Evolution In Steel: The Metal Sonic Story

He's big, he's blue, he's not a cat with special needs: He's Metal Sonic, and not a very nice person to (re)boot. Many years ago, after being beaten by Sonic for the second (of what would be many) time Doctor Robotnik, alias Dr Eggman began construction on a being that would be a match for Sonic in terms of skill, pace and strength.  Evolving on the rather clunky and stupid Silver Sonic he had created back in 1992, Eggman put together what would become his longest serving and perhaps greatest creation - Metal Sonic.  No fancy names here. The cobalt blue machine made it's presence felt almost immediately as he, under his creator's orders, traveled back in time and changed history allowing Robotnik to conquer vast swathes of the planet. There wasn't even a Sports Almanac involved, so a pretty spiffy piece of evilness must've gone down. If that wasn't enough Metal kidnapped a young Amy Rose, Sonic's self-proclaimed biggest fan and used her as bait to lure Sonic into a trap.  On the infamous Stardust Speedway Zone Sonic and his robotic counterpart raced for victory and in Sonic's case the girl.  Metal had the advantage of knowing the course, the advantage of a vast array of weaponry, of almost unlimited energy reserves and his creator firing missiles at Sonic from behind.

Metal lost.

Being a mere automaton Metal wasn't angry about this loss though did wonder how it came to be that the organic Sonic defeated him. Eggman, thinking perhaps his creation's speed was somehow lacking rethought his attack plans and when the events of Sonic Triple Trouble came around sent his creation out for Metal and Sonic's first real fight.  Several well times hits later and a severely damaged and malfunctioning Metal Sonic was forced to retreat.  This did not sit well with Robotnik and the injured Metal Sonic was transferred to other areas of work away from Sonic.  This in itself did not sit well with Metal Sonic, for it was growing in ability as new technology meant it's workings were upgraded over time.  His creator did not forget him, at least, not yet.

Whilst Metal toiled away an incident occurred at Eggman's new theme park and Metal was sent in as a last resort to remove the intruders who happened to be the Knuckles led Chaotix team of Vector, Espio, Charmy as well as (the now AWOL) Mighty, Heavy & Bomb. During this fight however Knuckles gained the upper hand and he this time was the one to badly injure Metal Sonic. Beaten again the machine made a decision on it's own and absorbed a bucketload of Chaos energy metamorphosising into a humongous version of itself commanding so much internal power that he glowed an ominous blood red.  With such power there was no way it could lose.

Metal lost.

Eggman began working on other Sonic robots, Mecha Sonic for instance now that he had lost confidence in the Blue Devil and even considered scrapping Metal Sonic altogether - he would have done so too were it not for the fact that something Eggman hadn't ever considered had occurred: Metal had acted on his own.  Self awareness had awoken within his 'obsolete' creation, this was something new, Eggman had (somehow) created A.I - Artificial Intelligence.  Recognising the need to protect Metal and the important new pathways in his dynamic CPU, Eggman essentially placed Metal Sonic in stasis for a while as he began to work on preliminary designs for other robots such as the E-100 series which would in the end spawn E-102 Gamma and finally E-123 Omega. Incorporating these positronic pathways into all his robots from this point forward Eggman succeeded in creating deadlier robots - the result also pushed Metal - who had been taken out of stasis on a couple of occasions when Eggman needed him for such noble schemes as racing Sonic in a car and facing Sonic in a fistfight as Eggman 'had a headache' - further down the pecking order.

Finally his refit was complete, these included an upgraded engine design, batteries, intellect matrix and finally a vocal processing unit but unfortunately for him Eggman had heard of a mysterious creature tied to the ancient Echidna's of old and the legend passed down with the Chaos Emeralds. With him distracted Metal Sonic was forced to stay in bodily stasis within the confines of Eggman's latest base... when Sonic decided to stroll in. Now Metal's CPU was still active so he could see Sonic come in, and come up to him, and look puzzled, and tap on his stasis tube, and pull faces at him.  The newly aware Metal was not pleased, Eggman had left his base undefended and his carelessness had let his foe of flesh stroll right in and there was nothing that he could do. Circuits screaming to destroy the intruder, Metal Sonic had to watch as Sonic simply shrugged, said something he couldn't quite make out and then waving goodbye walked away. Metal's mind tried to gather together the consequences of this, which basically involved a lot of 1s and 0s flying around and it was at this precise moment that Amy Rose walked in, looked at him indifferently and walked off.  Not even the girl was scared of him anymore, WHAT. THE. HELL?

Metal thought about this some more but didn't come to a satisfactory conclusion until after Sonic and Co destroyed Eggman's latest base, inadvertently freeing him.  Metal came to his first revelation that day - he was PISSED. Pissed off at his creator for abandoning him, pissed off at Sonic for beating him, pissed off at the world for the lack of fear and/or respect it had shown him since day one. So what WAS the problem here? This is a question I will answer for you; simply put Metal Sonic had no capacity to physically learn or improve; he was created to be a match for Sonic, but Sonic didn't stand still. Sonic improved and Metal while giving Sonic a very close run for his money that left even him concerned was simply no longer a match.  Metal was standing still while Sonic moved ever forward. Metal came to a conclusion - he needed to evolve too.

His mind in turmoil, he turned his back on his creator citing HE had been the one who had been abandoned and set out to conquer the world himself, but there was one thing he needed to do first: beat Sonic, everything paled in comparison to that. It was still in his core program but this and his other prime directive of protecting Eggman at all costs was at odds with his free mind that hated Eggman and rejected him for, well, rejecting him. So he waited in the shadows biding his time, making his plan as the war within him raged onwards slowly but surely driving him insane. Eventually, now convinced that he himself was the real Sonic, that Sonic was his 'organic copy' and with some pimping white highlights he gathered together the powers of Chaos and the fighting styles of his rivals within himself.  Then stepping forth from the veil of his perceived death Metal took over Dr.Eggman's fleet in a coup de tate, imprisoning his own creator.  Again using the mystic Chaos powers he transformed himself into a gigantic blue dragon, the Metal Overlord, so fear-inducing even the Egg Pawns (that shared part of his brain patterns of course) ran in terror. He forgot about the Chaos Emeralds though and in a rather unfair 12-on-1 fight (14-on-1 if you count Eggman and Cheese) he was defeated finally by Super Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.

Metal lost.

I see a pattern here.

So did he and he did what anyone would who didn't, wouldn't or couldn't understand - he asked why.  The answer was surprising, Sonic welcomed any future challenge, he not having been pushed nearly as far by anyone else. The defeated Metal then lost consciousness and was thought to be destroyed by E-123 Omega and the Shadow the Hedgehog android accompanying him.  What actually transpired next no one particularly knows, only that for a time he spent his days wandering in the wilderness with Omega who in all honesty didn't know any better. That was until he came across the remains of the original Egg Carrier and began to cannibalise its innards to create his own robotic army of the damned of course!

Now an upgraded Metal Sonic has returned, sans white bits, having bid his time well and waited until Sonic used the Chaos Emeralds and they scattered. He suddenly appeared and proceeded to dismantle the good guys in a matter of minutes.  The source of this new mystical power coming from a being known only as The Wiseman who attempted to help Metal Sonic find the meaning of his existence, an attempt that actually cost him his life. Now he leads the Robot Legion, his group of salvaged robots - including 'Eggma' his personal lieutenant, a combination of the betrayed Omega's body and the head of an advanced Egg Pawn prototype. They have succeeded in conquering the majority of the world with their foot soldiers and 'red weed' corruption technology.  Sonic et al escaped death however thanks to an intervention by Dr. Eggman.

Impervious to conventional attack with his special rotating black cube of instant non-death and armed to his cupridium-alloy teeth Metal Sonic is now a cold calculating leader. But what do all men, robot men or robotic hedgehogs with power want? More power.  Such power he believes resides in Alzari who bares a startling resemblance to The Wiseman but can he tap this power? Not only that but Sonic is still out there of course and the Emeralds, but that won't stop him from ruling the world from his hidden desert base.  This bot is bad to the endoskeletal bone.
 
So what now? Well, he wants revenge, oh yes, REVENGE on Sonic... and Shadow, and, well... pretty much the entire world really. He doesn't like you that much either to be honest... yeah, you.