Chapter 10: New

"Hi, Amy!"

"Hi!"

Amy hesitated, and only when the large pair of amber eyes looking up at her blinked curiously did she snap back to her senses.

"Cream! Hi!" she said. "Come in!"

Amy stepped back and Cream happily entered the house. The rabbit was carrying a cloth bag with a floral pattern, that was stretched out by what looked like a box within it. Cream, who often visited Amy and felt fairly comfortable in her house, made her way all the way to the living room, and in Amy's delay to follow her, she heard the next part of what happened before she saw it.

"Are you Mister Thistle?" she heard Cream's voice say. "My mom told me about you, my name's Cream, I'm Amy's best friend. It's so nice to meet you!"

Amy entered the room and forced a brilliant smile as Metal stood still and stoic in front of Cream, who was holding out her hand towards him. After a few seconds, she seemed to realise that he would not shake her hand, and she slowly withdrew it.

"My mom asked me to give this to you, Mister Thistle," Cream said, holding out her bag towards Metal.

Metal looked over Amy, who shrugged. She had no idea what Vanilla might be offering Metal or even why she would be offering him anything. Metal turned his attention back to Cream and carefully took the bag from her hand.

"I hope you like it!" Cream said sweetly.

As Metal took hold of each handle of the bag in each of his hands and opened them apart to peer into its depths, Amy approached Cream, putting a hand on her shoulder and leaning down to whisper into her ear.

"What's in the bag?" she asked.

"My mom said when she met you in town she noticed Mister Thistle needed new shoes," Cream whispered back.

"Vanilla bought shoes for Met – my – um – my friend Thistle?" Amy awkwardly responded.

"No, it's the shoes she bought for Mister Sonic that he didn't like."

Amy tensed at Cream's words, but Metal appeared not to have heard her. He reached one hand into the bag and slowly slid out the box within, turning it over curiously.

"Do you want me to help you put them on?" Cream offered him.

Metal still ignored her, dropping her bag to free up his other hand, which he used to flip open the lid of the shoebox. His eyes widened in an oddly innocent look of curiosity, and Amy found herself smiling. For someone who had started out as a weapon hell-bent on destruction and chaos, it was quite cute to see him so lost in the face of something so simple. Cream took his arm and guided him over to the sofa, which, in his confusion, he let her do. She then began working loose one of his shoes – which, Amy noted, did look quite worn – and, as she finally pulled it over the bend of his heel, Amy was suddenly struck with a horrifying thought. The tips of Metal's metal fingers were currently biting into the edge of the cardboard box he was holding, their tapered tips having all entirely burst out of his gloves now, and, as Cream began sliding one of his shoes off, Amy realised she had no idea what Metal's feet might look like.

"No, stop, don't do that!" she wailed, starting towards Cream with one hand outstretched towards her.

"Do what?" Cream asked sweetly, looking back over her shoulder at Amy at the same moment the shoe in her hands slid off Metal's foot entirely.

Amy opened her mouth to voice an excuse that would keep her friend distracted, but her voice failed her when she saw that Metal's feet looked entirely biological. As she looked at his bared foot, he even wiggled his toes – something that was apparently an extension of the habit he had of wiggling his fingers when he was confused or apprehensive about something.

"Oh, nothing," Amy said instead, forcing a smile. "I was thinking that Met – I mean Thistle – is perfectly capable of changing his own shoes, you don't have to do it for him."

Metal gave Amy a hard glare and Cream smiled.

"I don't mind!" she said, reaching her hands into the shoebox in his hands and lifting out one of the shoes within.

Amy fidgeted a little as she watched Cream kindly, gently, sweetly – and entirely naively – put a brand new pair of shoes onto Metal Sonic's feet. She tried to remember when the two would have last seen each other, and the sickening memory of grey skies, a sweeping wind that carried a metallic taste through the air and a giant, apocalyptic blue and silver dragon leering down at her as she clung to her rabbit friend grew large in her mind.

"Try them out – I hope they are a good fit, it seems like they are!" Cream said, rising to her feet and holding out a hand to indicate that Metal should follow her.

As a monotonous, warbling voice bellowed out claims of world domination and mass destruction in her mind, Amy watched a hedgehog with an oddly childlike look of curiosity on his face stand up and stomp his feet a few times, before walking up and down the room. He stopped in front of Cream, looking down at her with curious and slightly confused red eyes.

"Are they a bad fit, Mister Thistle?" Cream asked him sadly. "You were walking so strangely, like you couldn't bend your feet."

"That's what it is..." Amy muttered as Cream's words finally clarified what it was that was so odd about Metal's thumping, robotic way of walking.

Metal shook his head once.

"No?" Cream asked. "You don't like them?"

Metal looked over at Amy briefly before straightening up to his fullest height and posing his arm in front of himself, bent at the elbow, and, rigidly, he raised his thumb.

"He says he likes them," Amy said to Cream.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Cream said, smiling brilliantly. "But..."

Her eyes were wide, every blink seeming significant as her smile faded into a small O-shape.

"Can't he talk?" she asked Amy.

Amy glanced at Metal before shaking her head and meeting Cream's doleful eyes again.

"No, he can't," she admitted. "But he can hear you and understand you just fine."

Cream turned back to Metal.

"Maybe you should learn sign language, Mister," she suggested. "That way you could talk to anyone!"

"Well, not anyone!" Amy said with a small, ironic laugh. "I mean, not everybody knows sign language – what is happening right now?"

Amy balked as Metal began signing to Cream and she back at him.

"Gees, does everybody know sign language except me?" she grumbled.

Cream laughed out loud suddenly, and, as Metal hardly seemed like the type to make a joke, Amy turned to him abruptly at the sound. He looked more than a little irritated, and she began to worry that Cream had inadvertently said something to offend him.

"Mister Thistle said sign language is so easy to learn, you should learn it too," Cream told her.

Amy narrowed her eyes at Metal.

"Well, maybe he should learn how to write in a language I can understand!" she snapped at him.

Metal signed something to Cream, who laughed again, despite Metal looking distinctly angry now.

"He said why should he learn that, it would be more practical for you to learn sign language," Cream explained.

"Oh did he?" Amy said, crossing her arms and glaring at Metal. "Did he really? Well maybe he should learn how to wash a dish or use a glass instead drinking directly out of the tap all the time!"

"You drink directly from the tap too, Mister Thistle?" Cream asked Metal.

"Sonic's never done that!" Amy said defensively.

"I don't know about that," Cream said, giving Amy a slightly admonishing look that made her feel stupid for blurting out her first thought the way she had. "But Vector sometimes does that. Mom says she doesn't mind because it saves on dishes!"

Metal's anger gave way to what Amy suspected was his attempt at looking smug.

"Okay, it makes less dirty dishes, but since you don't wash the dishes anyway, the only person it's helping is me!" she argued.

Metal held out an upturned hand towards her, and although she knew it wasn't sign language, it hardly needed to be, as the realisation of what she had just said sank in.

"Alright, fine, you're helping me when you behave like an undomesticated beast," she conceded. "But there are plenty of other annoying and selfish things that you do!"

Metal sighed loudly through his nose and Cream giggled.

"It's not funny, Cream," Amy told her.

"I think it's so sweet," Cream replied, clasping her hands at one side of her face. "You two sound like an old married couple already!"

"No we do not!" Amy argued.

"Will you be taking Mister Thistle to the gala?"

Amy's face dropped.

"I'm going with my mom and Vector," Cream continued, oblivious to Amy's horror. "I know you wanted to go with Mister Sonic, but I guess now you'll be going with Mister Thistle instead!"

Amy looked over at Metal, who was already looking at her. For a long moment, they stood on point, looking at each other with equally blank expressions. Metal's eyes then shifted slightly to focus on Cream as she signed something to him. He nodded his head once to whatever she had said to him.

"Really?" Cream asked, clasping her hands together again. "That's so wonderful!"

"What did you just say to him?" Amy asked her.

"I asked him if he was a good dancer," Cream replied.

"And he told you yes?" Amy asked her. "You told her yes?"

She turned her attention back to Metal.

"You told Cream you're a good dancer?" she asked him.

He nodded his head once.

"You can't even walk properly!" Amy snapped.

He looked a little irritated, but Amy's mind began to wander.

"But you can run properly..." she muttered. "I suppose if I teach you how to apply those movements to walking properly, maybe I could even teach you how to dance, and then you could come to the gala with me."

Metal's top lip twitched and, with his eyes still on Amy's, he signed something.

"Oh..." Cream said, her face dropping.

"What did he say?" Amy asked, keeping her eyes on Metal.

"He said it's more like he'd have to teach you," Cream said, her voice a little stiff. "He said... Um..."

"Just say it, it's fine," Amy assured her.

"He said he saw you dancing once and you looked ridiculous."

"He said what?"

"He said he saw you dancing once and you looked ridiculous."

"I heard you the first time!"

Cream cowered as Amy yelled at her, but Amy quickly turned her ire on Metal.

"How dare you?" she ranted at him. "I'll have you know that I happen to be a very good dancer!"

His eyes still on hers, Metal signed something. Amy paused, waiting for her friend to translate. When she did not, Amy glared back over her shoulder at Cream.

"What did he say?" she demanded.

"Amy, I don't really want to be caught in the middle like this," Cream meekly replied. "Maybe you could just ask my mom to give you lessons in sign language."

"What did he say, Cream?" Amy insisted.

"He said you dance like a robot."

"What?"

Amy rounded on Metal, marching up to him to close the distance between them.

"How can you say that to me when you literally are – were – a –"

Amy abruptly stopped herself before saying something that she would really regret.

"I hope you're not fighting because of me," Cream said sadly behind her.

Metal shifted his eyes to Cream and signed something to her. Amy looked back at Cream, finding her looking a little confused.

"What did he say?" Amy asked with a sigh.

"He said the shoes I gave him are adequate," Cream replied. "Does that mean he doesn't really like them?"

Amy turned back to Metal and glared at him.

"Say it nicely!" she hissed at him.

He sighed loudly through his nose and then signed something else to Cream.

"Oh, you're welcome, Mister Thistle!" Cream said, smiling sweetly. "I'm so glad you like them!"

Amy gave Metal one last glower before moving back over to Cream.

"Did he thank you?" she asked.

Cream nodded her head. She looked happy, and so Amy trusted that Metal had managed to say something polite at last.

"And yes, I am going to the gala, of course," Amy told her.

"Oh good!" Cream said. "We'll have such fun!"

Amy nodded.

"Can I help you with any of your projects?" Cream asked.

Amy paused long enough to imagine Metal furiously weaving wicker wreaths with his robotic hands as Cream watched on in horror, before forcing a smile.

"I always need new materials," she diplomatically replied. "Dried mosses, pine cones, seashells, that sort of thing."

"I can do that!" Cream said enthusiastically.

"Great!"

"I'll come back tomorrow with what I find."

"Okay. I'll walk you out."

Amy put her hands on Cream's shoulders and steered her towards the front door, gently pushing her there to ensure she actually left. It was not that she wanted rid of her friend – she always enjoyed Cream's company – but she feared what Metal might end up saying to her. Amy pushed Cream all the way outside and closed the front door behind herself.

"Before you go, just out of curiosity," Amy began, releasing Cream's shoulders. "Why didn't Sonic like those shoes?"

Cream turned around to face her, still looking happy and oblivious.

"He said he liked the colour – they're red and white, like the sort of shoes he usually wears – but he didn't like that they were shiny," she explained.

"Oh, that's strange," Amy commented.

"He said he felt strange wearing shiny red shoes," Cream added.

"I can't think why."

"He said it felt too much like Metal Sonic's feet."

Amy swallowed stiffly.

"Isn't that funny?" Cream asked.

"Hilarious," Amy tightly replied.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow, Amy."

"Bye, Cream."

Amy watched her friend leave, smiling to herself when Tails approached Cream out on the road. The two were just close enough that she could hear them talking. After asking how each other were, Cream asked Tails if he was going to the gala, which he replied he was. Amy smiled as Tails then awkwardly suggested that maybe he would dance with Cream there. Cream agreed and bid him goodbye, and he stood and watched her go for a moment before turning towards Amy and waving to her. She waved back, but her smile faded when he started towards her and she realised that he was carrying what looked like a bottle of paraffin, a small metal tin of shoe polish and two cloths.

"What's all that for?" Amy asked him as he drew nearer.

"To clean Metal up," Tails replied.

In the confusion of Cream's unexpected visit, Amy had forgotten all about Metal getting concrete on his metal fingers.

"Come in," she said, leading Tails into her house.

"We're okay, by the way," Tails said to her as he closed the door behind himself.

"Oh yeah?" Amy casually replied.

"Yeah," Tails said as they moved into the living room to join Metal. "Knuckles totally bought the story that Metal is your boyfriend."

Amy turned to Tails in alarm.

"I get why you used that story with Rouge, Shadow and Vanilla now," he said, nodding his head. "It makes sense, you know? Especially because he looks like Sonic! Knuckles said "Amy sure does have a type, huh?" It was so funny!"

"That's not funny, Tails," Amy said quietly.

"Oh, hey, nice shoes, buddy!" Tails said to Metal.

Metal barely responded, but he once more got that look on his face that seemed vaguely smug.

"We should probably do this outside," Tails continued. "This stuff has a strong smell and could take the colour out of the carpet."

"Definitely do it outside," Amy agreed.

Tails nodded his head towards the back of the house and Metal followed him. Amy followed them too, out into her back garden. Tails guided Metal to a small wrought iron table and chairs, pulling one of the two chairs out and indicating that Metal should sit in it. Amy sat in the second chair and Tails sat onto the table as Metal removed his gloves.

"I forgot about the gala," Amy admitted as Tails opened up the bottle he had. "Oh, that does have a really strong smell!"

"How could you forget about the gala, Amy?" Tails asked, dipping one of the cloths into the liquid. "You've been talking about it for weeks!"

Amy gave him a flat look, but he had turned his back to her to focus on cleaning the dried on concrete from Metal's fingers.

"Gee, I dunno, Tails," she said sarcastically. "I guess I got little distracted, what with Eggman's prodigal robot son hiding in my house while Eggman goes on a rampage looking for him."

"Yeah, I guess we've had a lot going on lately, huh?" Tails responded.

Amy wanted to tell him that was an understatement, but, when she noticed that Metal was looking at her curiously, a thought occurred to her that never had before.

"Metal?" she said slowly. "You... Don't want to go back to Eggman, do you?"

Metal immediately shook his head. Amy nodded, but she couldn't help but think back to him falling in his race against Sonic on Little Planet, about him falling (from grace, mostly) after his transformation into Metal Overlord, and about every other time he had fallen in a battle with Sonic. Every time he had been broken, Eggman had put him back together. Every time he had strayed, he always went back to Eggman.

"Do you miss him?" she asked.

Metal shook his head.

"Uh, Amy, it's not what you think," Tails said, his eyes still on his work.

"What do you mean?" Amy asked, looking up at the back of his head.

"Metal made one thing clear to me right from the start," Tails explained. "He never wanted to be Eggman's slave. He went back because he had to. He needed Eggman to fix him up. But he doesn't need him any more."

"So... You want to join us?" Amy asked, looking at Metal again.

Metal looked slightly confused by the question. With Tails holding his hand, he was completely unable to talk, but apparently he didn't need to.

"Yes and no," Tails said. "Right buddy?"

Metal nodded his head.

"What does that mean?" Amy asked.

"It means Metal's on our side," Tails replied. "If our side is just you and me and Metal."

Amy looked at Metal again.

"But not Sonic, right?" she asked him.

His top lip curled and his teeth flashed at her.

"You know, Sonic would be happy to be your friend," Amy told him. "Most of Sonic's friends are people who were once his enemies."

"I was never Sonic's enemy," Tails pointed out. "And neither were you."

"Right, but Knuckles was," Amy pointed out. "And Rouge. And Shadow. And Silver."

"I'm pretty sure we can convince Sonic to accept Metal," Tails said. "But, you know, Metal has to want to be Sonic's friend too. Would you want that, buddy?"

Metal emphatically shook his head, and Amy sighed while Tails laughed.

"I'm gonna keep working on you, Metal!" Tails said good-humouredly.

Metal ignored Tails, instead focusing his attention on the hand Tails had finished cleaning, inspecting his fingers meticulously. When Tails finished with his second hand he did the same, inspecting them from every angle, before giving a single nod of his head in apparent approval.

"Thanks for helping us out today, Metal," Tails said as he slid off the table.

Metal stood up beside him and nodded his head again.

"It was awesome," Tails said to him.

Amy's face fell flat. She was unsure whether Tails was trying to evoke excitement in the cyborg, but he was clearly wasting his time.

"Do you remember what I told you about when something's awesome?" Tails asked, smiling up at Metal.

Metal, his face still impassive, slowly lifted up his right hand, opening out his palm.

"Alright, yeah!" Tails said.

"Tails, no!" Amy yelled, reaching out a hand to stop him.

She only realised his intentions when he raised his own right hand, and by the time she had spoken and lunged at him, she was already too late. Tails slapped his hand against Metal's in what should have been a fun high-five, but, just as Amy had feared, turned into a sour moment. Tails clutched his left hand around his right and hissed as Metal turned his own hand around to inspect the mess left there.

"That was my fault," Tails said. "I wasn't thinking."

"Let me see it," Amy said to him.

He turned his hand over, revealing ragged, bloody tears in his glove.

"It's not deep," Tails said. "It just stings."

"Well, it is your own fault," Amy said. "You should have waited until he had his gloves back on."

She then picked up one of the cloths Tails had left on the table and moved towards Metal to wipe the blood and white thread from his fingers, but she stopped short of her goal when she saw him staring at her with a strange look on his face: as he usually never had any sort of look on his face at all, even slight expressions seemed extreme.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

His eyes flicked to Tails and he signed something. Amy looked back over her shoulder and found Tails suddenly wearing the same face as Metal.

"What is it, you guys?" she asked, looking back and forth between them.

"Um, it's nothing," Tails said quietly, taking the cloth from her hand and moving over to clean Metal's fingers.

Amy balled her hands into fists and pressed them into her hips, scowling at them both.

"I guess…" Tails said slowly. "I guess turning from a robot hedgehog into a flesh and blood hedgehog doesn't quite go the way we think it would, you know?"

Amy's scowl eased a little.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Tails finished cleaning Metal's hand and Metal nodded at him.

"Uh, well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Eggman only changed the parts of Metal that would be useful for him to change," Tails explained, turning to Amy. "And he left parts that he didn't think needed to be changed, but in giving Metal an organic brain, he kind of gave him emotions and needs and wants that organic creatures have, and he never really took into account that maybe Metal didn't want a lot of what was happening to him."

Amy looked over at Metal, but found him still looking at the hand Tails had just cleaned for him.

"He wants to go back to being a robot?" she asked Tails, her eyes still on Metal.

"Amy, he doesn't have two of the things we use the most as organic creatures."

Amy watched Metal for a moment longer before nodding and turning her attention to Tails.

"So… What does he want?" she asked. "Does he want to have organic hands and a voice or does he want to just go back to being a robot?"

Tails looked back over his shoulder at Metal, checking that he was still preoccupied before turning back to Amy and mouthing out "I don't know".

"Can he even go back the way?" Amy asked.

"I mean, probably," Tails said with a shrug.

Amy started as Metal did something she had never seen him do before, the action seeming so alien for him that it momentarily frightened her: he reached out his hand and tapped Tails on the shoulder.

"Yeah, buddy?" Tails said, turning to him with a smile.

Metal signed something to Tails and then pointed at Amy. His eyes moved to hers, and she held his gaze, even as Tails turned to her to translate.

"He said if Eggman ever decides he wants another Metal Sonic, he would just build another one from scratch and… And kill this Metal."

Amy gulped.

"I, uh…" she said, hoping that if she spoke, comforting words would come to her.

"He can't go back, Amy," Tails said. "Even if he wanted to, he could never go back."

"Do you mean he can't go back to being a robot, or…?" Amy asked.

"Both," Tails replied, intuitively understanding her implied meaning. "He can't go back to being a robot and he can't go back to Eggman."

"Do you think Eggman wants him back to be his ally again, or…?"

"I don't know. But we can't let Eggman take him."

Amy nodded. She then took a step closer to Metal and put a hand on his shoulder.

"You can stay with me as long as you need to," she told him. "It's okay."

He studied her for a moment as though suspecting her words were a lie, before nodding his head.

"But you're going to learn how to wash a dish and use a vacuum," she added.

His head tilted when she said the word "vacuum", but she ignored it, deciding he would learn the meaning of the word soon enough.

"I gotta go, you guys," Tails said. "But I'll see you around, okay?"

"Thanks, Tails," Amy said.

Metal nodded at him and Tails took his leave.

"Do you want to help me make some of my projects?" she asked Metal.

He nodded and she smiled, turning from him and leading him back to the garden shed.

Next Chapter: Amy meets Rouge in the city again, they talk business, the gala and "Thistle". Knuckles has already told Sonic about "Thistle", but Amy can't quite bring herself to talk to Sonic about the situation. A new (and disturbing) swarm of Eggman cyborgs attack and once again, the battle only ends when Metal joins in – but doing so brings him face-to-face with Sonic. Chapter 11: Reveal