Disclaimer: All non-original characters are property of SEGA, DiC and/or their respective creators.
Inescapable Past, Act 10: The Canary in the Coalmine
Amy Rose caught a braided quill about to hit her in the eye as another gust of wind strafed the grassy knoll she was standing on. She hastily buttoned her flapping purple blazer while her pleated gray skirt billowed in the squall. Narrowing her eyes against the wind, the pink hedgehog looked east. The rolling grasslands of the Emerald Hill Zone stretched out before her all the way to the coast.
Besides a scattering of wind turbines on the tallest hilltops - much like the one beside one - the verdant landscape was practically bare. In other words, exactly as Sally's great-great-grandmother Queen Martina Acorn had intended when she forbade any settlements to be built on the lush grasslands four generations ago. Even GUN had respected the old royal decree: the Trans Metropolitan Highway they'd bulldozed parts of the Great Forest for skirted the Zone's southern boundary.
Once the wind had died down, Amy tucked her red necktie back inside her blazer. She'd seriously thought about taking it off during the last squall, but she wasn't exactly sure how Hershey had tied in the first place. Moreover, she was going to have to get used to it, if only for Cream's sake. Folding her arms, she groaned as the wind abruptly picked up again. For all the natural beauty on show, this was getting tiresome.
Amy glanced down at Shadow. He was propped up against the wind turbine's white steel base, sleeping off his latest Chaos Control. She was tempted to hunker down next to him, if only to get out of the wind. Alas, that would mean not knowing when Espio was on his way back until he climbed up to join them.
The chameleon had gone off on reconnaissance, armed with Rouge's handwritten coordinates and a GPS unit he'd pilfered from the Alicia Acorn Academy geography department. Mindful of the bat's revelation about how GUN were supposedly tracking Shadow, Espio had taken the Chaos Emerald with him. Inconveniently for Amy, it was in the same backpack as her copy of Princess Blaze & The Flames of Disaster in, so sitting down with a book wasn't even an option.
"Looking for me?" asked Espio as the pink hedgehog scanned the horizon in the opposite direction.
She wheeled around, hand on heart, covering the Alicia Acorn Academy crest embroidered on her blazer's left breast pocket. "How did you do that?"
"By training longer than you've been alive."
"R-really?"
The chameleon cocked a brow. "Did you want my backstory, or do you want to hear what I found?"
"Oh, uh, just a second."
Amy crouched down and gently prodded Shadow.
"Rise and shine, sleepy hog," she cooed.
"Sleepy hog?" grumbled the black hedgehog, scarlet eyes half-open.
"To be fair, I think you've been asleep more than you've been awake since I turned up," said Espio. "Anyway, I think I found what the bat lady wanted us to."
Both hedgehogs' faces lit up at once.
"Take it easy," said the chameleon coolly. "I found a hatch. No killer robots just yet."
"You didn't check it out?" said Amy.
"Far be it from me to doubt Rouge's sincerity, but if it just so happens she was lying about that bogus DNA tracker, I'm not 100% comfortable vanishing down a hole and abandoning you with Captain Narcolepsy."
The pink hedgehog tilted her head. "What's narcolepsy?"
"Ask your science teacher sometime," replied Espio, leaning down to help Shadow up.
Realizing they were on the move, Amy sprang to her feet and set about gathering up the rest of their baggage. She slung the red duffle bag of medical supplies over one shoulder, her new school satchel over the other and trundled down the hill after her companions.
"So, like, what's the plan?" she asked, catching up with them.
"Ever climbed down a mysterious hole in the ground before?" asked Espio without looking round.
"Has she what?" blurted Shadow.
"You've done crazier things before, haven't you?" asked the chameleon, ignoring the scarlet glare burning into his left cheek.
"Umm, I guess so," replied Amy uncertainly.
If he meant the time she snuck onto Prison Island to break Sonic out, he seemed to have overlooked the unique content of that scenario. She'd mostly done what she did because of the lack of action on the Freedom Fighters' part. Of course, he might've been referring to the Never Lake incident, but she'd been a starstruck eight-year-old back then.
Atop the umpteenth hill the trio had climbed, Espio dropped Shadow on his backside unannounced. Amy gleefully dumped the duffle bag and satchel in an equally unceremonious manner as she saw what she could only describe as a manhole. Surrounded by clods of dirt and uprooted grass, its mud-caked cover was stamped with Dr Robotnik's maniacally-grinning insignia.
"Does it open?" she asked.
"Sort of," replied Espio, crouching down to lift the cover.
It revealed a hatch narrower than Amy had expected, given its cover's width.
"You couldn't fit through that if you wanted to," said Shadow, shooting an accusatory glance at Espio.
"Well observed," said the chameleon, setting aside the cover.
"Wait, so I don't really have a choice?" said Amy.
Espio shrugged.
"Well, Sleepy Hog over there could probably teleport us down, but I wasn't sure you'd fancy helping me drag him around in the dark."
Noticing Shadow roll his eyes at the utterance of his new nickname, Amy sniggered as she walked up behind Espio and relieved him of the backpack. Digging out her trusty flashlight, she shone it down the hatch. The beam lit up the top few rungs of a ladder that extended into the darkness below. Turning off the flashlight, she slipped it into one of her blazer's pockets.
"I'll do it."
"Attagirl," said Espio, ruffling her braided quills.
"Be careful, won't you?" said Shadow imploring as Amy walked over to give him the backpack. "The princess will kill me before GUN does if something happens."
The pink hedgehog eyed him doubtfully.
"Sally wouldn't do that."
"Best not give her an excuse," said the black hedgehog, accepting the backpack containing the blue Chaos Emerald.
For a split-second, it occurred to him to grab the preteen's wrist and teleport them both back to her new school. Only the vague promise of seeing Omega again stayed his hand. Despite Rouge's hand in orchestrating his present predicament, he couldn't simply forget all the times the bat had helped him.
"You got it," said Amy, flashing a smile before practically skipping over to the hatch.
〜
"Would you shut up about that hedgehog already?" Tangle pleaded as she stepped off the Babylon Guardian's cargo ramp and onto the tarmac of an airfield, just north of Westopolis.
"I'm just saying I could've taken that guy," said Infinite, following close behind.
"Yeah? Well, Whisper respectfully disagrees. Right, Whisp?"
The lemur glanced over her shoulder. Her hopes of backup were dashed when she saw Whisper had paused at the top of the ramp to scan the airfield through the scope of her hard-light rifle. Tangle grinned to herself. The wolf took this bodyguarding gig more seriously than her and Infinite put together.
Her grin faded when a certain white bat in a violet overcoat appeared alongside her sharpshooting friend. Tangle couldn't claim to know much about Rouge. However, what she had heard made her question if the bat was the kind of Mobian her boss – a sky pirate supposedly trying to go straight - should be associating with, let alone hiring.
"Dibs I'm driving!" yelled Infinite, making a break for the limousine parked across the tarmac in front of a row of hangars.
"Oh no you don't," said Tangle, wrapping her tail around the accelerating jackal's ankles.
"Seriously you two?" chided Sonar, watching in mock despair as the lemur skipped over her fallen colleague and dashed past her.
Slightly alarmed by the look of malice in Infinite's eyes as he gave chase, the teal fennec turned her attention back to the airship as Jet finally appeared. He descended the cargo ramp flanked by Whisper and Rouge.
"Sonar?" the hawk called. "Where's Storm?"
"The mayor's office," she replied, running to the Babylon Rogue's side. "Something about the plans for headquarters."
Despite being placed in charge of overseeing the day-to-day running of Babylon Enterprises' businesses, Storm had made a point of personally greeting Jet whenever he returned from his frequent 'business trips'. When his schedule prevented it, the honor fell to the albatross's assistant: Sonar.
Jet frowned. "Any word on what?"
The fennec shook her head, flapping her ears.
The hawk grimaced. "Sounds like I better make an appearance. Let's go."
He abruptly quickened his stride. Whisper followed suit. Rouge didn't, too busy staring at her cellphone to notice.
"Gee, that's an old model," remarked Sonar, eyeing the silver flip-phone whose keypad the bat was tapping away on.
"Sure is," said Rouge distractedly as she frantically closed and reopened the phone's texting app.
Each time, it displayed the last message she'd sent as being unreplied to. Knowing the intended recipient as she did, that usually meant the text hadn't gone through at all. Hastily typing an abbreviated version of her original text – 'expect visitors' – Rouge thumbed the Send key.
〜
"Damn it!" whined Amy aloud, kicking the pitch-dark tunnel's wall in frustration.
She wasn't worried about the echoing clang alerting anyone to her presence. She was too pissed about losing count of how many steps she'd taken since climbing off the ladder. She'd only been humming Mina's Can You Feel The Sunshine? for a few seconds. Sighing, she pointed her flashlight back down the seemingly endless tunnel and restarted counting steps.
She remembered which way she'd been going, at least, not that there'd been much of a choice. Her most significant discovery so far had come at the bottom of the ladder, where she'd found the tunnel completely blocked off in one direction. She could tell it hadn't been built that way because the patchwork of metal panels that'd been welded together to create the barrier were all in much better condition than the corroded walls around her.
"Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. For-"
Amy stopped short as she spied what appeared to be an opening in the tunnel wall up ahead. Elated at the prospect of a break in the tedium, she ran to the turn-off (without counting her steps) and shone her flashlight inside. It dinged off the metal floor as the hedgehog yelped in fright.
Amy dropped to her knees to retrieve her precious light source. Then, one hand on her racing heart, she sat back on her haunches and shone the flashlight back down the narrow passageway. She couldn't help but inhale sharply as it reilluminated the round, unblinking eyes of a Buzz Bomber. Several of them, in fact.
The inert badniks were stacked one on top of the other as far as she could see. Getting to her feet, she edged closer to them. Like most Mobians, she'd only ever seen the insectoid robots from a distance, flying over the treetops above her childhood home in the Great Forest. By the time she arrived in Knothole Village, Robotnik had more or less retired the model. How long had these things been down here?
Reaching out to touch the nearest badnik's chrome mandibles, Amy froze as she heard something go ting overhead. She pointed the flashlight upwards, gasping at the sight of an arrow protruding from the head of the Buzz Bomber immediately above the one she'd been about to examine. Her ensuing panic attack was curtailed by an abrupt loss of consciousness.
〜
Raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, Sally Acorn scanned Alicia Acorn Academy's 'lower school' playground. Fenced off to protect younger students from stray soccer balls and other hazards posed their older peers, it was nevertheless a hotbed of localized chaos. The air was thick with shrieks and giggles as the principal set off on a patrol.
'Playground monitor' wasn't on her usual list of duties, but right now, anything was preferable to languishing in her office, waiting on Nicole or Sonic's next call. It also felt good to give her ex-nanny Rosie (now the Academy's kindergarten teacher) a break. Sally stifled a laugh as she passed her bodyguard Hershey arbitrating a dispute between two factions of first-graders over use of a seesaw.
She walked on past a teeming jungle gym towards a cluster of gaudy red plastic picnic tables. Around one of them sat a group of second-graders in purple gingham dresses, roleplaying a high-society tea party, complete with imaginary crockery. Sally overheard one girl address a playmate as "Princess Acorn" while another gushed about an imaginary day trip to Soleanna.
Proceeding on towards the seemingly deserted far end of the L-shaped playground, Sally turned a corner and found Cream engaged in probably the most intense solo session of hopscotch she'd ever seen. The chipmunk stood and watched the little rabbit jump and hop back and forth along the grid of eight numbered squares, her head bowed in concentration.
When Bunnie dropped her off this morning, she'd told Sally how Cream had been so bent on coming back to school yesterday, she had to be talked out of sleeping in her uniform dress. The chipmunk hadn't thought to check in with the rabbit's teacher about how she appeared to be doing. She assumed she would've been told if anything was amiss.
"Cream?" said the chipmunk, approaching the hopscotch grid.
Caught mid-hop, the second-grader froze on one leg and looked up. The whites of her brown eyes were reddish-pink, her white furry cheeks matted with tears. The chipmunk surged forward and scooped the six-year-old up in her arms, reflexively shushing her despite the lack of any sobs.
"Want me to call Bunnie, sweetie?" she asked softly, bouncing the bunny in her arms.
Cream's head shot up off her principal's shoulder. She looked scandalized.
"Mommy said good girls always go to school if they can."
〜
Amy Rose awoke to pain. Pain and ramen.
The smell of the latter prompted her to sit upright. Doing so didn't hurt nearly as much as she expected, in spite of her sore neck. Whoever dragged here must've taken care. She prodded whatever it was she was sitting on. It felt silky and squishy, kind of like the exterior of a sleeping bag. She looked down. It was a sleeping bag.
Curious how she was able to see at all, she looked up. The rafters above her were festooned with reams of dangling fairy-lights. The mass of twinkling LEDs filled the space with a warm orangish glow. Looking around in the dim light, Amy suddenly felt more like an intruder than captive.
The sleeping bag was unfurled on a plush yellow rug. To her left, a flatscreen monitor sat atop a storage crate, plugged into a console surrounded game and DVD cases galore. To her right, there was an inflatable orange couch partially covered in blankets. Next to it, a second storage crate was doubling as a side table.
Amy's face lit up as she read the spines of the books heaped upon it. She counted all six Princess Blaze novels, as well as the spin-off trilogy centered on her sidekick Silver. Whose bedroom had she woken up in and why wasn't she friends with them already?
Standing up, Amy followed her nose in search of answers. She found them simply by turning around. Across the room (if this place even qualified for that descriptor), someone wearing a head-mounted flashlight was crouched by a camping stove. Steam plumed from the tiny saucepan they were holding over the roaring blue flame.
"You're awake, huh?" remarked an unmistakably female voice as they prodded the pan's contents with a fork. "Get lost on a field trip or something?"
Amy furrowed her brow and glanced down. She'd forgotten she was wearing a school uniform.
"Who are you?" the hedgehog countered in as firm and steady a voice as she could muster.
She shielded her eyes as the stranger raised her head, shining her head-lamp directly at Amy.
"Visited the Green Glades recently?"
Amy abruptly dropped her hands to scowl at her interrogator, only to raise them again when the head-lamp's beam burnt her retinas.
"How could I?" she said sourly.
The Green Glades had been a cluster of secluded clearings deep in the Great Forest. Despite their inhabitants' reluctance to associate with Freedom Fighters, the communities were destroyed when Robotnik flattened acres of the Great Forest in revenge for his sabotaged South Island badnik manufactories. Amy had been born in one of those razed settlements.
The stranger grunted ruefully as she lifted the pan of ramen off the stove and cut the gas off. Placing the steaming pan aside, she switched off her head-lamp and stood up. Amy tensed as she approached the bedroom area. "You grew up there, too, right?"
"Wait, how do you-"
"Oh c'mon, Amy," said the stranger, finally drawing close enough to be illuminated by the fairy-lights. She was a green bird with a dainty beak and plumage styled into a bob. Long feathery bangs obscured one of her misty blue eyes. "It's me, silly."
"T-T-Tekno?" stuttered Amy in a disbelieving half-whisper.
The canary smiled, seconds before she was engulfed in an embrace.
"But how?" said the hedgehog, patting down Tekno's back as if checking she wasn't a hologram.
"Long story. Want some ramen first?"
"Yes please," said Amy meekly.
Just then, the subterranean chamber was filled by a flash of blinding white light. Shadow and Espio landed near the long-lost friends with a collective grunt. Tekno bolted across the room while Amy watched Espio squirm beneath a load of baggage.
"What the hell are you doing?" she whispered severely.
"Sleepy Hog was getting worried," the chameleon wheezed, nodding at the unconscious black hedgehog.
"Who are you and who sent you?" demanded Tekno.
Amy and Espio turned their heads in unison. The canary was holding a crossbow in her hands, stock braced against her right shoulder.
"It's okay," said Amy sheepishly, shuffling in front of her prostrate companions. "They're with me."