Iron Oxide is a fanfiction written by TheEnigmaMachine
, previously known as "Lost Machine" back when she left the Sonic fandom, and "Enigma Machine" back when she was still writing for Sonic. It stars the Sonic the Hedgehog characters Sonic and Metal on an unknown world, on which they're toyed with by Dr. Eggman Nega. They're forced to work together in order to escape the mad doctor and find out what his sinister plans are for them, the Chaos Emeralds, and this world. It can be read here and here!
Features examples of:
- The Atoner: Metal eventually becomes this, choosing to fight alongside Sonic rather than against him.
- Ax-Crazy: Dr. Eggman Nega is this.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Sonic's leg gets broken and his back is torn up and prone to bleeding if aggravated, he nearly freezes to death, and he almost dies of cardiac arrest. Not to mention he's also the final piece needed for Dr. Eggman Nega's endgame.
- Comforting Comforter: Metal is literally this when Sonic almost freezes to death.
- Completed Fic: All 33 chapters are available for reading.
- Crossover: Professor Von Schlemmer shows up, playing a brief, yet important role in the story. Whether he's meant to be a reference to the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) or to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog or even both is anyone's guess.
- Dehumanization: Dr. Eggman Nega calls Metal a "paperweight" more than once, among other things.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: By the end of this story, Sonic and Metal earned several lifetimes worth of happy endings with all they've been through.
- The End of the World as We Know It: Or in the case of this story, the entire universe, if Dr. Eggman Nega isn't stopped.
- Love Hurts: Sonic realizes he's in love with Metal and given the circumstances at that particular moment, yeah, Sonic is not having a fun time.
- Science Fiction: Of the hard kind. There is a lot of science talk centered around the Chaos Emeralds, and how they and the universe work, and no, it's not Technobabble. It's fictionalized, of course, but still heavily based/centered around actual scientific theory and laws.
- Sequel Hook: The story ends with this, and Enigma originally did plan to work on a sequel. However, she has moved on from the realm of fanfiction, meaning that Iron Oxide will never get a sequel from its original author.
- Symbolism: There's a quite a bit of symbolism in Iron Oxide. The most prominent example is the painting of the pipe and the pipe itself, which serves to symbolize the relationship between Metal and Sonic.
