#Not only will I make Scrapnic feel extremely guilty

[cattyanon]

can we go back to the part about scrapnic having programming because now I'm wondering what it'd be like if it DID activate before Tails could get rid of it

At long last I think I'm finally ready to answer this! Before I start, I'd like to say three things.

First is that for anybody whose confused by the ask, the programming is referring to Eggman's programming. The second thing I want to say is that, due to stuff I'm still debating on, the details might change. And lastly, it actually DOES activate before Tails gets rid of it.

Edit: Any sentence with a * followed by a number at the end of it will be something I elaborate on at the end.

To start I want to give a small refresher on an important detail. Specifically why Tails didn't remove the programming from Scrapnic (Sonic's nickname for this AU) when he did the other Scrapniks. Well if your new or you've forgotten, it's because Scrapnic has extreme body dysphoria that lasts for a long while. He hates any and all reminders that he's a robot now.

Moving onto the incident, it happens in the middle of a reunion with all his friends. Even Team Dark is there!

Well unfortunately being surrounded by all his friends enemies starts to trigger something attack protocals in his programming.

Only Scrapnic is able to tell that anything weird is happening due to the fact the only thing glitching out was his interface. (*1) He tries his best to ignore it, despite having promised Tails he'd let him know if anything weird starts to happen, because he doesn't wanna ruin the reunion and then have everybody start worrying about him.

Big mistake on his part.

It's in the middle of conversation when it finally happens.

He's happily exchanging stories with his friends when he suddenly goes completely silent in the middle of sentence, his head and arms going limp. Nobody sees it but his eyes turn from green to red a second or two after his head falls down.

I'm not entirely sure how much time I want to pass before it happens, but eventually his head snaps up and he goes to attack whoever is closest to him. What happens next will indefinitely weigh on Scrapnic's conscience...

Due to how sudden the attack was and his programming planning out what the most effective attack strategy would be, Scrapnic manages to land a blow that causes whoever's on the receiving end to go blind in one eye. Whoever it is now on their knees and bleeding from one eye.

And after a moment of shock, everybody starts to panic in a "wtf do we do now" kind of way.

Someone rushes over to the injured and Scrapnic immediately goes to attack them next. Thankfully, being able to match his speed, Shadow is able to intervene before Scrapnic can get to them. A fight then ensues, but it could hardly be called such. Nobody is willing to actually attack Scrapnic except Omega and risk damaging Scrapnic even further.

What if they manage to knock something loose like Tails accidentally did when they had first reunited? And what if it happens to be something extremely important this time? Would they even be able to fix him? Nobody truly knows the inner workings of Scrapnic's body, Sigma had even admitted he doesn't fully understand how Scrapnic works due to how complex he is. (*2)

They can't really do anything to Scrapnic due to the fear of damaging him, so now what do they?

Well I have a few ideas, one of which I'm leaning more towards due to the nature of it, but I haven't decided yet. Wait a sec, I actually just thought of a solution!

Split timelines.

Oh fuck yeah... This gives me the opportunity to use all 3 of my ideas! Funnily enough the ideas I have can be split into good, neutral (if I tweak it a little), and bad paths respectively. And while all 3 ideas do end up with Scrapnic being relatively 'okay' in the end, there's still the question of what happens before he gets to that point and the consequencess of it. >:)

Well I guess that's just 1 more post to list of ones I need to make...

Anyways getting back on track, I'm going with the good/best path for this post since I was already leaning towards it.

So Scrapnic ends up hurting some more of his friends, with varying degrees of success, before Tails comes up with some kind of technological solution.

After things settle down a bit Scrapnic finally relents and practically begs Tails to remove Eggman's programming. He can't stand the idea of something like that happening again. He doesn't want to be a danger to anyone.

It probably comes as no surprise that this incident takes a huge toll on Scrapnic's mental state.

Any progress made copeing with his body dysphoria is completely gone, with the body dysphoria actually becoming worse than it originally was. (*3) He becomes more closed off from everyone out of shame and the fear that Tails might've missed something. Whoever got the injury he avoids in any way he can due to the guilt. Guilt so heavy that, however this would work for a robot, he gets depression again. (*4)

He does get better with time but it's going to be a a while before he gets to that point. His friends, especially Tails and Shadow, are definitely gonna have their work cut out for them...

(*1) The glitching was pretty tame at first. Like his vision might glitch out or turn red for a moment here and there. Then it started to get worse and more frequent. The aforementioned glitches lasted longer and the name of his friends would appear above them, sometimes accompanied by an indicator on wether they were an ally or not. It started out listing them as a friend but it got progressively worse. It went in this order: Friend, Ally, Unknown, Threat, and lastly Enemy moments before he goes silent. Might think of more some other time but this is what I got.

(*2) Sigma actually had difficulty with getting Scrapnic into working order again due to the fact that not only have they never seen that 'model' of Metal sonic but Scrapnic's inner workings are extremely complicated. I mean how he works has to be complicated considering that he used to be completely organic being, ya know?

(*3) Scrapnic had body dysphoria from the moment he woke up as a robot. A little while after Scrapnic returned home with Tails, the latter started picking up on how Scrapnic hates his current body. Since Tails knows that there probably isn't a way to reverse whatever caused Sonic to become Scrapnic (aka a robot) he decided to try and help Scrapnic come to terms with his new body and was up front with him about it. Eventually Shadow comes into play and when he eventually learns about the body dysphoria decides to help Scrapnic cope with his new body. Shadow knows what it's like to hate your body for its origins. (Yo, new Shadow HC acquired??) For Shadow it's the Black Arms, for Scrapnic it's Eggman.

(*4) The only reasoning I can think of on how Scrapnic, whose essentially a robot, has depression is the fact that the process of turning someone into a robot has to be extremely complicated. In other words, the way he functions is extremely complex. As for him having depression again? Well he was stuck, on a small island, with no way safely off it, without any of his friends, and nobody believed him when he claimed to be Sonic. Sooooo yeah. He definitely had depression before (and a little after) he finally got to go home.