Chapter 22

"They did it," Amy said suddenly, her eyes going wide and her hand flying to her throat, breathing in quickly.

Sonic reached for her, thinking she was about to collapse again.

"No, it's okay," she shook her head. "And don't ask me how I know. I can just…tell. Mephiles is gone, at least for now."

"Thank God," Sonic sighed. "I'm going to have to ask them how they did that, because he was kicking our asses when we left."

"I hope they're not upset with me for leaving in the middle of a fight," Amy spoke, concern weaving its way through her voice. "Maybe I should have stayed."

"If you'd stayed, Blaze would be dead right now," he replied with a curt nod. "We made a choice. They'll be okay with it. Besides, it all turned out okay."

"Yeah, I guess so," Amy murmured, looking at the floor. She felt unsettled.

"Amy… it did turn out okay, right?" Sonic prodded, looking at her curiously.

"I think it did," she winced, rubbing her throat. "It's just… I don't know. I'll get used to it, but it's a weird feeling, having something else inside of me."

She realized how that could be construed at the same time he did, and they both flushed bright red.

"Oh, you know what I mean," she redirected, frustratedly. "If you make a sex joke right now I'll actually cut one of your hands off."

Sonic held up aforementioned hands in protest. "No sex jokes from me. I'm offended that you would assume that."

She gave him a pointed look.

"Fair enough," he conceded. "We can ask Blaze for some advice when she gets back. If anyone knows that feeling, it's her."

"We can just go sit if you're tired," Silver offered.

"Are you kidding?" Blaze had a small smile on her face. "I know it's selfish, and I'm still upset with Amy, but I'm finally not in pain."

"You have no idea how happy I am about that," Silver hugged her, resting his chin on the top of her head. "And if anyone else can keep Iblis in check, it's Amy. She's almost as badass as you."

"She's more badass than me," Blaze laughed. "That girl is a force of nature."

"How long do you think until she and Sonic get together?" Silver questioned knowingly.

"I give it about ten more minutes," she joked. "And then maybe we stay out of the shack for a while after that."

"God, I love you," Silver grinned, kissing her sweetly, pulling her body fully into his. She sighed into the kiss, melting against him, the end of her tail flickering playfully with flames. They pulled apart reluctantly, pressing their foreheads together. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"What?"

"It means," he smirked, "now I don't have to go so easy on you anymore in training." With a taunting laugh, he jogged away from her, towards the beach.

"Oh, you so were not going easy on me," Blaze hollered after him, chasing to catch up to him because, finally, she could.

"Ow, ow, ow," Rouge muttered, hissing through her teeth as Knuckles inspected her wing, as gently as a guy who was built like a tank could. "I swear to God, next time I get my hands on Mephiles…"

"Thanks to the three of you, that's not going to be for a long, long time," Knuckles grinned with relief. "You kicked his ass."

Rouge snickered. "We did, didn't we? Sticks especially. It was quick thinking on her part."

"Looks like you tore clear through your wing," Knuckles observed. "It'll heal on its own, but I'm going to have Tails wrap it up and you won't be flying for a while."

"Super," she muttered.

Knuckles came around and sat in front of her. "For what it's worth, it could have been much worse. You know, if you weren't such an ass-kicker."

"Yeah, well, I got the least of it," she winced, her torn wing folding in tightly against her back and her right wing flaring out to its full length to compensate for the loss. She glanced back at it, raising her eyebrows as if to say seriously, you can't keep yourself calm just this once? "I'm pretty sure Shadow broke every bone in existence and a few new ones we haven't discovered yet. And Amy…" she trailed off, realizing that she had almost forgotten what her friend had been doing while she was fighting. "Oh, Mobius, I forgot about Amy. Is she… she's not…"

"She made it through," Knuckles assured her, and Rouge almost fell over with relief. "It was touch-and-go for a while, but they transferred Iblis successfully and she's recovering. Blaze is doing fine, too."

"Thank God," Rouge sighed, putting a hand to her chest. "So that's why we were able to defeat Mephiles."

"Well, that, and you guys have some serious pent-up aggression going on," Knuckles smirked. "Seriously, remind me to never get on your bad side."

"Well, as I recall," she began, wincing in pain, "you did promise to take me to dinner. You going to back out on me?"

"Not a chance," he grinned, a real, genuine smile that made Rouge a little weak in the knees. "Soon as Tails gets you fixed up, you're coming out with me. And you know I know how to have fun."

"That, I don't doubt," she laughed.

The two of them turned as the large metal doors to the workshop creaked open, and Tails came in, carrying Sticks, who looked positively murderous.

"I swear to God, next time I get-"

"Your hands on Mephiles? I feel you," Rouge finished sympathetically. "How's the collarbone?"

"Broken," Tails affirmed. "Extremely broken. Lucky for you ladies, I happen to be pretty decent at this sort of thing."

"Yeah, well, that's not the only thing you're decent at," Sticks muttered under her breath, but Tails heard, his face immediately flaming red, and almost choked. Sticks chuckled at his reaction. "Oh, relax, Rouge got it out of me already."

"As much as I love her, she's never been the best at keeping secrets," Rouge snickered. Knuckles furrowed his crimson brow, looking confused.

"Did I miss something?" he asked, glancing between the badger and the kitsune.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sticks deadpanned, her eyes glinting mischievously. Tails coughed nervously, his twin tails fluttering gently in circles behind him, ready to make a quick getaway if necessary.

Rouge cast a sideways glance at him, winking. "I'll fill you in later."

"OKAY," Tails said loudly, making Sticks dissolve into laughter. "As much as I'm enjoying this competition of who can make who the most uncomfortable, I'm supposed to be working miracles here!"

Sticks opened her mouth to fire off another innuendo, but he glared at her and she immediately pressed her lips together, trying her hardest not to snort.

A few minutes later, Sticks had her arm wrapped tightly against her body, in the proper position so that her collarbone could begin the healing process on its own. Rouge had her entire left wing bandaged tightly down against her back, much for the same purpose. Her right wing kept flitting uncertainly, as if wondering where its partner went. Rouge and Knuckles had quickly filled Sticks in on Amy's condition to help distract her from the pain as Tails set her broken bone.

"I still can't believe her," Sticks shook her head. "Of all the dumb things to do…"

"Brave," Knuckles corrected. "Dumb, but extremely brave."

"I bet Sonic wants to kill her right now," Tails muttered, stitching up a particularly deep cut on Sticks' outer left thigh.

"If he does, I'll kill him first," Rouge narrowed her eyes.

"You really don't like him, do you?" Knuckles questioned.

"Amy told me the stories. I know enough about him to know I don't trust him," she replied, clenching her fists.

"Sonic's not a bad guy," Tails sighed. "He's just… misguided sometimes. And I'll be the first to admit that he's not great with major life decisions. He spooks easily."

"You have to say that about him, you're his best friend," Sticks pointed out.

"That doesn't mean it's not true," he replied. "Come on, we all used to be best friends."

"I guess part of it is that we've all just been separated for so long," she sighed. "It's been, what, six years now?"

"Well, I just met most of you people," Rouge quipped. "So I don't have that excuse."

"He changed a lot after Amy left," Knuckles told her. "He grew up real quick. Learned he couldn't treat people like crap and expect them to still be around when he woke up the next morning. And yeah, he did treat her badly, but he also missed her every day she was gone. Never even looked at anyone else."

"That's… sort of sweet," Rouge conceded begrudgingly. Knuckles grinned at her, and she glared in response. "I said sort of!"

"Well, I think you two are about as put back together as you'll ever be," Tails nodded. "But if I see anybody training, or fighting, or otherwise engaged in combat, I'm going to come after you."

"Pretty sure I can outrun you if I had to," Sticks teased.

"In your dreams," he snickered.

"I'm going to take Rouge back to Amy's place to check things out. Are you two coming?" Knuckles asked, gingerly helping the bat up off the table she had been sitting on and subtly taking her hand in the process. Rouge immediately blushed.

"We'll be along in a minute. I need to talk to the genius over here," Sticks gestured, pointing a thumb at the fox. Knuckles nodded and the two of them made their way out of the workshop, but not before Rouge glanced back and winked at Sticks, who made a shooing motion with her good hand.

The doors creaked shut behind them, and Sticks and Tails were left alone now.

"If this is about the whole 'who can outrun who' thing, we both know-" Tails began, but she quickly silenced him, pushing herself off the table and sitting down next to him on his workbench.

"Shut up for a second," she grinned.

"That's not very nice-"

She put a hand up to his mouth. "I'm trying to thank you, you dumbass!"

"Thank me for what?" Tails replied, pushing her hand away.

"For coming after us," she continued. "Well, twice, I guess. We would have been stuck in that cave for all eternity if it wasn't for you. And just now, well, I guess we would have had the worst walk back from the beach in existence. So thank you, you know, for being there and all that." Suddenly embarrassed, she felt her face heat up and glanced down at her lap, realizing that one of her pant legs had been torn completely through up to her knee.

"Sticks, getting sentimental on me? I never thought I'd see the day," Tails chuckled.

"Yeah, I don't get sentimental because when I do, you guys get all-" she started to argue, but Tails cut her off by squeezing her hand.

"I'm just messing with you. Of course I'll always be there. Don't you know that by now?" He grinned at her and scratched his left ear sheepishly.

"I have to leave," she burst out suddenly, and he looked confused and taken aback. "Sorry," she explained. "It's just that, you know, our assignment is complete. Which means that they're expecting me to go back with them. And if I do, I won't be here, which means…"

"Of course you have to go," Tails replied. "I wouldn't expect anything else. You've got a pretty badass career now, and who'd want to walk away from that?"

"But…" Sticks trailed off, still refusing to meet his gaze.

"But what?"

"I… I don't know if I want to leave you again," she confessed, mortified.

"Who said you had to?" he teased. "From what I hear, GUN is always looking for tech nerds like me."

She looked up at him incredulously, her blue eyes going wide. "You're kidding."

"Nope," he smiled. "I love Boom Beach, but at some point I've got to move on, you know? And I can't think of a better reason."

"You are the best," Sticks laughed, tackling him with a koala hug and knocking them both off the workbench. They landed in a familiar position, with her on her knees on top of him.

"Why must you always insist on knocking me over?" he chuckled, propping himself up on his elbows, blushing slightly as her long brown hair, which had long since come out of its pigtails, brushed his shoulders.

"Because I know you secretly love it," she giggled, supporting herself with her good arm.

"You got me," he conceded, pulling her in so she was on his lap and closing the distance between them finally.

This wasn't like their other kisses, which had been desperate and heated. This was a slow, sweet, romantic kiss, one that seemed like it wasn't going to end anytime soon. Sticks smiled slightly as she wound her legs around his waist, both out of habit and to support herself due to the fact that she only had one good arm. He kissed back, his arms wrapped firmly around her back and waist, his tails brushing her legs every few seconds like they just couldn't contain themselves. Breaking the kiss, he buried his face in her neck, trailing it up and down with his lips, breathing in the whole of her.

"We gotta go check on Amy," Sticks said breathlessly, making no attempt to pull away. Whatever Tails was doing felt too good.

"In a minute," Tails replied, his voice muffled by her fur.