AN: Hello there! Sorry that my update was a little later than usual. I'll explain why. I was writing this chapter and it deleted 700 words of my work that I couldn't get back. I was so upset about it that I abandoned the story for a bit. But then I came back because I know that I have the power to imagine something even better. I hope you enjoy this new chapter. Also, check out the other new Chapter called, "Pink Annoyance Story Info."
You'll find missing answers there. My PMs are always open, so any ideas for the story info or anything I've missed would be useful if you mention them to me so I can improve. I'll be responding you your comments in this Chapter tomorrow since it is 4 am and I'm publishing this after writing 5k words on a phone lol. I will also be tidying up other chapters that have spelling and grammar mistakes so you might get the "Story Updated." Notification quite a bit when I edit tomorrow. Okay, without further ado, let's stop stalling and get onto the Chapter. PS. I love all of you reviewing and for 7k reads. I appreciate it.
P.S.S. Happy Spring/Sakura season!
Time to respond to your reviews!
Starlord Master: The theme of this story can be found in the Chapter: Pink Annoyance Story Info which is now the first chapter of this story :). Yes, Rouge is more unstable that everyone thinks. I always enjoy reading comments, they motivate me and give me something to enjoy about writing this story. Tails is always tinkering with something because that's what a curious genius like him likes to do. One thing that hasn't changed about Amy is that she isn't afraid to show people what she is thinking. Happy May :)
Nebula the Hedgehog:I agree with you. Team Dark has trouble trying to accept the blame, especially Sonic. Sonic does need to get his head out of the clouds, I agree :) At least he's realising his mistakes now thanks to Knuckles. Happy May :)
Amefloza23: Yep, Amy is settling into her team pretty quickly and she sort of gets on well with Rouge, she's off to a good start. Also, no spoilers :) We'll see if there will be a dark Amy soon. I also agree with you, returning to the team hat hurt her would be awkward, not a good idea lol. Let's see if she'll better off in Team Dark. And yes, it would be better off respecting Amy instead of suffering in G.U.N. Happy May :)
theflamingpanda: No, Mya will not be playing a big part in the story, she's more of a side character that you may see on different occasions, but she will not be playing a big part in the story. Also, thank you and I can't wait to see you on my other chapters. Thank you for Reviewing and Happy May :)
That's enough of your time, isn't it? You can read now :)
Enjoy :)
Location: Westopolis, G.U.N HQ
9:03 am
Amy closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She didn't want to disturb anyone or cause a scene. With Mya around, it was like stepping on a ticking bomb. You could set her off at any moment.
"So?" Mya spoke, "You're not gonna greet me?"
Amy grit her teeth together. She didn't have time for this.
"Mya." Amy stated calmly, "Put the USB stick and the notebook down."
Mya wiped the evil smirk off of her face and replaced it with a dirty look. How dare she talk to her like a child?
"Okay, little miss senior. But first, answer me this." Mya replied.
Amy's tried not to get her quills bristled in anger. She had taken the time to style her hair today and she was not about to let the problematic cat stand in the way of her new job. Amy's eyes locked onto Mya's as she started to speak again. Her hands started to shake in nervousness but she was determined to get her stuff back and leave. She didn't want to cause any trouble for her team.
"I just want my stuff so that I can go back to my office." Amy hissed.
"I. Don't. Care." Mya growled.
Amy tried to walk past her to get help, but Mya stood in her way.
"Seems like you don't care much for your USB drive and notebook. Well, if you try walking past me now...I will make sure to break this drive with a snap of my hands and wipe your pathetic notebook with my ass. So I suggest you answer my question, Special Agent Amy."
Amy looked at her in disgust as Mya left a pathway open for her to walk past and get help. Amy felt so humiliated by the people watching. Mya always had to make her feel vulnerable. Ever since she had gotten here she was continuously put down again and again. She was starting to feel desperate.
"Fine. I'll answer your little question." Amy snarled. She was running out of patience.
Mya smirked as she clapped her hands together and put the items on the table. Amy quickly grabbed at them and put them in her bag. She still had to answer the question, she knew Mya would not let her leave.
"How the hell did you get promoted to Special Agent when you're just a weak little Apprentice?" Mya snapped.
Amy flinched at the insult. She didn't blame Mya for feeling like this as everyone else in the office could have been there for years. But she got promoted in 2 months.
"Maybe if you all work harder...you can get promoted?" Amy replied with a small voice.
Mya burst out into dark laughter.
"Oh? Work harder for what? I've been stuck on fucking level 6 for 2 years Amy. And what happens to me? I work my ass off on assisting arrogant pieces of shit who have your job position. But you? You get special treatment. Just because you're an ex freedom fighter. Just because you look like a little innocent princess." Mya growled.
Amy tried to keep her tears in. She refused to let them fall. Not in front of this girl who accused her of things that weren't in her control. The worst part about it was that it was true. She had worked her way in here and within 2 months, she became a Special Agent.
"Well, I'll tell you what. With that crybaby attitude you have and that arrogance, you're nothing but a pathetic talentless hedgehog. No wonder why people didn't see you in the news whenever Sonic and his friends were fighting to save the world while you were to busy getting fucking caught like a useless little child."
Amy slammed her hands down on the table, hard. She was never seen in the news because her friends never allowed her to help out at all. Amy startled Mya who glared at her hostility as she slowly walked towards her and grabbed her by her wrist, almost breaking her arm with her strength. Amy had never known herself to be this violent but all she knew was that at that moment, she felt true anger.
"You have no right to assume that about me, little miss knows it all." Amy hissed.
Mya's eyes widened as she had never seen this side of Amy before. Mya shook Amy's hand from her wrist as she grabbed Amy by her collar.
"Don't speak to me like that." Mya spat as she narrowed her eyes.
They both froze as they heard clapping coming from behind them.
"Mya Sullivan." a voice icily stated.
The girls both turned around to see Rouge standing there with another G.U.N agent who was a brown weasel who stood next to her.
"I sent my agent down here to collect her stuff. Not to have you break multiple rules with the intent to insult an Agent on my team."
Mya turned around and glared. Boy was she in deep trouble. She ran her free hand through her dark blue hair and sighed.
"What rules have I broken?" she snapped.
Rouge looked at her nails with a bored expression.
"Oh, I don't know...Maybe it could be taking things that don't belong to you, swearing up a storm at your senior of all people and the fact that you're still holding on to my agent's collar."
Mya's eyes widened as she stepped away from Amy. Amy brushed herself off and just stared at the scene unfolding in front of her eyes. She didn't know what to say or how to react.
"Since Amy is not only my agent but also my friend, I'll make sure than your punishment is very thorough. Such as suspension. Do you agree on this, Amy?"
Mya looked up at Amy with pleading eyes. Amy stared back at her, unsure of what to say but knew what she wanted to choose.
Location: Westopolis, Tails' Workshop/Residence
10:00 am
Sonic quietly sat in Tails Workshop as he pondered quietly. Sonic called him into there and had a conversation with him about it but something about the way Tails responded just didn't sit quite right with him.
(Flashback.)
"Hey, how are you feeling Sonic?" asked Tails.
Sonic looked around to see if anyone was in the workshop before he replied in a hushed tone.
"I'm doing great. Say, could you analyse that nightmare that I had the other day? It's been bugging me for a while now." Sonic replied.
Tails sighed and slumped his shoulders. He didn't want to admit that he was frightened by that creature. His gut instinct told him that it was Amy and he sure did not want to get to the bottom of it. Still, Sonic was a friend.
'A friend in need is a friend indeed.' Tails thought. He had to help Sonic.
Tails yanked an office chair over to his desk and sat down on it while connecting a few cables from the machine to his computer. He transferred the files from the machine and saved it into a folder. He then opened a picture editing software and began to get rid of the blur and pixels of the creature.
'It wasn't clear, but that just looked like Amy with lighter fur.' Tails thought. What form was Amy supposed to be? It looked like a nightmare. As far as he knew Amy didn't have any power except her piko piko hammer, which was solely based on physical contact with something. Unless there was something that she hadn't told them.
'I'll get to the bottom of this.'
Sonic was sitting impatiently while tapping his foot. Tails didn't know what to tell him.
"Tails? Are you done yet? I wanna make some chilidogs for the both of us." Sonic announced, eyeing Tails suspiciously.
Tails snapped out of his thoughts. Sonic already had a lot of stress on his shoulders and he didn't need any more. Tails would keep this to himself for now and investigate before jumping to conclusions.
"Well Sonic, I'd advise that you don't worry about it. With all the things going on recently, it's probably just a normal nightmare." Tails stated while not looking him in the eye.
Tails was met with silence and an unreadable face. He didn't like lying to his best friend but he didn't want to stress him further. He uncomfortably drooped his ears sadly as he walked out of the room leaving Sonic to think.
"I'll go make us some chilidogs." announced Tails before exiting the Workshop, not waiting for Sonic's reply.
(Flashback Ended.)
"Just a normal dream, eh?" Sonic whispered to himself. That was not normal. A pink hedgehog slapping him so hard in his face that he flew, talking negatively about him and his friend, threatening him and looking so much like Amy was not normal.
"Amy," he whispered to himself as he felt his heart skip a beat. Every time he did this a great wave of guilt and sadness washed over his body.
He had mentioned her name again. Every time he did, flashbacks would appear in his head. Some of them reminding him of the annoying times that she harassed him and some of them too emotional for his liking. Not that she knew he thought that.
He felt butterflies arise in his stomach as he knew he would be seeing her again soon after so long...
'So long?', It had only been 2 months. He didn't want to admit it but a week without Amy on the team made the team dysfunctional. He remembered the first week that she had left so clearly. There was one day where he snapped when somebody brought her name up.
(Flashback)
"Alright buddy, you ready to go?" Sonic prompted.
They were going out on a mission and getting ready to leave. Tails looked around to see if anyone else was left before locking the door to his home. He didn't hear Sonic because there was something on his mind. Sonic looked at him confused. Usually, Tails was able to speak while thinking of something entirely different but now, he was completely silent.
"Sonic..." Tails began, "Do you think we're alright like this?"
Sonic raised a brow in question. What was he on about?
"I'm talking about Amy—" ,Tails replied, but got cut off. Sonic put a firm grip on his shoulder.
"Don't mention that name...we haven't seen her for a week and she's moved out. She's not coming back Tails." Sonic snapped.
Tails sighed in exasperation. He wanted to find Amy, he even tried searching all over the area where she lived. Even though he was a genius, he couldn't find her. They had even formed search parties.
"B-but Sonic, what if something bad happened to her—"
Sonic silenced him with a finger. He refused to believe anything had happened to her. He figured that the best way to keep going on was to cut her from his thoughts completely, but it hadn't seemed to work. Why was she constantly on his mind anyway? It's not like they were even in that kind of a relationship...she's just a friend...Yeah, that's it. She was just a friend and he was worried about her.
"Uh, Earth to Sonic...?" Sally inquired. "You've been saying the same thing for a few minutes and everyone is waiting for you."
Sonic mentally facepalmed. He said that out loud. Sonic's ears drooped in sadness. He had felt bad for arguing with her like that. He thought that this was like these other arguments where she would come back and apologise and they would hang out as friends but it turns out that she was gone for good. Sally sighed and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Listen Sonic, it's no use worrying about Amy now. It's stressing you out. If Amy can't handle us being in a relationship, then she has no respect for you. She wasn't a good friend, she was just toxic."
Sonic glared and growled at Sally. She flinched as she wasn't used to this kind of coldness from him. Maybe she wouldn't have said that. Even so, she was his girlfriend. She was not going to let a little girl break down the team or her relationship with him. She had to do this. Though, what Sonic said caught her by surprise.
"Sally, don't talk about Amy that way. I've known you longer than her but I won't tolerate it. She is a nice, sweet and caring person but she isn't toxic. She's my friend."
Sally sighed. She knew better than to insult his friends and upset her boyfriend. She just wanted a happy life and relationship. Who was Amy to Sonic to get in the way of that?
"Sorry, Sonic. Just know that you're not the bad guy in all of this. Friends disagree all the time. Let's not make this into a big thing." Sally spoke softly.
Sonic flashed a sad grin at her. He did want to be mean. Maybe it was best not to make this into a big thing after all.
(Flashback Ended.)l
"Make this into a big thing, huh?" Sonic sadly whispered while chuckling to himself. They were way past the point of no return to call it a 'friendly disagreement.'
"Yeah, yeah Rouge...okay. We'll see you tonight if the answer is yes, and stop calling me Knuckie." a voice announced.
Sonic frowned and looked up to see knuckles walking into the workshop with his communicator projecting Rogue on it. It looked like she was at work as she leaned back in her office. She had a flirty smirk displayed on her muzzle as she looked distantly at her nails. Sonic was shocked to see that hot-headed knucklehead had allowed the bat to even communicate with him.
"Alright, Knuckie. Make sure you say hello to big blue for me, tell him I'm not one to take no for an answer. Also, make sure to bring me something shiny...like the master emerald." Rouge teased at she winked at him.
Knuckles' eye twitched a little as he remembered the times where the bat would threaten to make the island fall.
"Haha, very funny. Anything but the master emerald would have to do. Now quit it and get back to whatever you were doing. Annoying bat." he grumbled.
"You imply that you're gonna get her something? Like a wedding ring?" Sonic joked.
Knuckles cracked his Knuckles as he put the communicator down and glared hard at Sonic. Sonic just sweatdropped and shrugged.
Rouge giggled as she leaned back in her office chair on the projection. She could see the rest of his body because the communicator was now on the table.
"Well Knuckie, thanks for the view. See you tonight," she spoke and winked at him.
Knuckles closed his communicator with a serious face, yet the blush on his muzzle from the flirty bat's comment.
"You two seem like an odd couple. Feelings aren't my type of thing anyway. I'm kinda surprised that you two are dating-" Sonic started but stopped short when he saw that Knuckles was hesitating between growling an insult or punching the soul out of his quills.
"Alright, alright! Knux, relax. What were you guys talking about anyway?" Sonic asked, cocking a brow in curiosity.
Knuckles sighed. He knew it was going to be hard convincing Sonic about this. Heck, it had even taken Rouge a while to convince him to even agree.
"You know how sneaky this bat is. She wants to go on a double date with me, you and Amy."
11:24 am
Amy sat in her office as she typed away on her keyboard while sipping her Vanilla Latte. It tasted warm and sweet. Vanilla was supposed to be calming. It wouldn't get rid of her problems though. Amy sighed and took a break from typing and stared at her aching fingers as she remembered the events that had played earlier.
(Flashback.)
"It's alright, let her go. I forgive her as long as she doesn't bother me again," spoke Amy.
Rouge looked over at her and rose a brow. She hadn't seen any other agent be so lenient. In this workplace, a hierarchy was present but Amy seemed to ignore all of that.
Rouge dragged Amy by the arm to the cafe silently and ordered their respective drinks before continuing to drag her back to the office. Amy had just barely closed the door before Rouge started to yell.
"I send you away to get your stuff for one second and you manage to get yourself into all sorts of trouble! What do I have to do, start babysitting you?! Why couldn't you just get your stuff and leave?! It seems like trouble follows you everywhere and I simply don't have time to put with it." Rouge yelled.
Amy flinched at the bat. She didn't know if Rouge had realised it but it seemed like she cared about her friends more than she cared about jewels in her kind of way. Amy had always looked up to Rouge to be a level headed, intelligent treasure hunter. This batwoman was more unstable than she thought. Amy saw her swing from one attitude to the next. Overall the years Amy hadn't seen her for, she had completely changed.
However, the way Rouge was going about the situation painted Amy out as incompetent and Amy was not going to stand down and take it. It hadn't been her fault that she had been forced to go on a mission on her first day as a member of Team Dark and it hadn't been her fault that Mya had decided to steal her things. This was unfair. What didn't help was that it was the first day working in the office.
"Look Rouge, I'm sorry but it's not my fault that Mya decided to take my things, I would've been up sooner if she didn't. So chill out." Amy explained trying to defend herself.
Rouge set her coffee cup down sharply on the table.
"Chill out?!" Rouge thought.
How could Amy address her so casually without caring that Rouge could get her into trouble for it? Since when was she her equal?
"Listen here, Amy. Cut the attitude. All I want is a smooth team to work with. Not a Team with a little kid who has a certain habit for finding trouble. It seems like you haven't left your old ways behind you, so let me remind you where you are." Rouge seethed.
Amy looked at her with a dark glare. Rouge covered her mouth once she had realised her mistake. Amy had snapped a pen that she was holding and as the pieces fell onto the desk next to her, she marched herself over to Rouge and looked her dead in the eye. What was with everyone bringing up her past?
"As I said with Mya, you guys have no right to bring up my past. So I suggest you shut your nocturnal ass and wake up and realise that the old Amy Rose is gone forever. You weren't the one getting beat down by someone else who yelled at me for things that weren't even in my control. I'm over this." Amy snarled.
Rouge looked startled from Amy's outburst. It made her realise that she had gone a little overboard. Rouge decided to get rid of the awkwardness and cleared her throat.
"Right. It wasn't good of me to bring up your past, next time just bring me my coffee on time." Rouge sighed while setting her cup down at her PC and logging into her G.U.N account.
Amy still had her glare fixed on Rouge almost burning holes into the back of her head. Rouge still hadn't apologised...
'Then again...', Amy thought, 'This was probably her way of apologising...'
Amy shook the thoughts from her head and looked at her bracelet. She had a diary to analyse. She couldn't let a little drama distract her from her job.
(Flashback ended.)
Amy banged her fists on her desk in frustration. Why couldn't she have a normal and peaceful life? It was already hard enough knowing that her father could be dead or involved in Eggman's next scheme-
"Amy." a voice stated, snapping Amy out of her thoughts. She looked over at Rouge to see her turned around in her office chair, facing her.
"Are you alright? You've been aggressively tapping your pen on the table for a few minutes and it's distracting me." Rouge continued.
Amy looked at her pen. Bits of it had been chipped away and laid on her desk next to her wrist communicator. Speaking of which, she wasn't supposed to be complaining about how terrible her life was at the moment. She had a job and a purpose. What lay on her desk was the key to unlocking whatever scheme Eggman had seemed to be planning as he had been off the radar for months. She couldn't let her emotions get in the way of what she had to do.
Rouge sighed and took the silence from Amy as anger instead.
"Look, if you're upset about earlier..." Rouge began but bit her lip. Was she about to lay down her pride just for Amy? It wouldn't hurt to apologise, after all, she had used her past against her. Rouge looked at Amy who stared intently at her, waiting for her to continue her sentence. That didn't help at all. However, Rouge was intelligent enough to know that if she didn't apologise, it would put further tension on the team. She was not in the mood for that kind of drama.
"Look, if you're upset about earlier...I'm sorry. Forgive me. Now can we move on?" Rouge quickly snapped while looking away and pouting unhappily.
Amy giggled softly which startled Rouge. Had she just wasted her time conflicting on whether to apologise just for the hedgehog to laugh at her? As soon as Amy saw Rouge frowning at her, she stopped giggling and smiled at her.
"I thought Shadow had trouble apologising, but you're a completely different case," Amy replied.
Rouge looked at Amy with a blank face. She didn't know what to say. It had caught her off guard. It seemed like Amy had forgiven her though so she sighed in relief and ran her hands through her wavy hair. Amy spoke again.
"It's not what happened earlier that I'm worried about." Amy began. Rouge looked at her in wonder.
"I'm going to read what's in that diary," Amy announced.
(Flashback.)
"D-double date?!" Sonic yelled, "Are you crazy?!"
Knuckles winced from the loud outburst. Even though his ears weren't visible, he was very sensitive to the noise. He had already gotten an earful from the bat about how they left them to die in the base and Knuckles had to lay down his pride and apologise to her even though he didn't agree with leaving her and Amy inside of the base. He even got convinced by the evil bat to go on a double date as punishment for it. 'Payback', she called it in the earlier conversation. The things that he did for this hedgehog and the bat when he could be looking after the master emerald on Angel Island and enjoying his solitude instead were ridiculous. Thank God that he had entrusted that task to Tikal. He knew that she would not be easily swayed if someone had tried to take it.
"Hello? Knucklehead?" Sonic inquired.
Knuckles snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Sonic. Trying to convince the hedgehog would take quite a while.
"Don't yell at me, I said what I said." Knuckles replied.
"Listen to me, Knuckles, I'm not going to the club with Amy as if she's my girlfriend. You know what would happen."
Knuckles' eyebrows twitched in anger and he popped a vein. One thing he had managed to control over the years was his temper. By now, he would've clobbered Sonic but Rouge had taught him that the best way to get to someone was to shoot down every single one of their excuses.
"Amy's not the same before as you saw yesterday Sonic, so you don't need to worry about her. You're not getting out of this."
Sonic could see where this was going. He could either run away at the speed of sound and disappear for the night but Knuckles would probably kill him the next day. He could say he was still sick from the machine's after-effects from yesterday but Tails would see straight through that lie and he knew his best friend well enough to try to get him to go too. Or he could beg Sally to somehow get him to stay at her place but Sally and Knuckles would end up clashing.
However, after all the things that had happened so far, sonic thought that going to see Amy and talking things through with her wouldn't be a bad idea. Plus today was the perfect day for him to go since Sally had a few errands to run later back at the palace so she would be gone for 2 days while she was back in Knothole. He also needed to take a break from the drama, so relaxing and unwinding at the local bar wouldn't be too bad.
Still, the thought of reuniting with a friend after 2 months out of his life made him feel nervous...and he didn't like it.
"So I'll take your silence as a yes." Knuckles spoke.
"What?! No Knuckles I'm not going." Sonic complained.
Knuckles sighed. He was started to get irritated by the childish behaviour.
"Give me one good reason why you won't go." Knuckles stated.
"Well for starters Sally might go ballistic if she finds out that I'm going on a double date with someone who used to have a crush on me for years, Amy is WAY too young to even look in the direction of a bar and we have priorities like the mission report."
Knuckles chuckled menacingly. Sonic shivered. Did Knuckles have something up his sleeve?
"Don't you dare try those dry excuses. Sally doesn't have to know that you're trying to reconcile with an ex-friend, Team Chaotix is taking care of the mission report and nobody said you and Amy were going as a couple, you can go as friends. Also, do you even know how old Amy is by now Sonic?" Knuckles challenged.
"Well duh, she's 16 or something like that...still WAY too young to go to a god damn bar!" Sonic retorted.
"No you dumbass, she's turning 19 next week...where the heck have you been?" Knuckles replied.
Sonic looked at himself in the reflection of one of Tails' machines. Had he not been paying attention to her at all? Sonic decided to try one last argument.
"Sorry Knuckles...after all that's happened, I don't want to see her."
"Congratulations Sonic. You've broken the Guinness world record for being the fastest liar alive." Knuckles sarcastically announced.
Sonic looked at him and frowned. Why did he insist that he must go? He hated being told what to do. He was free like the wind which couldn't be restrained or told what direction to go. He sighed and finally gave in. He stood up and glared at Knuckles.
"Fine. I'll go to the stupid double date if you insist Knucklehead. I didn't know you wanted to see Rouge that badly." Sonic replied.
Knuckles smirked triumphantly but inwardly rolled his eyes at that last comment. Somehow the hedgehog still found a way to pin the blame on him.
"Well cya Knux, I've got some chilidogs to eat." Sonic chirped.
Knuckles just shook his head at his best friend and chuckled.
"What a fatty."