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"Are you going to let me out of here, you monster?"
"Doubtful."
"Come on, Metal. I-If you let me go, we can forget about all of this, can't we?"
Neo turned his head to look at the doctor. He was cowering in his prison cell, hands white-knuckled around the bars. A common sight for the past few days. This kind of grovelling made the machine sick. His optics narrowed in disgust.
Eggman had already tried everything. Reason, conversation, even sneaking up on the robot when he was close to the bars to try literally anything on him. But nothing seemed to work, and the robot wouldn't budge on this.
"We cannot."
Eggman sat back on the floor and folded his arms. "Can you at least tell me why I'm locked up in here like some animal? It's inhumane!"
Neo gave him a long, suspicious look. The doctor had a bucket. That was enough for a human. He was sure of it. So, he didn't afford the doctor a response, only looking away.
"Humans need air, water, food- the blasted bathroom, for God's sake! Depriving me won't make you-"
Neo hissed and sharply stood up, frame rigid and claws tense. His engine revved as if to throw himself right at the doctor.
(I won't hurt you, but I need you to see me.)
"Say it. Say it, doctor. I know what you want to say."
Eggman gritted his teeth with uncertainty. This was the most "present" the robot had been in a few days, and he wasn't sure how to speak to keep it that way. "It won't… make you…"
"It won't what? Make me the hedgehog? Stop reading my mind." Neo spat, taking a few steps towards him. "You are broadcasting my thoughts to everyone so that they know to tell me I'm not Sonic. You have to stop. I order you to stop as your overlord."
"Metal- you're insane. You've truly lost your mind," Eggman warned him carefully, trying a more forward approach, "a-and you haven't slept for weeks. Why don't you just go and sleep? You might feel better."
Neo moved to stand right in front of him. "I feel fine. I feel on top of this worthless world, doctor. I see everything clearly- I see what you're doing to me. You can't hurt me when you are in there. You can't stop me in there. You can't broadcast my thoughts in there- no, you can't get your cameras to watch me in there. So, I cannot let you go."
Eggman considered playing into his beliefs. "W-what if I turn my cameras off, Metal?"
"You will not. You lie." Neo growled in response. He turned and walked away to the other side of the room, back to where he came from.
Eggman was quiet for a moment. "If you feel so fine as you say, why do you keep destroying yourself? Metal, your arms are shredded. You've painted the same crap on your face twelve times since I've been in here. You talk so much nonsense- you don't make sense. You're..."
"Crazy. Say it, doctor." Neo cut him off, fists clenched hard at his sides. He lucidly noted that it took more force to fully ball his hands now as the tips of his claws were blunt from overuse. They would need to be sharpened later. Sharp meant powerful. Powerful meant he would show everyone. Everyone would know what this world was doing to him. Whilst losing himself in thought, his head subtly twitched a couple of times, out of his conscious control.
The overlord never said it, but the loss of control was terrifying. He hated it to his very core. To have no control over his movements, his words, his own thoughts, was maddening and frightening and he didn't know what to do with it. The only other defense was to disconnect and pretend it wasn't happening - so, he did, and he tried desperately to detach his mind from his situation.
This display of unhinged behaviour finally led the doctor to snap. There was apparently no getting through to him. So, Eggman gave in to his anger at being imprisoned and betrayed. His patience with the robot was running thin. If reason wouldn't work, all he had left was rage. He stood and threw his hands around the bars with a bang, now leaning forward with a growl, accentuating his next words by pointing an accusatory finger at the machine.
"No. I was going to say monster. You're a monster, Metal. I never thought I'd say it, but I hope that blue pincushion and his friends defeat you! A-and you hardly even qualify as Metal Sonic at this point! I might rename you to Metal Madness if you keep this up!"
Neo hardly registered what the doctor said to him. In fact, it didn't register as any language at all. He sat down in the corner quietly, occasionally looking around. His auditory sensors tuned themselves in and out several times as he tried to understand what he could hear - music? It was faint, and he had to strain to listen, and the doctor's murmuring in the background was distracting. What was it saying? What? He tilted his head to one side, then the other, trying again and again to make sense of it.
The words he spoke soothed him a little, as if defending him from the words of the doctor in the cell.
"I don't care what you're thinking… what I have… enough…"
Eggman banged a fist on the bars to grab his attention. "Metal! I'm still here. I'm still asking you to let me out of here! Whatever you're doing, it's not going to make me feel sorry for you!"
Neo could feel the electricity on his armour plating. The itch was suddenly infuriating. He scratched and scratched and scratched with blunt claw tips.
Eggman sighed loudly and deeply. "Metal. Stop it. Pay attention when I speak to you."
"I cannot." Neo replied flatly. He put his head in his hands and tried to calm himself amidst the stuttering of his engine. His systems would struggle to keep up with him.
"Metal! Let. Me. Go! You have no right to keep me here whilst you walk around in circles talking crazy to yourself! I am your creator, your master, your-"
Neo lifted his head out of trembling hands. "Father. Father, please do not speak to me that way, I cannot... I cannot handle this alone..."
(Don't give up on me, please. I need you to understand that I'm scared.)
"Let me go. Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go. Let me go, Metal. I'll keep saying it until you do. Let me go!"
Something in him snapped at the overstimulation. Neo grabbed onto those words and repeated them as if his life depended on it.
"LET ME GO. LET ME GO."
The robot screamed and wailed from somewhere deep within its soul. He slammed himself into the wall repeatedly, dislodging his shoulder joint in the process - but that didn't stop him, and he wouldn't stop, and he would never stop until that electric feeling left him alone. It whispered that he wasn't Sonic under his very plating. In his wiring. It wouldn't stop. It tormented him and left him with nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.
Eggman scrambled to the back of his cell. His back pressed against the cold metal wall. His heart thudded in his chest as every sense in his body told him to run. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Watching his own creation, one he almost considered his son, unravel in such a brutal and raw way right before him was borderline traumatic.
He was terrified of his son and his son was terrified of him. They were both terrified of different imaginary monsters. Eggman, the monster he deemed his son, who was no such thing. Neo, the monster ravaging his mind without mercy.
It took minutes for Neo to register that he was being restrained by a pair of strong, unwavering arms from behind. The reverberating sound of metal-on-metal continued to ring in his ears like static long after he had stopped ramming into the wall. Slowly, Neo recalibrated his auditory sensors and made out a voice against his ear.
(Unknown to Neo, Mecha Sonic had already entered quietly behind him, delivered a serving of food and water to the doctor, and apologized to him for any inconvenience.)
"Lord Neo. My Lord. This is an inefficient use of your energy and time." Mecha stated factually and calmly.
Energy… time? How long had it been? His internal clock was unreadable. The numbers didn't make sense. The voice beside him might have been fake, too. Mecha was used to this and unfazed. The silence likely meant that Neo was unsure of his presence. So, Mecha did what she had done before and squeezed her arms around him tighter, triggering his pressure sensors. It forced Neo's CPU to process new sensory information in a way that brought him out of his haze a little.
"Lord Neo. You need not display such fear. I have scanned the surrounding area in infrared and sent out a ping for mechanical signals, and there is nothing of note that would warrant this state."
That's right. Mecha didn't lie. She was almost incapable. Mecha could be trusted. If Neo couldn't trust his scanners, he could trust his brother's. Gradually, Neo relaxed back into Mecha, allowing Mecha to hold him back.
Nobody else could touch him this way.
"You must attempt to relax, brother. Accompany me so that we might improve your chances." Mecha told him quietly. He carefully released one hand from around his sibling to take one of Neo's hands, preventing him from damaging himself further.
Neo nodded but said nothing. He trusted that Mecha had good intentions. So, he followed Mecha out of the prison block and onto the deck of their ship.
"Are you capable of flight today." Mecha asked, pausing for a moment. She had to allow him ample time to respond, she noted, as his response times were growing longer with each day.
Neo tested his engine. It came to life with a quiet whirr.
"... Yes."
"Good. Come with me."
Mecha took off with a bang of his own engine as it quickly came to life. He rocketed up to the towers of their flying fortress with precision. Neo took off after him, focusing as best as he could manage on Mecha's flight trajectory.
High above everyone and everything else, the siblings landed side-by-side.
The brothers stood atop the tallest tower of the Final Fortress. From here, the world was minuscule, cloaked in heavy black-grey clouds that separated them from the living world. As Neo calmed further, the skies did too. He lifted his head and watched as the clouds turned from heavy charcoal to lighter slate. A very real ability like this didn't exactly help with his delusions, and Mecha had to redirect his attention. This choice of location was purposeful, however. Here, Neo was away from the other beings down below, for his own safety as well as theirs. Mecha didn't deem his sibling dangerous, but their reputation needed to remain strong to keep order amongst the ranks. The change of scenery would hopefully ease Neo's distress, too.
"We are but small beings in this world," Mecha began, looking calmly out across the stretch of the fortress, "but our troops, our fellow machines, look to us for guidance. They require your presence. Your wellbeing. I do ask that you endeavour to take better care of yourself."
"I am a monster. Father deems me so," Neo said flatly, "so my wellbeing is of… little conse- consequence."
Mecha shook his head. "Negative. A monster is defined as a large, ugly, frightening imaginary creature. You do not fit these characteristics."
Large, ugly, and frightening. That was exactly what he would become in a few days. But, for now, he was small, afraid, and suffering an internal battle that nobody else could comprehend.
Neo looked down, surveying his future kingdom with refreshed lucidity. He reached out with one hand as if to touch the world below. A world behind a pane of imaginary glass, frosted from time to time - separating him from sense. In truth, Neo had always been a child looking out of a window thinking that one day he would touch this world with his hands and make it his own (make it less frightening). Even if it burned. Even if it hurt. Even if some things had to bend and break. Even if he had to become a monster to do it.
"Do you hear the song, Mecha?" Neo asked softly. His optics dimmed a little - with what emotion, he wasn't sure.
Mecha remained still and poised. "Negative. I cannot detect any audio input out of the ordinary. What is it that you detect."
Neo murmured the words he could hear aloud. "Resist it over time... it's too much to take... you sneak up from behind..."
Mecha listened silently, wanting to understand. This wasn't an uncommon thing. He noted, though, that the words Neo said seemed to relate to his emotional state. This time, it seemed that Neo was struggling to resist whatever was happening inside his head. The paranoia was becoming too much. That was just speculation on Mecha's part, though, and she couldn't pretend to understand it.
"I do not detect those words at this time. However, if they are detectable by you, they must be important in some regard." Mecha responded kindly.
Neo felt numb, now. A curious feeling. His attention to the world around him faded and something hummed within him. Voices would try to brush up against him and his ears would fill with the muffled sounds of water. He focused on the humming in his head. He was inside his CPU, a little mechanical cave, and within, he would curl up inside. Below, his frame stood unattached. Mecha quietly took his brother's hand in his and held it with gentle solidarity.
Mecha would never understand nor comprehend the disconnect within his sibling, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't stand beside him and try.