In terms of Sonic canon, Boom is almost a blank slate. To some degree it's helpful as there aren't years of comics and games and cartoons to reference, but it also limits characters. Therefore there is a created character in here, she's important to further this chapter but not the story as a whole. I hope to avoid OC's (the name, incidentally, is taken from a real person).
Also, I am aware the themes followed here are used so often, and I can only apologize if it comes across repetitive. I am trying to go down a different route, but there are so many good stories out there, it's no mean feat. Onward dear friends, thanks for sticking with me.
I've failed to mention this, but Sonic et al belong to Sega and many others (but not me, at all).
Now Amy had an active imagination, she had access to books and she was bright. None of these things could help her understand how to convert the data she knew in to the physical actions she needed. If romance was an art than all she could accomplish was the abstract. There was nobody she could really talk to; there was no way she was going to the twins even if they were the most logical. The adult women of the village were too stuffy to ask "so how did you seduce your husband?"
Not long after she turned sixteen, Amy came in to heat for the first time, and her world went a little crazy.
Just before her Birthday, an old woman came to the village and called on Amy immediately. Her green quills were grey at the ends and she balanced most of her weight on a stick, but her eyes were bright and her clothes were colourful. Amy tried to recall ever seeing her before, given she stood out among the other women of the village, but there was only a fuzzy recollection of a time before she moved away from her parents. When she opened the door to this other worldly creature she had almost just as quickly shut it again, but the emerald hedgehog had held out her hand politely.
"Amy Rose, my name is Mary Concepción," she had announced in a whispery and soothing voice. "I'm a travelling midwife. I'm here to give you some advice."
"No!" Amy had exclaimed, quickly snapping her hand back, "I mean, I'm not pregnant, I can't..."
"You will be reaching sexual maturity soon yes?" Mary had interrupted.
"I think the cards just say Happy Sixteenth. But I suppose so."
With a slight nod of her head Mary had indicated she would like to be invited in, to which Amy obliged. Somewhere in the back of her head she could hear her Mothers voice explaining about the "crazy lady" who had visited when she was younger but anything else was a faded memory. Amy wasn't fearful of Mary though, she gave off a very caring aura but was clearly happy to be blunt. Blunt was sometimes okay, especially in matters such as these.
"Now I am not here to explain to you exactly how a baby is made. I feel at this age that will just be patronizing. I assume you do know?"
Amy cleared her throat, as she began to feel awkward, "Yes, when a male and a female love each other very much..."
"Love doesn't make a baby dear, having sex does. It's a very genetic process, and while I am an advocate of sleeping with animals you love, I am not here to give you dating advice."
Amy flushed red, and crashed about making them both a cup of tea before the conversation got any more embarrassing. She would need the soothing sensation of a hot drink in her hands.
"I am glad to know you haven't been in heat yet, because with little knowledge of what it does to your psyche it can be a very confusing time. All at once you are going to get a rush of hormones you have only caught the edge of and it is my job to keep you as safe as possible. There is a male hedgehog in the village too I understand? Sonic?"
"Yes, just Sonic. You don't have to tell him about this do you?"
Mary patted her hand, "It isn't necessary if you are aware of the situation. Each species, Miss Rose, is biologically inclined to reproduce with beings in their own circle. This is why we are taking love out of the equation for this conversation, love is blind to logic. During the time you are in heat, about two weeks, your body will be screaming at you to act upon its desire to conceive a child. It will also being giving off pheromones to let any male within the vicinity know that is what the situation is."
Amy let out a sound that was somewhere between a whimper and a groan. It was a wordless question. Mary simply carried on.
"Sonic is going to feel very uneasy in your company during this time. If there have been no other female hedgehogs around then this is going to be new to him as well. With both of you slaves to your hormones it is easy to let sensibilities go by the wayside."
"Ca...can I help myself?"
"Of course you can, this is why I am telling you this. For your first time in heat it will be wise to stay away from Sonic at all costs. I am not here to lecture you on your choices so if you choose to act on your impulses I will not berate you. However, you are young, and he is very good at running away, so whatever you feel about him, it should be pushed way down."
Amy stared in to her cup for a moment before responding, "Would it not be easier to just tell him?"
Mary lifted Amy's chin with one finger and scrutinized her face thoroughly, "You are a pretty little thing. Miss Sticks informs me that Sonic has very poor impulse control. Perhaps telling him that you can barely contain your desire to have sex with him would be unwise?"
Amy freed her chin and frowned, "He has more respect for me than that," she snapped.
Mary nodded, "Which is why he would be very angry with himself if instinct was stronger than logic."
Amy finally understood what she was being told.
"Will I have to do this every time?"
"No Miss Rose, after a couple of seasons your bodies will adjust to the increase in your hormones and it will become more like background static. In bigger towns where creatures are surrounded by their own species these hidden scents are always in the air and they grow up used to them, like how you stop noticing the smell of a bunch of flowers in a room after a few hours."
After they chatted for a short while longer about the physical changes Amy would feel; an increase in body temperature, physical sensitivity, aggressive tendencies towards other females (of any species apparently) and after Mary had made it painfully clear that satisfying her urges herself were perfectly healthy and natural, the good nurse had departed.
"Wait!" Amy called after her just before she disappeared from sight, "what do you mean Sticks informed you?!"
"My Grandma does the same job, only she goes to talk to badgers instead of hedgehogs. I got 'the talk' a couple of years ago."
"I...suppose that explains it. Sticks, is this what you were trying to talk about, that night we went camping?"
She nodded, "I try to make it my business to understand the basic genetics of most creatures, that way I know when alien hybrids are trying to imitate us. Badgers are very anti-social creatures, so we can start popping out cubs a lot younger...gives us more chance to preserve the species."
Amy raised her eyebrows, "You've been in heat already?"
"Oh yea, lots of times. I don't get horny though I just get angry. The first few times I happened I holed myself up in a hideout I built in the forest. I claw a few trees to pieces, stand under the waterfall to cool myself off, and sleep a lot. I've got used to these mood swings now though, you won't find me acting crazy."
Amy scrunched up her face to force herself from making a joke. She had come straight to Sticks burrow after her visit from the midwife. Her brain hadn't taken the time to process what she had been told properly yet.
"Did you tell Mary about Sonic?"
Sticks looked a little forlorn before she spoke, "It's not that I think Sonic intends you any harm, you've been on plenty dates where he has been the perfect gentleman..."
"Or he wasn't interested," Amy sighed quietly.
"I thought you said he had made a move or two but stopped when you asked him to?"
"Doesn't mean it was because he likes me though, maybe it's part of this whole pheromones business."
Sticks growled. She had seen Amy be the most confident young women you could hope to give a motivational speech, and in the same day lose every ounce of belief in herself. Sonic was so cautious about letting anyone knows what he was feeling he would make Amy feel bad about herself without realizing he was doing it!
Sticks grabbed Amy's hand and dragged her in front of a mirror, after clearing piles of junk out of the way. She pulled her dress tight around the pink hedgehogs body.
"Not interested, in this? Look at this rack! And this butt! I've seen Tails and Knuckles look at you in ways they haven't before. Face it, you're hot, what red blooded male hedgehog could resist?"
Amy gave her friend a dubious look over shoulder before looking again in the mirror. Her quills were slightly longer than they had been when she was younger, and she liked the way she could flick them around. Her bust wasn't huge, but was shapelier than last year perhaps. She kept herself fit and her thighs had taken a muscular roundness.
"I'm a little scared of what's about to happen to me Sticks," she admitted, "I don't want anything to happen either of us regret."
Sticks considered this revelation before coming up with the simplest solution, "Then stay in my hideout. It might not be up to your standards of hygiene but it is remote, and has that waterfall for all your aqua needs. Except panning for gold, I bled it dry already."
Knuckles was snoring loudly when Tails sat himself down next to him. The beach was deserted and all that remained from Amy's Birthday the week before was the odd piece of confetti buried in the sand. As it was a coming of age Birthday the whole village had descended on the shore to wish her well. The girls especially had fussed about her, putting flowers in her quills and whispering things in her ear. Tails had no idea what was being said but Amy had spent most of her time blushing. Even he had to admit it made her look very cute, even if she nothing but an older sister to him. Knuckles had been a little more crass and had whistled at her a few times, but he meant no harm by it. Amy didn't seem to take offence to it, but Sticks had flipped him off. Flirts.
Sonic on the other hand had been virtually unreadable that night. Usually Sonic felt the need to put on a show when that many people were together, but he had remained subdued. Tails had spoken to him a couple of times and though Sonic had replied with a quip or two, there hadn't been the same snarky tone in his voice. He had avoided Amy at almost all costs and though Tails has teased her in the past, it made him sad to see the disappointment in her face. As far as he was aware Sonic hadn't seen her at all since then.
Though he was still a few years off understanding love completely, he was pretty sure Sonic loved Amy. For years Sonic had acted liked Amy should be besotted with him, and for years Amy had seemed besotted with him. When it seemed that Amy wasn't romantically interested in him, Sonic had acted out in a childish fashion by either putting her down or intentionally trying to make her jealous. They had flirted, and they had dated, but even then Tails was never able to draw Sonics real feelings out of him.
Suddenly Knuckles stirred and grumbled, "Twenty-three..."
Tails turned to him, "Twenty-three what?"
There was a blue flash, a wave of sand, and finally the sound of Sonic speeding by. Tails brushed the sand from his fur and stood to attention.
"What's going on? Are we under attack? Is Sonic in mid battle?"
Knuckles hadn't even opened his eyes, let alone brush the sand of himself, but he still replied, "I don't think so. He just keeps going round the island like that. I think I counted twenty-three times but I can only go up to twelve, so I started counting from one again and added them together."
"How can you not count beyond twelve but you can add together?"
"Magnets."
Tails took in a breath but decided against heading down this particular rabbit hole any further.
"Did he say why he's doing it? Usually if he's breaking a record he has me time it, or I make something to speed him along or..."
"Nope, Forest just keeps on running," Knuckles jumped in, as another roar of blue hedgehog shot by and covered them in sand again. "I'm seeing how deep he can bury me, ha."
Tails rolled his eyes and shook his head lightly. They were a weird bunch.
