The Highest Form of Flattery
Chapter 1: Reflection
Amy felt lightheaded from the heat, which didn't help her feel any less thirsty or tired from all the running. Though she was more in shape than she was a year or two ago, chasing after Sonic at his speed just wasn't possible.
Even when he slowed down, it wasn't easy.
He had gotten away.
She stared after him for a time, breathing in and out heavily as she reached into her backpack for a drink.
The hedgehog's bottle of water was barely half full, but it was good enough. It wasn't much warmer than any other late-spring day, but after the run from one end of town to the other under the noon-time sun, it felt extremely torrid.
After draining the plastic of every last drop she could get into her mouth, she dropped it and headed home.
Halfway there, she saw Knuckles. Surprised, she walked over to him, "Hey, Knuckles. What's up?"
"Tails called for me to come over, he said it was important..." The red guardian shrugged and told her, "You might as well come along. Maybe it'll be something interesting."
She could tell that he just wanted to get back to the Master Emerald, but she ignored that completely and nodded eagerly, "Let's go! Sonic might be there!"
He grinned at her enthusiasm, though she barely caught sight of that as she turned and ran for Tails's house. Despite her earlier fatigue, it seemed like she had found energy that she hid from herself for moments like these. Either he didn't bother with keeping up or couldn't. She ran around the house so she could get into the entrance that went directly into the workshop.
She crashed through the door, not bothering to stop. If she stopped, Sonic would have a chance to run off again. That was something that she would not allow to happen. Colliding with the door hurt, but it didn't cost her too much speed. This time, she would catch him!
Unfortunately, the amorphous, blue energy field directly in front of her was not Sonic. She did her best to skid to a stop, but she was still sliding forward, directly towards it. When she realized that something was wrong, she was only a few inches away. Shocked, she fell backwards with a yelp, only to feel herself stopped from falling by the same force that kept pulling her in. She felt like a doll in the hands of a mighty spirit as she was dragged upward, a few feet off of the ground.
As soon as she made contact, she couldn't move. She cried out in indignation as she realized this, "Get me down from here!"
Her exclamations, however, fell on deaf ears. There was no one in the lab to hear her. After several more seconds of irritation and shouting, she took stock of her situation. She could breathe freely and speak very well (and loudly), but she couldn't even make a finger twitch.
The pink hedgehog silently lamented the way she dashed in here. Not only had there been no Sonic, but she had gotten herself trapped. It could prove to be an age before she would be brought down from here. This position could prove rather problematic if she had to...attend to private matters.
Thankfully, she did not have to worry about such things, for only a few minutes after being captured, she fell to the floor. She reacted quickly enough to land in a crouch and, from there, looked around. She was surprised she could move her head, but it was certainly not an unwelcome discovery.
Amy stretched a little bit and enjoyed her mobility. She headed for the stairs up into the house; she owed Tails a bit of an apology for knocking his door down.
The door at the top of the steps opened before she could even lay a foot on them, however.
She stopped for a moment, shocked when she saw Knuckles standing in the doorway and not Tails.
"Hey there." He grinned for a moment, but it quickly changed into a scowl, "This must be some kind of joke. Tails isn't here and you're here trapped by some sort of machine. He's not going to be happy..."
"All over a door?"
"Well..." He said it with little remorse, "I couldn't find a way to release you by pressing buttons, so I started smashing the consoles."
"Well, thanks." She smiled at him, but quickly sobered up, "We have to find Tails and make sure he's okay...he could be in trouble."
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, before exhaling in a relieved fashion a few moments later, "The Master Emerald has not been disturbed yet. Someone was not just trying to draw me away from Angel Island...I've been away for far too long."
Sonic's biggest fan fell into thought for a moment, before she laid eyes on a small, white phone on the wall of the lab, "Hopefully, Tails will answer his phone, then we can put this whole ordeal behind us."
Amy picked up the phone and hurriedly pressed buttons. After nearly ten seconds, she cursed and slammed the handset down on the receiver, "He's not picking up!"
Knuckles growled, "So we have no clue where Sonic and Tails are, or what Eggman's up to!"
At that moment, the phone rang.
She picked it up again, "Hello?"
"Amy?!"
"Rouge?"
She sounded frantic and out of breath, "You need to get to the park, hurry!" As soon as that was done, the connection was ended.
She looked at the strong echidna and told him where they had to go. He seemed even more serious, perhaps at the mention of the bat. He ran out first, muttering something about thieves and tricks. Despite the way she had left him in the dust earlier, she found that she would have to go into a true sprint to do it now.
They arrived quickly, though they didn't like what they found. The streets were mostly empty, save for a large perimeter set up on the other side of the park by police and robots, and the jewel enthusiast was in the park, barely holding back...Amy?
Apparently, said perimeter was to keep Eggman from fleeing into the more populated part of town.
"Ha ha ha!" The genius was watching the fight from above, in his usual floating craft.
"Eggman!" Knuckles shouted in a rage as he charged to attack the hedgehog that was already in the fray.
"This is low, even for you!" Instead of joining the fight, Amy stood back and shouted up at him.
"You're only mad because she stole your look! Or...did you steal hers?" Eggman laughed at this.
In anger, she summoned her hammer and tossed it at him. The hovering vehicle quickly dodged to the side.
"Worry more about your friends!" He retorted, pointing at the fight.
Currently, the red furred fighter was having electricity shot through him. Rogue had fallen, off to the side. By the time the current had stopped, he had lost consciousness.
The pink hedgehog saw how her friends had been defeated and grew angry. Without a thought towards her own safety, she summoned another hammer and dashed towards the greater foe. The copy gazed her for a moment, before saying, "Here, come on!" The voice imitation was perfect, just as perfect as the visual imitation.
Before the battle could continue, however, a similar hammer appeared in the hands of the fake.
"What...how?"
"Stand down until attacked or ordered to attack." The professor ordered, taking a moment to gloat, "It's really simple, actually. The hammer has a minuscule machine in it that allows it to shrink or grow inside of a second. When it's so small, she is able to conceal it in a secret compartment in her hand. I may not be able to have her mimic everything about you, but she can come pretty close!"
"I'll destroy it!" With that, Amy lunged, Piko-Piko Hammer raised high.
The attack was blocked, however, when the hafts of both hammers met, "You're slow." She mocked with an angel's smile.
They struggled against each other briefly, before the robot revealed that it was far stronger by easily throwing off the biological counterpart. She nearly fell to the ground after being pushed back.
"Well, Amy, have you had enough? The odds are against you. Knucklehead and Rouge couldn't win, even with each other's help. Perhaps you could defeat my robot, though, so I will retreat for now. Aimbot! Retreat!"
Before she could start another attack, the Aimbot, as it was called, turned and jumped aboard the hovercraft with Eggman, which quickly flew well above the barrage of bullets and lasers launched by the robots and police. She cursed again, knowing immediately that she was unable to catch up without going full speed and she couldn't just leave her friends behind.
The one question that entered her head while she watched him fly away was: Why had he done that? Whether his robot was about to win or not, Eggman wasn't one to just retreat when he still had a trick or two left...
Then it hit her...the police were neither standing down nor coming in to help...so they must still be too wary to trust her. Escaping might be difficult if they decided to give chase...
Before she could think of a plan, the thief called out to her, weakly.
She knelt next to the fallen, "Rouge..."
The bat reached into a pocket and withdrew a folding cellphone, "Take my phone...call...ess..." With that, her eyes fell shut and her open hand fell flat.
"Ess?" She looked confused, wondering what she meant, even as she grabbed the phone. The fact that the phone controls were foreign to her didn't help things. Eventually, she went into the contact list and found one labeled S.
She hit the call button and, only a couple moments later, she was answered by a calm voice, "What's wrong, Rouge?"
"I don't know who you are, but Rouge told me to call you! We're in the park, please help!"
"Hmph." With that, the stranger on the other end hung up.
She dropped the phone, feeling angry. Before it hit the ground, however, a bright flash of light left her blinded. In all his glory, the Ultimate Life Form appeared.
He grimly looked upon the scene before him and noticed that neither the echidna nor the bat would die here.
"Shadow..."
He instructed her to touch them as he touched her hand, as to form a chain. When he was sure that they were all in contact, he looked down at the bat grimly, "Chaos Control!"
In an flash, they were gone.
The trip was nauseating, but mercifully short. When the light died down again, they were on Angel Island, near the shrine.
"Shadow, why did you take us here?"
"For now, no one knows where we are...and these two will be able to rest. For me, whatever beat them should prove rather beatable."
To that, she didn't take too much offense, "It was one of Eggman's inventions, something he called...Aimbot." She quickly explained what it was to him.
"Why would he copy you?" He coldly asked no one in particular.
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!"
"I mean, why?" He spoke as if to a child, "What does he plan to do with it? It can fight, but so could any other robot. It can steal, but so could any other robot. However...this robot can do all of that and look just like you. I understand now that I've had some time to think about it, he's probably going to frame you and profit highly while the authorities waste resources. Even if they've figured out that Eggman made a copy of you, they probably will still go after you until they are sure that the fake is destroyed. After all, they're content with putting ten innocent people in jail to catch one guilty person."
She looked down at the ground, ashamed of her outburst as well as her inability to think this up in the time she had, "So what do we do?"
"For now, Amy, you wait. I'll go back and do what needs to be done. You keep an eye on those two...that task will be easy enough for you. Make sure they don't kill each other over that damn gem." He looked off into the distance for a moment, "Chaos Control!"
"Shadow, wait!" She shouted as she heard him speaking the first word, but it was too late.
Amy sighed as he disappeared, then looked at her unconscious friends, trying to hide her feelings of hopelessness. She sat down next to the two and tried to relax, attempting to save her energy. Something told her that she would need it...