Chapter 1: New Days

Amy hummed a happy tune to herself as she began unloading boxes from the taxi and carrying them into her apartment block. It was going to be Cream's 16th birthday shortly, and Amy had agreed an elaborate plan with Vanilla, where they would pretend to just have a small party at Vanilla's house, but the real party, the big surprise party, would be at Amy's apartment. Carrying the first box of party supplies was fun and exciting, but by the time she had reached her apartment, ascending three flights of stairs to get there, she had stopped humming and lost some of her enthusiasm. The taxi driver who had taken her home had been a little surly, and not been too pleased when Amy had loaded several boxes into the back of her car, and so Amy had not felt that she could ask for her assistance unloading them. As she made her way back down the stairs, she started to curse Sonic for disappearing, as she really could have used his help preparing for the party. He, along with Tails and Knuckles, had gone looking for Eggman, for no reason other than they thought he had been quiet for too long. Ordinarily, Amy would have joined them on any sort of mission, but this had felt more like an excuse for them to go on an adventure just for the sake of it, and so she had stayed out of it, telling them only that they must be back in time for Cream's birthday.

As Amy left the building, she slowed, her eyes growing wide, her head snapping from side to side. She saw, in the distance, at the very end of her street, the taxi she had arrived home in turning out of the street and out of sight.

"Hey!" she screamed, waving her arms above her head and running out into the middle of the road.

The taxi was long gone however, and her efforts were in vain. She growled and clenched her fists at her sides, stomping back across the road and back into her building. She marched all the way up the stairs, all the while trying to remember which box she had taken in and which boxes she had now lost. She was sure her day could not get any worse: however when she reached the last stretch of stairs and saw her immediate neighbour standing on the landing waiting for her, she realised it could get worse, and was very obviously about to.

"Amelia, do you remember that conversation we had about excessive noise and pets in the building?"

Amy stopped, three steps short of the landing, looking up at the crotchety, bespectacled old wolf glaring down at her.

"Yes, Missus Lupin," she mechanically replied. "But I don't have any pets, so–"

"Well you're certainly keeping something noisy and clumsy in there, I can hear it thumping about the place!" Missus Lupin cut her off.

Amy swallowed carefully, trying to keep her face neutral: whilst it was true that she had no pets in her apartment, she did occasionally have a visitor there who could be quite loud, and the paper thin walls of her apartment didn't allow her much leeway for noisiness.

"I'm sorry, Missus Lupin," she said, forcing a polite smile. "I'll try to be less noisy."

"See that you do!" Missus Lupin harshly replied. "Or I'll be speaking to our landlady again!"

Amy nodded, waiting for Missus Lupin to flounce back into her own apartment and close the door before continuing up the stairs. The building was an L-shape, with three apartments on each floor. When Amy had viewed the available units, she had turned down an apartment on the middle floor in favour of one on the top floor, thinking the views would be nicer and fewer people would pass her front door: but the one she had turned down had been on the right side of the building, and those apartments weren't directly joined onto the other two on their floor. The apartment she had chosen was at the front of the building, her bedroom and bathroom walls joined directly onto the smaller apartment at the back of the building, and, unfortunately for Amy, she shared those walls with a lonely old woman who sat knitting in silence, listening for every possible sound so that she could complain about it.

Amy opened her door and stepped into her apartment, closing it carefully and quietly behind herself. She crept along the hallway, craning her neck to peer around the open door that led to her living room and kitchen. She already knew what was waiting for her there, the reason for her neighbour's complaint, and – she hoped – a sign that maybe all her boxes were already in her apartment.

"I thought I told you not to come in here like this!" she whispered when she spotted the blue figure in her living room.

She looked over at her couch, sighing in relief when she saw all of her shopping bags and boxes sitting there.

"You have to be quiet in here, my neighbour can hear you and she thinks you're an over-sized chao," Amy added, turning her attention back to the figure now facing her.

It had been odd the first time Metal Sonic had appeared in her apartment, but, as he had been doing it regularly for several weeks now, Amy had become accustomed to his presence. He had started appearing around the same time Eggman had disappeared. He looked a little less menacing than he once had, and significantly less brilliant, the lustre gone from his metallic body, a few dents remaining on his head and one of his legs, and the point of his top "spine" had opened a little and was starting to rust: but none of those things made him any less quiet, something he reminded Amy of when he began his computerised, avian warbling, his hands dancing rigidly in the air.

"Shh!" Amy hissed, pressing her fingers to her lips and moving closer to him. "You're too loud, and I don't understand what you're trying to say, so just stay quiet, please!"

He fell silent and stared back at her, the glow of his red eyes even faded a little as the glass visor over them was scratched and dull. He pointed a finger at her couch, at the bags and boxes she already knew he must have unloaded from the taxi and flown up through her window.

Amy's face fell as she considered exactly what must have happened, her head slowly turning.

"Metal!" she wailed in a muted cry of despair.

She crossed the room to her living room window, pointing at the smashed out pane and turning harsh eyes to the robot.

"What did I tell you about breaking things?" she hissed.

He pointed at the bags and boxes on the couch again and Amy sighed.

"Well, at least it's not the middle of winter and I'm not going to freeze to death until I can afford to replace this window..." she grumbled.

She walked over to the bags, checking the contents were all in tact before turning back to Metal, who was still standing in the middle of the room.

"I do appreciate you helping me," she told him. "It's very nice of you, but please, please, don't break into my apartment again. I just got my front door replaced after you punched off the door handle last week!"

Metal made a small, low, buzzing sound and then pointed at the bags and boxes again. Amy sighed.

"I just said I appreciate your help," she said. "Thank you, but please don't break down my door or smash my windows, or break anything. And please, please be quieter around here! You get me in a lot of trouble when you make all that noise!"

Metal's head lowered a little and his arms hung low. It was about as close as he could get to looking exasperated. Amy was still not really sure why he had gravitated towards her since Eggman's departure, nor why he was so keen to be useful to her, but she supposed it was just down to the fact that he was accustomed to serving someone, and, after Eggman, she was probably the next person he knew best. He hated Sonic, but apparently didn't hate any of Sonic's friends, least of all when they were apart from him. In fact, since Sonic had left to track down Eggman, Metal's visits to Amy's apartment had become much more frequent, moving from her seeing him hanging around, and maybe approaching her directly once or twice a week to him approaching her at least once a day, and her seeing him almost constantly.

"So, uh, Metal?" she began, taking a step closer to him. "When Eggman gets back, what will you do? I mean, why are you hanging around here all the time? Do you miss Eggman? Do you want him to come back? Or... Do you want to try living your own life now?"

Amy instantly regretted asking her questions when Metal began noisily beeping and whistling, his hands flicking about in the air again. When Missus Lupin banged on Amy's bedroom wall, Amy quickly waved her hands at Metal in a cease gesture.

"Okay, okay!" she said hurriedly. "We can talk about it later."

Amy waited for Metal to respond – ideally, she expected him to leave – but he simply stood there, staring at her with eyes that, of course, never blinked.

"Well, goodbye then," she tried, shrugging as casually as she could.

He pointed at the bags and boxes again and Amy drew in a deep breath which she then released in a long sigh. He held out his upturned palms at his sides and tilted his head back a little, letting out a particularly loud chirrup; and again, Amy's crotchety neighbour banged on their adjoining wall.

"Okay, okay!" she said hurriedly, moving closer to Metal. "Thank you very much for carrying all that up here for me. I couldn't have done it without you. And I definitely would have had to pay the taxi driver a higher fee after making her wait..."

Amy's voice trailed off as a horrifying thought occurred to her.

"I-I never paid the taxi driver..." she thought aloud. "An-and you were... And then she... Metal? Did you scare off the taxi driver?"

Metal struck what almost looked like a heroic pose, positioning himself further into the sunlight spilling in through the gap where Amy's living room window used to be, and showing just how dull, scratched and weather-worn he had actually become: the rust she had noticed on the point of his upper spike was no longer the only join in his body that was starting to bubble and erode.

"Metal, that's rude," she said, finding it difficult to sound as authoritative as she wanted to due to a small part of her lingering on the idea that, if Eggman never returned, Metal would likely gradually just rust away to nothing. "Don't do that again, you hear me? Don't bully people!"

He slowly sunk out of his pose, and, although he was incapable of expressing emotions, Amy felt that she could feel what he was thinking.

"Yes, that taxi driver was extremely rude to me," she conceded. "But she was still providing me with a service and you can't go around bullying people who you think have done something wrong."

Amy eyed Metal critically, but still he didn't move.

"What exactly did you do to her?" she asked quietly.

There was a short, silent, tense pause before Metal responded, the delay only adding to Amy's already high level of anxiety. When he finally did respond however, she wished she had not bothered asking: he pushed out his chest and a blinding white flash of light erupted from his chest. Amy blinked away the glare, her nose and ears telling her what had happened before her eyes could recover, the smell of smoke and the distinct crackling of fire undeniable. As her vision cleared, she saw that one of her living room curtains was ablaze, half of it having already been reduced to a pile of ashes on the floor below. She quickly moved into the kitchen area, diving under the kitchen sink to retrieve a small fire extinguisher she kept there. As she used it to extinguish the flames, she couldn't help but replay the memory of Sonic walking alongside her down the street, his hands behind his head, a smug look on his face, as he mocked her for buying such a thing, telling her she would surely never need it.

She dispensed the entire contents of the cylinder, partly because the fire did not readily die down, and partly because she wanted to be sure it would not soon start up again. Afterwards, she took a few deep, ragged, breaths, before turning to Metal and swinging the empty metal canister at his head. He ducked out of her reach and made what sounded like an indignant metallic squawk of complaint.

"Get out of my apartment, Metal!" she yelled, her anger only fuelled by the rhythmic banging on her bedroom wall from Missus Lupin. "Right now! Get out!"

She chased him to her broken window, clanging the emptied fire extinguisher over the back of his head when he stopped there. He made a small buzzing sound, but, finally, stepped up into the window-frame.

"Get out!" she yelled at him.

He jumped from the window, falling a short distance before his engine kicked in and slowed his descent. He hovered halfway down the building briefly before rising back up. Amy's living room window looked out over an H-shaped parking area for her block of apartments and the one opposite, and, in the middle branch of the H there was a small island, surrounding the base of an enormous oak tree. She watched, with little surprise, as Metal glided up the length of the mighty trunk of the oak tree, eventually choosing the base of a thick branch that was around eye-level with her living room and kitchen windows. He then lowered himself onto it, sitting into the now noticeable groove his body had worn into the bark. He positioned himself so that he was facing her, his spindly legs dangling down over the side of the branch, his entire being slightly cast into shade from the foliage around him, the effect only making the glow of his illuminated eyes seem brighter in comparison.

Amy sighed and pulled her one remaining living room curtain closed, managing to cover almost the entirety of both the intact and broken window panes, blocking both her view of Metal and his view of her. She then looked at the mess of foam dripping down her living room wall, turning grey as it soaked off the black soot from the blast that had started the fire in the first place. She decided she ought to first clean it up, as leaving it would surely only make it worse. She moved into the kitchen area, which was really just the end of her living room, and retrieved a set of rubber gloves, a couple of cloths, a basin and some general cleaning spray. As she stood up and arranged all the items together on the kitchen worktops, she saw something move from the corner of her eye, something outside of her kitchen window. She turned her head, her face falling as she watched Metal shuffling along the length of the branch he had been using as a home for the past few weeks, repositioning himself so that he was once more directly in her line of sight. She waited for him to settle, watching him with her hands on her hips and a scowl. Once he had stopped, he simply stared back in at her, the moment only ending when the branch snapped in half, unable to support his weight at its thinner, weaker end. Metal of course just soared away from the damage, letting the branch fall down beneath him, where it landed across the windscreen of a car, shattering it and setting off the car alarm.

Amy closed her kitchen blind and moved into the living room to commence cleaning up the mess. She hoped that, whenever Sonic returned and Eggman resurfaced, Metal would leave. Sonic had promised her that he would be back in time for Cream's birthday party, and he never broke his promises, so, she told herself, with or without Eggman, Sonic would be back in less than a week, and when he did return, her problems would be over. In the meantime, she reminded herself that he was doing important work that simply no-one else could, and so she had to accept his absence.

"Are you ready?" Sonic asked.

"Ready!" Knuckles replied.

"Go!"

Tails looked over, narrowing his eyes critically as Sonic stood on his head in the sand and Knuckles began timing him with the mini computer Tails had given him to take photos and log coordinates of their finds. It was windy in the desert, and Tails was wearing goggles to protect his eyes. He had packed extra sets, which was just as well, as neither Sonic nor Knuckles had brought anything with them. As he watched them get blasted by a gust of gritty air, Knuckles squinted and coughed, seemingly oblivious to the pair of goggles he was wearing pushed up onto the top of his head. Sonic complained about the sand stinging his eyes and breaking his concentration, apparently equally oblivious to the pair of goggles he was wearing around his neck, which were hanging down against his chin in his current, upside-down position.

When Sonic finally lost his balance and fell over, he stood up, covered in sand.

"Thirty-two seconds!" Knuckles shouted at him. "Now you time me!"

"No way, Knux!" Sonic replied. "You've got a flat head, it's too easy for you."

"I don't have a flat head!" Knuckles argued.

"Let's find something harder for you to do," Sonic suggested.

As they began debating what ridiculous stunt they should try next, Tails turned his attention back to the sheet of metal barely protruding from the sandy dunes at his feet. He crouched down and wiped a gloved hand over what looked like text. After a few attempts – the wind kept blowing more sand in his way – he uncovered the word "The Lady Lindy". He was down on one knee, but, upon seeing the name, written in brown cursive writing on a sheet of metal painted cream, he slowly rose to his feet, his mouth forming a small O-shape. Even the sound of Sonic trying to distract Knuckles as he walked on his hands in the sandstorm couldn't detract from the increasing worry in Tails's mind. When they had set out to find Eggman after noticing his prolonged and suspicious absence, Tails had an idea where they might find him, and what he had just found proved that they appeared to be on the right track, going to the exact place he suspected Eggman had gone: but still, seeing proof, knowing it was becoming a reality, suddenly changed everything.

"You guys?" he called out, keeping his eyes on the panel of the fated plane at his feet. "This is bigger than we thought. Guys?"

When he received no response he turned his head and saw Knuckles lying facedown in the sand, pounding his fists against the ground at either side of his head as Sonic laughed and coughed at his side. Tails rolled his eyes, turning his attention back to the wreckage at his feet. Part of him wanted to tell the others to set up camp, to wait out the storm so that he could excavate the wreckage of the plane that had been missing for so many years, to see what remained there. Finding the remains of The Lady Lindy was a once in a lifetime opportunity, something Tails had secretly always hoped to do: but, equally, finding it there, en route to tracking Eggman, only proved that they were indeed on their way to the secret laboratory of the recently deceased hermit scientist Doctor Crick. Once a genius, hailed for his work in medical research, finding cures and treatments for countless diseases, Crick was famously a loner, and, after a few short years of contributing worthy research to the world, he began purporting some bizarre theorems, shortly closing himself off from the outside world entirely when he could not find funding for his new projects, which had included some extremely controversial genetic engineering and manipulation in what he claimed would produce "the ultimate lifeform".

Tails paused, realising then that Crick's work was not so dissimilar to Gerald Robotnik's, and he wondered if Crick had in fact been inspired or even taught by Robotnik: all of which might explain Eggman's interest in recovering Crick's coveted research. But what exactly did Eggman plan to do with what he found? Tails's own interest on Doctor Crick's research was purely curiosity, purely a desire to look through it in the off-chance that he turned the corner later in his life, and that there might be a cure for another major disease somewhere in there, something that could help the world: but it was equally as likely that there was something in there that could end the world, and was that maybe what Eggman sought?

"What the hell are you doing?"

Tails yelped, dropping his scanner in alarm as he suddenly found himself overshadowed by someone standing suddenly at his side.

"Hn, The Lady Lindy?" the gruff voice continued. "Isn't that the plane that killed that girl 60 years ago?"

Tails looked up at Shadow with an unashamed look of shock. It had not occurred to him before that moment that Shadow would of course have been alive around the time The Lady Lindy had famously gone missing.

"Uh, yeah, it is," he eventually recovered. "Do you remember when it happened?"

Tails waited for Shadow to answer him, but his eyes were elsewhere. Tails followed the direction of his hard glare, and found himself watching Knuckles burying Sonic in the sand.

"Do you know where Eggman is?" Shadow asked.

"We've been tracking him," Tails replied, standing up and turning his attention back to Shadow. "I think he's gone looking for Doctor Crick's lab. It's rumoured to be around here somewhere."

"Right," Shadow said. "Then let's go."

"Uh, what?" Tails echoed.

"I don't have time to play games like those two idiots, and apparently neither do you. I'm moving on, are you coming with me or not?"

Tails glanced back and forth between Shadow and his friends, unsure what to do or say.

"Fine," Shadow said with a sigh. "Try to stay out of my way then."

Shadow stomped over the panel of the plane and continued across the dusty landscape, shortly breaking into a run. After just a few seconds, a blue blur tore after him. Tails turned to look over at where Sonic had been, finding Knuckles angrily dusting sand off of himself. Tails retrieved his scanner from the ground, reaching over his shoulder to stuff it into his backpack before hurrying over to Knuckles.

"Come on Knuckles, let's go!" he said.

Knuckles nodded and caught Tails's hands, allowing the fox to lift him into the air and fly after Sonic and Shadow.

Next Chapter: Amy discovers the identity of a local menace, and, after noticing that Metal Sonic is losing power, she takes him into her apartment to try to help him. She is forced to disguise him in order to sneak him past her nosey neighbour, but then finds herself bothered by yet more of her neighbours. Meanwhile, Tails finds more evidence that Eggman has gone to Doctor Crick's laboratory and the race is on to get there ahead of him, to stop him getting his hands on what could be dangerous information. Chapter 2: Trash Man