Disclaimer: All of the Sonicverse characters and places inserted into this story are owned by SEGA, and used without permission. All other characters and places mentioned belong to me.

Sonic- 21 years

Amy (Paloma)- 19 years

Tails- 16 years

Knuckles- 23 years

Shadow- 22 years

Cream- 12 years

Rouge- 25 years

Chapter 12: Revenge and Regret

It was four days after New Years, and things were still the same. Sonic stayed away from his friends since what happened at Tails' home/workshop. He did not know how he could face them or even talk to them. They all believed Rouge's story of how Amy most likely took her own life. He wanted everyone to believe his theory that she was alive and that he had seen her, but they would say it was just wish filled thinking and guilt. How could they just believe that she would do such a thing?

Sonic had not returned to Station Square in quite a long time. He just could not bring himself back to a place that had so many memories of her, and those memories were of great pain and suffering he had caused her. Ever since he saw the death certificate that Rouge had produced days before, he had not been the same since then. The once carefree and remorseful Sonic harbored an indescribable rage. He did not want to believe the truth that Rouge had told him. Amy was not capable of killing anyone or even herself. She was so kind and sweet that the most likely cause was that she had met this Paloma when she needed a friend the most. Paloma somehow took advantage of that so-called friendship and took Amy away from him and the rest of the world. That was just one explanation that Sonic could simply come up with in his mental state. He then thought back to the ID card that had fallen out of Palmoa's coat pocket. Rouge tried to reason with him giving the most obvious answer to that mystery. Rouge had assumed that the coat she was wearing must have belonged to Amy at some point in time, and since Amy sold all her belongings, the one could assume that she forgot to check the coat pocket for anything important. For the first time in his life, Sonic's legs gave out and he fell onto the hard wood floor.

Sonic felt weak, useless, and helpless. If he had not made that wish and if he had not told her those words that cut through her like a knife, Amy would still be here clinging onto him drawing the much needed air from him.. She would be hugging him tightly and talking in her familiar high pitch feminine voice. Her voice was like no other voice he heard all his life. It had filled everyone with happiness, hope, and love. Shadow, the more reasonable of the bunch, kneeled down next to Sonic and tried to make him understand and cope with Amy being gone. Shadow knew how Sonic felt, and it was the same of pain that he had felt when he had lost Maria all those years ago. Amy was in some ways like his Maria. The two females had beautiful hopes and dreams, and they loved like no one else he knew. They loved their friends like family and family like friends, and family was the most important thing to them. Family meant, that you were never alone or forgotten on any day of the week. You are loved completely and that was a good feeling. A very good feeling indeed.

Since the incident, Sonic had been camping out inside of the old ruins of the Echidnas in the rainforest of the Mystic Ruins. All he had with him were a few pots and pans, some tableware, and a few books. Sonic was a survivor, and could live off the land as long as he wanted to. The books he had brought along were probably the only things keeping him sane. He would reread I am a Cat, written by Soseki Natsume, The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, and The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu. The books were long, and they would last a good long time before he either got board or went insane from the loneliness. He was in the middle of reading I am a Cat, which was set during the Meiji Revolution, when he started to think that this nameless reminded him of Amy. It was not how the nameless cat viewed things from his Master's home or how the human world worked, but it was mostly how the nameless cat was treated by people in the chapters he had read. The cat was tormented by its Master's children and the maid. He was blamed for the death of female cat next door that he had loved dearly. It was only because the nameless cat was at one time a stray and had no proper breading like Tortoiseshell who had lived next door. Her Mistress treated her like a human being and a daughter, while the nameless cat was treated as neither and hardly like a living a creature or as a family pet. How that nameless cat yearned to be accepted like his love Tortoiseshell. How he, Sonic the Hedgehog, had treated Amy like the nameless cat, and had blamed her for almost every little thing she did that got her in trouble.

When Sonic was not reading one of the books he had brought along, he would keep himself busy by exploring the old decaying ruins and lose himself in deep thought with its enigmatic aura. He would stare at the old paintings and marvel at the carvings inside. He hardly ever would be seen running around. He needed to slow down and actually think about his problems and worries. Sometimes he wondered why he acted like such a jerk back then, and why now did he start to care about her. There was something about that damn space station. It had some sort of power over him that made him change a little towards her. It was something about it had made him see Amy in a different light and he wanted to know why. Ever since then he did start to have feelings for her, but never told a soul about. Even the days, months, weeks, and years after the incident he had tried to deny his feelings by developing a vile hate for her… and it worked. He was afraid to fall in love with her or anyone in that sense that he had known through out his life. He was not afraid of his reputation, but was afraid of losing them to the danger that followed him. Then why did he have friends?

What Sonic wanted to do was to apologize to her, but she was no longer alive. All Sonic wanted now was penance for his actions, but what holy man would absolve him of his sins? Maybe he should do an archaic form of penance, one that would prove his suffering and prepare him for vengeance. He thought back to what he read somewhere about how certain priests in the old days would whip themselves to rid the world of the evil plague, as well as a form of penance. The whipping was a symbol of how Christ had suffered before he was crucified for all to see. He wanted to feel the same sharp metals against his own his back. He wanted them to drag along his back and dig deeply into his mortal flesh. He wanted to feel this pain, hoping that it would give him penance for his past actions towards Amy and his friends. He wanted so much to clean his soul and himself. Their philosophy was "Pain is good, Pain in cleansing". How he wanted this to all go away, and he wanted to blame someone else for this.

Sonic wished that he could turn back the clock and change the cascading domino effect that he had created. He definitely knew that the guilt was all his and no one else were to blame for it. He lived for his friends, but he could not live without the trust from the ones he loved. Even now, he knew that no one could forget the past just like no one could forget love and pride, and it was killing him inside. Sonic knew he let everyone down. He was a fool to himself and thought he could live for no one "else". Now through all the hurt and pain he caused his friends and to himself he knew that his friends meant more than anything else. Even with sadness in his heart, he felt that the best thing he could do was to end it all by getting revenge. Revenge on Paloma. What she and he had done was done and God it felt so bad. Nevertheless, where was God when you needed him? Where was he when Amy was dying or when his friends were feel depressed about her absence?

The once happy moments in his and in everyone else's' life were now sad. In his heart, Sonic felt as if he would and could never love again and a world filled with love for him had ended. He felt like everything was tumbling down on him, and he wanted out. Nevertheless, how does one get out of a mess that they created, that did not have an exit, and could never be cleaned up by any common means? He sat on one of the many temple steps and starred out towards the setting sun. He let out a heavy sigh as he tried to figure out what should he do next with his life. Should he continue being the hero that everyone had grown to know, even though he tainted by what he did to someone close to him or should he give it all up and let someone more deserving and capable to take the reigns? Even if he did decide to continue his work, how could he ever face another person like Amy again? Would he be able to save them and would he choke when he tried to? Even if it had been peaceful, it still did not mean that he should still be kept off guard by not asking himself these types of questions. Maybe everything could be solved if he could prove to Amy that he was sorry, but the only thing he could think of was the fear and emptiness she may have felt once her life was silenced by Paloma and how it would be nice for her to feel the same way Amy had did. Sonic wanted her to feel helpless. He wanted her to feel alone and scared, just as Amy did when she left this world so cruelly. However, how does one go about doing this to a complete and monstrous stranger? How should he make her learn the god-awful pain she had given him and to his friends, even though they did not believe his view of accounts. He was going to find a way and make sure that Paloma would harm another loved one ever again.