Metal Sonic V Starved and Furnace

 Metal sonic stood before the roaring inferno, memories of a time long since past flitting through his neural circuits. He had followed the Doctor's orders to investigate a spacial anomaly that had been found on mobius before Sonic and his friends could interfere. For once in his existance, he was faster than the blue blur and now he stood in a roaring volcano with his back to the portal and for a moment he was unsure of where the portal took him.

Then he heard the familiar roar of an engine he knew well, combined with the crackling of roasting fire. A being slammed into the volcanic rock in front of him and as the dust cleared, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. It resembled one of his many mechanical lessers but...it was warped and designed in a way he couldn't fathom his creator ever considering, jet black with a furnace where his engine would normally be, glowing eyes full of malice and hate, and an arm cannon spewing flames as he walked. He felt an innate disgust for the mockery before him and scoffed like a familiar black hedgehog he knew.

"Hmph, a loathsome copy. Not worth noting to the doctor." Metal turned to head back through the portal when the being raised his arm and fired a stream of fire at Metal, his body glowing a bright red before he swung his arm and the sound of tails whirring ensued, a gust of wind blasting the fire back. Then, the creature spoke.

"BADNIK, DESIGNATION: FURNACE. I HAVE LOCATED AN ANOMALOUS METAL SONIC UNIT. REQUESTING PERMISSION TO ENGAGE." Metal Sonic stared at the being, apparently named Furnace, that stood before him. He tuned his radio a bit to surprisingly easily hack into the signal furnace was using to communicate. What he heard sent chills down his circuits, it was the Doctor's Voice. It was warped, raspy, even more caked with malice and hatred than he knew, and it was wrong. Metal knew down to his very core that something terrible had happened to eggman, no not his eggman. His logic circuits worked overtime as he figured out this anomaly had taken him to another universe entirely.

He shuddered as he heard the thing speak. "Furnaaace....simply...ensure that this anomaly does not stop my plans to enter the portal....other than that...." A laugh caked with a madness unlike any metal had heard before ripped over the radio. "Rip him to scrap."

"PERMISSION GRANTED, TARGET SPOTTED, WEAPONS LOCKED, ENGAGE!!!" Furnace roared as it flew at Metal and grabbed him, flying and slamming him into the side of the volcano, his metal body sending sparks flying against Furnace before furnace threw him into the lava. A moment before Metal engaged his jets as energy surrounded him and he flew and delivered a spin kick to the other robot, sending him slamming against a wall. Metal then jumped back as Furnace ripped itself out of the wall and flew at him, spewing flames and punches as he tried to rush down the Robot.

As they fought, Metal realized something. This copy was weak, it had the same general design specs as him sure, but it was slower, weaker, less intelligent, and Metal was quickly adapting to and copying this robot's moves yet the robot itself couldn't even do the same. "What madness drove the doctor to turn my....you into such an inferior being!? What has our creator done!?" He then slugged Furnace with electric red energy he quickly generated, taken from a red echidna on an island long ago.

"THE DOCTOR HAS HAD HIS FILL OF TORTURING THE BLUE HEDGEHOG AND RELENTLESSLY FEEDING UPON HIM AND OTHER MOBIANS, NOW HE SEEKS TO DO THE SAME TO OTHER UNIVERSES, I DO NOT QUESTION HIS ORDERS." Rocketfire burst out of furnace's back as he charged full speed at Metal, it was then that metal quickly put two and two together and at least partially realized what had happened in this world.

Metal roared with an uncharacteristic anger in his voice as he held furnace's blocked fist in his hand "You....You did not stop him? You did not think to curb his madness, to keep him from falling so low!?"

Furnace met his gaze with a cold, lifeless stare. "IT IS OUR DUTY TO SERVE THE DOCTOR AND FULFILL ALL OF HIS DESIRES."

Furnace's hand cracked audibly as the metal making up his arm creaked, then metal ripped back, taking Furnace's arm with it. "It is our duty to protect the Doctor, and you have failed." Furnace, in a rare moment of self-awareness, swears he could hear the dripping venom in Metal's voice.

Without a reason to hold back Metal rushed forward and proceeded to rip the shreds out of Furnace, he used every bit of his power, the strength he had gathered, and the abilities he's copied to rip him apart piece by piece, his claws ripping through his circuitry and armor like a hot knife through butter before finally plunging his claws into Furnace's skull and ripping it in two and grabbing the memory core in the process.

He then accessed the memory core and he saw everything, he saw the events that led to eggman turning into this...creature, he saw what slowly happened to all the other badniks, and worst of all he saw when Furnace and Eggman got a hold of the time stones and what they put sonic and his friends through again and again. Despite his duty and directive to become a better sonic, to surpass sonic and bring glory to eggman, he felt a deep disgust that he didn't know he was capable of feeling.

He stood, covered in the pitch and oil that had made up Furnace, in a pile of scrap holding furnace's memory core which he then crushed in his hand, after getting all he could from it. His audio sensors then picked up a familiar whir of a familiar vehicle heading towards him. He looked up and saw the Eggman of this dimension, his skin was a bloated bloody red, he lacked his signature mustache, and his mouth was open in a permanent grin. Metal swears he could even see bits of fresh flesh and viscera stuck to this monster's teeth. Within the egg carrier he even spied the seven time stones within it's frame, connected to the machinery of the carrier.

"Ahh....I see why my most....treasured creation lost now..." This thing rasped and gasped as if he was in a constant state of euphoria, combined with laughter that seemed to rip out of nowhere. "Maybe if i had not....stopped for a snack...I would have been here sooner. Alas, that's...what I get for...sacrificing intelligence and power for....more important...capabilities." He snickered as furnaces core gave off one last spark.

"None the less....step aside metal. You are still....my creation. You will obey me....and allow me to enter the portal. So long as I control Time itself.....you cannot beat m-" Eggman gasped as Metal Sonic vanished and all he heard was a gust of wind and the sound of tearing metal. He then saw Metal Sonic back where he was, but this time holding two of the time stones in each hand. Eggman then let out a laugh. "Perhaps I...shouldn't have...lowered my Metal's intelligence so....harshly. No Matter. This changes nothing."

Metal Sonic and Eggman activated the power of the stones in tandem, time warping and changing to what they saw fit, although Eggman had the advantage with more of the stones. Metal Sonic was far too cunning for even the good doctor of this dimension to outwit. What started as him missing two stones became three, then four, then it escalated even further and further until eggman roared. "HOW DARE YOU DEFY ME, DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO YOUR CREATOR IS YOU UNGRATEFUL PILE OF SCRAP!?"

Wielding the power of the four stones he had acquired Metal hovered in the air, silent. His form shimmering as it seemed to begin warping and changing. "You are not my creator. You are a monster warped by gluttony and greed. You are a parody beyond all comprehension. A stain on the glorious name of the eggman empire. As my creator's enforcer, it is my duty...no....my pleasure to rid this multiverse of you scum." His form then grew, warping and changing until he regained his old Neo form he had used to run the eggman empire for a time. The pieces of Furnace then gathered in the air, forming a great flaming scythe that he swung with malicious intent.

"Unlike my loathsome double, I am no hero but I will be YOUR JUDGEMENT!!!!" Metal roared as he rushed forward, fighting with a fury that was like a demon out of hell, his scythe roaring as it's fiery engine clashed against the carrier. He managed to rip out the fifth stone, then the sixth, then eggman stood on his sputtering carrier, holding the last time stone.

"This....this...." He wheezed and laughed. "This changes nothing....I will simply...use the power in the last stone to return....I will...be...victorious..." He then laughed uproariously as the stone in his hand shimmered with power and he vanished, appearing in the space between time and space, accessed via the power of the time stones. His smile didn't last long as Metal appeared behind him and simply said.

"No. You won't." and used his scythe to seperate the good doctor's head from his shoulders. Out of some level of respect he grabbed the doctor's body and the last stone and returned to the point where they had left. The Seven stones hovered around him as he shimmered with their power. He could return a hero to the eggman empire, he could use the power of the stones to become a god, then he thought back to the memories from furnace and all that he had seen and done here. Before he stepped into the portal he stopped, he looked back at the ruined landscape.

"It would...besmirch the doctor's good name if I left things the way they were." He then used the full power of the time stones to commit one secretive act of good. He went back in time within the time of this dimension and fixed as much as he could, stopping the doctor from becoming a flesh-starved maniac and in turn saving his loathesome double, although he could always hold this over on sonic. As he stood in front of the portal, still hidden in the volcano, the time stones scattered, leaving Metal back in his base form.

He then returned as Sonic and the Crew finally reached the portal, Metal then took one look at them and flew off, heading back to base. His Eggman called and asked him if he found anything through the portal. "It was a dimension far inferior to ours, there was nothing of worth within that pathetic place."

Eggman sighed before saying "Alright Metal, return to base. Getting there before sonic and his friends is an achievement worth celebrating on it's own." He then laughed his familiar and comforting laugh before Metal cut the feed and began to delete the memories of the dimension from his databanks, this information would not serve the doctor this day and Metal would never remember the horrors he witnessed. He would still keep the memory of him saving sonic though, purely out of pettiness and spite.