3: Break Away
"Please, someone help me!" Amy's ears perked up at the sound of the muffled cry. "Please!" the woman's voice begged. "Anyone!"
"I'm right here!" Amy called, sliding down a crumbled highway as she searched for the direction of the voice. "Keep talking!"
"Please, it's so dark! I can't see anything!" cried the voice.
"It's going to be okay!" Amy reassured her, heading toward a collapsed building. It was coming from over here. "I'm almost there! I'm going to get you out of there; don't worry! Just keep talking and I'll find you!" The woman did as she asked, and soon Amy found her, or where she was, anyway. The woman was buried under layers of concrete and shattered glass. "I'm right here," Amy told her. "I'm right next to you. I'm going to call for help, okay? Try and stay calm. You're going to be fine."
As she said this, an earth-shattering explosion rocked the building, and Amy automatically dove to the ground as the woman screamed. A split second later, a blue blur flew across where she'd been a moment earlier, slamming into the wall. The building collapsed a bit more, adding to the concrete on the woman's prison.
"Are you okay?" Amy asked the moment the building stopped shaking. "Talk to me, Miss. Are you okay?"
"…I-I'm okay," the woman replied shakily, and Amy breathed a sigh of relief, grateful the building hadn't crushed her.
"Good. Don't move; I'm calling for help," she told her. However, there was something she needed to do first. "Sonic!" she called, jumping over concrete and ducking under broken pipes to reach the place where he'd crashed. She soon found him, slowly picking himself back up. His fur was littered with cuts and bruises from his current battle, and one arm hung limply to his side.
Sonic ignored her, used to random people calling his name. Amy caught good arm as he was about to dash back toward the massive robot outside. "You have to lure it away from the city!" she told him as he jerked his arm out of her hand. For a split second, he turned to look at her, and his eyes widened it shock.
"…Amy?" he breathed in disbelief.
"Go!" she ordered him. "Get it out of here! People are dying!" Her words seemed to shake him back to reality and he nodded grimly, glancing back at her one more time before taking off. She immediately turned back to the woman, digging out her communicator. "This is Rose calling Sawyer! Come in Sawyer!"
There was a moment of static before a male voice replied. "This is Sawyer."
"There's a woman trapped under miles of concrete. Get your strongest people over here. She's at what's left of an old apartment building."
"Copy that," came Sawyer's voice. "We're on our way. In the meantime, there's a little boy stranded out there. He's near you; see if you can get to him."
"I'm on it," Amy replied, turning to the woman. "My people know where you are. They will be here in a few minutes. Someone else needs my help. Will you be okay?"
"…I will be," the woman replied, sounding scared. "Thank you."
"Anytime," Amy told her, already heading toward the main street. It took a moment to spot the boy amidst the rubble. He was practically underneath the robot, clinging to an unconscious woman. She could see blood. Amy took off toward the boy, nimbly dodging the robot's massive foot. From the corner of her eye, she could see Sonic taunting it, trying to lead it away.
As she got closer to the boy, she could see the terror in his eyes and the tears streaming down his cheeks. "Mommy, you have to wake up!" he cried, shaking the woman beneath him. "Mommy, please wake up!" The boy soon spotted Amy and hope entered his eyes. "Please help my Mommy!" he begged her. "She's sleeping and she won't wake up!"
Amy knelt down to check the woman's pulse. It was very weak. Looking her over, Amy spotted a large piece of glass sticking out of the woman's side. The hedgehog slung the backpack off of her back, digging in it for a towel and some bandages. "What's your name, kid?"
"M-Mark," the boy told her.
"Mark, do you see those people up there?" Amy asked, pointing to a partially standing freeway. The boy nodded. "I'm going to need you to look at those people while I help your mommy, okay?"
"Okay."
When she was sure Mark wasn't looking, Amy turned to the woman. Firmly gripping the glass with heavily gloved hands, she took a deep breath and yanked it out. Instantly, she pressed the towels to the woman's side, trying to soak up as much blood as possible. She didn't even notice Sonic land beside her, his eyes trained on the robot.
"Miss, you're going to have to get out of here," he told her as his enemy searched for him.
"Not yet," Amy told him, his eyes snapping to her as he recognized her voice. "I'm not leaving this woman to die." Without waiting for a reply, she spoke furiously into her communicator. "Sawyer, I need a medic over here! There's a woman with the boy and she's seriously in need of stitches!"
"I read you Rose. I'm sending Jed down to you."
"Hurry!" Amy cried. "I think I hear someone else!" Amy head then whipped up to Sonic, who was watching her incredulously. "Get that robot out of here!" Amy yelled at him. "NOW!" Startled at her force, Sonic obeyed her. "Mark!" she called, and the boy turned to her frantically.
"Is Mommy going to die?" he cried.
"No sweetie, but I need you to do something. Come over here and sit on this towel, okay?" The boy obeyed, and Amy took her hands off of it. "Now you can not move from here no matter what! It's very, very important! You understand?" The boy nodded frantically. "There's a doctor on his way," Amy continued. "He's going to help your mommy." With that, Amy took off again, this time heading toward a man whose leg was trapped.
For the remainder of the day, Amy scrambled from one person to the next, saving those she could. It was not a pretty sight, and she counted 31 people who had already died. The fight had ended hours ago, and still her work continued, trying to find the missing people and keep them alive until the rescue helicopter arrived. When Sonic had finally appeared, expecting an explanation, she just sent him to a person she couldn't reach and said she wasn't going to talk to him until everyone was safe.
It wasn't until early the next morning that Sawyer, a brown lynx, put a hand on her shoulder. "You need to rest, Rose."
"There are still people-" she protested, but he cut her off.
"We've found the last of them and my crew is working on it," he reassured her. "Besides, I think our hero need someone to attend to him." He motioned over to Sonic, who using the building next to him to support himself, wide eyes taking in his surroundings. Amy sighed and nodded to Sawyer, making her way towards the azure hedgehog.
"Pretty horrific, isn't it?" she asked him, and he turned toward her in surprise. "Is this the first time you've actually stuck around after a fight?"
Sonic nodded, watching two people help an old man out of a ditch. "Yeah…I suppose it is. But then, I was sorta dragged into it." He turned to look at her. "What are you doing here, Ames? We haven't seen you since you left the group. That was, what, five years ago?"
Amy nodded, smiling slightly at the memories. She sighed. "Here, let me fix you up while I fill you in." Before Sonic could protest, Amy was leading him to a nearby first aid kit and had started to bandage up his arm. "I think this is broken," she told him.
Sonic sighed. "Yeah, no kidding. I figured as much…So, what's going on? Why the walkie-talkies and such? And actually, there's something else I've been meaning to ask you. Why did you leave?"
Amy focused on his arm as he replied. "I left…because I wasn't much help. Don't, Sonic. You know it's true," she said as she saw him about to protest. "Sure, I helped a little, but I mostly got in the way. I learned a lot from my time with you guys and I don't regret one second of it, but…It was time I broke away. Moved on. Lived my own life…Besides, people needed me more here."
As thought to prove her point, a young man interrupted her. "Excuse me, miss. I just wanted to thank you…for saving the lives of my wife and son."
Amy turned to smile at him. He must've been Mark's father. "It was my pleasure," she told the man. "Your boy was very brave. How is your wife?"
The man sighed. "She's still unconscious, but she's stable and recovering. The doctors said if you came a moment later, she wouldn't have made it. Thank you." Amy nodded at the man, and he left to return to his wife. She turned back to Sonic's arm, digging something out of the first aid as she continued.
"I found these guys about six months after I'd left. They were always here, though I doubt you noticed them. They're not the regular search-and-rescue group, though. This one only helps out with the damage from your battles with Eggman or whatever threat you're fighting. They practically stalk you so that they can arrive the moment the first blow has landed."
"Just for me, huh?" Sonic mused as Amy clipped his bandage in place. "Jeeze, is the damage always that bad?"
Amy was about to reply when a hand tugged at her sleeve. Both hedgehogs turned to see a little girl, no older than five. Her shoulder was covered with blood. "Miss doctor lady? My arm hurts. Can you make it stop?"
"Of course, sweetie," Amy told her, smiling warmly. "You just sit right here and I'll fix you right up." The girl did as she was told, and Amy went to work on her shoulder, cleaning the wound.
"So," Sonic said after a minute. "I take it you became a part of this group?"
"Kind of," Amy replied. "Technically, I'm not one of them. See, after finding out who they were, I sorta just started helping without anyone asking me to. They were always too busy to tell me to leave. After a while, they started to realize that I was arriving at your fights earlier than they were, because, well, I just have a talent for keeping track of you." Amy ducked her head in embarrassment as Sonic laughed.
"I guess that sixth sense of yours came in handy," he mused, grinning.
"Anyway," Amy continued, then paused to tend to the girl. "Your shoulder's all fixed up," she told her. "Do you know where your parents are?" When the girl shook her head, Amy pointed toward Sawyer. "You see that man over there? You go tell him you that and he'll help you find your parents, okay?"
"Okay!" the girl chirped. "Thank you Miss doctor lady!" With that, she scampered over to the lynx.
"Yeah," Amy continued. "So I guess when they figured out that nothing they said or did was going to make me leave, they made me an unofficial member."
"Because no one's as stubborn as you," Sonic put in, grinning.
Amy ignored him, flushing slightly. "They gave me a communicator and told me to contact them when you started fighting. They aren't paying me, but I don't care. I shouldn't have to be paid to help these people. I've been doing this for nearly four years now."
Sonic whistled. "Wow. I never would've guessed what became of you." He was silent for a moment as Amy observed the chaos below, his eyes taking her in. She was an adult now, in her twenties, same as him. She'd traded her dress for pants and a shirt, and with no head band to hold it in place, pink quills loosely framed her bright jade eyes.
Sonic shook his head in wonder. He could barely recognize her. She'd changed so much, and yet…She still talked the same. She still had the same cheerful air about her, in spite of the horrors she'd witnessed. She was still so incredibly bubbly and full of life, just like the day he first met her.
If anything, the hardships she'd faced had made her wiser. And suddenly, he was impressed. After all of these years, he wanted to get to know her a bit better. He'd missed her, after all.
"Well, I'd better get going," he told her. "It was great seeing you again." As he started walking away, he turned back slightly. "Oh, and Amy?"
She turned to look at him, smiling slightly. "Hmmm?"
"You over that crush you once had on me, right?"
Amy's smile turned bittersweet. "It was never a crush, Sonic," she told him. "Though it may have started that way. And no, it doesn't seem to plan on leaving anytime soon."
"Good," Sonic replied, grinning as she raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Meet me for lunch tomorrow at Subway." Without waiting for a reply, he turned and dashed out of sight.
Amy sort of just stood there for a moment, shock and disbelief fighting for dominance as her jaw nearly touched the ground. Then, she pulled herself together, and calmly made her way into a nearby building. As soon as she was sure it was empty, she release a loud and very unsophisticated squeal.
Me: This one was a bit longer than I planned it, so I'm going to end here. Now go click the inspiration button.
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