AN: Heavens above, this was hard to write. Especially, Sonic's part. That rant, goddamn. I need to take a nap. Hope you have fun.

Chapter 33: When It Rains

"S-Sonic?" Tails peeked into the room. "You're finished? And where's Rouge?"

"Well, I gave it as much as I could, buddy." Sonic chuckled as he rose to his still rubbery feeling legs. "And Rouge has gone to call a few people. Where did you disappear off too?"

"I—Well, I went to discuss Shadow's condition with Doctor Quack..." Tails chewed his bottom lift nervously. Sonic raised a curious brow. He knew that expression. It meant Tails was thinking hard about whether to tell him some unpleasant information and was currently debating the pros and cons of telling him. Probably something about Shadow's condition.

At this very moment, Sonic didn't really feel like hearing more bad news just yet. So, he grabbed Rouge's bag as a small distraction. "Yeah, before I forget—Rouge has told me to give this to you," Sonic said as he reached into the bag to take out its contents.

"My tablet!" Tails's face lit up the moment his beloved Miles Electric was back in his hands. He immediately turned it on, likely wanting to check GUN had not messed with it too much. However, only a few keys were pressed before Tails' expression become pinched and the blue gaze was on Sonic once more. "Sonic, there's something you should know. Amy, she's—" The expression on Tails's face was almost pained and...angry? However, the young inventor took a deep breath and his expression slackened into just...tired. Tails's tone also was totally devoid of any energy as he continued, "Amy—she's got something to tell you and I think it'll be best if you hear it from her. She's waiting outside."

"Wait, Amy's here?" Sonic asked, surprised. What was she doing in hospital at this time of a day? Had Tails called her? "Why?"

"Well, Doctor Quack is still looking into it, so we're not sure yet, but—she might be partly at fault for Shadow's current state."

"What?!" Sonic could do nothing but stare. "What do you mean—?"

"Please." Tails gave him an absolutely pleading look and Sonic clasped his mouth shut at the intensity of the emotion in it. "Just try to stay calm," Tails continued—and, Chaos, what an absolute bombshell was about to be dropped on him that Tails was trying to calm him down beforehand? Him? Of all people— "I've done what I could to get the details out of her but I got nothing that would help Shadow, so, please, just try to stay calm. Otherwise she might start crying again and then we'll get nothing more out of her."

"...I'll do my best," Sonic promised. He still had no idea what it was that Amy had exactly done, but by the way Tails was acting it could be nothing good. Actually, it had to be pretty darn bad that Tails worried he might not be able to keep a cool head. Chaos—

Sonic shook his head to clear his mind of the terrible scenarios that his mind was conjuring. After all, it was certainly all just some kind of accident on Amy's part. After all, Shadow felt nauseous the day before, right? Maybe Shadow had complained about it to her and so she had given him some medicine that should normally make the agent feel better but mixing it with the serum caused unexpected side effects? Sonic's memory of the prior evening was still a little fuzzy but he was fairly certain Amy had showed up at some point back then. And it seemed like something she'd do.

Thus, figuring that to be the most likely case, Sonic set off to settle the matter. "Keep an eye on Shadow while I'm gone," he said and then stepped outside, letting the door click shut behind him.

Almost immediately his gaze was drawn to the red and pink form of Amy at the end of the corridor. "Amy," he addressed her, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible. Still, Amy jerked so violently at the sound of his voice as if he'd struck her. She turned sharply to him and even if the Tails had not given him the heads-up, he'd been able to immediately say she'd been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy, there were tearstains on her cheeks, and her nose and lips twitched with her too frequent sniffing.

Sonic suddenly had a sinking feeling about this all. Still, he began to walk towards her and cleared his throat, deciding to speak up first when Amy did not want to. "Tails said—"

"I swear I didn't mean to do it!" She rushed, both the words out of her mouth and her feet to him, her hands coming to grip on his forearms in a knuckle-white grip that made Sonic wince in discomfort. But Amy did not seem to notice through the new wave of tears that were starting to spill from her eyes. "It was all just a stupid mistake—!" she desperately tried to explain herself, but she was heaving through her breaths and thus as well sobbing around her words, making it impossible for Sonic to understand anything.

Therefore, Sonic broke the hold she had on his forearms, so he could lay his hands on her shoulders instead. She seemed to calm down marginally at his touch. "Amy, calm down. Just take a deep breath and—In and out. In and out. Yeah, like that." He did what he could to make his voice as gentle as possible despite the turmoil of uncertainty and worry churning inside himself. He guided her down from her worked-up state until her breathing was relatively slow and only interrupted by a sniffle here and there.

Then he gave her a gentle smile and softly prompted, "Alright, now how about you start from the very beginning? Tell me what exactly happened."

"You—you remember how we went to the market together?" Amy inquired with certain nervosity to her tone. Sonic just nodded. "I talked—I talked to a woman there—She saw I was upset and she asked me about it, so I told her why. And she...gave me something." Amy gulped, averting her gaze from him. She squeezed her eyes and took her a long moment to continue.

However, in the moment it took her to recompose herself, a little light-bulb went off in Sonic's head as he realized what most likely have happened. Amy believed in the more 'natural' methods of healing—herbs and essences and all that other stuff—as anytime he had a cold or something like that she'd bring something like that to make him feel better and she probably wanted to do the same for Shadow when she learned of his indisposition—Wait, was that actually why she had insisted to go to the market instead of just improvising some other meal from the things they had at the house? She normally bought that kind stuff from the vendors on these kind of markets, after all.

Sonic hummed thoughtfully. The woman she spoke of was probably one of those. Though, probably not her usual vendor as otherwise Amy would have called her by a name; she was on the first-name basis with basically everybody on the market from what Sonic had overheard while waiting for her to finish her shopping. She likely had taken so long to do the shopping because she had actually just been searching for someone that had something that could help Shadow.

Man, now he felt bad about rushing her. And for her. She likely hadn't fully realized it was not a common cold she was dealing with but a botched serum of a mad scientist. Unfortunately, sometimes Eggman's plans did not blow up in only his own face.

Amy took a raspy breath as she continued, "She—she said it'd solve all our troubles—but I had doubts, so in the end, I decided not to use it. But th-then the phone rang and it startled me and my-my hand slipped and it ended up in the glass, and then you and Shadow were suddenly there and taking the glasses and I swear I didn't know it would hurt Shadow—"

She was beginning to hyperventilate again and Sonic did her best to calm her down despite his own internal unrest that the confession brought. It really had been an accident, but, Chaos, the way she'd planned to go around it—

The hero's mind was ringing alarm bells and once again conjuring scenarios because of her words, but Sonic did his best to banish them from his mind because, after all, that could have been just a bad wording on Amy's part; in her distressed state, she probably just hadn't realized what that would sound like when spoken aloud.

"Amy," he addressed her instead of allowing himself to succumb to his emotions, aware he still lacked a lot of crucial information here to make an informed judgment about her actions. "What exactly did the woman give you? And why? How was it supposed to help Shadow?"

Still, Sonic did not quiet manage to quell his emotion enough to stop his hands from tightening where they held onto Amy's shoulders. She did not seem to notice, luckily.

"...Or incapacitate him?" Sonic added as an afterthought, assuming it might have been Shadow hanging around him for these past few days she'd thought to be a problem. After her fight with the agent, she might have felt like Shadow was a threat to Sonic's safety while in a drugged up state, and so in her misguided attempt to protect him or something, she'd wanted to just give Shadow something to keep him calm but the medicine had instead had unforeseeable side effects.

"No!" Amy very much shouted the word into his face. She deflated a little at his taken aback expression, her eyes once again refusing to meet his. "I haven't meant to hurt Shadow, at all!" she rushed, obviously misinterpreting his words. "I might not like him but I'd never hurt him! It wasn't meant for him!" She chewed her lip before quietly admitting, "...The potion was meant for you."

The tension in the air was suddenly so thick you could cut it with a knife.

"...It was what?" Sonic's control began to crack under the sheer weight of that statement. What did she meant it had been for him? "Amy, what exactly was using the...potion—" Heck, had she really called it that? "—on me supposed to achieve?"

He stared at her and when she did not answer immediately, he suddenly felt like he was a single answer from falling from a precipice where there'd be no way to climb back up.

"...You admitting you love me," she said eventually, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks again. But the emotional reaction they were probably supposed to draw from him was just nowhere to be found, any empathy he might have felt for her lost in the bottomless hollowness of shock and crushed beneath the weight of betrayal bearing down on his heart, which felt like it was about to get crushed too.

Because...because he'd given her the benefit of a doubt, thought her to be just trying to help and yet it'd turned out to be no accident at all—and Shadow had almost died because she wanted him to confess to some stupid feelings he'd never had—

Stupid feelings that apparently were so frigging important to confirm right there and then that she'd dragged him to get the stupid potion right after he'd told her he was dealing with a situation at the moment, not caring he had Shadow to look after, not caring that leaving Shadow alone with Tails could have possibly resulted in the injury of his little brother if Shadow had snapped, not caring about thinking about other people at all because apparently they weren't as important as them spending some 'quality time' together—

As Sonic allowed himself to switch from the rose-colored glasses of kindness to the green ones of selfishness to add color to Amy's actions, all the puzzle pieces fell into place easily—

And suddenly, there was not hollowness inside him, but instead burning searing fury, liquid anger being pumped into his veins—

Amy met his eyes, immediately trying to explain herself when she saw his stormy expression. But honestly, there was nothing she could say that would make the situation better. "It was supposed to help you loosen up and—and make it easier for you to speak freely about your feelings—"

However, her voice was just a white noise in Sonic's ears now, her emotional appeal not reaching him at all anymore. All Sonic could focus on was the the pain in his chest that felt as if somebody had stabbed a serrated knife in there and twisted—

She had planned to drug him into confessing to a stupid crush and decided to employ the help of some absolute rando woman who just happened to have exactly the thing she needed—

He did his best to follow the same breathing technique he'd performed with Amy just moments prior. He wasn't sure how long it took him before he was able to speak again, but he knew it was long enough for Amy to have stopped talking, the pink heroine only watching him quietly now, lips pressed into a thin, trembling, uneasy line and brows furrowed over tear-filled eyes.

She tried to look into his eyes. He refused to look into hers.

His hands slipped away from her shoulders and he turned his back to her, needing to put some distance between them for the time being. "Let me get this straight." Closing his eyes, Sonic pinched the bridge of his nose, doing his best to keep his voice down despite wanting to do nothing but shout at her about what the hell she'd been thinking and despite knowing that he was fighting an already lost battle about that at this point. "You take an unknown substance from someone you do not know and you decide to use this could-easily-be-poison on a guy that has more enemies that want to see him dead than he count on a single hand. Am I getting this right?"

Sonic was certain he could hear her flinch. "I-I know it was naive of me to trust her, but she—"

Sonic's eyes snapped open as he could not believe what he was hearing. Was she about to defend the woman? He twisted around, figuring it was about time to lay some real-world truths to Amy's romanticized version of it. It was about time for her to finally grow up.

He'd had to before he was even thirteen.

"Amy, there's naivety and then there's just sheer stupidity!" he was very much shouting now, but he did not care to hold himself back this time. He'd tolerated Amy's shortcomings in the past, but this was too serious to just swipe under the rug. Chaos, Shadow had almost died because of her! Because of him! Because he'd allowed this to go on for so long, leaving her behavior unchecked and shielding her from the fact his life way was less dangerous than it really was— " There are bad people in the world and many of them are my enemies, who'd like to see me hurt! Do you not realize that?" —Even though, sometimes you're one of them— "—Actually, do you know why Eggman drugged Shadow? Because he wanted to see me dead! Doc thought Shadow hated me enough that giving him the serum would end up with Shadow killing me on the spot!—" Her eyes were wide at his declaration, this likely her first time she'd have heard of this. After all, who else would have told her but him? But Sonic was done yet, continuing to lay into her. "—The woman could have easily been just an accomplice of Eggman's! I mean what a marvelous plan! Let Sonic's friends be the one to kill him! He'd never even see it coming because he trusts them!"

He stared at her accusingly with the last part and tears burst into her eyes again and she reached for him again.

"I swear Sonic, it was just a stupid accident, please—" she begged but he denied her, growing the distance between them once more, his hands coming up to gesture wildly again.

"Amy, an accident is when you stumble and spill your drink all over somebody, not when you frigging spike theirs! With something that easily could have been a poison!—No, which apparently was a poison considering Shadow's current state!" After all, Eggman's botched serum had caused quite a few problems but it had not cause anything that would put Shadow even remotely at a risk of dying. "Do you even realize what you've done, Amy?"

She sobbed. "I'm sorry—"

"Sorry? Sorry?! Amy, Shadow almost died because of you. That's not something you can just say you're sorry about! And what are you even sorry about? That you got caught? Say, why haven't you said something right then and there when it was just an accident? We could have gotten Shadow an antidote! Or at least minimize the effects! If anything we'd know to keep an eye on him!" And Chaos knew, that if it weren't for him waking up in the middle of the night, they might have as well been finding Shadow's dead body at this very hour, too late for any chance of reviving the agent. "But, no, of course, you wouldn't take that responsibility. Because that would meant having to face the consequences as an adult. But that's not what you are, are you? You want to live in your own idealized world where it's sunshine and rainbows, where I'm your cool boyfriend who's worldwide loved but with no possible harm ever coming to him or you because of my job. Who never says 'no' and always does exactly what you want him to and can drop everything at the drop of a hat just because it's you asking him!"

"But I'm not that perfect person you imagine me to be, never was and never will be, Amy. It's literally impossible for me to be! For anyone! And yet you've always pushed me into that role and then got mad when I could not follow your impossible demands!" She cowered under the power of his voice but Sonic was not done yet. "Do you know why I never returned your feelings? Because you're a child, Amy. A child who doesn't take 'no' for an answer and throws a temper tantrum anytime she doesn't get her way. No matter the circumstances or even trying to understand the other person's side."

Sonic still remembered the hammer treatment he got when he was late for their 'date' that time when he got swept off into the world of Arthurian legends. She'd been unwilling to accept his explanations. But even if it all were lie, that would still not give her a right to go on him with a goddamn hammer for it. And that was just one incident of many. "And Shadow paid for it this time. Because you could not accept a 'no'. Newsflash, Amy, that's a perfectly legitimate answer, even if you might not like it."

Amy rubbed furiously at her cheeks. "I-I just wanted to know your real feelings for me—"

"And what about that? How does that make you drugging me right? Even if I had feelings for you, then I'm well withing my rights to keep them to myself. You aren't entitled to them even if they are for you. It's my choice whether I want you to know about them or not—whether I wish to pursue a relationship with you or not. And you wanted to take that choice away from me!" Normally, Sonic would not have found that to be such an issue, but she's been pushing him for years and now even resorted to possibly hurting him because she's gotten tired of waiting for him to come around on his own and finally confess. Sonic could not just forgive and forget that. Because someone else had gotten hurt in the process. And who knew, whether her behavior would just not escalate further if he let her off the hook now.

"I'm sorry, Amy, but if this is your idea of loving me, then I can't be friends with you or anything else. We're done. I'm done. You're not welcome in my life or home anymore."

Sonic could see Amy's heart breaking, her eyes becoming agonized depths as her expression just crumpled, new tears spilling from her eyes. "Sonic—"

"No, Amy. I've enabled you for too long. It's over. I don't want to see you or even hear another word from you unless it's about how to help Shadow." Sonic crossed his arms, drawing the line in the sand, and he was not going to let Amy muddy it again. "So? Do you know anything that could help him? What exactly was the substance the woman gave you? Her name? Or even when to find her? Or anybody else who'd know?"

With her gaze glued to the floor, Amy shook her head, her bottom lip trembling as she kept her lips pressed together tightly, so no more sounds would escape her.

Sonic had very much expected it, unfortunately. He let out an exhausted sigh as the anger turned from blazing force in his veins to be more just sort of simmering under his skin, reminding of how tired he really was of it all—the last few days and the life of a hero in general.

Green eyes turned to her and he sighed once more. "...Look, I won't tell Shadow on my own, but if he asks, I won't lie to him. I'll try to talk him out of anything rash but you know what his temper is like when he's been wronged—which I'm certain he'd feel considering he's almost died."

Amy flinched at his words, and even though Sonic's anger had burned out enough for that to bother him, he did nothing to comfort her. No longer he'd been there to fight her battles for her. About time she learned to face the music. She was old enough to realize her actions were absolutely unacceptable. Not like when they'd first met.

Sonic sighed once more and un-crossed his arms, to run one hand over his uppermost head-quill to calm himself further while the other hand went to his hip.

Now what?

...Wait, was that people marching he was hearing?

"Clear the way!" Sonic whipped around at the sudden noise. He knew that voice. "This is matter of national security! Clear the way or we'll be forced to make you."

Sonic stared at the approaching form of one Madonna Garnet along with six similarly clad and armed soldiers and another three men in lighter clothing that appeared to be some sort of medical garb came into view. Madonna barked orders along the way, two soldier along with one medic breaking off from the group to instead go down a different corridor while the rest of the medics and another two soldiers immediately went into Shadow's room, the rest of them remaining outside to guard.

One of the soldiers in the room essentially threw Tails out of the it and Sonic had to rush to catch the fox before he could face-plant on the ground. "Hey! What gives?" he barked once he held the kid safely in his arms, his quills bristling up in instinctive reaction to the manhandling of his little brother, the hedgehog ready to start brawling if necessary.

"Stand down, Sonic," Rouge's voice sounded to Sonic's surprise, which only mounted when he turned and saw her being held by her upper arms by another two soldiers. Even if she had no handcuffs, Sonic's ability to read the room was good enough to say she was under arrest. The bat did not look nervous, however. "I'll handle it," she assured him, with confidence of one that believed themselves to have the situation under control.

"Rouge—" But Sonic did not agree, considering the two soldiers flanking her. However, she threw him a fierce look that made him shut his mouth immediately.

"I'll handle it," she repeated with fervor. "Trust me, Sonic. I won't let Shadow come to harm."

Sonic didn't think the agent was the only one at the risk here. "But what about you?"

She just offered him a grin. "This is not my first time getting into trouble, Blue. I'll manage."

Sonic frowned at the statement. He did not like it, but he figured it'd be best to trust Rouge's judgment this time around.

He hoped that would turn out to be a good decision.

-O-

"What the he—?" The two-thirds of team Chaotix and one Master Emerald guardian intoned as the jeep came to a stop on the roadway several yards away from the hospital that they'd been asked to drive to and which now seemed to be under siege by GUN for whatever reason. There was at least five dark vans with GUN insignia that they could see from their spot and several armed soldiers seemed to be guarding the perimeter.

"What exactly did Tails say they needed help with?" Knuckles asked, with wariness watching the soldiers walking around. There was no way they'd be getting in now with whatever was happening in there.

"He said it was an emergency. That someone was dying and they thought you could help," Espio explained, he too not understanding what the hell was going on. "Do you have any idea what he was talking about?"

"Maybe," Knuckles huffed. This probably had something to do with Shadow and Eggman's blasted serum—

"Hey!" Vector's booming voice snapped him from his thoughts. "Isn't that, Sonic and Tails?"

Espio leaned over the side of the car. "Yeah, it's them." The two heroes were being escorted out by the soldiers, who were clearly leading them outside the besieged zone. Vector immediately raised his arm to wave them down. "Hey!" he called repeatedly until the heroes noticed them. The soldiers released them only after they were far enough from the hospital and after the soldiers headed back to their comrades, the two heroes headed towards them.

"What the heck is going on in there?" Vector questioned the moment the duo reached them.

"Eh, it's sort of a long story," Sonic said, rubbing his neck. Knuckles noticed that he was missing all of his usual trademark clothes. Weird. "Could you give us a ride home? We'll tell you along the way."

"Eh, sure." Vector nodded after a moment. "Hop on."

They climbed into the jeep, sitting down beside Knuckles on the back seat. The guardian immediately pierced Sonic with a look. "I thought you wanted my help?"

"Yeah," Sonic acknowledged, giving a sigh as he slumped against the seat. "It won't be necessary anymore. Rouge said that GUN will handle it."

Knuckles raised a pointed brow at that. His gaze turned back to the hospital, the purple eyes managing to catch the last glimpse of several soldier loading a stretcher with somebody on it into one of the truck and a duck in white doctor's coat into another. In his peripheral vision he could also spot some pink shape moving, but by the time his gaze switched there the shape had disappeared behind a building. A frown marred the echidna's face.

He had a feeling he was not going to like whatever he was about to hear.

-O-

A rather heavy silence befell them after the heroes had explained the situation and the initial rage and confusion had dispersed into a tense silence. Still, Sonic did not let his mouth run as he normally would, completely drained from the day's events.

Considering, it was only about seven in the morning, that was quite an accomplishment.

He also felt rather bad about exploding on Amy like that, but he supposed it'd be at least a good incentive for her to reflect on her behavior and choices. Chaos knew, there were some hard truths she finally needed to accept. Still it made Sonic feel bad. Even if he'd figured a long time ago, it was only a question of time until his own patience with her would run out, considering she just seemed to refuse to mature despite years literally ticking by.

Of course, there was also the matter of Shadow being in a critical condition and Rouge probably about to face a military trial...

He really wondered whether the morning could get any worse.

He sighed, deciding it'd be better if he distracted himself with thinking about something else. He turned to Knuckles, pondering how to start a conversation.

"...Coming to think of it, how did you get off the island when Charmy stayed up there?" he wondered aloud. After having delivered Tails's message to the Knuckles, Charmy had decided to stay with Ray and Mighty on the Angel Island to help watch over the Master Emerald while Knuckles was gone. Though, that most likely was just an excuse because he wanted to catch up with the two of them.

Knuckles turned his gaze away from the nature they were passing by to reach their house to look directly at him. "I glided. Obviously."

"Obviously," Sonic returned as if had been. Well, nobody could blame him for asking. The Angel Island could one day be levitating around the coast and the next in the middle of an open sea. And there was only so far Knuckles could glide.

"Do you plan to get back on the Angel Island like that? Or would you prefer me or Tails give you a ride up there with the Tornado?" Sonic asked with a grin that was a little more forced than it was genuine as he jumped out of jeep and the motioned to the levitating island as they could already see it in a distance because Knuckles had moved it into a seeing distance from their house after hearing he was needed on the mainland again.

Knuckles huffed as he disembarked too. "Well, when you're—" he started, but his voice was drowned out by alarmed shouting from the rest of the crew.

"What—?" the spiked duo both looked what the commotion from the rest was about and the the pressure waves along with some sand and sea water of the impact reached them before they could even process what was happening. A massive wave came in not long after, crashing over the cliff-side with such force they could feel ground shaking under their feet.

"What the—?" Knuckles stared in shock at the landmass that should be floating several dozen yards in the air above the water instead of in it like islands normally did. But not ones equipped with a Master Emerald. Which meant something must have happened to it.

Sonic chewed the inside of his cheek. Of course, it was possible the Charmy, Ray or Mighty might have just knocked it out of its place in the center of the altar by accident, but considering how the morning had started off for him, he didn't think he'd be so lucky. He would not even be surprised if Eggman was behind it, taking the opportunity to try to steal Master Emerald from the inexperienced trio when Knuckles himself was gone.

Which answered Sonic's question. The morning could get worse. And it seemed Sonic had called it.

...You know the vacation in Chun-nan he'd joked about yesterday certainly looked more appealing by the minute.

AN: Good news, folks, I've actually written Chapter 34 (Shadow's chap) before Chapter 33—writing chronologically who even does that these days, pffft—so it's ready for deployment! Which will happen in two weeks to give myself some more time to continue to straighten the plot after this because it's still just a hecking mess, honestly.

Also good news for those of you who're also fans of 'Foreign'. It'll be getting a new chapter in a few days! I've wanted to finish DD first before returning to that fic, but one day I sort of just got an intense urge to write it, so I did. It's sort of set-up-y chapter for what will happen later on in the story, but hopefully the fluffiness of it shall appease you, heh.