wrote this in my notes app a couple (?) days ago and decided to post it here. it's a self indulgent little what-if sonic 4 ending scenario, minimal editing has been done except for a few sentences i've attempted rephrasing since i first jotted it down. Even my sporadic "authors notes" are thrown in there and i didnt bother cutting them out lol:
Had the idea last night regarding metal sonics end or wtv
Where it plays out similarly to the ova
Except the person metal rescues is amy
After amy sacrifices herself for sonic.
Both metal and sonic are heavily injured and sonic is barely standing. Metal also seems to struggle, his movements clunky and sparking everywhere. He starts charging up for what is clearly a final charge at sonic, aiming to launch sonic into the firey magma pit behind him—a crater from one of sonic and metal's more powerful crash landings—, and blasts off. Sonic can't move out of the way fast enough, and the others are seen to be struggling against the metal horde too far from sonic to reach him or metal in time to intervene, as metal and sonic's battle had taken them a long distance away.
But just before metal collides with sonic, amy, who is injured herself, reaches them and pushes sonic out of the way. (blah blah blah, why not push metal instead? Uh, bc hes going so fast she would literally just be knocked aside, its called physics)
The shot slows down enough to see sonic's panicked eyes, and amy's blooming pain as metal's claws dig into her collar and torso, then returns to actual speed, and we barely glimpse amy and metal shooting off screen and into the inferno blazing in the background. (Its some kinda mix of explosions and the lava at the bottom okkk just picture a volcanic eruption)
Sonic shouts amy's name, but barely has the strength to right himself into kneeling and attempting to crawl towards where lava spews into the air. It is then that Shadow teleports into the scene, as he had joined the fight partway through near the end, having been vaguely informed of the situation by amy sometime during their first meeting (which just so happened to be during this very fight, or maybe in an earlier fight with metal?) (when at one point sonic was knocked far into the woods by metal and amy had chased after to find him and accidentally ran into shadow and hugged /him/, instead).
Shadow is aware, or not entirely concerned, that the other colorful members of sonic's team are not with him, but he looks around with intense focus for Amy. "Where is she?" he demands of sonic, who he notes seems heavily injured but at least is present. Sonic turns his head towards the blazing inferno ahead of them, knowing he didn't have to expend energy and focus on forming an answer.
Shadow stares into the fire and smoke and spurting /lava/ and, uncharacteristically, finds himself unable to move, unflinching at the red hot lava that showers down like glowing rain. The hellish glow is mirrored in his eyes, as if we are seeing into a memory. He hadn't known Amy long, but her excitable and open demeanor had made an impression on him. But he can think or say nothing, and only gapes.
There is a muted but hellish spark of anger between both hedgehogs as a bleary but unmistakable silhouette casts its shadow amidst the smoke. Metal sonic, enveloped in his now familiar translucent, spherical shield, drifts slowly, tiredly, to the edge of the crater.
She's awake, both needing and allowing herself to be carried to relative safety. But they've barely reached the lip of the crater when Metal's shield fizzles and flickers out of existence, and she falls out of his hold as his arms and body collapse, evidently having used up the last of its power. Amy lands at the mouth of the crater, just one hand catching on the edge and slipping on the crumbling surface. Metal falls like a bird out of the sky, just out of amy's reach and tumbling down towards the sputtering lava pool below.
Amy cries out for Metal, turned away from the others and clearly intending to let go in search of him. Shadow had reached Amy first, attempting to pull her out and away from the fire. Sonic reaches them right after, having had a moment to get (some of) his bearings and additionally motivated into action upon seeing Amy in need of help.
Sonic peers over the edge of the crater and sees Metal had tumbled down it and barely stopped himself with his claws at the lava's edge, that which is steadily rising. It would reach him in moments.
Had Amy not begged to be allowed to go to Metal, had Sonic not known Amy and Metal had once been friends, had Sonic not witnessed Metal save Amy when he could have let her perish and further clear his path to victory, it wouldn't have mattered. Sonic couldn't allow Metal to win, but he couldn't allow Metal to die.
Knowing Amy is in good hands, and that Shadow would take too long to be convinced into helping, Sonic slides down into the crater, managing to skid to a stop just above Metal's position. He reaches out, calling for Metal to grab a hold of his hand. Sonic's heart clenches—and, he's sure Amy's nearly breaks—watching Metal struggling to claw himself upwards, as if trying to escape the furnace at his feet. Sonic's hand trembles, arm and fingers outstretched as far as they go. Metal, pitifully, paws clumsily in his direction, and just when their hands make contact, it's in the same motion that Metal slaps Sonic's hand away.
(The rest is basically the OVA ending with Metal speaking one last message to sonic, but in this case probably both "there is only one sonic" and something alluding to Amy, but i'd have to workshop"" a phrase not too complex. Basically i dont want him to allude to amy too directly with words, like "tell her im sorry" or "im sorry my friend". I want it to be clear but unsaid, so im thinking—)
—Metal raises his head to look up at where Amy is, to see her one last time, (she stares right back), and simply says "I'm sorry." He doesn't have to tell sonic to communicate this for Metal. Metal is sonic; he /knows/ Sonic will tell Amy. And then the lava creeps up on Metal, slowly smelting him before their very eyes. Amy screams for him, but his eyes shut off at some point as his core systems fail and his power is finally depleted.
Ofc metal's memory is partially or fully backed up in some server somewhere and so they could bring This metal back ykno with a new body just bc i feel itd be cheap to use the excuse of "his memory was wiped/his data was destroyed" just to avoid having to sort out where to take his character in a sequel. But if his data was mostly or completely lost, we could still go the heroes route and just, have metal ykno recognize amy or whatever and refrain from following through on his world ruling goal. Or something.
so that was my note, it actually is longer than i thought it was lmao. If i ever sorta actually "clean this up" i might have something to post to ao3, but i get bad carpal tunnel plus procrastination so who knows when I'd actually get around to that. anyways i just love the sonic ova and that one person's idea of metamy having been childhood friends in the movie verse 😭
