"Sonic…you're here…" Amy whispered as the blue hedgehog delicately brushed his hand over her cheek.
"Hang in there, Ames…" Sonic stayed by her side, but turned to give Eggman a death glare. "What did you do to her?!"
Eggman triumphantly grabbed the chaos emerald Amy had dropped and looked down at the two without a hint of remorse. "She wouldn't give me the chaos emerald I so greatly deserve…so I simply had to exterminate her."
"Those are our emeralds! They don't belong to you, Eggman!" Tails exclaimed and dove for the chaos emerald. Before he could reach it, one of Eggman's robots caught his tails and brutally tossed him towards a tree. The fox fell to the ground in a mangled orange heap of fur.
"Tails!" Sonic gaped at the innocent fox who had done nothing but try to help, then returned his attention to the aggressor.
"Don't even try to stop me, Sonic!" Eggman hollered as he ran to the small aircraft he had waiting for him. "I have all seven chaos emeralds, and when I get that Master Emerald, YOU'RE going to be the first to go!" With his robots in tow, Eggman flew off, leaving Sonic in the dust with his two injured friends.
"Tails…?" Sonic ran to his long time pal, hoping that he had not been hurt to the same extent as Amy. "Wake up!"
Tails slowly opened his eyes and rubbed his head as he staggered off the ground. "Did I…did I get the chaos emerald?" He looked up at the hedgehog, still trying to recover from the knock he'd received from Eggman.
"Eggman flew off with it." Sonic hissed through his teeth and watched the sky as if Eggman were still there. "He didn't hurt you, right?"
Tails managed to smile as he grabbed his sore arm. ""If you're not giving up yet, Sonic…then neither am I."
Sonic messed with the young fox's bangs playfully and turned his gaze to Amy, who was still lying on the ground. It was an unsettling sight for him, and the guilt was building up inside of his heart. He took Amy's injury in as his own selfishness; for not stopping her, for not telling her how much he really cared on that day of her heartbreaking exit.
"Amy…" Sonic sighed and ran up to the limp pink body lying helplessly on the cold snow. He scooped her up in his arms and pulled her close to his chest, longing to hear her rhythmic heartbeat.
"BLAZE!!! COME DOWN!!!"
Sonic lifted his eyes from Amy to see Silver STILL shaking the tree violently. Despite all the havoc Eggman had caused stealing the 7th chaos emerald, Silver was completely unaware of this and was consumed in the idea that Blaze was the bird stuck at the top of the tree. The small purple Flicky that Silver had chosen to be his victim was hanging on for dear life as he continued his tirade.
"Silver?! What're you doing here?" Tails shouted, also observing the entertaining scene.
Silver instantly stopped shaking the tree and stared blankly at his friends, much to the bird's relief. "Sonic? Tails? When did you get here?"
"You didn't see Eggman come here?!" Sonic shouted, being careful not to lose his grip on Amy.
"No…" Silver replied and looked back to the tree. "Oh no! She's gone!"
Tails gave him a hard stare and redirected his interest to Sonic, who was worriedly stroking Amy's quills. "She'll be alright, Sonic….I'm sure Eggman didn't kill her."
Despite Tails' reassurance, Sonic just shook his head in disgrace. "This would have never happened if I would have told her…"
"Told her what?" Silver asked curiously, finally coming back to reality.
"Nothing." Sonic said bluntly, hiding his embarrassment by the question.
Tails smiled, being the only other besides Sonic to know what he wanted to tell her, and started to fly. "We'd better tell Knuckles and the others what happened."
"You're right, Tails." Sonic started jogging forward, still cradling Amy in his arms. "If we're going to fight Eggman, we'll need all the help we can get."
The team started moving through the snow, and noticing that he would get left behind again, Silver floated up in the air and tried to keep a steady pace behind them.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Is anyone here?" Sonic burst through the door of the Blue Typhoon. He turned the light on and gently set Amy down on the couch.
"Cream?" Tails called out hopefully, expecting her to still be here with Cheese.
"If you're looking for the rabbit here, you won't find her." A deep voice answered from the other side of the room, coming out from behind the computer.
"Shadow?! What're you doing here?!" Sonic jumped back and tightened his fists upon seeing the black and red hedgehog.
Shadow smirked and folded his arms over his chest. "I didn't come here to fight you, faker." The look on his face suddenly changed to a confused stare directed at Silver, who was trying to figure out the basics of a modern microwave. "I came here to warn you."
Silver detected this and approached Shadow with a large grin on his face. "Hi! I'm Silver! Did you know that laptops aren't microwavable?" He pointed to the small computer jammed in the open door of the microwave, now catching on fire.
"My laptop!" Tails whined and ran to the microwave to scrounge up what was left of his computer.
"What did you come to warn us of?!" Sonic asked, shocked that Shadow would actually try to help them, and sat down beside Amy, lying unconscious on the couch.
"Dr. Eggman." Shadow said brusquely, trying to keep as much distance from Silver as possible. "He's got all seven chaos emeralds, and once he gets his hands on that Master Emerald, there's no point in taking your pitiable team in to try and defeat him."
"What about Cream?" Tails rejoined the conversation, holding burnt computer pieces in his hands.
Shadow grimaced and turned back to Tails. "Eggman has her also. If you want to see her again, I insist you go to Eggman's base before he gets in a bad mood."
"NO!" Tails instantaneously let go of the pile of laptop pieces, his jaw dropping. "Sonic, we have to do something!"
Sonic looked down and scratched his head. "We will Tails, don't worry. But we're not going to go right now…" He carefully placed a blanket over Amy, noticing her shiver slightly. "I can't just leave Amy."
Tails clenched his fists and started to whip his tails about angrily. "What about Cream?! She's alone with Eggman!"
Sonic stood up and stared directly at Tails, his eyes narrowed. "I'm sorry Tails," He said sternly, trying to remain calm. "But Amy needs me right now. Cream will be fine until Amy wakes up….then we can go rescue her."
"How can you say that?!" Tails growled and returned Sonic's angry glare. "You don't know what Eggman is going to do to her! We can't just sit here and watch Amy while Cream is in danger!"
Shadow scoffed and made his way out the door as the arguing continued. "This is pathetic."
Amidst the chaos, Silver was raiding the fridge to test how many of Sonic's chili dogs he could fit in the microwave all at once.
"Tails, my decision is final! We're going to stay here with Amy, and that's it!" Sonic threw himself on the couch and turned on the TV.
Tails groaned and ran towards the door. ""If you're not going to help me, then I'll save Cream without you!"
Sonic's eyes widened and he sneered at Tails' seemingly worthless words. "Are you crazy?! You can't face Eggman by yourself!"
Tails opened the door, feeling the harsh winter wind blow past his face. "Just watch me." With one last determined look at Sonic, he was gone.
"Hey, Sonic!" Silver was hopping up and down by the busted microwave excitedly. "The chili dogs are done! All 56 of them!!!"