Dark Sonic Forces
By: Cutegirlmayra (My sincerest apologies! Lots of things are happening right now. I received my first few commission orders for writing (PM me for prices and what's offered if you're interested) and I've been getting paid and doing that. Plus, tumblr prompt requests are high and I'm still getting art submitted in for the contest so I could write those prompts with preview images. Lastly, I've been living with a friend for a while and having a blast! There are so many chapters and things I want to write. I know you're all excited for Second seasons of Instincts and Metallic Need after I edit them, and even more are excited for this story and Harmony, and the continuing of Sonic IRL and Pokemon Daycare. I swear I'm trying. It's… quite a lot to write, but I love you and I love these stories and I'm sincerely trying. It's just a whole lot of writing, lol. I'm also trying to edit all my old stories, so one thing at a time! Now, you're all very excited about this 'make-out' sonamy I promised you, but remember, I only do innocent stuff. So although exciting at parts, you can be sure nothing's going over the deep end. I'll also attempt to keep this in character as I've been known for. So again, enjoy, review, and once again, I love you so much! -I wouldn't be bustin' my rear-end to get all these things done for you if I didn't… wait, am I still writing my inner thoughts? Oh shoot!- *P.S: This was made before we knew anything about Sonic Forces. I'm sticking to the AUish idea of Sonic Forces, so please, understand it's loosely based on it.)
"He's gone!"
The bustle of voices sprang from every loose nook and cranny in the metal compound of HQ. The battle was far from over.
However, stirring very lightly in her sleep, Amy Rose remained recovering as the voice rang into a shrilling fright, a panic of worry and uncertainty, something not normally associated with Sonic…
Her sheets lightly wafted against her skin. Her dress had been changed out into a hospital's open gown in the back, tied neatly and attended to by the nurses on standby. Each a volunteer and each worried about their planet and loved ones…
But they all agreed, every rookie and every recruit knew, that as long as Sonic had returned and the main leaders were still present; Knuckles, Tails, Silver, Rouge, Team Chaotix… all those who fought as their mentors and friends… they would be safe.
Amy was included in their aspiring hope for a brighter day, a new era… one free of Eggman's tyranny and Infinite's destruction.
Amy softly breathed upon the soft pillow, her lips grazing the surface before the uncanny musical ruckus of the outer world began to interfere with her daydreams.
She remembered… darkness.
Something suffocating her.
An airy touch that licked at her chin and cheeks…
She turned in her sleep, uncomfortable with the sensation returning to her memory, and moaned slightly in her sleep. Her eyes narrowed and increased their pressure at this thought replaying for a moment.
Then… as if lulled back to sleep, the crowd cease to exist, but a warm and tender hand touched her forehead and she was soothed.
"…She's having a hard time recovering with all this… madness." Silver shook his head, removing his hand. He walked away from her and towards Tails, "How is she doing?"
"I.. I think she's having nightmares." Tails looked a little concerned, moving Silver towards the readings. "We can't fully tell, but she's experiencing a lot of… weird sensations. It's as though energy was transferred to her and it's causing some discomfort."
"Energy?" Silver looked innocently confused back at Tails, seeing the readings but unable to identify them. "I specialize a little in… other things." He admitted, frankly, before showing his apologetic look to Tails, who only laughed.
"That's alright! Technically, she should be waking up soon. Although, granted, taking it easy for awhile… but we'll set her up in her old communications room again so she should be able to relax and feel more comfortable there."
"That's a good start. After what happened to Sonic…" Silver nodded… but folded his arms and looked back to Amy.
Concern wouldn't describe the perplexed fear that smothered his face almost instantly…
"I just wouldn't want her to experience the same effects." He looked down, clearly worried. "We're not sure if that 'energy' can spread yet." He clicked a few buttons to replay Sonic's outburst from before.
The video showed the whirling of pressure and items crushing and darting around, the dangling of cords from above when they finally sedated him.
"…It was pretty messy to create an alibi for that."
"Yeah… everyone would have freaked out." Tails gulped, already on the verge of panicking himself.
"And now, with Sonic demanding to go out to battle like he did… then just disappearing against our wishes regardless…" Tails looked down.
"You knew he would do what he wanted too, Tails. It's not that he wasn't thinking of us." Silver placed a friendly, assuring hand on Tails's head, lowering himself down to smile and be more in view of him. "He's just Sonic. He always goes where he wants, and does what he feels is right."
"But he didn't even explain what happened to him. Our records show that that energy is somehow tied to his emotional distress. What if he gets agitated again? And can't control himself like last time?" Tails moved away a bit from the comforting touch, and looked back to Amy, still slightly lifting her legs up and down in random order, shifting herself side to side.
"Amy was only exposed to a little of the pressure from it… and she's still in a lot of pain from her run-in with infinite… she's been tossing and turning like that all night." He sighed, "I watched the videos… Even if she wakes up, she'll be at half her regular strength. And Sonic… something's influencing his darkness. This is above any Chaos reading I've ever recorded or studied… I have a bad feeling about this."
Tails returned to the monitor and began clicking random buttons, taking the video off the screen and closing the rest of the data. He only kept her vital signs on display and then looked to Silver.
In a serious tone, he nodded and spoke again, "For Amy's sake… and the others, we should keep what's going on with Sonic to ourselves. We don't know how much she knows about this either, and we won't until she fully wakes up." He looked back at her and then down, as if he felt he had failed her in some way, and walked to the door.
"Do you need help with the luggage?" Silver gestured to all the records he was huffing around, as Tails politely smiled and lifted a leg and a tail up to grab some tumbling documents.
"Yes, please."
The friendly exchange was soon over and the two went back to their jobs, and later Amy batted her eyes, looking around.
No one in sight.
She blinked, feeling dust on her eyes, and wondering why that was so.
She tried to move her arm, "Ah…" she felt a huge resistance in her body as it seemed to forfeit the will to comply.
She felt the muscle was heavier than she ever remembered and stopped struggling to move her arm after a moment.
Still dazed, she looked to the only possible answer.
She was drugged up.
Groaning in agitation, she looked to the side where the doses were. "…How… much?" she thought they had to be kidding her.
The dial was almost to it's farthest, what were they afraid of?
She didn't feel broken and battered or in immense pain. Although, there was that unsettling feeling before… but she didn't feel it now.
She tried to at least will her arm to scoot itself up to the dial.
After a few frustrating minutes of clenching her teeth as tight as her drugged-induced body could manage force, she was able to press down the button, and wait it out.
When the machine stopped bumping the medicine to calm her down and not feel pain, she suddenly, and wearily realized her body was a bit worse than she remembered.
It felt soggy, as though there were no muscles at all.
She knew it would wear off, but worried about how much pain they really thought she was in.
What else could explain the high doses?
When she finally grew the will to get up, the strength to push off, she felt the cool air whisk by the sweat on her back and mentally noted she would need to bathe after all this.
How long was she out?
She still felt tried but knew it would only get worse if she waited about.
She slipped from the comfy bed and clung to its railing, seeing the rollers were jammed so she wouldn't be sliding everywhere with it.
She looked to the screen.
If she wanted answers… she'd need to get over to that monitor.
Crawling on her hands and knees, Amy wobbled as her head began to reel.
She felt like throwing up.
Whatever damage she had sustained, it couldn't have been so bad that they needed to induce this must pain resistance to her.
However… Infinite had struck her pretty good.
She gripped her stomach, then her throat.
She checked her cheeks, she herself was a qualified nurse, she had done Sonic and her friend's injury cleanups for years.
She lifted herself up to the console, carefully trying to get her feet under her. Your foot was cranked completely back and weakly dragged as she tried to position it correctly.
It hurt to place weight on it, but she did so anyway.
Gritting through the process, Amy pressed her chin into the steely surface of the console, puffing out air as she struggled to get herself upright.
After another few minutes, she was exhausted, but up.
She leaned over the cool, metal counter and looked up at the screen, her hands folded under her to stabilize her.
Her feet were on their tip-toes, trying desperately not to fall over. To assure this, she leaned all her weight to her torso and keeping herself laying halfway up on the console.
She was careful to not press any buttons, but in her pain and uncomfortable state, she clicked some buttons with her nose.
"This… is… ridiculous." She finally spoke out loud, hearing her unused voice's raspy quivers as it tried to form words.
She was really out. They totally did her an injustice by putting so much medication into her tiny, sensitive body.
Amy took to medicine all to well, mostly because she was careful to never need it. Healthy diet, not too many dangerous situations; overall, she was fairly wise with what battles to fight and when to fall back.
A folder opened, mostly for Sonic, and reading it as confidential and the date on its file name… she found more interest in that than her own vital signs.
She double-clicked her nose into the button… before the horror of the scene spiraled around her eyes like a lucid dream.
"Sonic…" Her face grew into a grave and sorrowful one, her mouth opened as her eyes moistened at the rage on his face, the coloration of the film, and the objects getting compressed around him.
Tails… Silver… Knuckles… they were all struggling to get off the floor.
"What has happened to you..?"
That's when she saw them slam on the dial and then strained to move her head and look back at her own.
Her eyes shifted around the device…
We're they afraid… of the same thing happening with her?
She swallowed, feeling the thirst for water and food in the action, but also the realization that whatever was happening…
Wasn't intended to happen to her either.
"I have to… find him." She removed her arms from under herself, letting them push passed her chest and reach to grip as much as she could the corner of the desktop.
No way was she going to have Sonic suffer on his own.
Where was he? How was he?!
She was almost able to reach the next operation tools holding desk, when she collapsed and fell from surprise when the door opened.
"Oh, my Chaos! Amy!" the girl dived as quickly as she could to catch her, but Amy's jaw hit the ground fairly hard, and she groaned in the pain of it.
It shot up like mini lightning snakes, slithering up to her brain and then holding the pain locked in their muscly bodies.
She winced when the girl turned her over and looked up at the screen.
Amy could see the information take hold on her face, and slowly shift it into a horror film's tragic Vitim.
She screamed for help.
"Not, under any circumstances, are you ready to go out there and fight!"
"I got it, Tails."
"You have to stay here! Where it's—"
"Safe!" Knuckles, storming with every fall of his feet after them, hovered dangerously with a booming voice by Amy's left ear. Tails was like the pattering of rain, steadily keeping on course with her position, but constantly chattering like seagulls caught without land for refuge.
Amy had gained her strength back and put on her iconic dress. The drugs wore off not to long after the pain in her jaw subsided, and she was able to tell Knuckles and Tails what she saw.
They constantly asked about what she knew, but she only told them she saw Sonic like that for a moment. It wasn't long enough to ask him how he was feeling.
"The whole of the base is buzzing with what that young nurse saw. You have to play it off as a rumor, or-or-"
"We can't lie to the people, Knuckles." Amy wasn't in the mood for horsing around with politics.
"Grrr… FINE! Then you try and stop mass panic!" he once again held up his fist, and hollered so loudly in her ear that she had to close her eyes and turn from the ringing it caused in her ear.
"Knuckles! Amy is still recovering, show some sensitivity and don't yell at her like that." Tails held up both hands defensively, before balling them up into fist and trying to earnestly stop the raging hurricane in Knuckles's tone.
Knuckles seemed to almost growl a moment… before huffing away from her and keeping on a straight course again.
"Alright, alright… I'm sorry, okay? We're all worried sick about Sonic, and you just waking up makes us a little… fidgety."
"What Knuckles is trying to say—"
Amy swayed her arms as she moved faster, passing the two and figuring out what she wanted to do to reach her objective.
First, she had to reassure them that everything was gonna be alright.
When she came to the door, the two were exchanging glances behind her and were hurrying to quickly catch up to her footsteps before she abruptly turned around to them.
Like the game 'red-light, green-light' they froze as if being caught in the act of whatever they were mutually thinking about.
"…Thank you for caring and taking care of me." Amy bowed.
"Oh, uh…" Tails looked to Knuckles, who was as weirded out by this change of pace too. "Em." They turned back to her and bowed as well, showing some respects.
She immediately moved herself back up, straight as a plank. "Now. I'm going back to work. Assure everyone I'm fine and so is Sonic!" with absolute moxie and confidence, Amy opened the door and entered in, closing it quickly with a tight click of its lock and wandered over to the computer.
Knuckles and Tails blinked for a moment in surprise.
They then looked at each other with smiles.
"You think she'll be alright?"
"She was just like you when we found out about Sonic, Tails…" Knuckles took a deep, low breath in, before winking to Tails and lightly nudging his shoulder. "She was resilient then, but still a bit snapped. But now that he's back, look at you! Steppin' up to the plate. I'm sure she's just trying to do the same. Sonic inspires hope and the best in all of us. We need to keep that going. No matter what may be wrong with him."
Tails nodded, looking back to the door. "But…"
Knuckles kept walking, only calling back to him, "Come on, Tails! She knows her place is here. We've gotta lead the squadrons. They need to come home, and the next batch needs to head out!" Knuckles rotated his shoulder, seeming relaxed or loosening tension he was once harboring as Tails sighed and hurried after him.
"W-what about Sonic?" Tails looked up to him after catching up to his rough stomps.
Knuckles billowed a laugh and wrapped a friendly arm around Tails's shoulders, pulling him along. "Haha! He's Sonic! And he's alive to boot! We'll have a word with him when he returns. Maybe he just needed to let some extra tension out, eh? Get that fresh, smoky air of rebellion back in his lungs!" Knuckles lightly jabbed Tails in the stomach, making him 'offph!' forward and grip his stomach.
"Right… some air." He strained to speak through the 'friendly gesture' Knuckles had so graciously bestowed upon him.
"Hmm…" Amy lowered her eyelids, honing-in on Knuckles's loud voice, waiting for the two to leave. "Some pep-talk."
She typed away. "I gotta find Sonic's location… this room has the fastest communication systems. I should be able to locate him on one of the armies video-cams on their communicators…"
There was a loud hum and then metallic interference on the radio signals, and Amy knew that was an indication that they were under heavy assault.
"Battle means Sonic." She picked up the headphones and placed them on, hearing tons of voices before scanning through the videos.
"There!" she saw a blur of dark blue… before the image reset and she switched the radio channels to that soldier's particular channels.
His name flashed on and she quickly called to him, "This is Amy Rose! I'm seeing what you're seeing. What's going on?"
"Amy? Ah! We're under heavy fire!"
"I can see that but- Ah! Look out!"
A large piece of earth came hurtling over to the side of the soldier's video camera, but he dodged before getting rammed by Zavok, seeing him laugh as he tumbled himself behind some cover.
"Woah! Phew…"
"Please! Where's Sonic!?"
"He's… they're provoking him."
The soldier's camera positioned itself to Infinite, Eggman, Metal Sonic, and Chaos all surrounding Sonic, who let out a huge, powerful cry that shook the area. Around him was a dark matter of some kind, wisping around him and having the look of a spinning sun.
"What… what is that?" Amy's eyes shook, seeing his eyes glow white as the image started to frizz out. She was removing the headset… her hand reaching out to Sonic's image as he seemed to be panting in extreme exertion. He fell to one knee in the distance as her hand pressed and fell on the screen towards his image.
"Miss Amy—!" the soldier's voice caught her attention, snapping her out of her longing to be there with him, wanting to help before she shook her head pulled the headphones back on. "Whhaaa!"
She cried out his name again, before seeing Zavok snicker into the camera before his foot crashed down on it.
"No." she closed her eyes and looked away.
Tears began to fall before she tried to force what she just saw out of her thoughts.
Though her heart ached, she needed to find Sonic.
She threw the headphones down, already knowing the area they were battling in, before the door's locked click and was slammed open.
"Going somewhere?" Silver floated into the room, looking suspicious as his eyes narrowed to show he suspected her of ditching.
"T… The soldiers…" she couldn't take her eyes off his own piercing gaze but angled her neck to the computer. "They're fighting all of them. They've centered around Sonic. He needs help…"
"And are you going to alert anyone?" Silver raised an eyebrow, "I can handle communications. Go and tell Knuckles about this." He floated by her and put the headset on.
She sighed in relief, seeing that Silver wasn't that attentive.
She hurried, crashing into people through the halls, "Sorry!" and having documents spill everywhere or just knocking people back a bit into the close proximity walls that no one bothered to design properly.
Racing to the exit, Amy was stopped once again by Tails turning to see her rushing by in another room, open to the many spider-like hallways that littered the base. "Amy! Where are you going? I thought you were back at the communication room?"
"I.. I, um." Amy looked to him, lifting a leg up as if her first instinct was to just book it. But being smarter than that, she hesitated and looked to the route towards her objective. "I'm alerting you." She nodded.
"… what?"
"I'm alerting you to danger and you need to get to the communication room right away! Silver will explain the rest!" She dashed off again.
"Hey! W-where are you going!?" He flew into the hall but didn't chase her.
She sped around the corner, "To alert Knuckles!"
She tried not to lie.
If he came in her way then—
"Amy?" Knuckles turned from talking to someone from a group that had returned. Soldiers and recruits had their arms over the others, helping the injured into safety while they, themselves were battered enough as is.
"Consider yourself alerted!" she continued to run.
"Alerted?" He scoffed, "At what?"
"Ask Tails!" she cried back, before making another turn.
"…Hey… Hey, hey, hey—That's the exit!" Knuckles side-stepped a few times, watching her route before rushing to the opened 'garage' where the men were coming in from.
He crashed through a wall just to try and stop her, before seeing she had jumped in the X-Tornado and was unsteadily veering off the ground.
"Oh, Chaos…" he slowly lowered his shoulders down… realizing there was no way to stop her now.
On the battlefield, Sonic spat out the dust that stuck to the insides of his mouth. His strength was leaving him and something new… something indescribable was replacing it. It felt different from his normal strength, it was like he was fueled by nothing, and slowly rose up as he let it take over.
'Whatever this thing is…' he thought to himself, glaring up at Infinite and Eggman. 'If it helps me give them their just deserts, then—!'
The power encircled him as he gritted his teeth, tightening his fist, and feeling the empty power suddenly twitch his body and unwillingly move him about.
"Ah…hah…Ahhah…" he felt his head slowly move up, his legs and knees bent without him controlling it.
"Fascinating…" Eggman snickered to himself, looking down at a status meter and 'hoho'ing his usual happy mocking. "Get him to the next level." Eggman looked to Infinite, giving an order and then pulling up and slightly away. He pressed his gloved-hands together and sneered, as Chaos and Metal Sonic flew to Infinite's sides.
"So much suffering… all in the name of acquiring your title back."
Sonic let out shaky breathing, slow and steady; his eyes reappeared for a moment to shrink and shake while his pupils sharpened before disappearing under the whites of his glowing eye sockets.
His head angled completely down, hunched over, as his feet slowly took zombified steps towards them.
"…What do you have against suffering..?"
Infinite bellowed a low chuckle.
"Absolutely nothing."
He pulled back his hands to one side of his body, powering up a beam before firing it at Sonic.
He was gone with only a small bit of dust to show he was ever there, spinning like a dust devil in his spot while the beam shot through the ground and burnt away in its spot.
"What?"
Infinite lurched a little forward, before being rammed into by Dark Sonic reappearing, punching, kicking, and forming with his two hands one large hit to slam against the top of Infinite's head.
"Excellent…"
There was a gleam in Eggman's glasses before an engine reared to life in the distance and its hum made him tilt his head and shake it for a moment in anger.
"Where in the world is that noise coming from!? An engine?!" He twisted his body back and forth, shaking aggressively his hands and arms in the air as he tried to locate it.
Startling him, Eggman looked forward and leaned himself towards something sparkling in the distance.
"It can't be…" he tried to narrow his sights on the object. "He's still to shaken up to fly that thing…" His eyes then widened, "HMMM?"
Amy charged into the scene, "AHHHH!" she dived straight at him.
"WAHHHAAHHA!" In absolute bafflement and fright, Eggman quickly jumped up, stomped his foot to the edge of his Eggmobile, and tugged on the lever for it to pull up.
Just in time, his eggpod escaped her speedy takedown and quickly he turned to get a better look at her in the skies.
"What on earth is that girl thinking!? Does she have a death wish!? She could of gotten us both killed!"
Infinite was slammed against a building, being held there as Sonic's face was pure attack-mode, not a single look of humanity before his hostile expression turned to Eggman in the skies.
He saw the X-Tornado take a sharp aerial spin upward, before turning around to launch itself back at him.
"WAHHHAAA!" Eggman swerved right, dodging her again, then turned himself around to shout back at her. "IDIOT!"
"H-huh?" Sonic felt his senses returning to him. "H-…Her?"
Seeing Sonic distracted from his choke-hold on him, Infinite rose one of his hands from holding Sonic's back and flexed out his claws.
Ripping into Sonic, Dark Sonic was thrown back and Infinite pulled him into his illusion sphere, repeatedly using many illusions of him to attack and laugh at Sonic.
"Pathetic!" he shot him out of the dimension as he blasted against the ground, struggling to get up as he felt the crumbling pebbles under the palm of his hand get up into his glove and scratch his skin.
"I would have thought that 'time' we spent on the moon would have taught you a thing or two…" Infinite landed on the ground, flicking his thumb and index finger's claws to make sparks fly off of them, sharpening them as he drew closer…
Sonic's back was facing him, trying to shake himself out of it, feeling nothing but the numbness of having no control over himself.
"What… is this? It's… what's happening to me..?" Sonic continued to try and regain himself, confused as to why he ever would give up his will in the first place. "I… can't… move…"
"You seem to be moving just fine…" Infinite's foot pressed against his back, shoving him down slowly… as Sonic's body tried to fight back, before collapsing as the dark skin tone of Sonic's blue fur began to fade. "For an insect." he reared his hand back.
"….sssssooooOONNIIICCCC!" fading in from the distance, Amy jumped out of the X-Tornado as it crashed into Infinite as he turned his head.
His one eye opened widely.
Sonic, feeling the darkness pull at him, saw the shadow of the plane's mass heighten around him, and the smoky vines from before paw at the ground to the sides of him.
He quickly jumped as they tangled and shook around his body, protecting him from the crash but also pulling him away from the site.
When he came too, he was crawling away from the fire, as Infinite had sliced the plane in half.
He gripped his arm while shoving a large metallic piece of the plane's tip away from him, before lurching his head up and crying out a painful sound. "IS THIS WHAT IT COMES TO!? RELYING ON YOUR FRIENDS TO SAVE YOU!? What ever happened to true power, Sonic? Power that comes from within you… AND YOU ALONE!" he was circling around, trying to find Sonic in the debris, before tackling into some piles of hulking plane pieces mingled with rocks and digging through them. "WHERE ARE YOU!? HEDGEHOG!? Prove to me your still here… kicking back like a beast on its last leg of existence…" he kept wandering around, as Sonic continued to see the dark vines pulling against the ground, and as he crawled on his belly, they pushed him forward.
He didn't think a whole lot on it, only realizing he wasn't thinking much at all.
He felt… what was he feeling?
He wanted to run away… hide.
That didn't seem right. He stopped himself and let him breathe for a moment. 'Sonic… get ahold of yourself! Whatever's happening to you… you can't let it control you like this. It's making you—!'
"…Afraid?" Infinite's eye turned to scan behind him. The fires fueled the mirrored look of his own eye, as with each step, a new beat began to play like a dark drum beat.
He started to walk with uneasy steps, still holding his arm. "Where's… your… little…"
"Friend?"
As if with the shrieking of a harp, Sonic's head shot up, and in the murkiness of his lava white eyes, his regular eyes could be seen emerging and shaking as if glitching from Infinite's illusion.
Still trapped it in, but having no clue of it, Sonic willed his feet, and they obeyed this time.
The darkness pulled back, losing control but powering him from his core.
He felt feeling again… but this feeling… he wasn't able to master it like he usually could.
It was pumping through his veins.
It was feeding off the soreness of his jaw from clenching his teeth so hard, from the expanding pain of his lungs filled with dirt and dust.
It empowered him in the squeezing of his fists tighter and tighter… in the pulsing of his heartbeat.
"Touch her…"
Infinite turned his face like a cobra to his prey at the first sound he heard, and gently lowered his foot from stepping any further.
"And you die."
Like a beast, Sonic felt the darkness wrap around his head, creating a new mask that mimicked the slight design of Infinite's, having darkness cover his eyes and a mouth that moved on its own with sharp pointed teeth that chomped even though Sonic's own mouth didn't move.
It was like another being was engulfing and taking an outer form around him.
It hissed as Sonic lunged forward, prepared to end this fight with Infinite once…
And for all.
Amy crawled out of the collapsed windshield that ejected with her pilot's seat. Feeling the glass scratch against her bare arms, she was flinched with her eyes at each cut, enduring till she was out.
She rolled to her back, puffing out pockets of air and then sighing in relief.
She rolled away again to push off and get herself up again. Looking around, she could only see above her were the fire's brown smoke, mingled with the glow of the small fires scattered below.
They were destroying anything they could eat.
And she watched as a blade of grass, already struggling to reach sunlight, was consumed slowly the flame, becoming nothing more than ash of a former life.
Her fear skyrocketed then.
What if she hurt Sonic?
She lowered her head, shaking it back and forth as the tears threatened her eyes again.
Her composure was beginning to weaken again, and her body kept telling her she needed to rest and go home.
But Sonic was part of her home.
She needed to find him.
"No, no, no… no, no, no, no…" she cried lightly, the tears only coming when she squinted her eyes tightly shut.
The dryness of the air reminded her that she was thirsty, a luxury she forgot when fixated on finding Sonic.
She slowly rose up, feeling her knees scrape against the rough ground and finally leaned herself against a ruined building.
She saw the soot on her clothes and remembered she needed a shower.
She looked to her feet and legs, seeing them shake from her trembling realization of the suicide mission she had just insanely accomplished.
However, she lived.
She leaned forward, groping for some fresh air and anything to grip too.
She groaned and got herself up, before a large crash knocked her down again, "AH!"
She covered her head as Infinite and Sonic's merged bodies flew so fast by her that it looked as though it were only images circling each other.
"S…Sonic!" she was thrilled to see he was alive, but the dark, spiraling body of blue darkness around him frightened her.
"What… is.." she slowly got herself up, seeing the head of the creature.
It's spines jagged Sonic's original upward spines from when she last saw him in this form.
Its eyes were covering Sonic like he was wearing a living suit, and his hands were like three ghostly claws that Infinite struggled to push back against.
Dark Sonic reared Infinite upward, before pulling him down to his face, having thousands of dark vines lick around his being before pulling him closer to his roaring misty head.
The real Sonic looked to be using a lot of force and energy under the mask, seen through the mouth of the beast.
Resembling Sonic as a hedgehog, but more like a creature from Dark Gaia, the beast chomped as if trying to bite at Infinite before Sonic frowned and threw him down, having him crash against the ground.
Infinite looked… afraid.
Amy saw as he lifted himself up, his body trembling like hers was a moment ago.
His eyes shook in his fright, as he looked at his hands, "No…" He gripped his head. "No…!" He then arched his back to the skies, "NOOO!"
A swarm of illusions appeared around him, and Amy stepped back, confused.
She had no idea what it meant. So many Metal Sonics, Zavoks, and Chaos?
But then… behind her stood a Shadow… though she had no idea about.
The creature shook and twitched as Sonic turned around, before seeing Amy in the distance.
His mouth opened, and the beast cocked his head in confusion, but Sonic's head never moved.
"Amy…"
Infinite was struggling to breathe, ripping at his mask before gripping his throat.
The vines had slithered their way down to him, wrapping around his being before being broken off when Sonic flew like a jet through the air and rammed a knee into the throat of the shadow illusion.
"AHH!" Amy didn't know that though, she ducked down and covered her head, before turning to see him raise a fist a downed Shadow. "No! Sonic!"
Reaching for him, her voice made his eyes widened and the beast struggled to remain. Jerking left and right, it cried out before falling away like morning mist around his form.
He was back to just a regular darkened tone fur and those white eye sockets… moving like hot liquid as he turned to look at her.
Her tear-line showed perfectly as the smoke had left ash on her face, and the tears had taken some of the soot with them as they fell.
There was a clear line, and seeing it… Sonic released Shadow as it hit him off itself.
Amy really thought Sonic was going to kill Shadow…
She gripped her arms, holding herself as he got up.
He stood as though not a man… but a thing.
"Sonic…?" she slowly moved closer, as Infinite collapsed behind her, tearing at the ground as if trying to will himself up but couldn't.
His fear had locked him into a forced-panic, and his body wouldn't move from its place…
That, and his metallic body was starting to remain the broken bones and fractures in painful ways that couldn't possibly be imagined. With all that happening… he was unable to move but kept crying out from the crater he was trapped in, shouting in his pain and agony, hitting the ground repeatedly.
Sonic didn't move…
Amy… slowly… took the first steps towards him.
"Sonic… Are you there..? Here… with me?"
The flames had grown weak from not enough fuel to keep them going. With that, the skies were cleaning, and a patch of sunlight rayed like a heaven's angled light upon her face as she approached him… covered in darkness and the brown-tints of smoke.
She coughed a moment, stopping in her advance and turning away from him.
His face shifted, worry as his mouth opened and his eyes bent in concerned.
"…Are you alright?"
The seriousness of his stoic face was gone, and immediately she had to let out a bit of a chuckle, just to release some of the built-up tension inside of her. It compressed her sides so violently that she thought it would never loosen up.
"Sonic... You... you scared me." She kept breathing out a light laugh.
"…I…" he looked at his hand. "Did?"
Understanding came slowly… before he looked back to her with caution.
"Stop! Don't come any closer...!"
She did so, confused and worried why he would say that.
He shook his hands out in front of him, before shaking his head and looking distressed.
"I… I don't think I can control myself." He squinted his eyes shut, gripping his chest. "Something… something is making me do things I normally wouldn't do… I can't control it… Or I can… I'm just…"
He looked back at Amy.
"…Not."
"Sonic… you're not like this. Something wrong. I can see that."
She continued to walk towards him, as he took a step back, more worry and concern traced his face.
"Amy… wait a minute… I… I don't know what will happen I…"
He suddenly stopped moving back.
His eyes rested on Infinite leaning up, his hand reaching out, a beam in it…
His rage spiked, and he let out a battle cry.
Amy dropped to the ground as he flew over her and slammed his fist into Infinite's head.
"Sonic!" She spun herself up, "NO!"
The illusion of Infinite disappeared… the red boxes slowly spinning in the air around them before blipping out of sight.
The shadow and the other illusions disappeared too.
Eggman watched from his eggpod… his fingers stroking his mustache.
"This is all good data… Good work, Infinite!"
Infinite floated by his side, fully healed and dusting off some soot from his shoulder.
"If it was the real me… He wouldn't have survived as long as he did."
"Switching out for a fake you after tearing the plane in half with one fell swoop. Pretty smart thinking, Infinite! You're beginning to impress me beyond belief!"
As though a doting father, Eggman gripped his hands together and held them by his face, smiling like a child on Christmas.
"I'm so glad I ran into you! Giving you those modifications and the Phantom Ruby really did wonders to my scheming!"
"Hmph. Enough flattery and talk…" Infinite pivoted, still thinking about how his illusion reacted then.
Infinite can't create illusions of himself without placing a piece of his consciousness within it.
The other illusions were simply soulless.
This fact bothered him, but he let it be.
For now…
"Let's depart to the main forces."
"What?" Infinite looked riled up from that comment.
"If we let him recover, we'll never see the darkness we've implanted in him fully achieve its purpose!" he gripped his hand into a fist and moved threateningly closer to Eggman.
Above the smoke, the light radiated off his mask and sent a glare below…
"So… you're mad."
"Undeniably… yeah."
"And… your body… moves on its own?"
"Sometimes… if I'm mad enough."
He rotated his shoulders but kept his arms fairly down.
"So…" she put a finger to her mouth, and he looked back to her with a scowl.
"…Are you mad at me?"
"I'm mad at everything. I can't control what irritates me."
"…Buuuttt…" she slowly moved the finger away from her mouth, then poked his nose. "You said you can control it… if you really wanted too."
He glared so heavily that her finger shirked from playing further with his facial features.
He seemed to growl even, something she wasn't accustomed too.
She looked hurt that he would bear his teeth and scowl at her like she was the most annoying thing in the world and pouted cutely as she thrust her arms down straight to her sides.
"What is your issue!?"
"Don't provoke me to tell you."
He leaned forward, his eyebrows dipping down even further to show his agitation.
"You're being a jerk! I'm just trying to understand what's going on… you're scaring me!"
"If I'm so frightening..!"
He lurched forward again, this time quicker as she pulled back and gasped, almost falling over.
"Then why are you still here!?"
She pulled herself back… breathing as though about to cry again.
Seeing this, he regained some of his humanity, and stepped away, moving his hands back.
"N.. No, Amy… I…"
He looked at his hands.
"…I can't control it.. but I don't want to be mad anymore."
She slowly got up, blinking her eyes and listening carefully this time to what he was saying.
"…I don't want to hurt you… I don't want you being afraid of me."
He squinted his eyes shut and turned away, fisting his hands.
This was his worst nightmare.
This is what he tried to avoid back when the world split up… and he really did look like a monster.
"…Then…" Amy took a step closer, reaching out to him. "Let me help with that."
He glared again and held himself back from whacking her hand away.
She ducked,… opening her mouth a second before peeking through her half-closed eyes and looking to him and then his hand.
The hand shook as if two forces were controlling it.
He felt the soreness of clenching his teeth so tightly again, the quivering of every muscle in his hand… and slowly it bent to his will and he shot it back to his side.
"It's too dangerous." He sharply turned his head away.
"You've been saying that to me a lot lately…"
"You should go. More of them will appear."
"Infinite?"
"I don't know what happened there."
Sonic looked at the spot Infinite once was…
"But I don't think that was the real him."
"What was it… then?"
She gripped his arm lightly.
The touch sent his body into a frenzy. Attack.
He turned to her but held everything back.
"Get away from me…"
It was low and harsh, and Amy slowly released his arm, stepping back.
"You should work on your tone." She tried to sound tough, but that comment really hurt her.
"You're not listening to me…"
"You're speaking through your teeth! How am I supposed to listen!?"
"rrrRRRAAHHH!"
His fist engaged a nearby building, sending a shockwave that pulsed all the way down, destroying and toppling thousands more that were aligned with the fist's path.
Amy looked spooked, her mouth pushing together and her eyes going wide.
She looked back to Sonic, smiling sheepishly. "Ooookay… Maybe I shouldn't sassily defend myself with a quip back everything you hurt my feelings…"
Sonic removed his hand from the air, lowering it to his side.
"You should go."
"But then… who's going to calm you down?" she turned worriedly back to him, unable to leave his side when she knew he was suffering so greatly within himself.
"You saw for yourself. I don't seem to be able to control my emotions." He looked down, panting again. "And the more I sustain this form… I don't know how much longer I can… Redirect my violent tendencies."
He smiled to her suddenly, twiddling his fingers up to her face as she found it in herself to laugh.
"There you are!"
Her mouth opened wide into a beautiful grin, and for a second, he found himself staring and feeling the darkness slowly loosen from his core.
"…What did you do?"
"Huh?"
"I… felt… something." He touched his chest.
She looked down at his hand, before up and calmly smiling to him.
"Maybe I relaxed you."
"Relaxed… me?"
Amy moved a little closer, as he reflexed to staring at her again, but she slowly moved more cautiously and took his hand.
"So much tension… tsk, tsk, tsk." She clicked her tongue.
Slowly, she encircled her hand over his wrist, and lightly moved it up along his arm, and then down as she massaged some of the tightened muscles along his arm.
The sensation was driving his core wild.
Whatever she was doing, he felt his arm relaxing, and the anger in him start to cool down.
She looked up at his face, still smiling with hope, and massaged his hand.
"You know, I've always been pretty good at this." She gloated a bit. "I was always hoping to try it out on you someday… but I never imagined it going like this." She giggled.
He felt something in his heart quiver in fright at her words, before she moved from his arm… to his back, and began to massage around there.
His head shifted back and forth, his instinct still wanting to watch her, but she reached up and stopped his head, starting to massage his head.
His eyes… lowered at the sensation of the gentle but pressurized touch.
The darkness began to slowly lighten on his skin, before the vines tried to reach out to Amy's hand, slithering up, but dying out before they reach her.
"How's your anger now?" she tilted her head, her eyes still on the task at hand.
Pun intended, as her hands scaled from his head, taking a second to lightly give two strokes to his ears, something she had always wanted to do for a long time now; and down to massage his shoulders.
He felt his head lean down and forward.
"I… don't think I could have done this… myself."
"Well, of course, silly! Hehe, you can't massage yourself."
He remained silent.
"That's…"
His blue fur returned to him, and he stepped away from her, stepping to try and turn himself around as all the exhaustion of his body and strength started to pile up all at once.
"What I meant."
He fell forward.
Amy caught him instantly, struggling to keep him up, she humorously went slowly down with him and laid his head to her lap.
"Sonic?"
"…I… Don't think… I could have calmed… myself down… Thank you… Amy."
She grew worried, hearing sounds coming behind them.
"Sonic… of course, but… but we need to get out of here."
"In.. that state.. I.. couldn't.. think straight.. or .. even... control… what I was feeling."
He was fading fast.
Amy shifted her head around.
"Sonic… Now's not really the time! I love that you're thanking me and all, I really do want to listen to how it was, but for right now—"
Infinite's voice roared over the war-torn area.
"If you let him escape now, he'll only come back at his full strength!"
"Sonic!" Amy worriedly pulled him up, still seeing he wasn't able to fully register what she was saying exactly. "We have to go… now!"
She didn't regret relaxing him, but pushing him up sent pain throughout Sonic, and he immediately opened his eyes to have them glowing a bright white again, and his fur turn dark at the sound of Infinite's voice becoming more clearer.
"Oh no! Not again!"
"We have to kill him now! And his little friends! If you want to harness the power, finish your foolish studies and just let me end this now! We have him!"
Sonic gripped Amy's waist, yanking her up to him.
"Woah!" she was shocked and in slight pain at how tightly he was gripping her waist, as he hurled their bodies out of the area and straight into nowhere.
Eggman turned to Infinite, "I say when we kill him..." he shifted a lever and his eggmobile turned around, his head moving like an owl's fluid head movement as he never stopped looking at Infinite. "We let it grow first... then we take it... implant it in you so you at least have the data to control it.. and become truly more powerful than Sonic ever could be."
Infinite turned his head away.
"Sound about right?" Eggman's teeth glistened as he widened his devilish grin. "Then you'll never have to worry about 'what if'?"
Referring to what Infinite's illusion experienced, Infinite's eye's twitched in rage as he held himself back from destroying the doctor.
He flew off quickly anyway, snickering with owl-like 'hoot' anyway.
Within the forest, he crashed and began to swipe at anything in sight.
Amy wasn't able to even get close to him.
He fell to his knees, swiping pitifully at a tree before smashing a boulder with a dark energy blast.
"HE LIVED!"
He cried out.
"HE LIVED AND HE'S MOCKING ME!"
Amy's fear was no match for her love for Sonic.
Although everything in her wanted to stay back, she leapt at Sonic, feeling him try and pull her off, she let him throw her down, looming over her.
Panting in her own strength starting to fail her, being taken aback by him being so far gone in his anger, she moved herself up enough to grab his head and throw him to her lap, keeping him there and trying to soothe him by stroking his quills.
He resisted. Shifting and trying to get up, but she kept pushing him down.
"Calm… erfph! Down… shhh…shhh… Ouch! Quit it!"
Finally, Dark Sonic seemed to regain some of himself, hearing her cry of slight pain.
He breathed loudly, before shouting out in further rage.
"I'm hurting you!"
"Yes, you are!"
"Dang it!"
"Yeah, dang the pain!"
"…What? What are you even-!?"
"I'm yelling cause you're yelling!"
"Well, stop that!"
"Okay!"
Amy shouted again.
For a moment… there was peace. Sonic's chest rose up and down, his body mostly motionless besides that. Feeling the weight of his body on hers… at least, on her legs, was a new sensation Amy never thought she'd be having.
Up… down… up… down… for some reason, it made her slightly uneasy.
Her leg was getting warm from the moist breath he kept breathing out on it… one hand gripped her back and held it's hold on her… making her back tense up in hopes of outstretching his grasp. But it held… and would probably leave imprints.
She finally saw what made her toss and turn in her recovery room for so long…
The tiniest vines of darkness… slowly trying to wiggle their way free of the aura from his dark fur and make their way to her.
She stared at them… frozen in fear before she stopped stroking his quills and looked down.
Her eyes were covered in the shadows of the trees… trying to think this through.
"Let me try and get this straight." She swallowed, still wishing for some water right about now.
And to give some to poor Sonic… she couldn't stand to see him suffering like this.
She couldn't stand just sitting around and doing nothing to help him either…
"Your mean behavior is being caused by something deep inside you… something you've allowed to possess you at given times… that's hard to free yourself of because… because you can't focus enough on breaking out of it. It's feeding off your emotions and making them control you rather than you control it."
Sonic didn't say anything, just kept breathing.
"…Okay. I think I kinda… sorta, maybe… get a little of what you're saying." She lifted her head then, seeing the vines weren't able to grow any further.
This gave her some courage, narrowing her eyes, not sure what would happen.
"So,… you've been intensely feeling anger… and that's what it's mostly feeding off of… but what if it fed off of something else? Something you could control? Something that wouldn't give it any power over you?"
"…I don't understand… what you're saying." He sounded like he was trying so desperately to hold himself back. It nearly broke Amy's heart to hear how much he was straining against going berserk again… She felt the pollen in the air circle around them and shine in the light as she hopefully looked back to him… unable to see the expression on his face.
"Sonic…"
"Grr…haaa..haa… graa.. haah…hahh.."
She felt his body tremor a second, before stopping and seeming fine, before tremoring again.
All the love in her heart rose to her throat and came out her eyes.
"Oh, Sonic… if there's one thing I know that no one can stay mad at…"
She turned him around, seeing the pain bleeding out his face, his eyes closed with absolute concentration in them.
"I can't… I can't feel anything but… hate… and rage… and pain…"
She dipped her head down.
"I… I hear you… and suddenly… I can breathe. Your touch… even hearing you and feeling you breathe… I let myself fall into it because I didn't feel anything when I did. If it took over my emotions and used them as power… I didn't know until after the fact. When I could feel them… Gah… ahh… again…"
Her lips part under the soft press… of lightly kissing his cheek.
"I believe no one can stay mad at a kiss forever."
Sonic's eyes shot open with the emerald green she loved so much. His whole body seemed to remain frozen as the oily texture of his quills withdrew the coloration back into the depths of his core, and Sonic The Hedgehog lifted his head from her lap, slowly leaning away from her in what appeared to be a bit of frazzled surprised.
She tightly pressed her lips together in a fine line and put a hand over her mouth as she held in a buzzing laugh.
It came out kinda ridiculous, her trying to hold it in and the sound still passing without her wanting too.
He reared up and looked around, then looked at his body and realized he was fully in control of himself again.
The darkness… was gone.
"What..?" he looked around again, "I was feeling… despair. Like I couldn't be the hero everyone wanted me to be. Wait, why am I saying this!?" he looked extremely unaware of how truly embarrassed he was.
Amy burst out laughing, gripping her stomach and leaning herself back to let all the tension of the past moments out.
"I must have… lost touch with everything." He continued to examine himself, even checking under his shoe.
This made Amy roar with laughter that was sporadic, sometimes fully forward and unable to breathe, or completely arched back with her whole body moving up and down in jerks at laughing so hard.
Wide-eyed, he stayed silent and nervous… before narrowing his eyes as his fur grew darker again.
"Stop that."
She laughed.
"It's not funny."
She laughed some more.
"What are you laughing at!?"
She stopped, but a smile was still openly upon her face as she threw a hand to her forehead.
"I always thought… you'd run or freak out… or something." She let a few more giggles go before getting up. "But… you were… just so amazed you changed back,.. you didn't even react."
He frowned with his teeth showing, stepping back.
"What are you feeling now?" she stepped forward, seeing him take two more steps back.
"..I'm… I'm not fearing anything." He looked about ready to run.
His white eye sockets were back, so was the dark fur.
"…Oh?" she looked at his dark form, then back up at him. "You sure you're not feeling… anything? Nothing at all?" she played dumb, but it was extremely sarcastic.
He dipped the middle that bridged his eyes down lower, "I'm warning you… Stop laughing."
She moved closer, "You totally changed the subject. Whether that was your intention or not, you prioritized returning to your original form more so than the fact that I pecked your cheek." She smirked, swaying her arms as she moved closer.
"But hey, it was probably my bad you shifted back so quickly… I don't know why you're changing all the time now, Sonic… but I'll do everything in my power…" she smiled at that word. "To make sure you come back to your senses…"
He moved away, but she was able to get close enough to hop and kiss his chin.
"..Enh?!"
He stumbled.
She forced herself not to laugh as he fell over.
He got himself halfway up before she bent down and squatted in front of him.
She sweetly lifted his nose up, since his head was angled down, and startled him as he blinked his eyes.
She dropped to her knees and moved down, kissing him above his lips and on the bridge of his angry little eyebrow bridge.
This immediately threw him out of his dark form, and he stumbled back, breathing hard again as his composure was lost.
He banged his head against a tree and ducked with a hand reaching up to grip it.
She once again had to force herself to not make a sound of laughter.
"You mentioned you didn't feel enough for everyone? That you failed as a hero… is that what you meant? That you didn't feel able to live up to everyone's expectations? Before you left?"
Sonic kept the grip on his head, moving his face away from view.
"… Or did you feel that when we all thought you died… that we failed you?"
He still remained silent and motionless, not looking at her.
"…Well…" she suddenly saw the world spin around her, her eyes looking up and her eyelids lowering from the heat and the events of the day finally waning on her body. "You'll always be enough… for…me."
"How… how would you know what I feel?"
She collapsed.
"AMY!"
He snapped out of his dark form again, speedily catching her and holding her in his arms.
Worry replaced all other emotions… even if he didn't understand what to call them, or even if what Amy said was true.
Racing home, he knew he didn't have much time left.
Jumping in the already broken window, he landed in her room and struggled to get his weakened knees up again, falling at her bedside, being able to place her there before forcing himself up onto it.
He breathed hard… the sweat of the day glistening as the sun began to turn to dusk.
He looked out the window, before back at Amy.
He could vaguely remember… the sunlight through the smog and smoke… resting on her like a beacon of hope.
In the dark, his face is unseen, but he slowly leans over her…
Inches from her own cheeks… he leans a little more down.
Then he collapses to the side of her, unable to follow through whatever intention had come over him.
(A small… 'taste'… of what's in store. Dear reader…~ Dare to continue?)