Chapter 1
Left. Right. Jump. Crap, was that a piece of me or a piece of the robot? Doesn't matter now. Oh, incoming, duck! Wow, that laser is twice the size of me.
Dodging and weaving, Amy Rose bounced from wall to wall, easily avoiding one of Dr. Eggman's newest creations, designed to bring about her early death. Unfortunately for him, she'd learned a thing or two since their last encounter, almost six years ago.
"Do you ever stand still?" Eggman ground out, unable to keep up with her.
"Nope," she replied, hanging from a ceiling bar. "I stopped making that mistake the last time one of your robots managed to take off half of my finger."
"Fair enough," he conceded, firing in her direction, but she quickly let go, landing ten feet below without so much as a stumble.
When she'd first broken through the wall of his lair, Eggman almost hadn't recognized her. Instead of the small 16-year-old carrying a giant hammer, she was now fully mature. She stood almost a foot taller than she used to, and she no longer wore her classic red dress. She now sported a red sport tank, just short enough to allow a small bit of her midsection to peek through and give away a tiny navel piercing. She also wore grey tights, red sneakers, and she no longer used her hammer, preferring instead to fight with her own two hands. Her short pink hair had grown out slightly, long enough to be pulled back into a ponytail, but still short enough that pieces occasionally fell out and framed her face. The biggest difference was that she now sported a GUN badge as well as a six-inch long scar on the inside of her right thigh, from another fight, he assumed.
Much more annoying, she was now on the same combat level as the most capable agents he had fought before. And if there was one thing the two of them had in common, it was that they both hated to lose.
Unfortunately for him, it couldn't be avoided today. His robot was clearly inferior to her skills.
"Fine, I'll concede for today," he sighed, turning the robot's combat mode off. "But make no mistake, I'm not finished with this little project by any means."
"Fine by me," Amy shrugged, smirking from her place on top of one of the lab tables. "This is great exercise."
"I'll see you around, Rose," he shouted before vanishing in a flash of blue light.
Amy quickly hopped down off the table, surveying the damage. The lab had held up surprisingly well, with all of the walls still standing. She spotted something on the wall, a flat grey panel, and grinned to herself before opening it and quickly using the small taser she kept on her to fry the entire system.
"WHAT THE-" she heard, just as all the electricity in the building went off. She laughed, turning away from the smoking fuse box, and slipped out the window to her left.
The GUN office had finally installed teleportation pads, which was a huge relief for the agents, because it made it that much easier for them to get to where they had been assigned for the day. Amy appeared on one of the far ones in a brilliant blue flash of light, stepping off of it in case someone was right behind her. Unlikely, considering it was a Sunday and most of the agents had the weekend off. Including her, actually, but Amy had never really liked time off.
She took the stairs four flights up to the lounge that all of the agents shared and pushed through the door. It was a nice little place, with a few couches, a back room with bunk beds for sleeping, a fridge and stove, and a small TV in the corner so that they could keep up with the news.
"Lose any more fingers today?" a voice called from one of the couches.
Amy grinned at the sight of one of her best friends, Rouge, a white bat, spread out across the couch. She wore her usual uniform of a pink tech shirt, a pair of black shorts, specially-made white combat boots, and her pink communicator on her right wrist. Her black wings fluttered absently at the breeze coming in through the back window.
"Not today," she replied, plopping down beside her. "Ended in a stalemate, but I managed to take out all of Egghead's electricity before I bounced."
"Nice," Rouge giggled. "I bet that went over well. Did you hear? We're being reassigned."
"Finally," Amy sighed. "As much as I love annoying Eggman, I'm dying for something good. Where to?"
"O'Malley didn't say," Rouge said, referring to their director. "He just asked us to come around when we were finished for the day. And he asked us to bring Sticks, too."
"Who's bringing me where?" a voice called, and Rouge and Amy both jumped, searching for the source. Eventually, Amy looked up to see that one of the ceiling tiles had been slightly moved and that a pair of earnest brown eyes were peeking out of the dark at them.
"Sticks, should I even ask?" Amy sighed.
"Probably not," Sticks replied, swinging down from her hiding spot with ease. "I don't even know."
"Well, then come on," Rouge implored, standing up and shaking out her wings with a rustling noise. "I'm curious to see where they're sending us."
"But I just sat down," Amy whined, grinning down at her friends. Sticks took this as an invitation to swing Amy up over her shoulder and run out of the room towards the director's office. "STICKS!"
Rouge sighed at the two of them. "I need new friends."