Fanfiction is property of Josh Kovatch, 2009.

For those of you that are reading this today, I thank you for being so patient with me. I am terribly sorry that this took over four months to finish. I know that, since the last chapter, some of you might have given up on reading my fics. I can't blame you, but like I said, to those of you still here, thank you. Anyway, here is, finally, the next chapter to Best of Friends! Enjoy!

Sonic and Amy

Best of Friends

Chapter 5: Big Little Planet

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Man, how much farther could it be to Amy?

Sonic had been traveling over a small plain, coming from Quartz Quadrant, and was now heading for a large structure up ahead. His mind only thought of Amy now, trying to figure out where she could be. He knew that, in order to find out, he'd have to keep going, through all of the obstacles in his way.

With that, he ran through the opening to the structure, and stopped.

Wow, Tails would like this place.

Sonic looked up and around the new place, looking at the marvelous innards of this structure. It was basically a workshop, but on a grand scale. Support chains 100 feet long hung from the ceiling. Workspace abound in all directions, the place looked more like a hangar than a workshop. However, it was extremely high-tech. Platforms floated around the air above him, allowing people to transport their cargo or themselves across the air. It was definitely a place for large projects.

But Sonic shook his head now, knowing he didn't have any mechanical projects to do right now. He ran up a ramp and looked forward, seeing a checkered floor running all the way to the other side of the workshop. There were only a few doors he'd have to go through.

This'll be a piece of cake.

However, as he began to run on this checkered floor, it suddenly began to light up. Before he knew it, his feet had been pushed off the floor.

"WHOA!! What the?!"

Now, the floor was a massive trampoline, apparently a device to lift heavy objects gone haywire. Large beams of metal lifted from the floor, forming what seemed like a bridge across towards the first door. As Sonic reached the peak of his own ascent, he looked back down at the beams, and tried to steer himself towards one. Once he had fallen back down, he landed on one of the beams, which then hit the ground and was sent up into the air once again. He was able to stay on it, and he looked to the beam ahead of him. With a quick jump, he reached it and fell back down with it.

One beam at a time, Sonic traversed the workshop. But as he was nearing the first door, jumping towards the next to last beam, he slipped from the one he was jumping from, not getting a good push off, and he fell towards the floor again.

Uh oh, up I go!

Sonic hit the ground and was sent high into the air, flying up past the beams and up into the cloud of platforms floating across the sky. With a little steering, Sonic was able to land on one of the platforms and look down upon the workshop below.

This wacky workbench is going to take some time to get through...

Speaking of wacky...

Back in Metallic Madness, Eggman returned to his lab, greeted once again by silence. He looked back to the monitors and saw that Sonic was now in Wacky Workbench.

"Hmm... With as difficult as it is to get through there on foot, Sonic might be out of my hair for good. But I still have to worry about that metal version of him."

Indeed, Metal Sonic was still gone, and the broken cameras in Stardust Speedway gave away that he was there, waiting to spring a trap on Sonic or himself.

"Well, Metal Sonic, maybe I can do away with both you and Sonic if he gets there," Eggman plotted in his mind.

At yet another section of the Little Planet, Metal Sonic was still perched atop a structure, looking down upon the Speedway and waiting for his organic counterpart to arrive. Behind him, Amy, who was still out thanks to Metal Sonic, was tied up around her upper arms, her bonds keeping her tightly attached to the pole Metal Sonic had tied her to. But then, Amy's eyes began to twitch, and they fluttered open. Though she was still in a daze, she was soon aware that she couldn't move. She shook her head and moaned softly, getting the attention of Metal Sonic.

He turned to her and said mockingly, "I hope you don't mind your accomodations. It was all I could do at such short notice."

Amy looked at him and shook her head again, and then told him, "You might have me stuck here, but you won't keep me here. Sonic is going to come and save me!"

Metal Sonic turned full on to her and groaned.

"Ugh... Is that all you think about? It's growing REALLY tiresome..."

Amy, however, persisted, "You know you're not going to win! I'm going to get out of here with Sonic, and there's nothing you can-"

THWACK!

"OWW!!"

Amy's face went to one side with the hit, her eyes shutting reflexively, and Metal Sonic stared coldly at Amy, hissing with evil dripping from his voice, "If you say one more thing, I will turn that pink face red. And I mean bloody red."

Amy looked at Metal Sonic again, fearfully, and he turned and went back to staring off into the distance. The sharp stinging mark on Amy's face caused glistening, soft tears to roll down her cheeks, and she thought to herself, Please, Sonic, I need you.

Back in the present, Sonic's arms closed more tightly around Amy, and he said warmly to her, "I wish I could've been there sooner... I can't bear to hear you were hurt."

Amy hugged Sonic back, so deeply in love with this caring hedgehog. Sonic looked at Amy with soulful eyes, and then gently turned Amy's head to the side. He leaned forward and placed his lips against her cheek, the one that had been slapped. He held his kiss in place, wishing that he could take the slap away from her memory, but he heard a soft sob come from Amy. He leaned back and looked at Amy, then, and saw that she was crying like before. But this time, a beautiful smile on her face caressed Sonic's eyes and heart, and she said to him, "Oh Sonic... This is why I love you. You make me feel so happy..."

She sobbed again, closing her eyes, and Sonic then put his hands on her face gently. Amy opened her eyes again, and Sonic smiled at her, saying, "And I love you for the same reason."

The two gazed into each other's shining eyes, and Sonic gently ran his hand through Amy's soft quills, pressing his lips against hers again, wanting to pour out all this affection he felt for her. He loved her so much, as she did him. Her soft sigh against him made him want to cry. He never knew such a pure and beautiful soul such as hers, and he wanted to stay with her forever.

When they broke their tender kiss, they only hugged each other tightly again, tears flowing again from both of them. After a moment, Amy pulled Sonic back to lay with her, and she kissed him on the cheek now.

"Thank you, Sonic," she whispered, nuzzling his face with her own. And they lay warmly together now, and continued the story.

Up in the sky still, back in time, Sonic looked down at the checkered floor and knew he'd do better by using the platforms in the sky. So, with quick hops, he moved from one platform to the next, going towards the first door in this workshop. However, the last platform he reached was too far up, and he'd have to jump down and try to land on another platform, which was moving in and out of the doorway.

So, with a brave jump, he headed for the platform. With great timing, Sonic landed right on the platform going through the doorway.

"YES!!" Sonic cheered, throwing his arms up in the air. But at that moment, his arms suddenly lost all their feeling and became incredibly heavy. He looked back up at his arms and saw they were frozen!

"WHAT?! How did that happen?!" Sonic cried out, his arms falling to the platform he was standing on. But then, the platform went back the way it came, into the first room, and he suddenly felt his entire body freeze.

"Why is this happening?!"

But Sonic found out when he started going back towards the next room. Up in the ceiling of this doorway was what looked like a jet engine, but it was blowing out an extremely cold air. He had no other options but to let the jet freeze his head, encasing him in ice. But then, his body became too heavy for the platform, and he suddenly fell off, heading for the checkered floor in the next room. By a stroke of luck, however, when he was thrown into the air again, he missed all of the other platforms and instead crashed into the ceiling just right. The ice on his body shattered, and he was virtually unscathed. He fell back to towards the ground, but was able to land on one of the platforms before then.

With a seemingly firm ground beneath him, Sonic quickly pumped his arms and ran in place.

"AHHHH!!! Cold cold cold cold cold cold!"

After a minute, Sonic's body warmed up again, and he ran his hand through his fur and quills, pushing out the frost and ice shards still on him. Finally, he sighed, and thought, I have to be more careful. This place is getting more and more dangerous.

With that in mind, Sonic began to jump once again towards the next doorway.

But then, as he jumped for another moving platform, he realized as he came down upon it that it was spinning. When he landed, his momentum was thrown off and he lost his balance.

"WHOA WHOA!!!"

He fell off the platform down towards the checkered floor again and was tossed high into the air again. This time, however, he flew into a thicket of pipes, each with weird coiling around them. He reached the peak of his ascent and then reached for one of these pipes, grabbing it and holding on to see where he could go next. But then, before he found another platform to go to, he heard a humming sound. He looked around at the pipes and realized, in horror, that he was holding on to an electrical wire. He let go immediately and fell just as the wires became electrified. He felt the electricity in the air, frizzing his fur and causing his ears to buzz loudly. Fortunately, he fell through the wires without touching any of them, and descended towards a platform that was moving closer to the next door.

Once he had landed, Sonic looked back up and said, "Man, first frozen, then almost fried... I've gotta find Amy soon."

With a few more jumps, he passed through the second door and found stable ground. He finally dropped and sat down to take a breather, when all of a sudden, a monitor rose out of the ground near him. He looked at it warily, and then angrily when he saw Eggman's face appear on the screen.

"EGGMAN!"

The arrogant scientist chuckled and replied, "Well, Sonic, shaken by that hair-raising situation, are we?"

"Not a chance! You know I won't give up!"

Eggman shook his head and answered, "Too bad, it would probably save you a lot of pain. But oh well, it's your funeral. I'll make sure of it!!"

At that moment, Eggman disappeared, and Sonic clenched his fist.

I'll get you, Eggman, and I'll save Amy. You can count on it.

So, with that, he moved on, down a tunnel with only a speck of light at the end. Even for Sonic's speed, the tunnel seemed to stretch onwards forever, and soon, the hedgehog stopped and realized that it must be an illusion. He looked around, then, and noticed, once he had stopped, that the walls were moving still. He was moving backwards!

Ah, I get it.

Sonic then built up some speed and realized the conveyor belt under his feet would increase in speed as his feet pushed off of it. So, with a jump, Sonic then decided to use the wall as his floor. Immediately, he ran faster and used his momentum to keep him attached to the wall. Now the light was coming closer, and he realized he would reach it in no time. But just before he got there, the light disappeared, and a wall suddenly came out of nowhere.

"WHOA!!!"

Just able to stop in time, Sonic stopped just short of the wall, and looked to see that the rest of the tunnel was now extremely small, too small for him to run in, and he knew that if he crawled, it would take him forever to make it to the other side.

"Great, now what?"

Frustrated, the blue hedgehog sat down to think, when all of a sudden, he was propelled forward into the tunnel, going just as fast as before.

"What the?! What's happening?!"

Sonic quickly looked down to see that he had inadvertently sat on a rocket propelled sled, and he was making great time through the tunnel.

"Well, that problem's solved! Now I'll just sit back and-- AHHHHH!!!!!!"

That was what Sonic said as the sled came to a sudden stop and sent him flying out into another open hangar. He was tumbling through the air, but he quickly righted himself and looked forward to see a platform he could land on. He landed just right on the platform, one that wasn't moving, and looked ahead to see a shocking sight. Literally.

"Wow, better stay out of that."

In front of him lie a huge electrical field, coating the ground underneath a stairway of moving platforms. He knew the only way on was to jump up to each platform, and by all means, avoid falling.

OK, here it goes.

As the first platform came down to Sonic's level, he jumped and landed on it, allowing it to take him up into the air. Then, the next platform met with his, and he jumped to this one. Up and up, the hedgehog made his way to the top of this stairway. But then, as he was nearly at the top, he jumped to the next platform, only to suddenly find it start spinning under his feet.

"UH OH!! WHOA!!!!"

Sonic lost his balance for the second time and fell off the side, going towards the electric field that would be his doom. But just before he fell, he struck out his hand and grabbed onto the small rail on the side of the platform. But it proved to be one doozy of a ride. Not only was the platform spinning him around, but it was now rising up into the air. As gravity tried to end the blue hedgehog, Sonic gritted his teeth and closed his eyes tight, trying to endure the pain from the efforts. His hand was slipping, and he was fingertips away from his final fall, when Amy appeared in his mind.

Then, he seemed to feel a warmness overtake his hands, as Amy put her hand on his, saying, "You're too close to give up, Sonic. Take my hand, and show me that you'd never give up."

Immediately, a second wind flew through Sonic, and, with the warmth from Amy dissolving all the pain in his arm, he pulled himself up and stood on the platform. He looked around, seeing that Amy was no longer here, and he looked down, disappointed. But then, her sweet voice rang out in his head, soothing him, as she said, "We are meant to get out of here together, Sonic. There's no denying it. You're almost there. You can do it!"

Then, Sonic, his bright green eyes full of vigor once again, jumped from the last platform to the top ledge, and he looked back down, smiling, and thought, I know Amy. I will leave here with you, and I promise, it will be with a great feeling in our hearts.

As Sonic continued his journey, the sinister scientist groaned with disappointment.

"Argh... He was so close to falling! What does it take to beat this one hedgehog?!"

Eggman, knowing his time was running short, pushed a button and looked at a schematic for another one of his weapons.

"Well, this will be the last time I have to fight you, Sonic. You're not surviving this!"

Though he knew he had said this before, he left the lab with the same confidence to prepare his attack on the heroic hedgehog.

Speaking of whom, Sonic was then rolling up into a ball and shooting through a tube. He felt himself fall and then begin going around and around. Sonic thought he was going through a coiled tube, but after five minutes of this, he knew that this was not the case.

Though he was spinning at a breakneck pace, he was able to see that, every few seconds, an opening in the tube appeared. Finally, as the opening came back around, he pushed off from the wall into the opening and stopped. Turning around, Sonic saw that he had been on a wheel, which just kept spinning him around until he pushed out of it. Sonic then turned and continued on, only to be faced with yet another deadly challenge.

"Oh man, not more wires..."

In front of Sonic, going every which way, electrical wires, some flowing with electricity already, were going to make Sonic's passage much harder. To go along with that, the checkered floor had returned beneath it, and moving platforms formed a bridge in between the two obstacles.

Well, no better time to start than now!

Quickly, Sonic jumped onto one of the thick wires that wasn't charged and leapt for a platform below. Unfortunately, it changed direction and he fell to the checkered floor again. He was launched once again into the air, up into the net of wires. The first time, he barely missed some live wires, feeling the electricity in his bones. He fell back down and tried for the platform once again. This time, he landed on it, and he watched to see where his next opportunity was. Then, he noticed some tall, rotating orange pillars. They didn't look electrical, so when he got close to one, he jumped for it. He grabbed the pillar and was immediately spun around like a rag doll.

"WHOAAAAAA!!!"

He lost his grip and was sent falling down into the floor again, and he was launched a second time. This time, he hit a live wire.

"AH AH AH AH AH!!!!"

Sonic, however, only convulsed for barely a second, as the wire stopped surging with electricity quickly. Sonic fell back down, drained, but not unconscious. Luckily, he landed on another platform, one going up and down between two of the orange pillars. After a few moments of dazed staring into the sky, Sonic sat up, shook his head, and tested his flexing and standing. Fortunately, the shock Sonic got didn't hurt him, and he wiped his brow with relief.

Man, one more mistake like that, and it's over.

This time, Sonic knew he would have to try to attach himself to the pillar, so, when he leapt for it again, he rolled into a ball again and went as fast as he could, turning according to the rotation. This time, his momentum kept him circling the pillar, and he was able to push off and head for the next one, hitting it exactly. Finally, he leaped off the second pillar and landed on one more platform, amid another tangle of live and dead wires. He was careful this time, and he waited for the wires ahead of him to go out. Finally, when the instant he could jump opened up, he jumped headfirst through the wires, some of them buzzing as he did it. On the other side was a ledge that he landed on, and was finally out of harm's way. For now.

Sonic ran on, jumping down to another ledge, and another. But then, as he started running through another tunnel, the floor suddenly rose up from underneath him.

"Uh oh!"

Sonic was barely able to roll into a small tunnel before the floor he was on reached the ceiling. Ahead of him, Sonic saw another floor going up and down, apparently trying to finish him as well.

As this floor began to go back down, he jumped onto it, and then dove into the next tunnel he saw. But bad luck had to show up sometime. This time, Sonic fell just short of clear of the floor, as it was beginning to go back up, trying to take his feet with him.

"No way! You're not taking those!"

Sonic pushed off the floor with his hands and cleared the crusher completely, saving his obvious favorite part of his body.

Sonic then stood up and smiled, thinking, Not much left to go.

He ran forward, along a long catwalk above the checkered floor. He ran on for some time, and as he did, he noticed the workshop becoming more and more run down. Rust and disuse had set in here, and he saw that the checkered floor beneath him had gone out.

Then, he entered yet another tunnel, and then came out on the other side in a large, tall room. It appeared to be a dead end.

Just then, a door slammed shut behind him, closing the tunnel he had come from.

Oh great. I wonder who THAT could be?

Without further ado, Eggman suddenly popped out of the wall in a large pod. It had a jet engine in the bottom of the pod, and topping it was a huge, nasty drill.

"Hello, Sonic. I must commend. Never had I thought you would make it through this planet so far. But let me make it clear. You're journey ends here! OH HO HO HO!!!"

Sonic obviously thought differently, as he rammed into Eggman's pod as hard as he could.

"AHH! Oh, so that's how you want to play, is it? Well, then, let's go!"

Immediately, Eggman rose up into the air and crashed through the ceiling, drilling through in and causing rocks to fall. Once he had cleared it, several large boulders fell from the hole in the ceiling and hit the ground. But then, Sonic heard something that made his fur stand on end. And would probably do so anyway.

He looked at the wall and saw a device that would create the electrical field from before. He quickly jumped on one of the boulders and the electric field spread out beneath it. He was safe for now, but now he wondered how he would ever get up to the next floor. But then, the checkered floor came to life underneath him, and he was sent up into the air.

"Alright, now we're talking!"

But the rock Sonic was standing on wasn't sent high enough since his weight was pushing it down. He looked at the others rocks then, and saw they were higher than him.

He leapt for one, and then as the rock reached the apex of its ascent, he jumped off and reached the second floor, where Eggman was waiting.

"You'll have to do better than that, Eggman!"

Sonic jumped right at Eggman and crashed into him again.

"URGH!! You! You'll pay for all you've done!"

Eggman, once again, crashed into the ceiling overhead and drilled through it. More boulders fell down and hit the ground around the hole Eggman had made before. Sonic jumped on a boulder once again, and the electric field activated underneath him. The checkered floor lit up once again and shot him into the air. Since the new hole was a bit larger than the first, Sonic wasn't thrown into the ceiling, so he jumped to a second boulder to reach the top and was now on the third floor.

Eggman scowled at Sonic and yelled, "What does it take for you to go down?!"

Sonic replied, "A lot more than what you've dished out!"

For the third time, Sonic rammed once again into Eggman's robot, which was now dented and damaged pretty badly.

"OOOOHHHH!! Now you're gonna get it!"

Eggman, fuming, once again rose into the air to smash through the ceiling. Little did he realize that he was heading for a metal ceiling. When he crashed into it, the ceiling began to shred and shake, but Eggman was not going anywhere.

"WHAT?! Move you stupid piece of junk!!"

But his robot wouldn't move at all. However, he was tearing through the metal ceiling into more rock.

Below, Sonic watched as, this time, a hail of metal pieces came at him. He quickly darted around, avoiding the scraps being flung at him. Eventually, Eggman's ship hit rock, and one more boulder fell down. Sonic, moving through the cloud of metal, jumped onto this boulder and waited to be thrust up into the air. However, just before this happened, the electrical field activated. Just then, one last scrap of metal flew by Sonic, and though it missed, it proved to be even more dangerous.

The metal flew into the electric field beneath him, and suddenly, Sonic jolted with pain and could not move!

"AHHHH!!! AHH AHH!!!!"

The metal had caused the electricity to surge through it and arc into Sonic's arm, sending a massive electrical storm through his body.

Sonic got the full shock for three seconds before the checkered floor sent him flying into the air one last time.

It wasn't all bad though, as Sonic soon found himself as a medium for the electricity as well... To Eggman.

The scientist inside convulsed sharply as the electricity destroyed his machine and deactivated his drill. All at once, everything came to a halt.

As Eggman, his machine, and Sonic all fell back to the ground, the checkered floor and electrical field had both shorted and now everything was off.

Sonic flew off to the side while Eggman's cooked robot crashed and filled in the hole he had just drilled. The glass top popped off and Eggman stepped out of the smoke filled cockpit, wheezing and shaking his head.

"...Electrifying," Eggman said to himself. But then he looked over and saw Sonic. He was unconscious, not moving at all.

Eggman smirked, thinking, So all he needed was a zillion volts of electricity to finally put him down.

Eggman then turned and summoned his pod, in which he flew away, now plotting about how to get rid of Sonic's metal counterpart, contemplating if the same thing that killed Sonic would destroy Metal Sonic.

Eggman left Sonic in the room with his burned out machine. The blue hedgehog was motionless, and most horribly, his heart was not beating...

It appeared to be over, when, from another area of the Little Planet, Amy suddenly felt a sweeping cold overtake her.

Her mouth fell open, silent, and immediately, streams of tears fell from her eyes. Her beautiful green eyes could not stop flowing with hot tears, as her eyes reflected a pain so deep in her bones that she didn't think she could take it.

Sonic... she thought, unable to believe that he could be gone.

Metal Sonic was gone at this time, but even if he were here, nothing would have have stopped her from sobbing. Her shudders and cries were felt in every part of her body. She only stared at the ground, through a film of tears clouding her vision.

You can't be gone... You just can't!

She dropped her head and continued to cry, the tears falling straight to the ground.

"Ple-e-ease," Amy sobbed, her voice barely forming words, as if its most crucial component were missing, "Come b-back to me...."

Then, those powerful feelings permeated the air, and then, back at the cruel place where Sonic lay, those feelings reached, and the air was different.

At that moment, with the last of the electricity that Sonic had absorbed, a jolt built up and went off, surging through Sonic and giving him what he needed to answer that call in the air.

Sonic's heart immediately began pounding, pumping life-giving blood to the heroic hedgehog, and he suddenly jerked awake and upright from the shock.

Across the planet, Amy then suddenly looked up and felt that dreaded feeling that made her blood run cold disappear immediately.

The two could only be still, in silence, trying to hear the other's pulse of love. Sonic put a hand to his heart, shedding a tear of his own, and knew that he had never loved anyone as deeply as he did Amy.

And Amy, her own tears now stopping as warmth took her over, knew that, as long as she lived, she would love Sonic with every drop of her being.

Sonic then stood up and walked through the tunnel that Eggman had just left through two minutes ago, feeling Amy's presence and love in this direction.

There was no other purpose for me to be here than to find my love for you, Amy. I will save you!

With that, Sonic blasted off, running as fast as he could, to find the one he loved once again.