Edited November 22
All canon characters belong to Sega.
Reincarnate
Chapter 10: Amy's Voice
Shadow, what do you think it's like on Earth?
"Shadow!"
A girl stumbles into the chamber on ARK, her heavy breathing audible even over the commotion outside the heavy metal doors that have just slid shut. She's hurt…sinking to her knees by the control panel near the center of the room. Her eyes are shut in pain, her hands shaking as they support her, gripping the edges of the machine.
Maria…
The scene seems to flicker, and rewind, back to when she enters the room. Except this time it's not the same girl, in fact, she isn't even human. But her eyes are wide and scared, too, as she enters the chamber, her eyes finding him immediately. Green eyes…pink fur.
"Shadow…"
For all the people…on that planet…
The scenes are becoming jumbled in his mind. Maria…Amy…a girl glances back at him over her shoulder, her hair going from blonde to pink, her eyes changing from a vivid blue to a startling emerald green.
Amy and Maria. That voice, soft and gentle, calling him back. Fifty years ago, that same voice bid him goodbye.
Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog.
She'd saved him, given him the chance she couldn't have. Then later, she did it again, this time so he could redeem himself. And now…she's asking him to return. Amy.
What do you think it's like on Earth?
Earth…he pictures the brief period he's spent with Amy, and then with her friends again. Amy, smiling at him, talking with him. Amy, fighting alongside him, being brave to help them all. To him, Amy was Earth – she'd convinced him to help on ARK, after all. She'd been the proof to him that people there were worth fighting for, because she wasn't seeking to destroy him, like the soldiers had been on that awful day. She was worried about her friends, and she had trusted him, had faith that he'd be able to help them all.
If Amy is his Earth, then Earth is beautiful.
He wakes.
Even as he opens his eyes, he's still suspended in the air, slowly sinking back down to the ground. He can sense the destruction before he sees it, and when he lands, he hears the faint 'plip' that indicates he's landed in some kind of liquid. His eyes slowly adjust to the relative dimness of the chamber after all the blinding light, and he can see that he's standing in a shallow pool of some kind of green substance.
His eyes sweep around the room, taking it all in with a swift glance. There's no sign of Robotnik – he must have fled. But Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy are all on the ground. He hurries over to them as they stir. Sonic is the first to recover, hoisting himself to his feet and tilting his head to stretch out his neck.
"Phew," he mutters. "That was intense."
Knuckles gets slowly to his feet and shakes a gloved hand, sending small droplets of the green liquid scattering towards the floor. He doesn't say a word, although Shadow can see understanding in his amethyst eyes. He realizes that they had never told Knuckles who he was, and the Guardian hadn't asked. However, he seemed to have figured it out on his own.
"Shadow?"
He bends down and surveys Amy, who has sat up and is staring at him in shock. He offers a hand to her, and she uses it to pull herself up. She stands and brushes off her dress, looking him over.
"You're…you again. In your old body," she observes, smiling slightly at him. "When your soul escaped from the machine…I guess it went to this body."
"Good thing," Sonic says and grins at him. "This is a lot less weird."
"Interesting, though," Tails says, his twin tails waving about as they always did when he was thinking hard. "I wonder why your soul would go into this body. I would've thought it would choose the other, since that's the one it had been in since you were…brought back."
In the back of his mind, Shadow suspects that it has something to do with Amy, and with his memories. He doesn't say it out loud, though, and the group doesn't waste time speculating.
"We need to get out of here," Knuckles reminds them. "There's still that other monster to contend with."
But before any of them can respond, Robotnik's voice penetrates the chamber.
"Meddlesome fools! Don't think you'll be escaping so easily!"
They all glance up and see the speakers on the walls. Sonic groans softly and rolls his eyes. "Not again…"
Amy moves a little closer to Shadow, eyes trained on the speaker and mouth falling into a worried frown. Robotnik clears his throat loudly and snarls, "You won't even manage to make it out of that chamber! Perhaps you've forgotten a little something? The soul is drawn from the body, which then falls under my control!"
As one, the group turns and stares at Shadow's temporary form. The iron clasps around her wrists and ankles snap off, and she steps away from the wall, her head lifting. Shadow feels an icy shiver trail down his spine – the eyes of his temporary body are colored, but completely and eerily blank.
"Eggman, you idiot," Sonic says through a laugh. "There are five of us and one of her. Do you really think – "
Before he can finish the sentence, the soulless body curls into a swiftly rotating blur, and shoots towards him in a flash of pale yellow. Sonic jumps aside just in time, and the girl uncoils herself and skids to a halt briefly before repeating the attack, even faster this time.
"Hahahahaha!" Robotnik's laughter blares over the speakers again as they jump out of the way to avoid the spiny assault. "Nothing you can do will stop her – I have complete control. She'll continue to attack even through pain, quickly enough to incapacitate you all! Then, she'll finish you off with no regrets! She can be likened to a very lifelike robot."
"You monster!" Amy snaps, whipping out her hammer. "She can feel pain and you'll still make her fight?"
An amused chuckle is the only answer, and she turns to Sonic.
"I don't feel right attacking her," she calls as they jump around the room, dodging the attacks of the girl. "She has no control over it!"
"She doesn't have control over anything," Sonic says, avoiding a homing attack, "If Eggman wasn't controlling her, she probably wouldn't even be able to move!"
"Then focus on subduing her," Knuckles says, thrusting out an arm to knock her aside briefly, "So we don't have to hurt her first."
Subdue her? The girl narrowly misses Shadow – he can hear the air whistling between her spines, and feel the breeze her movement creates. How can they do that when they have to avoid her attacks, too? They'd need a sedative or…
His eyes snap up and meet Amy's, and in a flash of understanding they both know what they need.
"Keep her away from me for a second," Amy calls, and starts running across the room, her hammer out.
"Amy, what – "
Sonic's question is cut off as the girl collides with him, sending him toppling backwards into Tails. Amy's hammer slams against the ground and propels her into the air, and she prepares to swing at a section of the wall where she remembers a small gun being. Inside it are the darts Robotnik had used to knock them out when they had first arrived. She strikes at the stone, and it cracks. It doesn't break, though, and she drops to the ground with an ungraceful thump. She jogs back across the room, aiming at the same spot, glancing fearfully over at Sonic, who's grappling with the girl.
Come on, Amy, Shadow urges her on mentally as he skids to a halt by Sonic. The girl clamps her hands around the blue hedgehog's throat, but doesn't apply pressure. Her eyes flicker, and she sways slightly. Her mouth moves, and a harsh guttural sound comes out. Another crack of Amy's hammer on the stone. The girl inhales sharply, her fingers digging into the soft fur around Sonic's neck. She opens her mouth again.
"Kill…me…" she says, her voice a harsh, croaky whisper. Shadow's breath catches in his throat.
She…can't be…alive?
-
Just one more hit! Amy sprints full-tilt towards the section of the wall that she's nearly shattered. She slams her hammer against the ground and is airborne again. Hold on, guys – I've got it!
Finally, with a satisfying shattering sound, the stone crumbles away. A twisted hunk of metal, barely recognizable as the dart gun, tumbles out, and with it fall a few full darts. Tails springs into the air and flies over to her.
"I'll do it," he says, and Amy gratefully relinquishes the weapon. The young fox rushes back over to where Sonic is working to pry the girl's hands off his throat, and sticks the dart in the back of her neck. Immediately her grip relaxes, and she stumbles away, swaying dangerously. After a moment she sinks to the floor, knocked out, her body no longer responding to Robotnik's demands.
Sonic, Knuckles, and Shadow are all looking pale.
"She isn't…just a husk," Knuckles says softly, the steadiest of the three. He looks down at the motionless girl with unmistakable pity. The implications of this don't have time to register with Amy.
"We need to get going," Sonic says, his voice uncharacteristically soft. He glances down at the unconscious girl, and starts jogging towards the tunnel they had used to get in. As Amy ducks into the now pitch-black tunnel just after Shadow, she hears the crackle of the speakers. Robotnik's voice carries through the tunnel.
"Enough of this! You'll never make it out of the boundaries of this fortress alive!"
The group only increases speed. Knuckles slams the metal doors at the end of the tunnel open with a few punches, sending the twisted hunks of steel flying outward onto the rocky ground. The five of them burst out of the tunnel a second later and start running full-tilt towards the Tornado.
A shadow falls over them from behind, and they slow automatically, turning around to see what it is.
But all they can see is the mountain fortress they've just left, although a huge, invisible something is somewhere in front. Externally, Amy's face is like stone, but on the inside she's panicking.
How can you fight something that you can't see?
With a sound between a roar and a scream, something invisible yet as hard as a rock slams against them and sends them scattering. Robotnik's laughter echoes throughout the area.