Lightning-Dono: Sorry that I haven't written – I can't do ANYTHING on my computer lately since it's being completely bizarre and I haven't been able to get a browser window up. Therefore, in terms of replying to reviews, I can only reply to ones that have reviewed CHAPTER 8.
The italics in the beginning are...just some random thoughts from Rouge in a more poetic way. xD
My writing skills are severely lacking in this particular chapter because I have partial Writers Block and I haven't written in a while.
Answers to the Reviewssapphiregurl13 – Yeah, he's doomed. It's pretty much downhill for him from here.
seastone130 – I know, isn't Sonic such an a-hole? But you know, I think Amy should still be with him because that's the way the fanfic goes, PLUS...she teaches him a few things.
ShadowIsCool – Doesn't Shadow seem even cooler in comparison to Sonic now that you've read this? Okay, I'm not promoting Shadow-fan boy/girlism, but doesn't Sonic seem to be the type of person who would get into this kind of thing in the future? He's so famous, and famous people always end up hurting someone because of their fame. Reality just works that way...
Chaos Shadow – Why, thank you. : D Wow...I would consider this work to be "perfection", but if you think so, you have fueled my desire to write in this more. And you've given me some confidence. I think the Sonamy pairing is done justice in some fanfics, but...that's just me.
Krystalwolf – Yes, the doomy needle shall scare ALL. Er, thank you. :)
Sky the Hedgehog – I'd hate to break this to you, but Tails is growing up, and so is Sonic. They aren't sheltered little children anymore, they real about life and I'm trying to reflect the fear, lies, and passion of every teenager. I want everyone to see that the both of them aren't "perfect". Sonic won't get through everything easily, Tails isn't going to be cuss/swear-free, Amy isn't going to be constantly happy... Thank you for the compliment, anyway!
Oreokids87 – Thank you? What did you WANT to say? It kind of cuts off there...
Inferno-Hero – Ooh, I want to hear the techno-remix of Gir's doom song:0 Thank you for the compliment, by the way! Yes, revelations...
Sofia – What Sonic just said will affect the rest of the STORY. And you know what? Amy isn't going to take this confession easily like she has before, even though she knows that Sonic and Rouge are together. She's always believed that Sonic was just doing it for attention and MORE fame, but if she hears that he truly fell for Rouge...How would you feel? Sorry for not updating "soon". xP
SonicTU – Wow, I never expected you to read this: D You hated Sonamy? I never knew that...but it's not very hard to understand. And in addition to that, you SHOULDN'T be jealous! Everyone has their own style of writing and yours is unique to YOURSELF. No one else will ever write the same way you do, so remember that. ;)
-
A lone rose in the woods
You hide in the shadows of comfort
Come, he's your sanctuary
Come, he's what you've asked for
Why run when you can't hide?
Conceal your love beyond the candlelight
And keep it hidden well
I've come to steal it
I've come to destroy it
-
Rouge was as still as a squirrel caught in the headlights of a car, staring, eyes plastered into the whites of Sonic's. She let out a weak, rather hopeless laugh and waved her hand through the air as though she were brushing this whole situation off of her sloped shoulders.
"You'll actually drop Amy this easy? No, wrong term. You think that she'll LET you live it down?" The bat suddenly sounded extremely tense.
"I haven't seen her in a day; that's a clear sign that she's giving up. She used to visit me every single day and hound me in the streets about whether or not I felt the same way about her as she did about me." Sonic shrugged in a dismissive way. "I have you now. Does it matter that much?"
She glided down smoothly from her spot and landed, bemused, at Sonic's feet as though she were about to lean over and grovel for forgiveness about doubting his love for her. Instead, she held up her fingers and prepared to tick them off one by one.
"Of course it does, mister! Look, you saved her countless times." Down went a finger. "She's confessed enough time to provide pines on a fir tree." Down went her ring finger. Rouge had no idea why she was even saying this to Sonic. If she got hold of his countless amounts of rings, she would be able to purchase all the gold in the world and he couldn't care less because he was doing her a tremendous favor. For what she would never know, unless she expected that much for a handful of sequins and package of curves.
Apparently, the same exact thing was going through Sonic's mind, accompanied by a variety of random things that Amy had given to him. A broken cord with a curl of red wire twirling out of it. A few odds and ends from her fabulously large mansion that lived in. With her amount of money, she could atleast give him a decent present every now and then, but no.
"Why are you pointing these things out to me?" Sonic asked grumpily, his voice rough. "I said I liked you, isn't that all you need to confirm it? What, should I go to a store and buy a sign proclaiming it to you?" This statement ended with a fit of coughing.
Rouge's muscles tightened. What was wrong with this man? Someone who had just revealed his affection to a person shouldn't be snapping at the poor person.
"I just don't want you to be unhappy about any decisions you make from now until...whenever. It's easy to say something, but much more emotionally burdening to actually carry out the demands of what you just said, don't you think?"
"That's one smart thing you've said." The cocky hedgehog resumed his task at coughing up a storm of bacterial cells.
The bat grew enraged with the behavior of her boyfriend. "You know, it's not like you're much better, sitting here in your house almost all day BUT to see me every once in a while."
Sonic opened his mouth halfway to say something when Rouge cut him off by striking his lips with a finger.
Catching his attitude, Rouge snapped like a rubber band that had been stretched way too far for it's own good. "And don't say that you're only lying here because you're sick! I know what you do everyday when you're not because you've TOLD me! Whenever I ask you, it's always, 'Oh, nothing.' To the intelligent person, 'Oh, nothing' means that you either sit there all day on a rock doing NOTHING or you're taking part in something you don't wish to tell the other person!" With that said, Rouge retrieved her purse from the royal blue carpet, gave Sonic a resentful look that gave him a perfect reflection of the glare he had been giving her for the last few minutes, and glided out the door. On the way out, however, her wing snagged a nail on the door, ripping through a part of the purple leather.The jagged line severed a vein-like, miniscule line that snaked up the right side of her wing.
"You're lucky that it didn't catch any nerve endings," she snarled venomously. "Now I know how you drive girls away, you two-faced freak!" Measuring the length of her wound, she strutted clear out of Sonic's house, not bothering to turn.
Sonic remained silent.
-
Tails was being lowered ever-so-slowly onto a conveyer belt that run through a machine that checked him for any physical injury.
"Why would you care?" The young fox asked curiously.
Wordlessly, the scientist, donning smooth leather pants and a button-strewn red jacket, plucked a joystick down and the entire platform Tails was loosely strapped to tilted. The straps dug into Tails' legs, yet he didn't complain. Complaining was the first indication that it would be a simple task to take advantage of him through bribes, and he was used to the way Eggman's schemes work. He'd pry at your greatest desire and offer you items of great value, only to lure you into something that was worth more than item you wished for. He did, however, yell when the platform stood at a ninety-degree angle and he dangled helplessly above the strips of black by his feet. Blood rushed to his head in a torrent of liquid that accompanied the unpleasantly hard beating of his heart. Upon the realization that he had been holding his breath, Tails sucked in air and prepared himself for a drop that never came.
"Aren't you going to unbind me?"
Eggman cast Tails an amused look, seemingly waiting for Tails' ankles to snap and land him onto the conveyer belt that waited for him.
"No." This one-word answer was more irritating than his usually long, lecture-like replies.
Tails prepared another question. "What are you doing to Amy, then?" His ankle joints were under extreme pressure now. He was trying to distract himself from the excessive amounts of pain surging to his brain by asking questions, but there was only so long that he could do this.
"My, my, aren't we nosy?" Eggman's face displayed a small flicker of impatience that passed. "She's undergoing the same ordeal you are at the moment. This is a test that will amount to a result of enormous proportions. I need all the cooperation I can get," he muttered.
The mind-numbing agony broke through and Tails lashed out, wriggling insanely and trying to unlatch his feet from the confined space in which it was trapped. When he had slid from the latches for his body, it had been simple as his weight had simply pulled him down. But his feet were bound to it by arches of metal that circled around his ankles and were melted to the platform. Eggman's reappearing mascot had been branded onto the back of the sheet of metal that measured two inches in depth. "When are you going to put me onto the conveyor belt, you idiotic man-witch!" He screamed, incapable of any other way to express his feelings reasonably. He wasn't even sure what the heck a 'man-witch' might be, but as long as it got him somewhere with this torture, then he was fine with saying it.
"Calling names won't get you anywhere. Wounds made by words mean nothing to me as the harm is only mentally damaging, but the strong can always shake them off. They're nothing more than a sequence of letters, Tails. And if you must know what I'm waiting for since you won't be able to get out of this anyway, it's for your ankles to snap. That way when you fall to the conveyer belt, you won't be able to escape." Eggman's need to feel self-important was overwhelmingly high – he would never be able to forgive himself if the captives for his experiment managed to escape.
"I could crawl," Tails replied matter-of-factly, hissing his breath in and out between his teeth, his face contorted with pain. At the moment, he was seriously doubting that he could keep to his word – unless he managed to squirm all the way across the floor and perhaps reach the door at the far end of the room...
Eggman flashed Tails a scathing look as though he were willing to reach down the adolescent fox's throat and yank out his voice box if the need came to be. He won't get away. Not until this is complete.
With a crack! that sounded suspisciously like a pair of trusted ankles being broken, Tails slid to the conveyer belt, a resonating thump! filling the empty, stale air, accompanied by a shriek of agony. In fact, the entire room seemed to be engulfed in an aura of pure evil that was seemingly being emitted by Eggman himself.
What does he want with me? I did nothing to him, it was Sonic. Sonic should be the one going through this scanning, not me. It's not my fault that I was ever in an alliance with him. Tails' inner conscience lapsed into silence as he began to ponder about the state of his mental well being. First he was being threatened by an obese man that he would be submitted to do a "test" of "enormous proportions", which could only complicate his ideals of getting Sonic to listen to him once more. Now he was trying to frame Sonic because he didn't want to undergo such distress? Had the drop from that platform to this wretched belt been that far? It certainly seemed so, as it was affecting his brain adversely, filling it with abstract ideas that he could get out of predicaments by making sure his friends were always the ones to blame.
The boy squeezed his eyes shut, tears forming ever so slowly. I can't cry. I can't. I don't want to hear that hostile laugh ever again...not from him. Using his arms, he weakly attempted to lift himself up as he entered what looked like the proverbial tunnel that had that blessed light shining at the end. It wasn't as though he were devoutly religious or believed in any gateways to another world, but it became clear to him that if he decided to hang around any longer and let Eggman reign over him like a chicken over her precious eggs, he had no chance of survival.
Unlike those eggs.