Well everyone I'm at it again. I know haven't posted in a while, but here's a little something new. I really hope you like it! I'll update just as fast as I can. Please enjoy and please please please please give me a review!

Chapter 1

There was old music playing. It was crackly with age and the decay of the disc. What was called a bar, but really was a hole in the wall shack if anything, was filled with a few stragglers looking to wet their tongues. All dirty and scrubby looking. They squinted their eyes as dim light from outside shot in from the cracks between the wooden planked walls. There was no morale in anyone. They were all beat and run down like the so called bar.

"You can't be serious." Rouge was leaning back against the rickety bar as she looked at the pink hedgehog sitting on a worn out stool to her left.

"I can't help it Rouge." Amy said as the bar tended pushed a drink up to her. "I've been with him for three years now and I don't...I don't feel anything." She said looking down into the cracked mug.

"You know," Rouge turned with a somewhat confused yet still understanding expression. "You're the one that wanted to be with him so badly."

"I know that." Amy was still very quite. "But things have changed since then." She folded her arms and rested them against the edge of the bar. "Since...Armageddon." She looked as if years of hard times, pain, and suffering was washing across her face all at once.

"Yeah, I'll never forget that day either." Rouge's hand ran over a scar on her neck.

The two had become quite different. Rouge's outfit was no longer hearts. She now dawned black and brown leather with small plates of light armor on her chest and knees and one shoulder. Although she looked tougher she still had a beautiful face. Amy no longer wore a dress. She wore black leggings with ripped blue jeans. On her torso, she wore brown tattered mini vest over a black tube top and chest plate similar to Rouge's but it was smaller and made of faded silver.

"We all thought he was just a fool. Right up to the end." Amy's eyes were half closed with sad memories.

"That Eggman." Rouge shook her head. "Who would of thought that all those loser robots he had us fighting all the time were just a ploy. All those years he had really been perfecting his real weapons."

"It happened so fast." Amy closed her eyes. "No warning only...death and destruction...Armageddon." Seven years had passed since the day they called Armageddon. "I'll never forget it...August 9th...Tuesday 11:10."

"None of us will." Rouge rested her hand on her shoulder. "We'll always have that day to remind us of why we still fight." She sat on a stool beside her. "So how'd he take it?"

"He didn't want me to leave him, but he accepted it just the same."

"That's Sonic for ya." Rouge shook her head with a smile. "Back then he was different too. He couldn't ever settle and he didn't seem to ever want too, but now...now he knows how short life can be. He's ready to admit how he feels for you."

"It took Armageddon and our pitiful existence afterwards to make him realize he loved me...and to make me realize that I don't love him." She sighed.

"Irony's a bitch." Rouge raised her hand to signal for another round of drinks.

"Have you heard anything from Knuckles?" Amy asked as she pushed the empty mug away.

"Once in a while." Rouge's own morale seem to drop at the mention of the echidna. "Ever since he got transferred to South Sector it's been hard to communicate."

"I know." Amy felt sorry for bringing it up now. "It's nearly impossible to communicate across Sectors for personal reasons. At least he'll be back soon." She tried to cheer Rouge up. "His posting there is almost up."

"Yeah." Rouge agreed half heartedly. "You think things are ever really gonna change Amy..." Rouge said finally beginning to stand up.

"They have too." Amy turned to join her. "They can't stay like this forever." She had a serious expression. "One way or another things will change."

"Sonic." Tails repeated the blue hedgehogs name.

"Huh?" He looked up. "Sorry Tails. I'm a little out of it." He handed Tails the tool he had previously been asking for.

"It's okay." Tails was tightening a bolt on the tornado. "You gonna be okay about all this?"

Sonic shrugged. "I'm not sure." He said honestly. "Before Armageddon I never really thought about anything...but when reality hits you like a brick wall it changes you...I realized how much I missed out on back then...and now I'm asking for time that I can't get back. We've both changed...she and I...we aren't who we use to be."

"No one is Sonic." Tails offered. "We've all changed. No one could stay the same after that."

"Do you know when the two of them will be back?" He asked as he stood up. Sonic now wore a pair of scrappy blue jeans with half a breast plate and small goggles that he only pulled down over his eyes when there was a battle.

Tails looked at the clock. "They should be here soon. I told them if they weren't back by three then we'd have to assume they were attacked by the bots." He was dress similar to Sonic, with bigger goggles and he wore arm and leg armor but no chest plate. He also had to silver and gold clasps around his twin tails.

The two were located inside what was like an underground base. It had been construct like the inside of a crude building. Much of the technology was old and the materials used to make the place weren't all perfect. Once inside, it was easily identified as a makeshift rebel base in a conquered world.