The Long Road

[Metallix]

[from cross country]

So finally, after a hell of a long trip and lots of confusion in his confused and immature mind, Metallix - most certainly the oldest, never mind the most unique, of the Metal Sonics - had arrived on Little Planet. Glancing upwards, he saw Mobius and blipped his eyes; kind of a blinking expression. If he were to sever the chain, then the little ball of rock would be free again... but it served him no purpose to perform such an act so he left it well alone.

Metallix took a moment to take in his new surroundings, seeing as how the place would shelter him for the time being. He'd gotten around had ol' Metallix... Scrap Brain, the fortress island, underwater base, Station Square, Never Lake and then Capitol City... and now he was revisiting the scenes of his past.
Although he found it odd... he'd never been here of all places despite his affinity with the planet. This was the greenest of the zones here, perhaps that was why he never bothered with the place - he was a darker person back then.

No, not a person. An entity, programmed to go here, kill there, do this, do that.
Hell, his primary objective, last time he checked, was to hunt and kill Sonic. Firing up the mission log, Metallix looked for directives, objectives, missions... anything.
And they all came back the same - kill Sonic.

He scrunched up a metallic hand, cursing silently. There were still elements of Robotnik within his systems - despite his best efforts, he was still potentially in trouble.

#Main Ground Propulsion Online...[]
Legs were online? Metallix blinked again, as he slid off the chain onto his feet. The bashed and spintered feet landed softly on some lush, green grass. Metallix looked down, then around once again. This green stuff just went on and on and on... and was unspoilt by the doctor's wars. There were no signs of any badniks or machines... a rare place in today's world.

To the left, a palm tree on the edge of a cliff dazzled slightly in the bright sunlight. It seemed to bear the most plump pink fruits known, and the tree's bark was decorated in vivid triangles and diamonds that also shone in the light. The tree's leafy top swayed gently as a breeze sailed by, as did some star-shaped hedges scattered here and there.
Over to the right, a stream could be heard descending off the edge of a cliff. Curiousity got the better of Metallix, so he clomped his way over - very much aware that he was putting rather heavy footprints in the soft, untrodden earth.
As an afterthought, Metallix willed the nanites to fix the gyro next, so he could get about a little quicker without having to second-guess everything...

Reaching the stream, the water flowing there was incredibly clear and passed over a riverbed made up of small pebbles, each rounded so smoothly that merely touching them would ruin their perfect surface and texture.
Metallix shuddered; why was he having thoughts like this? He was a machine, and supposedly unable or incapable... whichever... of feeling stuff like this. He splashed a foot gingerly into the stream, and watched as mud and silt came off into the stream clouding the view of the pebble formation. The robot cocked his head one way, then the other before immersing his entire foot and swishing it about a little to clean it off.
Bringing the foot out the water and back onto dry land, Metallix looked at it as it dried off reasonably quickly. The original red paint from his first form was poking through... why of why did he try to take on this huge, aggressive form?

His eyes followed the flow of the stream, towards where it fell over the edge of the cliff and down to the ground below. Walking to the edge, Metallix saw a decent sized lake just about ten feet below, with several smaller streams breaking away and going downhill feeding other streams and flowing into other deposits of water such as this. The sun shone off the surface and dazzled Metallix, causing him to quickly bring a metal hand up to shield his eyes. A moment later, his vision adjusted to compensate for the extra input and he lowered his hand.
The lake, as the stream, was crystal clear. The muddy deposits from the robot's now cleaned foot had dissipated into nothingness, and the pebbles positively sparkled here.

Especially that little cluster there. It had a greenish tint to it.

Something within the robot's battered body urged him.. get that shiny.

Taking a hesitant step towards a slope leading down to the edge of the lake, Metallix looked again and tilted his head, before turning his chassis to face the pool. Taking a run-up, the robot jumped off the edge of the cliff and fell ten feet downwards, landing with an almighty splash in the waters below. His legs buckled at the knees slightly, so Metallix went with the flow and let them take him down, into the shallow depths of the pool.
Now sitting in the pond, the water came up to about his waist. Metallix slapped a hand happily on the water... it felt so wrong for an artificial, war machine such as himself, to be enjoying this, but what the hell. His eyes changed from "0 0" to a "^ ^" shape as he paddled about for a few minutes, before relaxing and allowing his hands to rest below the water's surface. His attention returned to the green pebble in the water, a few feet in front of him.

Leaning forwards, a metallic hand clawed its way around the pebble and gripped firmly before pulling back. Raising his hand out of the water to see his catch, Metallix would have gasped if he had lungs; the green glow had gone from the pebble!
Looking back into the water, he could see it was still there - and glowing a little brighter... was something buried there?
Using his hands to pull himself forwards some more - knees dragging along the pool's bed and kicking up a dusty, silty mud into the water - Metallix began using both hands to try and remove the obstructing pebbles, that were obscuring his green glow.

Little by little, as more stones were removed and idly thrown to one side, the robot began to realise this was no ordinary rock he was beginning to excavate. It pulsed a green light, and this was with filters on his vision too. As more of this green gem was revealed, Metallix's eyes blipped once more.
This gem was almost like...

He reached down under the water once more, to touch it. Gently, he locked his fingers around what appeared to be the top of it. Green energy pulsed from it directly into him - but it didn't hurt. If anything... it felt kinda good.
Shocked from the outside energy source, Metallix let go and looked at it properly once more.
Might be an idea to stop acting like an eight year old human child and scan this item... the robot concluded.

POWER SOURCE OF UNDETERMINABLE DURATION, POWER, VOLTAGE NOR AMMPAGE. SHAPE AND SIZE SUGGEST THIS TO BE A CHAOS EMERALD.

Metallix blinked, his head clearing up quickly.

~Gyroscopemeter Repairs Competed...[]
The robot made a "-_-" gesture with his eyes, before turning it into "- -"
A brief input of energy, and it fixed my gyro. I don't need to spend a month here after all.

Digging a hand into the waters once again, Metallix gripped and pulled, the rare gem of collosal power coming out with a tug or two. As it came out of the pool it shone brightly, illuminating the immediate area in a warm green aura.

There were mountains in the distance, and a large stretch of water that oozed with purity. Palm trees and starbushes bobbed gently in the wind, and plastic-looking flowers carried on with their job of looking pretty.

But all Metallix was concerned with was the fact that he'd found it... and it all now starts with this - a jewel containing the ultimate power... a Chaos Emerald.

[Metallix]

Pulling himself out of the pool, Metallix stood with the sun behind him, the Chaos Emerald in both hands. It hovered an inch or so above the opened out palms, casting a green light upon the robot's features.

"So I Tapped Into This Thing's Powers Without Realising, And Healed Up My Legs. It Also Began Work On My Gyro... But How Does That Work When I'm A Killing Machine...?" he mused out loud, retracting a hand and repositioning it on top of the emerald delicately, spinning it around slowly. He was mesmerised by it, and also confused by this.
Perhaps he could use the jewel to gain some sort of clarity on the situation...

Alright, so I was playing in the water. Splashing around, having fun... hehe, that was kinda amusing...

His eyes changed to a "^^" - at that moment, the emerald glowed again. "What Is This?" he cried out, the power flowing from the emerald and pulsing into him like a violent torrent.
The chaos energy surged through him, amplifying the nanites. At this precise moment, Metallix struck a thought. I had none of these issues when I was simply hunting the hedgehog! his mind screamed, picturing an image of chasing Sonic across Never Lake.

Green energies now surged from the emerald, enveloping Metallix and crackling out in every direction like lightning. His eyes flashed on and off violently, his arms now shot outwards and fingers stretched out too. His legs felt very stiff, yet his entire chassis vibrated as the currents passed through every nut, bolt, rivel and weld within him.

His fingers were still humanoid, but now there were rubber grips growing on his fingertips, and palms of the hands.
His armour plating straightened out, and the paint regrew on it where it had chipped off in a deeper shade of blue. The five spikes on his head remoulded themselves, taking on a more curved appearance. His shoulder and leg joints - the ones connecting the limbs to the main chassis - took on a more complex spherical design, rather than simply being a ball they were now decorated with join lines, and flashing LEDs here and there - this also happened with the torso.His forearms and shins were also bulking up, and more electronics moved internally. His foot separated into a two-piece system, allowing it to flex and also meant minor in-flight adjustment of thrust angle.
Inside the robot, the energy passed on through many circuit boards and corrupted them, transforming them instead into a massive silver goop akin to mercury. This flowed along all the old wiring rather like a blood stream. Even his black box was a part of this process, and his hydraulic fluids... it all ebbed and flowed through him.

Finally, the emerald's energy ceased and it dropped to the ground with a gentle thud, bouncing on the grass beneath. Metallix blinked... had he changed shape again?
Extending a hand and looking at it carefully, drumming his fingers outwards on an invisible surface, Metallix was amused. He'd taken on yet more humanoid qualities, yet regained a lot of his original appearance. Almost as though he'd been given a much better upgrade to before... fingers crossed this was the last of them now!

He bend down to pick up the emerald, the stone now just glowing faintly with his touch. Weighting up the gem in his hand, Metallix scanned his systems once more.

#Systems Green Across The Board.
#Directive...[] the HUD flashed up. Metallix made a "-_" gesture, as though raising an eyebrow. He queried the directive.

#Supply Directive...[]
#No Directive, Please Supply...[]

There was no mission to kill Sonic...? Metallix almost felt liberated. At least the nanites were mostly intact, should he need some sort of repairs.

It was time to go for a spin.

[Metallix]

Concealing the emerald within a convenient hole in his main torso, Metallix popped the hatch back over it. The emerald should be safe amongst the fuel cells... or whatever they were now, he wasn't sure.
Firing up the main thruster gently rather than his usual full-power bursts, Metallix lifted himself up gradually from the grass beneath him and propelled himself back towards the chain.

He wished to get his revenge upon Robotnik for enslaving him with mechanical restraints and giving him fixed programming... it didn't matter to him that the dictator had been the one who'd created him. Metallix was no longer an instrument of war, save to bring down the Empire and every little thing the "good doctor" stood for.
Did this make him as bad and evil as Robotnik? Metallix didn't care, he would worry about consequences later on.

Swerving upwards now, Metallix began his steady ascent into the clouds, and back towards Mobius and Never Lake. That'd have to be his first port of call; he would have to find some sort of sheet to throw over himself so he could travel about on foot a lot more. Lots less conspicuous than simply flying everywhere.

[To Never Lake]