"When Vanilla told me you had a tutor over, I thought it was something like algebra or literature."
What a sight it must have been for Amy to see Jet again – and at Cream's house of all places! They were by the living room, playing the one fighting game Vanilla allowed her to and eating popcorn on the couch. Jet was getting the beatdown of his life too, but that wasn't surprising. Cream always won whenever she and Amy played together.
"Oh, hello there Miss Amy! Jet is about to lose again, so you can play next if you'd like."
Jet was trying to focus on his screen as best as he could so he wouldn't have to look at Amy so soon. It had been barely two weeks since they had last interacted with each other back at Angel Island. Sure, things might have been sorted between her, Shadow and Sonic, but Jet had absolutely no idea where he factored in all of that. Probably somewhere in the neutral to mild annoyance zone, as Amy didn't even greet him by name.
"Hey Amy. Are you mad at me?" No better way to find out than asking! The worst that could come out of it was a yes anyways.
"What? No, why would I be mad at you?" She shot him a confused glare – which he didn't notice because he was still losing at the fighting game. "I'm just surprised to see you here at Cream's house of all places."
"Long story. No time for th—" Cream had just used her super finishing move on Jet's character, even though he had less than 10% health points left. She was smiling and congratulating him, but he knew she had styled on him on purpose. "Okay, now I have time for that."
Jet let out a defeated sigh and got up from the couch so Amy could have a match with Cream – not before grabbing one last handful of popcorn. Amy sat down in his place and made her usual choice of character – a projectile-based fighter that she'd use to delay getting combo-ed by Cream for as long as possible. That was smarter than Jet picking the worst character in the game just because they looked cool to him.
"I'm staying at Wave's apartment for a while because my therapist said I could use some more time with my friends." Jet watched the two of them play. Cream was getting visibly more upset each time her character got pushed away by a projectile.
"Uh-huh?" Amy was trying to keep her focus on both the game and Jet, which proved difficult since he was standing behind the couch now. "How does that lead you here, though?"
"Wave is making her own gear racing agency and she wanted to put me back on the radar with some sort of publicity stunt, so she came up with some tutoring program or whatever. Some kid named Ray was actually the first one to call about it, but Vanilla offered like five times the actual price so we went with that instead. I feel a little bad for him but money is money."
Ah yes, that made sense. Even though Vanilla was a somewhat strict parent, she always wanted the very best for her daughter whenever possible. And being tutored on extreme gear riding by the number one racer himself? That was possibly the best option she could go for – even if it meant using her mysteriously large savings to give Cream an advantage over other people.
"I'm surprised mom is letting me continue learning extreme gear, I thought she'd say it's too dangerous for me and make me learn regular skating instead." Cream had frustration in his voice which only Amy was able to pick up.
"So, did you guys start already?" Amy asked.
"Vanilla said we had to wait for you to arrive because she didn't trust that much just yet." Jet rolled his eyes. "I guess that means you're babysitting me too."
"Terrific."
"I'm older than you."
And just like that, Amy had lost her own match against Cream – who looked very relieved that the projectile spam hell was finally over. She got up and told them she was going to get dressed before rushing towards her bedroom. The living room fell into awkward silence as neither of the two mobians knew each other well enough nor had anything too interesting currently happening to bring up in small talk.
"Hey, uh… Jet?" Amy let out after a while. "I'm sorry for the whole… blowing up in front of you thing. Shadow was kind of right, I shouldn't have dragged you around and tried to force out your feelings for Sonic just because it was something I wanted."
"It's fine." Jet shrugged. He didn't really harbor any bad feelings from that moment aside from the initial shock. "It happens."
"But it shouldn't have to happen! I'll be more careful about that kind of stuff from now on, okay?" She offered him a small smile.
"Okay, sure. Wait, what do you mean from now on?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Trust me, Vanilla isn't letting you babysit cream on your own for at least another decade. That's almost how long I've been doing it for." She let out a chuckle.
Jet didn't mind it that much, especially now that the mood between them was much more relaxed. "Sure, that works for me. I'm not good at actual babysitting anyways, so if you could take care of that for me that'd be great. I mean, she's like what? Ten years old by this point?"
"Twelve."
"Twelve, who cares. She's old enough to not need a babysitter anymore, she can do stuff on her own."
"I mean, Vanilla is still constantly on her tail whenever she's capable of taking care of herself or not." Amy explained. "Which she is, of course. I'm mostly here to make her company and help with homework. She also plays with kids her age of course."
"Chaos I wish that was me."
"What?"
"What? I didn't say that out loud."
"Whatever, the point is," Amy paused for a little, as if she had forgotten what the point was, "that we're gonna be spending a lot of time together, so we might as well get comfortable with each other!"
"Uh, okay." Jet nodded. Amy kept staring at him expectantly. "What, like… now? I don't think these things happen that quickly."
"I meant that I want you to teach me how to improve my gear riding as well! Geez, I thought that was pretty obvious. That's like, all you do."
"…Oh!" How was he supposed to figure that out by himself! That comment was also not appreciated. "Yeah, sure, you can watch my lesson with Cream and try to follow along or something. I remember you being pretty okay at it though, I don't know if there's much you're gonna be able to take away from it."
"That's fine by me!" Amy nodded and smiled at him. "I've never really had any… formal training, I guess you could say. I tried it at Twinkle Park's attraction of the month thing a couple years back and then just followed video tutorials after I bought my own board."
"Doesn't matter where you got your learning from, if you ended up learning something then it was a valuable experience." Who knew repeating things his mother had told him ages ago would make him sound so smart?
They could hear the sound of footsteps drawing closer, and then Cream was among them wearing the same outfit she wore when she practiced with Jet by the airship. She had her gear skates on her hands and a big smile on her face.
"Miss Amy is going to be joining us? That sounds like a lot of fun!"
"Mhm. By the way, you won't be needing these," Jet shook his head whole pointing to her gear, "I brought you something better. Come on, let's go already. Don't want to waste any more of your time."
Jet grabbed his board and the three of them headed out, walking through the streets of Grand Metropolis until they reached a very tall building. It was covered from top to bottom with glass, making it completely see through. When they walked in Jet handed his ID to the person in the counter and she pointed them towards a futuristic-looking elevator at the end of the hall. It was also mostly see-through, and it only had two buttons that led to the ground and top floor.
"Jet, where are you taking us?" Amy tried not to look at her surroundings too much as Jet pressed the button that would take them to the top. "I thought you were taking us to like… a warehouse, or a gym, or something like that."
"That's what a bad teacher that wasn't paid five times the expected amount would do." Jet scoffed. "I rented the light roads with Wave's money…and permission, of course."
"Huh? Aren't those only for public events or big ceremonies?" Cream asked.
"Normally, yeah. Wave has a big presence on here though, so she can do whatever she wants as long as it's barely legal." Both girls went "oooh" in unison.
"Besides, this is pretty much one big ad campaign. If you saw someone racing extreme gear on the light roads, you'd probably want to buy one too."
After a couple of minutes, the elevator reached the top floor of the building. They found themselves in a small room with a locker, bathroom and a steel-reinforced door that led to the outside – despite how high up they were. Jet headed to the locker first, and took out an extreme gear board. It was smaller than average to match Cream's height, but nothing else about its shape was out of the ordinary. Its center was red and yellow, the edges were colored in a lighter yellow much like Cream's fur and the nose of the board had a pastel pink mark on it.
Jet handed the board to Cream, receiving an excited gasp in return. "I don't have enough experience with gear skates to teach you with those, it's easier for you to learn how to ride on a board. This one's free of charge – doesn't do anything special but it's still high quality and custom made. You can upgrade it or get a new one with Wave once you've got enough experience."
"Thank you so much, mister Jet!" Cream smiled and gave him a tight hug before inspecting her board. "I know how to balance on it, I've tried on Charmy's board before. It shouldn't slow down our lessons too much."
"Oh, um… I forgot I don't have my board here. It's all the way back in Station Square…" Amy frowned.
Cream handed over her skates. "You can try these on! They were a little too big for me anyways, so they might be a good fit on you."
Amy sat down on a nearby bench to put them on. It was a tight fit, but it was still comfortable enough for her to be okay with using it to reach dangerously high speeds. "Thanks Cream! I owe you one."
Jet waited for both of them to get ready before heading towards the door. He had to input a code on the small keypad beside it for it to open. It led to a small platform outside of the building.
Ahead of them, a set of red railings seemingly floating in midair extended deep into the city. A couple of seconds after the door opened a light blue translucent path zapped into existence in between them. Jet was the first one to step onto it, his boots making a strange and unnatural clanking sound as they hit the solidified light. An extensive safety net was placed under the whole path, protecting them from plummeting into the city down below in case of a mishap.
"Cream, you go first. Amy can go behind me, I need to have Cream in my line of sight at all times so I can give her advice."
"Fine by me." Amy nodded. Cream went ahead and walked a few meters in front of Jet.
"Today's lesson is drifting. The secret is shifting your whole body towards the side you want to drift, but not shifting your foot stance too much." Jet explained. "Do keep in mind that drifting consumes quite a lot of air, that's why there's an air refueling station right after each curve. If this was a race I'd advise against stopping by those, but there's no ramps or anything here so it's your only option. Also, there's another task for you by the stops, but it doesn't have much to do with racing."
Cream looked confused at that last part, but nodded and smiled anyways. Jet gave her permission to go whenever she was ready. She took a deep breath, counted to five and got a running start before jumping onto her new board. She was quite clumsy at first, Jet noted. The weight difference between that and the board she claimed she rode before must have been quite significative, since it looked like she was struggling to keep herself agile.
But Cream managed to get used to the weight and feel of her board soon enough, thankfully. She hovered around in a zigzag pattern to test out her limits. Jet had done a few laps with that board beforehand (not a fun experience, it was too small for him) to get a feel for the air tank and be able to keep track of it while Cream rode. If he had been calculating it right, she would have enough air to go in a straight line without boosting for quite a while.
And more than enough to make the curve that was up ahead of them. It was the first of many, so it was quite lenient with spacing. He closed the gap between them a little more so he would be able to see Cream's form as she passed behind a skyscraper during her drift. A couple of meters after that curve, the road led them to a platform (also made of the same light-like material as the roads) close to a blank billboard. A blue spray paint can rested on it. Cream had stopped on it to investigate, and Jet and Amy followed right behind her.
"Do I have to… paint?" Cream asked, turning to look at Jet.
"Not the whole thing of course, just doodle something on it. Just keep it E for Everyone please. There's ten of those in total, so you might as well think of what you're going to draw during the straight-line sections of the road." Jet explained, turning to talk to Amy while Cream pondered about her art.
"How was that? Pretty easy, I'm assuming."
"I almost fell." Amy was panting like crazy. "These skates are so light! I went for the drift with my board's weight in mind and ended up almost running out of the track because I started turning too early."
"Oh." Jet scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. He hadn't planned for her to say something like that. "Well… you have nine more drifts to get used to it. Cream can pull you back on track if you do end up falling, so don't worry too much about it."
Both of them turned their heads at the sound of paint being sprayed. She was careful to get the basic shapes right first try, probably because there was no way to erase the lines once she sprayed them. The result came out pretty good in Jet's opinion: a little smiling normal chao! Amy seemed to be proud of Cream's graffiti as well, but Cream herself didn't look so satisfied.
"That's not really how I imagined it would look like…" The rabbit frowned, putting the can back in its original position. "Are you sure it's okay to have this exposed to the whole city?"
"Mhm. Trust me, you'll get it when it's over." Jet nodded.
"Yeah, it doesn't look so bad!" Amy gave her a reassuring smile. "It's way better than some soulless advertisement."
"This is advertisement."
"Yeah, but it's not soulless because Cream made it."
"Whatever you say." Jet shrugged. "Cream, whenever you're ready."
Cream nodded and took a breath before they resumed the rest of the training. The path twisted and turned between the buildings in a chaotic fashion, seeking to simulate the different scenarios where different kinds of drifting would be required rather than form a cohesive racetrack-like shape. The turns became more angular, the road narrower and some stops required performing multiple tight turns in opposite directions. It was like a puzzle, where she would have to figure out when, where and for how long she should drift.
Cream had her first and only fall after stop number three. She pulled herself out of the safety net quickly due to her flight abilities, and got back on her feet even more determined to pass the challenges ahead of her. Jet gave her critique about her riding technique at each new graffiti stop, and she took it into consideration right away. It wasn't long before she started noticing and correcting her own mistakes, leaving Jet with not a lot to do besides watch and feel proud of himself.
Jet eventually let Amy position herself in between him and Cream so he could also criticize her form. The hedgehog still somewhat struggled with the skate-type gear but her past expensive compensated for it somewhat. She had two falls, one when her gear ran out of air during the triple drift in stop seven, and then on the very last challenge. Jet noted that her legs adapted much quicker to the tricky stance shifting required for some of those turns, probably due to her experience with martial arts.
Since Cream was such a fast learner, they had completed the whole course in less than half the estimated time. They decided to go again, with Jet in the front so that she could observe his technique and try to incorporate it into her riding style. That lap went even quicker, since all the billboards had already been filled out by different kinds of chao in different colors of spray paint. In the end, they had time for yet another lap — with Amy as the front runner so that both Jet and Cream could give her tips.
"Now is the part where I explain what that was all about." Jet began as soon as they stepped back into the building. "You notice how your chao graffiti became better and better as you drew them? That's because you practiced. The same thing happened with your extreme gear skills, you know."
"That's… Kind of shallow. So all that was just for the sake of saying practice makes perfect? Isn't that kind of obvious already?" Amy chimed in.
"I thought it was cute." Cream shrugged and smiled at Jet. "Thank you so much for teaching me, Mister Jet! This was really fun and I learned a lot."
"Of course you did, you had the best teacher around." Jet changed the subject before Amy could say something else to discredit him.
"I guess this is it, then? You got everything I had to teach you perfectly. That's a job done for me."
"Vanilla should be arriving from work soon, so my job is almost done as well." Amy said. "We'll still make you company until she gets home, okay?"
"Okay!" Cream cheered. They walked back home, but not before getting some ice cream and taking some pictures together (Amy's idea).
A couple people that identified themselves as fellow extreme gear riders recognized Jet and stopped the trio so they could have a chat with him or get his autograph. It was early evening by the time they had reached Cream's house, and Jet's ego was grander than the whole Metropolis. Vanilla had been parking her car by the driveway and came out to greet them.
"I'm glad to hear my little Cream had such a good time!" Vanilla smiled down at Jet. Chaos she was so tall. "I can tell even you got something out of it, Amy."
"Yeah, Jet was nice enough to help me out as well once Cream was done with the lesson." Amy nodded. She remembered she still had Cream's gear skates on her and quickly took them off and handed them over.
"Cream was my best student so far, ma'am. You should be proud of her." She was also his only student so far, but that was just a detail.
"I'm glad to hear, Jet. Did you know I was a skater when I was her age? That's why I wanted her to be able to enjoy something similar, despite how dangerous it is."
"I can handle danger, mom!" Cream puffed up her chest. "I've helped Sonic save the world before."
"I guess so. I should give you more credit for it, sweetheart." Vanilla ruffled her daughter's head with a small smile.
"So, I'll see you next week?" Jet asked.
Cream looked up at her mom to confirm it, and then nodded at at Jet. "Mhm! I can't wait to continue learning."
"I guess I'll be going too, it was pretty fun to watch over both of them." Amy gave Cream a small hug before turning to walk away. "Bye guys!"
Everyone bid farewell to each other and headed in different directions. Cream and Vanilla went inside their houses, Amy continued to walk along the street and Jet checked his phone before deciding where to go. A message from Wave was hidden among his usual notifications.
[WavyMind]: Hey, hope I'm not interrupting your tutoring.
[WavyMind]: Storm's mother called me, they're doing the wedding ceremony early. It's next month now.
[WavyMind]: You know you're his best man, right? You should come up with a speech. One that is more than three sentences long, preferably. This is a really important moment for him.
[WavyMind]: Also buy some snacks. We have guests over.
Jet chose to purposefully ignored the whole point of the message and focus on the last text. They had guests over? That was odd, Wave usually announced these things ahead of time. But he didn't think much of it. What he did think about was where the hell he'd find snacks. He didn't know the city well enough, he'd probably just end up lost and arriving home the very next day.
He turned his head. Amy's silhouette was still on the horizon, barely visible but still recognizable enough for him to decide to ride his board in her general direction while disregarding everyone else in that particular sidewalk. He got off his board a couple of feet away from the hedgehog, who had noticed him by that point.
"Amy do you know where I can buy snacks here?"
"Oh, sure! I'll take you there." No questions asked, huh? That's fair.
The two of them proceeded into the city as the night fell over them. They were making small talk by that point, way more comfortable with each other than before (even though Jet said it didn't happen that quickly). The topic of Sonic eventually came into the conversation because of course it did, and Jet had a confession to make.
"Hey, Amy?" Jet hesitated. Was he really about to confess that to someone? To Amy of all people?
Yes he was.
"I think… I think once things go back to normal with Sonic I'm going to… uh, go for it." He scratched the back of his neck. Chaos he was awkward. "I mean… I have to hang out with him a lot more before I even consider asking him out, but… Yeah, I made my choice."
Amy's face lit up. Like that was what she wanted to hear all along – even if a couple of weeks too late. "I'm glad to hear you're figuring yourself out!"
"And uh… I sorta need your help? Like, I actually need your help this time. I've never done anything like this before. Like, romantic."
"I'd be glad to help, Jet, but I really think you should talk to Shadow first. As soon as you do, I'll do my best to give you all the advice you need." She offered him a sweet smile. He nodded back at her and the subject was dropped for something that didn't make Jet want to ride on his extreme gear into the nearest wall.
Him and Amy parted ways once she pointed him to the small convenience store she usually went to whenever she was at Grand Metropolis for one reason or another. He ended up buying a handful of bags of chips, some microwave popcorn packets and a grape soda for Wave.
After some fussing with his phone's GPS app, Jet had arrived at Wave's apartment once again. He could hear loud music and singing coming from the other side of the door, so he made sure to knock extra loudly. Even through the noise, he was able to hear the sound of some very heavy footsteps coming his way. Whoever they had over must have made Wave really upset for her to stomp like that.
"Open up, it's me! I know I'm late but give me a break! I brought… chips?"
That was definitely not Wave.
Glowing optics stared down at him, shining in a deep red much like the thing's broad metallic chest and arms. It had black on its shoulder plates, abdomen and feet. A mechanical clawed hand wrapped around his waist and threw him inside the room before he could even open his beak to scream.
He was thrown at the side of living room couch with just enough force to make his vision go dark for a second. When he came back to his senses, the metallic monster was right in front of him. Jet stared down into the black void of where the thing's hand used to be. He could hear the faint humming of machinery getting louder and louder. All he could do was brace himself for impact and hope whatever kind of bullet was coming his way missed his vitals.
Pop!
While the burst did make his ears start ringing, he was very pleased to find out that the particles hovering around him were not the pulverized and shredded remains of his skin and feathers – but, in fact, multicolored confetti.
"The chips have arrived." A robotic voice emerged from Omega's speakers. Wave, Rouge and Shadow looked down at Jet from the couch with varying levels of concern.
"The chips are probably crushed by this point, you big dummy." Rouge let out a sign and got up from the chair to retrieve the contents of Jet's grocery bag, which were now scattered across the room. She handed over the soda to Wave.
"Hey, thanks Jet!" Was all Wave said before taking a sip. Shadow was considerate enough to reach for the controller and pause the karaoke session.
"You didn't need to throw him so hard, Omega." Shadow commented, though it felt like he did so more out of politeness than legit concern for Jet.
"That is the lowest amount of force I can exert."
Wave and Rouge went back to singing before confirming the hawk was still alive and well. As well as he could be after all that. Shadow helped him up and brought him to a spare bedroom, closing the door behind him before laying him down on the bed.
"…Do I need to perform first aid?" Shadow could not identify any external injuries on Jet, and a quick scanning of his chaos energy proved nothing was wrong on the inside either.
"…'m fine." He stuffed an extra pillow over his face. That hurt like hell and he didn't want Shadow to see him tearing up. Not when they had important business to discuss.
"Shadow I need you to help me ask Sonic out."
He didn't hear anything besides faint breathing sounds coming from the hedgehog. He couldn't see Shadow's expression with that pillow on his face, but he could vaguely imagine the amount of confusion it probably contained.
"…I'm calling an ambulance just in case."