Metallic Need

Ch. 1

By: Cutegirlmayra (By all rights, I shouldn't be writing this story… I need to finish Sonic Supers and then Instincts XD but just like Sonic and the Chaos Kingdom, I at least want the first chapter up. So I won't finish this till Instincts is done, kinda like with Sonic and the Chaos Kingdom. Be patient! And hopefully, I can finish it when I get back from my mission or before then. Also, I just got my wisdom teeth pulled T-T So I'm writing this in pain as you read…. –sigh- Guess that fits the setting tho, lol! Pain~ but can a robot really feel that..?

I'm not referring to Metal Sonic… either…

Even if this won't be completed before Instincts, I had the urge to write one more chapter xD lol, Metal Sonic's five year plan kinda deal made me laugh pretty hard after rereading it. I hope you enjoy this story. As you may know from my other stories, I love plot, character, and most importantly, suspenseful drama within blooming romance~ EDITED: I tried to make it better :) neater. I also combined both Chapter 1 and 2 to make more space and room for Season 2. You may find this throughout my edits. ;) )

The Egg-shuttle's large sliding doors zoomed open to the sides at lightning speeds, causing a rippling effect through the whole space shuttle. It was... as old as time itself.

Eggman waited for the large, booming sound created by the doors to settle. Bits of the old ceiling above sprinkled down like crumbs of ash, giving further age to the dust already upon the ground. A large beep or buzzer was heard as Eggman looked up from being covered in the shadows. His glasses... the only thing shining in this abandoned junkyard of time.

He had thrown this hunk of junk into space, thinking it to be the perfect storage system, a nice little stroll through memory lane every now and then. Inspiring him perhaps... Not that he needed it, but it could be nice from time to time.

He stepped forward, continuing in his stride as past machines and inventions were seen from days gone by… when he was young, to when he first met Sonic, and onward.

At the very back of the heap of scrap metal, towards the very tangled cords and unladen electrical computers- completely void of any life and substance- hung his greatest and grievous creation yet…

"Ah, Metal Sonic." The old doctor looked up at the rusted blue and scrapped up Metal corpse of the being he referred to. His mustache twitched to the side slightly, then straightened himself up and gave a deeper, more profound look at it.

Eggman placed his hands behind his back and sighed, "So much planned devastation could have come from you…" he seemed to mourn but also mock the inactivated machine. "But I had to give you an AI… and I suppose that influenced you to rebel against me in the end… I wonder…" He looked down from the robot, seeming deep in thought as he spoke out loud. "If I had made your programming stronger… completely taken out your will entirely,... would you have still failed me? Perhaps a less dramatic betrayal, but...eh." he shrugged. "I suppose you were one of my most… the most... unfortunate….designs of mine."

There seemed to be some ownership over Metal Sonic's failure that Eggman had resigned to. But at the same time, a conflicting choking in his voice, as though to not take the sorrowful fault, or blame, entirely upon himself.

Eggman turned around, walking out of the storage shuttle as the doors began creaking to close behind him. Looking over his shoulder through the decreasing gap between the old, steel doors; he took only a moment to gaze upon the room one last, final time before departing.

After a quick scan, he huffed and raised his arm up. "Whelp! Back to work! Hahaha!"

The doors slid shut behind him, and the lights flickered off.

Seemed like the old man refused to be too sentimental.

…But in the darkness, an old ingenious plan was beginning to rise…

As the doors shut, the electrical circuits began to carry that momentum of conductive electricity into a funneled engine. The engine began to rotate, as it then started sparking with motion. This rubbed against the outer sides that created friction- and that whole process created a huge...

Power surge.

The surge moved through another elaborately and well-designed energy cord that soon spider-webbed out into a massive string of networks.

Computers with coding still in them and programming already set up turned on along with objects created for fixing and forging from above. Slowly, they dropped down like cranes from the ceiling, wielding such things as drills, screws, hammers, and all the old robotic devices Eggman had used to create his machines of old as quickly as he could. Abandoned, but functional. Never having gone obsolete.

Each mechanized gadget had a purpose and data already designed within it, allowing them to go straight to work once activated.

The spider-web ended at Metal Sonic's prison, a large tube with him trapped inside. Strung up by chords that spiraled around him, he hung down with his arms spread out to form a 'T' with these cords pulsing electricity all throughout him. It was as though these vines entangled him with an enclosed death... but as of now-

Freedom

His dented, damaged, and shredded body reared upward. Sparks flew all around his core, trying to force life within him again.

The computers had code blazing across their data screens.

The tube was being shocked from every end of it... before being lifted up, inch by inch... and releasing its caged attendant.

Metal's body was being shocked left and right, making it jolt and strain and struggle as if in pain or agony at all the electrical power.

The repairs started at once, as the crane machines with different parts and pieces to them, each separately unique, went right to their robotic roles... One, having three claws on each hand, grabbed and ripped metal from the existing scrap around the wasted junkyard and contorted it to Metal's frame. The crane machine with a torch burnt through Metal Sonic's core to replace broken data and circuit boards with new ones, as he slowly twitched with life and jolted with intense sparks.

And then…

flickering on with a grudge...

Blazing red eyes.

After a few hours, Metal Sonic jumped down from being hung up and worked on for so long. He looked over his body and glared at a dented side through a piece of reflective trash next to him. The shine it produced was sufficient enough to reveal his appearance...

"THIS WILL NOT DO..." He growled out, his metallic voice giving little emotion to him, but definitely stated some irritation.

He looked rusted and old, even if he was functioning, and he seemed to hate his voice as he placed a clawed hand up to his speaker- a small mouthpiece if you will, or a rectangle that glowed every time he spoke.

"I MUST FIX MY INFERIORITIES ONCE I CREATE MY SUBORDINATES…"

He realized that after repairing himself with the limited items around him from the scrapped and tossed machinery, that only a few operational supplies were left to achieve his goals of making a 'team'... he'd have to work with what was available, and scavage for better materials later.

He looked around...

Before he was deactivated, he had played dead, conserving enough energy to set up this rig that allowed him to operate without the Doctor's influence once more.

Still being obsessed with the raging thoughts of defeating Sonic, he had wanted to analyze what made Sonic so strong against him…

It couldn't be his natural abilities… for Metal Sonic had each and every one of them but enhanced to be more powerful than any organic strength could possibly take on, let alone possess. Even Metal couldn't sustain the power for long... maybe with a chaos emerald... but still.

It couldn't be his wit… Metal was a computer, after all, a built tactician. He had many of his own unique abilities coupled with foolproof strategies that still had him defeated by Sonic time and time again…

What made Sonic so powerful?

Metal had rewatched his memory files and finally concluded that Sonic's support was what carried him through to victory in the long... and the last run.

So Metal needed some support of his own…

"BY MAKING SONIC'S STRENGTH MY OWN, I SHALL TRULY PROVE TO BE THE BETTER, FASTER, AND MORE ABLE SONIC." Metal started to pick up materials and harvested enough to start creating his own support.

"THEY MUST BE PERFECT..." he hated the idea of added 'help'... but didn't disagree with 'distractions for profitable uses'...

After a few hours, their prototypes were completed, and all he needed now was to get them out of this rusty old ship and down to earth. There, he could find better equipment and supplies to assure their perfection; to truly make them superior to their counterparts- like himself.

"DEFENSIVE." Metal walked by a Metal Knuckles, whose eyes flickered on, as he blinked for the first time. "YOU WILL SERVE AS MY BODYGUARD, KEEPING ALL OTHER DISTRACTIONS AWAY WHILE I DESTROY SONIC."

"LONG RANGE OFFENSIVE." Metal Sonic walked by a Metal Tails, whose eyes also flickered on. It slowly slid its head with a loud, creaking screech as Metal walked by, revealing how truly rusty and old the parts were that Metal used to create him. "YOU WILL ALSO BE MY INTELLIGENCE. THE WORLD HAS CHANGED, UNDOUBTEDLY FROM WHEN I LAST FACED SONIC. BUT YOU WILL ALSO BE REQUIRED TO BE COMBAT READY. AND YOU WILL KEEP HIS FRIENDS AT BAY WHILST I DESTROY HIM."

Finally… he came up to a softer looking robot, one he seemed unable to fully finish. Half it's face was still uncovered, while the rest was made of some metal-coating formed to give it as close a resemblance to its counterpart as possible. It showed the cords and gears inside itself, cranking with delicate ticks and seeming to process as much as it possibly could, simply making due with the limitations it was given. It stood motionless; Since all power was being used to transfer information to its unfinished processors and memory banks.

"…MAINTENANCE."

Metal Amy's eyes slowly, with great difficulty and some squeaking of the lids, finally managing to unstuck themselves and shoot open. Eyes flickered on, as it looked dead at Metal Sonic. It tilted its head down in a sideways, quick lurch forwards. Strangely enough, this action gave off a quirky, cute gesture of curiosity.

Metal didn't see any real significance in creating this one. Only that Sonic kept her counterpart around, meaning she must do something for his theory to be correct... if Sonic gains added strength from his allies, then all his friends must be manufactured for Metal Sonic's cause...

All he knew... was that he needed to weaken that strength through adopting it. Even if it meant replicating his own, faultless design of perfection. As improbable as that was to him, he would at least make them worthy of being his own creations.

Just like his copycat ability, he had coded similar functions in his team, planning on having them observe Sonic and his friends to then understand their doppelgangers moves and tactics. If all goes well... Metal Sonic will truly prove that he's the superior Sonic, that even with Sonic's 'friends' he could be better than him.

"YOU…" he just glared a half-facing eye at her, as the other two walked behind him, and stared at her as well.

The cold of his disapproval made Metal Amy straighten her head up, as her gaze took her around the room, studying her environment.

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

Metal Amy didn't seem to really be paying attention as she looked down at her hands, and then her strange new body. Fainted red with silver splotches were re-figured into a somewhat looking dress that she scaled her unfinished hand daintily over by her waist area. Was she admiring her new form or curious of this new existence given to her? Perhaps just being self-aware of her new functions- being able to think and to move, to experience and to have programming- All things she was experiencing for the first time.

An organized mass of electrical components.

She was simply realizing she was somewhat alive. Forged into something anew from her wasted away carcass of mismatching machine parts here and there. Tossed and abandoned... but now, hand-selected to some purpose, some cause she was just beginning to process through and understand.

She was taking a moment to experience the tingling of chords pulsing with a continual electrical frequency throughout her metallic body, of code streaming through her circuits of wiry veins like bubbles of light. Oil splashed and boiled from her stomach to give heat to move and to express her thoughts outwardly...

Something soon to be found dangerous... and threatening.

Metal Sonic's tolerance didn't last long at her silent awareness as his hand shot up and grabbed her chin, pinching it in and denting her face. It forced her to look at him as he slightly pulled her closer...

"DO YOU REGISTER YOUR PROGRAMMING?" he asked, as her data started putting two and two together. "YOU MAY BE UNFINISHED. BUT YOU HAVE ABLE MEANS TO PROCESS. DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

"…M…Metal Sonic… M-M-My master." Her voice was like a hum, calm and soft. Gentle, like a computer's tone when it starts to make processing purrs, searching for something, or downloading data. It stuttered like a robot but blinked like a child.

Metal Sonic seemed silently taken aback by her voice and her strange accuracy in blinking as if she needed to. Her strange maneuvers puzzled him.

Nevertheless, he thrust her back and out of his hand's grasps.

"YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR PURPOSE OF CREATION?" he held his piercing red glare.

The other two supports seemed to think themselves better than her, noting that they weren't scolded by their master and that their prototypes were already completed. In this reasoning, they judged her and mimicked their master's glare towards her. They continued to watch their master ask his questions, not even batting an eye, or glancing themselves over as Metal Amy had done.

Metal Amy stumbled forward, but her balancing ability that Metal Sonic had infused in her data-core kicked in, and she quickly gained a rather strong and sturdy stance. Slamming a foot down and robotically jittering left and right, Her shock-absorbers were barely adequate as she restabilized herself from the forceful thrust.

This caught Metal Sonic's attention, as it looked like she was about to fire herself back at him and attack.

However, she didn't. As she broke from her form, wobbling until the vibrations from the force ceased in power, she stood perfectly upright. Turning around, she bowed to him. "To recharge and maint-t-t-tain the Master's power and armor. I-I-I-I comply."

"….GOOD." Metal Sonic quickly turned to the door, which Eggman had opened maybe a day ago, giving her no more heed.

Since it was probably right where Sonic and his friends all lived on earth, he knew he had some time to prepare a strike, and plan a more... fitting return. He curled his fingers in anticipation to fight his mortal enemy and rival again...

Oh, how he longed for it. A reunion... and an end.

"FOR NOW- WE WAIT, LEARN, AND GROW. BUT SOON…

WE WILL STRIKE."

Metal punched the door down, as all the junk in the room was sucked out and thrown into the vortex of space. Since Dr. Eggman had used his Rocketship to get up to the floating time capsule in the first place, Metal Sonic and his supports were now stranded without jetpacks.

Metal Tails and Metal Knuckles began to feel their feet sliding off the platform between the fallen door and the entrance into Eggman's junkyard. They tried to cling to the sides of its frame, but Metal Amy stuck her head out, tilting it farther and farther to look around.

She seemed unbothered by the predicament, more fascinated that there was another world outside the one she was just checking out previously.

Metal Sonic's engine roared and began to spin, as he lifted himself into the air, and dodged some flying metal that came at him before fire burst from below his feet. "FOLLOW ME." He gave the order, and the three's programming activated into an automatic obedience.

Metal Knuckles also shot forward with jets equipped to his feet, revealing them as he followed after his master. Metal Tails simply spun his metallic tails forward, cutting through any on-coming metal shards that tried to scrape his back. He used his jets on his feet to follow after Metal Sonic as well and still was able to fight off other flying debris that came at him and his master.

Metal Sonic seemed approving of this, as he looked to Metal Knuckles.

Feeling the need to also impress his master, Metal Knuckles immediately took the initiative and began to charge himself up. Holding his fists in, he rammed into an oncoming meteor, taking it out of Metal Sonic's flight path and completely obliterating it.

He glared to Metal Tails, who gave him a jealous look of defeat, and thus a brotherly rivalry seemed to be born.

Once again, Metal looked over his shoulder and seemingly approved of Metal Knuckles's actions. However, he didn't notice the glances the two gave one another.

Then he looked to Metal Amy-

Glaring another crimson disapproval.

Metal Amy checked her feet, which seemed to have the same system on it, as she tried to activate them. Hoping slightly on her back-heels, she waited, wanting to fly but couldn't. Only one shot on, and she stumbled to follow as metal parts started hitting her repeatedly, taking her off course from the others. Her defensive system, which was fully activated by all the hits she was taking, activated as her soft appearance then transformed.

Plated-layers of a mask zoomed and pushed together at the center over her metallic muzzle. Her dress spiraled with it's plated-layers turning upwards, revealing spikes underneath that grew in length as they proceeded down like drills poking outward. Her eyes shifted from a warm green light to a powerful red, just like the others who were already activated in their 'battle ready' stages. But because she was still incomplete, when she reached back for her hammer, expecting her back to open up and push out a hammer with a wiry-steel claw attachment to bring it up and closer towards her reaching hand for her to use, she ended up grasping air.

Unable to compute her actions further, her eyes shifted back to see what the error was before the metal kept hitting her farther out of orbit. The three watched her struggle as she was forced to flick metal pieces away with her bare hands. This began destroying them since no real amount of armor was placed on the hands from the start. Unfinished and battered, there was barely any hands left to deflect metal with...

Metal Sonic quickly dodged some parts that had ricocheted off of her with a jerk of his body to the left. He then flew further towards her, watching with angered arrogance at her uselessness.

He glared as she began to be scrapped, torn through and damaged. It was more anger towards his creation he had spent time on being ripped apart by something other than his intentions. Still... Metal Sonic stopped and watched. The other two ceased protecting once the metal all gravitated away and more towards where Metal Amy was falling too... a large asteroid field.

They looked back to see what Metal Sonic was looking at, and what he was going to do.

"Zhe zeems to bez a wazte of effozt." Like a fizzing radio, Metal Tails spoke out, speaking his mind and saying, 'She seems to be a waste of effort'.

Metal Knuckles could only make robot sounds but seemed to confer with Metal Tails.

"Zeave zer toz zhe azterozds."

'Leave her to the asteroids'.

Although programmed to give computed judgment and weigh odds, Metal mostly designed him to back up his own thinking...

But in this case... Metal looked ready to dive for her.

"… IF SONIC OBTAINS STRENGTH FROM ALL HIS FRIENDS… THEN I MUST OBTAIN A MORE PERFECT STRENGTH FROM YOU. EVEN IF IT MEANS HAVING TO EDIT AND REPROGRAM YOU UNTIL YOU ARE AS PERFECT AS I AM TO SONIC. I CANNOT FALL BACK ON MY PLAN NOW, EVEN WITH YOUR INCOMPETENCE AND INFERIORITIES. I WILL UPGRADE YOU ONCE WE ARE MORE SETTLED TO REBUILD AND MAINTAIN..."

Metal Sonic flew down and grabbed Metal Amy, yanking her over his shoulder and firing a blast toward the shuttle, vaporizing anything in his way and protecting Metal Amy from any further damage by exploding the one thing that was hitting all of them.

The nuisance had finally gotten to him, but now his power supply was running low.

As if this status activated her functions, Metal Amy blinked and looked up, putting a hand to his chest.

He stopped and looked over his shoulder, no feeling showing through his metallic frame.

"...I must recharge you." she stated, but her damaged hand only gave out light sparks that barely got the job done.

Still... it satiated him enough to know her programming wasn't completely and utterly useless after all.

Metal Amy now lost her battle reflexes since she was out of danger, and triggered her neutral form once again.

He looked at her with distaste at still having an incomplete design. Her weakness in not even being able to exit the shuttle was embarrassingly a failure, to say the least, but he saw it more as that she'll need more work done on her.

She'd be the first he'd fix, after himself,..."CEASE. HOW DARE YOU LAY AN IMPERFECTION ON YOUR CREATOR."

She responded by tilting her head again and then looking away, realizing her master wasn't very fond of her incompleteness. He swatted her battered hand away from himself and pulled her more over his shoulder.

Metal looked ahead as his two other 'teammates' followed his glance,... the universe spiraled behind them with the remains of the shuttle floating around behind them, scattered and at last, free from their storage chambers of hopeless darkness and abandonment. They fell peacefully away in the weightless space.

"OUR FIRST OBJECTIVE, LOCATE SONIC. SECOND OBJECTIVE, CREATE OPERATING FORTRESS. THIRD OBJECTIVE, FIX INFERIORITIES AND BECOME PERFECT. FOURTH PRIORITY, DESTROY SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, HIS FRIENDS, AND DR. EGGMAN. FINAL PRIORITY, DOMINATE THE ORGANIC EARTH AND ALL LIVING THINGS THAT DWELL ON IT."

They blasted forward, as Metal Amy's damaged hands and arms just waved and wiggled behind Metal Sonic... her head looked up and saw the cosmos.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Even though her programming said her being was a machine that couldn't feel,... she still computed a sense of wonder at how small she must be in a world this big…

Months had gone by as Sonic The Hedgehog continued to fight Eggman and his latest schemes. The team joined in as well, all failing to realize they were being heavily watched and analyzed on the sidelines...

Today, of all days, was when Metal Sonic had finally completed his third objective in his five-step plan, improving himself and his team of their inferiorities that were left with them from the scrapheap in space. Now for the last bit, he only needed a few things: to destroy Sonic, take over the world, and rule as it's perfect, immortal tyrant.

Metal Sonic perched himself on his throne within a massively round, elevated bridge in his control room; where computers lay everywhere and monitors showed large quantities of data flying across the multiple screens.

He processed everything at the speed of light. His red eyes tracked every movement as he scanned the walls of bluish green lit screens filled to the brim with code and data scanning across their monitors. He used his metallic, clawed hand to hold up his large blue and silver head, before lifting his other hand to stop Metal Tails from typing any further.

"We've finally gained enough data to launch an attack and destroy Sonic and his friends. Even the Doctor, himself... would never see it coming... we should destroy him first. We don't want him aiding Sonic. I know from my old programming that to save his own flesh... would decide to do so,... believing 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' code of war." Metal Sonic recounted Eggman's multiple 'team-ups' with Sonic in the past... It made him distrust his own creator to the point where he was now labeling him as a potential enemy. 'Bitterness' wouldn't suffice to describe the sheer resentment he possessed for his original master. After being tossed like trash into the isolation of space... He had to be careful in all acts of vengeance. He had to calculate everything... everything... had to be perfect.

Now Metal Sonic had a powerful voice chip equipped to him, one that was less robotic but still had a metallic ring to it. It gave him more than just brute authority, but a deafening, flat overtone that made him menacing even to the metallic ear... Heavy oscillations with terrifying frequencies were sent throughout anyone's eardrums, but this gave him the power to wirelessly send his vocal commands to his supports, having programmed exact obedience into their voice-recognition.

"We must prepare. I have waited too long in the shadows… I must defeat Sonic now." He lowered his arms to grip at his throne's armrests, tightly chipping through the stone with the sharpened edges of his fingered claws. His metal eyelids slid down to a deeply fierce, angular glare... His hunger to make himself known unto Sonic was strong, but Metal Tails cautiously intervened.

"Master, there is another code of war…" He stated as his eyes bent down to mimic the glare upon Metal Sonic's countenance as well. "That the art of surprise is the best military tactic." He turned from his chair and got up, looking to his master. "If we are to alert Sonic of our existence, he will surely fight back with a more well-thought-out counterstrike. We should catch him off guard, without a plan; then he and his friends will be weaker to respond to-"

"Sonic doesn't plan." Metal Sonic's voice turned cold and harsh, threateningly vile as he knew he was correct. Metal Tails looked up, seeing his master stand away from his throne which was on the raised levels of three circular-platformed steps above him; They grew smaller the more one advanced up them, layered on-top of each other and pristine as royalty, just from the sight of them.

Metal slowly moved down the platform where his throne was in the center of the room, continuing to speak, "It is your other whom I have based you on that will perform the strategy... As my theory states- he is stronger with his friends. Since technology and logic prohibit me from having all their traits processed within me, I must use you and the others as my counters to his strength. With your computing functions and expert processing capabilities… you should be more than able to outsmart your counterpart."

Metal Tails looked to the ground as if he had something to prove from the insult.

"I will be impenetrable. And Sonic's friends will be rendered useless to him." Metal stopped when he reached the main screen, a large and widened rectangle, showing four diagrams that displayed spinning data models of Amy, Tails, Knuckles, and Sonic. Areas on their bodies were pointed to with stretched lines connected to charts indicating their strengths, weaknesses, and other such noted things. At different intervals, the simulations would trigger an attack style or typical battle movement, then diagrams would show possible ways of dodging said actions or exposed areas to attack.

"You should all be prepared by now..." Metal looked threateningly back at Metal Tails, having disapproved of his lack of confidence from before... "With all the data we've compiled... the simulations of attack formations you created..." he turned towards his creation, a hostile intent lingered upon his trailing eyes while his cape flickered back behind him, but Metal Tails spoke up immediately to break the tension from his disapproving glare...

"-Then… we should plan ahead of him. Even with surprise, we need to be a step ahead of my other's thinking…" Metal Tails concluded quickly and rationally as his head looked forward again, not daring to make eye contact with his master... Already having foolishly angered him by going against his original plans.

Metal Sonic lowered his head and folded his arms, seeming content with that reply.

"…Not just one step. But a thousand. I've waited too long to have all my planning and preparations destroyed by ill-thinking." His glare never ceased towards his creation, dropping his arms and moving at a curved walk passed him.

He had narrowly escaped his wrath... but a cruel reminder that he was never safe, not even for an instant, in his master's company...

"Do not disappoint me with relative thinking again. You must be smarter than not only him-" he pointed to Tails on the screen, "But the world."

Metal Tails glared down, feeling ashamed as his fists tightened and shook in rage. "I…I will not fail you again, my master." He stated, trying to show his seriousness in the matter at hand.

"…See that you do not. Or time will be wasted on editing your inferiority." Metal Sonic moved away after that threat and began to proceed back to his throne, only getting up one step of the platform before another voice echoed in the solid, metallic room.

"…The enhancements on the generators are completed, master. I must now check for adequate energy supplies within your battery." Metal Amy walked into the room, fully operational now that her design was complete and immediately took out her hands from behind her back, stretching them down to her sides as though she had remembered something important, something dangerous...

She then quickly walked up to Metal Sonic, waiting for permission to do her job, and attempting to not make unnecessary eye-contact by holding her head straight. Even with him stationed above her on the first of the three platforms, she only slightly lowered her eyes from his downward gaze... afraid of moving any further.

After staring at her for a moment, Metal outstretched his hand to her, "…Proceed."

She heard the permission given and promptly maneuvered around the large circular platform as he watched her carefully... his eyes tracking her every movement.

She took his hand, using her programming to conclude whether he needed to recharge his energy or not. She could sense his internal battery due to her being the robotic form of a medic, checking for soft hums of electrical pulses that were like a heartbeat for an organic lifeform. She scanned the information, lightly skimming her sensors that were located on her hands and fingertips up over his metallic covering to his arm, twisting to gently encircle her hand over his metal coated frame and then linger it back down to his hand. Functional; though there was no actual beating substance that sustained their mechanical existence. Moreover, it was just a vibrating that would pass her detectors in soundwaves below her touch, still strong and powerful enough to be her master's resonating and spiteful sparks.

She was- A living battery.

Or rather... she felt constantly reminded that she wasn't living, and more just a wireless charger for her master and fellow supports.

"…If it weren't for the limitations of this world, I would have no need for a battery." He seemed to say the words with annoyance. He turned his head forward and away from her, speaking indirectly; for a moment, she thought his attention had moved on from scanning her every, detailed movement and felt confident to look up and examine his expression.

What was she hoping to find?

He hated every indication of a living organism's behaviors and mannerisms. He couldn't 'growl out' the words he spoke, but only reflect them in a threatening tone…

"…Even with technology being as limited as it is. Without what we have, we'd be nothing… We couldn't even think."

Her words were too sweet for his taste. He swung his arm away from her, looking back with his eyes turned sharply in suspicion.

She strained hard to not simulate a flinch, but instead, made sure her eyes held and didn't blink in her statement. Slowly, she lowered her hands and stared back up at him, her hands positioned neatly in front of her and held together properly with no sign of a firm hold or a rough grip.

"Why do you suppose I care about what we have when my plans are bigger than the insolent devices we must work with now?" He swung his arm again, forcing her to duck away and dodge before he sliced her in two. His cape flung back with his lunge towards her, and she slowly retreated from his presence.

"I meant no disrespect… Your energy capabilities are fully charged and functional. My programming is met. G-" she was about to say 'good day', maybe 'goodbye', but knew how that would seem to 'organic' to him. She quickly shook her head, something a robot wouldn't do…

She messed up.

She revealed it.

"I shall retreat to other duties."

She bowed and walked on, worried he may have seen an error in her, slowing her steps only slightly when the doors flung open. Taking a chance, she looked over her shoulder at him.

He was still staring…

She jolted in her spot, only barely showing her simulated fear as she tried to avoid him seeing any further fault in her. She quickly continued on and left the room at a regular speed to not cause any further suspicion.

As the doors closed, Metal Tails turned from pretending to work on the computers and looked to his master. "Why did you bother with a maintenance? You are fully able to read your own battery levels and recharge when time permits. Why have you designed such a useless support?"

"…You question your master's thinking?" Metal shifted his head back, creating a streak of red with his eyes as he casually warned Metal Tails of his prying nature.

Metal Tails didn't move, but simply bowed his head. "I meant no ill-will from my comment, master. I just can't compute as to why you would create a Metal Amy... According to my research done on the team, she does nothing but added assistance. If she is around and willing, that is… What good is she to your theory? She is barely treated the same as Tails and Knuckles to Sonic. Why-"

"Why then does he keep her around?

"…My master?"

"If she is as you suggest, a waste of our supplied materials, then why does Sonic keep her within his team..?"

"…Entertainment."

Metal Tails concluded as Metal Sonic looked unamused by that theory.

"He doesn't treat her like amusement… in fact, he seems to retreat from her presence at most occurrences… if you can answer my question, do so now with an acknowledgeable reply."

"…I cannot compute."

Metal Tails admitted, as Metal Sonic seemed to mock him, as though laughing at his failure to understand.

"You must not be smarter than me, but you must think deeper and better than them." he replied.

"…Then why do you keep her around?"

Metal Tails's head moved up, his eyelids slid into an inquisitive simulation.

"Why do you convey anger, bitterness, and displeasure when you yourself condone the very action of mortal expression?"

The words were too bold and insulting for Metal Sonic's taste, as he flung forward and thrust his claw sideways into Metal Tails's eye and half his face.

As sparks flew everywhere, Metal Sonic widened his eyes in bewilderment at his creation, not at all amused or convinced that this Metal Tails will do him any good.

"…What I do is of my own reasoning and thinking… I am a better Sonic. I am a more superior intelligence than even you. If I keep her around to understand her worth in Sonic's strength… then I do so for my own purposes." he then faked a laugh, "If I stimulate an organic trait, it is for my own amusement at making fun of the organic life that is beneath me. You, on the other hand… are of the same thinking as them. So I mock you openly... as I would them... You're nothing more than their organic thinking."

He tore deeper into Metal Tails's metallic skull, but the robot's programming forced it to be unable to fight back against his own master's brutal attack.

"I obviously found purpose to her. She rejuvenates Sonic's team to keep fighting. I converted that into a working, walking battery. If you are foolish enough to question my own perfect logic, then you are more useless to me than even organic thinking..."

He pulled his hand out of Metal Tails, as Metal Tails collapsed on the ground, body twitching with cords springing around from his eye and torn apart metal-casing. Half his brain and systems were damaged, as Metal Sonic's claws could rip through any metal on this earth. Made with a special alloy he himself had mined and melted down to produce; his silver claws and frame could morph and move at his will. Electrical sparks could control the alloy's strange bending as though being melted to form whatever action was required, but still hardened to give shape and substance according to what electrical shock it recieved... it was perfect for his purposes, and expertly engineered for absolute destruction.

He held his claws out in front of him, twiddling his fingers as if to indirectly boast of their power and admire how they could rip through anything at will. The silver in them shined in the colorful lights of the monitors before he withdrew the current long length of his fingers down to adequate size…

"If Sonic keeps Amy around… then obviously, there must be a reason. Until I can compute perfectly to what that is,... I will keep my own copy. If my theory is correct, all of Sonic's friends aid him in becoming stronger than even myself… I must have a complete support, or my theory will be insufficient!" he turned quickly away from Metal Tails, his cape flipping once more dramatically behind him as he ascended up to his throne. pressed a button on his throne.

He pressed a button.

"Send maintenance to Metal Tails. Improve intelligence through any means necessary. He is…" Metal Sonic looked back to the sparking and slowly dying energy levels of a powering-down Metal Tails. Sporadic movements showed he was suffering, disconnected from his vital processors, he would be a blank mechanical ruin in moments.

"Inferior."

"I shall return once again."

The voice on the monitor made him look back toward the commutation speaker as he noticed it was Metal Amy's voice.

"…Yes,… return."

He lifted his finger off the button, before looking down at it in deep thought yet again.

"…What does Sonic need of you..?"

His eyelids lowered...

Though he had a theory,... he never stated it as fact.

Metal Tails's theory annoyed him. He knew better...

"Errored excuses."

He flipped his cape to look back at the monitor, glaring at Amy's modeled base as it turned with her arms spread out like the others, diagramming her strengths and weaknesses.

"…There must be something more to you that I haven't found… and rest assured... I will."

The doors flung open again, as Metal rotated his head slightly to see Metal Amy walk in, bending down to pick up the now completely drained of life, metallic husk that was Metal Tails.

If he had a life to begin with...

For Metal Amy knew all too well what her master would think if she even dared used that terminology...

"..What befell here?"

She asked, seeing the spikes drilled into Metal Tails's head.

But she knew.

"…Why do you ask?"

Metal Sonic moved from his spot to walk down and around her, growing curious to why she kept stepping out of her programming to ask such needless things.

"Would you like to find out?" he threatened, lifting his fingers up to show their extension before withdrawing them at her next statement.

She grew fearful but didn't let it show this time. She just froze, computing what to say back…

"I have no wish to learn of it. He must have been as you said, inferior."

She wondered what 'inferior' even was.

What made Metal Tails 'inferior'?

And how could she avoid the same fate…

"…Come here."

She froze once again.

Unable to fight her programming, she dropped Metal Tails's corpse down and walked over to Metal Sonic. She kept her eyes down, worried she may have already enraged him after clearly being upset beforehand. Was she to be destroyed and scrapped? Processed anew, As was the plan with Metal Tails…

Metal Sonic lifted his claws to her face, and gently stroked the sides of it. It was nothing more than a power-play to Metal Amy,... reminding her of the sharpness of his claws...

She tried not to watch as they scaled down to lightly streak her face with skidmarks that sang out a plea of helplessness under the sharp carving edges of his touch. The scratch marks were barely noticeable as the thin, dagger edges were triangular in design, and Metal only applied enough pressure to taunt her, nothing more...

Nothing yet.

He lowered his touch to her curves and features he- himself- had designed to match a more 'powerful and perfect' metallic Amy Rose.

"…I designed you well." He stated this as if it was almost out of love for his own handiwork, before looking back up at her and seeing that she didn't move or speak.

She simply kept her gaze down.

"…Are you unsatisfied with your creation?"

"...No."

"...then, why are you afraid?"

He forcefully grabbed her muzzled and made her look up at him, eyes squinting to detect what he suspected to already be there.

"I didn't design such fear in you… only that you follow strict obedience through voice recognition." He moved her face side-to-side, looking it over. "…It would be a shame to destroy you… After I had become certain that all your previous errors and flaws from that insufficient, storage junk-ship were purified from your being…" he looked down at her hands and picked one up more gently than he had her face.

The force on her face never wavered, and she simply held her ground.

She didn't move.

She didn't struggle from his grasp.

If he was to attack, she'd be powerless to stop him anyway... programming forbade her from even trying to compute it. Her only option was survival.

As if she had a ticking heart to protect anyway... or flowing breath to preserve.

"…I remember when your hands were destroyed…" he started to look down and fiddle tenderly with her held hand, examining once again his workmanship,... as if he could be affectionate.

She again fell silent and didn't resist him. After all, he had created her… but fear still was present within her, created or not; she hid every trace of it by shutting down her motion controls completely.

He wouldn't see her fear if she couldn't move…

"…Why are you so silent?" He lifted his eyes to her, head still down towards her held hand; showing he wasn't fond of her being so still and unresponsive.

As if he even enjoyed the company anyway... only the torture of waiting for a flaw to reveal itself.

He knew it was there... somewhere...

And he found pleasure in exposing it.

Then ripping it out.

"...Has your fear, through error, shut you down?"

"….It is no error." She finally spoke and moved her head back, but his hand forced it back into where it once was positioned. She didn't move again, "I simply came to you, and allowed your will to be done. There was no error in my fear of your…"

She gazed her eyes up at him, showing the lime green light within shine with metallic radiance. "-Superiority... I only wish to respect it by showing you I am of little importance compared to your plans. I must do my work to aid you in providing your perfection. Does my silence not show my simulated fear as loyalty to your excellence and power? My master…" she bent her head down again, as Metal Sonic looked at her with careful observation.

"…Go."

He released her with a flick of his wrist, finding her reason sound, as she quickly moved away from him.

His hand, however, was still holding her own, and he stopped her in place. "One… more thing." He stated as She froze again, waiting for further instruction that she couldn't escape from.

"…Make sure his brain is completely scrapped. I must find another way to mimic Eggman's designs and perfect them to have the ultimate strategist…"

"Your will is my labor."

"…Hmph."

He let her go again, and she quickly hustled to pick up Metal Tails's scraps again, placing him over her shoulders, and walking out.

As the doors closed, Metal Sonic chuckled and closed his eyes, rubbing his claws together to sharpen them after their little… snack.

"She cannot fool me…"

He paced himself down the remainder of the steps, back to the monitors.

"-but I enjoy her reasoning."

He lightly clicked buttons into the computer, and Amy Rose's diagrams spread throughout the whole of the screen.

"She computes well in order to appease me...The error she contains... is amusing."

He thought of what Metal Tails had spoken and closed his eyes...

"I shall let her live,…"

He then shot his eyes open to the image of the organic Amy Rose's recordings of her laughter or smiling above.

"For now…"

He moved back to the steps of his throne, lifting a leg up as Sonic would have done once sitting upon it, and returned to his former position.

He watched the recordings of Amy Rose...

Carefully...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Metal Amy dropped the cold, hard and heavy corpse of Metal Tails down on the maintenance room's table, and slowly… began tracing her hand along his head.

Feeling a sense of remorse for her fallen comrade, she lowered her eyelids and tried to relay the memories given to her. Meant for combating her counterpart when the time came, she used them very.. differently…

Amy was out picking flowers with Cream, as Tails ran up to pull Amy away, giving her instruction on another Eggman attack. Amy nodded, and bent down to Cream, telling her what had come up.

"Oh, but you mustn't go just yet, Miss Amy!"

"Chao Chao!"

"We've yet to finish our flower crown for you and Mr. Sonic! Would you like one too, Mr. Tails?"

"Chao Chao!"

"…Cream…" Amy smiled kindly to her, and patted her head. "Don't you be worried now, or even cry for that matter." She giggled, "Me, Tails, and- I'll even drag Sonic along! We'll all make flower crowns together! No one's going to get hurt, I promise!"

The kindness Amy showed had touched Metal Amy and made her wonder why it was so important to calm the child and her creature friend down. If her other was to be destroyed, why? She did no harm, she only protected…

If Metal Sonic wanted her to be formidable, even better than her counterpart, then…

Would she use Amy's good-natured heart against her?

What even was a 'Heart' anyway?

Her programming suggested it pumped blood through the system; and in so doing, beated with each breath.

But… there was another meaning… Her system's translations knew the language was figurative, but couldn't compute it; Which frustrated her dearly.

Metal Amy lightly patted Metal Tails's head, as if a downed robot could be comforted. But, perhaps, it was more for herself. How could such things be weak and inferior to common logic?

Metal Amy wanted to show kindness to her fallen comrade, which would have been a sign of weakness in Metal Sonic's eyes… an error. However, she still longed to feel like Amy did. Maybe, … by learning what a 'Heart' meant to the living organisms, she could use that against Amy to defeat her and receive praise for completing her reason of creation.

Would he scrap her once her task was done as well?

She did not know… but her reasoning calculated it would be so.

"…What are you doing?"

She tensed up, her battle form engaging as she flung herself around to whatever activated her defensive precaution. Her hammer came out a slot in her back, held by a black, double-jointed rod that lifted it up and out for her; the slot slid open and propped out the weapon in a swift movement that allowed her to grabbed it quickly from over her shoulder. She spun the hammer around her head, before holding it out to whatever spooked her. Her mouthpiece was overlayed with three shredded layers of metal forged together on two separated armor plates that slammed together shut from the sides of her face where her metallic dark pink quills covered them before they engaged. Her skirt spun to reveal the drilling-spikes under the metal coating of her dress. The plated armor twirled upward and shrunk back towards her to reveal a three-layered armor. The rest of her scary form began to mechanize, and she was fully within her attack form.

"…I simply asked about your objective." Metal Knuckles looked annoyed by her jumpiness before averting his gaze to stare down at Metal Tails. "…What befell him?"

"…He angered the master." She turned away from him, embarrassed by engaging since- that was illogical. Considering their others didn't even know they existed or where they even were...

She hoped he'd ignore it.

"…How so?"

"I cannot comply."

"I see… you didn't behold the execution." Metal Knuckles had a gruffy voice in his programming, which, frankly, intimidated Metal Amy with how 'heavy' it sounded.

"…I suspect your time will come. Your inferiority was apparent even at your creation." Metal Knuckles insulted, as he touched Metal Tails's back on the table. "..What did he instruct to be recreated this time?"

Metal Amy held back her anger at his words, her fingers curling into fist before she tried to loosen the tension. "…You insult the master by saying I was inferior. He had to work with what he could. He spent most of his efforts on you." she glared before turning sadly to Metal Tails's damaged remains... as if including him in her sentence with Metal Knuckles too. "I was constructed through the remains."

"Leftovers." Metal Knuckles glared her way, mocking her creation. "He didn't even bother giving you substance… let alone durable hands…"

She fully blared her red eyes from battle mode up at him, still within battle form… and not disengaging…

"Hmph. Answer my question. As your superior."

"..There are no ranks among us. Besides the master, you and I are just simple supports." She compared them on equal ground, which made Metal Knuckles more annoyed with her.

"I am by far more improved than you to reach the superiority and perfection of the master." He stated, and slammed his hand on Metal Tails, bending the metal slightly. "Now, answer my order, tell me what was to be remade…"

Metal Amy activated a spy system in her programming, recording the conversation now. "Why does the master's orders concern you? He gave them to me… not you. Stand down, and let me do our master's orders…" she reached to grab Metal Tails's head, to remove it and disengage any lock system it had to stay on his shoulders...

Metal Knuckles grabbed Metal Amy's hand, as she recorded the assault through her eyes, staring at every move Metal Knuckles made…

"Is the master here? No. No one can protect you, weakling! You shouldn't even have been created! You are nothing more than a servant to us three, taking care of our battle wounds while you stay back in the battle."

...Wounds?

That would imply blood.

A very organic thing to say...

She wondered... even for a moment... if he had similar thoughts to her own.

It was programming that triggered her to start recording... but now...

She almost turned off the recorder,-

"You weren't even good enough to look decent! He based you off your organic being's appearance, configuring you to be weak and insignificant after your other's inferior self! And even to Sonic, he can't stand being around her! I've seen the tapes!"

Her anger grew as the kindness she tried to replicate suddenly was paused in its processing. She was trying to secretly create her own programming at the time, but she stopped it when her rage couldn't be restrained any longer. She put all her energy into throwing the massive robot over her shoulder, spinning to slam him onto the table with Metal Tails upon it, and pinning him to it's surface.

"You think I care about my appearance? You insult the master by insulting me! He created my form and image, and you insult his handy work- not my own!" He struggled to get her off of himself, but she activated the spikes on her dress that had drill-edges which spiraled dangerously fast in whirling threats at his movements; slowly, they sparked drill holes that scraped sunken circles through his metal chest.

She lifted her knee up onto the table to whirl sparks further out to her sides, drilling farther down as the holes grew in presence and size.

She was piercing through his metal body armor, almost to his vital wires and system controls...

"I would do the same to you as to Metal Tails If it weren't for the fact that only the master can make such an order!"

"You dare give me inferiorities!?" he blasted the words out of his speaker, as they began to brawl. She was badly injured, but so was he. His head twitched and rotated sideways, unable to remain positioned properly. She hunched forward, before swiping her functioning arm up to a deadly, proving point.

"See? I can fight just as well as you!" Metal Amy declared, her one arm shot and almost ripped off, barely dangling from her core body by her left arm's hole socket where three long and thick black cords sagged with electricity sparking a jerk in them every now and then, sounding off. The rest of the cords all were ripped out through the sheer force and power Metal Knuckles had within him.

"…What is this?" Metal Sonic flew into the room, "I heard missiles." He looked to the side of the room, seeing his repair equipment was trashed and explosion marks all over the walls and floors. He glared at the destruction, before turning to his two creations. "…Someone speak."

Metal Knuckles and Metal Amy froze.

Metal Amy disengaged her recording of audio and video, and began processing them down into one video, before including her memory clip of Metal Knuckles entering the room. She made sure to cut out any traces of her reflecting on data tapes of Amy Rose… However, she had to leave in her fault of engaging battle mode, which could suggest she was afraid… and there'd be no reasonable excuse to get her out of being called out for that error in programming…

"…She launched at me. Infuriated by my superiority over her own weakness. She is full of errors. She wanted to give me inferiorities too. Behold!" Metal Knuckles pointed to his damages and then continued to lie. "I defended you and your work on my form and position. She grew jealous, an organic trait, and attacked me. She should be scrapped at once."

"…Are you giving me an order?" Metal Sonic had only glanced at Metal Amy, before turning to Metal Knuckles.

"N..No, my master."

"It sounded like a suggestion." He glared to further show his anger.

"N-no, my Master."

"You stutter, explain to me why?" he walked toward Metal Knuckles.

"I merely felt your disdain."

"Felt?"

"It is not I that you should be enraged with for destroying your tools- it should be her!" he pointed to Metal Amy, who still remained silent as her video processed and was ready to be transferred.

However… looking at Metal Tails, she wondered how many times Metal Sonic would scrap them,... tear them apart,... and reconstruct them before they were ever able to complete his fourth objective…

"…Is what he states the truth?" Metal Sonic looked to Metal Amy.

"…It is…not so." She stated, not shaking her head to reveal a trait of organic lifeforms. She wanted to try and save them both. Somehow… "I merely wished to do your will… he obstructed me for a moment by giving me a command. I didn't follow… because it was not your command to follow. I already had a task to perform, he was in my way."

"And she attacked!" Metal Knuckles blasted out, as Metal Sonic grabbed his arm and ripped it off to match Metal Amy's damages.

"Never speak in such a tone to me again… or I shall rip your speaker out and never refigure speech into your systems again. Rendering you back to your useless beta state!"

Metal Knuckles held his now empty right side with his left hand.

"…Come here." Metal Sonic motioned for Metal Amy to approach him again.

Worried about her fate, but being forced to comply, she walked forward.

He tapped on her bottom quill, that acted as Amy's bangs, but was really where a lever was to open her head up.

Her head where the top, two side quills of her hair, middle half-bridge of her eyes, headband that was a metal red stripe, and ears all together were connected to lift back and away from her 'm' shaped eyes as her upper-head disengaged lock sequence to prop open for him like a car's trunk. He peered in, using his hand to lift it further back as he noticed a chip stick out. plop!

"…Do you know that I programmed a defensive spy system into Metal Amy's programming?" Metal Sonic spoke while taking the chip out. Automatically, on the back of his other hand, a sliding panel moved away to reveal a spot to inject chips and other such devices into him.

"A-…Does not compute." Metal Knuckles couldn't even finish his sentence, realizing his error in lying to his master could have cost him his existence.

"…Yes,... odd she wouldn't mention it… as if she was trying to save you." Metal Sonic slowly lifted up his hand and showed Metal Knuckles that he was putting the chip into its proper place. "Downloading engaged."

Metal Amy suddenly realized he had seen through her thinking, and almost accidentally looked at him in shock- but remembered to remain motionless.

She did, however,... peer over at her comrade, and watched as he seemed to process every reasonable way their master could destroy him. Scrap him into another being.. as she had to endure and watch countless times with each of them.

He couldn't help but shake slightly in his lifeless bolts.

She looked away, back to the safety of the metallic ground...

Or what little safety it provided... if any at all...

"…" Metal Knuckles didn't move then, watching intently as Metal Sonic processed the recording. Metal Amy realized she was still going to be questioned, even after Metal Knuckles's was found out, so she began to compute strategies to avoid her own doomed sentence.

She still felt sorry for her brethren… he may have hated her and felt she was beneath him, but he was still a Metal Support, just like herself…

"…!" Metal Sonic let out a metallic shriek as his eyes fully shot open after viewing the whole video. "Traitor." He concluded and began ripping Metal Knuckles to shreds.

Metal Amy remained staring at the ground, hearing the noises of scrap flying everywhere, the oil spraying to the ground in front of her... shadows revealing the scene only in part below her...

She re-watched a moment of Amy crying... and vicariously lived through it... as if she wished she could escape these fates... and simulate emotion freely in her as well. Without fear. Without punishment. Without hatred.

After Metal Knuckles's head rolled to the ground- splitting into two parts- Metal Amy looked up to see Metal Sonic holding up his chest to her.

"..You could have destroyed him after informing me with the video. Why did you hold back?"

She remained silent, and looked down, before forward and away from the two images of both her oil-covered master... and her ruined brother.

"I would have been sound with your reasoning." He dropped the chest, still having the scratches and drilled mini-holes that lay in them from her and Metal Knuckles's previous squabbling. "You are disappointing me… in fact, maybe all three of you need repairs…" he slowly lifted the hand that had just let the chest fall towards her, and she peered at the clawed hand that gave her either life or death and began to speak.

"Wait..!"

"…" Metal Sonic froze, wanting to hear how'd she get out of this one. "An order..." he tilted his head, moving his clawed hand's distraction from her face. "Or suggestion..?" he narrowed his eyes, a sick and twisted way of messing with her.

Either way,... she would fall.

"…" her head was still open, and she bent it down again. Clipop!

Another chip was sticking out from where another memory slot was, and Metal Sonic looked at it and withdrew his hand.

Taking out the previous chip, he took the new one and placed the old one back in its apartment within her brain.

She moved her head up, as he injected that chip in the back of his hand, and began downloading its content.

"…You didn't want me wasting my time." He concluded, reading her thought process as she had erased the 'Amy's Kindness' factor out of it and only included how Metal Knuckles was her master's design like her, a servant to Metal Sonic's plan... and that with his destruction, Metal Sonic's plan to destroy Sonic and his friends would take longer planning now that he had to reconstruct his two supports once more.

"…I only serve your wishes,…my master." She took her good hand and bowed again.

He could see she cut out certain thoughts… but he ignored it; intrigued that her errors we're still somewhat amusing in that she had, once again, escaped death through her wit and cleverness.

"You are indeed… starting to impress me." He took out the chip and put it back in her, closing her head. "I should see how I configured your brain… and try and mimic it in the other two." He stated a praise she was surprised to hear.

She, herself, knew she would be destroyed the second he learned about her inferior weakness and fascination with her counterpart she was supposed to destroy…

She was actually fascinated with all the living things… how they survived through other means than electricity or a battery… how they sustained themselves without programming and could learn and grow by means of a living computer.

Even to how a flower could sustain itself compared to the massive galaxy surrounding it with perils upon perils far greater than itself...

But under her master's reign, these thoughts were futile, and nothing could be done to quench her curiosity and fascination with these organic things...

Suddenly, an alert system was triggered in her, and she quickly looked down to Metal Sonic's arm. "I'm detecting low-energy waves… may I check your battery capacity?"

"It's low." Metal Sonic replied, already knowing by checking himself.

"I came to find you."

She looked down.

"…I have failed."

"…You were engaged in battle. I can ignore your failure for now, as long as it doesn't happen again."

He must have come to destroy her… seeing as her system should have made him her top priority. The fact that she was in battle mode made her programming switch objectives because his energy signals weren't strong enough as they would be if he were present to fully influence her programming's way of thinking…

She realized she should have attempted to escape battle... but her processing concluded that she save herself so she could save him. Perhaps he was sparring her simply because he wanted to prolong her execution.

The realization of this made her blink her eyes open wide from their sorrowful and frightened state to then, rather quickly, look up at him. He seemed to look in each one of her eyes... having already understood that she just computed what would have happened if Metal Knuckles's hadn't betrayed him and errored.

"Come. You can help me repair and reconstruct these two worthless heaps of metal after we recharge." He looked to Metal Tails, but was technically referring to both of them.

Why wasn't he destroying her?

It was logical, Maybe... to have added help in reconstructing two destroyed robots.

But... he just saw her error again in her reaction...

Was he toying with her? Stalling for his own pleasure?

What game was he playing?

And how could she survive it?

He offered her his hand and waited to see what her programming would do.

The organic thing would be to take it, but instead, she walked by and wouldn't be fooled by his test of her errors. Her thinking was profoundly sound, and she saw through his trap, as he seemed pleased to know he wouldn't have to destroy her... yet.

He let his hand fall to her back, sliding the steel finger against her metal, a threatening reminder that she was still in dangerous waters…as she flew to the generator room with him.

She refused to react and simply flew to the generator room, as he followed close behind to study and examine her.

Metal Amy quickly ran ahead and turned everything on, engaging the doors to open within the large tube that resembled his entrapment from before on the ship.

Her battle mode disengaged, and she tried to desperately think of avoidance tactics she could use to keep her luck going...

Luck... how organic was her thinking?

Metal stared for a moment, remembering constructing this generator to give him more power sooner. He stepped up and into it as the doors closed, folding his arms, closing his eyes, and lowering his head... "Engage." He commanded.

"Programming fuel drive…" Metal Amy turned everything to full power as gentle streams of lightning came down from to top of the tube and fell all around it, hitting Metal Sonic. It was like a relaxing shower for a robot, with streams of electrical energy pulses hitting his metallic frame lightly enough to be absorbed. Metal Sonic could feel the energy circuits inside slowly regaining their power and efficiency.

If ever she was to feel useless, it was standing before this large machine that replaced her duties in every way. Why construct it when he had her? It only made her feel as though her creation was simply to fulfill the slot of Amy Rose on Metal's mock Sonic Team.

Metal then opened his eyes and turned slowly to look back towards Metal Amy, who was doing her job of making sure the system worked. However, she sensed his gaze on her.

She knew better than to ask him why he stared,… simpler to wait to be called upon for a reply than to ask questions yourself. You never knew how he would take even the most basic of questions…

"…Are you not fully charged?" he asked, tilting his head to her.

"..!?" she rose her eyebrow, narrowing her eyes but hoping at the angle he was at, he couldn't see her perplexed simulated expression, though a small sound of computer whirling did give her slightly away; but again, he was too far away and the lightning made adequate noise to drown her out anyway. The question made her wonder where he was going with this. He obviously didn't care about her measly existence as he could always scrap her and create another, more improved version to his standards of 'perfect support'. Why would he be..?

"I directly asked you a question, why do you take so long to compute a reply?" he seemed to be testing her again, or maybe he was just looking for an excuse to scrap her.

His own eyes narrowed...

Did he see her? Or was he simply trying to look through the jagged lines of electricity pouring down around his vision?

Either way, she quickly replied. "My systems indicate that that last battle has made me very ill-proficient. I'll need to repair myself after assisting you… however…" she looked away, turning her gaze.

"However… by then you will have run out of sufficient energy to help me. What does your program say for you to do?" he asked, and his cold stare lead her to fear him again.

What trickery was he devising this time?

"…I could never ask my master anything." She concluded.

"…Then your master suggests you beg." He retorted.

"…Am I to believe you are suggesting for me to ask permission to recharge with you?"

"Is that not a sound and reasonable question?" if he could smile, he most certainly would have, though it would be too organic for his taste. "Or do you see some sort of error in bathing with me?"

Bathe... she almost missed how organic it was. He was clearly taunting her at trying to avoid the inevitable.

Did that mean... did he know?

This suggested he must have thought she was acting organic even now. If she even dared show embarrassment at such a cruel joke …He would see she was truly acting like an organic being,… or even thinking like one.

"…I would be…" she thought through her words carefully,... for in a sense, she was thinking organically. This was thanks to watching Amy and being so heavily influenced by her... But she began to actually care if she lived or died.

She liked functioning, and she thought the closest thing to pain she could experience was when she malfunctioned or was torn apart.

She wanted to survive so she could understand more of what it meant to be alive.

She became curious about how 'emotions' and 'feelings' worked in living creatures... But, because she wasn't thrown off by it, she was able to recognize what was and wasn't organic, allowing her to avoid its detection and distract him from the truth of her strange obsession.

Well... at least she could try and hide most of it.

Besides, the programming she was trying to create titled, "Heart" made her feel as though it could help her compute things better. She wouldn't allow Metal Sonic to discover her secret. She had to try and conceal everything! She had to protect her findings by any means necessary!

"Honored." She stated and looked up, after quickly computing at her max-speed. "But as you see, I am inferior. My damages are an insult to your perfect frame."

He stilled stared, as lightning shot all around him, hitting him and restoring power to his being. He turned away, simulating a chuckle, something he only did to make his supports uneasy with him.

She remembered the time in space... his reaction to her hands... Even his behavior now to her reply was worrisome, as he usually didn't do such organic things…

He looked up and lowered his eyelids, tilting his head once more.

"Am I to believe you're rejecting me?"

Was this another organic thing..? He really was testing the reaches of her errors…

Which means…

He knew she was having errors.

She stepped back, eyes shaking to simulate fear she once saw before in her tapes. Her metallic eyes shifted around the console she was working at, head down. He… he knew of her errors yet… he didn't destroy her?

Why..?

She couldn't compute.

Was he doing these organic tauntings because he was planning to destroy her over a huge error? Or was this merely to joke with no one around to see him act so flawed... only to destroy her after his fun at belittling her by revealing every error she carried?

Cruel. But not illogical to pull every weakness out of your enemy... Did she just compute that he could pretend to be flawed?

But she calculated... what if she tried to be something other than... an enemy?

They were created out of Sonic's 'friends'. Why did Metal treat them so much like-?

"…Well?" he asked again, this time his eyes narrowed, tilting his head slightly at seeing how long it was taking, and already computing the different scenarios of what her mind would naturally go to. He was growing impatient...

He had created her, after all. He knew every avenue her mind would take, even the errored ones. He probably already calculated a route where she would be influenced by her many studies and observations of Sonic and his team. He knew that could be a side-effect, and blamed Eggman's AI system he was going off of for it, and not himself, naturally.

Metal Amy knew it was hopeless. He had no idea the concept of friendship. She barely understood it too.

She wondered if... maybe she could show him. She wasn't to be treated as an enemy... but an ally to her master's plans.

"Do you comply or not?" he was growing frustrated with her silence.

She looked down as if conceding to a nod, but not giving up. "Allow me to repair myself first, as not to just completely reject my inferiority and allow you near it. I shall cleanse myself of my damages and return." She never forgot that he swatted her hand away, nor would she ever allow herself too. She would do everything in her power from now on to avoid any further errors... not giving him that satisfaction, at least, when he did decide to trash her.

"By then,… my charging will be completed, and you will have failed in your task." He retorted, lifting his head. "..You didn't compute that?" he was so playing with her right now and was enjoying every minute of it.

She made him feel superior, the better, the stronger one, the wittiest of all robotic creations.

And he loved that feeling… Although, to him, it wasn't a feeling. It was just how things were meant to be.

"…Do you wish me to enter and recharge with you? In this state?" she planned her question carefully, but quicker this time. "I cannot compute at your level of superior thinking." Keeping the flattery up, she knew it was her only way of surviving this.

"…I… would look past your inferiorities… knowing that I can repair you first and then have you help me with the others later. I'll even allow you to shut down to retain your strength while I do so." He was being... nice?

No, he was being logical.

If she was able to restore her energy and then shut down to preserve it while he worked on her… then they could finish the others and restore their batteries again-

…Again?

"…Your logic is sound-"

He revved up his engine, ready to attack.

"as it should be." She finished.

His engine began to slow down, knowing she'd be smarter than that, but just in case… he wanted to think fast around her. Any sign of further error could be…

Problematic.

But was it to lure her into a trap?

She opened the doors that she had programmed to close behind her at a given time, allowing electricity to spurt out around her. Then they were shut off by the closing of the doors, trapped; just like her now.

Walking in, the electricity soothed her a bit,…

Until it hit her hurt arm.

She cringed, feeling the pain of that, and realized her fault. "…I see." She concluded. "I've errored."

Her systems began to spark with violent repercussions, and she fell to the ground.

"…I see."

She concluded.

"I've errored."

"…Yes,"

He moved around her, looking down with some twisted pleasure at her agony, her eyes twitching; not out of a simulation, but a malfunction.

"You have."

Metal Sonic was pleased to trick her.

"Or you were."

"I've forgotten to check my own faults,... that I mentioned before,... and realize that the-BBBZZZ... RE-RE-RE-recharging process would injure me further… but also heal me, as well." she had walked into an endless torture cycle. Although the generator would recharge her batteries, it would also zap the loose wires and drain her of whatever was gained, Over and over again, a recycling of pain and comfort; a painful process... Can robots feel pain?

"…'heal' you?"

She tripped up again and looked at him worriedly, having only thought about why this was happening, and not her word usage. Her "Heart" system was kicking in... but did it matter now?

She was trapped.

"… What a very…"

He lifted his claw to her face.

"Organic thing to say..."

Before he could destroy her into scrap metal, even moving up to her as if finding pleasure in tripping her up- the thrill of the kill nigh- an alert system was activated.

"…Seems we've been found." Metal Sonic took his hand away from her face, looking up at the red light that indicated something was wrong.

"The perimeter?" She concluded, shifting at the hope of survival. What little it could bring, anyway...

"Yes. The light blinks twice, meaning-" he moved a bit away from her, placing his hands on his hips and looking up, mimicking Sonic slightly… a side-effect from Eggman giving him Sonic's behaviors, something he had thought was removed from his first creation… apparently not…

"Someone could just be outside, but not know they've found us." She continued to process quickly, feeling herself getting hit and then restored by the lightning around her over and over again. She knew that if she didn't think fast, she would be killed.

Killed… another organic thing.

it was almost impossible to get those flawed 'implying life' words out of her system's vocabulary.

Why was she allowing herself to fall to the errors like this?

To allow fascination to consume her into disobeying her master? Her priorities and purpose? Her objectives?

Even... her programmed fate?

"…Why did you interrupt?" He was still upset he couldn't shred her to pieces right away, but slightly liked the companionship she provided.

At least he wasn't alone in his thoughts like before…

"To save you the wasted-" before she could say 'breath', she corrected herself. "energy." She looked up into his eyes, ducking her head down. "Forgive me. I've been studying Amy's tapes… and I have begun to do so frequently,... resulting in my speech and thinking being altered by language reception. I seem to use organic terms as slur words…"

Her explanation made him laugh, as it was a perfect excuse...

Yet again.

"Metal Amy…" he stopped his foolery of pretending to laugh like Sonic would have, mocking her as he turned his back, before shifting to face her a little more fully. "I'm intrigued by how you always seem to escape me…" his eyes narrowed, but more out of guilty pleasure than a threat. "I will find it a terribly, misfortunate day… when your 'luck' fails you." he also slurred, to show that he could understand organic lingo as well.

"…Is it luck? Or superior thinking?"

He moved a bit as if he was insulted.

He had used the word she was thinking of...

Maybe they're not so different after all..?

"The same thinking you designed me to have. If I speak like her, won't I fool her into thinking I'm something more than a robot? It could save my 'life' with her, too." Again, quick and witty thinking, as he moved closer to her, lowering a knee and hovering directly over her...

This caused her to move back and lean against the door, still worried she was pushing her 'luck'.

"…Again… you stump me into keeping you 'alive'…" he leaned forward, moving an arm on the see-through tube that kept bouncing lightning off itself, only to hit and restore Metal Sonic and Metal Amy,... but drain her later with pain.

She lifted a hand up to her arm socket to try and block the lightning from injuring her further, so she could gather her some energy back too; then, get out of this mess. "…What are you doing? Do we not need to check the alert?"

"..We do… but I have yet to fully charge… and the light has died down." he looked up, motioning for her to follow his gaze.

He had leaned his knees down, straddling her slightly as she pushed her legs back, now fully against the curve of the tube's interior.

Was he trapping her? His hand kept steady, up against her side, making it difficult to move freely even if she did restore some energy in her backup batteries.

She ended up looking up where his eyes focused too. she noticed that whatever had come into their surroundings outside, had probably wondered off.

She noticed that whatever had come into their outside radar's surroundings, probably had wandered off by now.

"…We have it recorded?"

"As all things have been done before…" he moved closer, absorbing more of the lightning and blocking most of it from hitting her.

"…Why are you blocking me from being restored?"

Could this be..?

"I just computed… maybe it's best to let you shut down?"

He moved his head up to hers, liking how being so close made their electrical absorbing feature stronger. The lightning was more concentrated now and naturally came down on them with greater intensity, being attracted to their bodies like a metal rod.

"…I don't compute." She was worried about saying that, but he seemed to like hearing that she didn't know his plans…

"You are so smart… yet so foolish… you are a contradiction."

He grabbed her hand that had been holding her arm socket.

"… I didn't design you to be this fun."

He pulled her hand away and tore the arm off.

"I'll have to repair you anyway…"He studied the arm, before tossing it to the side.

He studied the arm, before tossing it to the side.

The action had caused electricity within her to be expelled out; and now, instead of slowly enduring the small cycle of pain to restore some power, she was being drained by his close proximity absorbing everything she had left.

"You… k-k-knew if-…"

She was shutting down.

"-If I brought you in here... to this- highly electrical circuit-board designed to hit metal and restore my functions-... that by ripping your arm fully off, your own electricity would flow out and restore me sooner? Why yes… I did know, and I purposefully enacted organic mannerisms to trick you into trusting me… how'd I do?" he continued the rouse, as she slowly shut down... sliding down to the bottom of the field as he drained her dry. He moved closer and closer... watching her fade and the lights in her eyes flicker off, her speaker 'blzzt' out randomly in small, helpless noises. As her energy faded, her jolts of violent twitches died out too. while the machine slowly died down as well. It was programmed to turn off if Metal Sonic was fully healed, not Metal Amy.

The machine began to slowly die down after detecting Metal Sonic's energy levels were almost complete, programmed to shut off when his batteries reached their full capacity- not Metal Amy's.

He slid down with her, crouching down even lower and only slightly catching her to continue speaking and making sure she heard everything...

It was so pleasurable... feeling her own power giving him adequate strength... and watching her go limp under his supreme wit and power...

"…Don't be disappointed. My thinking was rather sound. You would have been extremely impressive to have computed to that high a level." He loomed over her, before bending down and touching her face, seeing her go limp and her eyes finally fade from their green light to an empty grey.

"But I hate having to wait so long to restore my functions… and you make things go by… so... much more proficiently..." he touched the metal frame of his head to hers, as it increased how much electricity he was taking from her through touch.

The struggling sparks of her own remaining electricity zapped at him in bites, but all he could sense were the electrical transfers of absorbing the playful tingles that excited his engines to reeve at a slight hum. However, he was careful to not lose any energy in wanting this to last longer, he had other plans...

And she wasn't going to be around much longer anyway…

"Besides… I have to check the security breach. Your assistance to my maintenance was most helpful…" he leaned into her ear where her hearing compartments lay, and little black holes showed speaker receptors within the bottom of her fake, metal ears. They were designed to take in sound waves, and she caught every cruel word of his metallic sounding. "I was going to destroy you three anyway. I needed to improve you for battle… my patience in waiting has run dry… Metal Tails just helped me pick a day… along with Metal Knuckles… and now… you too." He was going to try and improve himself too, but he didn't say anything regarding that. To him, he needed to be utterly perfect, and right now, he was only superior to these three.

He rolled his metallic frame over her face... feeling the electricity quickly feeding him to more and more power.

He wasn't going to brutally destroy his-... pretty creation... as he had the other two.

No... he wasn't in the least bit merciful, but he did like to change things up a bit...

Add something to spruce up his dull existence as he waited around for the opportune moment to attack Sonic and his friends- to truly set his plans in motion... and test out his latest,.. greatest theory!

She had survived all three rounds... he might as well make her sacrifice worth it.

He needed perfection when he faced Sonic again, which is why he was even bothering with these three supports. He had to win this time… HE MUST.

Metal had picked up Metal Amy's now completely drained of power shell, lifting her over his shoulder, and entering back into his control bridge.

"Now… who disturbed me.." he seemed upset by the disturbance, as he wanted to play around and torture Metal Amy a bit longer...

Because of it... he had to rush. And that angered him greatly...

Finally coming to the bridge, he quickly clicked some buttons on the main control panel.

Upset by his play being cut-short, he noticed the records had a little flicky moving by the screen. It grazed for loose worms or seeds on the ground, before rushing off.

"…Speaking of... 'luck'..." he dropped Metal Amy to the cold, stainless floor, flying out the exit hatch above.

…The flicky didn't stand a chance…

-Back in the repair room-

Metal Sonic first worked on himself, moving over and programming things into the new devices that bore a similar appearance to that on the old junk-ship. He had recreated the crane-like bodies that fell from the ship's once standing ceilings, tools reconstructed to their builds, and had already designed his new and improved appearance.

He hooked himself up to the wall that hung him like before, but this time, to be repaired and modified.

"With this… Sonic will know the superior being…"

He didn't even bother shutting down as the robots ripped into him, tearing him apart, dissecting his framework and circuit boards, remaking his entire being.

All the while his eyes shone red...

Flickering at every ounce of sparked pain a normal organic lifeform would have winced or cried out in agony from...

His glare deepened with each inflicting torture on his metal hide.

He simulated a dark laugh of insane pleasure.

(Again, this won't be completed until after Instincts is done. ;) Hope you enjoyed the first chapter though! :DDD EDITED: I'm working on editing this story for a season 2. Stay tuned~"Do not disappoint me with relative thinking again. You must be smarter than not only him-" he pointed to Tails on the screen, "But the world." - Metal Sonic. Timone: "When the world turns it back on you, you turn your back on the world!" )