(POV: Metal Sonic)
(The image above is what Metal looks like in his organic form.)
"Curse that blasted hedgehog!" Eggman shouted, having one of his tantrums. Again.
My eyes snapped open when the sound of objects being knocked over could be heard and I groaned in annoyance before I sat up from my bed, put my gloves and shoes on, and walked out of my room. Nowadays I preferred to be in my organic form, mostly so that I can get used to being a Mobian. I walked through the long hallway before reaching the maintenance room where Eggman was, and the mess he made was not pleasant. Orbot and Cubot were cleaning the mess up while Eggman looked like he was on the verge of going insane. As if he already wasn't. It had been a month since my idiotic loathsome copy foiled one of his plans, and like always, my creator wasn't taking his defeat lightly.
"Metal!" Eggman yelled, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"Yes?" I asked him, mentally face palming myself.
"Do me a favor and go see what that rodent is up to," Eggman ordered me.
Despite me being curious, I reluctantly obeyed and walked out of the maintenance room, only taking off at full speed once I was outside. The one thing I will admit about being like Sonic was that we both like to have freedom and wide-open space to run around now and then. If I wasn't stuck inside the base most of the time, I'd probably be exploring the whole world. I kept on running until I reached this tall hill looming over Station Square and halted, the view of it more pleasant than what I see inside the base. The only thing that notched it down was Sonic as I could see him running around it before he eventually stopped on top of a building. Wrinkling my nose, I reluctantly sped towards the building, stopped behind the large satellite dish, and peeked around it, the connection between Sonic and me allowing me to sense that he wasn't being his usual cheerful and idiot self. Sonic remained where he stood, his arms crossed and he stared straight ahead like he was lost in thought, his posture alone almost making him look like Shadow.
"An entire year has passed now, and yet that memory still haunts me." Sonic sighed.
At that, I only got confused and tilted my head at what he was talking about. The wind began howling, making Sonic's quills move in the breeze as he sat down, his ears flattened on his head. A part of me wanted to get information from Sonic on what he was talking about, but my instincts said otherwise.
"You do realize I know when someone's following me, Metal," Sonic said to me.
Normally I would just attack Sonic if he ever noticed my presence, but instead, I decided to step out of my hiding spot as he turned in my direction, his expression unreadable.
"What brings you out here a couple of hours before dusk?" Sonic questioned.
"Like I'm ever going to tell you," I replied and copied his crossed arms gesture.
"Lemme guess, Egghead sent you to stalk me again." Sonic inquired.
"I'm perfectly capable of coming out on my terms, rodent." I scoffed.
"It's funny that you're calling me that when you're just saying what you are," Sonic said, a small grin plastered on his face.
Despite me feeling annoyed and Sonic grinning at me, I could still tell that something wasn't right.
"And you're terrible at hiding your own emotions beneath other ones, we both know that something's bugging you," I replied.
"Nothing's wrong, I'm the same as I've always been," Sonic replied while waving his hand dismissively.
"Sure," I replied, rolling my eyes at him.
"Maybe you're the one being moody, like you always are, which does only prove that you're the faker out of the two of us," Sonic said as he stepped close to me and poked my nose with his finger, that stupid grin of his turning wider.
"You're mocking me, aren't you?" I questioned Sonic, almost ready to push him off the darn building.
"Oh, no, I'm not," Sonic said. "Shadow's coming up behind you!" He suddenly yelled, having me immediately spin dash through the satellite dish, only to see that Shadow wasn't here.
Behind me, I could hear Sonic laughing his head off and I turned around, growling with my ears pinned on my head while he was on his back holding his stomach with his hands. I swear to Chaos I'm gonna kill him!
"Your face! You looked like a deer in headlights!" Sonic laughed.
"You want me to kill you, don't you?" I replied, both my hands curling into tight fists.
"Only if you can catch me, Metalhead," Sonic replied with a smirk plastered on his face.
"Why you little!" I yelled, losing all my patience this time.
Sonic immediately ran off and I chased after him, refusing to let him get away with this. I chased Sonic down for what felt like five seconds until he suddenly dove through some bushes and I followed, only to stop once I realized that he wasn't anywhere to be seen. Before I knew it, I felt something hit me from behind and recoiled, seeing Sonic standing there with his smirk glued on his face.
"And here I thought you'd be better at sensing my presence as a Mobian," Sonic said to me smugly.
I growled in response and charged at Sonic, both of us immediately speeding around the forest for Chaos knows how long until I managed to grab him by his wrists and pinned him down, some water splashing as we were now on the shallow part of a lake and Sonic's eyes grew wide at realizing where we were before he started squirming, only able to kick his legs since his arms were out of business.
"No, no, no! Anywhere but here!" Sonic screamed, sounding like some whiny child.
"The water's only one inch high you idiot," I grumbled, earning Sonic to stop freaking out as he glanced down at the water.
"I knew that," Sonic mumbled.
"If you did, you wouldn't have freaked out at all," I told him firmly.
Sonic's ears flattened on his head as he had an intimidated look on his face from my annoyance while I held his gaze, debating if I should throw him in the deeper part of the lake or not.
"How was I supposed to know if you were trying to drown me or not!" Sonic exclaimed.
"Because you're an idiot who doesn't think before you act." I hissed, leaning my face towards his to further intimidate him.
Sonic stayed silent and glanced away, his expression conflicted while I could see parts of his cheeks turning pink before I released my grip on him and sped off back towards base, ignoring the memory of how he was acting before he challenged me into a race.
~Time skip~
The following morning came and I entered inside the same cafe I eat at often, feeling a little bit tired due to Eggman having me do tons of physical work the second I got back to base. I could've turned into my robotic form, but my energy was a bit low no thanks to Sonic racing me around the forest yesterday.
"They're letting tin cans enter this place now?" A familiar grumpy voice questioned.
I glanced at where the voice came from, seeing none other than Shadow sitting across the table from Rouge, who slightly scowled at him.
"My mistake, I didn't know that this was the Edgelord Zone," I said to Shadow sarcastically.
Shadow stayed silent as his glare hardened, which did not affect me as I walked over to a booth near the window and sat down, my ears picking up the sound of him grumbling under his breath.
***
Hours passed by and it was nighttime. And much to my displeasure, I couldn't sleep tonight. So I decided to take a walk in the forest. I could've turned robotic, but I wanted to get into the habit of transforming only when I highly needed to for certain situations.
"Come on, Sonic, it's late, please come back home." I heard Tails say from a short distance.
"It's not that late," Sonic replied.
I headed towards where they were at, hiding behind a bush to see Sonic and Tails both standing ten feet away, Sonic having his back facing Tails and they both looked pretty tired.
"This is the seventh time you've snuck out of the house this late, which won't help with you having trouble sleeping." Tails said while crossing his arms.
"I'm not tired," Sonic said, immediately yawning afterward.
"Yawning proves that you are, and if you keep this up, you'll end up with the bad habit of sleeping in until noon." Tails informed him. "Or are you doing this because of what happened?" He questioned suspiciously.
"We don't talk about that," Sonic said, his voice sounding like a monotone while his ears fell back and he glanced at Tails from the corner of his eyes.
Now that was weird. Who took the smug and cheerful Sonic the Hedgehog I'm used to seeing and replaced him with this one? And the fact that Tails assumed that it had to do with something that happened to him? This is all too confusing for me. Deciding that it was time to go, I sped back to Eggman's base, my head slightly spinning from what I just heard, but I pushed the memory to the back of my mind and lied down on my bed, falling into a deep sleep minutes later. One way or another, I was determined to find out what in Chaos' name was going on with Sonic. Because I did not like the new one at all.