cutegirlmayra
This is a promotional work to inspire others to participate in the event! It was done with consent of the admin.
Prompt:
5th Aug – captured
Orbot hurriedly floated away from the main bridge, heading down the elevator and looking around to make sure he wasn't spotted. Coming to the darkened rooms of Eggman's experimental lavatory, he flashed his eye-lights on with a good whack of his head.
He blinked a moment, before shyly hovering in…
"Amy..?" he called out, before hearing faint sniffles near the back of the wall.
It had only been a few days since the incident, but Sonic still hadn't gotten news of what befell there.
In a moment of tenderness, Orbot looked around again, noticed the cameras were flashing red and glared.
A momentary click switched the cameras into stationary mode, and he safely moved towards the many prison cells lined along the back of the steel wall.
It sounded like post-crying, as though she hadn't any tears left.
"You wouldn't mind a slight inquiry, would you?"
In a delicate tone, Orbot fiddled with the cell doors, and was able to slide them slightly open.
She was in the back corner of the middle to right cell, where the cameras were now not scanning…
Her legs were tucked up with her arms securely around them, back slouched down, and her head hiding in the gap of her knees.
She slowly looked up, a sad but innocent look in her eyes.
"Why are you here?" her voice was frail but gentle as she wiped some sleep from her eyes. She had just woken up and started sniffling again…
"I was worried about you… Eggman keeps huffing about how late Sonic is with trying to rescue you. He's got both me and Cubot wondering if you haven't contacted him on purpose. Usually… you have some form of communication on you to-" he stopped himself, and extended his hand out to her, hovering closer with a bit of a bobbing motion. "Amy… is everything alright? I've been curious ever since the recordings showed you purposefully held back on pressing that bomb… I mean, it would logically have been suicide if you set it off without a fast transport to get you away but…" he pulled back his hand and started twiddling his pointer fingers around each other, looking away sheepishly.
"I don't mean to pry… but even Eggman seems to be slightly… well, I suppose the best word to use in this situation is… doubting… of you?" He peeked up, squinting one eye as he looked to check that he didn't insult her.
Her eyebrows remained drawn back, and her neutral frown made him worry even more.
Her eyes looked distant, as if not even seeing him there at all.
"…What was going through your mind back then? We were sure you were there to free Sonic. But he managed to get out without knowing you were there to free him. Eggman assumed a counter-measure, but at this rate, we're starting to think you acted alone…"
"…I did act… alone." Amy turned her head away from him, lowering her legs and stretching herself out on the ground slightly. Having her back against a wall, she looked even more distant from the conversation now, making it difficult for him to judge her actions and demeanor… since all he could now see was a shadowed, side-faced profile of her.
He looked down a moment, before gaining some courage and looking a bit bolder now. "Amy… We were expecting the bomb to go off… and for Sonic to rush in and grab you, taking you both out while we evacuated." He floated closer, but Amy didn't flinch.
"…We're now concerned that by chance… you would have died without Sonic knowing about it. Eggman has many bases and hidden fortresses scattered all over the world." He gestured a hand out to explain the gravity of what her actions could have lead too. "Eggman's a very… imaginative boss." He chuckled slightly, "He's been awfully diligent in figuring out what you were trying to accomplish… How would you have saved Sonic and yourself by detonating that bomb?"
She took a breath in, and let a sigh out.
"Dunno."
He flinched a moment, "Please, Amy. You're troubling the boss… and well, you're troubling me." He didn't look so bold now, he was withdrawing, not sure how to communicate any further than this.
But in a moment of wanting to understand her, he floated up and slid his bottom crescent orb to the side of her, and landed right next to her.
"Those cameras won't notice if you walk out now. You can still find him." He tried to urge some familiarity of her character out. Something to assure him that she was still Amy Rose.
Or at least… the girl he thought she was.
"Amy? Don't you want some freedom?"
"…Does Eggman want me to leave?"
He suddenly flinched again, "Wha-? Oh, well…" he bumped his pointer fingers together again, "M-maybe that would be best…"
She smiled a moment before getting up. "So he is worried about me."
"…I'm rather troubled by you too." Orbot looked up, seeing the gig was up as the cameras now turned to watched the conversation without being subtle. Eggman sat back in his chair, pressing the earpiece deeper in and leaning into it.
He kicked a leg up and frowned, watching the screen flicker on now that she was aware of how he was feeling towards her previous actions.
"Is everything okay?"
"…Do I look okay?" Amy studied herself, humorously checking her dress and hair, then the bottoms of her shoes. "No gum or… messy hair?"
He looked a little annoyed at her sarcasm. "Come now, Amy. Be sensible."
She giggled, but it sounded half-heartedly.
"What was going through your mind?"
She looked forward then, and for a long time, she didn't move.
Eggman clicked a button a few times, zooming in on her face as he saw her take a shaky breath, and her eyes search for something clearly not there.
"… How do you tell someone… you weren't willing to die for them?"
Orbot's mouth piece opened slightly wider.
"…How do you say… that you wanted instead… to live for them?"
Eggman heard the static of the mic, but his face untightened from it's strong frown as he listened in on the conversation.
"…I had wandered in using my stealth alone to find Sonic…"
Amy sneaked around the base, looking for signs of Sonic, before triggering an alarm and having everything go on high lockdown.
She grew slightly afraid, running now down the halls before seeing some wires on padlocked doors.
She quickly summoned her hammer and tore at them, smashing, which caused all the doors to open.
"I figured, if those doors had opened, Sonic's would have as well. Then I knew I was right when I heard Eggman shouting over the intercom to catch Sonic."
"Fetch that blasted hedgehog back into his miserable cage!" Eggman's voice roared through the area, as Amy looked up and smiled giddily.
She bolted around corners and dodged other robots hurrying to find Sonic.
Peeking through a thin window slit, she saw the large bomb suspended in a room of electricity.
"I don't really know why I wanted to destroy Eggman's base. Maybe it was because I thought Sonic would praise me and agree to go on a date with me if I did something cool like that…"
She smashed the door open and used the unhinged, rectangular face of it to slide across the electrical wires and debris littered all around the room.
Electrical sparks flooded around her as she slid across like a gondola.
"I climbed the bomb, not really thinking about a time limit…"
The second her foot lodged itself into the activation lever, hitting it down after a few tries, the limit flashed on and revealed the red clock… counting down.
"I guess… I kept hearing how Sonic was almost out… So close… yet, I realized that Eggman's voice was growing more hopeful and prideful. I thought for sure he was overwhelming Sonic with fierce numbers."
Amy stopped her climbing to whip her head back and look out at the robots stumbling upon the open door, looking up to her.
"I guess I was thinking it noble… to cause a distraction that would leave Eggman running, and Sonic a safe escape…"
She sweat against the heat of the electrical sparks like solar flares around her, and strained to keep moving higher and higher up the bomb, before finally reaching the blinking the red button on the top.
She was huffing and puffing, but reached her hand out to it.
"And then?" Orbot got up, hovering eagerly with hopes of answers behind her. "What did you think then, Amy? When you were moments from causing a great tragedy..?"
"…Tragedy?" Amy turned back around, looking to the side with confusion. "As long as Sonic made it out… I guess I wasn't really thinking of my life… until I did think about it. And I thought about Sonic… and wondered…"
Her hand hesitated above the red button, her eyes suddenly turning glossy and looking away.
"…Would Sonic blame himself if I died? Even if it was for him? I could see him getting upset and mad about it. I didn't want to leave him… How do you tell someone that you cared so much about them… that you weren't willing to die for them? You didn't want someone to replace you in their life. Someone to take care of them other than yourself… that would be a tragedy, for me at least. How do you explain that… in the moment of deciding a life for a life… you were so willingly unselfish… that you didn't allow yourself to die for them?"
"…That's… very contradicting to the phrase of… being willing to die for the ones you love." Orbot looked down, trying to think through her logic.
"But in the end, isn't that selfish?" She turned to now fully face him, tears now forming over her reddened eyes. A smile appeared on her face, much more genuine now. "I know it sounds crazy, but I held back not because I feared death, but because I feared hurting him if I made that choice. I gave my life to Sonic long ago… it wouldn't be fair to take it away from him, after he's taken such good care of it."
Amy's hand lowered and the robots flew up to seize her, kicking and fighting as they brought her into the prison cell.
Amy started to walk out of the prison cell, when Orbot quickly flew as fast as he could to the cell's gate, and opened them further for her.
"…I'm sure Sonic would be appreciative… that you didn't end your life for his sake." He was trembling, half thinking her crazy and half respecting her judgements.
She lowered her shoulders slightly and bent down to Orbot, giving him a hug.
"Tell Eggman… Thanks for waiting, but I don't know think Sonic should know about this. I think… Eggman's wise in just letting me go and not causing anymore fuss about me."
"…Eggman… never was one for drama." Orbot simulated a since of crying in his voice, and turned around to pat her arms for her to let him go.
She nodded and wiped the remaining tears away.
"…You really do love Sonic… unashamedly… don't you?"
"…What's to be ashamed of?" She sweetly nodded and walked out of the cell, waving back to him and the cameras. "If you love someone… why put them through so much heartache and pain?"
She ran out of the base, as Eggman got up from his chair, and clicked the button for the doors to activate and open to let her out.
Again, she smiled and raced out, seeing sunlight again and hurrying off towards her home.
Orbot returned to the bridge, Cubot holding tissues, and Orbot politely reminding him that robots can't cry.
Eggman held himself aloft and straight as a board, his hands tightly behind his back.
Orbot approached and waited a moment, acting submissive before Eggman spoke up.
"…That's what she calls love… huh?"
"I'm afraid to say it, but she's probably more reasonable than you give her credit for."
"…Heh." He smirked. "I'm more than grateful for underestimating her. If she had gone through with it, we'd have made it out with some burns and bruises. But Sonic…" he grimaced. "Would have never truly recovered…"
"Aw, he cares about her that much?" Cubot spoke up, putting his hands together around the tissue box and shaking it back and forth lovingly in small pivots.
"…More like he couldn't take the guilt." Eggman sighed before seeing his readings indicated Sonic fast approaching the base.
"Oh? Well, looks who late." He pfft'd. "For her sake, I should give him a run for his rings." He activated a protocol and had all his robots ready to engage. He turned around and started walking to the elevator.
He pointed a dramatic finger back at Orbot and Cubot-
"Not a word about Amy! She was never even here…"
The two looked to each other and nodded in solemn respects.
Sonic would never need to know.
(I had an angsty feel, don't know how you'll take this…)