"Help me!" Yelped
the eight year old girl struggling against the robe that tied her to the
pipe. The blue hedgehog looked at her once, and then looked away disinterested
and waved a hand.
"Naw."
"What!"
"I have to go take
down Ro-buttnic, I don't have time to carry a cry baby with me. See yea."
"But if I'm
on this planet when it vanishes . . . . ."
"Guess I won't see
yea!" He laughed. But it wasn't his laugh, it was that sick fat scientist's
laugh. The world disintegrated around her, fading into void, taking her
with it, into the emptiness, the nothingness, forgotten.
Breathing was Amy's only movement in her sleep. It seemed reluctant. The remnants of the alcohol still ran amok in her system(she had vomited most of it). Her body was simply not used to such high levels of alcohol. She hadn't even ever had a drink in her life until a month ago: when the letter came. The bed kept her warm, her body didn't want the job.
Tails was bored. He considered vacuuming the place, but thought it might
disturb Amy. But he had heard somewhere that turning on the vacuum could
actually help a child sleep. Tails mentally slapped himself Amy wasn't
a two year old. Though from the state of the place when he got here, and
from Amy's journal, he had a feeling Amy would of preferred to be one.
No responsibilities, no expectations, no hopes to be crushed. He guessed
everyone felt like that some time in their life. Would he want to? The
answer was instant. No, not now, not ever.
He had decided for himself last year that he couldn't live his
life living Sonic's. By SA he had realized that all his skills were
just emulations of Sonic's, but if he just kept following Sonic: you couldn't
see the light in someone else's shadow. He was going to find his own path.
He would make his own choices, and take everything that went with them,
for better or worse. He had to be strong, for himself and others.
That bomb shell hit when Eggman tried to nuke Station Square and Tails
found himself in that do or die race towards that sleeping missile with
Robotnic's Egg-o-Matic hovercraft.
Gotta get a hold of my life. ~
And he had done his best to. Life was choices. And pain were part of those choices.
I'm trying so hard to be strong.~
Be strong.
If not for yourself then for others. People like Amy who didn't have the
power to be strong, or maybe, just forgot. Amy had saved Birdie from being
robotcized and had also trashed the supposedly indestructible E-100 'ZERO'.
Those weren't the actions of a weakling. They were the actions of someone
like him. Someone set to prove that they weren't just there to get kidnapped
by Robotnic, (Tails admitted, it had happened to him once) or just follow
their hero everywhere and stand about and gawk as he defeated the mad scientist
bent on conquering the world. She had been trying, too, to be strong. She
had failed. Or had she? Tails looked about the apartment. The evidence
weight heavy against her.
Or had Sega crushed that strength? No. Blaming others only added
to one's self pity. Feeling sorry for yourself never got you anywhere.
Only doing did. The rest of the Sonic crew was either disinterested or
too busy to help him. So what~! He had his life. His own choices. And only
he could make them! So what if Tornado III never saw the light of day?
He had put his heart and soul into that plane and it was now a match for
any of Eggman's maniacal machines! He was around to appreciate it! He leaped
up both his sneakers on the white couch.
"My name is
Miles 'Tails' Prower and I'm not going to vanish into nonexistence like
Ray or Mighty! I'm the only one who can run my life right and that's what
I'm going to do~!"
Tails realized he had exclaimed. He looked down at his chest
fur and realized it still had Amy's 'spill' on it. When was the last time
he had a shower? When he got close to finishing a project eating, sleeping,
and bathing, all slipped from his mind. Tails honesty felt like a leech
now. Amy probably didn't have enough cash for support even a temporary
guest. Tails decided he could transfer some cash into Amy's bank account
to make up for it when he got home to his Mac. What bank was her debit
card set at? He had to ask her when she came to.
Amy's shower was accessible only though her bed room. (whoever
designed this place was an idiot) Tails considered whether to clean off
Amy while he was at it or at least get her out of that dress. But the fact
she might wake up and misunderstand Tails' action held him back, suffering
from hangover or not, Amy was still mean with a hammer, or any other nearby
blunt object.
Not even looking at her, Tails went into the bath room. It was
in relatively better shape than the rest of the apartment. The tiles were
peal white but pink towels were everywhere. Like spotting a single fish
in a ocean Tails noticed that the cap was off the tooth paste, he replaced
it. Tails did his best to clean up the towels. Why was he doing this? Amy
would just trash it the moment he left, and why should he bother to begin
with? He might slip on a towel and break his neck, he told himself and
that worked.
Tails took off his glove, shoes, etc., and entered the shower the hot water
felt good washing against his fur, he didn't really wash himself, (that
took forever when your body was covered with fur and since this wasn't
really his shower he felt like he should just do the necessary) but did
clean off Amy's vomit which was mostly alcohol which had actually bleached
his already white fur even whiter.
Turning off and existing the shower Tails went about the long
task of drying himself. After an eternity he got himself dry enough that
his fur could dry off on it's own.
Exiting the bathroom clothed again, (though that was relative term for
male Mobians who never understood the female need to cover themselves,
fur did a good enough job of modesty as it was.) Tails glanced at the empty
bed as he exited the room. Empty bed? Tails did a double take and saw Amy
was gone! He stupidly looked back in the bath room too surprised to think
straight, then mentally slapped himself, (his cheeks would be sore by now
if he did it for real) and entered the living room thinking where she might
of gone and skidded to a halt seeing Amy, in a new dress and looking more
self aware than the last time she had been conscious. She was sitting on
the couch looking at a picture on the clear plastic table in front of her.
Tails came behind her to see what it was. He had seen it before but hadn't
really paid attention to it. It was a photo of the Triple Threat along
with Amy, Birdie's family, and Big & Froggy at the Station Square
Chao Garden after it had been rebuilt (not all the Chao had gone with Tikal
and Chaos) Everyone look so . . . happy. Even Knuckles was smiling. What
had gone wrong? How did they all drift apart?
"You OK?" Tails asked. It was stupid starting line he knew but he wasn't
trying to write a play.
"No. I'm not. I'm the most pathetic creature on his planet." She said full
of self pity. Her memories of what had happened before were a fog, she
remember going to the burger shop to think, ordering something she didn't
usually order, she didn't remember what, and then the fog was total, then
she remembered seeing Tails in front of her, then the fog again. Then she
heard him.
"My name is Miles 'Tails' Prower and I'm not going to vanish into nonexistence
like Ray or Mighty! I'm the only one who can run my life right and that's
what I'm going to do~!"
He was excluded from being a player character in the next Sonic
story too. But she didn't see him wasting his money getting drunk (she
remembered now or rather admitted now) wasting her breath on 'woe is me's.
She was pathetic. Sega didn't make her go out and poison herself. She did
that on her own. She saw him go into her bath room a minute later, he didn't
even look at her, she didn't blame him, who could look at such a pathetic
hedgehog? A little girl too stupid to know when to give on an imaginary
relationship with her hero. When it was simpler to just give up and accept
the void. She didn't know why she bothered to get up, an invisible
hammer kept trying to smash her skull in. The stink of alcohol was too
strong now for her conscious brain to ignore and she changed out of the
ruined dress planning on burning it later. Entering the living room with
the floor bobbing up and down beneath her she crash landed on the couch
and then saw it. The picture. Of when hers and Sonic's Chao had tied in
the Chao (Kay-Oh) Gem Race Finals. Everyone was so cheerful in that picture.
Amy tried to lose herself in the picture. The hammer wouldn't let her concentrate.
"Your only that if you chose to be." Tails said flatly.
Silence dominated the room.
"I'm sorry." She was a disgrace. She was a joke. Why wasn't she dead? No
one even liked her anyway. And those who wanted her paired up with Sonic
simply saw a 2-D love interest for their hero. They didn't know her. They
thought she was invincible, some symbol of the woman's movement in video
games because she was simply there and didn't wear a revealing outfit.
She would of laughed if she could remember how. Who cared if she
vanished off the face of the Earth?
Tails
didn't know what to do; he kept running into that problem didn't he? No.
Sometimes. Sometimes . . .. there wasn't a perfect thing to do. So just
do the best you can. That's all you can do.
No one's alone~
The Fox Kitesune sat down next to the neo-pink hedgehog, and being careful
not to cut himself on her quills, (he almost forgot they were quills from
the way she wore them) placed his arm around her shoulder. Feeling his
fur touch hers. Tails had never touched the fur of a female before. He
got mixed feelings from it.
"Amy, your life is yours. Live it."
"I don't think I've done a good job."
"Then try again! There's always tomorrow Amy! There's always today!"
"Who cares."
"You should."
"I don't."
"I do!"
Amy hadn't been expecting that. "Y-you care?"
"Yes! Amy I'm . . . I'm not . . . . someone . . . . " Tails
stammered for the right words. "I can't stand to see someone like you let
their life fall into the gutter and stay there. You saved Birdie from 'ZERO',
would a pathetic creature do that? Amy, everyone needs help at least once
in their life. Sometimes, you need others to help you be strong. You've
change a lot. You've grown up Amy. Birdie cares about you, Sonic may not
show it but he didn't save you from Metal Sonic because he felt like it.
He cares about what happened to you."
"Do you?" She asked simply.
"Yes." Tails said not even realizing the words had escape his mouth.
"Thank you." She said her voice cracking.
"For what?"
"For caring . . . It's . . . nice to know someone cares." Amy said
haltingly. Tails saw she was crying. She was also smiling.
Flames, comments, reactions, suggestions, and the occasional constructive
criticism all welcome.
