Hyper Metal Sonic

"There is only one Sonic..."

- Hyper Metal Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie

Hyper Metal Sonic (ハイパーメタルソニック), or just Metal (メタル) for short, is one of the main antagonists in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie and serves as the primary villain for the second part of the film. He is a robot created by Dr. Robotnik in the image of the doctor's greatest adversary, Sonic the Hedgehog, with the purpose of defeating Sonic and destroying the Land of the Sky.

Besides sharing Sonic's appearance and abilities, Metal is infused with Sonic's life data (personality and memories) to be as formidable in battle as the real Sonic, making the robot a near-perfect duplicate of the blue blur. This however created a mind link between Metal and Sonic, allowing them to hear each other's thoughts. This also gave Metal traits of the real Sonic's personality and habits, which eventually lead to him sacrificing himself to save the lives of the President and Old Man Owl.

History
Hyper Metal Sonic was created by Dr. Robotnik in the very center of his capital, Robotropolis. Constructed to be the doctor's greatest creation, Metal's purpose was to destroy the real Sonic for good and help him take complete control of Planet Freedom, by destroying the Land of the Sky. After Metal's body was fully constructed, all that Dr. Robotnik needed to finish his invention was to complete Metal's AI by infusing it with Sonic's life data in order to make it the ultimate fighting machine. To do so however, he needed to get the data by downloading it from Sonic himself. Dr. Robotnik therefor formulated a plan where he would trick Sonic to come to Robotropolis in order to shut down the dangerous Robot Generator, but in fact served as the device for which to download Sonic's life data into Metal.

Dr. Robotnik's plan eventually worked out perfectly and Metal sprung to life once the download was complete, before it faced the real Sonic and eyed him in silence, while Sonic, Tails and Knucles were shocked to see it. Metal soon after briefly protected Dr. Robotnik as Sonic charged at him, and Sonic challenged Metal to battle in order to save Dr. Robotnik's hostage, Sara. After briefly building up power for the confrontation, Metal faced Sonic in a high speed battle, and proved himself to be more than a match for the real Sonic, overwhelming him in both strength and speed. Metal's battle with Sonic eventually led to the outside of Robotroplis, where Metal defeated Sonic by knocking him off a mountain and believed him to be dead.

Following the defeat of Sonic, Metal began following Dr. Robotnik's orders and headed to the capital of South Island to destroy any resistance. Along the way, due to being influenced by Sonic's memories and thoughts, Metal stopped by Sonic and Tails' home, where he met Old Man Owl and forced Sonic's favorite clothes on him, before continuing to South Island.

Once on South Island, Metal began a destructive rampage throughout the city before heading off again. By instructions from Dr. Robotnik, Metal headed to a glacier which anchored the continents to the planet, and began drilling a tunnel deep into this glacier, with the purpose of releasing a pocket of magma which would make the glacier melt and cause the continents to shift and be hurled into the atmosphere.

After finishing its job, Metal saw Sonic coming and launched an unsuccessful surprise attack from below. Face to face, Metal announces (through beeps and buzzing) that there could not be two Sonics on this planet, and that one of them had to go. Sonic agreed to the terms, and Metal and Sonic faced each other in a long and intense battle between two opponents of equal might.

As the two of them continued to clash, it became apparent to the both of them that they could read each other's moves due to them sharing the same thoughts, and as such, neither of them could gain the upper hand on one another. Their battle was temporarily interrupted by the untimely arrival of Dr. Robotnik and Sara, as they crashed into the Egg Mobile, but they soon after resumed their fight.

The battle between Metal and Sonic grew increasingly fiercer as the two of them literally tore apart the icy wasteland in the wake of their fight, with Metal hitting Sonic hard and the other way around, but they could still only fight to a stalemate. Eventually however, Metal managed to gain the upper hand, as Sonic began to become exhausted from their prolonged battle. As Metal held Sonic in a chokehold and prepared to finish him, Tails used his Navigator to overload his system by assimilating Sonic's personality. As Metal began to malfunction, Sonic took the opportunity, and Metal received a direct hit from his Spin Dash, knocking him into the distance and inflicted major damage.

Metal returned soon after however to prevent Sonic and Tails from saving the President and Old Man Owl from a crash landing in the President's personal ship. Sonic told Metal to move aside, but Metal ignored his pleas. After Dr. Robotnik prevented Tails from overloading Metal's system once again, Metal tried to resume his fight with Sonic. As their fight continued however, Metal's damage became increasingly more extensive, and Metal found himself overwhelmed by Sonic and crashed into the windshield of the president's ship. As the ship was about to explode however, Sonic's personality overtook Metal's programming and Metal saved the President and Old Man Owl.

After saving them, Metal started to malfunction again, which caused him to be knocked into a lava pit by falling debris. Heavily damaged and nearly unable move, Metal saw Sonic trying to rescue him, and began crawling towards him. To Sonic's surprise however, Metal refused Sonic's rescue and announced to him that "There is only one Sonic...", as Metal now realized that Sonic was the only one of them that could remain. Accepting his fate, Metal allowed the rising lava to consume him, where he melted into slag and perished.

Powers and Abilities
Hyper Metal Sonic was an incredibly powerful robot, being able to create city-wide destruction alone and ultimately best Sonic in combat in both their confrontations. Dr. Robotnik himself even admitted that Metal was a far greater foe than Metal Robotnik. Metal possessed a powerful engine on its back that allowed it to move at speeds matching and even surpassing Sonic's speeds, and had lightning-fast reflexes and acrobatic skills that let it react to both Sonic's movements and incoming obstacles at high speed. Additionally, Metal's engine granted it the ability to fly, either at super speed or just for hovering in the air.

Metal was capable of forming a transparent energy shield around itself and those close to it. This shield not only let it smash through solid surfaces without harm, but also allowed it to burrow straight through the ground.

Metal had a superhuman level of strength, enough to knock Sonic unconscious with a single hit and break off an entire mountain top when clashing with Sonic. It was also immensely durable: it could take several direct hits from Sonic with only limited damage, withstand an explosion, and even continued to operate after taking heavy damage and having several parts of it torn off.

Trivia

 * The second model (Metal Sonic v2.5) incarnation of the character Shard the Metal Sonic from the Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series and its spin-offs was burried in lava similarly to how Hyper Metal Sonic was.