Edited November 22
All characters belong to Sega
Reincarnate
Chapter 6: Seen and Unseen
Amy isn't sure how they all managed to cram into the Tornado, but she's squished inconveniently between the cold metal side of the transformer and Shadow, whose new hips are proving to be something of an annoyance. Sonic is sitting by Tails in the cockpit, tapping the side of the plane impatiently. Amy doesn't know if he could have been going as fast himself, but he certainly couldn't be running on water. Knuckles' expression is unreadable as usual.
Tap, tap, tap…Amy's quills ruffle, and she finally snaps, "Will you stop that?"
She chooses to assume that Sonic didn't hear her over the roar of the Tornado's engines rather than wonder if he had just ignored her. She tears her eyes away from his glove, shaking her head slightly at the fact that he always has to be moving, somehow. She assumes that if he sat perfectly still for just one minute he'd explode.
The coast and skyline of Station Square come into view, a beautiful, sparkling jewel in the sea. Tails maneuvers the plane over the sands of Emerald Coast and says, "Okay, can you jump out from here? I need to transform."
It's an uncomfortable endeavor. Knuckles jumps out first, jostling Shadow, who knocks against Amy, squishing her against the metal side of the plane.
"Sorry," he says sheepishly as Knuckles glides out over the sand and lands a short distance away. Shadow scoots away from her, and she nearly collapses in the relief of having more space. Shadow jumps out, curling up into a revolving yellow blur and performing a homing attack, landing easily on the white sand. Amy follows somewhat less gracefully, clenching her dress tightly in her hands so it won't flare out and landing roughly, toppling over and sitting with a bump. She looks up, cheeks flushing, to find Shadow's hand extended towards her. She takes it and hauls herself to her feet, brushing the sand off her dress as Sonic lands a short distance away from her.
He doesn't even glance over to make sure she was unhurt from her fall, and she finds herself feeling resentful again. He takes off running towards the direction of the city and she follows, trailing slightly behind Shadow and feeling somewhat grateful that he can't run quite so fast, otherwise she'd be in their dust. Knuckles stays a little ahead of them, a crimson blur racing after Sonic.
As they reach the outskirts of the city, a loud sound like silk being ripped pierces their ears.
"Ouch!" Amy yelps over the noise. Even Knuckles winces slightly. It dies away very suddenly and is replaced by an explosion that rocks the ground beneath their feet. They all look around wildly, but Amy doesn't see anything out of the ordinary.
That is, until one of the buildings towards the heart of the city shakes, bits of brick and concrete falling to the pavement several stories below.
"What's going on?" she asks, her voice high and squeaky from nervousness. "What's doing that?"
"Let's go find out," Sonic says with his trademark grin, and speeds off towards the site of the destruction. Amy stares after him, suddenly and inexplicably annoyed by his casual attitude. He'd always been nonchalant about danger, but she had always seen that as some kind of bravery before now.
But that might be because she's usually the hostage and is waiting for him to rescue her. Watching him stroll into the heat of battle and smash robots from one of Robotnik's screens while held in his various bases was all well and good at the time, but now that she's actually involved it seems a little careless.
Shadow starts jogging after him, and she keeps pace with him with some difficulty, huffing, "Seems – kind of – stupid to just – barge in there," between breaths. Shadow nods slowly, saying as calmly as if he was just standing there and not sprinting, "We can't even see what it is. Maybe he has a plan?"
"I – doubt it. He kind of – likes to – wing it. You know?"
"That's not an intelligent way to approach this kind of situation…" Shadow says, increasing his speed with obvious reluctance. "…But still, best to stay close and help if we can."
"I suppose," she mutters, drawing her Piko-Piko hammer and holding it out as she runs, plunging into the heart of Station Square after her speedy blue hero.
The first thing she notices is the large amount of robots swarming around, blasting buildings with their guns and taking aim at frightened people, most of whom are evacuating the surrounding buildings. Sonic attacks these first, charging with an ever-widening grin into the fray. He takes out several in quick succession with a series of homing attacks, and Knuckles shatters one into tiny metal fragments with a single punch. Amy watches the destruction for a second, and then Shadow leaps in, crushing a robot and ripping it apart with steely quills.
Amy hesitates, then charges forward, swinging her hammer at the nearest robot with a fierce battle cry.
It connects and the robot sails backwards, skidding on the ground in a shower of sparks. It beeps, twitches, and shuts down. A triumphant smile breaks out across Amy's face.
"Yes!" she yells, twirling lightly.
"Amy!" she hears Sonic say in a slightly irritated voice. "Come on, don't just stand there!"
She controls the hurt at the remark – he's right, after all: there are still many other robots to destroy. She swings her hammer with all her strength again, demolishing another robot. She ducks and covers her face with her free arm as shards of metal whip past her, one grazing her arm while the rest bounce away harmlessly. The others are moving too quickly to worry too much about the flying debris. Tails is blasting robots away with his transformed Tornado, constant blue flashes of light added to the fading sunlight.
She pulls back her hammer again…and strong metal pincers clamp around her waist. With a squeal she's hauled into the air and turned so that she's staring into flickering red eyes. The pressure around her midriff increases. She pants for breath.
She opens her mouth automatically to call for Sonic, but self-disgust keeps it down.
Why should she have to yell for him? She should just fight, and if it doesn't work, then she'll ask for aid. Sonic has rescued her enough times!
She pulls back her hammer and brings it down with all her strength on the robot's metal head. It beeps and whirrs, the lights of its eyes winking out and the body slumping sideways. The pincers, however, are still clamped tightly around her waist as two more robots start towards her. She squeezes her eyes shut and suppresses a whimper.
No! Gotta be brave, gotta be brave…
She lashes out wildly at the first robot and clips its arm. It doesn't even slow down. She swings again, the pincer inhibiting her movements, not to mention escape, and dents its chest.
Forget this – I need help!
"Hey! Help!" she yells, and almost immediately a pale yellow blur smashes into the closest robot. It blasts apart, and she covers her face. She looks up to see Shadow demolish the second robot while someone pries apart the pincers. She drops to the ground gratefully, clasping her side, and glances up into the amethyst eyes of the Guardian, who moves off immediately towards another metal menace.
"Thanks!" she calls after him, and he lifts a barbed fist. Then he punches the robot so hard it flies backwards, leaving a small crater in the wall of the building it hits and shattering into a thousand pieces. Many more robots whir towards them, wielding blasters and other assorted guns.
"Don't these things ever quit?" she muses aloud. She looks around for Shadow to see him attacking a line of advancing E-series bots, feeling guilty for not thanking him right away.
The action stops almost immediately when, with a boom and roar, an upper section of one of the skyscrapers several meters away comes hurtling to the ground. There is complete silence from Amy and the others as chips of concrete and stone scatter, punctuated by the frightened cries of the few remaining people.
"Sonic…" she says fearfully, and her hero looks at her, his emerald eyes as confused as hers must be. There isn't anything there, as far as they can tell, although a strong breeze whips up and blows their quills about, and there is a distinct sound like wings beating.
With a metallic hiss and a maniacal laugh, Robotnik's all-too-familiar hovercraft drops down in front of them all.
"Eggman," Sonic mutters, disgust evident in his tone. The only times Amy ever sees Sonic look at someone with deep, genuine loathing are when he's facing the evil doctor.
"What are you up to this time?" her hero snaps angrily, his eyes burning with anger as they move from the ruins of the building to the overweight man maneuvering the craft. Robotnik laughs again, leering at Sonic.
"Why, just setting my new plan in motion, of course!" he announces delightedly, waving a hand vaguely towards the enormous section of the building that litters the fractured street. He casts an unconcerned glance over the group, then does a double take, staring at Shadow. A slow grin spreads across his face.
"Well! Another hedgehog to intimidate – wonderful."
"You won't be able to frighten me, doctor," Shadow says coldly. "I already know your ways."
Robotnik blinks and frowns, confusion etching lines in his forehead.
"Your plan to use the laser at ARK to take over the world failed spectacularly," Shadow continued. "Why should this one work?"
"You're acting awfully familiar, hedgehog," Robotnik snarls, pushing his small ship forward and peering down at Shadow through his dark glasses. "What makes you think you know how my glorious mind works?"
"I worked with you on ARK," he says, his dark tone not as threatening as it could be because of his higher-pitched voice. "I know all about the plan you formulated there, and how you helped us to stop the space colony from colliding with Earth. Maybe you're not as evil as you'd like us to think."
Robotnik glares at the defiant hedgehog.
"You're a liar," he says decisively. "I've never seen you before in my life. But enough of this…"
He makes a signal with his hand and an enormous robot drops to the ground behind him, holding a huge hammer and looking very sturdy. The doctor smirks at the group and starts to ascend into the cloudy sky, calling "The Mega-Bot will take care of you nicely. We'll meet again."
He shoots away, and another strong breeze kicks up debris and dust as enormous wing beats sound against the sky once more. Amy watches him go as the others tense up, eyes on the robot, which is blundering around rather aimlessly. Once it catches sight of them, its actions become much more decisive. It swings its hammer around, rotating on the spot to create a blur that keeps the others from advancing any closer.
"Now how are we going to get to it?" Amy complains, and almost immediately the robot stops spinning the hammer, thrown off balance by the sudden cessation in spinning. Sonic doesn't waste a second and jumps forward, smashing into its head and toppling it. Shadow, Tails and Knuckles join in the fray, punching, shooting, and tearing with barbs and quills until the robot is nothing more than a pile of twisted metal.
Sonic jumps up and lands beside Amy, tossing her a grin.
"That wasn't so hard," he says, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his arm and winking at her. Amy sighs.
"Sonic, we still don't know what that thing was that tore off the section of the building," she reminds him, nodding towards the destruction ahead. Sonic pauses in his stretching and glances up at her, looking a little surprised for some reason. Probably because she wasn't squealing and hugging him, she reasons, and shrugs it off.
Shadow approaches, staring out in the direction Robotnik flew.
"Should we attempt to follow him?" he asks, frowning at the sky. Sonic shrugs.
"He's got a head start and we'll be looking in the dark," he says, stretching his other leg. "But we can try."
"I think we should," Amy says, surprised at her own assertiveness. "It's no use waiting until he attacks again – by then it might be too late and people could get hurt. We should follow him while we can."
Knuckles approaches and nods in agreement.
"I second that. Whatever it was that we couldn't see sounded huge. Did you hear those wing beats?"
"So it's decided then," Sonic says, standing up straight. Tails fiddles with the controls of the Tornado and it transforms swiftly back into the plane. They hop in, Amy between Knuckles and Shadow this time, and they take off, heading into the darkness after Robotnik. They're all silent, pondering what the invisible creature could possibly be.
After all, how can you fight something you can't see?