For the glory of Eggman

Metal Sonic-or rather Neo Metal Sonic, as he had decided to call himself since his upgrade- had to physically stop himself from crushing the console to which he had been connected seconds ago to control his personal Eggbot. He was a robot, and therefore neither needed nor had to breathe, but that didn't stop him from shakin in a way that suggested panting to anyone seeing it.

Nearby, Orbot and Cubot (whom Neo Metal Sonic had acquired and brought to his ship so that Eggman would have a form of stress relief that also served as a butler and a dim but useful robot, respectively, when he returned) watched as their current master stood on his seat.

"Sheesh, the new boss is angry." Cubot said outloud before Orbot grabbed his head.

"Shh, quiet!"

Fortunately for the spheroid snarker and the cubical moron, Eggman's most prized creation was too busy thinking to even bother to glare at them.

The long-term plan he schemed was simple: disguise himself as Doctor Eggman and assume temporary control of what remained of his Empire, organize the surviving Badniks find and then bring back or rescue Dr. Eggman, and conquer the world again, this time permanently. He had everything: enough Badniks to cause trouble, surveillance devices everywhere that looked for Eggman day and night...

And then everything fell apart when he discovered his maker living by his name on a village in the middle of a forest westward of Seaside City.

He had found out the presence of Dr. Eggman when, one day, one of the surveillance satellites, put in orbit during the Empire's heyday to seek out so-called Resistance cells (the rebels, the terrorists that opposed Eggman's rule), was destroyed by something crashing into it. At first Neo Metal Sonic thought it had been a passing asteroid, a meteor, or a collision with another satellite, only to discover that the culprit in question, if it could be called that, was a spherical lump of dirt, stone, and what seemed to be... trash?

How did a pile of useless materials end up in high orbit, and why? Heck, who would be daring enough (or foolish) to do so, and why?

He found his answer in the form of what now he realized was Eggman himself, living in Floral Forest Village, a place he hadn't bothered to watch due to it's location and simplicity. Of course, in those days he thought otherwise.

The stranger had the exact height and eyes of Eggman, but aside from that he was the antithesis of the good doctor: musclebound tree trunks instead of slender and lithe poles as limbs, a thick barbaric beard where the sophisticated moustache should be, a small but clearly tough gut instead of the spherical belly... Even the nose was different, if just by a couple of inches! His brain capacity was probably reduced to compensate the bulging muscle mass, despite proof of the contrary with the simple but efficient vertical wind turbines, the rude but functional hovercars... and the promising but underused magnetic accelerator.

"You know, Orbot, how long has he been like that?"

"I said quiet!"

The last made Neo Metal Sonic something to think. While things like alternate energy sources and means of transport were superfluous at best (especially since the former was nothing compared to Chaos Emeralds or even nuclear fission, and the latter already existed, if only in small numbers), a trash-disposal device that could easily be repurposed as the ultimate artillery despite being inmobile was not. Indeed, Neo Metal Sonic could already see it, hypersonic kinetic projectiles weighing several tons each striking far-faway with pinpoint accuracy. He only had to conquer the village, modify the weapon, and then make superior copies that could move.

It was much, much harder that in seemed, and in the end, a failure, because not only the village was guarded not just by the Chaotix, Rouge the Bat and a highly advanced and powerful robot of unknown manufacture, the look-alike's muscles were in fact not for show; the man, despite having a broken arm, was more than capable of fighting just as well as the others, if not better thanks to his greater size and strength.

Neo Metal Sonic then decided to test him. If he really was Eggman, then he would allow the Eggbot to 'terminate' a few of the townsfolk, if only to focus on focus on the real threat. If not, it would demonstrate that the brute was just another goody-two shoes follower of his inferior prototype.

Instead, the look-alike put himself between the machine and the rabbits, receiving a short yet quick hail of supersonic shells, enough to pierce any land vehicle in Mobius smaller than a three-storey house. And yet, despite that and being sent back several meters, not only did the man survive the attack, he also destroyed the Eggbot with nothing but a single arm! He passed out less than a minute later due to the wounds he received and bloodloss, but that didn't change the fact he was strong.

Even then, Neo Metal Sonic was fairly certain that, as intelligent and strong as the man was, he was not Eggman at all, just a loathsome copy, just like the hedgehog, although one strong enough to fight Shadow himself on relatively even ground, as he later found out reviewing cameras that recorded the battle.

That intrigued him. Maybe the brute was somehow related to Eggman after all. A clonation project? A test subject for future physical upgrades, even though the doctor was the pinnacle of non-assisted organics? He needed to research more, so after a week of doing nothing to make the Restoration relax, he attacked Seaside City, a much larger metropolis that, while possessing a police force and being also the home of the Chaotix, was not prepared for an organized assault. Sure enough, Sonic, the Chaotix, and the parody of Eggman arrived at the city and wiped out the Badnik battallion.

Then, things got interesting: after saving civilians from a burning building and receiving a brick to the head, the parody responded by throwing it back at the culprit. That wasn't necessarily a proof that he was Eggman, since anyone that wasn't 'good' enough would have done that.

And then the 'parody' said something that only he and a (very) few others kenw; his name, his REAL name, Ivo Robotnik. Not many people knew the real name of Dr. Eggman: the Doctor himself, Sonic and his circle of friends, the traitor Shadow, the busty bat female, and Neo Metal Sonic. True, there was the possibility that either Sonic or his friends told him of the name, but the way he said it...

"Hello there!"

Neo Metal Sonic optics widened, and the robot looked backwards so fast it could have not been seen.

He was a male platypus, covered in white fur and a black beak, dressed in a purple and red tuxedo with golden cuffs and prince-nez glasses, plus a brown glove on his left hand, with three thick black hair tuffs combed on the side of his head. He was grinning at him.

The eyes, the glasses, the smug grin and his overall appearance was one of the reasons Neo Metal Sonic didn't blast the platypus to oblivion, the other being genuine interest at why would someone be there, and the main one wanting to know just how, HOW (and why) did the platypus slip past the security system of the ship.

"Speak. And explain."

"Where are my manners?" The platypus said with a little bow. "My name is Doctor Starline. You could consider me a... scholar, even fanboy, of the incredible Doctor Eggman, the man who managed to conquer all of Mobius... at least until that cursed Sonic escaped and ruined everything." He growled the last part.

Another organic that hated that cursed prototype? And a doctor that looked up to Eggman? It seemed that Sonic was in fact wrong, that were people out there that without brainwashing or as a mean to their own selfish desires.

"As for how I managed to get here..." He said before thrusting his gloved hand forwards and opening it, showing an orange stone with a red spiral on it. "The Warp Topaz. I believe I don't have to explain what to do to the powerful Metal Sonic.

He didn't, despite Cubot stupidly asking what it did. The Topaz, as the name implied, was capable of warping space, allowing whoever had it in their possession to create miniature wormholes to travel any distance... or redirect attacks if timed well. Whoever, it only worked only with organic energy waves, so robots couldn't use it.

"Why are you here?" Neo Metal Sonic asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Doctor Starline chuckled as he walked towards him. "I want to help yo to bring your maker back, defet the Restoration, destroy Sonic and restore his empire. Well, that is technically a means to an end, since what I really want is to be next to the most briliant, evil scientist ever to walk Mobius."

Starline kept talking, but Neo Metal Sonic wasn't paying attention.

If the robotic hedgehog had a mouth, he would be grinning.