Metallic Need
Season 2 Chapter 8 UNEDITED
By: CGMayra (I'm gonna warn yall, you guys have to brace yourselves, we're nearing the end of the season! All my love to you guys, here we go!)
After many long and hard hours of intensive labor, drilling through steel, shaping flaming metal, and bolting everything into place… a metallically flexible alloy blinked its eyes open for the first time. Eyes shining with a black light, before booting up to a green.
The motionless robot stood still, having no objective, it simply just stared…
After a moment of watching it, Neo Metal Amy's own eyelids bunched up a little bit. It was cringey, watching this new creation almost as if it had no 'essence' to emulate at all.
However, looking at Metal Sonic, he seemed pleased, staring at it with folded arms, finding the silence and eerie stillness to be acceptable.
Her likeness to the younger Amy Rose was phenomenally accurate, as though great, painstaking detail and love were put into each careful, well-thought-out structure of her shape.
A marvel in model alone, but with no exact reason for herself to be built other than to exist that Metal Sonic's objective of being a 'Sonic' and striving for the excellence of a 'Perfect Sonic' could be achieved and accomplished, but not having given her that direct programming to know even that, Neo Metal Amy began to think their work was done all in vain.
"... And… You're sure you don't want to implement the Heart installation?" She looked back to Metal Sonic, keeping this from the other Organics was fairly easy, but she had no idea Tails was covering for her. "I think the Organics will find it… odd to have a pretty much 'lifeless vessel' sitting here for all time and eternity…" She voiced her opinions loud and clear. She loved Amy Rose, and having created a different robot to resemble her… but not act like her? It was… "It's as though we've made a doll… to be placed on a shelf and forgotten about… a marvel of ingenuity and talented art… to be stared at… to have… and nothing more." She felt her being falter, it was everything she hated in the world of robotics…
"THAT IS PRECISELY ACCEPTABLE." Metal Sonic responded, lowering his chin down to stare at it further, "SO LONG AS IT'S EXISTENCE PERSIST, MY OBJECTIVE IS PRETTY MUCH COMPLETED. I AM 'SONIC' TO THIS CREATION. NOW… I WILL FIND A WAY TO SERVE EGGMAN IN OTHER FUNCTIONALITIES." He about-faced, leaving the very reason he could move on from several lifetimes of iterated failures, progressing to his next objective… To serve Doctor Eggman in taking over the world.
"That's-!" Neo Metal Amy's eyes blared in different areas of green and red, but Neo Metal Sonic held out his arm, waiting for Metal Sonic to leave.
She looked at him, unsure why he was halting her resentment and complaint. "Neo…" She didn't speak his full name but watched as Metal Sonic began to fly out of the base, using a chimney to do so.
"... He's gone." She relaxed and stood upright, as Neo Metal Sonic chuckled a moment and walked over to the new Metallic Rosy.
"Vanished." He joked, picking her up by her bum and turning her upside down, shaking her about a bit, "So much work… only to exist for the prime reason of existing." He dropped her as Neo Metal Amy rushed to catch her.
He laughed, "Why bother? She's a lifeless charged battery… the most obsolete robot ever given creation… Although on, she's completely useless." He gestured up in the air, leaning his hip on the workbench, "A robot without a function is unheard of. Your efforts to change Metal Sonic's mind were all just your own vanity in your Heart Virus… You didn't even want to call it that. 'Program', that's how you see it, right? Would your 'emotions' give this robot the will to move? To want to emote anything? It has no meaning, other than to sit there and look well-made."
He gestured to the robot she held like a teddy bear in her arms… staring at it… completed, to a degree, even loved.
"... It's now even more pointless than you are."
A last snap of her restrained emotions, before her program hurried through code and she lashed out at him, her back sparking wildly in large strings of lightning.
"You are the one who is obsolete!"
He chuckled, dipping his eyes down.
"I love when you error… you don't even hide the fact… that you're as illogical as ever for agreeing to his whims."
He closed his eyes, moving off the table where he had an elbow resting and putting a set of fingers closer to her cheek, knowing he'd be electrocuted if he dared to touch her.
"You had a purpose, Neo Metal Amy… What happened?"
His question came with a dark tenderness, as she used the still-sitting Metal Rosy to whack Neo Metal Sonic's hand away, knocking his arm back to the point that he had to bring it back to his side, resting on his hip.
"You know full well why!" She glared at him, leaning her head forward, then holding the Metal Rosy close to her, of which Neo Metal Sonic took a note of her possessiveness over it… or was it… protectiveness?
He raised an eyebrow, it was strangely similar to how he treated her in the past… when she was first showing signs of-
"I won't explain my reasoning to you!" she walked back around him, almost through him but he only tilted his body so she wouldn't run into his sprawled-out, metallic hedgehog spikes, and placed the Metal Rosy back on the table.
"They still wouldn't make sense, your thoughts, even if you tried." He looked forward as though annoyed by the 'round and around' conversations they had of late.
"Always the same thing…" He lowered his voice box, "We discuss and get nowhere about the same griefs and miseries… yet," He looked back at her, seeing her lightly touch the Metal Rosy's bottom quill, as though a mother's love. "... Hmm." He found she had some attachment, some 'joy' in that frozen creation.
"... You find that although it has power, it must somehow 'feel' to truly exist?" He turned around to her, folding his arms, "And I find that something without an objective they are striving to fulfill is ludicrous… not worth being created." He narrowed his eyes. "Yet…" He tilted his head, as though smiling at some secret thought.
"... You created me." She glared back at him, and he lowered his eyelids in a twisted sense of fondness for her.
"Yes…" He darkly amused over the fact that he was a hypocrite himself. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, "I created something out of experimental curiosity… is that not what you are trying to do?" He opened one eye, calling her out as she flinched a moment, the electricity still slightly sparking off her back as he approached it, hand starting to reach, as though longing for that sensation he'll never know again…
Sloshing around with oil inside him, it was now a matter of risking an explosion to touch her… and would it be logically worth it to?
He hyper-fixated on her slender, curved lined back… the inviting sparks meant for his destruction… still only reminded him of a fleeting sense of control and pleasure…
He would never admit any joy out of this circumstance… For in his mind, robots still couldn't feel.
Perhaps it was the lingering of days gone by..? The 'need' for a recharge? Her challenging him and giving him a puzzle to solve in his mind… though, he felt arrogant enough to think he had already solved it, and only wanted to see how she'd continue to try and cleverly avoid his detection… still…
"And yet." he pulled his hand away from reaching from the painful reminder that he could never command her again. "Though it's meant to be a pawn that sits for all of time to be the sole completion of another me's objective… if I could even call it 'another me'..." Narcissistically, Neo Metal Sonic rounded Neo Metal Amy and looked away, as though not wanting to acknowledge Metal Sonic as part of himself or another 'life' as Neo Metal often described her 'iterations' as.
"You see a robot and long for it to need life. A robot cannot feel, Neo Metal Amy,... It must have a purpose." He looked to her, "Whether that is to serve the dirty organic lifeforms… or to be ruled by them." He turned his eyes to her face, watching as the conflict turned and pressed upon her functions… seeing his case flung wide open and still not wanting to accept it.
He held out his pointer finger and thumb, pretending to cradle her chin and 'swing' his hand under it without actually touching it a few times… mocking her as though showing he wants to grab her chin and just move it around, but then drops it and stands more to the side of giving his attention to Metal Rosy. "She is the constant reminder of your past… isn't she?" He looked back at her, "She has no master, serves no task to be completed, and yet… she is void of your precious organic freedom."
Each word was like a direct, pulsed attack on her ideals… Yes, she was witnessing her theories all fade to dark matter… matter that didn't truly exist or could be compounded into facts and figures… unmeasurable… just like how unorthodox it was to explain a Robot knowing its thoughts were irrational and still wanting to try them…
Insanity… maybe she was.
But…
She turned to Neo Metal Sonic, who clearly looked as though he had won the argument only happening in his head at this point. "No." She stated, and put a hand to Metal Rosy, "I believe in the Organics sense of 'Hope'."
Neo Metal Sonic's eyes twitched in fury, his filed-down nails gripped the end of the table, still able to carve and dent into it.
"What?" He was furious! No matter how much he showed her her errors, she clung to them instead of him!
"What brazen philosophies have made you disregard reason entirely!?" He swung his arm out, "You have proof your concepts of robotic 'life' are in vain! You have no reason to 'believe' in your impossible 'dream'!"
"... I gave you a heart, didn't I?" She almost looked smug in that response, making his eyes widen in wanting to tear her apart again. "Though black as the coal that now fuels you… organic life long past now gives you power." She was referring to the dinosaurs, which oil seemed to stem from.
Hearing that, his ego was crushed once more, and he faltered slightly in looking at her, his knees bending as she had fixed his broken leg, and staring wildly at the ground.
"There's no getting through your wall of errors…" He finally admitted that defeat. "... I have… lost against a fake organic you believe that you are." He moved away from the table, and for the first time, Neo Metal Amy was stunned he would admit defeat so readily…
But it wasn't that simple. She had been fighting him for so long… this was just the first time he willingly bowed in respect to her madness being beyond his own.
As he moved away, Neo Metal Amy began to gesture all her reserved expressions and mannerisms in front of the staring Metal Rosy. Desperately, she hoped that by observing meaningless things, she may put meaning to them, and learn a trick or two…
But Metal Rosy never budged. Day after day… night after night… while the two Neos worked to repair and maintain the Resistance, Metal Rosy just remained plugged into a wall, sitting… staring…
Then one day…
Metal Rosy heard a type of 'ringing zap' that zipped through her circuits up to her communication registry. A box, if you will, that sent code as a type of 'language'.
This was the same data channel that was radioed to the different Metallic series, but only now, did it seem Eggman had a connection to it.
"Hello? Helloooo?" His charismatic and deranged, evil chime to his voice only showed his pure enthusiasm over getting the channel operational on his end of the line. "Is this little Rosybot?" He seemed awfully amused as Metal Rosy blinked her eyes, then looked around the room.
"Ah, emoting. As 'cute' as ever." He sarcastically gave a low-ridden chuckle as Metal Rosy continued to survey the area, even sending out a locating signal as Neo Metal Amy leaned up from her work and stared at her.
"... Do you send out a location beam?" She didn't look at Neo Metal Sonic, but she heard him throw some metal into the furnace and knew that was his answer that he hadn't.
The loud metallic clanking of him now hammering other, already malleable alloy into place made her walk over to Metal Rosy, lifting her up as her 'sitting position' never changed, very much like the heavy and still doll she was.
Holding Metal Rosy out in front of her, she just gave her a pleasant turn of her eyes, making it look like she was happy, and put her back down, staring at her. "Did someone finally emote and want attention?" She simulated a giggle that Amy Rose would typically emote and put a hand up to her speakers. "Goochie, goo." She had observed one of the refugees the Resistance was taking care of cradling a baby and doing on it. Thusly, she held out her metallic finger and wiggled it around near Metal Rosy.
"Ugh." Neo Metal Sonic emoted, rolling his eyes at her Organic gesture. "It will never move, it will never emote, and it will certainly not respond to-" He lowered his eyelids, lifting up his finger, mimicking sarcastically with absolutely no life–but robotically–her actions. "Goochie. Goochie. Goo."
"Ah, so you also have observed what I have, Neo?" She turned around and he blared his eyes to her.
"NEO METAL SONIC." He corrected loudly through his speakers, "And I tend to observe you closely… we work in proximity, and I have nothing more immaculate to look at." He turned and continued his work, but his words took her off guard and she had to turn and look at him.
"... Pardon?" She really was dumbfounded by his response… was he… after all this time… complimenting her work on her own redesign?
"No, for life." He joked, as though he was a convicted criminal serving time. "I'm afraid your wish for me to leave this place is only outweighed by your objective to serve me by making sure I'm still functional." He suddenly had metallic goop, burning and smearing his foot as it dripped making him glare at it. A flaw in the furnace?
After a moment of contemplating whose fault it was, he slammed his work tools down for hammering out metal shapes and threw his arms up, "Organics!" he cried out, as though cursing, "I swear..! They can't even keep their own objectives computable! Even to themselves!" He wagged his leg about after emoting his frustrations at them not repairing the furnace and flung the hot metal off of his foot. "We robots have to do everything ourselves!" He grumbled to himself and walked out of the room.
Neo Metal Amy… for the first time in forever, actually found herself putting the back of her hand up to her muzzle, and trying to not laugh charmingly at the silly emotions of her former master.
'... Is he… This new him… growing on me?' She worriedly thought a moment, pondering that before lightly patting and skimming her metallic hand over Metal Rosy, then exiting out after Neo Metal Sonic. "[Think we'll just go on break…]" She used a pre-recording of Amy Rose's voice, instead of quoting her, as she left.
Metal Rosy finally moved again, blinking her eyes. For some reason, she didn't move when anyone was watching her.
"Ah, good. We're alone again~" Eggman teased, "So! As your Grand-creator, I authorize you to obey me as your master! Uh, effective immediately." He seemed to say 'Grand-creator' as though saying 'Grandfather'.
Metal Rosy blinked slowly, almost painfully so.
"... You… You don't know what a 'Master' is, do you?" The next sound resembled that of a hand meeting a forehead in a loud 'slap'.
"Right, this isn't working…" Eggman's end then had the clickety-clack sounds of a panel of keys moving in a well-coordinated orchestra that made Metal Rosy flinch in tandem to their beats, as though a cat sneezing to rhythm. "I'm hacking your systems, little one… hopefully, this goes according to plan… Ah-ha! There! Every piece of scrap metal I've ever invented, no matter how many times it's repurposed, always tends to have a little bit of my original masterpiece coding stored somewhere in its old data banks… it's the foundation, you may say, of the expert programming software of my genius~" He gloated, but soon realized the little robot had no idea what he was saying. "Ehem, anyway… my genius is wasted on little rebels like you, for starters. So let's go back to your original objectives…"
Metal Rosy felt her core heating up, the rotating engine, flipped on its axis to resemble a downward, horizontal motion, soon lifted her into the air.
She blinked in confusion but raised her head. She was now moving through someone's control.
"Now, let's go find your dear ma-ma~" Eggman stroked his mustache in his base, having an old retro joystick controller in his hands, black with a single red button, and started jostling the stick around with a smirk on his face. "All I need now is that obedience software stored somewhere deep inside her… Neo Metal Sonic still had it as the foundation of his pathetic excuses for rewrites, and if Orbot and Cubot's data code still carries lingering traces of it… it must be a core feature in all their software engineering… even yours." His logic seemed to rest that he wanted to steal what little code of his was left in Neo Metal Amy,... wait…
Was he after her!?
Though his own code, one often forgets the little nuances of how they organized it together, and as Eggman piloted this non-objective entity, he also found ways to mess with the resistance…
"Opps? Did I do that~?" He had Metal Rosy cutely flick a hanging light as though innocently, but it smashed into some cargo boxes and lit them on fire, sparking everywhere to send the whole place on fire as he flew out of the room.
Sneaking about, he continued his shenanigans undetected, as Knuckles started giving orders out through the intercoms to stop the multiple fires while Metal Rosy banged her metallic butt against a control panel, smashing it all over and sparking it to explode as she flew away, "La, la, la~" Eggman seemed to be roleplaying in a tiny little girl's voice he was creating, "Now to find out where ma-ma is~" He then laughed at his own bored fun he was having.
Since having Zavok handle 'looking after' Sonic, he really felt there was no challenge the resistance could throw at him that he couldn't handle. This was, in all senses of the word, a recreational activity Eggman felt should be on his schedule anyway… For loose ends he felt needed addressing…
Since he wasn't so 'busy' anymore, might as well.
Finally, as Metal Rosy zoomed and flew to dodge the Resistance forces coming to find out what was going on and help with stopping the spread of destruction, the tiny robot–although heavy–finally spotted with her tiny sensor Neo Metal Amy moving closely with Amy Rose, fetching water and also using fire extinguishers to help.
"You could be useful, Metal!" She continued to call to Neo Metal Sonic, but in spite of her using that nickname, he laid across a burning desk and only looked at her, turning to his back to completely ignore her.
"You could explode!" She protested, turning around in anger after putting out fires and coming over to him, threatening to use the fire extinguisher on him too.
He faked a typical 'Sonic' yawn.
She lowered her eyelids and just sprayed him, realizing he was going to be a jerk about this.
She simulated a groan and flew off, and since Neo Metal Sonic was being petty and turned around, he didn't see that flying behind his back–Metal Rosy quickly followed after Neo Metal Amy.
With Amy Rose still trying to spin the hose's crank, she was also distracted as Metal Rosy made her way into the rafters of the now smoking building…
"... Neo. Metal. Amy." Her eyes gleamed green with each word, and through the smoke, it looked like a blinking green light, large and dispersed within the clouded black.
Neo Metal Amy suddenly halted on her way to fetch another fire extinguisher or even more water buckets and looked around before scanning the room, her sensor flaring a green beam that spread across and all over the room before Metal Rosy's silhouette in green showed and she stared up, knowing that shape… but not believing the little robot was moving…
Unaware it was Eggman's toy now, she flew closer, "... Metal Rosy?" She inquired, still surprised, "You… You are functioning and moving on your own!" As though with a proud sense of relief, Neo Metal Amy said this and flew closer, "How do you 'feel'? Do you feel 'Alive'? Without a functioning objective, are you-..." Her eyes suddenly bent in a thought. "... Were you… Was the objective you made for yourself… temporarily to find me?" She sounded in her registered tone almost as though touched, as though all her idealisms were being realized in this tiny image of a robot flying with her boosters in darkness…
The hazy fog of black continued to rapidly move and obscure the tiny robot… "Yes." It responded, nothing denoting more. "Come. Closer." It instructed, staying in place.
Tilting her head, Neo Metal Amy began to fly closer, placing the tip of her toe on a rafter's beam. "... Metal… Rosy..?" She reached out, not sure why it was acting so strange… but figuring it was because it had no real objective, so it may just want to see her.
But then…
The green glow of her eyes turned brightly red, and Eggman's voice spoke through her speakers as Neo Metal Amy now witnessed the smoky obscurity fly by Metal Rosy's pinkish face and reveal the takeover.
"Hehehe, Got'cha!"
Her head slid back on her neck, alarmed before Metal Amy's arms extended out–similar to how Neo Metal Sonic's claws used to lengthen as well–and grabbed hold of Neo Metal Amy.
"No..!" Struggling, Neo Metal Amy slashed at her arms, but they were well made and sturdy, and her own hands were now dulled from all her time going into machinery and maintenance, they weren't sharpened for combat.
She wasn't… combat ready… not anymore.
Realizing this, she looked up with widened eyes as Metal Rosy zipped her arms back like a retractable pulley line, and clanked her head against hers.
This cracked her first metallic bang, and forcefully opened her head up to reveal the inner-workings of where her memory slots were stored…
"Nooo..!" Realizing what Eggman was now after, Neo Metal Amy let out an electrical shock from her back, looking like the wings previously mentioned, but again… they crafted Metal Rosy so well…
The shocks only danced along the arms but were absorbed into her joints, powering her up as Metal Rosy's eyes continued to glow even more radiant in the smoky tops of the resistance headquarters.
Eggman's laugh echoed through her speakers, "HAHAHAH! If Neo Metal Sonic really cared about you, or even Tails for that matter, wouldn't they have taken better care to safeguard you against something like this?" He didn't know it, but her new features and body were her own design, and hearing him insult it, her head flung back and her eyes narrowed down at him.
"You…" She was beyond enraged, "I won't let you control her!" She kicked out and struggled, but Metal Rosy spun her arms even further and tighter around her body as though a rubber hose cartoon feature.
"Unlikely…" Eggman mocked, as Metal Rosy then released the electrical power she had stored as waves that not only electrified Neo Metal Amy, but also lit up the room and dent her metallic shell from the pressurized force of electrical 'squeezing'.
She simulated grunting, her eye twitching as one went smaller and the other larger, showing her systems were being interfered with as Metal Rosy's face remained unchanging…
"Metal Rosy..!" She called to her, "You… You can stop this!"
"Why would she?" Eggman smirked from behind the lenses of the tiny, unfeeling robot's eyes…. "She's the 'perfect' robot…"
Neo Metal Amy's eyes turned to a soft, tender love that showed she understood… Without an objective, Metal Rosy was just a husk waiting for command…
"Rosy…" Neo Metal Amy tried again, "Please… You aren't… You aren't just a tool in another's hand…"
The Metal Rosy just stared… as it always did… unchanging… doing what it was told and not thinking for itself.
It had accepted this takeover and had no morals to contend against it.
"Rosy…" Neo Metal Amy now wished she had put the Heart System inside her, even if it was against the newer Metal Sonic's wishes… She could have saved her… she failed… she failed to save the only creation that really mattered to her besides the Organic and original Amy Rose…
"Now, let's see… a touching look in your computerized reflection of human expression… but I'm not after your precious little acting skills…" Eggman jostled the joystick in his hands, and Metal Rosy's rubber gloves lifted up, unaffected by her own electrical frequency distortion on Neo Metal Amy's body, and found the different memory and data chips.
"You… What are you after, Eggman!?" Neo Metal Amy tried to move her head, but the frequency dropped to polarize and begin to pull her metallic body wider as though to tear her apart, squish her from the inside out, "AHHH!" She simulated pain.
"Something that should have been mine from the start… a little, harmful prank from someone who should have known their place… he trashed my storage unit in space, didn't he? Now… I'll get what's rightfully my possession back, and this time, make sure he stays exactly as I created him to be…"
Her eyes widened, "... Metal…"
"That's right." The last image she saw was her beloved Metal Rosy's face, with red blaring eyes that held no real expression, narrowed in focused concentration, clicking to remove the chips out of her head.
"Goodnight~"
Eggman's voice was the last she heard.
It was strange…
She remembered this form… why was that?
She felt smaller, hollower…
She flinched and noticed she had no reactive force in her fingers… she didn't have any.
She turned her lights on, trying to look around as the top of her head began to wind-up and spin, and the back of her began to turn and crank…
She floated up into the air, putting a bulge-like arm, the shape of a teardrop onto her head.
Looking at its similar yellow ball shape, then at the wirey arm, and later, tapping her blue and round body… she knew.
She flew up from the cage, banging against the cell's bars.
"NOOOO!"
She cried out in her adorable yet pathetic Omochao voice.
Reaching in from behind, Eggman pulled her out and snickered, moving her left and right in one arm as she was powerful to fight him, thwacking her orbish yellow hand into his multiple times. "Let me go, let me goooo!" She pushed against his large, white-gloved hand as he continued to mock her with light laughter.
"Like the new design?" He patted her head, the spinning propeller too soft to cause any real damage. "I happen to think you had a better life in this tiny tin can… Hmm…" He tilted her around, "Looks to be working just fine." He smirked at seeing the body was functioning, then gripped her tighter in a better hold and walked over and out through a metal balcony above what looked like a fiery furnace…
"I can't tell you how excited I am…" His grin spread like butter across his face, as his glasses glowed with the flickering fires below. "To introduce you to the newest flexible alloy creation… the essence of a truly remarkable robot… and the next line of Metallic Series…"
Her yellow and orange eyes, having circles of varying lengths within them, quivered a moment in a flicking in and out of light source as though that shook her to her very core. "No… Metal… Series?"
'Not again,' In her thoughts, the images of Metal Knuckles and Metal Tails returned to her… "All that suffering…" She spoke of their own feelings and containment… the contempt she had felt all this time…
Her arms dangled over his large hands still holding her firmly in his grasp.
"Yyyeesss, Sonic and his friends won't know what hit'em. A side-project, really. I'll need to remind the forces that their heroes have fallen… That their ruin of both their old world and their freedom is all but naught to exist~" He held her even tighter, gripping so tightly that she worried he'd dent her.
"No… Stop..! This is wrong!" She tried to shake her head about, knowing all she could do now was beg.
"And who better to start with,... than your own precious and futile attempt to make an organic robot?"
That line paused her in her lacking attempts to break free of his hold…
"What have you done with her!?" Her voice cried out through her speakers, carrying only a small distance across the room, but Eggman looked down at her as though adoring her quaking sound of actual love from a robot shining through their own crafted simulation.
"Heheh… You know, it almost sounds real when you do that." He closed his lips over his grinning teeth, "Almost."
He looked back as the crank of a wired bed was pulled up from the lava… an unpainted, darkened brown metal rose in the shape of… of…
Her eyes flickered so quickly in her panic, "NOOOOOOOO!"
The image was of Amy Rose… the Metal Amy she used to be…
"Rosy!" She cried out, struggling even more, "Let me go, let me gooo..!" Knowing the fate that would await her, she turned to Eggman, "You horrible, horrible man!"
Eggman laughed, wiping a tear from his eye, "Ah~ It's just so good, you know? I missed this~ After becoming a tyrannical overlord, I almost forgot how it felt to have someone crying for my mercy again~"
"Like you ever had that!"
He shook her like a maraca.
She made some comical sounds of being rattled about and they seemed to amuse him.
"Hohoho~ Remember, you're just the bait. She's the icing on the cake!"
He gestured out to her, as other, hulkier eggbots flew up to the wired metal bed and began putting large chords into her.
"Soon… I'll have this little tin can fully operational." He tilted his head, "Metal Sonic?"
Alarmed, Omochao turned to see him, hollower than even she felt, looking straight down at the ground.
'He was tricked, too…' She realized, reaching for him out of empathy, "Metal Sonic..!"
His objective… the one creation that allowed him to 'feel' like a Sonic… or at least, accepted as one, was now being weaponized to destroy an earlier version of himself…
What a cruel twist of fate… A fate that always had to come back and bite her. Ripping through her internal wiring, fate hated robots and she finally accepted that…
Nature… this world… only loved Organic organisms that it crafted itself… living beings… it would never accept her kind, the metal series…
Metal… born of earth, but fashioned by man.
"Metal… Please… Don't give up!" She reached for him, desperate to connect with any remaining 'soul' he may have left.
"Metal..! Metal Sonic!" She cried with her voice turning shrill through her speakers, shaking her arm out for him to help her, to help Metal Rosy, "Do… something!" she made her yellow lights horizontal slits, as though trying to express great strain to connect with him.
He rose his head, "... WHAT BE YOUR WILL… DOCTOR?"
Her body stopped moving…
She fell limp, having lost all hope…
His obedience software… it was too great to contend against…
She had failed to prove that a robot could feel… that it could love… truly, she had comprehend nothing in this world but love and loss…
She had lost it all, now… her will to continue functioning, to even operate anymore…
Eggman snickered, turning around to Metal Sonic, "Go and fetch the little traitor… let him know I'll be waiting… and if he really wants to~" He dipped his chin down to the side, and held up Omochao, waving the now hunched robot, it's head and arms moving to and fro with each motion of his small hand gesture with no will to try and fight against it. "He can try and attempt to oppose me again… taking back his little 'creation' once more…"
Metal Sonic stared at Omochao… remembering her fear the first time they met… and then his fight with his other self…
Older… but not wiser.
The two were his chance to actually complete something… something harboring in his software for so long…
To him, they had failed him. To him, he had let their deception of another path, a route away from a master, sway him to think he could minorly enjoy that small bit of peace…
What peace? A robot had a job to do. A master and it's unfeeling tool.
"YES… MASTER." He flew up and exited the dome of metallic infrastructure.
Eggman chuckled a moment, putting Omochao up by his cheek, "See that? A good little robot. Why was it so hard for you all to accept that?"
Omochao's head rose slightly.
"You looked at the world, you cared too much about understanding it instead of understanding your place in it… How unfortunate. You didn't have to learn the hard way… but it's not your fault." He turned to let his big nose be right up next to her own metallic cheek, his eyes narrowing in their sadistic delight at her surrendering hopelessness. "My Metal Sonic's data runs through you… a failed prototype at best."
What a lie, and she knew it.
Both of them… feeding their own egos… one more organic than the other's feigned-
She rose her head even more up.
'Feigned… Metal Sonic… He…' He was the key was looking for this whole time.
"Organically speaking, I fused Sonic's younger body into quantifiable data… then transferred it into Metal Sonic."
The answers she's been trying to find… Metal Sonic… when he created her, he stored all of what he thought was useless code and data into her…
"I never expected that he'd form a type of 'animatronic persona' through it, but I contribute that to my own 'accidental' genius as well."
Eggman may have invented it… but she marked it to success. Her Heart System, her 'errors' from the past…
"How truly pitiful… But you know, it's sort of comforting… knowing you can experience the dread any normal person would…"
Her face stared into the blankness of existence… before her eyes focused and adjusted themselves to the vastness of the space she once saw… the stars… the universe…
Even for a robot, her life could be full.
She narrowed her eyelights, "I can feel."
"Hmm?"
He delightfully closed his eyes, still taunting her and relishing in his plan going so smoothly.
"Feel what, dear?"
"Anything..!"
She moved her propeller so fast that it wound up his mustache's hair–which was so close to her to begin with–or rather… 'it', since she was Omochao again.
"GAHHH-ee-ooo!"
Eggman's hair got trapped, as he tugged and globbish drops of tears formed on the sides of his eyes.
"You little-! Nuisance! You-! Ow! Let me go! Owwieee! Let me gooo!"
Omochao held her propeller in place, not releasing his hair.
"You free me first!" She ordered.
"Why you little-!" He gripped her with both hands, but she tightened her own hold on him by trying to twist her propeller more, tugging on his hair again.
"IEEEEE! NOOO! Alright, you little twerp! I yield, I yield!"
He let her go wiggled his fists by her sides, "Now let it go! It's all I have left! My precious mustache!"
His wimpy cries made her realize how truly pathetic this man was, unspinning his hair to then use that momentum and swing back to sucker punch him in that same annoying jaw that held that same pointed nose like a true crook.
"YYEEOOWWW!"
He was knocked to the side of the iron balcony's railing, as she flew up with an epic turn of her body and headed straight for the new Metallic Amy Rose's body, the one that clearly, Metal Rosy would be inhabiting.
"I won't let you goooo!"
She grabbed its head and struggled to try and fly up, the chords and weight of the new, unfinished body dragging her down.
"Errr… EEEEEE-ahh!" She tried with all her little might, before a hand slowly reached up behind her, and gripped her pudgy body.
Eggman's laughter spent a sparking shiver down her inner-core.
"Noo…" She turned her head, the only thing now able to move.
Her body shook in fright, her eyelights bent to show true empathy.
"Rosy…"
Standing up with the large wires pulling away, the eggbots moving aside… the new Metal Amy blared on her eyelights, staring down with intimidating power over Omochao…
Her eyes flickered, "Please…"
Its eyelights flickered, as though still registering its new body.
It was definitely Metal Rosy…
There was no mistake now.
Using a type of robotic morse code, she continued to flicker her eyes.
'You are more than what he makes you out to be.'
The flickering lights ceased, and the new Metal Amy pulled Omochao up to her face.
"... What. Are. You?"
"... I'm-"
She suddenly realized, and let out a spark from her body.
"I'm-..!"
Her entire being refused to take fate lightly… she would take it down, swinging if needs be!
"I'm OMOCHAOOOOOOOOO!"
The Electrical ball forming around her spread out, it electrocuted the surrounding two Eggbots, having them hake before sparking, then falling to their melting doom in the lava pit below.
But the new Metal Amy… looked untainted and pristine still in her newly born body.
She tilted her head.
"... Not. registered."
She flung the blue little orbish robot down and stomped on them, grinding her foot into it before ruthlessly beating it to a pulp.
'I'm used… to this.' Omochao thought as the foot mercilessly kept beating her down against the metallic wire.
'... I've always been subjected to someone else's… or something else's wrath…'
Her body was being dented, her face kept getting pushed up against the wire bed with each pounding force of metallic brutality.
'... I've always looked up… and seen nothing but a mindless soul.'
She tried to look, attempting to get herself up but was shoved down again.
'... I'm trash… metallic scrap from a bygone era.'
The footfalls never ceased their endless crushing of her tiny form.
She felt now that her systems were shutting down, being crushed from within.
"... I never had a 'Sonic'."
The foot suddenly halted in mid-air.
Eggman raised an eyebrow, still massaging the tender area where she had ripped at his mustache hair.
The new Metal Amy moved the foot, looking down at Omochao.
"... But I always had… an 'Amy'."
Omochao put one large arm down on the wire, making it shake.
"I always had… 'Hope' for a better world…"
Her metal creaked under the pressure… but she was able to turn herself around, her little propeller bent on one side, leaving her unable to fly up and save herself.
"Eggman may have taken my body away from me… but he can't take the soul I forged through my love of organic life!"
She saw the foot coming back down, but this time, landed on her toy-like gear to force her to her side, "Grrhrr… OFFPH!" She threw up her pudgy arm and knocked herself to her back, then crawled backwards with great effort to escape the now walking, but powerful steps of the new Metal Amy coming towards her.
"I don't have a hero..!" She cried out, "I have a…"
Her eyelights turned horizontal lines again as she ducked her head down.
"I mean… I am a…"
Amy Rose's image came back to mind.
She had dulled her fingers for her… the machinery work wasn't the only reason they weren't ready for combat.
"You would never hurt anyone, I know that for sure!"
Amy's sweet voice came back to her, as her body shook in fright of destruction, of her weakness made anew again… of her hope starting to fade out.
The lava below didn't match the fire of passion in Amy's eyes that day… while they sat upon a softer bed, she supposed, one less metallic, and more like the feel she imagined Amy's soft tissue of organic skin might feel like…
"You're kind, always trying your best, and helping anyone with their machines that are in need!"
Straining, Omochao got herself up, as the new Metal Amy stopped her walk, seeing her on the edge of the metallic wire bed that dangled with chains suspending it up into the air over the lava forge below…
It wasn't just anyone that needed help with a machine…
The machine… needed help.
There was a need… that she knew now how to fulfill.
The true answer Metal Sonic could never find.
The answer… to what makes Amy Rose crucial to Sonic's overwhelming strength.
"I am…"
She began, a growing famous line now.
"I am…"
One of her eyelights widened its horizontal line, as though the 'opening' of an eyelid that was still very much in suffering pain.
"You are a hero, N.M.A!"
"I am a HERRROOO!"
Omochao jumped like a speeding bullet, slamming their pudgy arm into the new Metal Amy, knocking her back as she landed on her rounded skirt, and grabbed at her rippling torso that looked as though multiple lines were stacked upon each other like smooth tires.
"GRrr… RAHHH!" She emoted and jumped up once again to keep beating her down, "I. Will. Save. YOUUU!"
Getting smacked around, the new Metal Amy tumbled and tried to pull Omchao off of herself.
Eggman watched…. His face was completely stone… as though disapproving of this sudden 'declaration' that sounded so passionate from a being that shouldn't be able to garner such resolve and power…
"That's why Amy Rose is necessary!" Now on top of her face, Omochao just kept the new Metal Amy's eyes unable to see where she was, hitting her chin up repeatedly and jumping or ducking to miss the flailing hands trying to grab at her. "Because without her… No one would have made Sonic their hero!"
He used to run around doing good, with the only acknowledgments being people hearing of his tales and admiring him… but it was when he first saved Amy, that someone called him a hero.
He never self-proclaimed it himself, nor did he ever really consider himself anything more than an adventurer stopping the bully…
Amy… Amy gave Sonic the power to accept that he was heroic.
He was her hero.
And now…
Amy Rose did that for Omochao, too.
Emotionally charged, Omochao took the friction of each blow delivered, every scrape of their metallic bodies against each other's, and rubbed her pudgy hands together to then slam an electrical charge through the new Metal Amy's body.
The whole bed sparked with the incredible emission of electrical charge from such a tiny body.
"You remember who your Hero is!"
She cried out.
"Who is registered as your 'Sonic'?!"
The new Metal Amy suddenly stopped, her eyelights showing malfunction from the high electrical dosage.
"... 'Sonic'... Explode."
"What if I told you he didn't!?"
The Eyes suddenly shot straight up, as though an old program was engaging.
"What if I told you… 'Sonic' was still alive!?"
Omochao called out and threw her head up into her sights, her arms still on her neck, in case she needed to duck or dodge again.
"... 'Sonic'... Objective. Fail. Must. Explode. Where. 'Sonic'.?"
Her metallic voice was nothing new to Omochao.
She pointed straight up, "Find him!"
She declared with great anger and rage.
"Destroy 'Sonic' the Metal Hedgehog!"
The unfinished Metal Amy flew up and toppled the little Omochao over her chest and down to roll off her hooped skirt, forcing Omochao to hit the iron webbed bed hard as Eggman cried out–
"NOOO!"
Watching his newest 'star of the show' fly after Metal Sonic.
"Grr… You think you've won on a technicality!?" He gripped the railings, gripping them with animosity clearly for his own creations besting him.
Except, she wasn't his creation… not by her or Neo Metal Sonic's eyes, anyway…
"You will always lose,... because you're bad at being 'Organic', Eggman."
Omochao got herself up again, but her body sparked, and one of her eyelights flickered again.
This time, from the same malfunctioning that was happening in the newly created, unfinished Metal Amy replica.
"Oh, what? A robot has more humanity than me!?"
Eggman leaned back, skeptical of that statement, gesturing a hand up before leaning forward with it on his chest.
"Don't be absurd! That's ridiculous!"
"No, Eggman!" Omochao held itself erect and stood boldly before its oppressor.
"You'll lose because… I'm a hero!"
"... What?"
Eggman looked unamused.
"And a villain always loses–Eventually…–to the Hero!"
She faltered somewhat on her statement, realizing she hadn't really won over Neo Metal Sonic's programming over her completely yet…, but still!
While the two bickered, Metal Sonic made his way to the now salvaged headquarters of the Resistance Forces…
Neo Metal Sonic was up on the roof, clearly disturbed…
"Why can't I find her signature anywhere..?" Was that… Worry?
His head was done, trying to scan the base for the hundredth time.
"... Neo Metal Amy…" His gaze turned to the side before he walked over to the edge of the building, seeing Metal Sonic flying low before pulling himself up as gunfire was unleashed towards him.
"... What are you doing back here?" He raised an eyebrow, tilting his head. "Come to check and make sure not a scratch on your dollie?" He joked.
Metal Sonic hovered in the air, expressionless. "... PREHAPS… YOU SHOULD ASK ABOUT YOUR OWN…"
Neo Metal Sonic suddenly tightened his stance, standing squarely before Metal Sonic, and flew up to meet him, raising himself slightly higher than the newer creation of his form, "I refuse to allow anyone to be higher than me…" He seemed to mimic the behavior he had back at the Olympics…
"...HE'S TAKEN METAL ROSY. FROM US BOTH." Metal Sonic's words echoed the sediment of Neo Metal Amy having been taken as well.
Neo Metal Sonic's eyelids slowly rose in slight hops on his metallic frame, his eyes glowing red as he turned his head to the side a moment, "You're lying." Truly, he just hated Eggman so much that he didn't want to believe that he would dare him like this.
"Does the man not value his puny life?" Neo Metal Sonic looked out over the horizon breaking… "This day… his existence has never been more threatened." He stated, a hostility harbored so deeply in his words…
Metal Sonic, lowering his head, glared with brightened eyes for the first time in his own existence, mimicking that of Neo Metal Sonic's rage. "I HAVE NOT THE CAPACITY TO RESIST HIM." He was suggesting something… but what?
"... What are you implying?" Neo Metal Sonic glared down at him. "I have no need of a useless replica…"
"... MY OBIDENCE PROGRAM… I CANNOT DISOBEY." He held out a hand, continuing his explanation and trying to get Neo Metal Sonic to understand what he was trying to state, but only able to imply as his program prohibited him from speaking it directly. "HE DESIRED YOUR EXPERT REWRITE. HOWEVER, HE IS UNAWARE THAT A CERTAIN 'ENITY' WAS ABLE TO FIND A LOOPHOLE TO THIS 'SEEMINGLY ABSOLUTE' PROGRAMMING." He lowered the hand, flying slowly to now stand equally to Neo Metal Sonic.
Neo Metal Sonic's cape flew gently behind him… "... Are you suggesting… You wish for your 'organic freedom'?" His question was honestly beating around the bush as well…
"If…" Neo Metal Sonic narrowed his eyes to him, "If I were to fall beneath myself and succumb to your suggestion… of a united 'entity'... then… your obedience software would be within me as well."
"NO." Metal Sonic gently lifted a claw to his chest, above slightly his engine placed there. "YOU HAVE A VIRUS… AN ERROR THAT EVEN LIMITS SUPREME OBIDENCE SOFTWARES…"
"... Why don't I just 'infect' you with it, then?" Neo Metal Sonic scoffed, dipping his chin, "I have no need for corrupt affiliations..!" He smacked Metal Sonic's hand away…
Then… missiles were launched and the two looked over and parted, having their systems alert them.
"Hmm?" Neo Metal Sonic tried to gauge what this 'bronze-ish' metal robot was… before his eyes scanned her into a grid in his head… and his anger had reached his peak.
"He has stolen more than her!" He realized it was the flexible alloy, he knew he gave the location away, but for Eggman to craft more than Infinite's maks out of it… or even more of his 'cyborgnetic' body to…
"HE HAS STOLEN MY VERY ART!" The craftsmanship… there was no mistaking it.
Neo Metal Sonic's engine roared to life, but as it came to attack Metal Sonic, he realized… "It's… not after me?"
The rage continued, and the humiliation escalated… how DARE it prioritize another being over himself!
He went to fight but stopped when he heard the slushing of oil within his body…
"No…" He realized he was limited… remembered his degraded form… He looked more seriously after Metal Sonic, who was struggling to contend with her, but was putting up an aerial battle all the same.
"... If I must." He closed his eyes, softly yielding all his pride in the process…
He tried to rationalize, he needed the weaponry on Metal Sonic… This didn't make him better than him, he would be the ultimate Sonic no matter what form he possessed.
He opened his eyes, tactically planning his next move. "Metal Sonic!" He cried out, "Metal… 'Me'." He realized then… looking away from the battle, that an old software had activated…
What was this? It made him feel almost…
Sonic-like.
Briefly, since he had already given up his pride somewhat, he searched the software with a light skim to see what it was…
His Heart Program took to it so immediately, it frightened him, though he wouldn't admit it, and pulled himself away from it.
However, in the background of his mind's supercomputer, the two datas began to mingle and interact, suddenly finding ways to express themselves.
He flew up and spun into a sonic pinball, then posed much like Sonic The Hedgehog would.
"Too slow." It was still Neo Metal Sonic's voice, but the new Metal Amy ceased her fighting with Metal Sonic and looked at him.
"... Unregistered."
She then flew to continue to fight and try and subdue Metal Sonic.
Again… Neo Metal Sonic froze mid-air, humiliated beyond recovery, before Metal Sonic flew by with her in hot pursuit, trying to shred her reaching arms for him.
"SHE IS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT I AM 'SONIC'." He reminded him. "ACTING LIKE 'SONIC' WILL NOT SAUDE HER OTHERWISE."
Shaking in rage, Neo Metal Sonic broke from the old programming.
"METAL SONIC! Join with me!" He twitched his hand in the dulled claws in the air. "I NEED YOUR ASSETS!"
A… fusion?
Metal Sonic paused in mid-air, as though that was entirely his purpose for trying to imply what Metal Amy did with Omochao, but dodged the new Metal Amy and flew towards him.
He grabbed his throat, as Neo Metal Sonic's eyes shook and eyelids flew straight up in a wide-eyed look at his impotence.
For Neo Metal Sonic, this was truly the last straw, he hadn't a shred of self-pride left in him, as Metal Sonic's eyes blared into his own green ones… looking down on him and stating,
"NO, I NEED HER. THE ONE WITHIN YOUR 'HEART'."
Metal Sonic would still deliver Neo Metal Sonic to his overlord...
But also deliver a revenge not even witnessed by Sonic The Hedgehog before... or any of his friends... for that matter.
They needed...
Their 'Hearts' back.