Chapter 9
The starting hike was relatively easy but the thickness of the dark wooden trees seemed to not only to drag them away but almost felt like they were going in circles, the only path was very narrow making it of utmost importance to pay attention to the path at hand. The closer they got to the mountain was when the hike started to get intense. The mountain leading to the cave was not only very very steep but very rocky with sharp rocks so one had to be cautious which rocks they grabbed. Before starting the climb it was decided that Ace would be the first one up, below him would be Amy following him while Sonic Knuckles and Tails would be following behind her just incase one of them lost their footing footing they could each act as a safety net, Tails would be a last resort for everyone. Tails could still only fly himself for so long before getting tired, but this was a very steep area with hardly any landing platforms, and what was worse was the air pressure was very different at that altitude, the air was desnse so Tails could easily lose consious if he flew up too quickly, so it was safest to just climb the normal way. Ace was up in front directing which rocks were safest but if he wasn't sure he would ask Tails to fly up and double check for the group.
After a frankly long and intense climb Ace could see the first rest stop. "We reached the resting point." He quickly got up and reached his hand to help Amy up.
Amy grabbed his hand and carefully watched her step as she propped herself up. "Thanks!" She then turned back to help Sonic but was stopped by Ace as he shoved his hand to help his blue rival.
Knuckles grabbed his stomach as it loudly growled. "Hey Amy, you didn't happen to pack lunch did you?"
Amy giggled a bit as she sat her backpack down "As a matter of fact I managed to pack a ton of ingredients so that I can freshly make them here!" Amy first took out each ingridient from the bag and carefully laid it down on the rocky opening. She then grabbed a couple loaves of bread and cheeses and other ingredients to make some sandwiches.
Tails cheered "Leave it up to Amy always packing us good food!" his mouth was already salivating at the imaginary taste of that sandwich entering his mouth.
Amy finished making about a dozen sandwiches and first offered one to Sonic. Sonic quickly grabbed one and took a succulent bite into Amy's freshly prepared meal.
"Mf dibsh ish goob!" Sonic was rudely talking with his mouth full but Amy just tired of scolding him all the time that she just rolled her eyes and ignored it.
"I also bought apple juice if you want any!" Amy said as she was passing the sandwitches to her friends.
Ace quietly stared at Amy's sandwich and looked at her while everyone was enjoying their meal. Sonic caught wind of this and quickly broke the munching silence to sort of bring Ace back to reality. "What's up Ace? Not hungry?"
Ace quickly gathered his attention and quickly took a bite out of his sandwich "I was estimating the time it should take to get from here to the cave. It's just one more rocky hike and we will make it to the cave's entrance."
Amy looked up at the rocky path, despite Knuckles' warnings, she really hoped this trip would give her a solution out of this strange family contract. She took a last sip of her apple juice and crushed the box and put it in a small trash bag to dispose of later. She carefully packed the remaining ingredients, juice boxes, and trash into her bag before hopping up to her feet. "Alright is everyone ready?"
Ace got up and looked for the safest rock to place his foot down. "Like I said earlier this isn't going to be as intense as the rock climb but we do need to be careful where we step, a lot of these rocks aren't properly grounded to the floor so it's really easy to slip so proceed with caution."
"Uhh" Tails stretched his legs "how far up is this path, if it's not too far I can fly us up."
Ace quietly looked up the trail to make some estimates "I would advise against it. The next safe platform is at least an hour and a half hike with only a small space to head into the cave. The cave is also very dangerous to go in blindly. So we should continue with our same position"
The group began their hike, again with the same formation as last time. It had been only 10 minutes but the silence was beginning to bore Amy.
"Gee Ace you sure know a lot about this path, how did you get so acquainted with it if it's so dangerous" she asked.
Ace only moved his head to catch a glimpse of the girl. "I come here to train and on occasion help poorly prepared people trying to make the hike back down the mountain. The terrain is perfect for practicing all key muscles and instincts. I'll even camp out here for more rigorous training, which i've been doing lately."
"Is that why you suddenly came out of the blue? You weren't at my Grandma's house the first days I was here."
"Yeah, I was actually on my way back from a week long camping trip."
"One week?!" Amy was astonished anyone would come up here and stay longer than a day, it was very tiring just to hike a small portion of it alone.
Ace didn't respond and the area became silent. Ace couldn't carry the conversation and this set off Amy into another spiral of boredom. Since fall was coming the sounds of birds were far too distant to enjoy their chirps, she would've enjoyed looking up at the beautiful sunrise colored trees that were beginning to bare their new colors due to the chilling weather but every time she began to look around Knuckles or Tails would quickly remind her to pay attention causing Amy to blush in embarrasment, she was being treated like a kid again. Looking down at the grey rocky path was so boring, the colors blended together making a bland path, but it was that blend bland that made the path all the more dangerous, without realizing it Amy had began to tune out the rocky path's rocky uneven rhythm and without realizing it she found herself stepping on a rock that Ace had made sure to avoid. This medium sized rock was not properly grounded to the floor so as Amy pressed her heel to it it caused her to loose her footing and fall backwards.
Ace heard the slip of the rock and quickly looked back and in slow motion saw the young rose with a shocked expression on her face. Before he could utter a word he instinctively reached his hand to grab Amy's hand but this caused Ace to lose his footing as Amy continued to fall now dragging down the wolf down with her. Thankfully Sonic was able to stand his ground quickly grabbed Amy by her shoulders, thus protecting her head from hitting the hard rocky road. Sonic didn't expect for the added weight of Ace, this caused Sonic to almost lose his footing but Knuckles and Tails quickly made sure to prepare themselves if they needed to catch the 3, luckly for them Sonic was able to find his equilibrium and saved everyone from an extrented hiking trip. But the Male hedgehog was at first too preoccupied with keeping the 3 of them alive to notice a very important detail.
The entire time Amy kept her eyes closed, once she felt her foot slip she prepared for the worst, she was expecting to feel the impact of hard rocks to her head, she even expected to tumblr and continue rolling down the trail but after a few seconds she didn't feel any impact, in fact she felt warmth around her shoulders and a moist warmth on her lips. She slowly opened her eyes to meet the velvety violet eyes of her friend Ace. Everyone was shocked at this odd position of events, no one knew who was more shocked than the other. The moment first clicked into Amy's mind and she immediately tried shove Ace off, but due to her poor stance and gravity she was only able to push him inches away from her face. This small struggle caused Sonic to focus even more on his stance which kept his entire focus away from the discorse. Eventually the moment clicked in Ace's mind too and he quickly separated himself from Amy, quickly carefully looking down to see which rocks were stable so he found his footing.
Ace cleared his throat. "Let's hurry up, at this pace we will be spending the night out here."
Sonic carefully helped Amy find her footing on the ground and they quietly continued on their path. Despite being the fastest thing alive Sonic was the last person to completely process the entire event: that was Amy's first kiss. He was about to try and ask if she was alright but he noticed that Amy was lost in focus as she looked at the rocky path, he didn't want to break her train of focus out of fear it might trigger another chain reaction as the one from before.
Amy kept her head down the entire time and focused entirely on each stone this time, not because she also wanted to prevent the same chain reaction as before but it was also the only distraction keeping her from her louds thoughts that made her feel like not only screaming, but crying. She didn't want to think back to it, deep down she knew it was an honest mistake on both their parts but she couldn't help but blame herself entirely for the situation. This time she carefully studied each color of each rock as she hiked up the mountain.
