Amy Rose was distracted again—but it was a most pleasant distraction.
Tails had caught up with her at breakfast and asked her to go on one of Sonic's "training" exercises with him. She had gladly accepted. The alleged purpose of the training mission was to learn how to track in the woods. What that meant was they played cross-country hide-and-go-seek.
Amy's state of confusion regarding Sonic grew steadily worse. Sonic probably didn't even realize it was happening, but Amy was becoming steadily more enamored of the hedgehog. It had been so much easier when she'd just arrived. There, the jarring physical differences between the Sonics made it easier to tell herself, "Whoa, this is different. This is strange." Now she'd gotten used to it.
It wasn't a transferal of feeling from one Sonic to the other; it was that they were similar enough for her to love both of them.
It felt very awkward; she had no idea how to handle it.
Tails won the hide-and-seek easily.
"Well, at least you're better competition than Antoine," Tails said by way of encouragement.
"Don't ask," Sonic pre-empted. Amy didn't.
They returned to the village. "That was great, Sonic," she said.
"You think so?"
"Absolutely! I can see why Tails always wants to go on training missions with you."
"Tell ya what," Sonic said amiably. "If you're still here next time, I'll take you with us then, too."
"Cool! When's that?" said Tails.
"Um… about a year."
"Sonic!"
"Hey, I've been busy lately. No, I'm kidding, I love spending time with you guys."
"Really?" said Amy, heart speeding up.
"Would I lie about somethin' like that? No way."
"You are definitely the coolest!" she said.
"Nah."
"Really, you are!"
"Okay, okay, if you insist, I'll say it. I'm the coolest."
Amy couldn't stop smiling. Her cheeks began to hurt. She ignored them.
"I've got to agree with Amy," said Tails. "You are the coolest."
"Wow, you and a girl are getting along so well," said Sonic as he stepped away from the two. "I think you two look great together."
"No way! Blech!" said Tails.
"My heart belongs to someone else, anyway," Amy said haughtily.
Two sets of eyes focused on Amy.
"The Sonic in my world, you freaks!" she giggled.
Laughter. Lots of laughter. Some of it falser than others.
Amy just wasn't sure anymore. Things were turning upside down.
"But you are very lovable," she went on.
Sonic shrugged. "That's true. Won't deny it."
"Amy!"
It was Sally's voice. Amy followed it to find the older girl standing a fair distance off. "Catch ya later," she said to Sonic and Tails. Then she jogged over to Sally, humming to herself. "What is it?"
Sally suddenly looked very uncomfortable. "Amy, I've… well, I've been watching how you deal with Sonic. Now, I know, at your age, that it's easy to get carried away with things…"
"Right," Amy said. She was getting a definite feel from Sally—did Sally see the love Amy had for Sonic?
"And Sonic, well, his ego feeds things like this. He encourages this kind of worship, and I think it must be even stronger coming from a girl… I have a hard enough time trying to deal with Tails and Sonic."
"Okay," Amy said vaguely. So Sally knew. But her voice remained stilted, as if she had a very hard time convincing herself to say these things.
She apparently rethought something, for the next words were easy. "Sonic's ego is big, we know that. It has to be to do some of the things he does. If his ego were too small he wouldn't be able to convince himself to defy death, to run and act like he does. That would be a big problem, I don't want to hurt that. But we can get the opposite problem too. If his ego is too big, he starts taking unnecessary risks. He gets really gung-ho, and it's… It's a full-time job for me deflating his ego. If you act like this… Listen, what I'm really trying to say is, can you compliment Sonic less? It's just too dangerous."
Amy shook her head, not quite sure she'd understood. "Compliment him less?"
Sally nodded. "That's right."
The pieces fit. "You're jealous," she said, a note of surprise in her voice.
She'd expected some sort of denial or qualification. That was how normal people reacted to such a blunt accusation. But Sally, as Bunnie had told her, wasn't normal. Sally gave a sad smile. "Yes, I'm jealous. You can be honest with him."
Now Amy was just confused. "Why is it so dangerous to compliment Sonic? Why can't you be honest with him?"
Amy could see Sally make the decision. She stood straighter and gained some determination. "I think it's time I explain things to you. Come on, this way."
They stopped by Sally's hut first. "We're going to be walking for a few hours now, and I don't want you to be too uncomfortable."
"Don't worry about it, I can hold my own," Amy said.
"Just the same…" Sally retrieved a small backpack and two canteens. "Alright, follow me." Sally led her out of the village and onto a path.
The long minutes were held in silence. Amy was bursting with questions that seemed on the cusp of being answered, but Sally had stopped talking to lead this walk and wasn't resuming.
Amy noticed that none of the walks she'd been on so far had been in this direction. She hoped that this wasn't a bad sign.
"Tell me a few things about your Sonic," Sally said, out of the blue.
"Well… in some ways he's like this Sonic," she said. "Confident, fast, popular, easy-going, brave… I've seen him do some amazing things."
"Is there any kind of fighting that he does?" Sally continued, cutting Amy off.
"Well, yes," Amy said, shifting topics. "There's a madman on my planet. We call him Dr. Eggman."
"Doesn't sound that threatening." Dead-voiced Sally. She wasn't impressed.
"Yeah, it's a silly name," said Amy. "He's the kind of person who's smart and stupid at the same time. He's smart enough to build entire robot armies, but he's dumb enough to leave them vulnerable to Sonic. He's smart enough to put himself in position to conquer the world, but dumb enough to blow it every time. Sonic stops him whenever he tries anything. Sometimes I even help."
"Really?" said Sally. Amy couldn't tell if she approved or disapproved.
"Yeah," said Amy, starting to lose confidence. "I mean, sure, it's scary, but I've learned how to destroy a lot of Eggman's robots. They really aren't put together very well. And Sonic! He can just blow through them, most of them aren't even a challenge. So a lot of the time Sonic just lays around. We live pretty lazy lives unless Eggman starts up something. Then we're super-busy, but the rest of the time we're pretty easy."
Sally didn't respond verbally. Amy, troubled now, raced around to Sally's front to see the older girl swallowing the last of her sorrow. "Sounds fun," she said, voice even.
"Yeah," said Amy dully. "It is."
"Well, don't stop there," said Sally. "Keep going. I want to hear about a few of these adventures of yours."
"That, I can do," Amy said.
After a few hours of walking, broken up by breaks, Amy was well out of stories. She'd started repeating herself.
"Well, I've done my share," she said, frustrated now. "You said you'd give me some answers. I'm still waiting. You said you were going to explain you and Sonic."
Sally took a swig of water. After swallowing, she faced Amy firmly. "To understand Sonic and me, our relationship, you have to understand our world. Our stories are the same as our world's. Sonic and I, our lives our tied to the life of our world. If you'll give me another fifteen minutes of walking, I'll answer any question you ask."
"Okay," said Amy, picking up on Sally's serious tone.
Amy hadn't really noticed before, because she'd been too engrossed telling stories, but this part of the forest looked… sick. Things weren't the right colors, and there was far less noise. Something was very different from the forest around Knothole. Plus, there was…
"That smell!" said Amy, pinching her nose. "What is it?"
"Smog," Sally answered. "From the city."
"The city?" said Amy, surprised. "But Tails said there were other villages, just no one goes to them."
"Tails was right."
"This doesn't make sense!" said Amy. "I mean, it's in easy running distance for Sonic. How can no one go there?"
"Sonic goes to the city," Sally said patiently. "So do I. And Rotor, Antoine, and Bunnie."
The five again, Amy noted. "Then what do you mean? I just don't understand," she said.
"I'll show you." Sally held aside some bushes, revealing a space. "At the end of this there's another bush. Push it aside and you'll get the idea."
Amy followed Sally's strange instructions. The pungent smells grew thicker and more numerous as she crept through the tunnel in the bushes. Something was irritating her eyes now. She stumbled into the last hedge, bumbled through it—and then, revealed to her eyes, was…
"The city," she gasped. Except that it wasn't a city.
It was a monster.
The entire area of the city was cloaked in haze and smoke. The all-consuming shadow extended in every direction, keeping the sunlight well away from the city's inner workings like a toxic umbrella. To see if the sky was still blue, Amy had to completely turn around; the sky was blotted out by the city. Tall buildings jutted forth into the sky like dark needles. The stench was worse than ever; it was impossible to differentiate the variety of wastes this city produced. Separating the city from the forest was a sea of brown grass and tall brown weeds, in futile struggle with the city's poison.
Towering over the buildings in the city was a huge ovoid monolith, obviously some kind of command center. It dwarfed everything around it, a potent symbol of power and control—a power and control in the hands of whatever wickedness possessed this city.
Amy had been to many cities, but not even Eggman's bases reeked of this much evil. Nor had they reeked this much.
She felt the breath being pressed out of her, and it wasn't solely due to the pollution. Even at this distance, she felt squeezed by the city. It was enormous, and every bit of it was forbidding. A threat to all, a warning not to approach. The monster lay in wait, a wordless but unsubtle menace. Her heart was racing, her breaths rapid and shallow; her body recognized the danger.
"Robotropolis."
Amy turned, startled. Sally had come up beside her, and her eyes were locked on the city. "The city's name is Robotropolis. Robotnik built this after he took over."
"Took over?" Amy whispered.
"Eleven years ago, my father was King of Acorn," Sally explained, still focused on the city. "We'd just come out of a war, a war everyone was sure would be the last. We were looking forward to peace so much that we let our guard down. So Robotnik betrayed us in that moment. He took control of… well, everything. He had the capitol completely in his grasp within a day. From there he spread like a cancer, devouring city after city and making it all part of his empire."
She shook her head. "I was only five at the time, I barely understood. Rosie was my nanny. Sonic, Antoine, Bunnie, and Rotor were my friends. She escaped with us out of the city—somehow she realized something bad was going on. I… I don't really remember," Sally admitted, her hands shaking slightly now. "Rosie never really explained to me how it happened. But… she got us away. Got us into the forest."
Sally pointed back. "My family had just finished planning a royal retreat, which they called Knothole. It was barely even started then. But Rosie knew about it, and knew it was well-hidden. She took us there. For the first five or six years, we stayed there, willfully ignorant to everything."
Now Sally had to sit, staring holes in the ground, unable to meet Amy's face. "We were lucky. Few others escaped. Bunnie's family… Antoine's family… Rotor's family… Sonic's uncle… my… father… all of them were captured or killed."
She shook her head again, as if trying to break free from the nightmare she lived. "I guess I shouldn't feel the way I do, but… when you were talking about how your Eggman almost takes over the world, but never manages it… I felt so… well, some jealousy, and some anger, and a few other things. You guys only need to keep Eggman from conquering your world, but my world is already conquered! Sonic and I, we didn't even have a chance to stop it! Instead, it's our job to take it back, and it's… well, it's very… different…"
Amy couldn't react. The Sally she'd seen up to now was so mature, so emotionally stable, that seeing her distraught shook Amy. It also spoke to the severity of the princess' task. Sally evened out her breathing, regaining control once more. "So I told you a half-truth when you asked me about Antoine. Technically, I am a princess. But that title doesn't mean anything right now. That… freak… Robotnik has my kingdom. It's my responsibility to take it back. To help everyone take back their lives and homes."
"Now I understand," Amy said. "Except during the party, there's always been a shadow on your mood. Your mind is always working on something you hated to think about. The shadow… it's this city."
"I wish it was that simple," said Sally. "This is the capital city, but it's not the only one. Robotnik owns most of the world."
"Not the only city?" Amy said, staggering. The weight upon her chest greatly increased. "And you're taking this all on by yourself!"
"Not entirely by myself," Sally answered. "Other groups fight in other places, but even if they win completely, they can't win the war. Only we can do that because Robotnik himself is here. Sonic, Bunnie, Antoine, Rotor, and me… we're the ones who have to finish this."
"Just the five of you against all that?" Amy breathed.
Sally stood again. "But that's not even the worst of it," she said. "There's one thing more. Come on, I'll show you the last secret. The last and the most terrible."
Amy didn't want to see the last secret anymore! But Sally continued on, heading straight for the heart of the darkness, and Amy couldn't help but be swept along.
Disgusting as the city had been from far away, moving through it was torture. The air was so thick pieces of it clung to Amy's fur. Her eyes watered constantly, stung by the noxious fumes. A thin layer of muck covered the ground; every step sent it splashing and swirling. Her lungs protested about breathing the heavy air; with the pace Sally was setting, even Amy's well-conditioned body screamed for a stop.
Sally's pace was impressive, but less impressive than the girl herself. Amy had never felt badly about her ability to move quietly, but she felt like a lumbering elephant compared to Sally. Sally's thin body and sheer skill made her ethereal, slipping through the layers of smog and slime without trace or sound. She was a wraith, undetectable and unstoppable.
It was amazing how well Sally had adapted to moving and fighting in this environment. She was moving swiftly and silently, things Amy never would have suspected she could do. In a straight-up race, Amy knew she was faster than Sally; but, as Sally had said, the princess was a product of her world, and Amy was no native.
To think Amy had started with so many questions—now she didn't want any answers! She couldn't have asked them anyway—the city's rot, darkness, and sheer MASS were squeezing her lungs and her skull.
All of which gave rise to all-consuming...
Sally stopped.
It was so abrupt Amy almost slammed into the older girl. Before Amy realized what was going on, Sally had grabbed ahold of her dress and run her into a nearby alley. Sally kept pushing until the two of them were on the ground behind a pile of refuse.
Sally pressed a finger over Amy's lips. Amy didn't want to talk, she wanted to breathe! Nothing could be louder, she thought, than her ragged breaths and pounding heart. The sound thundered in the alley.
The slightest of buzzing sounds appeared.
Now Amy tried to stifle her own breathing.
The buzz sound never grew louder, and in a few seconds vanished altogether.
"Stealth Orb," Sally whispered, barely audible. "Floating cameras on small hover platforms. Robotnik's eyes and ears."
Amy nodded, though her mind was frozen. Her perceptions were like those of a poorly-tuned TV receiver: the sound was full of fuzz and the picture was hazy at best.
"We're almost there," Sally continued. "Another thirty seconds of running. We can wait a little, but not long."
Amy nodded again, slowly getting to her feet. She concentrated on pushing her lungs, trying to circulate the air. Way too soon, Sally was tugging on her again. She waved slightly and geared up to run once more.
If Sally was honest, and they were only thirty seconds away, those were the longest thirty seconds of Amy's life.
After several eternities, Sally brought Amy to a halt inside a run-down building. Sally began moving through it, but at a leisurely pace. "We're safe for now," she said.
Amy was gassed, but somehow she managed to look around. She could recognize some chairs and tables, despite absurd amounts of dust and grime. Glass crunched underfoot. She knelt down—picture frames!
"This was a… house?" she gasped.
"An apartment," Sally said, not even breathing hard. "This was an apartment building. No one's lived here for eleven years."
"Did they run?" Amy asked.
"They probably tried. I don't think they got away, though. Most didn't. There are only a few villages out there, fewer every year. Everyone else was killed, or… worse."
"Worse?" breathed Amy.
"The last secret," Sally said. "This way."
Once more, Sally led, this time to an apartment on the opposite side of the building. "Look through the window," she said.
Robots.
Lots of robots.
It was a full-out construction effort, the robots swarming over a site that looked like it'd recently been burned. There was something strange about the robots, though…
"They look like animals," Amy said.
"They are animals."
"What!"
Sally pressed a finger to her lips, but it did little to ease Amy's panic. "All those robots that look like animals… they ARE animals. Animals, people, turned into robots."
Amy shook her head slightly. This was a nightmare! Her own world was so bright and cheery and… and normal! But this place was perverse, everything wrong with it, a world gone crazy, gone totally down the tubes, doomed and condemned and lost to the void already so how can people still…
"Let's get out of here," said Sally. "We can talk things out once we're safely away."
Amy couldn't help but agree.
After several nights in Knothole, Amy had thought the smells of the forest annoying. Upon her return there from Robotropolis, she found them glorious.
"How's it all possible?" she said. Her normal ditz-like tones were long gone, broken by the weight of what she'd seen. "How could things go that wrong?"
"Sometimes I wonder that myself," said Sally. "Partly it's because it took so long for anyone to fight back. We only started a true resistance four or five years ago. I've heard of groups in other places fighting longer, but like I said before, this fight is the only one that can be decisive. Knothole versus Robotropolis, right here."
"It's not doable," Amy said, dazed. "How can anyone fight all that?"
Sally looked away. "What am I supposed to do? Give up? Stop fighting and try to ignore him, until those factories finally kill the forest and expose us for good? No, I can't stop fighting. I refuse to stop. I owe it to everyone—Sonic, and Bunnie, everyone in Knothole, everyone everywhere. I owe it to them to fight."
"How can you owe that much?" Amy said.
Sally turned, evading Amy's stares. "I owe it," she said steadily, "because I can do it. I've got the planning ability, the intelligence and the memory. I have the talent and skill and the physical ability. I have friends I can count on, strong fighters in their own right. It's not much to work with—but it's enough to put up a fight. And if I can fight… then I will."
Amy shook her head. "You're only four years older than I am," she said. "Four years older… but there's a huge gap between us. We're as different as two people can be."
"We're from different worlds," Sally said. She turned back to Amy, a wry smile on her face. "Since you arrived, I've fantasized about a few things. What I would be doing on a world as peaceful as yours. What my life would be. Would I be a fighter at all? What people would I know? What would I be using my abilities to do? Would I be fighting that Eggman of yours? Would I have to? My world hasn't given me many options, but your world does."
She looked down. "Normally I repress that kind of thought. It doesn't do me much good. But… it was nice to think about. I'm really jealous, you know. Your world is so… free."
"The people are," Amy agreed, mind still numb. "Unlike your people."
Sally nodded. "Exactly. Unlike my people, slaves to a bloody-handed tyrant."
"How can he turn people into robots?" Amy asked.
"A device called the Roboticiser," Sally explained. "It converts every biological process into an equivalent robotic one, replaces flesh with metal, neurons with circuits… it's amazing technology in twisted hands."
Realization struck home. "Oh my… Bunnie," Amy gaped.
Again, Sally nodded. "Bunnie. She was captured and partially Roboticized herself. We rescued her before the process could finish, but…" she trailed off. "Here's a little statistics for you. If we go on a mission that only has a 1 chance of failure, we're fine, right? But that 1 doesn't stand alone. It compounds. The next mission has a 1 chance of failure on its own, but you have to add the fact that we didn't fail last time. Every time we succeed we greatly increase the chance that the next time something goes wrong. Even if everything goes right, it gets more dangerous each time we go back."
Sally began counting off on her fingers. "So you see, we can't just blow everything up. We have to slow down Robotnik's industry and destroy his empire, but we have to do it with limited resources and without killing all the people he's enslaved. And we have to find a way to reverse the Roboticiser process."
"Why'd you have to show it all to me?" Amy said, becoming angry. "Why'd you have to… to take me to that wretched, hateful place? Why did I have to see it? Were you trying to freak me out or put me in danger?"
"I'm insulted you'd say something like that," Sally said, calm. "You've seen what I'm up against. You know I have to plan carefully. I had two reasons for taking you there. First, it's the best way to show you exactly what our situation is. With what you've seen, you should be able to answer most of your questions on your own. The second reason is more important. I had to get you exposed to Robotropolis, the sooner the better."
"Why!" Amy screeched. "Why expose me to that?"
"Because if you want to go home," said Sally, hackles rising, "you have to go back there. Back to Robotropolis."
Amy's fury vanished, replaced by fear once more.
Sally's temper had risen slightly at the girl's impatience, but she quickly regained control. "I finished my analysis of the hole you fell through. It's a byproduct of Robotnik's research on dimensional borders. Over the past few nights, Sonic and I have done some information-gathering inside Robotropolis. We've found the experiments Robotnik's been running and we know what to do. I can return you to your world, if you want."
"Please, do," Amy whimpered. This twisted planet—she wanted out out out from Mobius!
"But to do it, we all need to get inside the lab," Sally explained. "I need to get you, physically, to the portal. So to go home, you have to go back through Robotropolis."
Amy staggered backwards. "You went there twice over the past few nights?" she said, brain still trying to process everything. "Just for me?"
"Just for you," Sally said.
"How can you do it?" Amy said, still not comprehending. "You go there so often, to fight a war you have so little hope of winning… I just don't understand! It's one thing to stop someone from taking over the world, it's way different trying to get back a world that's been taken over! How can you do it when you're all by yourself?"
Unexpectedly, Sally smiled. It wasn't for show; it was a genuine, heartfelt—somewhat spiteful—smile. "Robotnik hasn't broken me yet," she said, tinges of defiance and humor in her voice. "I told you already, I can put up a fight—and Robotnik damn sure won't get me without one. Besides, I think some of Sonic's denial of statistics is rubbing off on me. I made up my mind, and Robotnik will have to kill me to stop me."
"But that might happen!" Amy squealed.
The smile broadened. "I know. And it's funny you talk about it like this—most people in Knothole can't handle being Freedom Fighters. Sonic, myself, Rotor, Bunnie, Antoine… that's what we call ourselves. The Freedom Fighters. Most people can't handle it. The city crushes them, or they're paralyzed by the fear. Very rarely we bring someone else with us, and it's always a mistake. Antoine is a coward, but he somehow finds the nerve to come with us—which is why we bring him along, even though he can't do much. Having just that much extra emotional support can keep us from collapsing."
Sally shrugged. "We're fighting absolute evil. We're the only ones who can fight, so we do. It's hard, I won't lie; and it's dangerous, as our scars and Bunnie's limbs prove. But what else can we do? We're Freedom Fighters. It's all on us."
She laughed. "It's funny to hear all of that coming from me. I'm the one who's always insecure. I'm the one who worries incessantly, who gives myself nightmares. But that's part of being princess. It's part of being a Freedom Fighter. It's what I do."
As Sally fell silent, Amy could only stare at the older girl. No, not girl; it was time to stop using that term. Woman. The older woman.
She kept smiling! In spite of it all, Sally was smiling—not because she was happy, but because she refused to cry. As Amy watched Sally continue to smile, she sensed a fathomless depth of strength and resolve. If Amy were in Sally's position, the pressure would have crushed her. In Sally's case, it had pressed and pushed and squeezed until her soul was like a diamond—totally unyielding and glorious to behold.
Silence settled over them for a few moments. Sally grabbed Nicole for a moment, checked something, then replaced it. "One thing you're wrong about," she said.
"What?"
Sally smiled. "I'm not quite alone."
A new sound appeared—Sonic's running, approaching.
Sonic slid to a halt between the two females. "Woah, Ames, you've seen better days," he said, brushing her shoulders off.
"I suppose I have," Amy replied, trying desperately to be cheerful.
When he turned to Sally, his joviality was gone. "So she's been inside, right?"
"Right."
"Any problems?"
She shrugged. "Nothing eventful happened in the city, if that's what you're asking."
Sonic glanced back at Amy, then back to Sally. "So, we juicing?"
"Yes."
With total familiarity, Sally jumped into Sonic's arms. One arm went under her knees, the other behind her shoulders; she linked her arms around his neck, bracing her body to his. It was so natural-looking they must have done it a thousand times before.
"Grab a hold of the straps, Ames," Sonic called back to her, referring to his backpack. Amy obliged. "Hold on tight, I'm takin' off."
Amy's eyes lingered for a few seconds on Sonic and Sally. Despite the close contact, they hardly seemed to notice each other.
No, that wasn't quite the case. They noticed each other as much as one notices oneself.
And then she stopped noticing everything, because Sonic was running, running, running…