jigokulogs | [OPEN] harrowing hell zone act 2

Who ⬤ Yet another Metal log that's completely OTA!
What ⬤ Being a robot sucks because it means sometimes people take a lot of interest in you for the wrong reasons...it's Donnie, Donnie does that. The turtle follows Metal around so much it annoys him into taking drastic measures to escape him via a clever disguise.
When ⬤ whatever's an appropriate amount of time after the mini-event for this to be ok lmao probably still september though
Where ⬤ Anywhere it has to be (im easy) but generally between enma and sutoku territory
Content Warnings ⬤ a single closed prompt to emily will have fake human nudity but of the doll anatomy variety, if that bothers anyone

[He can't deny it's an effective strategy; nobody would expect a fun sized robotic hedgehog to just turn into a human all of a sudden, least of all to escape an anthropomorphic mutant turtle. But it doesn't mean it isn't weird to him either.

First off, his A.I chip is devoted entirely to combat; he can get creative in battle and make use of his environment to get the edge, but ask him to do anything involving his imagination outside of that context and you're essentially typing ai art prompts into a calculator. So the only thing he could do in order to create a genuinely unique identity was mash together the face of everyone he'd seen in Jigoku so far using his digital brain, layer them all over each other and fabricate a person. It had to be touched up a bit to look, you know, normal but even he could manage that. He tidied up the parts that looked off, matched the eye colour to his LEDs and...

...hair. He had to have hair, right? Well, no, but he considers baldness for about half a second before realising Eggman is bald and he'd rather not associate himself with his creator in any way, shape or form. He considers doing the same thing he'd done to construct his face, but then he really thinks about the way his chassis looks and starts looking through his memory banks until he finds...Eula. It was close enough, right? He doesn't find the asymmetry caused by her hair being longer on one side appropriate for him, so he decides to leave that out. Short and blue was a good approximation of his head. This would work.

So with a clear picture in mind of how this will look, Metal ducks into a nearby alleyway - ensuring nobody is here, least of all the guy following him - and with the power he'd recently recovered morphs his body from his normal, robotic self to an extremely androgynous looking human, about five feet even and skinny as all hell. The extra height actually throws him off for a moment, as he was built to operate with a body no taller than three and a half feet tall; he spends a few minutes in the alleyway trying to find his balance again, but it doesn't take too long to adjust. This is fine. It'll work.

And so Metal, now looking entirely human, steps out into the open.

Completely naked.

Not that he's got anything explicit to show off - because he has only a vague idea of what humans actually look like beneath clothing, he's effectively got very SFW doll anatomy.]

[prompts in the comments]

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[It takes him so long to shake Donatello that Metal worries for a while his disguise had been seen through, yet the way he passed him by on occasion without noticing, he couldn't be entirely sure. It just meant that there was a lot of walking to be done until he felt he'd managed to escape him entirely, thankful that the chaos emerald sitting inside of his chest would ensure he'd never grow tired.

He goes so far, in fact, he finds himself on the border of Enma and Sutoku territory. He isn't paying much attention to where he is though - the aforementioned power source means he can stay active indefinitely, so no matter how far he wanders off he doesn't have to worry about food or shelter like an organic being would, he can just keep walking till he's back at the department. It's fine.

It does mean he's standing outside the clinic butt naked though. Can't be good optics, surely.]

Edited 2022-09-28 11:05 (UTC)

[He's fully clothed now, you all have Emily to thank for that - but on his neverending quest to find peace, he's once again on the move and trying to get back from the border to the department, still hyper aware of the fact his number one fan might be on the lookout still. Maybe not? He's probably not.

Is he getting paranoid?

DID HE HEAR HIM JUST NOW?

Whether or not he did, no matter what you're doing, some blue haired, androgynous twink just kind of shows up by your side when he definitely wasn't there before, completely silent...but standing in such a way, it's as if he's trying to appear like you're both out here together?

If you notice this, you don't even have to speak up for him to suddenly say:]

I believe the phrase is "act natural". Can you accomplish that?

[A wise man once said that if a machine could interact with video games in the way a human does, you would need to invent a completely new kind of game to engage them.

Well, if you're nearby when Metal initially ducks into the arcade for the purposes of laying low for five minutes, you'll get to see that in action. It might be the overwhelming presence of technology that draws him in further than he expected himself to, but he ends up wandering the arcade he's ended up at listlessly. He knows Eggman tended to enjoy video games in his downtime, but he never actually interacted with one before - much like his curiosity over the buffet during orientation, he considers this for a really long time before approaching a machine, sticking in some cash and playing.

To his credit? He's really good - he plays with the kind of machine like precision you would expect if you knew he was an A.I under all that metal masquerading as flesh, the kind of person to avoid hazards with single, precise movements, or make seemingly unfair jumps with no panic evident in the way he handles the joystick. Everything is carefully planned, every move is deliberate...

And then he just stops.

His hands come away from the console and he watches as the cute little protagonist, now no longer able to escape his fate at the hands of equally cute little monsters walking along their predetermined path, is touched by an enemy and loses his first life. He respawns in a safe zone and the game is clearly waiting to be played, but it doesn't seem as if he has any intention of continuing. He just stares at it.

Creepy.]

[It's been a long day and he's tired.

Not physically, that can't happen. Not in any kind of exhausted way either, because he's carrying around a gem possessing (what he thinks is) infinte energy as a battery. That can't happen either.

No, unlike most of the robots whose character arcs have them aspire to be more human, Metal is pretty fucking done with this stupid human body by this point. He doesn't even bother hiding it this time, assuming his liquid metal state and returning to his more familiar form. He stretches out an arm, opens and closes his fist a few times and even rotates his hand at the wrist once or twice, as if refamiliarizing himself with it.

Yeah, it's good to be a robot hedgehog.

Would suck if someone happened to see his little T1000 act just now.]

[donatello has not been stalking metal, per se. that would imply that he's gone out of his way to memorize metal's typical routes, patrols, haunts, etc; no, he hasn't gone out of his way. it's been extremely easy to do and takes no additional effort to commit things like that to his memory. and if he happens to walk in the same areas at about the same time, he will keep an eye out for a familiar face, that's all.

-look, he's also curious. and indebted. and those two are feelings that do not mix well. if he could just catch metal sonic in need of some maintenance then he could satisfy both of those concerns and move on with his life. and really- you know what, really it's metal's fault for being so mysterious and distrustful! of course donnie's going to be curious, he's a scientist! making assumptions about his allegiance just because of this stupid faction thing -which he did not choose, thank you very much- was plain judgmental! yeah! so he doesn't feel bad at all for stalking metal!

-except it's not stalking, so it's a moot point.

still, donnie's been talking a truly alarming number of walks lately (which are really more like intense parkour treated like evening walks) and maybe he's a creature of habit himself, because he's following the routes he takes when he would like to accidentally-on-purpose bump into metal sonic somewhere. only he doesn't, the entire time, even though he loops back like four or five times. where's that heckin' hog.]

[donnie's about to give up when he hears an odd sound from a nearby alley and hops over to investigate, peering down from the roof.

some kind of...metallic puddle. it looks like mercury, but who uses that much mercury for anything and who would just leave it IT'S MOVING. The mercury is moving, it is assuming a shape. holy shit. fucking god damn fuck. what the fuck.]

Are you nanos, [donnie whispers reverently, clutching the edge of the building he's peering over like he's watching santa stack presents under the tree. there's a spikey shape. more spikey shapes. ...an awful lot of spikey shapes actually, like just a ball of spikes AND IT'S METAL SONIC. it's him. what in the fucking fuck, he's a liquid sometimes. how can he have a mechanical failure of anything when he can alter his physical structure down to the molecule. no. what. this is both the greatest and worst thing that's ever happened. donnie's already complicated feelings have just become a thousand times more complicated.]

HEY ARE YOU NANOBOTIC, [donnie just like, hollers from the roof]

[NO HE GOT CARELESS!!!!!!!!!!!

But this also proves he was not being paranoid earlier, he was starting to doubt all the times he thought he heard Donnie nearby that maybe he was just letting this random guy get to him, but now that this one incident has occurred he believes all his rampant paranoia was justified. No need to be nuanced and reflect on it, he's just gonna make a sweeping decision based on this single occurrence. That's how Metal Sonic handles life.

It isn't good.

Regardless! He's got him cornered in an alleyway now, there's surely no way the robotic hedgehog could escape him, right? Except he stares up at where the voice came from momentarily before running to the opposite end of the alleyway where there's a big wall blocking his escape...before he jumps, runs along the wall to his left, jumps to the adjacent wall and kicks off of it, grabs a hold of the wall ahead that was blocking his way, pulls himself up and over...

lands on some trash cans from the sound of it

THEN KEEPS GOING!!!!!!!!!! SAYONARA SUCKER!!!!!!!]

[PREDATOR INSTINCT ACTIVATED.

if metal sonic was his usual soundbarrier-breaking self, donnie wouldn't have a turtle's chance on land, maybe even with his tech. HOWEVER, metal sonic is NOT at top speeds, and he's not going to let this opportunity pass him by! HE SAW YOU!]

SONIC! [CHASES VERY ENERGETICALLY because he is built for sprints but not marathons so he has to catch up in like the next minute or he is in the dust] You were hiding things from me!! How can I pay you back if I'm not aware of your needs?!

[OPEN] harrowing hell zone act 2

closed to medicative

ota; can be anywhere just pretend he went weast instead of east

ota; an arcade, any arcade

closed to semilethal

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