliding upon the metal was easier than trying to run in her little, steel, stick-figure skeletal structure under the sack Rosy design stuffed with gunpowder. It was like socks against flooring, and she skid to keep up by pushing against the walls.

'Objective... You are still my objective.' she sent the signal, but Classic Metal Sonic was charging himself up in the air with static, relocating all his energy into spreading out over his metallic casing and creating a red heat, enough that it would melt flesh should it come into contact with it. He bolted behind Sonic and Tails after zooming ahead and tried to hit them from the rear, but they jumped expertly.

What Rosybot didn't know, which was many things, was that this 'skidding chase' she had figured out could easily backfire. Either her gunpowder got sparked by the friction creating a flame, or she could tear her body and deflate from the gunpowder... even then, though, at least she wouldn't-

Explode.

Classic Metal Sonic was hit with Classic Sonic's spikes before Classic Tails also slammed his balled-up form into him as well.

Because it was so fast, his heat and even the sparks didn't hurt them that much. They waited it out and struck, being strategic.

Classic Metal Sonic was growing frustrated, 'If I have something to protect, then like Sonic, I should be able to succeed!' it was a reason... but was it logical?

It was all Classic Metal Sonic had to go off of...

'Sonic?'

Rosybot's signal was still strong... how could that be?

He had left her behind long ago...

He turned around only to have his eyes widened, zooming in on her skidding below them.

'Rosybot..! Inferior..! Weak, little..!' He twitched and curled his metallic fingers.

'Cease and desist! Retreat back!'

'Objective.'

She looked up to where his motion was.

'I remain with you.'

'No! You remain to nothing!'

Something about her signals... how she sent them... it gave him a sense of purpose... to preserve her pathetic existence.

'Sonic?' she looked to Tails's motion.

He struggled, his programming forcing him to respond as Eggman's command was absolute. '...BBZZZ.. TTzz... No.' he couldn't fight it, no matter how much he tried to break the connection... she easily could access it now.

He dived straight down into Sonic, trying to ignore her... but she only had one other guess left...

'Please...' he wasn't used to saying that word, 'Follow your directive... Stay by me!'

'...Sonic?'

She raised her eyes to the only other motion there was.

His body flinched... his metal eyelids squinted as though trying to fight his programming.

'...Y... Yes.'

Rosybot's demeanor changed. The signal was broken off, and she focused primarily on programmed instinct.

'No,... Don't engage!' he couldn't fly off path to her, ... the only way to keep her from Sonic... was to engage him more directly himself.

He flew with yellow speed-boost energy surrounding his body, he rams into Classic Sonic and then Classic Tails, pushing them into a room and flying up to insert himself into a machine. His eyes flashed to register him as he hardly gave notice to the green pods with two other models of himself, missing an eye and looking as though one crashed and the other exploded... former shells that Dr. Eggman kept around as souvenirs... Wait... were they from the same place Neo Metal Sonic had emerged from?

Classic Metal Sonic didn't have much knowledge on the —now destroyed —spacecraft of failed memories...

The red dots around him flashed yellow to show they were operational and ready to be manipulated.

A silver-looking metallic Sonic appeared, but another one was sent behind him, to keep Rosybot away from Classic Sonic.

It was all a distraction... He could take care of destroying Sonic while she was kept at bay... no robot need be...

He looked at the scrap metal inside the green, cylinder tubes... ruined. Obsolete.

... Replaceable.

From his core, Classic Metal Sonic channeled an electrical fireball of sorts, a star with jagged, red electrical pluses widening into a circular sphere. When it got closer to Classic Sonic, it flashed white and centralized itself on the heat-source, but Classic Sonic could easily jump it, as well as taunt the silver Sonicbot as it clicked its two-finger clawed, magnet hands and like a rubber hose, tried to throw it out and grapple-hook it's way to him.

Seeing it couldn't hit him, it spun to mimick a spin-dash, but Sonic countered it as it targeted Classic Tails.

'Nuisances...' Metal Sonic lifted his head up to the side, his singular red eye blared and glowed... 'And what of Rosybot?' he looked behind him but the Silver Sonicbot he had sent turned objectives, taking the now destroyed copy of its place. 'Noo..!' Classic Metal Sonic saw it toss Rosybot, who it had held back, to the side and now... she was just getting up off the ground to follow it to fight Classic Sonic.

His metallic eyes twitched, the light in them flickering out slightly as though emoting fear... 'Don't... He will end your existence..!'

The first clone released a blue bird from his core, who flew up and distracted Classic Metal Sonic from controlling the robots by pecking his head. He sent an annoyed electrical red ball towards it and it sparked before falling to Classic Tails's arms, who caught him and helped him get safely away.

Hitting the new Silver Sonicbot —as Classic Metal Sonic didn't know their identity names, he named them himself —away towards Classic Metal Sonic, Classic Sonic rubbed a finger under his nose as Classic Metal Sonic was forced from his station and explosions were breaking out near the machine.

Sonic then thumbed the rest of the track, pointing to his want to continue the match.

He had no idea... all Classic Metal Sonic had to protect. But thinking about it, if he could get Classic Sonic moving away from Rosybot again...

He looked to see her making her way up to the platform and quickly nodded to Classic Sonic's gesture. 'Don't turn around... don't attack her...' he thought in his head, as though thoughts could be willed to life.

It was so unlike him... one second, he's frustrated and bent on destroying Sonic... the next... his only concern is to keep an insignificant robot operational... simply because it was the only robot he had ever acquainted himself with and found that it didn't know it's own purpose or fate.

A robot that willingly knows its objective... and follows it regardless... those were Eggman robots.

But one who didn't know... who blindly followed to a path it never knew, but still couldn't really choose... that was an enslaved soldier.

'Rosybot!' he tried to reconnect the signal again, 'Resist!'

...Back in the future, Orbot and Cubot suddenly found themselves dropping their tools...

They had been working on some small Eggman robots, nothing that fancy.

One was a bug with a rotor and one wheel under it, resembling a ladybug.

Orbot turned to Cubot with his hands up as though surrendering.

"Cubot..." He, almost frozen in confusion, spoke as if dazed. "Do you... suddenly feel the urge to rebel?"

Cubot blinked his eye lights, also uncertain where that feeling came from.

"Uhh... nope! Not me! Just workin' on fixin' this here robot for Doctor Eggman!"

He continued hammering away and Orbot nodded...

"Metal Sonic... his systems... Could it be..? There are two signals?"

The two, moments before, felt the urge to electrically shock a 'kiss' to something too...

At the same time...

Neo Metal Amy had found the power to push Neo Metal Sonic off of her, and resisted his command programming with the other.

However... Due to her countless upgrades and limitations on Neo Metal Sonic's old programming for her...

Her collective being didn't notice, nor register, that any signals were diverse or distinct...

Only that the power to fight Neo Metal Sonic had been achieved, and his signal weakened by another, equally powerful will.

That was all.

And most was unconsciously deduced within Neo Metal Amy...

Back in the mirrored, but alternative, dimensional Past... Classic Sonic shot up a curved structure where it triggered a motion beam, sending cubed-stacks with spiked fronts to pile on top of one another in a repetitive building of a wall behind him.

Classic Sonic turned around in alarm, as Classic Metal Sonic knew this drill like the back of his hand from his memory banks... and tapped his toe impatiently, folding his arms as though waiting its completion. 'Round 2.' he stated in his mind, 'How I've awaited this moment... and yet... this time... I have something to save too.' He felt that would be enough to win this time... After all, his past self —whose opinion he didn't really value in the first place as logical or efficient —seemed to have calculated that was why Sonic won before.

He had the pink hedgehog to rescue... Amy Rose... Now, Eggman provided another annoying, yet perhaps beneficial substitute. Was this an experiment? Could he afford to lose and have to step-aside as an inferior robot took their chance to destroy Sonic?

Not a chance...

Classic Metal Sonic was more competitive than that...

At least... that's what he told himself.

'She needed me... Although I succeeded in telling her the last piece she needed to complete her objective... I'm aware that robots that have your destruction as their primary objective... are doomed to fail... unless they are me.'

His engine revved.

'She needn't know destruction by your hands... My fate... my destiny is to fight you, Sonic The Hedgehog... My past lives all failed to seek the reason in that... but I have no other reason than that it is my code's simplest programming... If you breathe, I spark. If you run, I race. whether it is logical or not... to compete against you... to better myself and end your existence... Is just simply...

Duty."

The only grudge Classic Metal Sonic felt was that his past lives didn't 'enjoy' the challenge... he still took it seriously but wasn't as near dramatic as them...

It was almost... fun.

But with Rosybot in the way, it seemed to inspire more than that... Why was that?

He wiggled a pointer finger to distract Sonic from Rosybot climbing up and seeing the wall which was keeping her from 'Sonic'. She kept repeating his name, no longer able to see the motion, but simply following as she reconnected to Classic Metal Sonic, seeing colors in faded hues and lines... her systems working twice as hard to do so as she saw that Classic Metal Sonic was —pretty much, according to her limited sight now, steaming her insides as they tried to even 'perceive' color at all —the same blue.

'What?' His eyes widened, he looked behind him at the signal's direction. 'She's... evolving?' She accessed his eyes, then used 'lines' to show color. Such as green, being crosshatched lines, blue being lines so closely paired up that it looked like a solid, thick line, and so on and so forth were other colors...

She was... rearranging her coding to identify 'Sonic' better... but his lines, his motions... Even her false sense of colors... they weren't enough to distinguish who was Classic Metal Sonic and who was just plain 'Sonic'.

'Enough! Quit straining yourself! I will complete your objective!' he had tired of her persistence. 'You are not enough to complete your programming!' he belittled her, but she continued to advance, trying to find a way to move through the wall. At first, she started digging with her mittens, getting nowhere, but when the wall advanced, she just did what she did best... and clung to it.

'Why can't you seek further to understand than to simply destroy!?' he called out to Rosybot as a command, and Neo Metal Amy had the great urge to connect to Neo Metal Sonic's memories...

With his distraction, he was hit and his body began to show signs of overheating. It changed his color to a pinkish, red hue... leading Rosybot, through his own eyes, to see his arm was now blinking into different 'lines' that she identified as a different color. Classic Sonic's color remained constant... and she locked on to the image enough that she didn't need Classic Metal Sonic anymore...

'Objective fulfilled. You are no longer necessary. Congratulations, you're objective towards me is fulfilled.' Her signal was so robotic... too robotic...

Classic Metal Sonic felt his 'duty', not 'revenge/vengence', towards Sonic wane... 'Not... necessary?' It was the first every objective he completed... and yet... didn't want to succeed.

He felt himself slowing, the combusting on his sides become more prevalent... he slouched in the air, almost as though depressed...

'... Download yourself to me...' he suddenly stated to her, 'You can't die if you live in me.'

'What is 'live'?' she inquired, 'Is it opposing my objective to destroy the entity identified as 'Sonic'?'

It took Classic Metal Sonic a moment... but hearing her ask that... realizing he used such an illogical word to describe what he... was experiencing?

No... what he... felt.

He finally understood now... why the robot known as Metal Amy rebelled... why his old lives rebelled... The loss of one's own will, intelligence, and being forced to a coded regiment... is no life at all... 'I have accepted it.' he closed his eyes, seeing Sonic spin dashing toward him, and hearing the sound of the spinning rocket-like bullet of his body coming to end him from this epiphany... 'robots... cannot live.'

He spun out of control in a mid-air cartwheel at the impact, flying towards the wall...

'Sonic... Metal Sonic...' Rosybot's signal was coming beyond the wall... 'Explode... explode... All 'Sonics' must explode!' With the first real emotional signal he had experienced from her, he watched as the wall was blasted through from behind.

'...Rosybot...' his eyes widened as the explosions kept toppling the wall... She had concluded that in order to keep her objective, she had to destroy 'Sonic'... but then... her limited programming recognized him as a Sonic...

That sort of validation... of being a Sonic... of a robot calculating that based on looks, identity name, etc... He tucked in his legs and folded himself to roll through the explosion and saved himself.

He was still blasting from side to side, the combustion imminent, but he now... saw the little burnt sack and metal wiring of Rosy bot on the other side...

'Objec-Objec-objec-' it kept spurting...

Although about to combust as well.. Classic Metal Sonic flew down to her side, picking up her now exposed metal wiring... He held it close to him.

'That's right... Rosybot... you paved the way for 'Sonic' to be destroyed...' He was about to burst out from his core, explosions starting to grow from within him as his body racked from their impacts.

He wanted her to depart knowing her objective was had... he was going to combust just like she did... She had seen the 'real' Sonic but deduced that any Sonic was worth blowing up for.

She had inadvertently saved him from colliding with the spiked wall as well... giving him just a moment longer to... disappear from existence with her.

He tried to download her,... taking her into his indestructible memory chip that succeeded in making a file small enough for her limited A.I. When Eggman got the location of the mine from Neo Metal Sonic... He had made another memory chip and downloaded Classic Metal Sonic into it, as well as... some remaining files from his past life... some of which, he wondered for a split moment if Neo Metal Sonic also still utilized.

Rosybot stopped sending a signal, and as he slowly let the burning sack and metal pieces down from his hands... he exploded on his knees... he couldn't save her...

But, by her acknowledging all he had wanted to be but giving up on,... she also saved him... from becoming a mindless robot as well...

When he became operational again, he noted that it was Classic Dr. Eggman, and not his doctor that had repaired him. He didn't say a word... until he tried to find Rosybot and couldn't.

His eyes widened.

"Ho, ho, ho!" That laugh...

He angrily looked up to a wide screen... with Modern Doctor Eggman peering down with a mischievous grin.

"Well done, Metal Sonic! I must admit, I would have NEVER suspected you would save the memory core of such a... disposable prototype as she was... But nevertheless... I was able to extract her, along with any bugs I could find, and download what you could scrape together for her dear sisters~" The camera pulled out on the television to reveal the slot machine had been combined with the Eggmobile design... Classic Metal Sonic leaned up with horror as those gacha ball-spheres had wiggling Rosybots all moving like entrapped worms within their prisons...

Bombs... he saw these limited robots as nothing but humorous, meaningless distractions for Sonic to combat.

Even his objective towards her... the jokes Eggman made of his past life creating a similar robot to Amy Rose... it was all a distraction...

"Oh-ho? Facing trauma or something, Metal Sonic?"

That insane..!

Classic Metal Sonic curled his twitching fingers, enraged!

"Hmm... I wanted to see if your superior obedience programming would outlast my little experiment... seems you still completed your objective... even with Neo's little tweaks I put into you here and there... Now, no robot can resist me, Ho-ho-ho!"

Eggman spread out his arms and laughed, as Classic Metal Sonic lost his anger and gripped the edge of the worktable.

Rosybot... her objective was him... this whole time.

She was meant to inspire him to rebel, and Eggman wanted to see if he would.

She was never meant to actually fulfill her objective of destroying Sonic The Hedgehog...

An impossible task to complete... he actually would create a robot with such a fate?

She was just meant to destroy any doubt Eggman had that Classic Metal Sonic could turn into another rebellious Neo Metal Sonic again...

The cruelty...

"Number one robo-dad in the world!"

Eggman held up a cup with a large #1 across it.

"Make sure your hormonal teenage counterfeit can't sneak off and plan world domination without you~3 Honestly, Metal, I had hoped you would have fought just a bit harder... did the little Rascal doll not appeal to your... 'Sonic'ness enough?"

He sipped his drink, as though watching to see if Classic Metal Sonic would get upset enough to show any resistance to his obedience programming.

Classic Metal Sonic lowered his head, his whole being was consumed in hatred...

And yet... he couldn't oppose Dr. Eggman... and silently closed his eyes in defeat towards his creator.

Eggman finally stopped slurping the tea...

"Ah~ Just what I like. Absolute submission in all things..."

He grinned widely on the screen.

"Oh, other me?" He turned to his Classic self, who—while in the dark—looked as though their glasses were flashing evilly, as their hands were together as though also enjoying Metal Sonic's realization and suffering. He snapped out of the villainous pose though and made an innocent and delightful 'o' with his mouth at Modern Eggman speaking to him. "Do make sure to send my dear metal boy back to the past!" he scrunched his fist tightly together. "At least... your past. Although my history can't be altered, and Neo Metal Sonic not avoided... at least in your dimension... you never need have to let go of any one of your precious creations~" he blew a kiss, "Learn from the best~ Ciao~"

Classic Eggman seemed to nod happily, before realizing that Modern Eggman had just called himself the 'best' Eggman and puffed up his large, balloon-like chest and huffed with angry, animated stomps at his audacity.

However... Classic Metal Sonic found that something had broken in him that day... a will to seek freedom... to obtain it for himself...

If he was ever to defeat Sonic, truly, he would need be able to freely think, reason, and...

He looked back up as the screen still showed the trapped, clueless Rascal Dolls...

That only a Amy could assist him.

The Classic Metal Sonic life that he once was...

No longer existed anymore.

Even taking his revenge with the Phantom Ruby, within the alternative past dimension's bad future route for Classic Sonic...

Only gave his little mania an added plus to defeat both the truest squanderers of his success that he knew.

Dr. Eggman... Sonic...

All organic beings...

He would eradicate them all.

As Giga Metal Sonic, he still failed but was recovered as a force for Eggman's new army back in their regular dimension...

When he returned, he helped Eggman take over 99.9 percent of the world...

All the while...

Seeking a way to escape his coded fate.

In his mind... where Rosybot once was successfully saved, he lingered in his memories of her... the small, feeble wire of her outwardly mitten hand gripping his own metallic arm... her seeing through his eyes... her ironic statement... of him being her necessary objective.

It was truly Classic Metal Sonic... who was oblivious to her true intent for being created...

A joke... a silly, worthless experiment to give Eggman a hoot and a holler, so he wouldn't stress about this Metal Sonic rebelling against him...

Ultimately... she would be the reason...

He sought a 'will' of his own.