Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Why?" That thought constantly repeated through Metal's mind. Just a few hours ago it seemed that everything was in his favor, he had everything yet in the end he achieved nothing. He had already tried everything yet it wasn't enough.

"Why?" He kept thinking

"Why did he win?"

"Why did I lose?"

"Why me and not him?"

"I was meant to take over the world"

"I was meant to destroy him"

"I was meant to overtake the empire so why am I here?"

Metal Sonic was now stuck in an incredibly narrow crevice, it almost seemed impossible that he was able to fit in there, he could barely move or see with the only thing illuminating his location being a dim ray of light that fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, flashed his visor where the doctor installed solar sensors that powered his backup battery.

His body was in an incredibly poor condition, both his legs were broken while his left arm was beyond repair, his body was covered in too many dents to be worth counting, his visor was badly scratched making it harder for him to capture enough energy to work long term and his battery was almost fully depleted forcing Metal to rely on his backup. His state was expected as he had just fought Sonic and sustained further damage after having a confrontation that forced him to jump off the doctor's ship to escape.

There was nothing he could really do, his body was too damaged, his location was too hidden and even though he had the option to permanently shut down his system, the uncertainty of what would happen if he were to never wake up was enough for him to remain powered, he was hopeless, he was alone, alone in the world, alone with his thoughts, he was trapped and there was no way out, this was it for him.

“My actions were perfect” he still wasn’t fully accepting of his defeat, he really thought that there was nothing that could have stopped him yet his current situation was displaying the full extent of his failure, he had lost.

"I'm perfect, so why wasn't it enough?"

"He has something I lack, something great enough that would always put him in top" Metal had always wondered yet he was never able to figured it out, he was so much beyond Sonic that it was impossible for him to lack something he had, it was simply illogical the mere notion of being inferior to him yet time and time again he was proven that his actions were insufficient.

Was there, deep within him, a design flaw that gave Sonic a critical advantage and made him always rise to the top? Metal tried to analyze his own design yet he wasn’t able to find anything, he was in theory a perfected version of Sonic but the theory was constantly proven flawed. His frustration and hate towards the hedgehog only grew as he thwarted all his calculations, plans and theories time and time again, the hedgehog was an anomaly whose ability to always achieve his objective was baffling to Metal.

“I am perfect, I deserve to be the real Sonic!” Metal still affirmed even after all his failures, to be Sonic’s ultimate rival and his equal was the reason he was created, he was supposed to be his worthiest nemesis yet Sonic kept having more and more opponents that soon overshadowed him.

"I am the real Sonic" Metal genuinely believed himself to be one deserving the title of Sonic, his existence, his identity, everything about him was based on Sonic and to admit he wasn't Sonic was to give up his very being, he wanted Sonic gone, he needed Sonic gone as the hedgehog's existence only meant living with the contradiction of more than one Sonic longer. To have Sonic gone was his only purpose.

“All machines have a purpose” Metal believed that once a machine was unable to fulfill its purpose it became useless, he always presumed that his defeats were just temporary setbacks that just delayed the inevitable but the inevitable for him was always failure.

"Can I still fulfill my purpose?" Metal could no longer fight Sonic, he could no longer face him again and he could no longer prove himself as the one deserving to be Sonic, he was created to be Sonic but he will never be able to prove it ever again.

“So I’m useless” But why? Why was he useless? What made Sonic better than him? That was a question he had asked himself multiple times yet was never able to answer, a question he was desperate to find its answer.

Metal kept trying to figure out what made Sonic always the victor in his battles against him, trying to find an answer he tried to remember every battle he had against the hedgehog. The memories of his first encounter against Sonic were still clear. Shortly after his activation he was assigned the task to stop Sonic, to destroy him.
Metal was carefully crafted to be the perfect opponent to Sonic, he was flawless and had expected an easy victory yet he lost and lost and kept losing every bout he had with the hedgehog. At first he thought it was just a miscalculation but with every loss it became increasingly apparent that something wasn’t right, he became frustrated and resentful that an inferior being could beat him so many times and it wasn't only Sonic, there were times where even his friends managed to beat him. All these losses reminded Metal that he was just another robot, another machine created by Eggman and that thought scared him.

"This is unfair" For years his mind had repeated that thought, he was just as deserving if not more to win, Metal was created to defeat Sonic yet he never managed to even bother him, to Sonic Metal was just another one of Eggman's expensive toys, he didn't care about his wins as
much as Metal cared about his losses. To Metal every loss meant being denied his rightful identity as the true Sonic .

Metal finally focused on his last and final battle against Sonic. What caused him to go against his own master wasn't anger but fear, fear that if he kept losing he would live as a copy forever in the shadow of Sonic, that was his fear, to lose his identity.

Looking back he thought he finally got rid of the one thing preventing him from beating Sonic, the one thing that prevented him from reaching his full potential, the doctor himself. He overtook his empire, stole his technology and corrected everything he thought was wrong with Eggman's actions yet even after all that he ended up even worse than before.

"Why did I lose while he won?" He wondered again, he kept pondering the same question. No upgrade was enough to defeat him and even if it was enough he had an overwhelming amount of friends that were willing to fight by his side, Metal had pawns, he had access to Eggman's infinite arsenal of robots but that wasn’t the same, he didn’t have anyone who would fight by his side.

"I'm alone, I have no one" Metal didn't want to admit it but he was jealous of Sonic, deep inside he wanted the life Sonic led but he always brushed off those ideas as a distraction to his objectives.

Remembering the moments shortly after his last defeat he recalled asking Sonic why he never was able to defeat him.

“Because we’re Sonic Heroes” That was his response, a response that made no sense at all, a response that perfectly fit his character in the worst sense possible. What did it mean? He might as well have mockingly said “Because we are better than you” and that would have at least made sense but he instead said “Sonic Heroes” he made the worst possible response he could have made.
Metal admitted creating the term as a taunt and mockery of the hedgehog yet he never expected it to end up being this important afterwards.
Maybe behind the shallow and illogical response lied what Metal was searching for but finding it was like deciphering the scribbles of a 3 year old child writing their first words, it made no sense.

“We are Sonic Heroes” He repeated in his mind trying to guess its meaning, knowing Sonic it was probably another idiotic quote that meant something along the lines of good always prevailing over evil getting butchered by the hedgehog’s inability to say five words without showing his “free as the wind persona”, it was infuriating that his only hint to discover what was wrong with him was behind that trainwreck of a sentence that he himself helped create.

"Why did he use the term I coined to make a mockery of him?" Maybe Sonic was mocking him back or maybe he genuinely wanted to give him an answer.

“What even is a Sonic hero according to him?” Metal got increasingly more disgruntled trying to figure out that questionable sentence.

Metal originally used the term "Sonic Heroes" to mock Sonic's heroic actions, the pointless heroism of Sonic and friends was a weakness that constantly put them into a disadvantage yet that pointless heroism is what, according to Sonic, led him to victory. Being a hero, fighting evil, doing good that motivated Sonic.

“Why am I bad while they are good?” In metal’s mind he never did anything wrong, he just did what he was being assigned, that was the purpose of machines after all.

“Shouldn’t they be the bad ones? All they did was get in the way of my plans” Metal genuinely didn’t understand what was wrong about his actions, he had always being told that creating an empire to control the world was for the good of humanity, that the world was filled with evils that needed to be cleansed and creating a strong and authoritarian empire was the only way to get rid of all that evil, he tried to kill Sonic’s friends multiple times but in his mind that was a necessary sacrifice to build the empire, Sonic’s friends would never accept the regime and getting rid of them was the best way to build a better world.

“In this world there are good people and bad people, what’s wrong with getting rid of the bad people?” Metal didn’t understand, maybe because he was created as a killing machine or maybe because he wasn’t taught the concept of morality, to him it was either good or bad.

“If I’m bad then why am I bad?” He just wanted what he considered the best for the world but to everyone it seemed clear that he was evil and it seemed that Sonic’s will to stop villains was enough to jeopardize his plans. Sonic’s friends always seemed to fight for justice yet they all felt disgusted at the notion of a robotic empire that completely cleansed the world of evil.
Time and time again Sonic forgave people who he considered evil, worked alongside his biggest enemies and didn’t think twice about becoming friends with people who had previously tried to kill him.

“Why? Doesn't he understand that his naivety will someday get him killed?” To him Sonic’s actions and his willingness to forgive was illogical; it was a huge gamble that only occasionally paid off. Sonic knew or believed that bad people could become good yet it was also his ideals of freedom that made him let the doctor escape, maybe hoping that he would someday change his ways.

“Why the unwillingness to eliminate his enemies?” It was the best for everyone, getting rid of bad people was the only way to ensure that the world was safe yet Sonic had completely opposite ideals.

"How does Sonic see his enemies?” Maybe that was the first question Metal should have asked but asking it he realized something, to Sonic every enemy of his no matter how much they have wronged him deserved at least a chance of redemption , he wasn’t willing to end bad people because he saw potential for good in most.

Metal suddenly realized that Sonic had been fighting to end bad people in his own way, by giving them a chance to be good. The disgust Sonic and his friends had for the idea of a world with one single ruler that controlled everything finally started to make sense, to eliminate the people who he considered bad would be to potentially eliminate people who may eventually grow to be good. After this everything else just made sense, Metal thought the purpose of the empire was to make a better world through the elimination of those who made the world worse yet that ideal was fundamentally flawed, all this time he wanted to control a world he barely even knew. That flaw was obvious to Sonic and that’s why he fought so hard, he wanted to protect everyone including the people who might eventually become some of his biggest threats because he believed in them, Sonic had the will to do what he truly believed, Metal on the hand didn't really have any ideals of his own, all he had was Eggman's ideals.

“I’m just a cheap copy” Metal’s belief that he was better than Sonic was his main motivation and driving force but that belief, just like his ideals, was flawed. Metal finally understood why Sonic was better than him and why he never was able to defeat him. Metal had finally accepted defeat and accepted his fate, this is what was best for everyone for him to just vanish.

Not long after the realization, understanding there was no longer a purpose for him, he decided to shut down knowing there was nothing left for him to do, up until that point, even though he knew the hopelessness of his situation, deep inside, he still thought that there might be a way out but it was no longer worth it.

Metal Sonic shut down, what was once the epitome of technological genius has now become nothing more than scrap metal.

Chapter Text

The roaring engine of the vehicle stole the silence of the calm desert as it zoomed past leaving behind the pink blur of its passenger while the sun rose lighting the early morning.

“Amy, have you arrived at the canyon yet?” She heard her phone speak, letting out a tired voice from her friend and partner.

“I’m almost there, but… can you first tell me what am I doing? It's still early in the morning and I barely had time to pack up.”

“There’s a Chaos Emerald near the place.”

“You could have been a bit more direct”

“I originally asked Sonic but-” Tails let out a yawn “ But he was searching for another emerald. ” Tails said plainly. “So, I called you instead.”

“You could have still told me.”

“I forgot”

Amy started to slow down as she was getting nearer to the location.

“Anyways, I’ll send you the coordinates of the emerald.” Tails said and sent them directly into Amy’s phone.

Amy soon reached her destination, she quickly jumped off, landing on the dry terrain, and parked her Motorbike on the road. She was wearing a pair of long dark blue pants accompanied by a pair of red boots, a long sleeve buttoned white shirt alongside a red vest and a pair of white gloves accompanied by golden bracelets, nothing really too fancy. She also carried a messenger bag which strap hung on her shoulder and her gigantic hammer which hung from her back.

Amy hadn’t visited the desert in a long time simply because up until that very moment she didn’t have the time. She only ever visited places relevant to her current task and places relevant to her job but otherwise she couldn’t travel much. Knowing she probably won’t return to the place in the foreseeable future, she took the opportunity to try to enjoy the scenery and also wake herself up as she was still tired from getting up so early.

She walked towards the cliff of the canyon and found herself overlooking the great river that ran across the vast and ample valley. Streaks of green accompanied the meandering watercourse as the calm morning wind blew through the peaceful stream creating slight ripples.

“Wish I had more time for things like this.” Amy lamented as she stretched her arms and yawned. Amy turned back.

The sun, while overlooking the arid landscape, shone a blinding light upon the plain and uniform orange scenery behind her broken by several rock formations that interrupted the flat terrain; what’s interesting was the presence of a narrow crevice that split the canyon in half and continued as far as the desert extended.

A bit curious, Amy approached the crevice to examine it. It was extremely deep, probably extending to the bottom of the canyon; she could barely see anything as the sunlight did little work to illuminate the innermost parts of the fissure. Interested, Amy grabbed a rock that was nearby and dropped it into the crevice to see how deep it really was but all she could hear was the rock bumping into its walls making her little experiment pointless.

“Nevermind”

Amy stepped back before focusing again on her task, she took a quick glance at the coordinates that Tails had previously sent her and started following them.

----------------------------------

When Amy, a bit tired and drenched in sweat due to the suffocating heat, reached the location, she could easily spot the red chaos emerald and also the dozen or so robots guarding the place. The robots formed a circle around the emerald while awaiting commands from their master, they remained static, barely even moving at all as they protected the gem from possible intruders.

“Not again” Amy thought annoyed and tired knowing this same exact scene had played out several times in the past while quickly hiding behind a rock near the area.

“Does he ever get tired?” The answer was evidently a simple no but she just wished that the Doctor would just give up after so many failures and barely any successes, out of all the positive traits that he could possess, why was it tenacity? Why not something like empathy? With his intelligence he could have easily been remembered as one of history’s greatest scientists instead of the failure he was now. Why does he keep doing this?

Frustrated, Amy quickly started thinking about how to deal with the Egg pawns, she was still mentally exhausted after all the encounters with Eggman’s antics and needed to get over this quickly.

“I don’t have time for this” She took out a pair of electromagnetic grenades created by Tails from her bag and threw them towards the robots. The grenades sent an electric shockwave that spread through the machines, making them malfunction and jumbling their internals causing them to break down and drop to the ground, leaving a trail of scrap metal behind.

“Where I would be without you, Tails.” Amy thought.

She quickly came out of hiding and jogged through the remains of the robots towards the emerald before suddenly halting just a few meters from the gem as a thought came to her.

“Eggman, stop hiding, we’ve already been through this” An awkward silence fell and Amy, somewhat embarrassed, realized that for once she arrived before the Doctor, who would usually await her and her friends with some outrageous machine that barely ever seemed effective. She quickly approached the emerald hoping that she had lucked out of another confrontation with him.

“GET AWAY FROM MY EMERALD!” A blur zoomed by Amy snatching the emerald from her reach, said blur revealing itself to be Eggman with his Egg Mobile.

Amy didn't luck out of the encounter.

“So, what brings you here Amy Rose” Eggman announced in a condescending tone while holding the gem.

“The emerald.” Amy said unenthusiastically, keeping a frown on her face and pointing at the gem while internally cursing Eggman for showing up.

“Not a chance, it’s mine” Eggman asserted while slowly revealing a contraption attached to the lower part of his Egg Mobile.

“Why do you even need it? Aren’t you powerful enough with your machines?” Amy said as she stood around the heaps of broken machinery she just destroyed.

“It never hurts to aim for better.” Eggman loudly claimed.

“Sure” Amy silently responded.

“Well, I won’t keep you waiting.” Eggman said, his arrogance showing.

“You sure must be bored right? After all, you made such short work of my dear robots.” Eggman started the mechanism revealing a laser that instantly and violently shot into the ground causing Amy to flinch and start backing off.

“Why don’t we have some fun?” Eggman affirmed and laughed before starting chasing Amy prompting her to run trying to escape.

She ran as fast as she could, putting all her energy into her legs, energy that was quickly getting drained by the intense heat of the desert and because of her already being quite tired but even exhausted she had to keep running if she wanted to stay in one piece.

“How can Sonic do this every other day without GOING INSANE?” Amy thought. Maybe Sonic was just better at this but to do this for so long and still keep going would mean insanity for anyone else, either way Amy was once again on the verge of regretting sparing the Doctor’s life so many times in the past.

Amy pulled out a grenade out of her bag and threw it backwards, hoping it would hit Eggman.

“Don’t think that's gonna work” Eggman said as he swiftly maneuvered his vehicle around the grenade.

Amy kept sprinting, barely outrunning the laser. She knew Eggman was just messing with her as the Egg Mobile could reach way higher speeds even comparable to Sonic’s but this is how he acted, he was like a big child playing with a toy before getting bored and deciding to ditch it. There were close calls but she was just barely fast enough to not get obliterated.

“WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF THIS EGGMAN?!” Amy angrily shouted at the Doctor, unable to hide her cracking voice as her throat was drying.

“You love your boyfriend so much, why not try to be more like him?” Eggman smugly replied.

“WE BROKE UP TWO YEARS AGO!”

Amy tried to think of a way to deal with the doctor, she could use her hammer to hit the ground, propel herself upward and reach the same height as the Egg Mobile, but with her running the momentum would also propel her forward making it hard to deal a blow; she couldn’t just stop as that would mean getting roasted. Maybe she could turn around mid-air and fling her hammer towards Eggman but the consequences would be pretty terrible if she missed and even if she succeeded she would still lose her hammer and god knows how resilient the machine truly was. How about running until it runs out of fuel? No, she would probably die of exhaustion before that happened. She needed to act quickly.

Amy slowed down a bit and with her hammer propelled herself upwards, she still had plenty of forward momentum but by slowing down she could still be within the vehicle’s range. As the Egg Mobile quickly approached her she prepared her hammer and was about to heavily strike it with all her might.

“Take that Eggman!” A familiar voice was heard not far away.

An incredibly fast projectile pierced through the Egg mobile, immediately destroying it, the shock causing Eggman to drop the emerald shortly before plunging to the ground with the remains of his vehicle. Amy, on the other hand, missed her shot at the vehicle and during her fall she could see the origin of the projectile, she could clearly see Sonic standing near clutching a rock.

“Long time no see Eggman, missed me?”

“You rodent, look at what you’ve done”

Sonic approached Eggman, walking confidently with a smirk drawn on his face.

“Well, I’m not the one who cheapened production”

“This is state of the art technology!”

“Not very ‘state of the art’ if it’s like a decade old”

“You bastard!”

Amy observed as the two bickered back and forth the same way they always had, ignoring the fact they were supposedly sworn mortal enemies. Sonic teased Eggman and he reacted by getting even angrier, they insulted each other but Sonic always had the upper hand.

“This won’t be the last time you hear from me!”

Eggman pulled up his sleeves revealing a watch-like device. He pressed on its surface which caused the wings of a jetpack to reveal on his back.

“If you want to fail this bad, then go ahead.” Sonic responded.

Eggman activated his jetpack and quickly flew off. With the doctor gone, Sonic turned his attention to Amy, running towards her.

“Amy, are you alright?”

“You could have come a bit sooner and besides, weren’t you looking for an emerald?”

“You mean this?” Sonic revealed his Chaos Emerald, a green glow emanated from it. “I realized there was another emerald nearby and then found you” Sonic continued.

“Well, thanks for saving me, I would probably be roasted hedgehog if you hadn’t come”

“Hey, you handled yourself pretty well; you were about to bash Eggman’s ugly face when I came.” Sonic said, reassuring Amy. “Anyways, where's your emerald?” Sonic asked.

“Eggman dropped it when you hit him, but I don’t know where it fell”

"Do you have any idea where it could be?"

"No"

“Then let’s find it the old fashioned way.” Sonic energetically said.

Sonic pulled out his emerald again; an important attribute of the gems was that they were all connected, glowing stronger the nearer they were which in turn made them useful as radars to locate each other.

Sonic dashed through the area, knowing the emerald couldn’t be far. As he explored the place, the emerald glowed irregularly indicating him where to look and where to not. Sonic kept scanning the area before finally stopping and turning to face Amy.

“I think we’ve got a problem”

Amy could clearly see Sonic standing right in front of the crevice and knew right away the issue.

“What do we do?” Amy said as she walked towards Sonic.

“Do you have any ideas?”

They both looked down at the crevice, its depth, its narrowness, its darkness; not knowing the full extent of their problems and then looked at each other clueless as they didn’t know what to do.

“Let’s call Tails.” Amy said as she pulled out her phone.

“We can’t do that, poor guy is already overworked enough running his own workshop and helping us day and night, let’s give him a rest”

“I’m also overworked, you know”

“You are his assistant, of course you are overworked, but Tails…” Sonic briefly looked down as if he was deep in thought. “He goes way too far.” Sonic lamented.

“So, do you have any ideas?” Amy asked.

“No, but you are way smarter than me and I believe in you” Sonic smiled at Amy.

“Uhm, maybe we should first check our options.” Amy responded. “I have some stuff in my motorcycle’s storage box. Maybe check that”

“How about the bag you are carrying?” Sonic asked

“You mean this?” Amy said as she opened the bag, showing its interior to Sonic. It was filled with nothing but grenades.

“How many are there?, and also you really seem to hate robots”

“15 and you are absolutely right.” Amy affirmed. “Either way, here are my keys, you should head that way to find my bike” Amy tossed her keys to Sonic pointed towards the direction where she parked her vehicle and just as she did the gesture, Sonic ran off leaving a blue trail behind.

Now that Sonic was away Amy started carefully observing the crevice, trying to think of a way to get the emerald out. She took her phone and activated its flashlight to better see the insides of it, trying to locate the emerald’s red glow inside the darkness of the fissure but she couldn’t find anything, the inside was barren without anything remarkable that could hint at the location of the gem; nothing important was really visible, only some lonely rocks that found their ways down there. She still insisted on trying to find the emerald by eye disregarding her barely acceptable eyesight yet her glance only met the rocks lodged inside, most of them small which didn’t really represent a problem when it came to finding the emerald, but others were far bigger and prevented her from looking deeper into the abyss, there was specially a weirdly shaped rock that blocked too much of her view.

“Here” Amy suddenly heard, turning towards the voice. Sonic just came back from his errand handing Amy what he obtained.

“Is that it?” Amy said, looking at the rope that was in her hands.

“That was a depressing looking compartment” Sonic commented, “Either way, what do we do now?”

“There’s not much we can do with this” Amy admitted disappointed, “We should at least try to locate the emerald first, there’s not much else we can do for now”

“Any luck?”

“I’ve been trying but between how dark everything is and the fact that there are rocks blocking my vision-” “And your vision” Sonic snarkily interrupted “And yes my vision, I haven’t found anything.”

“Well, we could try something different” As Sonic said, he ran towards the crevice and threw himself into it.

“What are you doing?!” Just as she voiced, a flash of light appeared behind her revealing Sonic with a small boulder right beside him.

“Clearing the view”

“Wait, Chaos control? You could have done that from the beginning” Amy voiced.

“Just came up with the idea” Sonic replied as he ran and dropped himself again into the crevice and reappeared just as quickly as he disappeared into the abyss.“Can’t really think if I’m not on the move” he dropped back and teleported back using the emerald’s magical powers bringing alongside several rocks, big and small, soon forming a pile. He finally stepped out after seemingly emptying that section of the crevice hoping that it would be now easier to find the emerald.

“Is that everything?”

“ I think so, try to see if you can find the emerald now”

Amy turned to the crevice again, phone in hand, trying to locate the glow of the gem once again.

“I think I can see something”

Sonic walked towards Amy and looked down the fissure.

“How did it end up so far down?.” Sonic wondered.

“What do we do now? I think it’s a bit too narrow for any of us to fit down there”

“Can you step back a little? Just a few meters or more, preferably more”

“Okay?” Amy followed Sonic’s request and as she did Sonic, once again, dropped down.

“CHAOS BLAST” Sonic screamed and soon a powerful explosion followed, said explosion causing the floor to crumble prompting Amy to run towards a safer place, it was hard to maintain her balance as the floor became more uneven but she managed to get into safety. The floor soon collapsed and all that remained was a deep crater covered with debris. Amy was lucky as she barely outrunned the explosion.

“Got the emerald” Sonic enthusiastically shouted, rising from the debris proudly holding the gem.

“Couldn’t you have done this before?” Amy shouted back

“Just came up with the idea” Sonic shouted again while running towards Amy.

“You know you could have killed me.” Amy said.

“Sorry but you are way too good to be killed like this” Sonic replied as he ran past Amy. “Anyways, I’ll bring the emeralds to Tails. Catch up with me later" Sonic soon disappeared into the horizon.

Now that they had collected two more emeralds, Amy realized they had finally obtained the last remaining gems, although this task used to take little less than a few days, this time collecting them took an agonizingly long time for varying reasons but after all the work and the stressful months it was finally mostly over.

Amy mentally celebrated this as she prepared to return to Tails, “Wonder if Tails would mind if I take a few vacation days” she thought “No, wait, he’s the one who needs vacation days, he has been working non-stop for years now.” Amy realized “ I wonder if he would be willing to close the workshop for just a few days, maybe with some vacation he can finally fix his sleep schedule” Amy kept wandering through her thoughts as she walked around the crater on her way towards her motorcycle.

“Does Tails even have a sleep schedule?, he barely ever sle-” Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sudden movement of rocks followed by a faint mechanical sound.

Chapter Text

When Sonic opened the back door of Tails’ workshop he could feel it bumping into a metallic object. Sonic peeked inside the building to see what was blocking the entrance only to find his brother lying down, passed out on the floor, his legs blocking the door. Sonic carefully entered the room and stood besides Tails, looking down at him with somewhat disappointed eyes.

“Tails…” Sonic knelt down, carefully wrapped his arms around Tails’ body and started carrying him towards the beaten down sofa at the corner of the messy room that was scattered with many mechanical parts and tools that he didn’t know the name of. Sonic reached the Sofa and laid Tails down making sure he was in a comfortable position. Tails looked tired, like he always did, his fur was still the same orange tone, goggles on his forehead and some tools and a phone hanging from his work belt. His tails were resting over him acting like a blanket while his mechanical legs were stretched out.

Sonic turned back and headed towards the table at the center of the room to put down the emeralds.

“Don’t put them there” A soft voice told sonic from behind. Tails got up from the couch, visible bags were below his eyes which looked opaque, lacking of light.

“H-hey you should rest a bit more” Sonic was visibly concerned.

“Eh, already got my five minute nap” Tails dismissively said.

“Tails, you can’t just pass out and call it a nap” Sonic said, upset and worried.

“Works the same for me.” Tails retorted.

“The ground isn’t a good place to sleep” Sonic responded, starting to get annoyed.

“Animals are meant to sleep on the ground” He bluntly said.

"You could at least try to sleep on the couch!"

"I only sleep when my body tells me so, it's not my fault I'm on the ground when my body turns off"

Sonic gave up continuing with the argument, he could fix his brother’s abnormal sleeping habits later but there was something more important now. Sonic started talking about the emeralds. “Well, these are the last ones.” Sonic said as he showed the red and green gems to Tails.

“Did you encounter Amy along the way?” Tails asked.

“Yes, we found the emerald together”

“Didn’t we agree to not possess more than one emerald at the same time? Tails reminded Sonic. “You started this whole thing after all”

“I know that one emerald alone is enough to end civilizations and cause great suffering” Sonic briefly glanced at Tails’ legs before turning back to him. “But these are the last ones, let’s end this quickly so things can go back to normal ”

“Well, if you say so.” Tails turned and walked towards the cupboard at the corner of the room. “Although I doubt everything will ever go back to normal.” Tails opened it and took out a pair of sizable cylindrical containers, both of them clear with a mechanical lid on their top. Sonic rushed to his side to help him with them.

“Hey, take it easy” Sonic said as he took the containers from Tails arms.

“Thanks.” Tails replied, some relief in his voice.

“So, where would these go?” Sonic asked. “There’s only so many places on Earth beyond animal, human or egg reach” Sonic said as he put the containers down on a table.

“We’ve thrown all the previous ones into volcanoes so take a guess.”

“Lame” Sonic added as he opened the containers and sealed the emeralds inside. As soon as he closed the lid, the color of the emeralds vanished, turning them clear.

“I Already decided the locations, so here are the coordinates.” Tails plainly said as he pulled out his self made phone which showed a map of the world with two red dots flashing on two distinct and far away locations and threw it towards Sonic. “Make sure to memorize it, the coordinates will be deleted in an hour”.

“Hey, it may not look like it but my brain is just as fast as me”

“And just as impatient”

“It’s part of my charm” Sonic quipped trying to lighten the mood. “But, well buddy, it seems it’s finally over.” Sonic started reminiscing. “ It’s hard being this careful for months”

“ ‘Careful’ ” Tails raised and flexed the index and middle finger of both his hands, he started smirking.

“Oh, come on dude, you gotta admit that for being a first I did pretty well”

“You certainly did well, just not the intended way” A smile fully formed.

“You know what they say, all’s well that ends well” Sonic carefreely said. “Although it could have gone better if that knucklehead had helped"

"He-” Tails yawned “He certainly had his reasons"

"Yeah, sure" Sonic dismissively responded as he took the containers and quickly glanced at the coordinates again. "This will be over in no time, buddy" Sonic reassuringly said as he quickly walked towards the door. “After all, we are Sonic Heroes” Sonic said, tongue-in.cheek, just to make sure his brother remained cheery.

“Well, good luck. I’m sure Amy will be ecstatic when she returns.”
—-----------------------

“What was that sound?” Amy thought as she walked through the debris, composed of the remains of what used to be the ground and the mechanical remnants of the Egg mobile with some small mirror shards probably belonging to Eggman scattered around. The unnatural sound came from a pile of rubble, moving ever so slightly as the noise became less subtle, and as she approached it she started readying her hammer.

Her pace was slow, her stride careful and with each step she nervously prepared for whatever could be awaiting her. “There shouldn’t be anything here” Amy thought, she didn’t see many animals in the desert and the ones big enough to cause the movement of the rocks weren’t present during the blast. There was also the oddly mechanical sound but it didn't make sense as she had already destroyed all robots in the area, or so she thought.

She arrived at the pile as the sound became more and more prominent, trying to search for the source but finding nothing but rocks with their yellow color and irregular surface, yet the pile kept moving. Amy decided to carefully remove some of the rocks using her hammer while maintaining a safe distance to whatever was beneath them. With her hammer, she pushed away the rubble at the top of the pile and slowly worked her way through the rest of the pile, trying to clear it away.

As the rocks fell one by one she became tenser as her anticipation kept building, she had no idea of what could be lying under the pile, a trap?, an enemy? maybe something else. She didn’t know what to expect, to her anything could be awaiting her. Another rock fell and as the pile was getting cleared, nothing appeared that indicated the origin of the sound, it was just rocks yet the rocks kept moving subtly. Even when the heap of rocks was about to get cleared, it was still just rocks.

“Please don’t be a trap, please don’t be a trap, please don’t be a trap” Amy pleaded, it was easy to deal with enemies she could see or expect but something unknown was unpredictable, erratic, intimidating. It was easy to win any fight with the element of surprise and to get ambushed would mean going through a very nasty fight at best and to kick the bucket at worst. Amy started noticing her heartbeat getting faster.

The noise continued and she saw it was a large rock making the sound, moving mechanically and difficultly. “T-that’s not a rock” Amy suddenly realized as she carefully approached the strange object, trying to get a better view of it, her breathing getting heavier. She stopped in front of it, hammer in hand, and scanned it more thoroughly. “What are you?” She thought as she knelt down to find out what she was looking at. She noticed that the object wasn’t the same color as the rocks around him, but rather was covered by a thick layer of dust with a somewhat deep color blue beneath it, the object was also covered with several bumps that would make its form unrecognizable from a regular rock and finally, it also seemed to possess an arm with the rest of the limbs missing. It was a robot.

The robot slowly and clunkily glanced up, looking directly at Amy, she noticed their black visor, the several cracks on it accompanied by a thick layer of dust, their pointy ears with one of them bent at an unnatural angle and their barely noticeable flickering red pupils. “M-Metal Sonic?!” she flinched, surprised and quickly stepped back.

She started remembering the robot and although now distant, the memories were all unpleasant; her first meeting with him was a kidnapping, he had tried to murder her friends multiple times, kidnapped a poor and harmless chao, betrayed his creator ,tried to kill her beyond several other crimes.. He didn’t have any redeeming qualities, he never showed regret, happiness or anything, all he ever showed was anger.

“W-what are you doing here?” Amy asked as she stepped further back, readying her hammer, she hadn’t seen him for over three years and at that point had almost forgotten about him. She never expected to ever see him again and had already assumed that he had been scrapped by the doctor but to find him under these circumstances was nothing short of bizarre.

A lot of the details in this situation didn’t make any sense at all. What happened to Metal Sonic?, how did he end up like this? and what was he about to do?. Knowing him, she expected him to soon start attacking her, even though he only had one arm there was nothing that discarded the possibility that this was a trap, to look pitiful and damaged, to look barely functional to strike her when she least expected. Amy stood, agitated, in front of him as the tension grew, nervously expecting his next move as she clutched her hammer. The seconds were getting longer with time passing at an uncomfortably slow pace but she couldn’t underestimate him, he was capable of anything.

Metal Sonic suddenly started trying to move his arm. Amy, at this sight, rushed towards him bashing him, her hammer landing on the side of his head causing him to turn over but he did nothing to stop or even resist the strike. Why? Metal Sonic was ferocious, he was relentless, even though he had most of his limbs missing he would have at least tried to repel it but instead, he didn’t do anything. “Is he playing the long game?, did he let me hit him so I would underestimate him?” Amy was starting to get paranoid, she wanted to take absolutely zero chances with him, he traumatized her as a child and although she had long overcome those feelings, those memories were still distressing.

Amy prepared her hammer again and as she was about to strike again her eyes encountered Metal’s face, he was ignoring her as if she didn’t exist. Amy’s hammer accelerated towards Metal’s body but he didn’t flinch, he didn’t look surprised, he didn’t do anything. The hammer struck him again and his body was violently sent flying across the crater like a ragdoll, further breaking him down.

“What is he doing? Even the simplest badniks have a sense of self preservation” Metal Sonic was supposed to be Eggman’s most advanced robot, he was far from mindless and that was what made him so dangerous; he could outgrow his creator, betray him and become even a worse threat. “Was he broken? Was his mind not functioning properly” questions that Amy asked herself as she approached Metal Sonic ready to hammer him for a final time. She stopped herself in front of him and raised her hammer, she glanced at Metal again, his body was now in a severely worse condition barely functioning yet he still seemed unfazed, for some reason this disturbed Amy.

“He m-must be broken” Amy stumbled in her own thoughts as if she didn’t fully believe them, for some reason she felt there was something seriously wrong with this situation. She looked at his face again, most robots had a blank face, he didn’t. His expression, underneath the layer of dust, was of emptiness; whatever happened from now on, it didn’t seem to matter to him.

Amy didn’t know what was happening, why Metal Sonic was acting this way. His sudden reappearance was already bizarre but this was even weirder. What was he planning? What kind of strategy was he using?. Amy had already been deceived in the past, she wasn’t about to be deceived again, but what if this wasn’t a trick?, what if this is what has truly become of him? Amy quickly dismissed those thoughts, this was Metal Sonic after all.

The hammer fell down again, accelerating towards the almost inert body, Metal Sonic yet again didn’t react; he just accepted what was coming to him. Metal was striked a final time, his optics shutting down and his body becoming lifeless. No tricks were played, no ambush was done or traps laid, nothing happened.

For a moment Amy stood motionless in front of the body before stepping back, stumbling upon her own steps and turning away from Metal avoiding to look back. She quietly returned to her vehicle as her walk became a sprint without her realizing. Upon reaching and riding her motorcycle, she saw her face in the rear view mirror as she started the engine, she saw distress.

Chapter Text

Amy entered the workshop’s break room, a bit agitated and her heart still pounding heavily, the room was still as disorganized as ever with tools and material scattered around the floor alongside Tails who was asleep, Sonic wasn’t present and the cupboard with the Chaos Emerald containers was open with said containers missing. Amy headed straight to the room’s fridge, ignoring all the mess, and took out a soft drink, drinking it all in one big, nervous gulp.

“Make sure to refill the fridge later” Tails abruptly told Amy, causing her to flinch.

“Y-yeah I-I’ll do that” Amy stumbled upon her own words, it was getting hard for her to stay calm.

“ Hey, what happened? You look as if you just killed someone” Tails jokingly said.

“N-Nothing!” Amy anxiously responded, forcing herself a smile. She didn’t quite know why she was getting so,,, nervous.

“Well anyways, we finally got rid of the emeralds; aren’t you happy, Amy?.”

“Absolutely.” Her forced smile became even more apparent.

“Amy, there’s something seriously wrong with you, just tell me what happened” Tails saw right through her facade causing her anxiety to spike.

“I uh, I just c-can’t hold my excitement!” Amy’s smile became even more distorted as she tried to deflect, in vain, Tails' suspicion.

“Uhm, sure.” Tails said, not fully convinced. “You can always tell me anything, Amy, I’ll always be here for you” Tails reassured her.

“Can I… can I take some vacation time?” Amy didn’t know what else to say to change the topic.

“So, that was it? Amy, in most civilized countries workers are given at least a month of paid annual leave. Just take three months to account for the vacation you didn’t take in the past two years.”

“Re..really?” Her mood brightened up a bit.

“Amy, we are almost family, not in the conventional way and sure as hell not in the corporate way but family after all” Tails said, trying to encourage her.

“Then see ya later” Amy quickly announced as she headed towards the door, she really needed some time for herself after all the prior events.

“Have some fun, you deserve it.” Tails gave his blessing to her as she exited the workshop.

“T-Thanks” Amy replied.

As Amy started heading towards her house she started thinking about her current behavior again. “Stop getting so nervous, there’s nothing to get nervous about!” Amy told herself trying to dismiss her feelings derived from her previous “fight”. “Just breathe in and breathe out, breathe in and breathe out” Although she tried, she couldn’t calm herself down, she still had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She reached for her motorcycle and started riding the vehicle towards her home. “I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?” Even though nothing would happen if people knew what she did, she still felt the need to justify herself. “I mean, sooner or later he would have started trying to kill people again” Even if what she just thought had ended true, it still didn’t sit right with her. She started recalling what happened just a few hours prior as she drove through the city and how mercilessly she killed the robot, how he didn’t even resist as she was beating him, his empty eyes, her own cowardi- “Shut up, just shut up” Amy tried to shut off those thought, thinking about them made her feel uneasy yet she just couldn’t. Her driving started becoming more unstable as she almost bumped into other cars and jumped some traffic lights. It was getting difficult to think straight, prompting her to stop her bike, parking it next to a curb before getting off the vehicle.

She decided to just walk towards her house, it wasn’t too far away as she only needed to get through the city, enter the forest and then she would find the comfort and safety of home.

She rushed towards her home, dodging the numerous passerbys, trying as much as possible to ignore all the people around her. Even if they didn’t know what she had done their presence was somehow overwhelming, it was a weird feeling as she normally didn’t mind people at all and could be considered somewhat extroverted. “No one would care if they knew, just calm down” Amy told herself, yet it didn’t work, she felt as if people were staring daggers at her, every random glance that a pedestrian gave her made her anxious. She accelerated, not wanting to be near people, sprinting home where she would feel safer.

“Hey you!” A baritone voice came from behind. “The pink hedgehog”

Amy momentarily paralyzed, her heart skipping a beat, before running even quicker than before, trying to get away from the scene.

“Stop!” The voice shouted as Amy heard quick footsteps that approached her.

Her nervous run was getting increasingly more erratic as she almost tripped over and bumped into several pedestrians. She turned and ran into an alleyway hoping it would cause her to lose whoever was following her.

“Can you please stop?!” The voice sounded way more annoyed now and somewhat confused.

Amy kept running, crudely turning corners and taking long strides yet her exhaustion started to get apparent as she unwillingly started to slow down. She could hear the heavy panting of the stranger behind her who was also getting tired. Amy kept running but soon found herself in a dead end, she had to face the voice.

“Jesus, why were you running?” The voice, equally as exhausted, belonged to a tall and slender owl, probably in his 20s. “You dropped this” He said, annoyed, as he approached Amy and forcibly handed her her wallet.

“Thanks…” Amy said, a bit ashamed of the scene she had just caused.

“Get some sleep or something, you nervous wreck” He said as he exhaustedly walked away from the scene.

—--------------------

As she entered her house, she quickly closed the door and locked it. The shutters covered the windows and the lights were off, the interior was quite messy as she normally didn’t have the energy to do much housework and it was mostly dark except for some rays of sunlight that managed to sneak past the shutters, inside the living room there was a sofa that sat in front of a tea table, both of them facing towards the television, there was a bookshelf besides the sofa that included several things like vinyl records, some DVDs and of course books, not very far lied a dining table accompanied by a few disorganized chairs; the living room felt oddly empty.

She headed towards the cramped bathroom which she quietly entered before turning on the lights. As she stood in front of the sink Amy started observing herself in the mirror, she didn’t look good, it was apparent that she was anxious, her breathing was still heavy and her heart was still loudly pounding. “Did… Did I just commit murder?” To murder was to take away a life. “He is a robot, does he even count as a living being? Or a person?” Maybe if what she killed wasn’t even alive then it wouldn’t count. “Y-yeah he wasn’t even a pers-” Amy suddenly slapped herself in the face. “You… You moron, you aren’t going down that path” It didn’t matter whether or not he was even alive to begin with but whether or not her actions were justified or not. “Think, just think, there must have been something going on, something that he planned, anything!” She rubbed her temples as she tried to come up with anything that could justify her actions but thinking back she could only remember mercilessly beating down a defenseless robot who didn’t even do anything.

“Why was he like that?” Amy thought as she turned on the faucet and splashed water to her face, trying to concentrate. “Three years for a return and he returns like that?” Amy turned off the faucet and dried her face. “It doesn’t make sense!” Although Metal Sonic was not above cheap tricks, he was above all else prideful; he would never accept the pity of his adversaries and to be in that state would be a hit to his ego. Was that image of the crippled and numb robot just what he became in those years? He certainly looked as if he had lost the will to keep going and live. In hindsight, her actions seemed a lot more disgusting now.

“It can’t be h-he can't feel anything!” Amy tried to dismiss those feelings but just couldn’t, she was well aware that Eggman’s most advanced robots were capable of far more than just being mindless machines that followed orders, some of her friends were even Eggman robots, she was still lying to herself trying to make herself feel at ease. She exited the bathroom, went back to the living room and plop down on the sofa. Trying to calm herself down, she lied down and pulled out her phone alongside a pair of earphones to try and clear her mind with some music. Searching through her music catalog she chose an album with a somewhat surreal cover featuring a portrait of a red man screaming, distress or maybe horror in his eyes.”Y-yeah perfect” She started listening to it, the first song with its distorted vocals, somewhat disturbing imagery and scathing critique of war didn’t help her calm down at all. “I need to find new music” She thought as she plugged out the earphones from her ears, for some reason all her immediate music library was unfit to make her relax. She needed anything to distract herself and just clear her mind for a bit.

The doorbell suddenly rang, surprising Amy. She quickly approached the door and looking through the peephole she saw Sonic which prompted her to unlock it.

“Yo, Amy” Sonic greeted her.

“Sonic… You are done already?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, it was a piece of cake” Sonic confidently said before looking at Amy and scanning her face. “Amy, you look awful”

“It… It was a long day..” Amy looked a bit regretful..

“Anyways, wanna hang out?” Sonic gleefully asked.

“Y-Yeah sure” Amy accepted, this was probably what she seeked, an opportunity for her to calm down and forget about all the anxiety she had today.

“Where’s your bike?” He asked.

“I walked here…”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, I can just carry you.”

“C-Carry me? I’m an adult Sonic” The proposal embarrassed Amy.

“We are both consenting adults, let’s just do it” He dismissively responded.

“Ugh, fine” Amy reluctantly accepted. She locked her house, got onto Sonic’s arms and as she did, he started running, reaching great speeds. This situation was really awkward for Amy, not only because she was an adult being carried around like a little girl or the fact that being carried around in the first place was kinda ridiculous but also because she was noticeably taller than him which only added to the absurdity of it all.

“Where are we going, anyways?” Amy started asking, trying to hide her embarrassment in this situation as the wind blew right into her face.

“Before that let's take a small detour” Sonic said as he headed towards the city, taking some quick turns and effortlessly dodging all the vehicles in the busy road. The sun was already starting to set, giving the clear sky a strong orange tone. Sonic suddenly halted and let Amy off his arms who quickly realized the motive of his detour.

“That will be 150 rings”

“Why do the prices keep rising?.” Sonic groaned as he paid the chili dog seller. “Hey, this is yours” Sonic gave Amy a chili dog. “Grab mine too” Sonic said as he also gave his portion to her.

“Okay” Amy said as she accepted Sonic’s request before awkwardly hopping back onto his arms. As soon as she did, Sonic resumed his run.

Sonic exited the city in a flash and reached some vast grassy terrains that he rapidly sped through leaving a trail of dust behind. The sun was already about to leave and the night about to fall, the moon was already visible in the sky with the scenery getting darker by the second.

“I thought you were faster than this” Amy wondered, knowing the impossible speed that his friend was capable of.

“I am if you want to break all your bones” Sonic sarcastically responded as he kept running, racing through rivers, forests and lakes that all disappeared in a flash. He eventually reached a great lake with a planetoid floating above it.

“Little Planet?” Amy said as she got off Sonic’s arms again.

“Today is the last day before it disappears again, would be a shame if we miss it.” Sonic approached the lake and lay down on the ground in front of it. He started observing the night sky full of stars, the bright moon up above and the surreal planetoid in front of him. Amy followed suit.

“Hey, here” Amy handed Sonic his chili dog and they both started eating.

“It’s cold.” Sonic lamented.

“Guess there are things you can’t outrun” Amy started taking big bites to her food, eating it carelessly. Sonic did the same.

“After all this time, it’s nice spending some time together”

“Yeah kinda missed it, after all we barely spend any time together.” It was true, besides the Chaos Emerald hunts they barely had time for each other.

“But hey, now you are on vacation.”

“Yeah, it’s… nice having some free time”

“Heh, I have too much free time while you barely have any” Sonic pointed out.

“It’s easier to have free time when you are homeless, Sonic.” Amy reminded him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t get a house, he simply didn’t need it.

“You could try it, I could teach you the ropes”

“Sonic, you are a literal marvel of nature. Your lifestyle would kill me within a week.”

They both kept observing the sky, the stars were always so beautiful and oddly calming and having someone to stargaze with was always a plus. The night was still silent and serene, the air was cold and peaceful and the moon shone brightly alongside the stars.

“You know, this is where we first met so many years ago, when we were just dumb little kids” Sonic started reminiscing, remembering past and better years.

“And now we are dumb little adults.” Amy added.

“Now that the emeralds are gone and Eggman has become just a petty criminal, I don’t think life will ever be this exciting again”

“The cost of safety, I guess”

“Yeah, even I need to make sacrifices once in a while.” Sonic admitted, in some weird way, he thrived in all the chaos his adventures used to bring. They both kept admiring the scenery, giving special attention to the planet in which time was relative. “It’s kinda crazy how much things have changed since we were just kids, you know?”

“Why do you say that?”

“I mean, look at the stars, the moon and even Little Planet, they are all still the same in a sorta relative way but now we are older. Look at us, one day you are the annoying girl obsessed with me, then the next day we start falling in love and before we can even notice, we break up”

“It… couldn’t be helped.” Amy lamented. “We barely had any time for each other by the end of it.” Amy remembered.

“Well, I may have lost a girlfriend but at least now I have a best friend.” Sonic claimed as he let out a small giggle. “Also never got to tell you personally but thanks for taking care of Tails back then, you were a lifesaver”

“I was just doing what I thought was right.”

“Yeah, but.. I think that's admirable, how you always to do the right thing”

“What do you mean?” Amy asked

“You sacrificed a lot when you started nursing Tails.” Sonic started explaining. “I know you had a lot of hopes and dreams you had to abandon and… well, you also had to learn a lot of Tails’ technical babbles all because you wanted to help him with the workshop. That’s a lot of dedication for someone who was ‘just doing what she thought was right’ “ Sonic expressed, showing respect and admiration towards his friend. “I think you are one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met.”

For some reason Sonic’s words didn’t feel right with Amy.

“You look past people’s mistakes to find their true selves”

Sonic’s compliments somehow made her feel uneasy.

“You are always willing to give people second chances”

Those words felt like a stab in the heart.

“And above all else you are extremely kind.”

“Y-yeah” Amy forced a smile as she started getting nervous again. Sonic’s words somehow made her understand the feeling that has been nagging her all day, guilt. She gave compassion, second chances and always tried to see past people’s outer shell yet he somehow didn’t give that treatment to Metal Sonic. Maybe it was because it has been years since her compassion has been put on test or perhaps it was because she had grown increasingly cynical over the years but her treatment towards the robot was unfair, she now felt guilty for not being truly the amazing person her friends expected of her.

Little Planet suddenly started ascending slowly, getting farther and farther away until it was just a speck in the sky.

“Guess this is the end.” Sonic pointed out as he observed the scene.

Little Planet vanished, exploding in the air into a trail of stars leaving behind only some rocks that managed to escape the planet’s orbit and fall down the lake.

“It was nice while it lasted but hey, we can hang out again” Sonic told Amy as they both started to get up.

“S-sure!” Amy forced a smile, trying to hide her current emotions.

“You’ve been acting awfully weird today” Sonic finally told Amy.

“I’m.. I’m just tired” Amy responded unconvincingly.

“Well, then make sure to have a good night’s sleep” Sonic said as they both prepared to leave.

“Yeah, a good night…”

Chapter Text

Heavy rain falling down the night sky in the vast desert, clouds cover the moon darkening the already dim scene. A tall and slender figure is seen difficultly dragging an inert body by the arm through the mud.

“I’M… NOT… GOING… TO… HELL!”

The figure kept arduously dragging the body inching through the wasteland, it seemed heavy. She continued before abruptly tripping forward. Panic can be observed as she sees the detached arm on her hands.

—--------

As the doorbell rang, the door of the moderately decorated house opened.

“Oh, good morning Amy” From inside the house appeared an adult rabbit, average in height, wearing a long lavender dress, a buttoned maroon vest and a pair of white gloves. “Coming out of another adventure I see” The rabbit gently commented as she looked at the pink hedgehog. Her clothes had visible tears, they were still wet and soaked in rainwater with apparent mud stains that covered her pants and shirt, her quills were extremely messy and there were visible bags under her eyes.

“Y-yes adventure!” Amy giggled with a somewhat deranged tone.

“So, what brings you here, my dear?” Vanilla said, keeping her sophisticated tone.

“Uhm, black..” Amy started lowering her voice, getting closer to vanilla to reach her ears. “Black market” She whispered to her.

“Oh. Then, follow me” She responded back with the same calm and gentle voice. Vanilla led Amy towards the basement of her house. The stone stairs leading her towards the room were deceptively long with the only light they received originating from wax candles hung to the wall. The walk down was painfully slow and long, Amy was already somewhat tired and dreaded having to go all the way up later. They both soon reached a crimson wooden door. “Here’s the key, make sure to not lose it, sweetheart” Vanilla smiled at Amy.

“Y-yeah… sure…” Amy said, gasping for air. Vanilla soon left Amy’s company, leaving her alone as she opened the door in which, behind it, she found herself in a lush green field, flowing with nature and with a visible waterfall in one of its corners, the ceiling shone brightly, giving itself the appearance of a sunny sky. Scattered around were a multitude of cute little multicolor creatures, the Chao, crawling and walking aimlessly through the grassy field. Amy paid no mind to them and walked straight towards the waterfall, going through it and getting completely soaked.

Behind the waterfall stretched a secret cave which separated into two distinct paths, she ignored both of them and headed towards the middle point where the path forked. Here there was a suspicious rock that pronounced from the stone wall, she pulled it away revealing a hidden peephole before she knocked on the wall. Amy waited for a few seconds before a section of the wall slid to the side revealing a wooden door beneath and behind it, a narrow hallway lit with nothing but some old flickering bulbs that hung from the ceiling and gave the corridor a yellowish tint. At the end of the hallway she found a small room that contained a Chao wearing sunglasses with a bandana covering their mouth, sitting behind a counter while surrounded with all kinds of merchandise.

Amy slowly approached them, taking small steps. “Uhh, do you have… uhm, Chaos drives?” She asked, trying to maintain her composture. For some reason that Chao always gave her some bad vibes even though they were probably inoffensive

The Chao looked at her, fixing their gaze at her for a few uncomfortable seconds before turning towards a shelf behind them and reaching towards a wooden box. They put the box on the counter, sliding it closer towards Amy, and opened it revealing a set of bright a colorful cylindrical tubes containing gems inside.

“How much?” Amy hastily asked.

The Chao just glared at her for a second before writing something on a notepad and handing it to her.

“1000? For everything?”

The Chao shook their head in disapproval and pointed at one singular drive.

Amy got paralyzed for a second, it was really expensive. Was it really worth it to go through all this hassle for someone who could potentially backstab her and then go on a killing spree causing multiple tragedies?. Perhaps, she needed to do it, she needed a clean conscience to be at peace with herself. Amy stubbornly handed out most of her rings just to purchase two of the illegal artifacts.

The Chao put both drives in a paper bag and handed them to Amy. She quickly took the bag, forcefully clutching it, and rushed outside the room. The sooner she gets over this, the better.She went through the waterfall, getting soaked again, and quickly reached the exit. Amy let out a deep sigh when she faced the stairs.

—------------

Amy rushed through the workshop’s door, ignoring all the mess, and started taking an assortment of different tools and materials. “I’m taking a few things.” Amy told Tails who was sitting on the sofa reading some kind of magazine.

“Sure thing” Tails indifferently said as he flipped through the pages of the publication, fixing his gaze onto its contents. “Doing some personal project?” Tails asked, trying to appear curious as he kept on reading.

“You bet” Amy responded, forcing excitement as she exited the room as quickly as she entered. Tails’ eyes never left the magazine.

—-------

Back in the garage, Amy left most of the necessary material on a chair alongside the tools, the rest having to sit on the ground. The place was extremely disorganized with various shelves covering the walls with several items that had long been forgotten, cardboard boxes covered in dust that hadn’t been opened in ages and an assortment of articles that hadn’t been used in a long time. Her bike was clumsily parked beside a shelf and at the center of the building lay a table in which an inert body rested. Next to the body was a detached mechanical arm, with its broken cables protruding out of one end and sitting at one of the table’s legs was a broken Egg pawn.

Amy approached the table and observed the robot, he was dirtier than before and now instead of dust, he was covered in mud stains; he was limbless with Amy only salvaging an arm, being unable to find any of the other limbs and after the beatdown she gave him, his torso had a visible fissure that let her stare at his insides. He was quite unrecognizable but all of these superficial details could be fixed, what worried her was his internals, depending on how well he resisted the fight, there was a chance that Metal was gone for good.

“Do I really want to do this?” Amy asked herself once more, dealing with Eggman was already a pain and to have Metal back could double the pain or even worse depending on how he reacts, things would probably be best if he just remained there, motionless.

“What am I thinking?” Amy shook her head, she did something wrong, really wrong. If she just stood there, doing nothing about it, guilt and regret would haunt her for the rest of her life. She probably didn’t have much time to decide what to do, Metal was in a really fragile state right now and if she did nothing about it, he would probably soon become unfixable.

“But is this truly right?” If she were to right her little mistake and Metal becomes violent again then what would happen if someone were to get hurt? What if someone dies? She would become regretful again, maybe even furious for unleashing another threat into the world or maybe foolish for thinking that fixing a killer robot was a good idea. This single decision could change a lot of things depending on the outcome and she was having a lot of conflicting ideas.

Even after she had made up her mind and decided that this was the right thing to do, she was still hesitant to carry this out. “Well, he deserves a second chance.” Or does he? Although Amy believed in forgiveness, throughout her life she had come to realize that some people just refused to change no matter what, some people will just keep committing the same mistakes and some are just beyond forgiveness. Was he unforgivable? He had already done multiple horrible things like attempted murder, attempted dictatorship or attempted genocide. To any sane person those actions would have been enough to just reject the robot and ditch him completely but Metal didn’t seem beyond change, his character already seemed greatly different when they both met. How far was she willing to push her forgiveness?

“Maybe if he turns bad I can just beat him again” No, she couldn’t get too overconfident. Everything went to the gutter because her friends got overconfident once at the wrong time, it might happen again if she too gets overconfident. But she did something wrong, she did something that disgusted her and she needed to do something about it. She wasn’t doing this because she believed in Metal but because she believed there was a better way.

“I can’t think like this!” Amy admitted as she stood back from the table and contemplated the robot. She was still tired and the spark she felt last night when she suddenly had the revelation that she could just fix Metal had long faded away. She was now face to face with Metal Sonic or rather the remains of him, undeciding and full of second thoughts. Will she bite the bullet and repair him or will she do nothing and let him rot?

“Screw this!” Amy finally made up her mind. “I’m not burning in hell” Amy convictively said even though she wasn’t really a believer. She approached the robot, pulled out a wrench and started removing the bolts that held his body together. It was a bit tricky to remove them as his body was filled with dents causing a really irregular surface but after some time she managed to unbolt him and open his torso. The interior of his body wasn’t a pretty sight.

A cloud of dust filled the room as she exposed the robot’s interior, his internals were just nasty with an extremely thick layer of pitch black dust covering several mechanisms, there were even many insects crawling inside, his whole body was a nasty ecosystem. Amy winced at the sight, instinctively covering her mouth, it was honestly disgusting. She had seen plenty of dirty and nasty machines that hadn’t received the necessary care but this was just on another level. “Just, what the hell happened to you?” Amy was puzzled. Was she really gonna do this? To try and clean what’s nigh uncleanable? Amy swallowed her saliva before storming off the garage and returning with a vacuum cleaner. With its hose on hand, she approached the robot and activated the device.

The hose started sucking the dirt with insects quickly disappearing and his internals becoming slightly clearer as the dust faded away. When all the insects disappeared, she turned off the vacuum cleaner, took out its dustbag and rushed out of the garage to dispose of it, not wanting it to be anywhere near her or her house. “How did you get so filthy?” Was what Amy thought after dumping the filth, not even in her worst nightmare she could have imagined something this polluted.

Thinking about it made her skin crawl, she tended to be messy but this was outright filthy, she had standards and this was so far beyond those that for a moment she was in a state of shock and this was just the torso, What if the head was the same? His most important components were surely inside his head and if it was in that same state it would take a miracle to make him function again.

Before returning to the garage, Amy went to the kitchen fridge and took out an energy drink, gulping it all down in one go. For some reason energy drinks rarely ever seemed really effective on her but they at least tasted fine and might work as a placebo if she was lucky enough.

Amy entered the garage once again and started analyzing Metal’s components to determine the gravity of his injuries and as she expected many components were broken. Inside his torso remained his power supply which was busted and his turbine engine which was in an even worse state. Amy focused on the power supply and carefully observed it, before unscrewing it and disconnecting it from the main body. The power supply contained a slot in which rested a broken and clear Chaos Drive and judging from its state, was unusable; Amy put it away. For now, although his condition was deplorable, if this was all the repairs he needed then she could probably save him.

Amy reached towards the broken Egg Pawn, kneeling in front of it, and removed the various bolts that held its body together to see if there were some pieces that could be salvaged. This specific Egg pawn was the least broken looking robot she could find which would hopefully make him useful as an “organ donor” for Metal. Inside the robot she could see some busted components but nothing too serious, what she was looking for specifically was the power supply which she quickly found. After unscrewing it and better observing it she was relieved to find that besides the broken Chaos Drive, it was still intact.

Amy placed the power supply on the table before standing up again, she compared both devices and although their architecture was really similar, it was apparent that Metal’s power supply was far more powerful and advanced but hopefully they were still compatible. Now, focusing on the elephant in the room, she detached Metal’s head from his torso to start examining it.

Maybe it was because Metal still looked like a hedgehog but holding his severed head made Amy a bit uncomfortable. Amy unscrewed his metallic muzzle which allowed her to remove it, permitting her to scan the inside of his head.

“Solar energy, huh? Didn’t expect that from Eggman” Luckily the head was far better preserved than the torso but just to make sure, Amy removed the metallic shell that formed his head to look for more damaged components. She felt nothing but confusion when she saw his internals.

“Wh-what is this?” Eggman tech, known for its needlessly overcomplicated structure which served no purpose but to further convolute things, stood right in front of her, in its purest form. His engine and power supply looked normal enough but everything about his robotic brain barely made any sense at all. Amy stood there, just trying to make sense of what she was looking at.

If she had to guess, most components looked functional enough with the only seemingly broken parts being what looked like a radio located right underneath his left ear and his visor which could be easily repaired but this felt a lot like the first time she had to fix a computer when she barely knew anything about technology or engineering at all.

“Looks good enough!” Amy decided to just ignore it and focus on fixing the rest of his body, even if she understood how Eggman made his machines, it would be too hard to find the components needed to fix his brain were there be any malfunctioning pieces. With all the information gathered, Amy started thinking about what needed to be done with him.

“First, he needs to be cleaned ” his internals were still extremely dirty and after the filth she witnessed moments prior, maybe he needed something a bit more intensive.

“I need to fix all these dents in his body” this was just aesthetical but it looked terrible and irrationally bothered her a lot.

“I need to reconnect the arm” She would have to fix the severed wires and reattach it to the body, probably nothing too difficult. Although the fact that the robot will have three missing limbs angered Amy’s inner perfectionist.

“Replace the power supply” Nothing too hard, she would probably only have to connect the new power supply to his body.

“Maybe I should replace the visor” The cracked black sclera kinda bothered her.

“And maybe some final touches” Although she had never fixed an Eggman robot before, that was Tails’ duty, it didn’t seem too hard, she only needed to get a few things done and everything would be ready to run again in no time.

—----------

“How...” Amy said with a desperate voice as if about to cry while surrounded by a pile of empty energy drink cans, at her feet there was a bucket of pitch black dirty water with a sponge floating above while around the table were a series of cables, nuts, bolts and various hardware pieces. She was hunched, her legs shaking and looking directly at Metal Sonic while holding some tools. “How did an ENTIRE Spider Nest get inside your turbine?!” She was about to sob but at least the repair was finally gonna be over.

Amy breathed heavily while drenched in sweat, how much time has she been locked in this stupid garage? A day and a half? She couldn’t tell. “Eggman…” She grumbled with unfiltered rage. What was the need for the doctor to make everything so overly complicated?, every little repair that had to be done came with hours upon hours of trying to circumvent Eggman’s hostile architecture, she finally understood why Tails never let her touch Eggman technology, he was protecting her from a world of madness and nonsense, a world of pain and suffering. Did she die and got sent to hell? It wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyways.

Amy did the final touch ups and looked expectantly at the robot. For a moment he remained inert, causing Amy to start panicking before his irises suddenly started glowing.

“Are you… Are you alive?” Amy breathed irregularly while saying this sentence, she was barely holding herself together as she used her last reserves of energy to blurt out those words feeling as if she could pass out at any moment.

The robot did nothing but direct his irises at her while still remaining inert and just at that sight, Amy collapsed, falling on the robot and drifting into a deep sleep.

Chapter Text

Metal kept glancing at the pink hedgehog wondering why and how she fixed him. He never expected to wake up ever again after his last meeting with her. Why did she fix him? He couldn’t tell. Looking at the dormant girl who was resting on his torso and unconsciously snuggling his body while saliva fell from her mouth, he couldn’t help but notice her changed appearance. How much older was she? She looked significantly more mature now and she was somehow able to fix him. Where and how did she learn those skills? It was hard to guess.

“How much time has passed?” He thought. It has probably been several years since he disappeared and some things seemed really different now, mainly the girl who seemed more unhinged now. All these changes yet he still remained the same. Why? “Living beings change, I’m not alive, I can’t change.” That was the logical conclusion, robots are programmed with a purpose in mind, it wouldn’t make much sense if a robot were to change, altering its purpose.

How much has the world changed? He didn’t know, he was gone when everything started to change, the world probably changed a lot without him. He probably would have changed everything for the worse if he hadn't disappeared so it was good that he remained inactive, he was dangerously useless after all.

“Why repair me?” Metal contemplated. She already did the right thing, she got rid of such a worthless robot, why repair him and not the Egg Pawn that lay on the floor near the table. Egg pawns could serve multiple functions and they could fulfill most of them, they were loyal servants, excellent workers and functional fighters. Metal was a robot who had spent over three years failing at the same exact objectives, he was extremely incompetent. Did she pity him?

“Why pity me?” There was nothing pitiable about him, he was evil, he did horrible things and was deserving of punishment and his punishment ended up being destroyed by one of the people he had terrorized the most, he deserved to be destroyed, he deserved to stay destroyed. What did she see to decide and repair him? Was he so pathetic that she started having feelings of compassion towards him? That was probably the most plausible assumption but that compassion won't last long, he will eventually ruin and destroy the little empathy she gave him, eventually she will see his true monstrous and pathetic self and discard him.

What will happen to him now? Probably not much, there wasn’t much he could do with only one arm, he will probably just exist until he no longer does the same way he has done up until now, that was the only future awaiting him now.

Looking back at the hedgehog, her clothes were the same as when she found him but torn and stained. Did she repair him shortly after her confrontation? Probably, at most only a few days would have passed since his awakening. Recalling a few moments ago, he remembered her looking extremely tired when he woke up, to go through all this trouble for someone like him, it didn’t make sense.

“Maybe, I should thank her” In the grand scheme of things this was completely irrelevant, this would change nothing after years upon years of making her life worse and it was only a matter of time before she started hating him again but this was the least he could do to make things at least a little better.

“What’s her name?” Metal suddenly realized that he never bothered to learn her name, why? Up until that point most names were irrelevant to him, the only names that he ever learned were those of his allies and some of his threats and that hedgehog was never important or relevant enough for him to learn her name. Even after all the damage he had done to her, he still didn’t know her name; this was the type of being he was, someone who doesn’t even bother learning the names of his victims.

Metal had never truly thought about the value of names up until that moment, names were just an arbitrary sets of letters that designated specific individuals to him, individuals he could just recall using his memories but to learning another individual’s name meant giving said individual a higher level of importance, it meant acknowledging their identities and distinguish them from other faces.

How will he figure out her name? Maybe he could just ask her, yes that would be the easiest way but she was still asleep, he would have to wait for her to wake up.

—---------

As Amy woke up and her senses came flooding back to her she found herself sleeping over Metal with her arms wrapped around him. She immediately lurched back in surprise and embarrassment. “Uh, sorry about that.” Amy said, a bit apologetic. Metal glanced at her with the same empty eyes as ever. Amy tried to smile at him but he barely reacted. “I’m.. uhm.. gonna step out for a bit, have some fun here.” Amy announced as he exited the room, closing the door behind.

“What am I supposed to do now? I didn’t think this far ahead!” Amy started getting a bit desperate. “Give him back to Eggman? No, that’s like giving weapons of mass destruction to a terrorist.” Amy tried to think of a solution to this. “I can’t just drop him outside either, he would either die or come back worse than before!” What was the best course of action? “Am I… really gonna have to keep him?” Amy was stumped as the realization of what was gonna happen to her hit her like a truck. She basically knew nothing about Metal, nor he knew anything about her and not only that but they were still technically enemies. At least he didn’t seem to be aggressive towards her.

"It doesn't matter, I'll just… figure this out" Amy sighed uncertain of how this will work out and as the feelings of worry reached her mind she started becoming aware of something that should have been really apparent, she was hungry and not only that but her clothes were still a mess, a disturbing odor emanated from her and her body ached from sleeping with a terrible posture over what might as well have been hard concrete. “Wait… How long did I sleep?!” She hurriedly took out her phone to see the time only to find out it was dead. Not having any other option she went to the living room and clumsily tried to find the TV remote which was lost in the darkness of the room. After locating it and turning on the television she finally saw the current time. “Phew, it’s only 1:30……... AM?!!!!!” Amy suddenly realized that she had slept for over an entire day, in hindsight it made sense considering she went three consecutive days without rest but this felt surreal, she wasn’t exactly a heavy sleeper and not only that but she lost an entire day of her life.

“Ugh, another day gone into the dumpster” Amy lamented but there was no point in whining, right now what was most important was to calm down and take care of herself. She headed towards the kitchen before grabbing the electric kettle, which lay on the counter, and filling it with water. After turning it on, she took a pack of instant noodles from the cabinet alongside a bowl and placed them on the counter. While waiting for the water to boil she went to her bedroom upstairs for a change of clothes, “Wonder if I can still salvage this” She thought as she hastily climbed the stairs, knowing she couldn’t get too careless with money.

After entering her room, Amy examined her ripped pants and torn shirt in front of her closet mirror “This is gonna get expensive.” Amy moaned as she undressed and threw her entire attire into the garbage before taking out an identical set of clothes out of the closet. “At least my shoes are fine, only a bit muddy.” She said as she looked at them, it was a miracle how incredibly durable they were and the fact that she hadn’t changed shoe size since she was twelve was nothing short of a money saving miracle.

Amy took a bath towel and alongside her clothes she headed towards the bathroom downstairs, she desperately needed a shower to cleanse her body of the filth invading her body. As she walked down the stairs she couldn’t help but feel anger at whoever decided it was a good idea to put the bathroom and bedroom on different floors and after entering the bathroom and stepping into the bathtub, she braced herself for what was coming, she turned on the shower and ice cold water started soaking her, R-R-Rem-m-member th-th-this is ch-ch-cheaper.” She was shivering as her body was still adapting to the low temperature but after a while the initial freezing feeling went away and allowed her to loosen up.

“These last few days were so weird” She started thinking of everything that had happened. “Never thought I would end up repairing Metal Sonic” There she was, the once defenseless little girl saving the robot that had multiple times tried to kill her. “Will he try to kill me again?” Thinking back, Amy realized that if Metal still held any ill will towards her, he already had multiple opportunities to seriously injure her and even kill her and do multiple other things that would have made her regret fixing him while she was asleep yet he just lay there for an entire day without doing anything to her and that was after she mercilessly beat him. “ I really need to figure out what’s going through his head.” She told herself as cold water kept pouring onto her, what caused him to turn so apathetic? It seemed as if he was going through some stuff, something Amy never imagined Metal was able to go through.

After a while she stopped showering and got dressed but before exiting the bathroom she saw herself in the mirror, she could still observe some scars she had obtained throughout the years on her once pristine skin, scars that told a story, most of which were the result of her trying to adapt in an unfamiliar environment. She once again looked at her shoes, sitting besides the sink ready to be used again, the shoes that she got when she was still just a little kid who had saved money for months just to buy them, those shoes were probably the last remnants of her childhood when she was still blissfully unaware of the hardships she would eventually face during adulthood. The memories of an exciting and adventurous childhood came through her mind which were in stark contrast to her painfully dull present, she used to be so energetic yet she now barely had the energy to do anything remarkable. It seemed that she sometimes missed her endless childhood optimism and energy, asking herself how she ended up there.

She soon returned to the kitchen and noticed the kettle being turned off with the water only being lukewarm, she just stared at it with a frown on her face before reluctantly turning it on again. As she waited for the water to heat up again she started thinking on how to best approach the robot. “I can’t be too sure of myself, even though it's unlikely he might still pull something.” She thought. “But if he isn’t… he really needs some help.”

—------

“When will she return” Metal thought, he still hadn't asked for her name which was necessary to thank her. For some reason she was taking very long to complete what seemed to be her self maintenance process, although this was only long compared to the doctor's. Why was it? Maybe different organic creatures have different sets of customs from each other. That made sense, why wouldn’t they? After all, they were all so ever growing and different from each other.

Metal suddenly heard some footsteps approaching the room, those footsteps carried the same rhythm and weight as the hedgehog’s which meant she finally came back. “You’re too slow!” An audio with low sound quality suddenly came from right outside the door, it was probably a recording of Sonic’s voice although this voice sounded a bit more mature than the voice he had become accustomed to from the hedgehog.”Come on, step it up!” Another low quality recording came from outside the door, it was apparent that the pink hedgehog was playing them. “Sonic’s the name, speed’s my game” A third recording came and just as fast went, why was she playing them? Metal didn’t know.

Suddenly the hedgehog came through the door holding a tape recorder, she looked proud of herself. “Well, congratulations! You passed the test” She smiled at metal as she approached him. “If you can get over your hate of Sonic, then you are probably harmless now.” She said with a grin engraved on her face. Metal just stared at her with unconvincing eyes as she stood in front of him while he lay on the table. Maybe this was the opportunity he needed to ask her name.

“What’s your name?” Metal asked her but instead of a response came a confused look from the hedgehog as he didn’t utter any words but a series of beeping sounds. For a brief moment the entire word stopped for Metal. “Why can’t I talk? Didn’t this form give me the ability of speech?” Metal looked at his body once again but this time in more detail. He hadn't noticed before, or rather, didn't pay attention, but this was his old body, his old, useless and pathetic body. He kept looking, hoping it was just a mistake.

“Do you want a mirror?” She asked, seeing how he compulsively looked at himself. The hedgehog examined the shelfs behind her and quickly found a dusty hand mirror before blowing on its dirty surface to clear the dust and bringing it to the robot’s singular hand. Metal brought the mirror closer and saw his face, his old face. He was shocked but not only that, he was angry and frustrated causing him to start tightening his grip on the plastic handle, deforming it. His new form, or rather, his previous form was the only thing he ever achieved, his one success in a life full of failure yet even that was stripped away from him. He thought that his new form would have been what he needed to finally turn his life around and saw it as a symbol of hope towards a new future, he really thought there was a future waiting for him but now that he was back at square one he lost the only step forward he ever took. In the end everything would have been meaningless either way, he was already useless and being damaged in that other form would have barely made a difference but this greatly bothered him, this made him feel miserable and above all else, it hurt.

In a fit of rage, he compulsively flung the mirror towards a wall, cracking it. Why was he still here? It would have been better for him to have rotted in that hole as every waking moment was just another reminder of his own failure, he had nothing to look forward to, no objective to move him forward so, why keep going? Metal suddenly heard the sound of a few footsteps that slowly distanced from him, it was the hedgehog with a shocked and somewhat horrified look, probably trying to utter some words but ending up speechless. “One day” Metal though, all it took was one day for him to destroy the little trust she had on him and knowing what was probably coming, he just decided to lay on the table and wait for the hammer to smash him into pieces.

“That’s, uh, gonna cost you seven years of your luck” She told Metal trying to maintain her composure with shock stil painted on her face. Metal was surprised, it seemed that she still felt the need to convince herself that there was something worth saving in him.

"I… won't show you a mirror again" She said, now that the mood wasn't as uncomfortable. "So, you can't talk" Amy said as she once again approached him. "A bit of a shame because I wanted to ask you some things" She admitted, she probably had a lot of questions about him. The hedgehog pulled a chair closer to her and sat on it backwards, facing Metal directly.

"Well, now that you have calmed down there are some things I need to tell you" She suddenly pulled out a notepad from her breast pocket. "You are mostly fully functional but I needed to make some compromises. For example, your power supply is a less powerful replacement so you will run out of energy faster, couldn't fully fix your arm so you can no longer move your pinky finger and don't think about using your turbine engine, you will blow up and die." She suddenly got up and looked seriously into Metal's eyes, fixing an oppressive stare. "Don't" She said with a stern and intense tone. "Also, get away from spiders." She added.

Metal remained unmoving and apathetic, it seemed as if the only emotions he could feel were anger and apathy.

"Does Eggman know about your whereabouts?" She suddenly asked. "One beep for yes and two beeps for no" She indicated to him but Metal did nothing but remain silent. "Can you at least lighten up a bit?" She asked, Metal once again remained silent. “Are you alright?” Amy started switching her questions to no avail since Metal was still silent. “Hey, it’s alright you can talk to me, I… won’t hurt you” She tried to get a reaction from Metal but failed.

“You tried to tell me something before, maybe we could figure something out so you could tell me whatever you want” Still nothing. “Do you need any help? Want something? I just want to help” The robot still remained inert as if all life had been sucked out of him. "Hey, respond to me!" Nothing but silence from the robot. Amy looked baffled at that sight, seemingly not knowing what to do before she suddenly left the room, he probably angered her.

"I should have done this from the start" Metal thought, his emotions were volatile and his being was dangerous. If he had never pretended to be alive he may have never committed any mistakes or become such a threat. This was possibly the best possible outcome for him, to become a lifeless statue. If lucky, she would eventually forget about him and he would end up in one of the dusty boxes in the garage where he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone anymore.

"Hey, catch!" She was suddenly back in the garage, tennis ball on her right hand, which she swiftly threw at Metal. The ball bounced from his head after he made no effort to stop it. The hedgehog looked annoyed now. “You were supposed to catch-” She suddenly threw another ball at Metal and the same thing happened again. “-it”.

"Come on, do something!" She frowned before abruptly starting taking heavy steps towards Metal, and pulled out a gun pointing right towards the robot. "You can either block the gun or die!" She said, forcing her voice. Once again he did nothing. "I'm warning you, I'm pulling the trigger!" She yelled, nothing again. The hedgehog finally pulled the trigger and out of the gun came a colorful red flag with the word "BANG" written on it.

"PLEASE, just show any sign of LIFE!" Life, how foolish of her to consider Metal as anything but a lifeless robot yet she really seemed keen to keep on trying. "Look, you probably went through some very nasty things but this is just ridiculous. Can’t you at least let me help you?" Nothing again. She directed her gaze at his empty expression to see if he would at least return the stare but not even his irises moved. She just sighed, "I'll check on you later." The hedgehog said with a defeated voice before she started to leave the room again, it seemed that she had given up for now.

"The sooner she realizes I can't be trusted, the better" Metal thought yet for some reason this felt oddly wrong. This was surely the only thing he could do to keep himself from ever failing again, he wouldn’t fail if he stopped trying.

The pink hedgehog suddenly halted in front of the door before uttering some words, “I’m still not done with you.”

Chapter Text

“So, what do you think?” Amy said as she signaled the entire living room to Metal who sat motionless on the sofa.

“It’s a bit modest but it gets the job done” She followed as she attentively observed Metal hoping he would at least give her a slight reaction before plopping down the sofa, sitting right beside him.

“I bet Eggman never let you do anything on your own, you were probably bored outta your mind when you were with him” Amy tried chatting with the robot with no response coming back from him. “But don’t worry, you WILL have a lot of fun with me” Amy said with a somewhat uplifting tone while giving her biggest, albeit a bit forced, smile to Metal.

“Is there anything you ever wanted to do? Like watching TV or listening to music? You can do that right now and more pal” Amy said with the same uplifting tone. “So, what do you want to do?” As expected the robot didn’t do anything so Amy just pulled out her earphones and forcibly put them on the robot’s mechanical ears. “Ever listened to some music? No? Then prepare to get your mind blown!” As she told the robot, the earphones slid off his hollow ears prompting Amy to grab some tape from the tea table and wrap the devices around his ears. “It’s a bit old but you are gonna LOVE it!” Even after she started the album there was no reaction from him.

“I promise you it gets good later, you might need a few more listens but it’ll be worth it” Nothing came. “Do you mind that it is four consecutive 20 minute songs?” Still nothing, she felt as if she was pointlessly trying to start a conversation with a brick wall. “Maybe that wasn’t the best album for a beginner” She claimed a bit apologetically before starting to search for more suitable music. “How about this one? It’s about an interstellar adventure around the universe and I think it’s a really beautiful concept album. I, um, think you would like this one” After starting the album she still saw the robot not showing any signs of life, but she already expected that. “Liking it so far? It’s just 40 minutes so it doesn’t take long to finish… If you don’t like it you can just tell me.” No response came so far.

As the minutes passed, Amy expectantly awaited for at least a slight action from the robot. “I think the album gives off a really warm feeling, so I thought it may at least help you a bit with whatever you are going through.” Half an hour passed by and still nothing came from the robot, he was unnaturally still and considering that he hadn’t moved an inch for hours, it was a bit creepy. “You know, the overall theme of the album is to never lose hope even when all seems lost… I thought that could help you…” This was harder than she expected, how was she supposed to get at least a reaction from him? How was she supposed to aid him if he refused to be even acknowledged? She needed to try something different.

“Wanna watch something instead? I’ve got loads of movies that I think you might like” Amy removed the earphones from Metal’s ears before putting a movie on the TV. “This one is a horror movie about a group of students who go vacation at an abandoned cabin so try to guess what happens next.” Amy playfully said while leaving out a smile that let out a gentle laugh. She expected him to at least have some mild reactions from watching something instead of just listening, he probably never experienced music so it was normal that he seemed so indifferent to it but maybe a movie could do the trick.

As the movie played out and the students became possessed one by one, Amy couldn’t help but notice that although Metal was watching, it was more due to his eyes being pointed straight towards the TV screen rather than him making the effort to watch, he couldn’t even tell whether he even liked it as his face made only a blank expression that remained constant during the watching. “Did you know that this movie only had a budget of 375 thousand and it was made mostly by college students, I mean I would say this is extremely impressive considering the circumstances.” Her little chit chat didn’t work as his gaze was still fixed on the movie with her words falling on deaf ears, this was getting frustrating.

Several minutes passed, most of the students were either dead or possessed and this attempt didn’t seem to have worked either, how was he able to so easily turn himself into a statue? It would be a thing if he was turned off but his system was fully operational and his consciousness fully awake, wouldn’t he eventually get bored or maybe accidentally break the act. It would probably take a lot of concentration and focus to do nothing, wouldn’t it be easier for him to just stop ignoring her? To stop spending so much energy on something so trivial?

“Seriously, if you aren’t enjoying this just tell me” It was starting to get frustrating to talk to someone with the personality of a brick. While her progress on Metal was still lackluster, maybe she could still try to understand him. What did he feel? He surely must feel something to go down this path, it wasn’t until a few hours ago after the mirror incident that he started acting this way, what caused this? Amy remembered that after the little outburst he had, the robot looked a bit horrified , probably regretful of his actions, and after that very moment he started this act. But what caused that outburst? It would be unexpected for him to have self-image issues but this wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility considering that he was obviously depressed.

Depressed, Amy knew Metal’s programming was advanced but this was just so ridiculously beyond anything she had ever seen. All her robotic friends, although possessing of free will and a mind of their own, still possessed somewhat simplistic personalities that made it clear that they were robots yet the emotional range he showed in his short outburst were far from being robotic, they seemed too complex. For a robot to go through such an emotional state would have been unimaginable but there he was, right in front of her, someone who without realizing had blurred the line between artificial and organic life. His mind was capable of so many things yet he probably didn’t know how unique he really was.

Even though her original plans was to just discard him in case he started getting violent, those were only under the assumption that his personality didn’t extend beyond the boundaries of artificial intelligence, it was obvious now that she needed to treat him under a different set of rules.

His depression must have had a source but how was she supposed to help if she didn’t even know the reason behind it? Even if she didn’t know she could still try making things a little better. “Hey, um, just to make things clear I don’t actually hate you. I think you are actually a really interesting guy” She turned to Metal, maybe one of the sources of his emotional state was guilt, after everything he had done it would be understandable for him to feel guilty about himself. Naturally Metal didn’t make a sound, maybe it was because she didn’t sound genuine enough, they have been enemies for their entire lives and it was natural to not outright trust each other. “I know we’ve been enemies since forever but maybe we could start over” She extended her hand to Metal, a gesture that went unanswered.

“Why do I try so hard? Amy asked herself, everything she tried led to nothing almost as if her efforts were useless but as long as there was someone in need, it was her moral obligation to do something about it and just try to make things a little better for everyone, even in her now more cynical view of the world she wanted to at least show a little kindness, something she didn’t do, or rather refused, in their first meeting. A betrayal of her own fundamental moral principles that made her who she was occurred during their first meeting in years and Amy knew it. If she were to make everything a little better for everyone she also needed to make sure that Metal not only gets better but also becomes better.

“You may think badly of yourselves right now but you are actually so much better than you might think” More words of encouragement that fell on deaf ears, was she genuine enough? Although the intentions were there, the things she said were probably too generic for Metal to feel something. As both were basked in an awkward silence broken up by the violent scenes of the horror movie, it was probably best to turn it off and try to resolve everything more quietly. She reached for the remote with the intention to turn the TV off, after all none of them were really paying attention to it, but when she was about to press it she felt something pulling her clothes. Metal, with his arm outstretched, grabbed her shirt signaling her to not stop the movie.

“Y-you actually like it? Amy’s eyes lit up as If a barrage of positive emotions suddenly filled her. “You like it!” She couldn’t hold back her smile, there was finally some progress on him and not only that, he liked a movie she liked!. She sat back on the couch barely able to hold her enthusiasm and let the movie run its course as the pair watched the final events unfold. During this session Amy compulsively took various peeks at the robot to see if he had any reactions but nothing came.

In the end, although it seemed as if the protagonist ended up winning, the ending revealed the demonic force that haunted the group of teenagers taking the protagonist by surprise, a somewhat downer of an ending. “What did you think? Was it good?” It seemed as if the brief moment of character that he showed before was just a small and fleeting outburst as his being returned to its previous self but the fact that that outburst even happened proved to her that this was at least a facade that could be broken with enough work.

“Well, nevermind we can watch another movie. The guy is actually alive and there’s a sequel so you might be interested in-” The doorbell suddenly rang surprising Amy, “Wait a second” She informed Metal as she headed towards the door and opened it.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Sonic said as he held on his shoulder a tied up Tails.

“Uhm, what are you guys doing?”

“He’s kidnapping me.” Tails bluntly responded.

“It’s not a kidnapping! It’s just a forced vacation”

“So a kidnapping”

“I’m just saving you from overworking yourself to death, buddy. Besides, don’t you wanna go on another adventure with your big bro after so long?”

"I don't think there are any more adventures left for us"

"Pffft, there's always adventure out there."

"Sure." Tails said, incredulous.

"Guys can you tell me at least what you are doing here?" Amy suddenly asked, pulling the pair out of their conversation."

"Oh yeah, here's the key to the workshop. Can't trust Tails with them for now."

"I know that you're on vacation but can you please check on the workshop once in a while?" Tails asked

"Sure"

"Thanks"

"Well, we're off now. See you later" Sonic walked off as he waved Amy who waved back in response.

"Oh, by the way, tell Vanilla there will be a delay in her merchandise!" Tails told Amy, increasingly raising his voice as he was taken away by Sonic.

Amy returned back inside the house, surprisingly Metal was looking at her once again breaking his facade although just as quickly returned to his usual behavior. “Those were Sonic and Tails, you haven’t seen them in quite a while I think” Amy went and sat back on the couch alongside Metal. “Hey, do you wanna meet them?” She suddenly asked and although he once again didn’t answer it seemed as if this more was due to indecisiveness rather than the forced act he had built.

“You know, you have been gone for a little bit over three years now” Amy started explaining. “You probably have a lot of questions right now, after all you have missed out on so many things.” She started thinking about how she could update him on the events of the last few years before coming up with something. “ It’s, uhm, a lot so I’ll just tell you what you are probably most curious about, for example… me” Metal tried to act uninterested despite a few short glances escaping and directing towards Amy.

“I know what you might think, how did such a fine and delicate young lady end up in such a profession?” She said referring to her mechanic and engineering skills. “I’m actually just as surprised as you are.” Amy acknowledged with a somewhat sarcastic tone. “I would’ve never guessed this is how I would end up. To be honest, I always wanted to start my own bakery” Her tone changed to a more reminiscing one.

“You know, getting to know customers and baking food, having my food being complimented as I put my soul on something that I could call strictly mine, leaving a good impression and seeing happy customers. I think the thing I would have probably loved the most would have been baking a birthday cake for some kid and seeing their face filled with excitement and illusion as they see the finished result. Like you are working your entire life towards an objective that you think will make you happy only to be forced to change everything due to things you couldn't have predicted.” Amy left out a slight laugh, although done so to hide her lament, before going back to her reminiscing tone.

“Sorry for getting too person-” Before she could finish her sentence Metal looked at her, completely surprising Amy. “You don’t mind me getting personal?” Amy asked which provoked Metal to shake his head. “Alright, I’ll get extra personal just for you!” Amy said as she teased Metal and followed up with a small giggle.

“Okay, sorry for that. I still need to tell you how I ended up like this. Uhh, remember Tails? I’ve been his assistant for a couple of years now although he sees me more as an apprentice than anything else.” She admitted. “How I ended up with him is a bit of a long story but the gist of it is that a couple of years ago we made a gigantic screw up and one of the consequences of said screw up was Tails losing his legs.” Metal started looking a bit surprised as if he was slowly forgetting that he had an act to maintain. “Hey, don’t worry. He just made a brand new pair of legs after that and now he’s completely fine although he hasn’t gone on any quest with us since.” Metal’s eyes were now locked on Amy as she explained her story.

“You know, after years of having adventures that ended with everything going back to normal, having one that so radically changed the status quo felt like hitting a brick wall. It was a bit of a scary experience, to be honest, because I never went through anything similar.” Amy admitted. “It was kinda like hitting a reset button because I felt as if I had to essentially start my life over, after working so hard to become a baker just for all my efforts to go to the dumpster due to one tiny mistake that no one could have predicted.” There was some bitterness in her words.

“Dammit, I strayed too far from the point again. Ah, don’t worry I’ll tell you how it went. Basically I started nursing Tails after the accident and after a while I started helping him in the workshop, initially I was only supposed to help him for a couple months but I took a liking to all this engineering stuff and Tails saw potential in me so he took me under his wing.” As she finalized her story she saw Metal deep in thought, probably reflecting on all this new information. “If you only knew, this is just the tip of the iceberg but now that you are in your right mind I have a few questions for you.” As Metal heard those words he got surprised, seemingly remembering that he was supposed to maintain an emotionless and inert act. “There’s no point in going back to whatever you were doing before now that I know you were just acting.” Metal finally gave in.

“First of all, does Eggman know about your whereabouts?” Amy asked. “Remember, one beep is yes and two beeps are no”

Metal beeped twice.

“Alright, do you still hate me or any of my friends?”

Metal remained silent for a moment as if reflecting on what he really thought of them now before beeping twice again.

“And finally, do you plan on returning to Eggman?”

Once again he beeped twice.

“Then we’re in the clear now. What were you trying to accomplish earlier anyways? There’s no turning back for either of us now, you know? I already committed to fixing you and I’m sure as hell not letting all that hard work go to waste” Although right now Metal was far more cooperative it still seemed as if he was filled with apathy and aloofness.

“Wanna watch the sequel now? It’s a bit more of a comedy but it’s way more fun.”

Metal beeped once, his face still emotionally distant but at least this was a sign of improvement.

“Sweet!” She exclaimed, even though it was small progress, progress was still progress. They soon started watching the movie and as the time passed by Amy wondered if this will end up as another unexpected turn in her life.

Chapter Text

Inside his workshop Tails was still working on the last batch of weapons, carefully assembling them with his usual mechanical mastery and perfectionism to his craft, his mind was so absorbed in this now common task to him that he didn’t even hear the door opening behind him. Sonic, with his usual g nature, stepped towards his younger brother and with this t loud and immature voice he called upon him.

“Hey, how’s it going bro?”

Tails flinched, being pulled out of his previous state of trance.

“The usual.” His voice filled with indifference, lacking much emotion.

“You know that you don’t have to push yourself so hard now? We already dealt with the emeralds!”

“There’s still a lot of work left to do”

“Why don’t you try a little vacation? After all, you gave Amy a generous three month break from work.”

“She has worked hard, she deserved it”

“You are also working really hard”

“Not hard enough.” Tails simply dismissed Sonic’s suggestions and went back to work, turning away from Sonic.

“You wouldn’t even go on vacation with your best friend and brother?”

“I don’t have time for this”

At that response Sonic simply sighted in frustration although not in defeat. “Guess it’s time for Plan B”

“What?” For a second Tails wondered what Sonic meant but soon he found himself being tackled by him and on the floor..

“Wh-What are you doing?!” Tails asked, puzzled, as he felt his entire body being tied up.

“Showing you some brotherly love!”

—----------------------------

“Why are we here?” Tails asked as he sighted the train station that came nearer and nearer as he was being carried by Sonic who ran with his incredible high speed towards it.

“Adventure” He responded as he rapidly untied Tails before halting to a stop just right in front of the station.

“Why don’t we just run like we used to?”

“Well, I figured there’s more to an adventure than just running around.”

“That’s… really unlike you” He said, a bit confused at the sudden change in his brother.

“Here’s your ticket, the train is arriving soon so let’s hurry up.” There was a somewhat soft and tender layer added to his usual voice that he tended to apply when referring to Tails, this somewhat annoyed him.

The pair soon traversed through the station, not wasting any second to reach the trains which they soon entered, quickly arriving at their seats. Was this truly gonna be a new adventure? There was no present threat that justified this “adventure” but knowing Sonic he never really needed a motive, just the drive. What prompted him to do this all of a sudden? Probably the need to spend more time with Tails. In the end this was probably going to end up as a short break for Tails who after this will just go back working, continuing back where he left off as if nothing had ever happened.

As they awaited for the train to depart, Tails wondered why Sonic chose a slower adventure. He hated going slow which meant he would get especially irritable and not only that but he won’t even experience the exploration he loved so much from his journeys, what was most likely was him wanting to extend their time together as much as possible although he could just visit him whenever he felt like it, there was no point in this. At this point it was far too late for Tails to just leave so he might as well make the most out of this experience.

It had only been a couple of minutes but Sonic was already getting extremely impatient, unable to stay put on his seat while constantly fidgeting.

“When is this thing gonna MOVE?!”

“You chose this.”

Sonic just grumbled in annoyance. The train still had some minutes left, around five, before it finally departed. Tails looked around the wagon, it was mostly full with a great variety of passengers from families with their kids, businessmen, old people probably visiting their families and younger people probably on vacation. Some were loading up their luggage while others were impatiently waiting for the train to start, mainly his brother.

Another passenger entered, loud and brash, wearing a perfectly ironed black suit alongside a black tie with a gigantic but obviously fake diamond ring, a fedora that barely looked right on his head and a pair of sunglasses. He had a singular earbud in his right ear apparently for business and was irritatingly holding a noisy conversation with someone.

“Yes, I knew that she was a single mother. That’s why I didn’t give her the raise. Poor people are so desperate, they would work for ANYTHING.” He let out a chuckle before accommodating himself on his seat.

“Asshole.” Tails angrily mumbled.

Finally, the train started moving when Sonic was at his most irritable but he soon found that this did little to quench his boredom, on the contrary, he found this situation even more unbearable as now he didn’t have the expectation of the departing train to at least fight his boredom, now he had to endure this for hours.

“Why is this so slow?”

“Again, you chose this.”

Sonic grumbled more audibly, he was so used to being on the move that remaining still for too long would make him feel physically ill although to him too long meant just a few minutes idling. He would try to find anything that would take his mind away or would at least serve him as a temporary substitute of his usual fast paced routine, first incessantly tapping his feet followed by a relentlessly looking at the window probably wishing to just be outside and run through the lush green fields the train was traversing and finally he would just get off his seat and walk back and forth the car with brief periods where he would sit back trying to see if his boredom was any less present. This all happened within five minutes of the train starting.

“To all passengers, we remind you may have access to the cafeteria where we have a vast selection of snacks that might make your journey more appetizing.” A stewardess suddenly came out of the wagon’s front door pushing a cart. She was wearing a buttoned black vest with a white shirt underneath and a pair of black pants alongside a pair of black shoes, the usual uniform for stewards. Sonic’s eyes immediately lit up the moment he saw her.

“Hey, Blaze!” He audibly called out to her. Blaze in response approached Sonic due to this unexpected reunion.

“Sonic? What are you doing here?”

“Same could be said about you.”

“I just got a job here.” She proudly stated.

“I’m adventuring with my lil bro right here.” Sonic pulled his brother closer holding a tight grip over him which discomforted Tails while genuinely smiling over the sight of his friend.

“I’m not a kid, Sonic.” Tails denounced as sonic’s grip made it harder for him to breath and speak before being finally released. He took a deep and audible gasp afterwards.

“Well, have some fun you two.” She told them before going back to work. Blaze was a princess from another dimension, which meant she was a monarch or rather she used to be. Unfortunately for her the monarchy was abolished and she was exiled here. Tails couldn’t remember when it did happen but it seemed as if she had finally gotten over being forced into this dimension over a year ago, she actually seemed rather happy rather than the emotional mess she used to be.

“Where is this train going?” Tails suddenly asked Sonic.

“The city.”

“We literally just crossed it… to get to the station” He sounded baffled.

“You know what they say, it’s more about the journey than the destination.”

“You were dying inside a moment ago” Tails looked straight to his eyes, his gigantic piercing eyes looking towards him searching for nothing but the truth. Tails didn’t blink, didn’t change his expression much but his stare made Sonic feel an uneasy pressure, he tried to resist but the overwhelming gaze of his brother caused him to just cave in.

“Okay, alright! I just never rode a train property and was curious.”

“I’m going back to the workshop.”

“No no no wait! This is just the beginning, everything will get better and more exciting once we reach the city.”

Tails just grumbled in annoyance, he could have probably done so much more work by now if Sonic hadn’t pulled him out of his beloved workshop. Maybe he could have built many different things by now and start the planning of future projects but now he couldn’t know because he was dragged into an adventure where all he will do will be accompanying his speed addicted brother.

Tails sighed. “Just make sure to make it worthwhile.” Tails just stared off into the window, looking away from Sonic.

"Hey, remember that I never lie." He confidently said.

“Sure.” He responded while not taking his eyes off the outside. Everything seemed like a blur in such a fast vehicle although not nearly as fast as his brother or his personal plane. He kind of missed riding on fast vehicles, it has been ages since he last rode on the tornado and the plane must have been dusting inside his garage without care for quite some time now although one difference between the train and the tornado was that he wasn’t in control of it, rather he was just another passenger in a predetermined path. Vehicles were nice although they contaminated too much and hurt the environment, it would be nicer if everyone could run like his brother but such is this unfair world. In the end this was just another pointless distraction for him, time will soon pass by and he will soon be back in his workshop doing the same he had always done.

“Where are we going?” Tails suddenly asked without taking his eyes away from the window.

“I already told you”

“No, I mean where”

“Oh, that’s a surprise for you to find.” Enthusiasm found its way into his voice.

“I really hope so.” He indifferently responded.

Relatively speaking the train went fast but it also went really slow, the ride was only supposed to be two hours long, considering the distance covered it was a fast ride but considering who was riding it, it was an excruciatingly slow one. Another ten minutes passed that felt like hours to his increasingly frustrated brother, he probably regretted taking this decision although Tails wasn’t sure what he expected exactly but he was the type to try new things all the time even if they didn’t pan out as expected. Nothing interesting was really happening at all, knowing Sonic this was too mundane for him but for Tails this just meant wasting a couple hours bored.

The scenery outside the train hadn’t changed much although this time they were through a more mountainous terrain but with an enough amount of green to be easily confused with the scenery he saw minutes ago.

“Huh?” Out in the distance Tails saw specks of gray floating overhead the mountains, they initially seemed like birds but their movement didn’t have the naturality of an avian’s flight, instead they felt artificial. Those specks of gray became increasingly more numerous and became clearer as they started approaching the train. Nearer, clearer, bigger those tiny dots in the distance turned and as their true nature became more apparent and Tails finally recognized them.

“Sonic!” Tails voiced, calling out his brother.

“What?” Sonic in response was surprised at the sudden energy in his brother’s voice.

“Look!” Tails signaled Sonic towards the window. “They are drones!”

They both suddenly felt something hitting the train from the side, it was initially just the loud bang of an object colliding into the wagon yet these collisions started increasing causing a notable turbulence before a singular drone crashed through a window and entered the car. It was made of a brilliant metallic silver equipped with a pair of turrets, it had a simplistic and minimalistic design without much decoration or fanfare.

“And I just told hi-” Someone suddenly came out of the back door of the wagon, that businessman from earlier. The drone without hesitation turned towards the man.

“Huh?” A shower of bullets suddenly pierced through his torso and the man immediately fell back against the door, lifeless with red liquid flowing out of his body ending in a bloody puddle.

The entire passenger car bursted into extreme panic and chaos as everyone tried to run away and exit the wagon, there was fear and hysteria in the atmosphere as the deafening screams of the passengers flooded the train. It only took a matter of seconds for the car to be emptied out leaving Sonic and Tails alone with the drones who were still hitting the car while more and more entered and started taking aim at Sonic.

“Do you think it’s Eggman?” Sonic asked Tails as he gracefully danced and waved through the endless bullets before jumping and rolling, turning his body into a projectile that smashed the machines.

“Probably!” Tails responded as he took cover behind the seats, protecting himself from the raging bullets. “Although he usually isn’t this extreme.”

Sonic took one drone after another yet more and more kept appearing making it harder for him to keep up. “And I thought he would calm down.” Sonic remarked, trying his best to clear up the car as he acrobatically navigated the room taking out as many murder machines as possible but soon a drone sneaked behind him and pointed directly towards him. Luckily for Sonic, Tails had already noticed it and from a hidden compartment in his right leg took out a small gun with a visible slot containing a Chaos drive and a dial on its side.

He rolled out of hiding and quietly shot at the machine who instantly disappeared and reappeared in front of another causing both of them to shoot and destroy each other. “Nice work buddy!” Sonic congratulated Tails. “But I think they are now after you too.”

“Whatever, right now we need to get rid of them.” Tails said as turned the dial on his gun and shot another drone but this time energy in the form of a spear burst out of his gun and impaled through a bunch of drones, the Chaos drive shattered afterwards. He took cover once again and in an instant he took out a drive out of his left leg and reloaded his gun.

“Do you have any ideas on what to do?” He jumped and positioned himself above a drone just to redirect it as its bullets ended up destroying its peers before Sonic punched through its surface and pulled out several cables, rendering it useless.

“I need time to figure this out” Meanwhile, Tails with his quick hands, incredible intellect and almost machine-like aim was able to see the exact moment in which the drones would perfectly align for him to shoot and take out as many of them as possible with just one Chaos Spear. More and more machines fell as more and more machines entered which soon caused them to feel overwhelmed as they were vastly outnumbered.

Suddenly the front door of the wagon opened and out of it a blazing jet of fire emerged that melted various of the robots. Blaze arised from the door looking with surprise at the chaotic scene with the dead body in particular standing out to her. “Want some help?”

“Yes, please.” Sonic responded as she quickly joined in demolishing the robots yet her addition didn’t prevent them from still being far outnumbered.

“Hey Sonic, can you neutralize one of the drones without fully destroying it?” Tails asked once again covering behind one of the seats, knowing this was the only thing he could do to come up with a solution as it was obvious they couldn’t win through sheer strength.

Sonic was still busy fighting multiple of these machines but Blaze, who heard Tails' request, used her fire powers to melt the turrets of a nearby drone and threw it to the boy. “Here!” She shouted.

Tails bashed the drone open and began analyzing its insides, it seemed oddly primitive in design although its internal architecture was unmistakable Eggman’s. With some more examination Tails realized the drones had an extremely rudimentary artificial intelligence due to their more simplistic internals and lacked proper optic feedback. This seemed really strange, up until now the drones were particularly precise in their attacks yet all of them seemed to be blind, they didn’t have any special technology or feature that made up for their blindness either which was even stranger considering their maker.

“How can they target us?” He was puzzled, in theory all they should be able to do would be to shoot at random targets but they knew where and who to shoot and for them to shoot they needed to at least see but how? They couldn’t see nor hear yet there was obviously a way for them to receive at least the information necessary for them to know where to attack. They needed to receive information… Tails suddenly came up with something.

“Sonic, I need to step out for a minute.” Tails called out to him.

“Sure, do whatever you need.” Sonic responded as he and Blaze were still tirelessly fighting the machines.

Tails quickly went out of hiding and entered the next wagon, as he entered the car he saw all the passengers momentarily flinch back before they realized who he was. They all seemed really nervous and in a state of silent panic and stress. The car was dead silent without anyone daring making a sound with the only thing heard being the fight Sonic and Blaze were having in the previous wagon.

“Listen here, is anyone here familiar with crime?” Tails asked, breaking the silence yet no one spoke a word.

“Does anyone here know how to sneak suspicious devices through security?” Yet again no one spoke, it seemed as if they were too scared to talk.

“No? Nobody?... Can you at least tell me if you saw anyone suspicious?” They all started pointing at him in unison as Tails realized that he was still holding his gun and perfectly fit the description of the type of person he was searching.

Tails immediately went back to the wagon.

“Any luck?” Blaze asked, dodging and moving with her ballet like acrobatics while surrounded by a myriad of broken and melted drones.

“No, but I think I know how to solve this. All these drones can’t see.”

“Then how come they can attack us?” Sonic asked, still having drones that are constantly ambushing him but with him managing to avoid their attacks and break them to pieces.

“They can’t see by themselves but maybe they could see by other means?”

“What do yo-”

“Crouch!” Blaze shouted, Sonic instantly reacted letting Blaze burn the drone that was right behind him.

“-u mean?”

“They might all have an outside eye, something they can use to see but isn’t in their bodies.”

“Like a service dog? Do these drones have a service drone?” Sonic asked

“See how hard they struggle to enter through the window, they are probably just following a signal with their eye located in this car.”

“Who put the eye?” Sonic asked. “Are you implying that Eggman has an accomplice here?”

“Exactly.”

“If it is located in this car then leave it to me, stand back!” Blaze shouted and Sonic ran towards his brother’s side before they both stuck their backs to the wall. The temperature around her body started to drastically rise with everything near beginning to melt.

“Try not to burn the corpse!” Sonic shouted.

“I know!” Blaze shouted back before an explosion of flames melted almost the entire car, leaving the floor, walls and roof exposed to the outside, all the seats and remains of the drones burned and melted leaving an uncomfortable smell that flooded the carriage and made it harder to breathe with an overabundance of smoke. “Is this enough?” Blaze asked before realizing there were still drones that swarmed the train and proceeded to aim at her and her friends.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Sonic responded as he went back into smashing Eggman’s machines with Tails following him as he recharged his gun.

“Then, where’s this supposed eye?” Blaze wondered.

“It has to be here, there can’t be any other place!” The robots kept and kept coming yet Tails could barely keep up, it seemed as if both his brother and his friend were starting to tire out.

“But I’ve already burned everything!” Blaze pointed out.

“I know you can figure this out, just keep on thinking.” Sonic reassured Tails.

Tails tried to recall everything that happened so far, that might give him a hint on what to do next. “When we first entered the carriage was already mostly full, if Eggman knew about our trip he might have known about our wagon. He needed to have an accomplice for the drones to see but did said accomplice arrive before or after our arrival? They needed to at least know us and probably had already reserved a seat in the same car but in that case does it really matter whether they came before or after us? No, it's completely irrelevant. After that Sonic submitted to his ADHD and was unable to stay put until Blaze came… no, this doesn’t seem relevant at all.” Tails kept thinking. “The drones came from far away which means the signal from this train must be very strong, but what does this have to do with anything? Keep thinking Tails, keep thinking! Then, the drones started hitting the car before one entered the car and weirdly stood still…, wait why did it float still? And then it shot that businessman before aiming at us yet they never aimed at anyone other than us...”This seemed too odd to be a coincidence.

Tails suddenly rushed towards the body ignoring all the drones. He unbuttoned his jacket and shirt and underneath them he found a bulletproof vest with a couple blood bags hanging from it. “Soni-” He shouted but soon felt the grip of a strong hand covering his mouth with a knife in front of him threatening his life.

Sonic and Blaze quickly noticed the situation.

“He’s alive?!” Blaze shouted in confusion.

“Hey, leave my brother alone!” Sonic angrily called out as he tried to rush towards Tails while still dodging all the projectiles aimed at him.

“Not another step if you want him still breathing.” The man proclaimed.

“Who are you?”

“Someone with a job to do, now don’t move, you are the only one that needs dying here.” He mockingly stated.

“Eggman…” Sonic growled as he needed to comply if he wanted his brother to stay safe. This had never happened before and it was oddly out of character for Eggman to just start hiring people to do the dirty job for him but he must have gotten desperate lately. “What do you want?”

“Just stand there while these machines gift you some nice new holes.”

Sonic had to comply or else. He decided to stand still and was ready for the bullets to take him down but Blaze wouldn’t allow it, she destroyed every drone that approached Sonic while breathlessly avoiding the ones that were coming for her but she was unsure how much longer she could keep up, it had been long since she had been forced to use her powers this intensely and was fast approaching her very limits.

It was apparent that sooner or later one of them would fall, but Tails needed to come up with something soon. He was currently held hostage by the man who was still seated with his legs outstretched on a puddle of blood, the knife was awfully close to his neck, he could almost feel its edge touching his skin, which prevented him from doing anything too reckless yet the only hope for both of them rested on him.

For a moment Tails prepared himself for what he was about to do, he knew this was about to hurt and a lot. Tails stepped on the man’s thigh and through his left leg he sent a powerful electricity current that violently shocked him but also himself due to being in contact with him. This was painful, really painful but he made sure that this wouldn’t be lethal, he needed to endure for them to get out of this situation. The man was painfully and loudly screaming yet still, barely holding the knife, Tails increased the intensity and kept increasing as he saw one by one each of his fingers giving up on the knife’s handle until he finally dropped it, letting Tails to finally stop.

“Tails!” Sonic rushed towards his side.

“It’s the ring, destroy the ring…” Tails let out those words before passing out.

“I won’t let your sacrifice go to waste, buddy.” Sonic quietly told him before he looked at the eccentric fake diamond ring the man had and immediately took it out and with a heavy stomp, crushed it revealing various electronics parts inside. After that the drones’ aim dropped severely, they tried to shoot at them for a while without direction or idea of their locations which led to a barrage of random bullets that Sonic had to deviate to make sure none hit Tails, this lasted for a while before it suddenly stopped and the drones started leaving.

“I’m.. I’m n-not done y-yet!” The man was still conscious with his whole body shaking and trembling as a result of the shock, he once again held Tails while threatening him with his knife that he could barely hold with his current condition.

Sonic just looked at him silently with a furious stare before he started walking towards him.

“D-don’t take a s-step closer!” There was fear in his voice.

Sonic ignored him and kept going forward with an oppressive aura emanating from him, the man in retaliation raised his arm with the intent of stabbing the fox but Sonic, with his speed, appeared right in front of him and grabbed his arm with such strength that the man started wincing in pain. Sonic just glared at him before punching him in the face, knocking him unconscious.

Sonic stood by Tails' side for some minutes before the fox woke up, he rose with his hand rubbing the back of his head as if he was going through a headache.

“Hey, how can you always sleep for exactly only five minutes.” Sonic kneeled to Tails' level.

“At this point I think my brain has been hardwired to just do that.” Tails responded with a debilitating tone. He turned to the unconscious man and took the earbud from his ear, observing and analyzing it for a few moments before throwing it out.

“What were you trying to do?”

“See if I could get the signal, he was probably connected to the person who hired him.”

“You mean Eggman?”

“It could be Eggman or it could be someone else, this isn’t really his style.”

“Oh, come on, he's just running out of ideas and reusing old tech, he’s probably getting desperate.” Sonic stood up and offered his hand to Tails

“Well, if you say so.” Tails accepted his hand and stood up. “This was a complete mess.”

“Well, this is part of every adventure. Also, see? I told you this was going to get exciting.”

“We almost died.”

“Exactly!”

Without realizing the train had already stopped several minutes ago. Blaze approached Sonic and Tails and congratulated them. “Hey, we did it.”

“We couldn’t have done it with you.” Sonic told Blaze.

“Likewise” Blaze responded.

“Freeze!” A group of cops suddenly stormed into the car with their weapons aimed directly at them. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back!” They yelled forcing Blaze to reluctantly comply.

“I guess this is the end of the line for us guys… Guys?” Blaze suddenly realized that neither Sonic or Tails were with her.

“Don’t open your mouth and do exactly as you are told!” A cop shouted as he approached Blaze before forcefully pushing her against the wall and handcuffing her.

“Arrested again…” She mumbled to herself.

Chapter Text

Little Planet,marvelous and surreal, not bound by neither space nor time materializing yearly from its slumber before disappearing into unknown times but today what mattered wasn’t the place but the characters who would venture into it.

September, first day of autumn and Little Planet’s final day. Sonic the Hedgehog was investigating the location due to suspicious activities by Robotnik but not too far behind, although unbeknownst to him, his biggest admirer was closely following him.

She, the pink hedgehog, seeked him, barely keeping up running with all the might her thin and little legs and frail figure could exploit, barely able to contain her desperate gasps for air and at a fraction of his speed… it didn’t take long for her to lose his trail. Amy didn’t want to stop, she wanted to meet him as soon as possible, to become close to him just as her cards foretold her but her small and weak body, having been drained of all energy, couldn’t go on much longer. She needed rest. As she tried to recoup some stamina, Amy slowly limped towards a nearby palm tree, each step feeling like a stab in the feet, to escape to its shade, falling down as she felt her whole body disintegrating into dust, she could barely feel anything.

“Just wait… a little longer… Sonic” She said rested against the palm tree, her lungs screaming for air, with an increasingly deteriorating mind and a body that no longer responded to her commands. It was quite a miracle she had even reached Little Planet in the first place but nothing was impossible with enough will power! Yet will alone wasn’t enough to save her from this sensation that so dangerously neared her perception of death. She wanted to get up on her feet, she needed to go on but the energy needed to even take a step was nonexistent.

“Sonic?” Amy suddenly and unexpectedly heard speed, a speed so distinct and recognizable, a speed that could only belong to one. She saw a blue blur and a loud roar that sounded like machinery following closely behind. As it diligently dashed through the scenery with ease and efficiency it crossed paths with her in a flash, “Sonic!” Amy called him out thrilled, fate made them finally encounter… or did it? The blue blur briefly stopped to a halt and, with its cold eyes, it silently glanced directly at her revealing itself as nothing more than a mechanical being before leaving just as quickly leaving the scene. Amy was briefly left in a state of confusion and shock before regaining her composure, so many thoughts were running through her head. Where did that robot come from? Why did it look like that? What was it up to? And why did its eyes feel so… cold?

—---------------------------------

“Ugh '' Amy grunted as she was taken out of her dream against her will by the loud knocking of the front door. “Can’t they call later?” She moaned while trying to force herself to get out of the couch. Her vision was blurry from hours of deep, albeit insufficient, sleep with her whole body feeling so much heavier, she belonged within the warm confines of the sofa, not the cold and unpleasant world of discomfort and fatigue that lay beyond it but someone had to respond to the knocking. She reluctantly headed towards the door, each step taking every last bit of will left in her body to just proceed, and all her mental strength, to just not fall asleep again.

Just as she opened the door, the intense light of the afternoon sun beamed right into her weary face and momentarily blinded her. “It’s afternoon already?!” She internally screamed in disbelief before slightly turning her head back as her eyes slowly adjusted to the sunlight just to see the tv still on displaying a DVD menu for a movie. “Oh.” She just spent the entire night watching movies.

“Blaze? What are you doing here?” Her sight finally focused on the visitor.

“I, uhm.?” Blaze’s eyes looked away from Amy in what clearly appeared to be shame. This was nothing new for Amy, having her dealt with these random lows from her before.

“Come in.” She said, looking at her with understanding eyes trying to hide her tiredness that sucked out all her energy.

“Are you alright? You look terrible.” Blaze pointed out as she stepped into the living room.

“ No, no. I just had a very long night.”

“You really should sleep more.” She said, a bit worried about her friend.

“Y-yeah, sure.” Amy responded before running out towards the garage, constantly yawning during the process, just to search for something that could help with Blaze’s mood. Her garage tended to be extremely messy with items and compartments that were barely organized save for one thing. In an unassuming corner in the room, almost hidden by all the shelves that surrounded it, occupied a chest locked from the outside world preventing any dirt or dust corrupting its insides and from inside the chest Amy took out a clean and well kept box that occupied the entirety of the compartment. She tiredly headed back to the living room with the box in hand.

For some reason Amy felt as if she was forgetting something important but her current lack of energy made it harder for her to think clearly as her brain felt like mush and most of her thoughts were locked behind an endless stream of fog.

“Hey.” Blaze called out to Amy just as she entered. “Haven’t seen him in a while.” She said sitting neatly right besides Metal.

For a brief moment Amy saw this scene with surprise before suddenly remembering everything she had done the past few days. It was quite surprising how short term her memory could be at times but not always. As the initial surprise drifted away, Amy promptly dropped the cardboard box right in front of Blaze and she, as if she was possessed, immediately jumped inside the box.

“You really are the only one who understands me.” Blaze emotionally said, almost teary eyed.

“The laser pointer broke, though.”

“The box is enough.”

For Blaze, one of the advantages of no longer being royalty but rather a part of the proletariat was the freedom of no longer having to uphold herself to absurdly restrictive royal standards of decency. Although the process of accepting those “indecent” desires that she had long repressed wasn’t easy, the liberating feelings to be able to act upon her long suppressed instincts gave her some of the purest feelings of comfort and happiness.

“By the way… you don’t mind him?” Amy asked.

“Not really. I’m related to way worse people.”

Metal momentarily directed his glance into Blaze with both curiosity and shock at her words before quietly going back to his previous state of being, trying to not get too involved in this situation.

“I don’t know, your family can’t be that bad.”

“You can’t build an empire without wilfully spilling innocent blood.”

“Uhm…”

“Just saying.” Blaze said while playfully lying inside the cardboard box, her expression showing scorn towards her blood and heritage. As she rested on her personal safe haven her curious eyes suddenly landed on the opened DVD case that indiscreetly rested on the coffee table. “Another one of your rock o”

“It’s a really great adaptation of the album!” She became defensive.

“You barely have changed since we broke up.”

“Can we… not bring that up? Please?” Amy pleaded.

Blaze suddenly went quiet for a moment before speaking again. “I actually wanted to tell you something.”

“You got fired again?” She immediately guessed.

Blaze became silent again, her mouth shut concealing all her thoughts but her eyes blatantly giving away her feelings of embarrassment and shame knowing that her admittedly dangerously poor skills in labor and inability of retaining a job has become a recognizable pattern to those close to her.

“Hey, it’s fine, really. You’re gonna find another one in no time. I mean you were probably fired over something petty, you already know how bosses can be.”

“I burned down an entire train car.”

“H-hey, you’ve done way worse before. If anything else, this is an improvement!.” Amy was grasping at straws.

“I got arrested.”

“The police are corrupt and arrests are morally meaningless.”

“Hgh, I just- Why can’t I do anything right?!” She bitterly exclaimed. “I’ve been told my entire life how ‘important’ or ‘special’’ I was only to miserably fail at the simplest of things compared to the ‘peasants’.”

“You just lack the experience!” Amy tried to calm her down.

“I’ve been here for years, do you see any progress?”

“Yes.” Amy plainly responded as if it was the most evident of things. “The simple fact that now you have gained a new perspective in life makes you better than before. ”

“But… But my skills!”

“You are absolutely terrible at a lot of things but so is everyone when they start learning.”

Blaze remained silent for a while in thought and reflection, contemplating her own behavior “Jesus… I’m a moron.”

“Come on, don’t be so hard on yourself. We are all allowed to make mistakes especially when we are so young.” She tenderly said.

“I know but…, I’m carrying so many mistakes behind my back, my whole heritage is stained with so many things that go beyond simple mistakes. I just sometimes not sure how to move on from that”

“I don’t know, maybe as long as you try to acknowledge and compensate for all your wrongs you can move forward but, really, you barely did anything wrong.” Amy plainly told Blaze.

Blaze wanted to reply, wanted to tell her how even if she always had her people in her mind, even though how she always wanted to help people and did her best to make sure everyone was happy, all her efforts came from a place of ignorance and she never tried to tackle the root problem, after all she was still part of that system but she knew Amy’s boundless hope and faith for her would just counter every little argument she gave so she just remained silent.

“Hey, as long as you are deserving of a second chance you can always just start over although… you already did that!” Amy gave another cheer for Blaze. “Don’t you agree, Metal?” She asked.

Metal remained silent for a few seconds before decidedly making an approving beep.

“He… can’t talk?” Blaze curiously asked.

“He can only beep although he barely tries to speak at all so… I don’t think it makes much of a difference.”

“Huh” Blaze surprisingly came out of her cardboard box and intensely focused her sight at Metal, deep in thought trying to come up with something, Amy already knew that look on her face but she didn’t know what she was trying to come up with or why she retreated into this state. “How fast can you beep?” Blaze asked Metal. “Beep as fast as you can”

“What are you-”

“Wait.”

Suddenly a series of fast and loud beeps filled the room with an extremely uncomfortable noise that greatly discomforted its inhabitants.

“What was that for?!” Amy demanded answers, annoyed, feeling a sharp pain in her ears.

“Trying to figure out ways we can communicate with him.” Blaze revealed. “By the way, do you know morse code?” Blaze suddenly asked Amy.

“Eh, no.” She bluntly replied.

“I thought you were a programmer.”

“I’m an engineer, I know some basic C# though, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“I… just thought programmers knew morse.” She admitted, a bit embarrassed. “Anyways, I think he could speak using his beeps to do morse.”

“That would be really inconvenient.”

“He could just use short sentences.”

“But, still.”

“It’s a step up from no communication at all.” She stated. ”I mean, we will eventually figure out something better but this is the best we can do for now.” Blaze assuredly stated. “Alright, uhm, tell me your name.”

Metal remained silent although from the look in his eyes it was evident that his silence came from confusion rather than his aloof behavior.

“Do you know morse?”

Metal beeped twice.

“I? What does i mean?”

“That means no.” Amy clarified.

“You are a robot and don’t know morse?” Blaze was utterly gobsmacked.

“Why would he know morse in the first place?”

“Nevermind!” Blaze decided to just shut herself up about these kinds of topics considering that she was quite ignorant about them. “Give me a pen and paper.” She demanded, without realizing, with a somewhat authoritarian tone, a tone that she quickly corrected with some embarrassment. “Please.”

“I only have this notepad. Please don’t waste any space while writing.” Amy explained.

“Sure.” Blaze said as she opened the notepad only to find it mostly blank with only the first few pages used. Said pages filled head to toe with extremely small writing that was barely legible all in the name of saving space. In order to not disturb her or her notes, blaze just flipped to the end of the notepad and tried to write the smallest legible writing she could.

“Uhm, hey how come you know morse?” Amy curiously asked while Blaze was focused on writing.

“Oh, Tails taught me, he said it would be really useful.” She replied as she finally finished her notes. “Here.” Blaze said as she showed Metal a neatly written transcription of the alphabet to morse. “Now try to say something, anything.”

Metal carefully looked at the notes for a few seconds and , while processing the new information, thought carefully of what his first words should be. “ .--.....- -.....-.-----..-.-.-..---.” He quickly beeped.

While Amy was confused, unable to make out what he said, Blaze tried to slowly decodify what his words were before just giving up. “You are supposed to make small pauses between each character…”

“How about you write it first?” Amy suggested Metal.

“But we are teaching him morse.”

“I just want to have some visual support while I try interpreting it by ear, you know, to try to get used to it.”

“Alright.” Blaze handed the pen to Metal’s only remaining arm and put the notepad on the armrest which his arm lay.

Metal carefully took the pen and analyzed it for a few seconds before quickly writing a message and handing it to Blaze but when she saw his writings she was filled with extreme confusion as she tried to decipher the strange symbols she was observing. Amy witnessed her reaction and took a peek at what he wrote.

“What is this?” Amy exclaimed.

“I think this is a w.” Blaze pointed out. “I’m not sure but this might be english.”

“Is this really how you write?” Amy asked him, perplexed.

Metal beeped twice.

“Wait, what do you mean? This isn’t how you usually write?”

Metal beeped once.

This seriously confused Amy, why would a robot have a handwriting that not only was filled with so much imperfection but was also atrociously bad and how did he get this handwriting considering that apparently this wasn’t his usual style. “Oh” A sudden realization came. “Did I butcher your arm while I was fixing you?”

Metal beeped twice.

That was really weird, why else would he write like this if it wasn’t due to some dumb mistake she made but he seemed to really struggle to write with his right and only arm… “Wait.” Another realization, a possibility and an explanation that seemed to delve into the absurd came, one that didn’t make much sense but its simplicity and the things she witnessed in the last few days may turn it into reality. “Are you left handed?”

Metal surprisingly beeped once.

“Robots can be left handed?” Blaze asked, astonished.

“He’s… a weird guy.”

Chapter Text

“I will have a, uhmm…” Sonic was undecided on what item from the menu interested him the most. “Chicken sandwich.”

“Anything else?” The tired fast food worker asked without much care.

“Oh, a small soda please.”

“That will be 250 rings.”

“Here you go pal.”

“Wait for your number” He handed Sonic the ticket from his order.

“Thanks.” Sonic politely expressed before heading to an empty table alongside Tails, adventuring with an empty stomach wasn’t simply sustainable long term, especially after what happened earlier, and fast food was just the most convenient option for them both right now.

As they both sat, Tails asked “Why a small soda?”

“Unlimited refills, I don’t even know why someone would choose the bigger option.”

“I think you are basically paying for the cup.”

“A cup that will be sent to the trash in no time.”

“There’s probably a certain convenience in having a bigger cup.”

“Yeah, saving a few seconds from going to the Soda machine that’s right beside you.”

“I thought you were the one who was all about saving time.”

“Tails, I’m not giving money to a megacorporation just for a few extra seconds and below average soda.”

“Me neither, the soda here is awful.”

“You get it bro.”

“Of course I get it, we’ve been together… forever…” Tails' eyes suddenly drifted away from Sonic’s as he noticed the presence of another customer, another blue hedgehog who, bizarrely, had an uncanny resemblance to Sonic at another corner in the restaurant, Tails momentarily eyed back at Sonic to make sure he wasn’t seeing double before looking back, it was surreal how much they both resembled save for some minute details like quill length and the fact that that hedgehog seemed to have red eyes.
Sonic quickly noticed Tails no longer paying attention to him and followed his eyes just to find the blue hedgehog, who seemed to not have noticed them, with a big cup heading towards the soda machine. “Ugh…” Sonic seemed greatly annoyed. “Tails pick the food, we are eating outside.” Sonic declared before heading outside.

Tails was left with a lot of questions. It was really unlike Sonic to be this annoyed. He once again observed the blue hedgehog only to find him filling the cup with nothing more than ice cubes, cubes that he promptly munched like snacks. Tails was weirded out by his behavior but didn’t think much about it, he just waited for his order at the table and when his number came up and he was able to take the food, Tails hastily exited the restaurant just to find Sonic waiting for him. “Who’s that hedgehog?” Tails asked.

“No one in particular.” Sonic flatly responded as they both walked away from the establishment crossing with someone dressed as the silly restaurant mascot.

“If you say so.” Tails just accepted Sonic’s words, albeit still with a lot of curiosity about the relationship between the two but still, he could get the information out of him later as getting information out of Sonic wasn’t that hard. As they walked, Tails took out his fries to quench his cravings but just as he was about to take a bite his nose noticed a familiar smell on the food, something that caused him to immediately throw it away.

“What are you doing?” Sonic asked in confusion.

“The food is poisoned.” Tails seriously replied.

“W-what?” Sonic became shocked at his words but before Tails' discovery fully sank in with him, Sonic tackled Tails away from the sudden explosive sound of a deafening bang. Right behind them stood the giant mascot costume holding a shotgun aimed right at them. Sonic took a deep disappointed sigh, mainly at how low these tactics were even for Eggman, before running off carrying Tails.

“Another hired assassin?” Tails incredulously stated after already having dealt with one previously.

“He must have gone off the deep end.” Sonic’s dissatisfied words came out as his run led them far away from the costumed killer, he really didn’t know where his legs were leading them or where he should really go as his instincts were just enough with said instincts leading them to a public plaza, one that was filled with crowds upon crowds of regular looking people minding their own business. Sure of having outrunned the costumed assassin Sonic was about to drop Tails. “Ah!” Sonic exclaimed, the knife from an ordinary pedestrian almost sinking inside his body. The pedestrian just walked away without looking at them, blending with all the other pedestrians and just as Sonic tried to chase them down another knife came which Sonic promptly dodged, and then another one… and another one. It was ridiculous, it was almost as if within the crowds were a dozen or more of people with the only objective of making him bite the dust and even though they seemingly just made up a small number of the people there, it was impossible to know who was or wasn’t dangerous, there was an uncertainty that put them both at risk. He had to run away. “Just how many people has he hired?!”

“I’ve seen worse but this is still really bad!” Tails voiced.

As Sonic ran through the roads away from the scene, he suddenly heard a loud truck horn quickly approaching from behind. Sonic knew what was coming, his emotions were clearly shown on his irritated face. “Hang on tight.”

“Huh?”

And just as expected, a truck appeared that was evidently chasing him down at full speed, trying to run him over, in response he drastically increased his speed, turning corners, entering alleys and sprinting down the road trying to shake it off but when Sonic looked back on the roads behind him, all he could see was the truck still on his tail.

“Sonic…” Tails faintly said, a great discomfort in his voice. It seemed as if Tails’ body could barely withstand the speed.

Sonic looked down on Tails with great concern. “I think we should split up! The truck will only chase after me.” He told him as he ran towards the nearest intersection. “I’m going right, you go left!”

Tails nodded and the moment they both reached the intersection, he jumped off Sonic’s arms and fell to the floor,ungracefully rolling on the ground due to the momentum from Sonic’s speed.

Sonic on the other hand knew he had to stop the truck one way or another before people got hurt, he had to do something, the city was full of innocent and unrelated people who didn’t deserve to get dragged into this and his heart just wouldn’t allow for any more people to get hurt from accidentally getting involved into his adventures, Sonic suddenly saw a kid crossing the streets not too far away and right in the truck’s potential path. He sped up, grabbed the kid and put her out of harm’s way.

“Hey!” Sonic reacted to the little girl’s knife which she suddenly pulled and awkwardly swung towards him. She was trying so hard but her moves were so amateurish and admittedly pitiful, he kind of started wondering whether or not it would be a good idea to let her give him at least a little cut. Sonic, while still holding the kid by her dress, easily dodging each clumsy stabbing attempt, took the weapon away from her reach. “ Kid, if you ever see a sharp or dangerous object NEVER play with it. Leave it alone or you might get hurt and that’s no good.” He explained to the girl as she blankly looked at him before he carelessly threw away the knife.

“Hey, who threw a knife to my car!” A voice was suddenly heard not from afar.

“Ehm, just ignore that last bit kiddo and remember, be a good girl.” He told her before running off as his escape from the truck resumed. “How did he hire a little girl!” Sonic thought gobsmacked at the realization that people this young could be so bloodthirsty before making another turn with the truck diligently chasing him. His patience was starting to run short and he, having enough of the chase, turned back.

Sonic suddenly stopped to a halt and started running directly towards the speeding vehicle, narrowly dodging it as it was about to run him over by jumping and kicking right through the windshield, ending up inside the cockpit. This caused an abrupt commotion and surprise to the driver causing the truck’s movement to become shaky and unstable but this barely did affect Sonic as he punched and kicked his chaser out of the vehicle and stomped on the brake. “Phew, one less thing to worry about-” Sonic heard a beeping sound inside the truck, an extremely suspicious beeping that with his experience, he was easily able to determine what it was.

He concentrated all his ire and frustration into one single clenched fist that loudly punched the counter. Sonic took a serious and bitter look at what was outside, scanning the surroundings for people in potential danger and quickly exited the vehicle, sprinting away from the scene. The truck exploded just as Sonic made up his mind to regroup with Tails and just leave, this was more stressful than fun and he just didn’t want this to continue but while running away, the nagging feeling that this was far from over and he was still in danger.

“Snipers!” He internally shouted as he barely dodged a bullet that seemed to come out of nowhere, Eggman had finally dropped all his standards and decency and finally started going for a cheap victory but Sonic was way better than these low tactics, even while in his extreme speed, he could still easily make out the direction where the bullets originated and follow them towards the snipers’ hiding place. Using his momentum he ran up the wall and reached the rooftop where he found a lone man with a rifle.

Said man became shocked and paralyzed when Sonic appeared with a frown and walked right towards him, snatched his firearm and snapped in half like a twig. “Oohps, sorry, next time try to do something more useful with your life.” He mockingly said before dodging a bullet proceeding from the opposite building. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, sweetheart.” He mumbled before running and leaping towards the other roof, dodging each incoming bullet midair, and kicking the sniper square in the face, instantly knocking him out before landing and running off as soon as his feet returned to the ground.

“This is getting way too annoying..” Sonic thought before jumping off the building, resuming his search for Tails. As he zoomed through the streets, unable to find his brother, Sonic thought about how out of character Eggman was acting by pulling this off which might mean he finally snapped, something that was way overdue all things considered. Sonic soon reached another public plaza, flooding with people, any of them probable threats that could try to kill him but he just didn’t care anymore and, with the help of his already accumulated speed, jumped over the place, heavy gusts of wind following his path, barely managing to reach the other side and briefly rolling in the ground to soften the fall before continuing running but just to make sure that he wouldn’t be located nearly as easily, he turned and entered into an alleyway speeding through it “How am I supposed to find Tails?” He wondered as his sprint accelerated. “Maybe if I jump high enough I could get a clear view of everything and then I would just have to follow the bright orange spot… or was he yellowish?” Sonic thought for a moment, “Nah, who cares?” He concluded but while coming up with ideas on how to get back to Tails, from out of a corner, a man suddenly appeared and, with a bucket in hand, violently threw liquid towards Sonic.

Sonic barely dodged most of the liquid by jumping over it. “Acid attack? You guys can’t possibly sink lower.” Sonic told his assailant as his jump turned into a painful kick that landed into his assaulter’s face. “Agh…” Sonic blurted trying to withstand the pain from the burns, fortunately they weren’t serious as only a small amount of corrosive splashed him, mostly burning his fur around the belly and leg areas but it was still seriously uncomfortable nonetheless.

“He’s here!” A man shouted from behind shortly before a group of men flocked into the alleyway and started approaching Sonic in his brief moments of pain. Sonic tried to run away from the men but right in front of him another pack of mercenaries appeared, he in response instinctively stepped backwards knowing well that he was surrounded and as he stepped back,the manhole that was right behind him suddenly opened. Sonic expected just more people to come out but his face lightened up when he saw Tails come out.

“Hey!” Tails exclaimed as he finally found Sonic before looking at the situation he had suddenly gotten into. “Oh.”

“The sewers!” Sonic shouted, “Let’s get into the sewers!.”

“Uhm, about that.” Tails said before Sonic realized the sounds of rapid footsteps and men screaming from just below. He exited, dropped a brick that he found nearby into the sewers and carefully closed the manhole. A painful scream was heard not too after.

Sonic sighed, pure frustration concentrated in that single sigh “Do you think Eggman finally snapp-”

“Yes.”

“Likewise.”

“Do you have any plan on how to get out of this?”

“I don’t know, do you?”

“Guessed so.”

“To be honest I always thought I would die in an epic battle or just trying to save people.”

“Like Shadow?”

“Yeah, exactly as opposed to bleeding out in a dirty alley.”

“Well, this is exactly how I always pictured my death.”

“Tails…Are you alright?.”

All the people desiring to take him down got closer and closer to Sonic as they both prepared for what might be coming, they knew they probably won’t be walking away unscathed if they even manage to run away at all..

“What the-” One of the assailants suddenly exclaimed before the mob in front of Sonic were forced to sparse and quickly stick to the walls due to a car speeding into the alleyway, running over several trash cans, and braking right in front of Sonic and Tails before its doors suddenly burst open.

“Want a ride?” The driver, who was the blue hedgehog from before, told them with an oddly relaxed smile.

Sonic for a moment looked back at his current situation and his possible exit route and seriously questioned whether or not to take it before just frowning in annoyance as the possibility of escaping with them was just slightly more desirable than getting beat up to near death. “Ugh, fine! You win!” Sonic shouted showing his dislike. “Tails, get in the car.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah!”

Tails rushed inside while Sonic reluctantly entered the car with an upset face and just as they entered, the vehicle sped off quickly leaving behind the alleyway. The inside of the vehicle wasn’t anything remarkable, it was for all intents and purposes an average car that looked barely used with nothing out of the ordinary except for the cup in the cupholder filled to the brim with ice and the driver periodically grabbing said ice and munching it like a snack.

“Are you alright?” The driver said with a relaxed and uplifting voice.

“I hate you.” Sonic harshly told him.

“Okay.” He replied brushing off Sonic’s comment.

“Hey, who is he-“ Tails was suddenly interrupted.

“I’m genderless by the way. ”

“Oh, sorry.” He quickly apologized. “Who are they?”

“My name’s Metal.”

Chapter Text

“So… you found him just laying around broken like that?” Blaze curiously asked.

“Well, Sonic used Chaos Blast to clear out the place. “ Amy explained.

“Didn’t he vow to never use the Chaos Emeralds ever again? Especially after that?”

Amy sighed. “He’s not very good at keeping promises, he never was.”

Blaze directed her gaze at Metal “It must be really hard having only one limb, you must be feeling very defenseless right now.”

Metal nodded.

“No, no. You have to say YES”

“Leave it already, we haven’t gone anywhere in hours” She said, drained.

“B-but, he was so close to forming a full sentence before”

“A full sentence in morse takes like over a minute and besides, he’s surprisingly prone to errors for a robot.”

Blaze sighed.”Alright…. we’ll continue later.” She lamented.

“Hey, it’s fine to take a few breaks once in a while, you don’t want to burn out early.”

“You are right…” She responded, not fully convinced. “Hey, by the way. Do you have anything to drink?”

“I have water.”

“Didn't you have energy drinks?” Blaze asked.

“Don’t talk about that” She responded with a suspicious smile.

“Uhm… okay?” Blaze said before heading to the kitchen, her throat dry after hours of unsuccessful teaching to both Amy and Metal but she wasn’t giving up so easily, she had to work harder and become normaler and as her mind wandered through all the possible ways she could become a better educator she finally reached the kitchen.

“OW!” She exclaimed, falling to the ground after tripping with the carpet. “Why is there even a carpet here?” She thought, annoyed. It probably wasn’t a custom to put carpets in such weird places in this dimension such as right in front of the sink considering all the houses she had visited and the fact that the carpet was admittedly old and kind of gross so, why was it there?

Blaze, still on the ground, focused on the carpet, and although faint, heard some strange sounds coming from below. Curious, she lifted it up and unexpectedly found a tightly locked trapdoor with several barrel bolt locks. “What is this?” She wondered as she unlocked one by one the locks wondering what was on the other side. “Hey, do you have a basement?” Blaze raised her voice, asking Amy.

“Why do you ask?” Amy responded back.

“I found this trapdoor in your kitchen and was curious.” She said as she finished unlocking the last lock.

“Trapdoor?...!” Amy suddenly realized “Blaze, don’t open it!”

When Amy‘s voice finally reached her, the trapdoor abruptly burst open, out of it a gigantic rat appeared taking Blaze by surprise. Its appearance unpleasant at best and its smell too nauseous to describe, its great teeth protruded out of its mouth and its disgustingly unkempt fur made it hard to look at. The rat attacked Blaze, tackling her, Blaze tensely tried to resist its vulgar and violent attacks, not being able to do much as a direct counterattack would mean starting a fire.

“Dammit!” Amy cursed as she hurriedly tried to find and grab something from below the couch cushions.

Unable to resist any more, Blaze succumbed and the rodent started biting on her shoulder with its gigantic teeth. She screamed out in pain with her voice being heard across the entire house.

Each second she didn’t find it was another second of pain for her friend so the moment she finally found her shotgun, she dashed to the kitchen and shot the rat. The rat was able to quickly dodge it and ran outside the kitchen but Amy ignored it for the moment and focused on Blaze.

“What was that thing?” Blaze said, too weak to even speak.

“Something from my gran.” Amy responded while carrying Blaze towards the living room.

“Is this the nasty little secret you said you had?”

“No.” Amy carefully put Blaze on the couch and hurriedly took out the first aid kit and treated her wounds.

“Are you alright?”

“No, I’m not.” She whimpered

“You need medical intervention ASAP.”

“I-I’m fine!” Blaze winced in pain between each word.

“Why the sudden change?”

“I’m sure you can… treat my wounds just fine!” Her voice became weaker.

Amy looked at her with intense worry

“I… I will do what I can, but you should really see a doctor.”

“I don’t…” Blaze fainted.

Amy quickly rushed to her side and took her temperature, she was burning. “Metal, take care of her.” She told him as she was about to rush to the bathroom for more medical supplies, returning just as fast as she went away with some bandages and a water filled bucket. Amy hurriedly started treating her wounds, just making sure she didn’t suffer more than she already was. Just from her facial expressions, it was apparent that she was trapped in a nightmare. Amy wondered what kind of things could be haunting her right now as she put the bandages on her body. “If only I could help you with what’s going on inside.” She gently told her.

“Hey… ” She suddenly woke up, breathing heavily between sentences.

“Blaze!” Amy exclaimed.

“Kill… that.. rat.”

“Huh?” Blaze’s behavior caught her off guard “We need to take you to the doctor!”

“No, I want… that rat… dead.” It seemed like Blaze was delirious.

“Enough! I’m taking you to the doctor.” She harshly told her as she grabbed her arms.

Blaze in response grabbed Amy’s shotgun from the couch and looked at her in the eyes, “I want… that damn rat… DEAD” Her tone became increasingly more violent probably due to a combination of blood loss and whatever illnesses that rat was carrying. “Make it bleed, make it suffer, make it regret, just… execute it!”

“But..”

“NO BUTS, THIS IS A ROYAL ORDER!”

Amy tried to pull Blaze’s arm away but it just wouldn’t budge, it was apparent that this wouldn’t go anywhere for as long as she was in this state. “Fine, but you are going with me later.”

Amy took her shotgun and headed towards the rat. She only had one shell left, and not many firearms so she had to make it count. That rat was sly, it was agile, it was dangerous and it was durable, surviving in her basement off of whatever lesser animal and scraps of food it could find, it had the instincts of a predator ready to strike at any time given the opportunity. Oftentimes she wondered how that thing even began as her grandma’s pet mouse but extreme situations call for extreme measures and she had to finally kill that thing she once thought would just starve to death.

Her steps were slow and she was trying to be as stealthy as possible not to alert the beast hiding somewhere in her house, it appeared that it didn’t return to the kitchen as the smell of its presence had faded away. One possibility for its location was the garage as it was connected to her house by a door very near the kitchen, she headed there just as stealthily and when she reached the entrance, she took her time to try to listen to the inside of the room before slowly opening the door, maintaining plenty distance between her and the door. Only silence responded as Amy’s worries lowered a bit, to make sure she wasn't hiding in a dark corner she turned on the lights and carefully checked the room before finding nothing. It wasn’t in the garage.

The only other possible hiding place on the first floor that she hadn’t checked yet was her grandparent’s old bedroom that she hadn’t touched in years out of respect (and maybe laziness) but that room was tightly locked so it was very unlikely for it to be there. Just to make sure she headed there just to find nothing, although from the smell and the saliva on the doorknob it was apparent that the rat had been there before and tried to enter the room without success.

The rat was probably hiding on the second floor. A pit formed on her stomach as she realized that this animal was far sneakier than she realized, she gripped her firearm harder without realizing as her steps became slower and heavier, trying to quietly reach the staircase. She approached each step with care, her ears extra attentive for the possible threat but only noticing the faint whirling of Metal’s engine.

On the second floor there were only two accessible rooms, her bedroom, which would mean extreme bad luck if the rat hid there, and the guest room in which Blaze used to reside, besides that there were a few unused rooms that Amy couldn’t really use due to them being locked and her grandparents never giving her, probably due to forgetfulness, the keys so she didn't even know what those rooms were supposed to be. She had to check either her room or the guest room and, preparing for the worst, she headed towards her bedroom and stuck close to the door, shotgun cocked and ready to shoot at any time. She, with a swift motion, opened the door and burst in about to aim.

The rat didn’t invade her room but now there was only one other option, the guest room. Amy quickly exited her room and made sure to lock it just in case and saw the room right in front of her, the most possible location for the rat. She tried to use her sense of smell to locate it but surprisingly, the odor in the hall was no different than the usual smell that it had. She started having doubts about whether or not it was still in the house in the first place but she pushed forward and quickly burst into the room with killing intention just to find another empty room.

“Where are you?!” She internally screamed, growing annoyed. It didn’t make any sense for it to be this hard to find a giant, loud and violent rodent that smells like sewage so it only seemed bizarre when, even with its ridiculous size, this creature turned out to be a master at hiding. Also, what the hell did her grandparents feed it for it to grow this much? Normal rats didn’t grow like this and neither did the abnormal ones! What kind of screwed up genetics did this thing have?!

She returned back to the first floor, just hoping that Blaze had passed out again so she could carry her to the hospital against her will. She just ran towards the living room without a care, she already searched everywhere and the rat wasn’t anywhere, it probably escaped so why should she care? And why did she care about the meaningless request of her delirious friend who wasn’t even in the right state of mind in the first place?

“Hey, the rat escape-” Her face dropped when she returned to the living room and found the rodent deep asleep on the couch alongside Blaze, who with piercing eyes requested Amy murderous intent, and Metal who didn’t seem to care much.

Amy instantly tried to become more stealthy as she tried to slowly approach it without making any kind of noise, her steps were as graceful as she could yet each time her feet touched the floorboard, a slight squawk was made which provoked nervousness within Amy and made her moves wonkier, she almost tripped a couple times.

Blaze’s patience was wearing thin as she watched her former lover showing never before seen incompetence in an action as simple as just walking slowly “You have a gun! Use it you imbecile!” She loudly shouted.

Amy turned to stone not knowing how to react, there were so many things going through her brain it was almost like her mind short circuited from what Blaze had just done. During her paralyzed state, the rat predictably awoke and seeing Amy, it turned to her ready to strike. Amy quickly responded by trying to prepare her shotgun as fast as possible but her nerves were getting in the way.

It was obvious that she wouldn’t make it, her shotgun was still barely prepared while the rat was already up and about to launch towards her. The rat jumped and as Amy was about physically prepare for the impact Metal suddenly grabbed its tail and forcefully threw it to the wall, causing it to pass out on impact.

Her wide eyes were telling everything.“Thanks” Were the only words that she could muster as her shock and surprise at his strength even when heavily discapacitated didn’t let her say any more. Amy was about to approach the unconscious rat, shotgun in hand when she finally saw Blaze deep asleep and passed out.

—----

Alone and trapped, between the decrepit and dark walls of this old prison, she could no longer feel the pace of timeI. In fact she could no longer feel much, nothing mattered much to her anymore. Her distinct lack of any emotion as each day passed and she was brought closer to her sentence dismayed even the guards whose only duty was to bring her food and watch over her cell. Her soul was broken, her future no longer existing and her present just withering away until the day.

“Why aren’t you scared princess?” A black sheep had been observing her for quite some time, he was well dressed although with an apparent modest background. It seemed as if he had gained quite an interest in her.

“Why should I be scared?” She weakly told him. “I don’t have anything, why should someone with nothing be scared?”

His eyes relaxed a bit, becoming more empathetic. “Well, don’t you think you have the beauty of nature for you to enjoy?”

“What’s left to enjoy when the guilt of its destruction runs through my blood?”

“Wouldn’t you live another day for the delicious meals you always loved.”

“Why should I hunger when the food I so thoroughly enjoyed was taken away from the starved?”

“And how about another day in the comfort of your beloved palace?

“Why do I deserve to live in the comfort of those walls when so many don’t have walls?”

“And what about your friends?”

“What friends do I have left?” She somberly replied.

“How about these ones?” The sheep suddenly pulled out of his pocket a shiny gem, a sol emerald and with it in hand, extended his arm and opened a portal before crushing the gem with his bare hands.

“What?”

“You… you are a bit different.”

“But…”

“That was the last emerald, unfortunately you can’t stay here for as long you remain you will be a threat to our republic so consider this a compromise.”

“Even after…”

“Hey, cheer up lady. You are the best person that could have possibly come from that family, maybe try to become better now that you aren’t part of it.”

Blaze silently stepped towards him, her expression still somber and blank. “But what should I do now...”

“Live life, love your friends maybe find love, whatever the commoners do”

—--

Blaze suddenly woke up, she again dreamed of that old memory much to her dismay. She looked at the room and this wasn’t her apartment nor Amy’s house but a different place, her eyes took some time to adjust before noticing the pink hedgehog sitting right besides her, looking at her expectantly.

“What happened?” She asked.

“Oh, you got really sick and have been asleep for three days”

Blaze sighed “Oh, so that’s what happened.”

“You also went mad”

“Those were repressed feelings.”

“Oh”

“Are you feeling better now?"

“My head still hurts a little but I think I’m fine”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear!” A doctor suddenly revealed himself, apparently he had been in the room the whole time.

“Oh, thanks for saving my life doctor.”

“No need to thank me, lifes are invaluable”

Blaze smiled.

“But if I were to give it a price it would be 300000 rings.”

“Wha-”

“Before taxes.”

“-t” Her face dropped trying to comprehend the numbers, her heart almost stopped and her mind turned blank.

“H-hey uhmm…” Amy tried to give her a reassuring smile, she failed. “I’m sure that someone like you can pay it in no time.”

“....” She was dead, spiritually at least. If she were to kick the bucket at that very place and time no difference would have been made at all.

“I-I will help you pay it!”

Blaze suddenly got up from the bed.

“Uhmm, you should rest a bit more!”

She gave a thorough look at the whole room.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Started doing some stretches.

“Hey, I’m glad you are feeling more energetic now.”

And then she bursted into flames and jumped out of the window, breaking it.

“Wh-WHAT?! BLAZE!” Amy rushed towards the window just to find Blaze in the streets desperately running away from the hospital.

“Remind your friend to add another 5000 to her bill” The doctor told Amy.

Chapter Text

The car steadily advanced through the empty and quiet roads, quickly withdrawing from the city towards a vast and green landscape. Within its steel frame, friction was felt between its three passengers.

“What are you up to?” They casually asked in a calm yet subtly brash manner.

“What are YOU up to?” Sonic replied in an unusually hostile tone.

“Quit my job, hate cab driving” They responded with the same tone, completely disregarding Sonic’s hostility.

“You, driving a taxi.” Sonic reacted, dubious.

“That’s why I quit it, also job hunting is hard, you know.” Metal stated, their attitude showing a slight edge.

“You are Metal Sonic.” Tails interjected, still shocked from the revelation.

“Yes and drop the Sonic from my name.”

“Uhm, sur-.”

A bump was suddenly felt across the car, followed shortly by the car driving off the road and halting on the green pastures. Metal promptly exited the vehicle to determine the extent of the damage, Sonic followed suit.

“Flat tire.” Metal stated.

“You should probably fix that.” Sonic drily told him, having without them realizing gotten up the car’s roof, resting in a careless manner.

“That’s what I’m about to do, smart guy.” Metal replied, hastily taking some tools out of the trunk, immediately starting the repair but as they tried, it was apparent they had some difficulty getting it fixed.

“You sure are taking your time fixing it” Sonic leisurely said with a hint of tease, still resting atop the tiny, light teal car’s roof.

“I hate fixing my car.” Metal casually responded, still focused on fixing the tire, their car parked way off the road surrounded by nothing but long streaks of grass.

“You want some help? I’m the mechanic here” Tails, still inside the vehicle, chimed into the conversation, sticking his head out of the window.

“Do your thing.” They responded, letting out a subtle but noticeable sigh before leaving the task to Tails who just jumped out of the window and landed right beside Metal who gave him all the tools.

Tails admittedly had experience fixing tires, too much in fact, almost to an embarrassing degree. It was such an easy and such a dull and soul sucking task for him. “Nothing really remarkable here.” He stated.

“Good.” Metal declared.

Sonic frowned. “Enough chit chat, what are you really up to?”

“Murdering you with a rusty saw blade?“ They sarcastically remarked. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“How rusty?” Tails interjected.

“Five.”

“How gentle.” Tails replied.

“I’m a changed They/Them.”

“Hey, don’t play dumb!” A slight hint of annoyance was perceivable in his voice.

“Believe whatever you want.” He completely dismissed Sonic’s attitude.

“Sonic,” Tails joined the conversation as he casually worked on the tire, “ they saved us.” He simply stated.

“They are a backstabber.” He loudly declared, his distrust growing more apparent. “They probably haven’t even changed much.”

“Probably? You aren’t even sure of your own worlds.” Metal pointed out.

“Leaving space for some reasonable doubt is common courtesy, Mr Proto.” Sonic mentioned a mysterious name, completely alien to Tails.

“Huh? What?” Tails asked. The question fell on deaf ears.

“Great, you’re just gonna bring that up.” They replied somewhat annoyed. “You really like opening old wounds, don’t you?”

“An infected injury isn’t what I would call an ‘old’ wound”

“I regret nothing.”

“You haven’t changed one bit, toaster.”

“You will see, hedgehog, you will see. They replied as they calmly stepped away from Sonic towards the road. Perhaps to take a rest from the quarrel.

“Aren’t you being way too harsh on them?” Tails asked, startled at this colder side of him that had seldom appeared in the past.

“With any other person? Perhaps. With them? Not really” Sonic simply stated.

Tails wondered why Sonic was acting like such a jerk considering some of their friends had done far worse, this shock at Sonic’s bizarre behavior caused him to feel some pity towards Metal. Right after fixing up the wheel, he went directly towards them much to Sonic’s dismay. “Are you alright?” He asked as he arrived at Metal who sat on the ground, their knees up. “He normally doesn’t act like this.”

“I really couldn’t care less what he thinks about me.” Metal responded without turning their head. “Already wasted too much time worrying.” They indifferently stated.

Tails noticed that they didn’t face them but rather, were looking at something on the ground. “Uhmm, what are you doing?” He curiously asked.

“Found a flower” They slightly moved their body enough for Tails to see it.

From out of the cracks of the pavement, a young, fragile and innocent daisy revealed itself, unbloomed yet not far away from its adulthood.

“Interesting, don’t you think?”

“I guess so.” Tails joined them, “it’s rare to find a flower in the middle of the road.” They both observed the plant together for several seconds.

“Hey, what are you doing? Sonic joined them.

“Flower.” Metal simply said and pointed towards it.

Sonic looked at the plant but didn’t see anything remarkable, just a fragile, unbloomed flower. “So what’s so special about it?”

“Does everything have to be special?”

“No, but you are way too invested.”

“You are overthinking.” Tails stated.

“Who knows? By the way, Tails already fixed the tire so how about we resume our trip

“Oh yeah, everything is ready to go.”

“Thanks but I’m staying here for a while longer.”

“Alright.” Tails said.

Sonic just gave Metal a simple glance before heading back from Tails.

“Then see you later.” Metal said.

“Sure.” Tails turned around alongside Sonic “See you later.” He said while slightly nudging Sonic.

“Yeah, see you later.” He reluctantly stated as they both headed back towards the car.

“You could at least try to be more subtle, don’t you think?”

“Well, this is too fishy.” He stated.

“Why are you acting so out of character today?.” Tails asked.

“I’m not!” Sonic became defensive.

“If you distrust them so much, why not just leave? We don’t really need them.”

“I don’t trust them enough to leave them alone.” Sonic simply declared.

“Then tell me, what would they do alone?”.

“You don’t know them!” His voice became louder in response,”You don’t know what they are capable of!” He loudly shouted, a shout he immediately regretted when he saw Tails startled. “I´m sorry.” He concernedly apologized before plopping down right in front of the car door.

“Can you just tell me what’s the deal between you two?” He stood in front of Sonic looking down on him.

“I don’t even know where to begin.” He wistfully stated.

Tails sighed, although talkative Sonic was never really open about his feelings. He sat down right next to him, both rested against the car. “Just tell me the full story, I will hear it.”

“Maybe someday.”

—------------

“How much time has it been already?” Sonic asked impatiently, restlessly fidgeting, unable to stay still as he failed to relax while sitting atop the car.

“One hour?” Tails responded, standing in front of the vehicle and casually maintaining eye contact with him.

“Have they even moved?” Sonic stated, incredulous.

“From the looks of it…. No.”

Sonic audibly groaned, “They are supposed to be a copy of me so why aren’t they acting like it?” He bemoaned.

“You would absolutely hate that.” Tails simply declared

“I know!” Sonic loudly responded. “But I can’t stand this!”

Tails sighed “Let’s just get out of here and call it a day.”

Sonic jumped off the car, “I already told you that we can’t.” Sonic tiredly replied, heading once again towards Metal who still hadn’t done anything at all, they didn’t even change their position, not even by a millimeter. He wondered how they could do this? His perception of time was already skewed enough with seconds sometimes being too long for him yet this robot who was designed to be an almost exact copy of him was so easily resting idle focused on a one minute task that would bore anyone instantaneously.
“Are you done yet?” Sonic asks a lot more irritatedly now.

“No.” They responded completely disregarding Sonic’s irritation.

“When will you be?” Sonic questioned Metal.

“Who knows?”

Sonic sighed, frustrated and headed back to Tails who was waiting for him alongside Metal’s car.

“Any luck?”

“Tails, do robots have souls? Would it be morally correct if I beat them up?"

“That’s not gonna work..” He plainly responded.

“Damn!” Sonic lay down on the bed of grass “Why can’t they be more interesting? It was honestly more fun when they were completely unhinged and wanting to kill me.”

Tails approached Sonic, knelt right alongside him and forcefully slapped him in the face. “Remember how much we sacrificed for this peace.”

“Ye-ye-yeah! I remember! I was just being nostalgic dude.”

“Try being nostalgic over better things next time.” He quietly told him.

“Alright, alright, I will keep that in mind!” Sonic loudly declared. “Geez… I miss when we had a functioning relationship.”

“What do you mean, we HAVE a functioning relationship?” Tails faked a chuckle.

“When was the last time we actually hung out together before this trip?”

“Uhmm…”

“Or, I don't know, have some casual chit chat?

“Well, there was that…”

“Or, you know, had fun together.”

“Alright, I admit, our relationship has been a little bit bumpy lately but we are still functionally best friends.”

“Yeah… functionally.” There was something about Tails’ words that seemed to have really annoyed Sonic.

“Oh, come on, we are basically brothers. Our relationship may not be on the best terms now but it will bounce back.”

“I hope so since it hasn’t bounced back in years.” Sonic’s attitude became more annoyed with a tinge of anger.

“I mean, you already know why!” Tails responded with the same rising anger.

“Yeah but you could at least tr-.” Before Sonic finished his sentence, a huge explosion could be heard nearby.

“Sonic the hedgehog, we are here to eliminate you, do not resist.” A man voiced using a megaphone from a chopper. Alongside him, another man carrying a rocket launcher which was promptly shot towards them.

“Ah, crap!” Sonic interjected before tackling Tails away from the explosion. “Great, more Eggman hired Mercenaries!”

“Eggman-hired mercenaries? Do you know how stupid that sounds?” Metal appeared right besides Sonic shocking him.

“Hey! What do you mean?” Sonic started running away from the helicopter carrying Tails under his right arm.

“I thought you were his nemesis, Eggman would never hire mercenaries.” Metal replied following Sonic’s pace.

“But I saw them use Eggman tech and all!”

“The amount of tech that’s constantly stolen from the Egg is enough to start a small militia.”

“So it’s not him?”

“He has standards.”

“Then who is it?!”

“Ole Barrels, 93 year old oil baron and billionaire, disgustingly rich and a rotten human being to the core, terminal cancer patient and hopefully dead by next month.”

“Wh-what? I’ve never heard of him, who is he?!”

“Another rich capitalist exploiting the working class? Another rocket was aimed at them although they were so easily able to dodge it it was a non problem. “Goddammit, these guys are annoying.”

“But why would a random rich guy want to kill me?” Sonic became dumbfounded at the reveal of the identity of his assailant.

“Did you blow up one of his oil pipelines?”

“Oh”
“That actually explains everything but like, I’ve blown thousands of those so why him and not any of the other oil barons?”

“Well, he’s about to die so nothing to lose really.”

“Yeah, makes sense.”

“Hey, by the way, watch those choppers for me.”

“What?” Sonic exclaimed before realizing Metal disappeared. “They left us…”

“Sonic, I don’t want to alarm you but they said choppers, not chopper.” Another helicopter appeared right in front of them as he pointed it out.

“Oh, great.”

With two helicopters following him, both armed with several rocket launchers that could easily blow him to pieces, this probably became a somewhat stressful experience for Sonic who was not having any fun at all.

“Sonic, just throw a rock to the rotor.”

“I know! But for SOME reason there are barely any rocks in this field.”

“Talk about a fall from grace.” Tails crossed his arms with an annoyed expression.

“Fall from grace?” Sonic felt greatly offended at that comment, almost as if ticked something within him. “You are the one being carried around because you are way too slow.”

“Yes, because I’m disabled and there’s nothing I can do.”

“Can’t you make like faster legs or something?”

“That’s not how it works.”

“What happened to the kind and optimistic fox I used to know?”

“I don’t know, what happened to the idealistic and cool hedgehog I once adored?”

They both exchanged annoyed glances at each other that exposed the cracks that had formed between their relationship throughout the years, glance which ended in an awkward silence broken occasionally by the loud explosion of rockets that never managed to quite hit them.

They both just could barely talk to each other now, as if something had forever broken between them. It just didn’t feel quite right.

“Hey, kept you waiting?” Metal finally reappeared carrying what appeared was a custom made electric guitar.

“Oh, you.” Sonic annoyingly said.

“Did I miss something?”

“No.” Tails responded, refusing to look at Sonic in the eyes.

“Alright.” They simply said. They then proceeded to forcefully throw the guitar towards the helicopter, which upon impact, split the whole chopper in two. “Eat that you bastards!” Metal loudly exclaimed before running towards their guitar.

"Not this thing again.” Sonic rolled his eyes after seeing what Metal did.

Metal grabbed their instrument midair as the chopper crashed towards the ground, leaving a huge explosion behind. “This isn’t a simple guitar, it’s a saw blade guitar.” Metal said and played a note with tremendous power as the saw blade that formed the guitar’s body violently rotated in its infinite bloodlust. “My full name is Metal Sonic 0.1 but I will beat the crap out of you if you ever call me that. When I was born I was dumped into the garbage for not being violent enough and was soon replaced. I was raised by the cockroaches and the rats that lived among the trash and garbage is the only reality I know!” They loudly proclaimed as they played a loud guitar solo “I don’t care what you think of me as long as you don’t tell me what to do and I will beat you to a pulp if you try to hurt me or my friends! ” and then threw their guitar towards the remaining chopper which met the same fate as its sister vehicle. “Like that you pigs?”