Hello, internet! Well, this is a fun little one-shot idea I came up with after watching a video on the whole "Metal Sonic is a Roboticized Sonic" theory, and I thought it'd be fun to have Sonic learn that horrible truth in a manner similar to the unmasking of Savitar from Season 3 of The Flash. Well, enjoy!

Sonic the Hedgehog arrived in a blue blur just outside the ruins of Knothole, home of the Freedom Fighters Against Robotnik during their the war against the Robotnik Empire.

"Metal! Where are you?! I'm here! I'm here!" yelled the blue hedgehog.

In a flash of yellow electricity, Sonic's robotic doppleganger, Neo Metal Sonic, appeared before him, his burning red eyes piercing Sonic's bright green ones.

"I know who you really are."

"It's about time."

"Yes, it is. Everything with you has always been about time, isn't it? Time you lost. The past, the present, the future. I mean, you know all of it, right? And you know everything about me! About Uncle Chuck! About Tails… and Amy! You know our strengths, you know our fears. You know how much we love each other. And you know how to use that love against us. All this time, we thought that we couldn't stop you because you were one step ahead, but that's not it, is it?! You don't just know what's gonna happen to us. You were there, weren't you? You lived it. You remember... when you were me."

A moment of dead silence passed by, before pressure hatches on Metal Sonic's face began to open up and come loose, and allowing Metal to finally reach up and remove it, revealing the hideously scarred face of the horribly familiar blue hedgehog underneath.

"Like I told you from the beginning, my loathsome copy…" the unmasked cyborg said in a raspier version of an all too familiar voice as he opened his eyes, one blood red, the other a horribly familiar shade of green.

"I... am the real Sonic the Hedgehog."

Sonic was at a complete and utter loss for words as he stared at his evil twin, who had a smile on his face that the blue blur hoped with all his heart would never appear on his face again.

"It must be like looking in a mirror. Am I right, Sonikku? Well… per-perhaps n-n-not," Metal said, before he started to cough violently to the point where blood started to come up. He quickly put his mask back on and took several long, deep breaths.

"I… I don't understand. How can you be Metal Sonic? How can… how can I be Metal Sonic?" asked Sonic in a horrified whisper.

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?" Metal Sonic said as he straightened up to face his copy once more. "You remember our first meeting, correct? On Little Planet? Fun fact: you were supposed to lose there. And I trust you remember what happens to those who lose in the little game you and Dr. Eggman have been playing all this time?"

"'Losers get roboticized,'" said Sonic, recalling what Eggman had once told him. "But, you're a cyborg… and if I really was supposed to lose on Little Planet, then how are you still here? Shouldn't you be erased from existence?"

Metal heaved a sigh. "There are times I wish I had been. Then I wouldn't have to feel this pain. But, unfortunately for us both, the Time Stones kept me around until Dr. Eggman reactivated me, and I made my way, broken and weak, back to his base for repairs. You see, Sonic, you didn't fix the "Bad Future" of Stardust Speedway. You didn't change anything on Little Planet, the Time Stones saw to that."

"Why did you go back in time in the first place?" asked Sonic.

"Simple, really. The Dr. Eggman of my timeline, the Dr. Eggman of the 'Bad Future,' sent me back in time to ensure his victory against you," explained Metal. "But, you know, a funny thing happened when he did. You defeated me in that race on Little Planet, you defeated Dr. Eggman. I was left to die on Stardust Speedway's track until Eggman reactivated me. Prior to our second meeting, I absorbed a strange purple artifact. It was like waking from a deep sleep. I thought of only one thing: to reunite with Tails, my beloved Rose, and my friends. And then, who should I meet, but you? Tails, Amy, everyone believed you to be me. Do you know what it's like to have your little brother and the woman you love recoil in fear from you, and attack you without a second thought, never realizing they were held under a pretender's spell?"

"But, why not become a hero in you own right? Why become the Metal Overlord?"

"I was broken and alone. I just wanted the pain to end. Then, it hit me: Gods like Chaos feel no pain, do they? All I needed to do was become one, and if everyone I loved and cared about was a machine like myself, and you were dead, then I wouldn't be alone anymore. I wouldn't have to hurt anymore," said Metal Sonic. "My ascendency is coming, my loathsome copy. When organics fall to the Metal Kingdom, and I reign supreme over the Metal Kingdom, it shall be you who is abandoned and forgotten, as if you never existed!"

"That's not gonna happen, Metal!" said Sonic before he Spin Dashed into his cyborg clone, knocking him to the ground.

"Fool," said Metal before he fired a bolt of lightning from his hand, sending Sonic flying off. Metal then continued to pour lightning into Sonic, who screamed and groaned on the ground in agony, before he stopped the attack.

"As much as I'd love to kill you now and be done with it, I have other matters to attend to. See you soon, Sonic," said Metal before he took to the air and left the battered and injured hero on the ground.

Sonic's last thought before he lost consciousness was this: I gotta stop Metal Sonic… I gotta stop… me.

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