"Actually, you don't need to thank you, you should thank..."
After Amy had hung up the phone when the conversation started, she began to think about what Rouge had started saying. Shadow's family and her own would never help her with this scandal, even if they were behind her one hundred percent. She herself was a new actress in the industry. Most of the crew made fun of her, and her only friends were third rate celebrities. So, the only person who could have been high enough to go to Rouge for help and her willingly accept would have been Shadow. At the thought of it, Amy shivered. While it looked like Rouge posted that to clear things up, she had used her celebrity influence to stir up the conversation. This way, not only did it help her, but it also bashed the person who spread the news in the first place. Amy clenched her heart harder, not understanding why Shadow of all people would have gone to Rouge for help. After all, he said his company would not bail or help her out if anything happened, so why was this happening? She sat up sighing desperately, and Cream gave her a weird look.
"Everything okay Amy?"
"No, I keep having this feeling that Shadow had something to do with Rouge helping me out." Amy confessed, putting a pink quill behind her ear as she looked down at her knees.
"Well, the controversy brought Shadow's name down right? Maybe he only asked Rouge to help clear your name, as it would help clear his too." Cream suggested this, then looked at the clock. It was almost midnight, and Amy had a shoot in the morning. "We should sleep Amy, and be grateful that Miss Rouge was able to help us out." Cream yawned and laid down in her bed. Amy nodded.
"I'm going to shower first." Amy said. She went and hopped in the shower quickly, rinsing her hair and her body, before jumping out just as fast. She wrapped herself in a towel, and walked out of the bathroom to go get clothes when there was a knock at her door. Cream popped her head up, "Amy, will you get that?" The pink hedgehog nodded and opened the door.
Shadow stood on the other side of the door. Amy's green eyes widened and she went to speak but nothing came out. She just stood there starring at him with a towel wrapped around her body and some shower shoes. All that was showing were her shoulders and her legs, from feet to upper thigh. Because of the shower she took, her face was a bit red also. Shadow assumed the worst as his eyes narrowed and he took in her features.
"Amy, who is it?" Cream asked as she walked to the door rubbing her eyes. Cream realized who had been staring at Amy, and stood up politely to great them, despite wanting to punch his face from how he was eye balling her pink friend. "Mr. Shadow, how can we help you?"
Shadow blinked, realized he was being talked to, and nodded. He held out the papers in his hands and handed them to Amy, who clutched the towel around her body closer to her chest. "Sign this contract that we talked about." Amy nodded, took the papers, and went to walk over to the nearest desk to sign it. Shadow eyed her body as she walked. Cream took notice of this.
"Mr. Shadow, would you like to come in for a moment?" He quickly shook his head no. He held a calm posture as he continued to let his eyes stare at Amy. Cream felt it would be polite to leave him standing at the door, so she stood there awkwardly with him as he continued to look at her client like a piece of meat. Amy was standing over at the desk, one hand on her towel to keep it from falling, the other writing and signing on the document. The towel had already been short standing up, so when she bent down Shadow could see her entire upper thighs. Once he saw a piece of her ass, he turned away quickly and stared out the empty hallway.
Amy looked over the contract, making sure she had signed everything correctly, than stood up from the desk and walked back over to Shadow. She handed him the papers, "Here ya go."
Shadow didn't even look at her. He snatched the papers from her coldly as he walked away and down the hallway. After about two seconds, he turned back, and went to their door that they were still standing at. "Don't just stand here naked with the door open." Then slammed it shut loudly as he left, leaving the two friends to stare at each other questioningly.
The next morning Amy had a shoot with Rouge and Sally. Amy kept thinking about something she had asked Shadow. When she had asked him for the variety show deal, she had asked for it on purpose. As of late, it had been Sally's best form of publicity. Now that she had taken it from the squirrel, she just needed to reveal it to Sally somehow, and luckily that mornings shoot would be the perfect time.
In the show Amy was in, Rouge's character and Sally's character were love rivals while Amy's character was an old friend of Rouge's. Today's scene would be with all three characters. The scene describes a moment where Rouge and Amy meet up for coffee and they happen to bump into Sally. A verbal disagreement comes between Sally and Rouge, and Amy only stares in the background watching behind the bat. The scene would be shot from a nice little cafe scene the crew had put together last minute. When the camera man filmed the first part of Rouge's scene, Amy and Sally stood off to one side, waiting for their signal. However, Cream was also beside Amy, and was furious at having to be standing near Sally. She turned her head to Amy, acting innocently, "Amy," She whispered, "Who do you think spread those awful rumors about you? Who could be so vile?"
Amy smiled at Cream, "It could have been anyone" She knew what her rabbit friend was playing and decided to play along, "We should thank whoever did it though. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be trending on the top ten for every social media site right now." Sally felt a vein pop in her temple as she over heard the two discuss this.
"You're right Amy, you went from just a few thousand follows on twitter last night to almost a few million!" Cream said excitedly. She pulled out her phone and opened twitter, showing it to Amy, "Look, you're about to reach ten million."
Amy smiled and said nothing else, she figured the rest would say what it needed to. Sally's mood had been particularly bad for the past few days, and it irritated her even more that her rival would be going up instead of going down in popularity, after the photos she took.
"But no, that bat had to go in and ruin it. I worked SO hard to end Amy's career, and instead I ended up boosting it."
On top of this, the squirrel had received a call saying she no longer was the guest on the talk show. Someone had ended up taking her place and she was furious about that, and now Amy and Cream were boasting about the hedgehog's new popularity. She had to sleep with many a people to get on this show, and now she was being replaced by someone she didn't even know. In the end, she slept with a whole bunch of fat men for nothing.
She was shocked out of her thoughts as the director motioned for Amy to come onto the set. She watched the hedgehog move onto the scene with a friendly smile on her face, as she sat down with Rouge as the cameras rolled and the two pretended to be excited and talk about their week as scripted. They shared a few words before it was Sally's turn to enter the stage. The three of them didn't see each other for a few lines, and then Rouge's character had to go to the bathroom. When she went in, she ran into Sally's character. Sally's character fired the shots first, furious as Rouge's character replied with light heated come backs. At that moment, Amy walked over and greeted Sally, trying to cool down the situation. Sally was supposed to ignore Amy as if she wasn't important, and keep yelling at Rouge. However, Amy wanted revenge. She stepped up and greeted Sally, with the same smile she had on earlier when she was talking to Cream. This cause Sally to think unclear as she shot the pink hedgehog a deadly glare.
"CUT!"
Everyone jumped and was out of character for a moment, as they looked at an irritated Knuckles, "Sally, you are supposed to be glaring at Rouge, not Amy!"
"I-I'm sorry, director..." Sally confessed and apologized, "I'll try not to mess up."
"It's fine. Let's go again in ten, everyone take this time to take a breather."
The scene wasn't supposed to be an important scene. Knuckles had hoped to have it done and over with in one take. This is why he gave everyone ten minutes to get it together so they could move on. However, Amy saw it as an important scene, one she would use to get revenge on the squirrel. Amy smiled, took a bottle of water, and headed straight for Sally. She opened up the bottle and held it out for her as the other crew members watched the exchange. Sally looked at Amy as she approached.
"Have some water." Amy said this sweetly, and everyone smiled at how sweet she was being, and then went back to their normal duties. Sally didn't take the water, instead she looked right at Amy with a straight face, "What do you want?"
"I know you took the photo's and posted them." Amy said with a sweeter smile and a gentler tone. "I just thought I would thank you for making me more famous, so I brought you a bottle."
Sally balled her fists, but kept herself calm. She swiped the bottle quickly, "Thank you." And started walking away from the pinkette. But oh no, Amy was not done yet. She walked next to Sally with an even bigger smile on her face.
"That variety show that asked you to guest star cancelled on you, didn't they?" Amy asked with a curious and sweet face. Sally slowed down her steps, taking a gulp as she turned her head slightly to the hedgehog, "How did you know?"
Amy smiled sweetly, patting Sally's shoulder quickly and encouragingly,
"Because the spot of guest host now belongs to me. I took it on purpose." Amy smiled even brighter, and skipped off and away to her manager, while Sally had stopped walking and stared at Amy's retreating figure with fury in her eyes.
"That bitch."
Rouge had watched the exchange from afar. To the rest of the crew members, it looked like a friendly exchange. To Rouge, there were flames dancing between the two. She smirked, a thought popping into her mind. Her eyes glanced around the room to look for a certain figure, but alas he was not there since he had no scenes to shoot today. She grinned and pulled out her phone.
"Shadow, there is a conflict between Amy and Sally happening on set right now."
The scene was being redone now. Rouge was still in the perfect stance she was when the first take had happened. Amy however, her spirits and composure were higher now because of what had just happened. Knuckles nodded as this went about and was satisfied with their behavior. He turned to Sally and motioned for her to enter. Sally was furious, so furious that she hadn't even been paying attention. Knuckles motioned for her to enter again, and she still did nothing. Her manager got a bit nervous and gently pushed her forward, and that's when Sally snapped out of it. She walked forward onto the scene and they got up until the moment where Amy once again greets Sally's character. And just like the first time, Sally had viciously stared at Amy.
"CUT CUT CUT!" Knuckles yelled and Sally shot her eyes up to look at him, a bit worried. "Sally, where is your mind right now? The same mistake? Why did you get it wrong TWICE? You are SUPPOSED to be glaring at Rouge, NOT Amy! This scene is so simple, why is this so hard for you?"
Sally got yelled at and it made her flustered. She knew this mistake was on her though and apologized. Knuckles waved his hand, not caring for her apologies. He told make up to come touch up their faces just in case. Rouge smirked at what had happened. She saw Shadow enter the room from afar, oh boy was this going to get interesting. He saw her and approached, so Rouge dispersed the make up team as they all left.
"Shadow, you arrived quicker than I thought." She whispered. "Your hair is a mess and... are you sweating?"
Shadow ignored her as he focused his eyes on Amy who was sitting next to Cream. She was smiling and laughing. There was no conflict on her face. In that instant, Shadow realized he had been played by Rouge. He turned to leave and Rouge laughed, "No, Shadow wait." She stood next to Shadow and looked around cautiously to make sure there were no other ears listening in, "I didn't trick you. She and Sally did get into a quarrel after a break due to Sally's careless acting. But from what I could tell Amy won the conflict. But I'm sure that after this shooting is done, Sally will try to get back at her."
Shadow stopped walking at hearing this, and Rouge smirked then turned around and ran back to set as Knuckles called for her. Shadow sighed and stood near the set and watched what would unfold. It seemed as if the conflict really worsened Sally's mood. Amy would just smile at her right before she went on set, and it would make Sally worse than before. They had to retake so many times, finally Knuckles was tired of it.
"Cut! Sally, can you still even act! This scene is so simple, I don't know how you continue to mess it up!"
"CUT! Sally, I've told you before to ignore Amy! Do you know what the word IGNORE means!?"
"CUT! Sally I can't understand your words, you're mumbling!"
"CUT! Amy didn't even say a thing to you and you jumped your lines too soon!"
People around them started whispering complaints.
"What's wrong with her? This is so simple, even I could do it."
"From the start of the series, we've never had to do so many retakes."
"Does she really have any acting skills? She can't even compare to a newbie like Amy, how is she second leading actress in the country under Rouge?"
"Everyone here is wasting time for her. We are going to be here late shooting."
Retake after retake, it began to become too much to the point that Knuckles threw his microphone to the floor. The entire set fell silent. His face was as red as his coat. He didn't move his lips, just glared at Sally, and held up one finger. One last chance. Perhaps it was because this was her last chance, but for that last scene she forced herself to not make any mistakes and she succeeded. Finally, the shooting came to an end. He let out a sigh, "Pass. Let's move on."
Sally let out a sigh of relief when she realized she still had a job. Her legs gave way and she leaned on the table at the back of the cafe. This was the worst moment of her entire acting career. Sally let out a sigh, that was until she heard a cold voice speak to Knuckles.
"Knuckles, when did your standards become so low?"
Knuckles was so frustrated with the shooting on set, he hadn't even seen Shadow approach from the back. He turned his head to meet Shadow's fiery red gaze. Shadow gazed at the three women on set, then walked over to the monitor. Amy froze also, she had no idea Shadow had been there either. She looked over at Rouge with a curious look, who returned her look with a grin and a pat on the back, "I invited him here to see Sally's little show..." Rouge whispered quietly.
Knuckles stood up instantly and addressed him, "Shadow."
Shadow turned the monitor on, and replayed all of the scenes. His eyebrows furrowed even more as he turned back to Knuckles, "Sally's acting skills are crap. Why have you never mentioned it to me before? I didn't put money into this series for you to make a mockery out of it." His eyes shot towards Sally, "Anyone on the street can act better than her."
Sally paled and Amy grinned at Rouge, realizing what she had done. "Nice job." She whispered back to the bat. Knuckles nodded to Shadow's commentary, "Would you like us to go on with the shoot, and let Sally compose herself and then let her try again?"
To Be Continue
