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Such a meaningless battle shouldn't have had this much of an effect to his psyche. Amy Rose wasn't even his main enemy, simply an obstacle getting in the way of his main objective.
But at last, Sonic wasn't there, so he had to deal with the pink girl.
Same routine as always. Same plans. Same commands. Same results. Same emptiness to drain any will to exist. Metal laid now on a field of flowers, defeated and with his right elbow joint snapped out of place. Not like anything ever changed.
So why couldn't he stop thinking?
He remembered the girl's smile. That smile before he crashed into her moment of peace. A smile that shone a thousand galaxies. A smile of a living thing.
For a second he had hesitated to attack. Or more accurately he got distracted by the sight. Mesmerizing, it had put a trap on his internal processor. Was this a remnant of the doctor's attempt to code some of Sonic's brain into his? These unexplainable feelings he couldn't make sense of? Foreigner feeling. Virus leaching into his core. A change of pace from the usual state of nothing he found himself in.
The doctor was taking his sweet time to retrieve him, and the night was getting colder.
Lonelier.
And all that remained from the encounter? A single red ribbon. The one that girl used to tie up her quills, now getting twirled between his claws, at constant risk of getting thorn apart by the sharpness.
A silky texture. Same silky texture as the one of her dress. Tinted in a bright, pink-red tone. Fragile piece of cloth. It had fallen off her head when he almost pierced through her chest. And she had answer by knocking him with a hit of her hammer.
She was a graceful fighter. Not like it matered since she wasn't a priority target.
And he kept a part of her now, without even realizing at the beginning; it had gotten tangled on his ankle at some point of the fight. Was she missing her ribbon? She probably had more and wouldn't even notice it.
For the sake of getting back some stability to his broken arm, he wrapped tight the ribbon on his elbow joint, finished with a careful bow.
It was done. His arm was at a semi functional state now. The ribbon had accomplished its function and there was no need to keep thinking about it.
Useless to keep thinking about it.
A waste of energy to keep thinking about it.
So why couldn't he take his sight away?
The color popped over his cobalt blue exterior. It didn't caused any visual dissonance, almost as if it was always meant to be there. But that couldn't be. Nothing outside the doctor's original blueprints shall be allowed. Any deviation was considered a personal insult to him.
… At last, Eggman wasn't anywhere around. And a simple piece of red cloth managed to spark some life into his dead spirit.
It wouldn't compute.
A parameter the doctor hadn't accounted for. Perhaps the ribbon did something special and they just needed to figure it out to use to their advantage. But wasn't it useless beyond decoration? And decoration was a human made concept to waste resources on the unneeded.
For example, the very same field he rested at.
The robot picked up a flower from the the grass and twirled with it. Every movement felt mortal, critical. It was a delicated lifeform. So, so easy to terminate.
So defenseless. Yet people loved them. They weren't special. They did nothing in favor of the mortals than any other kind of plant wouldn't be able to provide. They were allowed to exist there because their shape and color. The value of beauty, as the mortals so called it. Always so obsessed with the useless that's only ever there to be decorative.
Just as useless as a red ribbon on her quills. Yet he couldn't stop giving glances at it.
Metal wasn't one to be constructed to appreciate concepts such as “art” and “beauty.” A killing machine had no use from those concepts. It had no use from possessing feelings at all.
Then why couldn't he stop thinking about Amy Rose?
That Amy Rose. Loud, brash, soft, loving, so unapologetically herself. Somethin about that girl had the robot fascinated. Was this supposed to be love? Some form of affinity?
Something was special about her. Something that made him unable to get her out of his code. And her ribbon remained on his arm. She was special in the same way of the ribbon. Was she the beauty, and the ribbon an extension of it? Was the ribbon the beauty? Or what gave the beauty?
No, that didn't made sense.
Eventually he got tired of waiting. The world was getting bigger and it was starting to swallow him whole. If he was alone with these nonsensical thoughts, at least he'd do something of use and find the logic to it.
The streets were deserted. The few people passing by ran in fear at his presence. That was better, he couldn't deal with people in this confused state.
He walked into an empty art exposition. Paintings and sculptures from various local artists at display. Technically impressive, not anything that he'd call a beauty. With the entire exposition of striking pieces, only the ribbon on his arm managed to get his attention.
Metal couldn't understand art at all.
When he was about to discard the possibility a painting by the corner made him stop to a halt. It wasn't more technically impressive than the rest, nor bigger or brighter.
He got closer. It was a portrait of a lady in a beautiful, red dress, decorated in pearls as bright as her smile. He reached a hand to touch the painting.
This was beauty. Beauty like no other he'd ever seen. Perhaps the first time ever he understood the appeal of art, and the same feeling of fascination that he got from the memory of Amy Rose.
Except they weren't alike at all. For once, this was a human woman. Tall, elegant, with sharp features to match her mature self.
Most of the other paintings had a big description by their side: symbolism, a story, anything else. And the one that got his attention was a nameless portrait of a nameless woman.
And she was so, so gorgeous. So much it burn. It was making him mad. It was making him livid. Suddenly he couldn't handle looking at it anymore.
He kept walking. He hated art. Beauty apparently hurt, and he accomplished nothing but to make himself miserable. The ribbon meant nothing and Amy just hit him hard enough in the head to glitch his code.
The doctor would fix it soon, hopefully.
By the exit of the exhibit the last nail at the coffin. The last piece at display. “The best piece of art” was the name of it.
A mirror.
Was this a joke? A sick, sick joke of the universe to punish him form even trying? This is it. He's going to shatter the mirror, then he'll destroy every single painting and sculpture and burn the entire place to the ground.
But as soon as he was about to strike the sight of the ribbon on the reflection made him stop.
“The best piece of art” said the description.
But he wasn't art. He wasn't beautiful like that stupid, gorgeous lady at the painting, or like Amy Rose was. Not beautiful like anything created with joy or the flowers growing from the ground.
Yet… For once he saw his reflection, and felt something besides resentment at himself for existing… It didn't made sense. Not when nothing had changed.
Nothing except the ribbon.
He had seen his reflection for more than five seconds without recoiling away in shame, that's new. He hated the thought of looking at himself. The thought of being perceived.
For once, he saw a hint of something worth thw effort on his reflection.
He saw himself. A himself he could recognize as his own, and not an extension of Eggman's plans.
… No, this couldn't be. He was just confused, that's all. He had to be Sonic. He had to be the superior Sonic. Sonic didn't wear pretty bows and dresses.
This was wrong. He was wrong for feeling… Joy at this. It was sickening. He had to be replaced with a better robot, one that would actually stay in line instead of questioning the worth of art and wondering why couldn't he be also art. Why couldn't he be beautiful too.
Was there art somewhere below these wires trapped? A beauty like Amy's unreachable from this inaccurate body? Could he also be treated with the same care the humans did with the field of flowers?
Somehow, that painting of the beautiful woman in pearls felt more like himself than the reflection shown in the mirror. She knew something that he didn't.
He unwrapped the ribbon from his broken and and made a bow around his head, the same way Amy had used it, and looked back at the mirror.
… And she was also art.
For the first time on her existence she felt normal. She felt like she was her own person with desires and hopes and with a life ahead. Like she was truly her own person beyond what she was made to be, or what the mission and orders to follow were.
Metal though of Amy. This was the beauty that had her entraced on the pink hedgehog. A grace she had shared with Metal without having realized.
And she finally understood why humans searched the beauty on everything, because she saw it on herself.
Then a notification popped up. Eggman finally bothered to start searching for his robot.
Metal tore the ribbon out of his head, punched the mirror away and kept walking.
Because beauty wasn't a real concept anyways. Not for a machine designed to kill like him.