Post by Jamie Lee on Sept 26, 2006 2:55:33 GMT -5
This fic's hit seventy pages and still going, and I've absolutely dying to show it off because quite frankly it's the only story I've ever written I actually feel proud of @__@ So in the meantime here's a preview from it.
Tis called System Shock, and it's my idea of what it would be like if Metal Sonic became an organic hedgehog. It's SatAM/pre-50 Archie based, so if you have a problem with that I suggest leaving now. And no. My sert's not in this.
So uh. Yeah. Enjoy. And stuff.
------
It was some time later. Laying on what appeared to be an operating table surrounded by various equipment, a blue hedgehog had slowly begun to stir. His still closed eyes twitched and his shoulders convulsed, lips slowly working as a groan escaped his throat.
What was this sensation he felt? It was utterly foreign to him. He tried to find a logical explanation, but couldn't. He tried to compare it to something familiar, but found himself unable. It was new. It bothered him. He felt uncomfortable and it began to frighten him.
In reality it was tempreture of the room, the coldness of the table and his weight pressing against it--but he couldn't recognize that.
There was something else too. His sensors were completely gone, as well as the familiar feint hum of his processor that he usually found himself ignoring. He knew organic creatures lacked these things, but he never realized just how... stripped he would feel without them. He tried to call on his location and status, only to receieve nothing more than his mind reaching out to what felt like an invisible wall. Not even something as simple as the time could he seem to pull up. He may as well have had an arm lopped off. His fear intensified.
Get up... I have to get up...
Metal shifted uncomfortably, his teeth gritting weakly and his face contorting into a deep grimace. His body felt heavy and refused to respond with anything short of light spasms, each little muscle twitch sending a foreign jolt to his brain that continued to confuse and frighten him.
I must get up...
Finally, after a heavy struggle, he finally managed to slowly crack his eyes open--and then he immediately winced as pain surged through his dialated pupils, shrinking them instantly, blinding him, and causing him to squeeze them back shut out of reflex. Almost as immediate, Metal felt panic rising up in his chest as the pain hit him. It was different from the other sensations so far, and it was much, much worse. It caused his chest to heave and pull in a quick, shakey breath as his heart began to race. His eyes continued to burn and ache, and his head was now beginning to throb massively as a migrain shot from one side of his head to another. Metal understood none of this.
"Patient is conscious and appears stable." he heard a monotone voice drone somewhere off to the side.
Appears stable?! Metal found himself outraged. Why couldn't he move?! Why couldn't he speak?! Slowly his breathing began to quicken, his panic settling heavier by the second, a heart monitor by his side beeping more rapidly in result. Had something gone wrong?!
He tried to speak out, but all he found himself rewarded with was another groan.
Get up... get up... I have to see... I have to get up... Why can I not get up?!
He blinked rapidly several times, eyes still adjusting to the light. Finally he sucked in a deep breath out of brute determination and put every ounce of his mental strength into willing this body to sit up.
Slowly it began to comply. He felt his every muscle move as his arms shifted back, hands pressing down onto the cold table as they began their strenuous task of pulling the weight of his torso up. His arms wobbled feebily like jelly and his head flopped into his chest, he could feel the swirl of air around his face and the shifting of the spikes on his head with gravity and momentum as this happened. But after a few minutes of grunting and struggling he finally found himself rewarded by sitting up. Albeit slumped over and exhausted, but he was up and that was a start. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, gulping and panting with exhaustion, hands gripping feebily for anything they could latch onto. He concentrated. The chill in his backside from laying on the table faded after a few lingering seconds, but he could still feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest, as well as the sliding of his jaw as it worked spasmodically. He kept his eyes shut tight and tried to focus. Focus on nothing. To ignore these strange sensations and make them go away. To return to the familiar feeling of no feeling at all.
A moment later he heard the door to the medical ward open.
"Ah, Metal Sonic. It's good to see you stirring." he heard Robotnik's voice say cooly.
His concentration shattered, Metal weakly lifted his head from where it rested on his chest, feeling his neck pop in the process, to look up at the tyrant. He frailly lifted his hand in an attempt to salute him, and instead his only hand left supporting him gave out and he fell back onto the table with a pained grunt.
Robotnik couldn't help but smirk darkly at the struggling and vulnurable hedgehog. Metal Sonic or not he was currently the splitting image of Sonic the Hedgehog, and seeing Sonic struggle so weakly left a warm satisfied feeling in his chest he indulged. He watched as Metal groaned again and shifted, turning his head and looking up toward the tyrant pathetically. Robotnik frowned. Something was off. He stalked up toward Metal, using his thumb and index fingers he forced one of the hedgehog's eyes open to it's fullest extent to examine it. Metal winced uncomfortably at the sensation of being touched, but found himself too weak to protest. Robotnik's frown deepened.
Red. Of all the colors in the spectrum his eyes were red. Sonic's eyes were green. Had the cloning somehow been imperfect?
Metal's jaw continued to work, attempting to form the words his mind wanted badly to say. Finally his throat seemed to have managed to begin responding as he forced out a "Muh-my L--" then before he could finish his sentence his voice trailed off and he dissolved into gasping for air in exhaustion.
The tyrant's mouth thinned. Ignoring the hedgehog he turned and walked over to one of the computer consoles, his fingers beginning to dance rapidly across it's keyboard, bringing up several diagrams and running a series of tests and comparisons.
Metal's eyes closed as he worked on catching his breath. Once again he tried to sit himself up, doing his best to ignore the sensations of touch pummeling him at all sides. He found getting up to be slightly easier this time around. As soon as he was upright again he worked on fighting off the sudden vertigo caused by his efforts.
He closed his eyes and gulped "Is everything... supposed to be... fuzzy...?" he asked between tired breaths. He paused in mild surprise at the sound of his voice. No longer carrying it's robotic overtone, but sounding like a smooth deeper rendition of Sonic.
"You'll get over it," Robotnik waved his hand, mind still focused on the computer monitor before him.
Metal felt his new lips tugging into a frown. After a few moments he felt he had gained enough strength to sit without having to support himself, and instead turned his focus to the new appearance of his body, eyes drifting back and forth over slowly. No longer did he shine and reflect the room's light off his polished surface. Instead, short and coarse cobalt fur spanned the majority of his body, broken only by the soft and shorter peach that covered his belly and arms, his joints connecting smoothly and seamlessly underneath.
Slowly he lifted his hands and began to study over them, utterly fascinated by what he saw. Flexing them repeatedly he took in the sensation of shifting bones and the tugging of the skin stretched over them, watched with amazement as the lines and wrinkles that wrapped around them shifted and danced. He wiggled his fingers curiously, snapped them, turned his hands over and watched the bones in the back of his hand press against the skin as he mentally willed them to work. He took to rubbing his hands together, grimacing mildly, still unused to the sensation of touch.
Robotnik's frown had yet to leave his face. From what he could tell from the scans the computer ran the cloning at been a successful perfect copy of Sonic. This would require more in-depth tests... Hopefully the eyes were the only anomaly.
"From this point on you're being assigned a new unit designation," Robotnik turned suddenly, eyeing the hedgehog who jumped in surprise and turned his head in response to the tyrant's voice "Instead of Metal Sonic, you'll be responding to Merce Shanik."
Tis called System Shock, and it's my idea of what it would be like if Metal Sonic became an organic hedgehog. It's SatAM/pre-50 Archie based, so if you have a problem with that I suggest leaving now. And no. My sert's not in this.
So uh. Yeah. Enjoy. And stuff.
------
It was some time later. Laying on what appeared to be an operating table surrounded by various equipment, a blue hedgehog had slowly begun to stir. His still closed eyes twitched and his shoulders convulsed, lips slowly working as a groan escaped his throat.
What was this sensation he felt? It was utterly foreign to him. He tried to find a logical explanation, but couldn't. He tried to compare it to something familiar, but found himself unable. It was new. It bothered him. He felt uncomfortable and it began to frighten him.
In reality it was tempreture of the room, the coldness of the table and his weight pressing against it--but he couldn't recognize that.
There was something else too. His sensors were completely gone, as well as the familiar feint hum of his processor that he usually found himself ignoring. He knew organic creatures lacked these things, but he never realized just how... stripped he would feel without them. He tried to call on his location and status, only to receieve nothing more than his mind reaching out to what felt like an invisible wall. Not even something as simple as the time could he seem to pull up. He may as well have had an arm lopped off. His fear intensified.
Get up... I have to get up...
Metal shifted uncomfortably, his teeth gritting weakly and his face contorting into a deep grimace. His body felt heavy and refused to respond with anything short of light spasms, each little muscle twitch sending a foreign jolt to his brain that continued to confuse and frighten him.
I must get up...
Finally, after a heavy struggle, he finally managed to slowly crack his eyes open--and then he immediately winced as pain surged through his dialated pupils, shrinking them instantly, blinding him, and causing him to squeeze them back shut out of reflex. Almost as immediate, Metal felt panic rising up in his chest as the pain hit him. It was different from the other sensations so far, and it was much, much worse. It caused his chest to heave and pull in a quick, shakey breath as his heart began to race. His eyes continued to burn and ache, and his head was now beginning to throb massively as a migrain shot from one side of his head to another. Metal understood none of this.
"Patient is conscious and appears stable." he heard a monotone voice drone somewhere off to the side.
Appears stable?! Metal found himself outraged. Why couldn't he move?! Why couldn't he speak?! Slowly his breathing began to quicken, his panic settling heavier by the second, a heart monitor by his side beeping more rapidly in result. Had something gone wrong?!
He tried to speak out, but all he found himself rewarded with was another groan.
Get up... get up... I have to see... I have to get up... Why can I not get up?!
He blinked rapidly several times, eyes still adjusting to the light. Finally he sucked in a deep breath out of brute determination and put every ounce of his mental strength into willing this body to sit up.
Slowly it began to comply. He felt his every muscle move as his arms shifted back, hands pressing down onto the cold table as they began their strenuous task of pulling the weight of his torso up. His arms wobbled feebily like jelly and his head flopped into his chest, he could feel the swirl of air around his face and the shifting of the spikes on his head with gravity and momentum as this happened. But after a few minutes of grunting and struggling he finally found himself rewarded by sitting up. Albeit slumped over and exhausted, but he was up and that was a start. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, gulping and panting with exhaustion, hands gripping feebily for anything they could latch onto. He concentrated. The chill in his backside from laying on the table faded after a few lingering seconds, but he could still feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest, as well as the sliding of his jaw as it worked spasmodically. He kept his eyes shut tight and tried to focus. Focus on nothing. To ignore these strange sensations and make them go away. To return to the familiar feeling of no feeling at all.
A moment later he heard the door to the medical ward open.
"Ah, Metal Sonic. It's good to see you stirring." he heard Robotnik's voice say cooly.
His concentration shattered, Metal weakly lifted his head from where it rested on his chest, feeling his neck pop in the process, to look up at the tyrant. He frailly lifted his hand in an attempt to salute him, and instead his only hand left supporting him gave out and he fell back onto the table with a pained grunt.
Robotnik couldn't help but smirk darkly at the struggling and vulnurable hedgehog. Metal Sonic or not he was currently the splitting image of Sonic the Hedgehog, and seeing Sonic struggle so weakly left a warm satisfied feeling in his chest he indulged. He watched as Metal groaned again and shifted, turning his head and looking up toward the tyrant pathetically. Robotnik frowned. Something was off. He stalked up toward Metal, using his thumb and index fingers he forced one of the hedgehog's eyes open to it's fullest extent to examine it. Metal winced uncomfortably at the sensation of being touched, but found himself too weak to protest. Robotnik's frown deepened.
Red. Of all the colors in the spectrum his eyes were red. Sonic's eyes were green. Had the cloning somehow been imperfect?
Metal's jaw continued to work, attempting to form the words his mind wanted badly to say. Finally his throat seemed to have managed to begin responding as he forced out a "Muh-my L--" then before he could finish his sentence his voice trailed off and he dissolved into gasping for air in exhaustion.
The tyrant's mouth thinned. Ignoring the hedgehog he turned and walked over to one of the computer consoles, his fingers beginning to dance rapidly across it's keyboard, bringing up several diagrams and running a series of tests and comparisons.
Metal's eyes closed as he worked on catching his breath. Once again he tried to sit himself up, doing his best to ignore the sensations of touch pummeling him at all sides. He found getting up to be slightly easier this time around. As soon as he was upright again he worked on fighting off the sudden vertigo caused by his efforts.
He closed his eyes and gulped "Is everything... supposed to be... fuzzy...?" he asked between tired breaths. He paused in mild surprise at the sound of his voice. No longer carrying it's robotic overtone, but sounding like a smooth deeper rendition of Sonic.
"You'll get over it," Robotnik waved his hand, mind still focused on the computer monitor before him.
Metal felt his new lips tugging into a frown. After a few moments he felt he had gained enough strength to sit without having to support himself, and instead turned his focus to the new appearance of his body, eyes drifting back and forth over slowly. No longer did he shine and reflect the room's light off his polished surface. Instead, short and coarse cobalt fur spanned the majority of his body, broken only by the soft and shorter peach that covered his belly and arms, his joints connecting smoothly and seamlessly underneath.
Slowly he lifted his hands and began to study over them, utterly fascinated by what he saw. Flexing them repeatedly he took in the sensation of shifting bones and the tugging of the skin stretched over them, watched with amazement as the lines and wrinkles that wrapped around them shifted and danced. He wiggled his fingers curiously, snapped them, turned his hands over and watched the bones in the back of his hand press against the skin as he mentally willed them to work. He took to rubbing his hands together, grimacing mildly, still unused to the sensation of touch.
Robotnik's frown had yet to leave his face. From what he could tell from the scans the computer ran the cloning at been a successful perfect copy of Sonic. This would require more in-depth tests... Hopefully the eyes were the only anomaly.
"From this point on you're being assigned a new unit designation," Robotnik turned suddenly, eyeing the hedgehog who jumped in surprise and turned his head in response to the tyrant's voice "Instead of Metal Sonic, you'll be responding to Merce Shanik."
