A/N: Wait, what goes here? Yes I know, I am alive! Hit a wall, but now I'm up again! Ugh, writer's block is pure murder, you hear? MURDER! And then at two a.m. I put down my AP calc and thought "OH NOES! PLOT BUNNY!"

…And it has nothing to do with the fact that I have been happily immersing myself in Labyrinth or Inu-Yasha fics…nope…no, not me... +hides Favorites folder in hardrive bursting with saved authors/pages/etc+ I AM A VERY FOCUSED PERSON!

skims over it's a bit choppy but somehow I was inspired and couldn't stop writing! I apologize if it's not that great…it will start moving along…

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Disclaimer: I own squat.

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This was different.

When he voiced this, Amy glared at him again.

Hey, it was! Jeez, what was it with girls and taking everything to heart--making him feel like whatever he said was stupid?

But you gotta understand, he was in a total state of numb shock.

He was a freakin' human.

As in, skin, not fur. Not even blue!

And no cool spikes to freak enemies with.

Oh well, at least he wasn't naked. Amy was still in her hot pink getup, and since none of the passerby was looking at him funny (unless this was a nudist colony…ugh...bad experiences…wait, Amy's not gaping at me…good) Sonic guessed he was in the clear.

After a sudden outburst of hyperventilation, he realized that at least in this world of hell, there was a single godly plus: He had his sneakers. He didn't care that Amy was look at him like he'd grown a second head (which…really, wouldn't be all that weird considering the present events) when he sank to the ground and kissed it.

Thank.

The.

Lord.

Praise be to Jesus! Children can you gimme Hallelujah he had his sneakers!

It wasn't that Sonic had a problem with humans (except for the whole "I AM MAN, RAGGGHH" thing), really.

It just wasn't the same. Humans were boring by nature; at least, that was Sonic's evaluation on the species.

Amy…wow, maybe it was because if he admitted the annoying hedgehog's differences, it made it more frighteningly real: Sonic didn't do very well having to adjust to circumstances in his favor (not laziness, SALLY, just a matter of being comfortable. Much like when Knuckles said he was cheating on his temp's test to politely (and repeatedly) ask the head instructor with big green eyes and performed his best imitation of Cream. Pulease, Sonic preferred the term "reaching out for help.").

Okay, focus. Admit it: Amy Rose is very...changed.

He didn't explode. Although a small part of him did want to scream OH MY GOD OH MY GOD.

Breathe.

Well…in some areas they were still the same, basically. Amy still had those abnormally large green eyes, and pink hair. Her form of dress was still pink, white, and turquoise. Just add a taller frame, new complexion, bone structure, a pinch of new DNA...

Ah, screw it. No sense in finding something positive, he thought. Everything was altered.

What did he look like?

He hadn't realized he had said this aloud until he was being yanked up by the once-pink-annoying-well-still-annoying female hedgehog.

Apparently there was a body of water--an ocean?--where they had "landed." How the heck had they gotten there anyway? Not exactly easy to be blasted apart by a freakin' flashlight one second and the next to be on a city beach. He peered into the sandy water, and concentrated to focus his attention on the surface of the water, rather than the underlying life beneath it.

He still had his charmer eyes. Boo-yah Egghead. Hmm, not too bad for a human...He lifted a hand, his heart pumped with excitement at the weirdness of it all, and watched the hand in the reflection lift the right hand as well.

"What did you expect--it not to move?" Amy snapped at him, staring at her own reflection. He was going to snap back at her, it wasn't HIS fault anyway they were like this, but stopped when he saw the frightened expression on her face.

He bit his lip (HUMAN lips--they felt odd) and wondered what to do in this situation. Sally should be here--she was way better at doing that fuzzy-comfort-feeling thing than he was. He stared at the sky. 'I'm not good at this; I'm not good at this!' He repeated in his mind, begging something positive to happen or something to distract them both from thinking about their current problems...

"Oh God..." He heard Amy whimper, and when he faced her tears pouring down her cheeks. She was staring at her hands.

"Hey, Ames..." He didn't know what to say, how to make this right. Sure, he could turn this whole thing into a joke, but Amy hadn't seen enough bullshit yet to do that. She never would; she had a child-like innocence like that. "Ames, it'll be okay..."

"NO! No it won't, Sonic!" She wailed and threw her arms around him, sobbing. "And it's just…" she wiped her teary eyes, "I thought you might have liked me even a little bit…"

Sonic flinched. Oh great, crying. He hated it when girls cried (why he and Sally got along so well…she didn't cry, she smacked him with a log), because he had No Idea what to do. And feelings. Amy liked feelings, while Sonic was nauseated by them. He squirmed. Not this again. "Erm…wait! Stop…stop crying! Um. Ames, t-this is no time for…uh…"

"But you," Amy sniffled being her hands, "Keep playing Mr. Macho…"

She whirled around on him. "AND THAT'S HOW WE ALWAYS GET INTO THESE SITUATIONS! YOU IDIOT! IDDDIIIOOOOOT!"

"Eaaahhh!" Sonic recoiled wide-eyed as Amy went for his throat. Cripes, did she not want me to save her then?! "We're all okay! Stop crying! And screaming! And choking me!"

"I'M NOT CRYING." Amy screamed, releasing him and he gasped for air as she sank into the sand. "I'm just glad you're all right!" She bawled.

Sonic tried to regain his composure. God girls are so weird… Sweat dropping and sighing impatiently, he patted her head a bit while looking out to sea.

A thought occurred to him.

Grin.

Mwahahaha. God he was so evil.

And cool, but more of that later.

He looked down at the pink head occupying his chest and tugged her chin until she was looking up at him. "Amy…" he murmured, "Amy…"

Her eyes widened. "Y-Yes, Sonic?" He could have felt her heart quicken.

"Amy…I don't know how to say this," Dramatically, he turned his head away from her. He clutched her hand in his tightly, as if in extreme emotional pain. Which he was…heheh…

"Just say it Sonic," her voice was soft and a low, undertone of excitement.

"Lean closer Amy," He said, just as soft and low. "I'm only saying and doing this once."

"I understand, Sonic…" She leaned in closer and he in turn also did so.

"Ames…" He breathed in her ear. He felt her shudder.

"S-Sonic…"

"Ames…"

"Sonic…"

Breath.

"You're boobs are way huge now."

The citizens of this unknown city looked up from their afternoon lunches and meetings in confusion toward the beach where it disturbingly sounded like someone was being abhorrently tortured.

"I want to go home." Amy whispered. She wanted her mallet too. It was all fine when there was an enemy to fight, at least the source of your agony could be destroyed. Basically she wanted to hit Sonic with it, but he was still trying to get his head out of the sand so she was all right for now. But this…she had no idea where the Egg Head had sent them; how could she fight the source of her problem if it was worlds away?

She uncrossed her arms. Worlds away…the saying was so literal now it scared her.

"I know." Sonic replied, and she covered her mouth when she realized she'd voice her bitterness. She watched him chew the hot dog loaded with the usual chili thoughtfully--at least somebody could breath easy about all of this…waita minute…

"Where did you get that!" She glared at him as his eyes widened innocently. "Did you steal that?"

He grinned. "Do you really want to know?" I AM speed!

Amy rolled her eyes. "What do you think Tails and Knuckles are doing about this?"

"I have no idea. Knuckles' probably just fine since I'm not there to give him a hernia over whether I'll probably break his stupid shiny rock again." That red dude had a serious problem—weren't obsessions with inanimate objects considered unhealthy? Yeah Sonic knew that the preservation of the Chaos Emerald held the balance of the universe so long as it was a stable whole yadda yadda yadda whatever. Where was some bot he could blow up? Sonic rolled his eyes.

Amy sat quietly for a few minutes. She knew Sonic had deliberately left Tails out of the conversation. Poor Tails, she thought, poor little Fox Boy. He was probably in shock. "I hope they don't think we're dead." She said softly.

This obviously hadn't occurred to Sonic before. She suppressed a hysterical giggle when his green eyes widened and began to choke on his hotdog. After gulping some water down (Amy didn't want to know where he got that either), he stared across at the pink-clad stalker and gaped. "They sure as hell BETTER not," he ground out, "or we're screwed. Seriously."

Amy's face brightened for a moment: "Actually I bet Eggman bragged about it after we were...zapped?...yeah, anyway, you know how he is: the most moronic evil villain to walk Mobias and Earth." Sonic's grin came back, but inside he couldn't suppress one thought: Dr. Robotnik hadn't always been that way...

He shook his head. Let it go. Let it go let it go let it go. But even so, it had always been something he always thought of when he had faced countless robots, Chaos, Metal Sonic, and even Shadow.

Amy was distracted and staring at the mall across from the hot dog patio. Suddenly she got up and started walking off to it.

The feeling Sonic got right then…It could have been the equivalent of the icy chill running down Sarah Michelle Geller character's spine in I Know What You Did Last Summer as she slowly moved down the dark, cold alley. Or when the stupid hormone-driven girlfriend leaped into the ocean, eyes widening as something abruptly began to rank at her leg and screamed for her unconscious boyfriend—

'Oh no...' Sonic groaned. "Amy! AMY!"

The girl in question wasn't listening. She just turned around, smiled cutely and waved, then resumed her point of course. Before Sonic could say anything else, she was lost in the crowd shuffle and he lost sight of her.

STUPID MALE HUMAN BODIES! These things were powerless against females in missile mode to capitalist ventures! "THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR SHOPPING!"

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He grunted. Sweat pasted his fur back and his paws were slippery from the heat of the weapons hanger. But he ignored it, and reached for a long and slender tool with the company name peeling off. Clicking the end, he ignored the beam of light shooting out from it as well, and aimed the laser at the very center underneath the machine.

Tails scratched his ear distractedly as he stared at the complex insides of the laser beam. His brain automatically began taking notes and solving complex formulas anyone else his age would have stared blankly at.

But that's why he was here.

The circuit... he stared at the pale orange wire and then at his pliers. His brain told him that according to the solutions and variables, this wire was connected to the energy flow of the machine...but he wasn't looking for the main...

Without looking, he made a grab for the minicomputer system by his head. Clipping the visual aid connector piece in the hook of his left ear, he dropped the pliers and balanced the keyboard on his belly; with his tongue between his canines, he thought hard about the coordinates and equations and typed them in. The visual aid covering his left eye blinked to the usual green screen, gold-type letters scrambling at random for logical data. After a few seconds of rhythmic beeping, a high note bleeped out and a 3D version of Egg Man's machine appeared on the screen.

"Zoom in…" he muttered, willing the computer to be able to read it. "Come on, baby, don't fail me now…"

Suddenly the screen went blank and the piercing high pitched of static went off in his earpiece at full volume. "What the hell!" Tails jolted up in alarm…hitting his head on the top of the machine.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He heard Sally cry out as the laser point swiveled.

"Crap, I think I just turned it on again!" Tails stared at the wires for a moment, then yanked out all the wires at once as he felt the machine start to hum faster. Four of the lines came free, the energy giving him a start but he continued to pull.

"What's going on?!" Rouge dove underneath the machine to join the struggling Fox. She clawed at the remaining wires and in a few swipes the last few came free.

The now-familiar light dimmed away.

"GAH!" The shock filled Tail's veins and he gave a startled cry as Rouge let go of the other wires. The remaining in his paw sparked with his fur and he felt himself get slammed into an adjacent machine, tools and computers flying everywhere.

"Oh, Tails!" He heard Sally cry as she went for him and held him down as Rouge snatched the wire away. "Tails, I'm so sorry! I didn't see that wire…"

"S'ok," he said, a little dazed. He blinked at the ceiling lights and then breathed in deeply, his heart racing. "Just a little excited now is all." He heard Rouge suppressing a few chuckles. "What?"

Rouge smiled down at him as Sally helped him up. "Kid, you look like you just stuck you're finger in an electric socket." She took out her pocket mirror. "Look at yourself."

Tails looked into his reflected image and gave a bark of laughter, Sally giggling now too. Rouge wasn't kidding. "I hope that didn't take out the entire lab," he said, laughing some more.

"You look like a big fluffy yellow cotton ball," Rouge commented, lip twitched.

"He always does," Sally said fondly.

They all looked at Tails (or the mirror) and started laughing again as Rouge ruffled his head saying, "You are the most A-dorable thing to walk the planets…"

"What's so funny?"

"Hey, Knuckles," Tails said…a bit wary. Despite what Sonic always said about Knuckles being 'a gooey marshmallow inside,' Tails could never ignore the echidna's aura that always seemed like he was ready to kill somebody. Tails always made a conscious effort to never be this person. He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes; and here Sonic always wondered why Knuckles was a loose firework—the way Sonic seemingly went out of his way to test Knuckles blood pressure, it wasn't like his mentor made it any easier—

Sonic…

The smile ebbed away from his face. What was he doing here, messing around and laughing when Sonic was in trouble—how could he have forgotten? How could he… The fox strode back to the laser…or what used to be the laser. Now it was fizzing and smoking…not good. "Look at this mess," he whispered. "I have to fix this, now…"

"Tails," Rouge said kindly with her voice still of laughter, touching his shoulder. "Take a break, no one will find Sonic if our most valuable asset runs himself ragged."

He shrugged her off. "Sonic never gave himself a break!" He snapped at them, making Rouge's eyes widen slightly with surprise. He bent down and picked up the fallen wrench, wincing at the heat from the electric blast. "Sonic always tries to help me! And he doesn't care if he's 'running himself ragged'! He fights until he can't fight anymore! He—"

"You are not Sonic, Tails." Knuckles said coldly, causing the fox to immediately blink back tears.

He closed his eyes, glad that he was an animal and no one could see his cheeks flame with embarrassment.

"Tails," Sally said softly, "I think what Knuckles here is trying to say," Rouge whapped the brash creature upside the head, "Is that we all need our favorite blue hedgehog." She smiled at him, and Tails felt calmer somehow. "It's all right to miss him, but he and Amy are not dead. And we have Robotnik locked up. And I've downloaded all the blueprints for reference." She waved a computer disk Tails hadn't noticed her carrying before.

"It'll all be OK, Fox Boy," Rouge said, glaring nastily at Knux, who glared right back, "Just take your time."

Tails sighed, still a bit embarrassed for being such a baby. "I'm sorry," he said, dropping the wrench. "I didn't mean to burst; it's just that…it's never been Sonic we all had to rescue…never." He looked at them all. "And I feel responsible for letting Amy go."

Rouge knew by the way that Sally's expression freeze (but still soft for Tails) that to continue this discussion further would result in the choice of sides; something the beautiful bat didn't think would be all right for now. It was a girl thing, woman intuition or whatever, when a male was caught between two. "Come on," she said, tugging on the younger boy's paw. "I don't understand this place's format; I need you to explain to me how to shut off the bots."

Knuckles did a double take. "They're still clawing at the gate? I thought we slaughtered them all; and didn't Tails shut off their power sources? They should all be stationary decorations now."

Rouge rolled her eyes to the ceiling, silently repeating in a mantra that stomping on the impossible echidna's foot would not be subtle. Unfortunately, for all his wisdom for rituals of the gods and the knowledge of his powerful Chaos Emerald, the Knucklehead still possessed serious density that should have driven her away a LONG time ago. "Apparently not all of them," she hissed, trying to communicate with eyes to Shut Up. Blank glare. She tried not to sigh, "A certain idiotic mad scientist had them built so they would fight until the last bolt gets unscrewed." And having the target missiles going off when she went on a survivor trip to the rest room wasn't the best experience either, anyway, she thought darkly.

"Okay, I'll take a break," Tails locked his supply box and stacked it on top of the larger one. "But only for a little while!" He said hastily.

Rouge gave the softest smile she had ever given another being. "Thank you, sweetie. My knight in shining armor."

As they walked off, Sally stared after him; a quick glance at Knuckles told her he was doing the same thing. "Knuckles, does…Tails know…?"

The red echidna shook his head before walking off, probably to kick the crap out of Robotnik some more (Sally thinks Knuckles doesn't believe in too much of a good thing). "No, Sonic and I decided a long time ago not to tell him."

"Why?" The princess called after him. "Tails isn't the sort of person to let his head reach the size of his inventions." Unlike a certain hedgehog I could mention, she thought, smiling a little.

Knuckles paused. "It's not that."

Sally knew that Knuckles never meant to be hard on Tails; she could tell that in a way, the fiery creature tried to help him along, nudge him in the right direction (more of a kick, but it is Knuckles). It was something Sonic could never do for the younger boy, so caught up did Sonic get in the rage of the battle and the size of his ego.

"It's safer this way. Eggman would want to have him eliminated if he knew." He was watching the instruments, of power…of torture.

"Because of what he is?" Sally ventured.

"No," Knuckles turned and smiled. "What he might become."

Knuckles, Sally deduced long ago, is completely incapable of truly smiling, and this was no different. It was a twisted 'so he'll be pretty f'ed up' smile that was still holding something back. The unorthodox princess repressed a shudder.

Sally stared at the technology, the tool boxes and data spreadsheets, knowing without glancing up that she was alone in the room…but it was more peaceful that way, and her fur relaxed as she sat and thought. Sonic…

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Sonic didn't think that he could ever have an enemy he would ever willingly shrink away from without a fight. He perceived himself was a rebel, and Sonic the hedgehog was not going down easily to anybody!

He remembered how it was bad trying to kill the Ultimate Life Form and saving the #! world. Again. But…one word…would make him shudder with dread and beg for another go with the freaky lizard:

Mall.

But…he guessed his ego had inflated a little bit since Amy came back (and with a separation from Sally's negative comments there was bound to be some side effects). Growling inwardly, he maneuvered around the shoppers, wishing he had a few more pairs of eyes to track Amy. Personally, he had always thought the annoying girl would always stick out like a sore thumb (an idea evolved due to the fact that whenever he saw her she was running right at him to LOUDLY profess undying love and devotion), now however…

Okay maybe the reason it was slightly more difficult was that his mind kept searching for a little pink hedgehog, not a human girl dressed in pink. Sonic found himself having to keep a stronger focus (GASP) and retrace his steps often to make sure that Amy really hadn't passed by without his immediate knowing.

Gritting his teeth and trying to calm his adrenaline, the blue hedgehog began his mission…which he could probably abandon later…Amy didn't need his help…oh, chili dogs…

Focus. Focus.

He eyed the creepy worker at the perfume stand smiling like some freak Bozo-the-Clown.

No.

No Fricking.

Frolicking.

Way.

(But just as long as he didn't start crying in a fetal position whilst sucking his thumb like the last time Knuckles refused to help him find her and her 'little Birdy', he would still look unspeakably cool.)

Oh well, it could be worse, at least there wasn't any—

If I was invisible

yeah yea!

And I could just watch you in your room—

Sonic grabbed his ears in horror. WHAT SICK FREAK INVENTED THIS PLACE?! "AMMMYYYYYYY!!!!"

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Sonic's head is weird. I'm not sure whether to stay comic/game multi-universe or settle on one.

Macropodathist1- /cowers/ I'm lazy. I admit it.

Chaos Flower : Sorry it's not that soon! SORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRY::bow:: omg, btw, you reviewed on my birthday…three or however many years ago::glomp:: I LOVE YOUR WORK SO MUCH!

Skittles the Sugar Fairy- ::glomp:: you inspired me to keep this going! I am so glad you like this!

Thank you all for your kind reviews! It's like loading guilt in several layers, and every day I sign in it just hangs over my head…--