Sonic returned to the roots to find Amy sitting dead center in front of all the patients, hammer laid across her lap. Her green eyes flicked to him and she sighed. "Hi, Sonic. I watched them for you!"

Sonic shot a grin and a wink at her. "Thanks, Ames."

She melted.

Sonic took a quick swing of water from the canteen, glancing over his shoulder into the woods.

Running into the caravan had really slowed them down. Tails was getting stronger by the second. He would soon be well enough to go to Robotropolis. If he'd go. But Sonic already knew he would. Tails had said what he said just as much for himself as had for Sonic.

Sally's face flickered through Sonic's mind. He could almost see her lift her chin and flash her blue eyes at him. "You don't have a plan, do you?"—

Sonic cleared his throat, putting down the canteen. Then he glanced back at Amy.

What was he gonna do with her?

Sonic shrugged to himself. She was a tough girl, she could handle protecting the survivors and herself. She could take them somewhere…somewhere away from Aero, somewhere safe—

-Just somewhere, she'd figure it out, and then she'd be out of danger too.

Sally's face popped back to his mind.

If she had been there, she'd go after Robotnik, but she'd come up with a really good plan to make sure they actually made the most of their one and only shot.

It would have taken a couple months. Maybe more. More people would suffer. It wouldn't be as fast as possible.

And Sally had chickened out of all this anyway.

"Look, it's him, it's Sonic."

Sonic glanced over at the line of survivors. The groundhog nudged an older woman groundhog next to him. He was sitting up, she was still lying down.

At his words, she tried to scoot up a little more. "Oh, good, he's back—come over here, young man!"

Sonic's ears pricked up at her tone of voice and a small grin tugged at his mouth. She was a very thin woman, but the light in her eyes was strong and she made urgent gestures toward him.

He sauntered over, pointing a thumb to his chest. "Guess that would be me?"

She snorted a little. "I can't see you very well without my glasses—I think they must be back at the wagons on the ground somewhere—I really hope you or your fox creature didn't step on them when you were dragging us all out of there—but what I was going to say is you sound like a very plucky young person, and I just wanted to thank you for coming along and not leaving us lying out in the dust for vulture food."

"Hey, I'm the Ringweilder, I get rings, it's my job," Sonic cracked a smirk.

"Yes, thank you very, very much—now, listen carefully, young man, I'm going to tell you something very important."

"Sure?" Sonic still smirked.

"The village we came from—you have probably never heard of it, most of you Aero folks don't come out our way—" she fixed her gaze on him…or at least, what she could make out of him—"We're Cloven Drew. Now, I think I remember the coo-or-dinates, or if you have a map, I can show you where it is on the map—but back when the Queen, bless her soul, entered into the truce with these robot people, a whole mess of robots came to our village, and it first just started with the TVs, and a big radio tower, and then they built a place to land their ships on, and then they built a big pump next to our village, and they had most of us working on it, on and off, said it was the Queen's orders. You see, we didn't know it, but our village was right on top of a big Ignitium spring, and the Ignitium under Ro-bo-trop-lis is all out, so they started getting it from our little village instead."

Sonic kept her gaze, arms crossed.

"So, you can just guess what happened when this robot fellah took over? Can't you?" Her eyes flashed. "That very day, more robots then I have ever seen before in my entire life came in to Cloven Drew and they started lining us all up and scanning us—but you see, me and my husband, Fergus here, we started packing the minute we heard the Queen was dead, because we knew it was going to happen, so we and the others who were fast enough made it out of Cloven Drew before they got started on the others—" her voice started to choke up a little, but she kept going strong. "The only way I know about the robots is that Fergus here went back to see about our children and grandchildren—they had big families you know, so they hadn't packed in time. We thought they'd already made it out, but by the time we were on the road and got up with the others, we realized they weren't there, so that's why Fergus went back. So, he got there and just took a look, and tell them what you saw, Fergus."

Sonic's eyes darted to 'Fergus.' The groundhog cleared his throat.

"They had the pump going," he said slowly. "And some of our children were there working it, and others were waiting in cages. There was a big machine in the center of the town, something like a bed, with a bunch of cans taped around it, and a roof over it…"

Sonic's jaw clenched.

"The way I see it is," his wife started again. "They're going to keep the rest of our village there as slaves until that spring goes dry—and my poor children, Lottie and Mercy and Benji, and the grandkids—they're brave people, Ringweilder, they're not going to play footsie with this robot fellah, so he's going to end up killing them all when he's worn them all out—just like they come after us and shot us in that bird plane—" she stopped, sniffing hard and wiping at her nose.

Fergus' eyes had started watering as well. "I don't know if it'll be any good rescuing them, Meryl, there ain't nowhere left to go as far as I can see, look what happened to the Tylar's family—they dropped the fire straight on their wagon and now only little Arlyn is left—" he motioned towards the little green cat girl, still sitting silent in the corner next to the two other Mobian children.

"But we've gotta try, Fergus!" Meryl blurted, nudging him. "He'll get them out of there, he's the Ringweilder, he has rings!"

Sonic straightened, his ears still pricked forward. He swiped out a hand. "Hold it, ah…"

The two fell silent, their eyes fixed on him.

Sonic waved the hand. "Hey. I'm real sorry… Real sorry. My whole city's gone, so, yeah. I get it. But this kinda thing is happening to everyone everywhere right now. There's a lot of people dying."

They waited.

"Thank you, young 'un, thank you—" Meryl said, nodding to him. "We thank you so much—we'll do anything to get our family back, I knew you'd do it—"

Sonic took a deep breath, scratching the back of his neck. "Okay—so…yeah, what I meant was…" his eyes flashed. "The only real way to stop this is to get Robotnik. I'm going to Robotropolis—"

"Good for you, young man, very wise, very intelligent for a Mobian with Speed to take care of this human-creature," Meryl said, nodding hard. "We thank you so much—you go take care of our village and tell us when Cloven is safe again, and we'll go back, and then we can cheer you on while you go after this human."

Fergus patted her hand, grinning hard. "This Robo-fellah hasn't made it across the planet yet, dear—you know, I hear those Eastern Mobians have got a lot of power and class—if they'll let us stay there, maybe we can hold out long enough for this guy to finish off the human!"

"The food is terrible over there," Meryl groaned. "but I'll take anything if it means seeing them all safe. I bet Lottie can take care of Arlyn, she's always been able to grow enough for her family and over, even with the shortage this year—"

Sonic stood there, his gaze darting from one groundhog to the other, his hands planted on his waist.

Behind him, Amy Rose stared, her eyes huge.

"Well, eh…nice talking to you both," Sonic said, scooting back. "Hopefully the others will wake up soon."

"Thank you, boy!" Meryl shouted. "Bring me a map and my glasses and I'll show you where the village is!"

Fergus waved.

Sonic gave them half a smile, half a wince.

What was his deal? They were just a bunch of old fogies anyway, it wasn't like he didn't know how to say no to people—

Something about the light in their eyes reminded him of Gramps.

Sonic's eyes flashed, and he turned around.

He spun straight into a red-faced Amy Rose. Her fists were planted on her hips, her chin raised, and her eyes narrowed to slits.

"Heh—" Sonic stepped back, letting out a sheepish chuckle. "So—you heard 'em—they want to visit Eastern Mobia—you know how to get there, right? Sounds like a good idea to me, huh?"

"You are going to Robotropolis?" Amy hissed, her voice almost a squeak.

"Yeah, of course, even you said you knew you'd find me there," Sonic grinned, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, I thought you were there because Robotnik had taken you prisoner and pinned you to a lab table like the People's Council was going to let him do!" she seethed, fisting her hands. "So. I headed that way too. So that when I found you there I could drag you away—back to somewhere safe!" she raged. "Not so you could stay there and die like the idiot that you are!"

"Oh, they are adorable," Meryl muttered from somewhere behind them. "Just like you and me at that age, Fergus."

Fergus whistled.

Sonic paused, his gaze locked on Amy. He didn't care.

He took one step forward and hissed out, his voice low and sharp, "Boy are you selfish."

Amy froze. She gasped, her eyes wide.

"I've still got to finish covering the bodies up back at the clearing," Sonic gritted out. He turned on his heel and began to walk away.

Amy stared after him, quivering.

Then she stamped her foot. "You are one to talk about selfishness, Sonic Hedgehog!"