I was walking dead

Stuck inside my head

I couldn't get out

Turn the lights down

The voices inside were so loud . . .

She thought she could feel her heart throbbing in her head, every pulse sending a jolt of agony rippling through her skull. She ached everywhere . . .

When she came to, she could hear the growling rumble of Eggman's speech, igniting her fury.

" . . .You are the creation of my grandfather. He gave you a life and you are responsible for preserving his line. Dare you betray the very blood that breathed life into you?!"

"Amy." Shadow's stern voice was much closer. The sound of a strike followed. "Ugh!"
She came in to focus. Shadow wrestled with the twisted Sonic, but was focussed on her.

"He . . . hey!" Amy slurred, sitting up and shaking her head hard several times. It made her feel like she was spinning. Then she attempted to glare at Shadow. "I said he was mine."

"Ah!" Shadow snarled as the demented Sonic was grasping and twisting his arm behind him. "As I recall, the agreement was Eggman. There was no discussion regarding a biologically engineered Sonic of mass destruction." Shadow snapped before flinging the pale Sonic across the room. Amy's eyes widened briefly.

"Wow. Well that was sarcastic."

"Amy! Are you ok?" Sonic's voice cut through the room, and Amy turned her head a little too quickly. The room spun a little, and her right eye hurt. A lot. And that's when she realized she wasn't seeing through it. Although she panicked internally, she tried not to let it manifest.

"Um . . . define ok."

"Shadow!" Sonic yelled, and the darker hedgehog cast a swift glance toward the encasement before leaping out of the way of the evil Sonic's lashing fist.

"I am-" He dodged a roundhouse "mildly preoccupied-"

"We tried them on her once before and they didn't work . . ." Sonic shouted, then delivered a mischievous grin. "Try them now." Shadow lifted his head, eyes widening before he nodded in recognition.

"Try what now?!" Eggman snarled tersely from the darkness.

"Try them now!" Sonic insisted, and Shadow kicked the demonic Sonic across the room from him in an effort to get a few moments to spare. He rushed to Amy's side, with Eggman crying out furiously:

"STOP HIM!"

By the time the pale Sonic had pushed himself back on his feet and had flung himself in Shadow's direction, it had already begun. The vibrant, ancient gems were grasping light from Sonic's containment unit and were throwing flashes back into everyone's eyes. Shadow and the vicious Sonic grappled madly as the real Sonic found the liquid filling the encasement lapping his chin.

"AMY!" He screamed out. "Ya gotta get up! You know what to do . . ."

Amy found herself struggling to sit up, the agony in her eye and her head nearly unbearable. Her vision was warped with tears.

"Sonic, I-I haven't ever-"

"That doesn't matter!" Sonic's intense expression halted her in spot, frozen by the severity. "Amy, you can do this. I know it. Chaos is power . . ."

Amy closed her eyes, focussing hard on the very reason she was here in the first place.
The thing that had kept her here on this planet while she fought for her life in the confines of her own mind all those months, wondering if she were truly alive or dead . . .

But you stood by my side
night after night
night after night…

You loved me back to life.

She opened her eyes to look at Sonic. She was witnessing the chaos emeralds alighting from within in her peripherals as she let pure feeling crash over her like the breaking wave of a tsunami . . .

Enriched by the heart . . .

"NO! NO! The girl, get the GIRL!" Eggman was roaring, but Shadow was doing everything in his power to keep the vile Sonic at bay. The room exploded in a golden sheen, lighting every dark corner it touched as if banishing the blackness. One moment the vibrant hue was next to Knuckles, passing to Tails, over the crumpled form of Rouge . . .

"You FOOL!" Eggman screeched, already making his getaway in an Egg Mobile. "Keep them busy or you will pay fervently for failing me!" He spat the warning at the twisted Sonic before jettisoning toward the ceiling. He pushed a button on the Egg Mobile dashboard to open the floors above, permitting him an exit.

"SHADOW!" Amy yelled tersely. "Follow Eggman - don't let him out of your sight!"

"I believe you said that you wanted-"

"I have more important things to deal with." Shadow watched her gaze pass from Sonic's encasement to the imitation grinning madly at her. Her hammer snapped into existence from thin air in her right hand. She was glaring down the morbid Sonic with a thirst for combat. The white eyes locked on to her and charged forth.

"Amy, he is formidable – an exorbitantly tough opponent!-"

"Yeah? So am I." She hissed. Within seconds, she was clashing with the pale blue form.

"Get Eggman!" She screamed, her arms trembling as the warped Sonic's garish blind grin shook with the effort of holding the hammer handle with her. Shadow did not hesitate to pursue the doctor upon her wishes as the two hedgehogs tangled, struggling against one another's strength. Shadow felt confident in her ability to perform by herself – for he knew what she was capable of.

"Amy!" Tails yelled, running forward, and Knuckles grasped him by the tails and whipped him back abruptly.

"Are you CRAZY?! Can't you see the kind of fight that thing is putting up against a super form?!" Knuckles snarled before lunging forth. "You stay back and let me at 'em!"

"Save some for me!" Rouge drawled saucily, preparing to attack.

"Guys!" Amy snapped "I've got this - get Sonic out of there now. Ugh!-" Amy groaned as the pale Sonic spin dashed, knocking her off her feet.

"Amy, I don't think-"

"NOW! He needs help!"

Rouge immediately turned to the encasement and gave everything she had into a forceful kick.
The trio worked diligently in an attempt to free the trapped hedgehog, with Tails scouring for the master controls as Rouge and Knuckles wailed against the sturdy form with high impact blows.

Amy leapt out of the way of a flying leg which left a deep fissure in the floor. She charged forth and felt her hammer connect forcefully with the sky blue blur. The creature was sent careening across the room, embedded in the thick armoured door of the entrance. She watched it carefully as it twitched in the malformed metal, knowing that in moments it would be back for more - until Tails' voice cut through the room like an arrow point, snapping her out of her focused battle rage.

"AMY!" He screamed. "Amy, come help us-"

"I don't know what this is made of, but I can't kick through! Not even Knuckles can break it-"

"Guys I've been pretty cool about this whole water thing and all but it's gettin' pretty real in here . . ." Sonic gargled, jerking uselessly against his restraints as the water closed over his head.

"Keep, trying . . . don't you guys dare stop!" Knuckles hissed, irritable – he tore at the encasement with his fists in a flurry, screaming out his rage. He heaved a desperate breath as he fell against the flooded prison in futility, sweating with effort. He had never felt so helpless in all his life, watching his oldest friend writhing in that nightmare.

"Sonic!" Amy yelped as she began racing toward the scene, but her temporary distraction left her vulnerable. The violent Sonic targeted her back and impacted her with full force. Within seconds, she felt herself smash against the encasement abruptly. She temporarily saw white, and blinked it out of her focus as the pale green light of the orb she was pressed against filled her vision. Her eyes travelled up the leg shackles to Sonic's face, and his eyes held a kind of guilt and stinging regret she had never before witnessed in them. As each second passed, she saw the energy in his eyes dimming – that charismatic spirit evaporating from his flesh. She could visibly see the life ebbing out of the one thing that mattered most to her in all the worlds.

Sonic was dying.

She could feel her emotion spike like a Richter reading, feel the energy building and burning a fiery trail behind her eyes, hot on her tongue and licking through her ears as it consumed her entity wholly . . .

Chaos is power, power enriched by the heart.
The heart is the controller.
The controller serves to unify the chaos.

"I am the controller!" She spat confidently. She jettisoned from the platform swiftly as the demented Sonic approached, narrowly missing the vice of his grasp. She now stood at the other side of the room, hammer gripped; her breath spurting heavily with her eyes closed.

"What is she doing?" Rouge sputtered. Tails had his hands pressed against the encasement, frantically feeling for any controls or switches in vain.

"Amy, we're out of time, if we don't get Sonic out he'll-"

"COME ON!" Amy roared as the pale Sonic righted himself and launched back in her direction, spin dashing savagely. Eyes still closed, she used all the bestowed energy of the emeralds to focus on her surroundings, arm muscles clenched in preparation for the change . . . she could not afford to do this wrong. Her arms tense and her ears perked, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as the temperature in front of her minutely increased.

She screamed out her energy, putting everything into the viscous swing of her arms. It sent her hammer ricocheting against the psychotic hedgehog so hard that she felt the reverberations throughout her entire form. It made her whole body thrum with the impact of absorbing such powerful energy.

She barely had enough time to open her eyes before she heard the smash and the shrieks of her friends as they were doused in the fluid. She flew past everyone choking and sputtering in the aftermath as if in a dazed dream, unable to tear her eyes from the encasement. She yanked the unconscious, vile doppleganger from the hole he had created in the encasement, causing a portion of it to collapse. She moved inside the resistant prison without hesitation. She begun grasping at Sonic's binds and uprooting them with great effort, roaring as her muscles felt like they were tearing apart. He collapsed upon her once freed from the shackles, soaked and unmoving.

Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .

It was a mantra thudding in her head in time with her heart, which was trying to pound its way out of her ribcage. He was so limp, not a muscle aiding him whatsoever, and it scared the hell out of her. Against the protesting of her agonized muscles, she mustered the energy to force herself into a sitting position, pulling him from her back to her laps. Her arms felt like two heavy kettle bells, convulsing with the effort of laying Sonic upon the flat surface before her.

She held his nose and tilted his head back before leaning in to try to gasp life back into him. After the second heave of oxygen - shared from her lungs to his - failed to make him stir, she located the bottom of the rim of his ribcage. She placed the heel of her other hand on his chest and sought out his sternum before locking both hands together. With her fingers locked tightly, she pushed down upon his chest hard and fast, willing the life back into his form as she felt the greatest panic of her existence choking her silent.

Come on, come on, God damn you . . .

I didn't come all this way to watch you die.