Chapter 1: Nice To Meet Chao

Well, after vanishing off the face of FF for a good couple months, I'm back! If you haven't read my stuff before, welcome to xX*Slightly Above Average Fanfiction Town*Xx! If you're anxiously awaiting my main two stories, don't worry. Neither of them are discontinued. I'm suffering from writer's block, so they're on a bit of a hiatus, but I'll finish Legacy and A Tale Of Origins for sure. But my other work isn't important right now. If I'm going to make long ranty author notes as always, I might as well focus on the story in question…

So, this is my first try at writing a story specifically focused on a shipping, as well as my first (good) AU. It's not going to be some kind of R-rated 'please sleep with me I'm not wearing anything' *lenny face intensifies* BS. There's enough of that already. It's more a story of two strangers who slowly become friends and, through happiness and tragedy, realise their feelings for each other. I am rating this T for mild swearing, some serious themes, and slight references to, um, you know. It probably won't get too bad, but I won't hold it against you if you stop reading at any time due to the content.

So without further ado, I present to you, Long Distance. (I might change the title. It's bad. But anyways here we go)

South Island
12 August, 2:47 AM

"Come on, Sonny, you can do it!" Sonic Parlouzer yelled at his screen. "One more hit! ONE MORE HIT!"

"Next hit takes all, hey?" his friend Miles 'Tails' Prower responded from over Skype. "Let's go, Kitsune!"

The two Chao on the screen faced each other off. Sonic nervously tapped on the W key. His Chao, a Neutral-Run-Run he had called Sonny, took a few seconds to step forwards towards Tails' chosen Chao, Kitsune, a Hero-Fly-Swim. The Chao looked at each other, almost as if daring each other to take the first hit. Then, Sonny swung his fist around a few times, and went right for Kitsune. "Yes! YES!" Sonic shouted. But the Hero Chao dodged sideways at the last moment, then punched at Sonny. Sonic's face fell. "No! NO! DAMN IT!" he raged as his Chao fell over, his health bar completely empty.

Tails laughed. "Go, Kitsune! I knew you could win!" he praised his virtual Chao. "Good game, Sonic." He looked up from one of the two boxes at the top of Sonic's screen and held out his hand.

Sonic sighed and poked the screen. "Hacker," he muttered.

"Hey, I don't hack online games, you know that!" Tails protested. "Just because I could doesn't mean I will…"

Sonic finally cracked a grin. "I know, buddy. We all know you're not a cheater. But you must've done something to Kitsune for her beat Sonny, right?"

The other participant in the call, Blaze Sol, laughed. "Yeah, like training his Chao in all stats, not just speed," she shot. "Well, it's me versus the winner, isn't it? Hurry up. My parents want me to go and get fitted for some stupid dresses or whatever soon, so I'll need to make this a quick battle." She flexed her fingers. "Ember will mop the floor with Kitsune. Well, this is a child-friendly game, but you know what I mean."

"I'm gonna go find some other players to fight with, 'kay?" Sonic said. He went to wander around the hub world of Chao Island while Blaze's Dark-Power-Power sent a battle request to Tails. He brought up the list of players on the server and set the filter criteria to only users around his skill level. Aside from Doubletail22 (Tails) and xXSol_PrincessXx (Blaze), a user called Rosy_the_rascal_93 with a Hero-Power-Run Chao called Rose was the only user who came up. He shrugged and sent a battle request to them. The default text of 'SuperSonicChao wants to battle!' was sent to Rosy. Within five seconds, he was notified that his request had been accepted, and the fight began.

While Tails and Blaze trash-talked on each other, Sonic carefully moved his Chao around, pressing the right buttons at the right time to get some critical hits in with Sonny. But the gamer behind Rose was obviously skilled, and hit back harder. Much harder. Sonic regretted every single time he hadn't levelled up his Chao's Swim stat. He dodged another hit, but Rosy_the_rascal_93 took the opportunity to punch from another direction, almost completely wiping out Sonny's health. Sonic swore under his breath and stepped backwards to recover some stamina. The two Chao walked towards each other, and Sonic slammed his finger onto the space bar. His opponent must have done the same thing at the same time, because Sonny and Rose were instantly locked in an intense battle. Recognising what was going on, Sonic entered all the on-screen commands as fast as he could.

"CRAP!" Blaze suddenly shouted angrily. Sonic screamed at the sudden voice in his headphones and flew backwards in his swivel chair. With nobody to tell Sonny what to do, Rose easily overpowered him. As Tails laughed triumphantly in the background, Blaze growled, "I pressed the wrong button…"

"Blaze, you made me lose a battle to a random stranger!" Sonic complained. Sighing, he opened the private message system. Ignoring the text of Make sure your parents or guardians are okay with you using private messaging!, he typed in, Good game. My friend scared me over Skype and I lost focus.

Lol, sure, Rosy replied. If that's how it happened, want a rematch?

No thanks, it's almost 3 AM here, Sonic declined. We always hang out on this server, though, because it's quiet. Add me to your friends so that I know when you're up for a rematch ;)

A friend request came through to Sonic almost instantly from Rosy. He accepted it and blinked, suddenly hit by fatigue. Nearly 3 in the morning? When did that happen? "It's, uh… 2:57 in the morning on Boredom Island," Sonic told his friends. "Sorry, but I need to sleep. See you guys later."

"It's okay, I have to go to this dumb fitting thing in like five minutes," Blaze sighed. "Goodnight, Sonic. See you, Tails."

"Bye, guys," Tails said cheerfully, then the window with his face in it closed. Sonic signed off of the Skype call, logged out of Chao Island, and snapped his laptop shut. Rubbing his eyes, he collapsed on his bed. It only took a minute for him to fall fast asleep.

xX*Xx

Station Square
11 August, 4:27 PM

Amy Rose smiled to herself. She went to go and keep training her Chao, Rose, so that she could obliterate SuperSonicChao again later. She had only been playing Chao Island for three weeks, but she was already at the same level as a lot of players who had been registered users for months. Rose wasn't the fastest Chao, with an E in the Run stat, but what she lacked in races she made up for in karate. According to the stats, she had a 97% win rate from about two hundred battles.

Amy had never found a game quite like this before, but she was enjoying it more than all of the other MMORPGs she had played before combined. It was just her kind of game - not too advanced, not too violent, very cute, but requiring real skill to master. And best of all, she didn't know of anybody from her school who played. So it was somewhere she could retreat to for safety.

Looking at the time, Amy winced. 4:30. Homework time. Sighing, she took a note of the server she had been connected to for the sake of finding her opponent again, then logged out of Chao Island and went to dig around in her backpack until she found the latest maths worksheet. She placed her iPod on the music dock and started her playlist, then began going through the work.

For an impressive thirteen minutes, she stayed focused. Then her mind wandered, as usual. The normal topics came up. Whatever weird stuff had happened at school that day, when her mother might come home, what she would get together for dinner, whether she would try and cook something herself for once or throw something ready-made in the microwave again, what her friends from her old school were doing. Just like nearly every single time she tried to work on her homework, Amy allowed herself to become distracted. She considered logging into Chao Island again, but reminded herself that SuperSonicChao had mentioned it was 3 in the morning on their side. She forced herself to complete another two problems, then sighed and laid down on her bed. She stood up again. Don't forget what you're doing.

Amy grabbed her laptop, homework and pencil case and left her apartment for the next one over. Maybe she would be able to concentrate better over there. And besides, Miss Usagi always had food to spare. Pushing all thoughts of Chao Island and her friendly new opponent away, Amy walked next door, hoping to find someplace to concentrate, and not thinking anything of the mysterious user from halfway across the world.