Chapter 5: Help

Amy slowly backed away from the dog stalking towards her. She was so overwhelmed by just how realistic it looked, she was temporarily stunned. The inside of its mouth, however, was entirely mechanical. It looked like Eggman had built a killer robot and covered it in the skin of a real dog: which, after what Tails had told her about Eggman killing animals to harvest their body parts, was probably true. She pushed the thought down in her mind and reaffirmed her grip of her hammer, readying herself to take swing. The dog leapt at her and she swung at it again, but this time, her swing went wide as something heavy collided with the backside of her weapon, pushing it around so quickly that she spun around in a complete circle, staggering to regain her balance.

Amy started to panic when she noticed that her blow had been thrown by the arrival of a second dog. When a third crept out of the undergrowth she began to wonder if she would be able to out-run them: she was not as fast a sprinter as her friends, but she usually could out-run most of Eggman's robots. She took another step back and heard the same, faintly clicking, hissing sound of a dog robot's joints moving behind her. She looked back over her shoulder to see a fourth attacker.

Amy back-flipped over the robot behind her, landing behind it and swinging her hammer at it as it turned on her, hitting it into the air. She barely had time to swing her hammer back in the other direction as another leapt at her. The remaining two stalked towards her, and they were shortly joined by the two she had batted away. They were significantly more formidable than the usual robot foot soldiers Eggman launched, and Amy began to silently wish that she had at least one other of her friends was with her to watch her back. She swung her hammer back and forth in front of her, which momentarily slowed the dogs' approach, but they did not so much as flinch at her gesture.

When her back hit a tree, she grunted and her heart-rate hitched; her grip of her hammer began to feel painful; her mind went blank when she tried to rake it for her next move.

One of the dogs leapt up into the air, followed closely by a second, and Amy saw a sight she had so many times before, one that always made her feel confident of victory and inspired her to be better: a spinning blue ball smashed into both dogs, one after the other, throwing them down harder than any blow from her hammer had. Amy stepped forwards with renewed vigour and slammed her hammer down onto the middle of one of the dogs' backs. A shadow fell over her and she turned around, gasping as she saw the fourth dog pouncing towards her.

She gasped again when it was halted, mid-air, as her saviour grabbed it by its open mouth. As the dog tried to bite down on the hand lodged between its jaws and the jarring sound of metal scraping against metal stabbed at her ears, Amy realised that she was not looking at Sonic as she had assumed. She stumbled back a step as Metal stabbed the fingers of his other hand into the neck of the dog and ripped out a metallic spine, tearing loose sparking wires. The dog went limp over his hand and fell to the ground and Amy copied its actions, falling back ungracefully to land on her backside as Metal rounded on a recovering dog and grabbed his hands into its back, repeating what he had done to the first to disable it.

Amy clutched her fists by her chin, only realising then that her hammer had vanished during her fall. The remaining two dogs leapt onto Metal, one biting his shoulder, the other clawing at his back. He fought back without hesitation, reaching his opposite hand to his shoulder and tearing out the spine of the dog there before spinning around to swing the dog on his back loose. He leapt at it and deftly disabled it as he had the other three, and, in the stillness and silence that followed, he stood, knees slightly bent and hands quivering a little, breathing heavily, his chest heaving as he looked about himself, his red eyes glowing bright, reminding Amy again that they could see a lot more than her own could.

After a moment, Metal stumbled forward a step and visibly winced. Amy scrambled to her feet and hurried over to him, reaching out a hand towards him. She started to ask him if he was okay, but he suddenly collapsed onto her, forcing her to grab one arm around his back and the other across his chest to brace him and hold him on his feet. She was lodged beneath his armpit and his head was cast down, his chest still heaving against her arm. In his moment of distraction, she found herself unable to escape the wonder that he was actually sweating, and his body felt warm against her. She drew in a breath to again ask him if he was okay, but she faltered a little as doing so brought the scent of the shower gel she had lent him into her senses.

"You smell nice," she said instead.

His eyes moved towards her and his brow hardened.

"I mean, are you okay?" she corrected herself.

He said nothing, but the irritated look on his face and his still ragged breathing was answer enough.

"We have to get you to a hospital," she decided.

He reached up his free hand, touching it to her arm across her chest, and, the sight of his mechanical hand reminded her that taking him to a regular doctor was not an option: not if she wanted to keep his identity and location a secret at least.

"Tails," she said instead. "Tails will know what to do!"

Metal gave a single nod of his head, and Amy gripped her hands into him and began walking. He walked with her, but continued to lean a good amount of his weight onto her. He felt incredibly heavy, and she was not sure if that was because of his metal components or because he actually really needed the physical support to walk. She steeled herself and kept going, but, as they reached the edge of the treeline and stepped out into the open meadow beyond, she suddenly felt very exposed. She gulped and silently hoped that nobody would see them together, that she would make it to Tails's house uninterrupted.

Halfway across the meadow, as her shoulder began to ache under the weight leaned onto it, Amy looked Metal over. His breathing was still ragged, though she was sure he ought to have recovered his energy. He appeared unharmed, surprisingly, despite his tussle with the cyborg dogs, but, as she glanced over his shoulder, her eyes doubled in size.

"Oh, they opened up that wound on your back!" she said, moving her eyes from the raw opening to his face.

He said nothing – not that she had expected him to – but also did not so much as look at her to acknowledge her remark.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" she asked quietly.

He swallowed audibly and drew in a strained breath, lifting himself from her and tensing his shoulders, walking on alone. Amy stopped, watching him go, stumbling every other step. Her face twisted at the sight of the vicious looking tear on his back – oddly the original wound had actually almost healed already, but the dog that had clawed at his back had torn the gash out the way across the middle of his back. After the initial horror of the wound had passed, she found herself fascinated by the fact that it was a proper flesh wound: he had the quills, fur, skin and flesh of a regular hedgehog.

She made a small noise of concern and hurried after him.

"Let me help you," she offered.

He waved a dismissive hand at her, but she could see that he was sweating a lot more than he had been before.

"Don't be stubborn!" she snapped at him.

He gave her a sideward, critical look.

"I am not stubborn, you are stubborn!" she argued back.

She reached for him but he stepped out of her reach and continued on. She marched alongside him, glaring at him until they reached their destination. Amy knocked on the door, but Metal either lacked her manners or else lacked any care for them as he opened the door and continued inside without breaking stride. Amy followed after him, and they met Tails in the hallway, who froze, wide-eyed, before them.

"We need your help," Amy told him.

"Did anyone see you come here?" he asked nervously, before slipping past her and hurrying back to peer outside.

"I don't think so," she said as he closed the door.

"You should have told me you were coming here," he said. "What if Sonic had been here?"

"Well he's not," Amy replied, folding her arms. "Is he?"

She lost some of her enthusiasm then, but Tails's attention had shifted to the reopened wound on Metal's back.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I got attacked by Eggman's latest projects," Amy explained. "Metal came to help me and he got... Hurt."

Tails nodded and Amy groaned as Metal gladly accepted help from Tails, leaning on him as he led him through to the living room.

"Whoa buddy, that looks bad," Tails said as he eased Metal down onto his couch. "Amy, can you fetch my first aid box?"

Amy nodded and retrieved it, smiling ruefully as she realised that she knew exactly where it was: both she and Tails had made a point of keeping stock of such things because they both knew Sonic and Knuckles would not. The box felt reassuringly heavy, telling her it was surely better stocked than her own. She passed it to Tails and felt a little inferior when he popped it open to reveal it was full to the brim with neat compartments of various supplies.

"Okay buddy, this might sting a little, but bear with me, okay?" Tails said to Metal as he upturned a bottle of antiseptic solution onto a cloth.

Metal looked like he had barely heard the warning, but the second Tails touched the cloth to his back he pulled away and rounded on the fox, glaring at him with glowing eyes.

"Sorry, Metal," Tails said meekly. "This part will hurt a bit, but it's necessary!"

Amy noticed Metal's fingers wiggling in the air, and her instinct was to assume he was about to use them violently against Tails: but, as she watched, one of his fingers fell to the floor. She gasped and Tails looked down at where it landed, but Metal appeared not to notice.

"I can fix that for you," Tails said, pointing at the fallen digit.

Metal looked down at it and then at his left hand, apparently only noticing then that he had lost a finger.

"But first I have to clean you up and get this wound dressed," Tails continued. "You're gonna have to hold still for me, okay?"

The glow faded from Metal's eyes and he turned around again, though Amy noticed him clenching his fists. When Tails pressed the cloth to his wound and he closed his eyes, she was overtaken by the urge to comfort him, and, before she could stop herself, she had dropped to her knees at his side and placed her hands over one of his.

The first thing Amy noticed was that, despite the heat still radiating off his body, Metal's hands were still cold. She slowly lifted her eyes to his, finding that he had opened them just enough to peer down at her curiously.

"Be strong," she said softly. "And... Thank you. For saving me."

His eyes moved to her hands over his and remained there until Tails had finished cleaning his wound. He kept his fists closed, and Amy was not sure if that was because he had no concept of how to hold hands or because he had no desire to; but equally he had not tried to reject her offer of comfort, and so she kept her hands in place. He sighed softly and his eyes opened completely as Tails began applying a soothing ointment to his wound.

"It's a good job you're used to getting fixed up after a fight, buddy!" Tails said to him cheerfully.

Metal's eyes narrowed again and he glared back over his shoulder at the fox.

"Uh..." Tails faltered under his glower. "N-not that I'm trying to say Sonic beat you up a whole lot and Eggman ended up having to fix you up every time..."

"But that is true," Amy muttered.

Metal's glare shifted to Amy and remained there as Tails began wrapping gauze around his torso.

"But you're on our side now, right?" Amy asked him.

He said nothing and did nothing to acknowledge her question. Tails finished dressing his wound and stowed away his first aid box, returning with a tool box and sitting down onto the couch in front of Metal.

"Pass me his finger, Amy," he said, holding out a hand towards her.

Amy released Metal's fist, which, she noticed, he immediately opened out as she did so. She located his fallen digit and picked it up, frowning instantly as she did so.

"Wow, this isn't is really light," she commented, crossing her eyes to focus on the cruel metal claw in her clutches. "I expected it to be heavier, being made of metal and all."

"It's an alloy," Tails explained as he plucked the finger from her grasp. "Like the rest of his body, it's made out of the lightest possible material."

Amy eyed Metal over.

"His old body, I mean," Tails added with a small laugh.

"I thought he was heavy," Amy commented.

"He had a jet engine in his chest," Tails replied as he pried open the back of Metal's hand.

"Oh!" Amy yelped as Metal's three remaining fingers fell to the couch.

Tails picked up the row of fingers and began reattaching the one he had recovered.

"He was built to be faster than Sonic, remember?" Tails continued. "He was built to be the ultimate weapon to defeat Sonic. The engine was heavy, the rest of his body was lightweight, to keep him as fast as possible when he flew."

Amy tilted her head as she regarded Metal.

"You can't fly any more, not in this body," she said.

He stared back at her so blankly, she began to question herself.

"He can't fly now, right Tails?" she asked, turning her head towards Tails, but keeping her eyes on Metal.

"No, he can't," Tails confirmed.

"Do you miss not being able to fly?" she asked Metal.

He gave a single shake of his head and she smiled, but mainly because she was relieved that he had finally answered her.

"There you go, buddy!" Tails said as he finished his task, slamming the panel on the back of Metal's hand back into place. "Is that good?"

Metal held up his hand, curling and uncurling his fingers, before giving another, singular, nod of his head. His lack of enthusiasm reminded Amy of her earlier attempt to communicate with him.

"Hey Tails?" she said, turning to her friend. "I tried to get him to talk to me earlier, and when I asked him to write down anything he wanted to say, he–"

"He can only write in Morse code, machine code or binary," Tails interrupted her.

"It was numbers and letters and dashes and dots," Amy said.

"Yeah, before I taught him sign language, that was the only way I could communicate with him."

"You understand all that nonsense?"

"I can read Morse code. And my scanner can translate machine code and binary."

Amy looked at Metal.

"Can-can I borrow your scanner?" she asked quietly, her eyes still on Metal.

"I dunno Amy, I kinda need it," Tails said reluctantly. "Oh, but maybe I can build something for you!"

Tails stood up from the sofa, but halted, mid-step, as a voice called into his house.

"Tails! You here, buddy?"

Tails turned wide, frightened eyes to Amy.

"You have to hide!" he hissed.

Amy scrambled to her feet, leaning to one side, peering around the door. She could just make out a sliver of detail by the front door, where Sonic was standing, his hands on his hips.

"Hide!" Tails hissed. "You hide with Metal, I'll keep Sonic away!"

Tails darted out of the room and Amy turned to Metal, slapping her hands over her mouth to contain a squeak of shock as she found him on his feet immediately behind her, his eyes glowing and his hands formed into claws by either side of his face.

He looked like he had the day he had flown at her on Little Planet and snatched her up.

"Stop that!" she hissed at him. "We have to hide!"

She put her hands on his chest and pushed, but he remained rooted to the spot, glaring over the top of her head.

"I'm serious, you can't let Sonic see you here!" she whispered desperately.

"Oh, hey buddy!" she heard Sonic say from the hallway.

"H-hey, Sonic!" Tails nervously and loudly answered him. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

"I was bored," Sonic replied. "Any news on what Baldy McNosehair is up to?"

"Uh, no, but why don't we go out for dinner?" Tails answered.

"Again?"

"Yes. We'll go back to Charlie's again. I'll pay!"

"Okay, but it's like four in the afternoon, Tails!"

"The early bird special is at four!"

"That's for old people."

"It's for everyone! And-and you get free refills at the early bird special!"

"Okay, I guess. Let's go find Knuckles."

"Yeah, let's all go!"

Amy pouted at the reminder that the three of them apparently habitually went out without her.

"Okay, let's race!" Sonic said cheerfully. "First one to find Knuckles, wins!"

"What do we win?" Tails asked, his voice fading as they apparently moved out of the front door.

"Loser pays," Sonic replied. "Oh wait, you're already paying. Let me think."

The door closed and Amy sighed in relief. She turned her head to look at Metal, whose eyes dulled back down, his hands relaxing and his arms lowering at his sides.

"You're supposed to be taking it easy and healing up, Mister!" she scolded him.

He glared at her with a hint of a scowl and she glared back. After a few seconds of holding that stance, Amy became aware that her hands were still pressed against Metal's chest. She softened, her eyes lowering to her hands, splayed across his chest. She pressed her fingertips into him a little, her eyebrows twisting at the realisation that his fur felt much the same way her own did. It was a little courser, but she supposed that – much like his slightly shaggy and unkempt quills – was down to his lack of self-care. The base of her palms were over the bandaging Tails had wound around Metal's entire torso, and, at the same moment she realised that, she also realised that she could feel a heartbeat in her palms.

"Oh, wow..." she muttered, frowning a little. "You really are mostly real, huh?"

She lifted her eyes back to look at Metal's face, but as she did so, his eyes lowered to her hands on his body. As his eyes landed on her hands, she distinctly felt his pulse quicken and intensify and she snatched her hands back, taking a long and deliberate step back from him. His eyes moved back to hers, and, as usual, his expression was blank. She had assumed his reaction to her touch was one of aggression, much like how he had looked ready to murder Sonic, but, the longer he stood still, staring at her blankly, the more she began to wonder if his heightened adrenaline had been inspired by something else entirely.

"I have work to do?" she said, her words coming out as a question as she failed to control her tone. "We should go?"

He took a step forwards and Amy turned around, moving quickly to the front door. She leaned outside, looking about cautiously.

"We have to be careful," she said. "We have to get home quickly, so nobody spots us. Understand?"

She turned to look back over her shoulder at Metal, who was diligently standing behind her. He gave a single nod of his head and she continued outside. Metal followed her out, carefully closing the door.

"Now if we stick to the west path, we can avoid possibly being spotted by Sonic if he's still nearby anywhere," Amy said.

She took one last look about and then started to tell Metal to move swiftly and silently, but her words dissolved into a scream of alarm and protest as he locked an arm around her waist and took off at his top speed. He ran all the way back to her house, carrying her under his arm, her arms and legs hanging down as she wailed indignantly. He carried her all the way into her house, only putting her down once they were in the living room. He took the care to place her back onto her feet, but as soon as he did so, she began slapping at his arm.

"Idiot, don't carry me around like I'm a stack of firewood!" she cried as she slapped at him.

He tolerated her attack for a few seconds before stepping out of her reach and glaring at her. She sighed indignantly and smoothed out her clothes.

"Don't ever do that again!" she warned him.

He did not respond.

"You've got a lot to learn about good manners, Mister," she grumbled.

He still did not respond.

"Anyway, I'm going to cook some food," she said. "I don't feel like working any more today – oh no!"

Amy groaned pitifully.

"I dropped my bag in the forest!" she moaned. "It had all the items I spent all day foraging for!"

After a brief moment, Metal held up one finger, before racing past her.

"Hey!" she cried, running after him.

By the time she reached her front door, he was already a blue blur in the distance.

"What if someone sees you?" she called out redundantly. "Or what if more of Eggman's evil cyborgs attack you?"

She sighed and turned around, leaving the door open in the hope that he would soon return, and headed back into her kitchen. After searching her ransacked kitchen, she found a tin of hotdogs, and a sly smile grew on her face as an idea occurred to her. She took out the tin of hotdogs, and then moved to her fridge, gathering up all the ingredients for what she had in mind. As she placed a pan on the stove, she heard her front door carefully closing in that way Metal closed it, and she let out a small, quiet, sigh of relief. His heavy feet stomped into the room behind her, and he placed her jute bag of craft items down onto the breakfast bar.

"Thank you, Metal," she said to him.

He gave a single nod of his head, before peering over at the food she had laid out over the kitchen counter.

"I'm cooking," she explained. "Sit down and... I dunno... Watch TV until I'm finished."

He glared at her, but, after a moment, did as she instructed, and retreated to the living room, sitting onto the couch and spreading his arms out along the top of the backrest. Amy turned her attention back to her task, measuring out what she needed and adding everything into the pan. After a few minutes, she placed the lid onto the pan and turned the burner down low to let everything simmer into a stew. She then made her way over to the couch, but she stopped just short of her goal when she found that Metal was still in the same position, only his head had tilted back, his mouth fallen open and his eyes closed, his chest heaving slowly and rhythmically. As he let out a soft, rattling snore, she rolled her eyes.

"You're worse than Sonic," she grumbled. "Did you really have to sit right in the middle like that, and take up the whole couch?"

He, of course, did not answer her question. He certainly was a deep sleeper, she mused silently, before moving over to sit at the breakfast bar and check through her bag of crafting items. Everything she had gathered was present, but she felt the nagging realisation that she would need to double-down and work twice as hard the following day to make up for lost time. She looked back over her shoulder at Metal, sleeping so peacefully and easily. He, just like Sonic, never had to worry about making money and paying bills. Really, she thought ruefully, for two such similar individuals, they ought to be the best of friends: though she doubted that would ever happen. She wondered how Sonic would really react if he found out Metal was living with her.

And then she remembered how humiliated she had felt the night before when he had been so oblivious to her feelings, and she decided that she didn't care how Sonic felt about anything she did.

Besides, it was not like Sonic would ever find out: Metal's wound had looked almost healed before the dogs attacked him, and so, with the aid of the cleansing and lotion Tails had applied, the cyborg would probably be healed by morning, and he could leave her house at last.

Amy paused. If Metal did leave the next day, where would he even go?

She looked back at him. Tails had described him as a weapon, designed to defeat Sonic. That was true, but he was also so incredibly vulnerable, largely thanks to his childish lack of understanding of how to take care of his new form. He basically needed Tails and Amy to look after him. She turned away from him again, deciding that he would simply have to find his own place to stay. He could not stay with her: the way he ate, she couldn't afford to feed him for much longer.

And with that thought, Amy moved back into the kitchen to stir the contents of the pan on the stove, her sly smile returning as she began imagining how Metal would react when she served him the meal she was cooking.

Next Chapter: Amy finds a way to feed Metal chilli dogs, and when she sets about her crafting, she finds Metal to be an unexpectedly helpful assistant. When a friend makes a surprise visit and catches Amy and Metal in a compromising position, Amy is forced to lie to hide his true identity, and it's a lie she suspects she'll regret telling in the future (foreshadowing...) Chapter 6: Ruse