Chapter 23: Rose to the Occasion
They knew where Amy went, or at least they had an idea. The place where she found herself before, when she was all alone during the reign of the nightmare machine—Robotnik's lab. They headed that way now, keeping an eye out for Chaos and keeping to the shadows for now.
The general mood of dread lingered over them, but Cream couldn't help but bounce happily beside Sonic. "How did you survive, Mr. Sonic? What happened out there?" she asked him.
"Chaos had a hold of me," Sonic explained. "It was trying to drain my energy again, but I was able to get out of its grasp with the chaos emerald's help." He held up the orange gem. "So it blasted me a few times with a weird red power, probably trying to get me to drop the gem. Eventually, I could tell I was outmatched and that there was no way I could run to you guys. So, I used the emerald to disappear. Chaos figured it won, and it left."
"It's too bad your communicator broke in all of that… We…" She frowned and stopped bouncing.
"Hey…" Sonic put a hand on her shoulder. "We're all gonna be together in no time."
She smiled up at him.
They both know he didn't really mean "all" of them. Just the ones who still cared.
.
Amy slammed the closest camera with her hammer. She didn't care this time whether Eggman knew she was there. In fact, she welcomed it. She jumped up on the fence that surrounded the lab now, balancing across, unaffected by the barbed wire.
"You little pest!" Robotnik yelled, sending out an army of robots to attack her.
She smirked, then jumped from the fence and landed on one of the machines, steering it so that she could smash the others with her hammer.
"Don't just let her ride you like that!" Eggman wailed.
Soon, she had made her way down into the front door, crashing through rather easily and destroying the last bot in the process. She stood, gripping her hammer, and blew the quills out of her face. "Where are you, Eggman?!" she called.
More security bots rolled down the hall, but she battered each of them, slamming one into the others like bowling pins. She ran over each of them without a care, going deeper and deeper into the lab.
The next door opened easily, to her surprise. That was, until spikes flew up at her feet. She stepped back with a yelp. The spikes went back down into the ground. It was the first time she had stopped moving, and looking around, she noticed that the room was filled with traps. There were spikes above her, trap doors on the tiles, and turrets on the walls.
"Eggman has definitely improved his security, that's for sure." She shouldered her hammer and sidestepped the spikes. "But knowing Eggman, there's got to be a way around it all. After all, he never keeps a button to turn it off for himself or a password… No… he has a path to take…" She looked at the tile and smiled. Just as she suspected… She followed the path of scuff marks from Eggman's boots.
.
"What do you think Chaos is after?" Cream asked.
"Life energy," Sonic answered, shaking his head. "That's all we know."
"Is that why he hasn't come after the chaos emeralds?" Cream asked.
Sonic looked at her.
She held up her green emerald. "Chaos emeralds aren't alive. So it hasn't gone after them."
"Good thinking, Cream!"
They walked in silence awhile.
"I wonder where it is now…" Sonic mumbled.
Cream clutched his arm and shuddered.
"We'll be okay," Sonic reminded her. "And when we meet up with the others, we'll have the chaos emeralds together again and on our side to fight back."
.
Amy pulled out the red emerald and ignited her hammer. "Alright, Eggman, get ready to meet your doom!" She struck through the door in front of her, melting the metal on impact. "Give it up, Eggman!"
"What do you want with me, pinkie?" Robotnik sneered. "I haven't even done anything. Need I remind you I'm not the one who killed Sonic!"
The sound of his name triggered tears in Amy's eyes. "Shut up! Don't speak his name! You have no right!"
"And here you are, looking for someone else to annoy since you don't have your precious blue hedgehog. I do not want to be his stand-in, Amy Rose!"
"You don't know what you're talking about!"
"Don't I?" Eggman easily dodged the flaming hammer. "Sounds to me like I've struck a nerve."
Amy growled.
"Smashing my robots, breaking and entering, running off on your own… How times have changed… It used to be that you feared being alone. Now, what is it… do you fear being with your friends because they'll all remind you of the one that's no longer there?"
Amy ran at him and swung again, but he merely had to step aside.
"Funny how Sonic was the glue that kept you little rodents together, considering his own start."
Amy screamed and tried again, but none of her swings were landing in her rage.
"And here you are, alone. How sad for you."
Amy took a breath. She knew he had the upper hand. She was acting on pure emotion. She had to calm down. What would Sonic do? She swallowed. Mock him. "And what about you?" she shot back. "Aren't you just as angry?" Her heart twisted as she said, "Angry that you weren't the one to finish him off?"
But this time, she hit her mark. "You've got a lot of nerve!" Eggman growled.
"All these traps, all these robots… and no one to come through and trigger them. You know what, Egghead, I think I'll just leave you to sulk in your failures."
Robotnik picked up a remote and pressed a button on it. "Robots! Destroy her!"
.
"What do you think Eggman has been up to lately?" Sonic asked.
"Hopefully not another nightmare machine…" Cream whimpered.
"Yeah, that was a major buzz-kill."
Silence.
Sonic looked down at Cream, who was still hanging on his arm. She was scared. She was relieved at him being alive and hopeful because of it. But really, she was just a kid, and she was terrified. He decided to change the mood. "He's probably still building pieces of junk."
Cream looked up at him and giggled. She loved having Sonic back. Even aside from the mourning, it was dark and gloomy without him around.
They heard the crashing and explosions from a distance away. Looking at each other, they picked up their pace and hurried to Eggman's lab, which was smashed and on fire in some places.
"Chaos?" Cream asked fearfully.
Sonic looked closely at the damage. All of it had a very distinct, hammer-like shape. He smiled.
.
One by one the bots were hit down. One by one they were smashed to pieces or hit into each other. One by one Amy got through them all, and she walked angrily toward Robotnik. Eggman stepped back nervously. "Now, now…" he tried. She started running. "Hold on, now!" Robotnik pressed another button, but the robots that came after her were easily dispatched as she jumped on each one, using them as stepping stones as she launched at Eggman, pounding him at last under her fiery hammer.
"Take that!" she screamed.
He whimpered. Then screamed, "GAH!" as he slid out from under her and took off running out a back door.
"Until next time, Eggman!" she shouted after him.
Her shoulders slouched, and she dropped her hammer, now free of its fire, to sit on it. Kicking a robot at her feet, she rested her head in her hands.
"In the meantime… what?"
"For starters, you can relax, Ames," Amy recognized that nickname. She reeled around and her eyes grew wide. "Yeah, it's me. Just don't—"
Amy sprung from her hammer and ran to him, squeezing him tight, tears running from her eyes like waterfalls.
"—crush me…" Sonic finished, strained. He shrugged and returned her hug.
"Sonic! Oh, Sonic! I can't believe this! How? Why? When?" She finally pulled away and wiped her eyes. But then he was back in her arms again. "I thought… I… I thought…"
"Yeah, I know." He returned the second hug, too. "But I'm fine, I promise."
"What about Chaos? Is it destroyed?" she asked, pulling away again.
Sonic shook his head, turning serious. "No… not in the least."
Amy frowned, but it didn't last. She was so thrilled to see Sonic, she couldn't help but smile again… and wrap him in another hug.
"Cream and I are on a bit of an adventure to find everyone and round up the chaos emeralds. You in?"
Amy nodded, "Tails has two. And Rouge has the other two."
"Then there's no time to waste. We better find Tails!"
