Here is chapter 10. It's a huge information dump, so take your time reading it. It outlines quite a bit of history, and a minimum of geography. Also, this should properly transmit to you the 'aura' or 'air' of the era - they're in the middle of a war, and the characters are supposed to reflect that, so they'll think differently from us, and I hope you see that. I went through this chapter four or five times, trying to streamline it's structure so that you get the most out of it, but I'm not sure I can make it a whole lot better, so here you go.

Anyway, to be honest I'm a little disappointed with the lack of reviews for Chapter 9. I was hoping for more, so I hope I get some more for this chapter. Please review!

Tails politely knocked on the door with his good hand, then rubbed at his tired eyes. He'd gotten so excited about the breakthroughs he was making the night before that he had forgotten to get any sleep. It was far from the first time this had happened, though, so unlike Amy he was still capable of functioning. Shows of such weakness usually ticked him off – ever since he'd decided to become strong on his own and step out of Sonic's shadow he'd despised weakness, both in himself and in others – but he could forgive it, for Amy. Besides, he'd eventually get around to fixing that particular weakness, probably using electric currents somehow. Ah, Electricity. How I love you so.

It was currently six o'clock in the morning; this meant that Amy had been sleeping for a little under twelve hours. Normally he would have had her out and exercising after a maximum of eight hours, but he decided to to give her a break this one time. Knuckles had, from what he'd seen of Amy the night before, treated her pretty roughly. She'd need to get used to it, but one day of easing her into it wouldn't spoil her too much.

Even after twelve hours, however, she still seemed to be exhausted; her lack of response at his knock proved such. Sighing, Tails opened the door, hoping he wasn't walking in on her naked or something. "Amy, it's time-"

He barely managed to close the door in time as a hail of metal shards and plastic fragments shot into where he had been moments before, moving fast enough that they ricocheted off of the metal door and hit the opposing walls. As he tried to calm his breath and figure out what had just happened, he heard Amy shout out (well, more of a groan, but it was way too loud and malevolent to be left at that), "Go away!"

"Amy," Tails called out, trying to keep his voice even. He had expected some difficulties when he offered Amy the chance to change herself, but he was getting awfully tired of riding out her emotional roller coasters. "You need to get up. I can't let you sleep more than twelve hours – it'll just make you more tired."

"Not sleeping. Too busy hurting. Go away!"

Briefly Tails' eyes opened in worry, but then relaxed as he realized what was going on. Ah. Sore from Knuckles' training sessions. She sounds pretty ticked, though – what'd he do, beat her black and blue? I thought that was my job. "Amy, I can give you some painkillers to help, and stretching will make you feel better. Trust me, sitting in bed is only going to make it worse."

There was a loud moan, and then the sound of Amy getting off the bed. A few seconds after that Amy opened the door, clad in nothing but her bra and panties, seemingly not caring. Her eyes were red, and from the way she was moving Tails could tell that her body was very stiff. "Make pain go 'way. Please," she added, as an afterthought.

Tails averted his eyes, pointedly not looking at her assets. Sure, part of him wanted to, but the rest of him knew that survival was more important. "Amy, you should put on some clothes-"

"Pain. Away. Now."

Rolling his eyes and sighing, Tails turned around (so that Amy couldn't blame him for looking even if she tried to twist the situation later) and pulled out his electronic clipboard. Resting it in his sling, he used his fingers to make motions on the board, signaling for a robot to bring a relatively generous dose of painkillers, and then put the board back in the plastic case he kept it in, attached to his waist. "Alright, painkillers coming. Now, can you please put some clothes on?"

Amy grunted, but complied, gingerly getting into her exercise clothing. Once she was suitably covered, Tails looked around her room. The metal and plastic scattered around the room indicated that the spider bot he'd sent to wake her up had been rather rudely prevented from doing his duty. I made those guys to be extra tough, just in case she got rough with them. She must get stronger when she's angry, or something. Or maybe she's on her period. "So, ready for a healthy dose of exercise?"

Amy didn't answer, instead focusing on a bit of metal plate she held in her hands. She used her fingers to curl and straighten it, over and over repeatedly, until the normally inflexible metal finally snapped in two.

"Right..." Tails continued, trying to inject cheer and energy into his words. Tired as he was, it was a challenge. "Since we're starting so early, we'll be done fairly early too. How about a visit to the place that Rouge works?"

Amy turned her bloodshot eyes towards Tails. "What? Why?"

"Well, some government officials have been asking to meet with you, since they're spending money on you and everything. It's not really necessary, but I thought we might as well get it over and done with, since we have the time today. Besides, if we have Rouge with us, they won't dare be as annoying as they undoubtedly want to be. She has a reputation for ignoring rank, you see."

Shrugging, and then wincing from the movement, Amy searched the ground for something else to distract herself with. "Sure, whatever. Knuckles said whenever was good."

Soon the robot, another spider bot, arrived with Amy's medicine, and she drank the pills down eagerly with the provided glass of water. "Alright," Tails said, motioning for Amy to follow him, "we need to go get you warmed up. We'll start with stretches and a long run, and see where we go from there, okay?"

Amy groaned again as she got to her feet, but didn't give any more complaints as they made their way to the elevator. Soon they were on floor B5, and they got started with the day. Amy made all sorts of horrible sounds as she was forced through all her stretches – if Tails didn't know any better he'd think she was dying – but she seemed to work it out of her system soon enough.

The run was the major part of Amy's new schedule. Since Knuckles' training would undoubtedly help Amy with her reflexes, toughness, and half a dozen other attributes that active combat required, Tails had decided to limit his training, for the moment, to increasing Amy's running speed, running endurance, and strength. The first two were handled by running, of course, and the last could be increased through weight lifting – for now, Amy's regimen would consist of only those two activities.

Now Amy had to run for three hours, with a few breaks, and then lift weights for about an hour more after that. Sore as she was this morning it took Amy a little while to get up to full speed; Tails wasn't exactly pleased with her performance, but she was able to complete the exercise, so it didn't really matter.

Next was what Tails had been looking forward to. On the first day of actual training Amy had easily lifted his beginner set of weights, so he'd dropped that exercise. Now, though, it was time to see if he could make her already remarkable strength even better. As he led Amy into the advanced weight room, still tired and sweating from her long run, he proudly swept his arm out to show her the special set of weights he'd built with her in mind. "I present to you the Master Deluxe Monstorium Weight Set."

Amy looked at the various weights and exercise machines inquisitively. They were big and bulky, and made out of some dark metal that looked extremely heavy. There were even giant robot arms attached to the walls to catch them if she accidentally dropped them. "They look kinda familiar."

"That's because that hammer you chose is made out of the same stuff. Monstorium is an alloy of uranium and steel, along with almost a dozen other exotic particles. Not exactly easy to make, but the stuff weighs more than a simple examination would lead you to believe – it actually magnifies the effect of gravity on itself by a small amount."

"Neat," Amy said without emotion. Science wasn't exactly her passion. "So, I just lift them?"

Tails nodded. "That's right. Careful, though; they're much heavier than they look. Start with the one farthest on the left, the one marked, 'A-1'. Work your way up to A-5, and that'll be it for today. I doubt you'll be moving up to the B series any time soon, but even if you are strong enough to do so, I need to get appropriate data, so just stick to the A's."

Amy nodded sharply, summoning her energy to the task, and walked up the the weights on the left. As Tails had mentioned there were five different kinds of weights – a bench-press, dumbbells for the hands, one machine for exercising her legs, and two different machines for exercising her torso. She laid down on the bench-press, which was marked as 'A-1', put her hands firmly on the bar above her, and pushed.

It didn't budge.

Amy stared at the dumbbell, impressed despite herself. The weights on each end were both globes a little bit more than twice the size of her head; nothing unusual for the weights she used, but this was most definitely not a normal weight set. "You weren't kidding about how heavy these things are, huh?" Focusing, she pushed upwards once again, and managed to lift the weight. Gritting her teeth, she pushed it up until her arms were extended, and then let the dumbbell slowly sink down until it almost rested against her chest. A pair of robotic arms automatically extended and set themselves so that she couldn't drop it, even if she wanted to. Sucking in air and then blowing it out, she lifted the weight once again.

After about five of these, she could feel her arms shaking. "How many of these am I supposed to be doing?" she called out to Tails.

"For you, right now? Fifty is good."

She would have laughed, but it would probably have lost her her grip on the massively heavy weight. "Yeah, right. Really, how many?"

Tails smirked. "I'm serious. What, poor little Amy can't handle a little weight lifting? Knuckles could do that many on the heaviest set without breaking a sweat."

"Knuckles," Amy said as she pushed the weight up once again, "is, despite how much I love the guy, a muscle bound idiot. His idea of 'tactics' is leaping onto a battleship, busting its engine, and riding the thing down to the ground. The fact that he survives the crash is a testament to how much of a monster he is."

"Oh?" Tails smirk grew a little bigger. "I didn't know you felt that way about Knuckles. Sonic will be crushed!"

Amy blushed, and growled as she lifted the weight again. "I didn't mean it that way, you idiot, and you know it. I love him like a, a, a brother. Or an uncle; that's more accurate."

"Now it's incest! You're such a dirty girl!"

Amy pushed it up again. "Are you trying to piss me off?"

"Amy, I would never try to do such a thing. I can't believe you think me so low!"

She rolled her eyes. "Right, because you're so noble all the time. How could I forget?"

"Indeed. But rather than that, tell me what you and Knuckles talk about at your meetings."

Amy looked at Tails suspiciously. "How is that any of your business?"

Tails smiled back slyly. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. And you don't have to tell me what Knuckles talks about – just your own problems. Wouldn't it be nice to complain to someone else for a change? Someone, I dare say, a little smarter?"

Again the weight went up. Amy had lost track of how many she'd lifted, so she just decided to continue until she could do no more or Tails interrupted her. "Knuckles isn't the only one I talk to, you know."

"You mean Rouge and Cream? Until they can convince me, even once, that either of their viewpoints is correct, they still fall short of my expectations of 'smart'."

"Viewpoints?" Amy crinkled her eyebrow, blinking to get the sweat out of her eyes. "What do you and those two discuss, anyway?"

"Oh, just philosophical stuff." Tails adopted a rather bored expression on his face. "Cream is naïve and Rouge is jaded. I prefer to take a viewpoint somewhere between the two – or just play devil's advocate, when the mood hits me."

Amy snorted. "That sounds fine to me. Both of those girls are a little too passionate for my tastes."

"I concur. But enough about me – again, what do you and Knuckles talk about?"

"Oh, Sonic for the most part." Amy sighed resignedly. "You know, how annoying his arrogance is, how stupid he acts most of the time, how little he thinks of others."

Tails frowned. "He isn't thoughtless, you know. He does think of others. He just... isn't terribly good at it."

"I know, I know." Amy lifted the weights again, sighing. Her muscles had warmed up, and the weight seemed to be a little lighter than before. "But it still hurts when he grins so easily as he tells you the reason he missed your date was because, 'I saw the most awesome sunset ever and totally needed to watch it to its end.' Well, that's the situation I experience the most. For Knuckles, it's more along the lines of, 'Yo! I borrowed one of your most precious religious artifacts because I found this hidden room in some ancient ruins at the edge of a desert that totally had a spot that looked just like a Chaos Emerald would fit there, but it didn't and the stonework ate it or something so I lost it.' It's like he enjoys ticking us off."

Tails laughed nervously. "Ah, well, he, um, kinda actually does."

Amy flicked her eyes to Tails, and then back to the weight, the sweat dripping into her eyes suddenly infinitely more annoying. "Are you kidding me!? He actually enjoys annoying us? What the hell!?"

"Well, he has a problem with 'tight-asses', which he classifies both you and Knuckles as. He thinks it's his duty to make you lighten up."

Growling, Amy lifted the weight up, taking satisfaction in the strain and tremble it created in her arms. "Well, if you see him before I do, tell him it doesn't help."

Tails smiled. "Can do. Annnnnd..." as Amy finished dropping the weight onto her chest, Tails tapped on his board, which he had taken out at some point. "That's fifty! Good job!"

Amy blinked before she carefully lifted the weight and deposited it onto its holding rack, which caused the thing to shake ominously. "That was fast. What's next?"

"Follow the numbers. Now we have the leg training, then the ab and chest weight machine, then the hand dumbbells, and finally the back weight machine."

Her arms still trembling slightly, Amy sat down in the chair for the leg weights. There were a set of braces for her legs, which she slid them into after taking off her shoes. Wiggling her four toes as she tensed her muscles, she slipped the lever near her arm to the first configuration. "And how many of these do I need to do?"

"Fifty of each configuration. They movements are small, so it will take more time than a comprehensive exercise, but your entire leg will be trained." Tails nodded As Amy began to lift her lower legs, her knee not budging. "So, what is it that you and Knuckles do at your meetings? Do you just drink?"

Amy smiled. "Of course not. We're not a pair of sad drunks, you know."

"Sure you aren't."

"Hah!" Amy exclaimed, the burning sensation in her legs beginning to build. "I don't need some twelve year old lecturing me on my drinking habits! You can talk after you've done a little more growing up!"

"Oof! Touché!" Tails' smile was little more wicked now as he winced, showing that the barb had hit home – he didn't like people making fun of his age. "But instead of insults, why don't you hand me some information. I have to admit I'm curious."

"Well, we talk, and drink. Sometimes he talks about his culture, or what was his culture, and sometimes I tell our fortunes."

"Fortunes?" Tails blinked, having stepped into territory he was completely unfamiliar with. "How?"

"Using Tarot cards," Amy said nonchalantly. "I don't really believe in the things, though, and neither does Knuckles. I think. Sometimes he gets a little antsy; every time I've read his fortune, it comes up 'you will soon find your soul mate.' I started doing that on purpose in the beginning, but after I taught him to do the readings himself, he was getting it too. It's a little strange."

"I can imagine." Tails grinned suddenly. "Oh, I can imagine what that's about, all right."

"Of course. It's obvious to everyone but him. Actually, I think Rouge is a little shaky on their relationship herself, but she's just trying to hang on to her 'single sexy thief' complex." Amy pushed the lever, switching into configuration two, which pushed her upper leg muscles.

"You know," Tails began, his grin growing wider, "I caught Rouge reading some sort of diary once. When I pressed her on it, she said it wasn't hers, but Knuckles'. She immediately acted like she hadn't meant to let that out, so I think its true. She's not that good of an actor."

"What!?" Amy was too out of breath to laugh, but that didn't stop the grin from appearing on her face. "Knuckles keeps a diary!? That's hilarious! How did Rouge get her hands on it, though?"

"Probably stole it. When I glanced at the diary, though, it had the number '53' scratched into the side. I've been wondering about this for a while, as it seemed really strange, but do you think Knuckles actually had fifty three of the things floating around?"

"I don't know, maybe. I wouldn't put it past him. He gets awfully bored up there, sometimes." Amy finished the second configuration and moved to the third, which forced her to use the muscles in her feet and ankles – a new experience. "Now I have a question for you. Sonic mentioned that you two had some sort of accident early on in your career. Would you mind talking about it? I know it's not really any of my business, but it's been really bothering me."

Tails stiffened for a moment, and then sighed. "I guess it's alright for you to know. You know how Eggman started this war, right?"

Amy nodded. "Of course. It was that major attack on cities worldwide, with nothing but police to defend them. Which reminds me – you remember how those humans on that other world actually had active armies with which to defend themselves against Eggman? Why on earth did they have those in the first place? I mean, we had an air force and a navy to deal with the occasional threat from pirates and terrorists and the like, and special police forces, but what would you use an actual ground-based army for?"

"To attack each other," Tails said, a sad note in his voice. "Humans are a pretty aggressive species. I mean, we're far from innocent on this world, but ever since we decided to treat ourselves as 'sentients' instead of individual species nobody's really been comfortable with trying to conquer each other – at least, no citizen's are. There are still plenty of dictatorships around that constantly feud or resources and territory. But the rest of the world; we'd have little squabbles with airplanes and ships, yeah, but no actual attempts to take over land permanently. Humans, on the other hand, are constantly fighting each other over territory. Sometimes it makes me wonder if our differences managed to draw us closer together, cheesy as that sounds. If we never had had to deal with the idea of different species, of looking at different races and deciding that they were, overall, neither inferior nor superior to us, maybe we would still be fighting just like them.

"But that's besides the point. After Eggman made that attack, the whole world was thrown into chaos, as you know. I lost my aunt in that attack." Tails looked down, genuine sadness on his face. "She didn't love me very much, but I still loved her. She was all I had, and Eggman took her from me." His fist tightened, the fabric of his gloves creaking.

Amy paused in her exercises. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Tails refocused on the subject at hand. "Here on Morwin we managed to take back almost all of our cities, while on Feyt Eggman succeeded in taking over. Right now life over there is pretty messed up. Some sort of meritocracy, based on what Eggman needs; basically, engineers, scientists, bounty hunters or other military units that robots can't quite manage to completely emulate, at least not cheaply. Anyway, a year after that attack the Youth Brigade was formed."

Amy nodded. "I know that much. After all, Memorial Day is pretty huge." Then her eyes opened wide. "No way! You guys were in the Youth Brigade!? But, Sonic was ten back then, and you were six! Six! What psychos let you in!?"

Tails shrugged "About half of us were Sonic's age or a little older. You don't have to be very old to use a gun. As for me – well, I was smart even back then, even by an adult's standards. Really smart. Also, we Kitsune grow up a little quicker than some other races. Physically, I'm about as mature as Sonic is – unlike you, I'll be considered full grown by the time I'm fifteen. I'll pretty much stay that way until I'm fifty, and then I'll start growing old. Kitsune are just like that."

Tails grinned briefly, and then resumed his thoughtful, slightly dispirited face. "The Youth Brigade was full of people just like us – hot-blooded kids who'd lost something. The guy who led us was this old soldier, a wolverine named Marco Mateus. He was really strange – had lived this self-sufficient lifestyle in the mountains for years before Eggman showed up, knifing predators that bugged him and making clothes out of them and stuff; pretty hardcore. We all looked up to him like he was a hero. And, well, even if you think leading an army of children is a crime, in the end I think he kinda was. It takes guts to create an army to fight against someone like Eggman, especially if the only soldiers you can get are almost all children; most of the adults back then were petrified at the very thought of Eggman's robot armies."

"Guts? A hero? Because of him, tens of thousands of people died!"

"He just did what was necessary at the time – or rather, tried and failed to do what was necessary. It wasn't his fault that we got massacred, it was Eggman's."

"Eggman wasn't the one who-"

"Amy," Tails, said, interrupting her, "I'm not going to discuss this with you. If you were there, you would have understood."

There was a pensive silence for a moment, and then Tails continued. "The Youth Brigade was formed to fight off Eggman, so we spent about a month collecting all sorts of armaments to fight off Eggman's robots. The World Army, as it was called back then, had control over most of that stuff, but our commander had some ties and got his hands on some weapons, so most of us at least had handguns when we decided to march, with some of us holding more exotic things like rocket launchers and rifles."

"Wait," Amy said, confused. She switched to configuration four as she spoke, which was for her entire leg. "He just had 'connections'? Until Eggman attacked, most police forces had little more than tear gas at their disposal, and he just 'got his hands' on lethal weaponry? You gotta explain a little more."

Tails shrugged. "Sorry, but I can't. I wasn't really paying attention to that back then – I was busy trying to figure out how you fired a handgun without knocking yourself off your feet." He suddenly smiled. "For some reason I decided I needed to use a big magnum; I could barely fire the thing without pulling a muscle or two in my arms. Sonic was confident enough in his speed – which wasn't anywhere near as fast as it is now, probably a little slower than you – and he'd been getting in fist fights for years, so he didn't use a weapon, but I thought that I needed a good weapon if I was going to fight against robots. I was pretty familiar with the things, you know, thanks to Bro Bot Battling, even if they weren't even comparable. I had an idea of what we were getting into, which makes me even stupider.

"Anyway, Sonic and I were quickly noticed for out natural talents, and made into corporals or something. No one really cared about the names – we were in charge of a brigade, which was made up of four platoons, and there were sixteen brigades in each unit, of which there were also sixteen. There were a lot of us back then – nearly twenty thousand, each platoons having twenty five members average, which was huge compared to any of the standing militaries at that point in time. Of course, now the Alliance has fifty times that at the ready, and some of them actually have some training, but we thought we couldn't possibly lose. But, that's exactly what happened."

"Right," Amy said as she finished up the final leg exercise and got up, heading over to one of the torso machines. She bent down to check the number: A-5. "So, why do you and Sonic take it so personally? I mean, no offense, but it's not like you were really responsible for what happened. Everyone in that entire army got screwed over."

"Yeah, but we were two-stars – brigade leaders. Most two-stars had some sort of combat experience, so Sonic and I were ecstatic that we got in on pure talent, and at such a young age. A lot of the one-stars – the platoon leaders – and some of the two-stars were pretty pissed, but the three-stars, or unit leaders, liked us, so we got to keep our positions. It got to our heads, and during the actual battle we disobeyed orders and went off on our own. Before the retreat was sounded and everything went to hell we both lost about half our brigades." Tails looked down again, the expression on his face saying that he had faced this particular pain over and over again, but it still hurt. "If we had obeyed orders, more people might have survived."

Amy had found the right machine, and slipped on the harness. It fit snug around her body, and she looked to Tails. "How many exercises? Fifty again?"

"Right."

Amy began to flex against the restraints, grunting as her abdomen and chest muscles were strained. "Okay. But, I thought all of the Youth Brigade was destroyed. How can you take the blame for an attack that failed so miserably on such a massive scale?"

"Look, I understand what you're saying," Tails said, shaking his head. "But just because the leaders above us failed doesn't mean we didn't screw up too. Who knows? Maybe, if there were more men and women alive in our unit, more than the dozen that survived that whole affair would have made it out of that battle. As it was, Sonic found me under some rubble, and we met up with the other ten survivors on our way back to Morwin. Half of us died of starvation or were caught by robots on the way back, and I've never heard from the other four that made it since."

"You know," Amy said between exhalations, "I don't know... a whole lot about that attack. I mean, specifics... other than it was... in Feyt, and failed miserably."

"Of course you don't. It's restricted information, and pretty much no one but Sonic, Eggman, and I know what happened that day. But, if you're interested, I'll tell you."

Amy nodded. "I'm interested. This... might sound callous, but if it... motivates Sonic, then I'm interested."

"I've learned to expect nothing less from you, Amy," Tails said with a smile. "I've always had a certain amount of respect for your drive. But, the attack." He took a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes as he recalled the information. "The land bridge that connects the continents of Feyt and Morwin touches Morwin's Cape Gardia, on its northern tip here in Elem, and connects to the Storm Cliffs in southern Feyt, in the former country of Syma. Our target was the city of Tanormy, the former capital of Syma and a huge port town. The naval battle going on at that point was massive, even more critical than the air battles; if we recaptured Tanormy, the war would have definitively swung, if not into our favor, at least closer towards equilibrium. As you probably know, being a practical scholar on Sonic, Anse, and more importantly Dynos, was still controlled by Eggman, so if we managed to take Tanormy, the plan was we could use our hold there to pressure Eggman out of his forward base at Dynos, and thus completely out of Morwin entirely."

Eyes glazed over, Amy tried to process all of what Tails had just said. After a moment, she switched the configuration on the weight machine, and turned her attention back to Tails. "So what happened?"

"Well, since the naval battle was so terrible, there was no way in hell we were going to get boat transports for twenty thousand troops. Instead, we made a daring attack on the Gardia land bridge. Eggman had reinforced it when he took control to prevent the World Army from destroying it, making it look more like a man-made bridge with all the concrete – well, from far away. It was still massive enough that you could fit several large cities onto it with almost no trouble. Anyway, we attacked it when his defenses were lowest and managed to actually succeed. We had some losses, but it was really a fantastic victory – morale soared. We used the bridge to march across and headed straight for Tanormy; it was the assault on Tanormy that was what failed. I don't know what actually went wrong, as I don't know much about the attack aside from what happened to the brigades Sonic and I led, but from the little information I've gathered, it was just a matter of numbers. Marco, our leader, led this fantastic retreat at the end from what Sonic told me, destroying ten of thousands of robots using impromptu traps and ambushes; but he, along with everyone else, died."

"So you guys attacked and got killed? What happened to you? And how come so few people survived?"

"I survived because I got lucky, and didn't get crushed by the rubble that fell on me. As for the others?" The look in Tails' eyes turned dangerous, almost vicious. "Well, the propaganda, in this case, is correct. It wasn't due to any particular incompetence on our leaders parts – well, the defeat itself was, but not the massacre. Eggman is just ruthless. I don't know if he was smarting from how we took the land bridge, or if he would have so thoroughly mopped us up anyway, but we both know that Eggman is resentful of slights on his genius, so he probably was taking his own form of petty revenge."

Amy switched to the last configuration. "Hardly seems exactly 'petty' to send your robot soldiers out to massacre every single remnant of an invading army. I'd describe it more as 'psychotic'."

"Well, if you were trying to crush your enemies' spirits, which he was, then it was actually sound tactics, distressing as that sounds. But it doesn't really matter. As I mentioned, Sonic found me, and we limped back to Morwin. We sneaked over the Gardia land bridge, most of us getting across without getting caught, which was pretty miraculous. After that, Sonic and I split up from the others to find our own way home. Whatever was left of it, anyway." Tails let out a deep breath, seemingly exhausted from his exposition.

Amy sucked in air, focusing on the new exercise, which she found slightly difficult. She'd worked on her abs before, but this one was forcing her to use the muscles in her side. I should have been more thorough in my training, before. "Believe it or not, despite being a 'Sonic scholar', I don't know how he grew up. Could you tell me more about it?"

Tails barked out a short laugh, bitterness creeping into his tone. "Should I be surprised or impressed that you can take all that info without even being distracted from your exercises?"

Amy continued to twist her body, pulling at her sides. "Sonic is everything to me. Besides, I've pretty much grown up in this war – at least, for the last six years I have. I'm a little... numb."

Tails stared at her for a moment, but then nodded. "Fair enough. I'm pretty much the same. As for Sonic, from what I know he grew up with foster parents his whole life. Except for the last ones, the ones that got killed by Eggman, he disliked them and spent more time in the woods than at home. Well, the last family was chosen specifically because they liked to go camping, so he still spent more time in the woods, but at least he did it with them. If you want anything more personal than that, you'll have to ask Sonic; I'm not about spill his secrets like that."

"Che. Fine, be that way." Amy finished with the side-pulls and pulled herself out of the harness. "What did you guys do after the Youth Brigade got destroyed?"

"We wandered around, scavenging. Sometimes we'd pretend to be refugees from Feyt, and got food from the shelters, but mostly we'd just do small jobs and scrape up enough money for food. And when we had to, we'd steal it – which did not sit well with Sonic, let me tell you."

Amy raised an eyebrow at Tails as she sat down on the bench in front of the dumbbells. "And it did with you?"

"I'm a little more practical than Sonic, especially when my belly feels like it could snap my spine in two." Tails shook his head, bemused, but then turned serious. "But that's what we did – we survived, whatever it took."

Amy nodded reluctantly. "I can hardly blame you. I did much the same thing, although I managed to find a group of people to stick with, so I never had to resort to stealing. But I thought about it, a lot. There was a lot of hunger back then, and not much room for compassion." She lifted a pair of dumbbells in her hands and began the familiar exercises.

"Yeah. Sonic did not like that lack of compassion – heroes had to be compassionate, after all. I'll tell you this much about his past – he's always wanted to be a hero, ever since we were kids. It's what drove him to join the Youth Brigade, and it's what drove him to finally make one last, desperate attempt to change his life when he attacked Fort Yrimsen."

Amy's smiled. "Ah, yes, the first time he appeared on the news. You know, until I saw that on the news, I didn't even know I was hedgehog? I recognized that he was the same species I was, and the news called him a hedgehog, so I finally knew what I was. Up to that point I thought I was an echidna. Really. I'd read these stories at some point about 'lost species' – which didn't even mention hedgehogs, by the way – and they sounded the coolest, so I decided I was one of them."

Tails couldn't help but smile back. "Really? You thought you were an echidna? That's pretty funny; no offense, but they're known for being quiet and stoic, and while it's arguable that you're 'stoic' you're hardly very quiet."

Amy chuckled, even as her arms began to tremble again from the strain. "I know, but back at the orphanage I was convinced that I was an echidna, so I tried to be 'quiet and stoic.' What I ended up doing was being strangely quiet until I would finally blow my top, ripping whoever was annoying me a new one. The people who ran the orphanages thought I was growing up to be a psycho; I kept getting bounced around to different orphanages. I went back and tried to find the first person who raised me, but she ended up dying in the initial assault by Eggman."

"Oh." Tails blinked, and then bowed his head slightly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. She was a bitch, from what I remember. I'm just annoyed because I have no other leads to where I came from."

"That's too bad," Tails said with honest remorse. "I'd like to have a lead to other hedgehogs as well. Despite having the Alliance help me in my search, I've never found any others besides you and Sonic."

Amy smiled with both amusement and bitterness in her grin. "And to think that prude still resists my charms. It's for the survival of the species!"

"I could always clone you, you know. Despite medical stuff being my weakness, with a decade or so of research, I'm sure I could find a way to modify the DNA so that there's an actual gene pool. From what I managed to salvage of Gerald Robotnik's research, I think that's what he used to create Shadow."

Amy's mood instantly turned sour. "I don't want to talk about that asshole."

"Who, Shadow?"

She nodded. "Let's talk about something else, something more pleasant – like Sonic's first victories over Eggman!" Her mood marginally recovered, Amy continued pumping the dumbbells.

"You mean Yrimsen?" Tails smiled as he thought back to the event. "I told Sonic not to go, that it was suicide, but he didn't seem to care. I think he was tired of living, really – he wanted to go out with a bang."

"Really?" The idea seemed to sober Amy. "I had no idea."

"Yep. Funny that it ended up working, huh? Eggman only remembered Sonic after his victory at Dynos, though."

"Well, of course he remembered who Sonic was after Dynos!" Amy almost stopped exercising in her exuberance. "Sonic rushed through an army of robots, avoiding them all, to have a showdown with Eggman in the center of his base in the ruins of the former port town of Dynos. After defeating Eggman's prize robot, which Eggman had been manning personally, Sonic set off the reactor and blew the whole base up! I mean, Sonic's done that dozens of times now, but that was the first – not just of Sonic's victories, but of the entire Alliance's! He single handedly drove Eggman out of Morwin – I was glued to the screen when they showed the news flash on TV! Ever since then, I've loved Sonic with all my heart!"

Tails smirked. "You and every other female between the ages of- no, scratch that, just every other female."

"Take that back, or I'll start using these dumbbells for inappropriate uses. Like braining you."

Tails put his good hand up defensively, still smiling. "What? It's true. But for the record, I think your love is the purest and most true."

Amy smiled, blushing a bit. "You're just saying that..."

"Yep."

A dumbbell was promptly thrown, and then caught by a robot arm. "Hey, watch it! Those things are heavy!" Tails was suddenly glad he'd taken the time to program the arms to catch flying objects despite it seeming a useless precaution at the time.

"Pff. I was done with them anyway. I did fifty, by the way, for each arm."

"Good. That's what I wanted you to do. The weight is just right for each instrument, so you'll always have to do the same number of exercises, unless I want to build your muscles in a specific way."

"So fifty for this thing too?" Amy was standing in front of the last machine, which had another harness, this one focused on her back.

"Yep. But anyway, after his victory at Dynos this war's pretty much been about Eggman defeating Sonic. There hasn't been a speck of combat outside of Sonic's attacks on Eggman's bases, and Eggman's attempts to lure Sonic into traps. It's almost peaceful here in Morwin – and in Feyt, too. Did you know that the flow of refugees has been changing in the last six months? There are almost no moles or lizards coming out, and only about half as many non-predatory birds. It's no coincidence that those races are known for their skill in the sciences, nor that the predatory birds that were the most influential race in Feyt due to their military history compose the largest share of refugees – the people in Feyt are adapting in this time of relative peace. At least, the ones who have a chance to adapt are."

Amy had finished strapping herself in, and had started on the first configuration, which was focusing on her lower back muscles. "How could they possibly do that? Eggman's a psychotic madman that thinks robots are superior to everyone – everyone but him, since he created them. Where is there a place for anyone to fit into that?"

"Like I said, as scientists or engineers. Robots can't do that – yet – so Eggman needs sentients to do it for him."

Frowning, Amy was finding herself struggling to gather the energy to finish up her training. She'd been worked hard and good, and was pretty tired. At least I'm not really sore anymore – at least, not sore from Knuckles. "I can't believe people would willingly work under Eggman."

"'Chimera, Chimera, fragment ideals held by kaleidoscopic life, why do you twist so?'" Tails quoted, from something Amy didn't recognize.

"What was that supposed to be?"

Tails frowned. "It's from Euthanasia and Punishment. It's a reference about how life adapts. If I knew you were illiterate, though, I wouldn't have bothered."

"Hey!"

"Anyway," Tails said airily, "What I was trying to say is that, if I was forced to live in Feyt, I'd take any advantage I could get. Eggman could care less about you if you aren't useful to him – and people he doesn't care about tend to end up either living in the dirt, or getting buried in it."

Groaning, Amy finished the fiftieth exercise and switched to the second, and last, configuration. "I'd never do that. I'd join the resistance and fight against him."

"Even if they're totally powerless to change anything? The Robot Freedom Force is more successful than they are, and they have even fewer numbers."

"Yeah, but they're totally composed of formerly elite commandos from Eggman's upper echelon. And they're not trying to destroy Eggman's rule – they're just trying to free their 'bretheren' from 'slavery'." Even as she struggled to finish the exercise, which was pulling on her upper back, Amy almost got distracted by the sudden and intense distaste that coursed through her. "Those guys really piss me off."

"Hey, they're just trying to free themselves. They're a new race of sentients – it makes sense for them to be more worried about themselves than anything else. In fact, that chao robo was designed after them, only more peaceful in design, with an emphasis in adaptive intelligence instead of quick decision making."

Amy felt a snarl coming onto her face. "I don't care. They use dirty tactics, and don't give a damn about anything other than themselves. I mean, a year ago, when I followed Sonic during one of his attacks, I ended up having a brush with them. I tried to convince them to ally themselves with the Alliance, but they just tried to shoot me!"

Tails sighed. "I'm not going to defend them. They were built to be soldiers, and their long term foresight isn't the greatest."

"You sure sound like you're defending them."

"I'm admitting they're flawed, almost critically so. Besides, I have a suspicion that Metal Sonic is leading them from the shadows." Tails paused for a moment, thinking of something. "I just want you to know that my chao robo won't be anything like them."

Amy let out a huge sigh as she finished the last exercise. "Of course he won't. I'm helping to raise him, aren't I?"

Smiling, Tails offered Amy a hand, only for her to wave it away. "Right, of course. How could I forget? I'll have to actually let you get some time with him."

Taking a few deep breaths, Amy gathered herself up and got to her feet. "Good idea. I still haven't gotten my revenge on that imp."

"Hey! You're supposed to be helping him become a good guy!"

Amy gave Tails a crooked smile. "Revenge is a good thing! If it wasn't, it wouldn't feel so pleasant!" When Tails only looked at her more fiercely, she put a hand on his head and ruffled his fur. "Relax! I'm just kidding. Are we going to go visit Rouge now?"

Tails tried to smooth his hair back into place, an annoyed look on his face. "Stop doing that, please! And yes, we're going to go visit her. You can get some rest in the helicopter; I already have some refreshments waiting there. Let's get going before they get warm."

Amy nodded, licking her parched lips at the though of a cold sports drink, and followed Tails out the door and towards the lift.