It was the sound of thunder that finally woke Amy up.
It wasn't exactly difficult to tell why – the crack of the lightning bolt was so loud that it sounded like the bolt had struck the inside of her ears. Letting out a shriek of panic, Amy jumped nearly a foot in the air, landing painfully on her backside.
"Ow…" She rubbed her sore behind. "Where…?"
She'd… been with Sonic just now, hadn't she? There had been something to do with a crystal, and Sonic had done something very silly, and…
The outline of Amy's body suddenly wavered and contorted for a moment, before snapping back into place.
…and what? She couldn't remember.
"Ah, you're awake!"
Blinking, Amy's eyes actually started to focus on her surroundings.
She was in a freshly dug burrow – the dirt underneath her was still loose and a bit damp. A few empty soda bottles had been shoved into the walls to serve as tiny improvised windows, and rocks had been piled up to block the entrance.
In the dim light she could see a strange group of people that she didn't recognise: a bluebird, a rabbit, a penguin, a chicken, and a walrus. All of them were guys. The only other girl in the room was another hedgehog girl (who looked about Cream's age), peering at her in concern.
As Amy blinked in confusion up from her prone position, the other hedgehog girl beamed and showed off her dirt-covered hands.
"Mr Lightfoot's been showing me how to dig a burrow!" She proudly declared.
Unlike the boys – who had apparently all lost their gloves and sneakers at some point, making Amy vaguely uncomfortable – the other hedgehog girl was wearing a headband, two earrings, a jacket, a polka dot skirt and a t-shirt with a giant 'T' written on the front. All of that, and her shoes, had great big dirt stains on them.
"That's… nice?" Amy ventured. The other hedgehog girl smiled at the vague praise, giggling a little and turning to the wall again, digging it out further.
"What's going on?" Amy asked, clueless. She turned to the wall and pulled out one of the larger rocks, sticking her head outside to have a look at the bright sunny day.
Wait. Sunny day? Hadn't it been thundering a second ago? Amy squinted suspiciously at the landscape around her. The burrow entrance opened up onto a narrow valley. At one end, a few kilometres away, she could see a large metal tower at the top of one of the valley walls. As she watched, the top of the tower flashed –
"Ack! What are you doing?! Get back!" The rabbit hurriedly pulled Amy back from the entrance. Just as he did so, a terrible wind suddenly began to blow through the valley, carrying with it enormous amounts of fine yellow rock – a sandstorm.
Frantically, the rabbit snatched the rock Amy had pulled out of the entrance and shoved it back into place, putting his whole back into the push. "We didn't just decide to dig a burrow because we thought we needed the exercise, you know!" He cried. "The weather's gone completely stark-raving bonkers! Every minute it goes from blizzard to drought to hurricane and every terrible thing in between!"
Amy's outline flickered again as she stared at the entrance, her backless red dress turning into a t-shirt and quilted skirt and the quills on her head sticking up like a Mohawk. "If I had to guess, I'd bet that that tower up there has something to do with this." Amy rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "If we can get to it, then maybe we might be able to put a stop to this!"
"How come Amy's suddenly British?" The other hedgehog girl wondered aloud, even as she continued to dig.
"You want to go out there? In that weather?" The rabbit asked dubiously.
Amy froze.
Slowly, her eyes as wide as saucers, she jerkily turned her head to stare into the rabbit's eyes.
"Johnny Lightfoot?" She whispered, disbelievingly.
"Er… yes?" Johnny replied, squirming under her gaze. "Have we met?"
"But it can't be!" Amy fell backwards, starting to hyperventilate slightly. "You… you're dead! You died fighting Chaos!"
Johnny blinked, more confused than anything. "Chaos who?"
Amy opened her mouth –
And her outline flickered again, removing her Mohawk and giving her her red dress back. Amy groaned, rubbing the side of her head with the palm of one hand.
"You…" She said, hesitantly. "Sorry… who are you again?"
This time, the other hedgehog girl turned around and blinked at Amy. "Amy, did you hit your head?"
"It's worse than that, I think." The penguin nodded. "She's been digitised."
Amy's hand paused mid-rub. "I've been what?" She asked, sceptically.
"Oh, yeah!" Johnny nodded, folding his arms. "A little while ago Robotnik sucked us all into his computer network!" He indicated himself and the other guys. "And when Sonic tried to get us out, it turned out Robotnik had infected us with a terrible computer virus that turned us into pixilated Italian plumbers!"
"Real people don't glitch, so you mustn't have fully turned back to normal since going into the computer!" The bluebird added.
"I think I would know if I was suffering from cyber-corruption." Amy responded dubiously. It'd certainly been hard to miss on Sonic when – flicker – …when, what? What had she been thinking about, just now?
"Who's Robotnik?" The other hedgehog girl asked Johnny.
Johnny blinked in stupefaction. "Uh… big fat guy? Keeps trying to take over the world with robots?"
The other hedgehog girl raised an eyebrow. "Are you talking about Eggman?"
"No, I'm talking about Robotnik." Johnny said, stubbornly. "Who's this Eggman guy?"
Amy sighed, giving up trying to recover her train of thought. "'Eggman' is a nickname for Robotnik." She explained absentmindedly. "They're the same person."
The other hedgehog girl scratched her head. "Are you sure? 'cause I'm pretty sure his name really is Eggman…"
"And I've never heard him called anything but Robotnik." Johnny frowned. "Well, except for back when he was Kintobor, but that's a whole other bushel of carrots…"
This time, the glitching seemed to affect everyone but Amy, as everyone else's outlines spontaneously jumped out of position like they were trying to escape. Amy's eyes went wide and her fists found their way into her mouth as she stared on in worry.
(Just for a second, she thought she could see the colour inside Johnny's body vanish entirely, his glitching outline containing a place where a person should have been, but wasn't… before the colour returned the next second.)
"Are you guys okay?" She cried, her hands covering her mouth in shock, as the glitching died down.
The others made various groaning noises.
"Been better…" The other hedgehog girl said, her eyes spinning.
Johnny shook his head. "Ugh… guess we must have been digitised as well? Oh man, this is making my head hurt…"
A glum silence settled over the burrow for a moment.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" The penguin suddenly said, jumping a little. "I just realised we never introduced ourselves! I'm Tux the Penguin!"
"Really? Is this the time for… ugh. I'm Joe Sushi." The walrus introduced himself with a grimace. "And yes, I've heard all the jokes."
"Flicky the Bluebird!" The bluebird excitedly flapped his arms.
"Flicky? Really?" Amy scratched the side of her head. "Well, that's going to get confusing fast…"
"And I'm Chirps." The chicken finished, ignoring the nonplussed look from Flicky towards Amy. "Yes, I'm Chirps the Chicken. My parents hated me."
The last sentence was said with a lighthearted tone, so Amy was pretty sure he was joking.
"I'm Amy Rose." Amy introduced herself in response. "And that's… all of you?" Amy glanced over at the other hedgehog girl meaningfully.
"Well, nobody's been able to find Sally or Porker since this morning…" Tux rubbed his chin with a flipper.
The other hedgehog girl tilted her head at Amy's look. "You know who I am, right Amy?"
Amy's cheeks heated up… but she shook her head.
"Oh for… seriously?!" The other hedgehog girl put her hands on her hips. "I'm Tania! You know, your boyfriend's sister?!"
Amy jumped a little, glitching on the way down such that her dress suddenly became a minidress, with sports tape around her wrists and tied around her dress above her hips. She even looked slightly taller than before.
"You're Sonic's sister?" She cried, then froze. "Um, no, wait, I mean…!"
"Sonic?!" Tania rolled her eyes. "No! I'm Nicky's sister – you know, your actual boyfriend?! Come on, Amy! Stop dreaming about Sonic and face reality!"
"Dreaming? Reality?!" Amy spluttered. "Listen, 'Tania', you can't just go around telling people who they are or are not… in love with…" She trailed off.
In a moment of pure self-awareness, Amy turned towards you in a panic. "Oh God, is this what I sound like from the outside?!"
"Amy's got her head in the clouds again." Tania complained to Johnny.
Amy pouted at what she could hear from both you and Tania. "I am not that bad!"
The boys all swapped uncertain looks with each other. "Er…"
"Gah!" Amy wrapped her arms around herself, glitching back into one of her red dress versions. Blinking and shaking her head to clear out the unsettling feeling, Amy straightened up.
"Shouldn't you guys be doing something other than hiding from the weather?" She asked, face flushed, totally not just trying to change the subject.
"Er… usually we wait for Sonic and Tails to save the day." Flicky squirmed. "Or for Sally to tell us what to do."
"She's really bossy." Joe complained.
"If you don't like this Sally person bossing you around, then tell her that!" Amy scolded him. "Show some initiative!"
Joe groaned. "But that sounds like a lot of work…"
Amy's outline flickered again, to another version of herself with the same red dress, and she gave a start. "Wait, Sally? Are you talking about Sally Acorn?"
"Oh, you know her too? Funny, I don't think she's ever mentioned you…" Joe scratched his head.
"Sally Acorn, princess of the Kingdom of Acorn?" Amy clarified.
"Princess?" The boys echoed back as one, dumbfounded.
"No, Sally's not a princess!" Flicky denied, then looked unsure. "At least, I don't think she is…"
"No, she's not!" Johnny told Flicky firmly. "She's just a normal squirrel!"
"Squirrel?" Amy blinked. "No, Sally's a chipmunk! I should know, she and I have been friends since –"
Amy's outline flickered again, and she bent over in discomfort, groaning.
Johnny shared a worried look with Tania, before hopping over to Amy and peering at her closely.
"Lemme guess." Johnny asked, sounding tired. "You have no idea who Sally is now, right?"
Amy looked up, glaring. Her romance instincts were firing full blast! "Sally who? She better not be someone trying to get between me and Sonic!"
Johnny blinked, taken aback by Amy's sudden hostility. "I, uh… don't think he thinks of her that way."
Honestly, Johnny wasn't even sure if Sonic had finished his 'girls are icky' stage.
"Good!" Amy huffed, puffing her cheeks out angrily.
"Does everybody here know Sonic other than me?" Tania pouted. "I can't even get him to stick around long enough for me to thank him for saving me! Nicky's never even met him, he's always gone that fast!"
"That sounds like Sonic, alright." Amy, Johnny and Tux all sighed together, while Flicky and Joe nodded in agreement.
Suddenly, Amy's feet were cold and wet. Blinking, she looked down – and found herself standing in a puddle of water slowly rising up. Spinning around, she looked at the 'door' to the burrow, and found streams of water leaking through it.
"Oh great, now it's flooding!" Tux swore.
"Ack! Quick, we have to get above the waterline!" Johnny spun back to the back wall of the burrow and started frantically digging diagonally upwards. Tania joined him shortly afterwards, digging at the soft earth with childish glee.
Tux and Joe, being aquatic animals, didn't seem nearly as fussed; but Flicky and Chirps were hopping from one foot to the other trying to avoid getting their claws wet.
Amy watched Johnny and Tania's slow progress in digging for a moment – flicker – then looked back down at the rapidly rising water. She sighed.
"I'm going to need a good long soak after this…" She grumbled, kneeling down and putting her hands under the water until her fingertips rested on the ground.
Johnny and Tania stopped digging as they heard something rapidly spinning and churning the water, and looked back just in time to watch a pink ball of spines fly upwards, boring into the soil like a circular saw; dirt spraying out behind it.
Johnny and Tania shared a look, then poked their heads in the hole to have a look. The tunnel was narrow, but it seemed stable enough and led upwards as far as they could see.
"Come on!" Amy's voice came down in a shout. "The water's still rising!"
Johnny sighed. "Well, now I know she knows Sonic." He grumbled, but there was a hint of a smile as he squeezed into the tight tunnel and started climbing.
Up at the top of the valley wall, Amy stuck her now dirt-stained head out of the small hole she'd dug. That same tower from before was still there. From here, she could see giant antennas extending out from the tower, crackling with lightning. There were also giant funnels on either side of the tower.
Another tiny hole appeared next to Amy, and Tania poked her head out. "How'd you do that? I thought only Sonic could do that!"
Amy hmm'd, shading her eyes with one hand as she stared intently at the tower. "Yeah, it took a lot of practice before I could do that…" She said. Absolutely none of the bitterness that Tails and Knuckles had copied the Spin Dash pretty much immediately leaked into her voice. Nope! None at all!
Johnny's head poked up in yet another hole. "Are you girls sure it's safe to be up here?"
Almost on cue, the tower flashed again. The skies flashed in response, and hailstones the size of baseballs started to rain down around them.
"Eep!" Amy squeaked, pulling her head back underground.
Tania and Johnny were already digging the more traditional way, widening the area at the top of the tunnel and giving them somewhere to sit where there was no risk that a chunk of ice falling from the sky would whack them in the head. Cluck, Flicky, Tux, and Joe pulled themselves up the tunnel, the later two looking quite soaked.
Amy glared at the opening her head had just been poking out of, wincing as a hailstone shot down it. "Well, now I'm sure that tower is causing the weather."
"Okay, sure, but what are you gonna do about it?" Johnny asked.
Amy's outline flickered again – still that same red dress – and she grinned. "Smash it!" She held out a hand, and a giant red and yellow mallet poof'd into existence with an accompanying puff of smoke, settling neatly into her grip. She hefted it over a shoulder, a savage glint in her eyes.
The others stared at her for a moment.
"Since when could you do that?!" Tania puffed out her cheeks, very obviously jealous.
Tux's lower beak had just about hit the floor. "…are you a wizard?"
"What?" Amy blinked, dropping her pose. "No, what makes you think that?"
"You were turned into a mop, Johnny." Johnny rubbed his eyes with his paws. "What's a girl making a hammer appear out of thin air compared to that?"
Amy huffed. "You guys are way too easily impressed."
Johnny's head drooped, and he groaned. "Okay, so you have magic hammer powers. You still have to get to the tower." He said, a paw pointing upwards. "It's too dangerous to just walk over there with the wind and hail! You can't tunnel over there either, the ground under the tower and around it is all solid rock."
Amy glowered at Johnny for a moment. "Alright, what's your plan?" She demanded.
"We've got enough packets of crisps and peanuts to last us a week!" Joe Sushi declared, in Amy's opinion far too proudly. He hefted aloft a great big bag stuffed to the brim with junk food.
Amy stared at him. "…were you just carrying that around?"
"Well, yeah?" Joe wilted a bit. "Just in case Sonic stopped by and wanted a snack."
"But no chilli dogs?" Amy folded her arms, glitching (but into yet another of her red-dress selves).
Joe blinked. "Why, do you think he'd like them?"
Amy stared again at Joe. Looking around the room, she saw nothing but blank stares looking back at her, including from Tania.
"…how well did you guys say you know Sonic?" She scratched the side of her head, perplexed.
"Pretty well, given we all helped raise him." Johnny said, more than a little annoyance leaking into his tone.
"YOU WHAT?!" Tania and Amy both jumped, their heads bumping into the low dirt ceiling.
"Yeah!" Johnny puffed out his chest. "I'm the one who taught him how to run, don't ya know!"
"…somebody taught Sonic how to run?" It had always seemed to Amy more like Sonic had somehow been born with sneakers on, raring to go.
"Yeah! I taught him how to hold his breath for so long!" Tux added. "And Sally's the one who taught him how to jump so high!"
"He just kind of showed up in Green Hill Zone one day." Flicky fluttered his wings. "Sophocles the Owl found him just wondering around by himself."
Joe scratched his head. "Oh yeah, Old Man Owl. I forgot about him. Didn't he move to Emerald Hill Zone to be with his girlfriend?"
"I think so." Johnny frowned. "Long… something. Long-talon? No, that's not it…"
Amy glitched again, her Mohawk coming back. Blinking, she slapped her face with both hands, then paused and stared in some confusion at the handle of the hammer she still held in one hand.
"Guys, as fascinating as this is, we're getting off topic again." She said, shaking her head and looking upwards meaningfully.
"But I wanna hear more about Sonic…!" Tania whined.
"We can listen to plenty of stories once the tower's gone." Amy said firmly, giving Johnny a look that he couldn't decipher. Eyeing the opening to the surface, she quickly poked her head out again.
The weather had switched again, the hail gone. Now hurricane-level winds pulled fiercely at her quills, as though to tear them right out of her head.
Squinting through the winds, she tried to take as good a look at the tower as she could, wishing she had a pair of binoculars.
"I think those funnels on the sides are air intakes!" She called down. "If we gum them up with something, that might break whatever device is controlling the weather!"
"I must sound like a broken record by now, but how are you gonna get close enough to do that?" Johnny called back up, nervousness warring with annoyance.
Amy glitched again, turning back into her more common red dress appearance.
"One bit at a time." She declared.
In one hand, she hefted her hammer. In her other hand she had a large wooden stake – drawn from who-knows-where – which she hammered into the soft earth in front of her. She grabbed the stake with one hand, and pulled herself forwards.
The harsh wind tore at her clothes, at her arms, at every bit of exposed fur, but Amy grit her teeth and kept on pulling herself forwards until she could hook her arm around the stake, anchoring herself in place. Grabbing another stake from… somewhere… she hammered that one in as well, grabbed it and started pulling.
As she fully pulled herself out of the hole, though, there was an odd weight on her feet. Blinking, Amy glanced back – and found Tania with her arms wrapped in a death-grip around her ankles.
"What are you doing?!" Amy screamed, barely able to hear herself above the roaring wind.
Tania looked up defiantly. "Coming with you!" She screamed right back.
"It'll be really dangerous!" Amy objected.
"But what if you go fuzzy and forget what you're doing again?!" Tania rebutted.
Amy pointed her hammer at Tania. "No matter what, I'll keep moving forward!" She screamed, with the wind dramatically blowing her head-spines around. "Because if I've learned anything over all the time I've known him, I know that that's what he'd want me to do…!"
Then her outline wavered again, and snapped into place into a new shape. A green shirt with puffy sleeves, and an orange ruffled skirt. Her five head spines were now pointed back instead of down, and Amy seemed noticeably younger.
She blinked at Tania, seemingly only now properly seeing her. "Tania? Wait, what am I…?"
Unfortunately, in her disorientation, her grip slackened. Her hammer went flying off in the wind, and Amy herself went flying backwards –
– halting suddenly in place as Tania's legs desperately gripped the side of the hole.
"Ugh! Why'd you have to turn back to normal now?!" Tania shouted, exasperated. "Quick, turn back into one of the cool Amys!"
Despite being only a moment away from being blown away in the storm, Amy still found it in her to take offence. "Hey!" She screamed right back. "I'm plenty cool!"
Off in the far distance, a figure was running; their feet moving so fast they blurred, until they looked like two circles floating under a disembodied torso.
The figure suddenly threw themselves to the side to avoid Amy's hammer, blown sky-high by the wind, from slamming down into the ground through the space where their head had just been. Skidding to a stop, the figure turned and picked up the hammer.
The figure gave a sudden start of realisation, clearly recognising the hammer. Picking it up (with some difficulty), the figure aimed themselves in the direction the hammer had flown in from, and started running.
Tania's face was starting to turn blue. "Hurry…!" She gasped. She was loosing sensation in her arms from how tightly she was holding onto Amy, and her legs ached…
Amy wriggled and wrenched, which didn't make Tania's job any easier. But she couldn't swing her arms around enough to get a grip on her legs, let along start pulling herself back down again.
"I… can't…!" Desperately, Amy stretched forwards again…
…and slipped.
"AMY!" Tania screamed, her arms reaching out desperately as she saw Amy fly away…
But Amy glitched again, setting back into the Amy in a minidress, and she suddenly spun herself around in mid-air. "Catch!" She cried.
Tania was about to ask her what she meant, when a freaking energy beam shot out of her watch-thingy like a rope. Stunned, Tania caught the enerbeam more on instinct than on purpose, her arms once again getting pulled tight. But now Amy was facing the right way, and quickly pulled herself along her own beam until she could reach out and grab one of the stakes she hammered in earlier, wrapping her arms around it again.
Her arms ached, and her legs were shaking with the strain they had just undertaken, but Tania's eyes were shining. "Where'd you get that?!" She cried, pointing at Amy's watch-thingy.
While holding on with her left arm, Amy held up her right so that Tania could see her communicator. "This?" She yelled over the wind. "Tails made this out of a cyborg snake's sci-fi style prison bindings!"
Stars were shining in Tania's eyes now. "So cool!" She squealed.
Off in the distance, the tower flashed again, and the winds finally died down. Amy and Tania both collapsed to the ground, the pair exhausted from the ordeal.
"We could have really used your help, guys!" Amy shouted breathlessly in the general direction of the hole.
"Oh, they left already." Tania said, her voice tired. "They told me to stay here, but I decided to help you instead! So there!" Tania stuck out her tongue at Amy.
There was a deep rumbling sound coming from all around them.
"What's the weather doing now?" Amy asked, her voice tired.
Tania lifted her head to glance at the horizon. "It looks like… tornadoes are forming? But they're all the way over there… and they're hurling lots of rocks into the air? So… I guess the weather would be 'meteor shower'?"
Both girls let out one long tired exhale.
Then Amy was up, glitching into a red dress again, and running as fast as she could with Tania held in her arms.
"Left!" Tania yelped, her eyes on the sky.
Amy veered left, her feet leaving the ground for a moment as a chunk of rock the size of a bean-bag slammed into the ground right next to her, the shaking ground bouncing her upwards.
"Right!"
Amy dashed right, avoiding another chunk of rock.
"Duck!"
Amy – flicker – didn't bother, instead pulling another hammer out of a puff of smoke and batting the bowling-ball-sized 'meteor' away with a swing of her free hand.
Tania cheered, waving her arms in celebration from her position in the crook of Amy's arm. "Woo! Go Amy!"
Amy scratched the back of her head with her hammer-holding hand, blushing down at Tania as she closed her eyes. "Aw, it's not that impressive, really…"
Tania suddenly froze. "Above!" She screamed.
Amy, looked up, and skidded to a halt. A 'meteor' the size of a house was bearing down on them fast.
Amy turned and started running the other way, trying to get clear, but the shadow cast by the 'meteor' easily enveloped the two, and it seemed to get darker… and darker…
Her eyes frightened, Tania looked at Amy's face.
Amy looked down at Tania, her eyes also scared.
They could hear the whistling of air as the rock hurled down towards them. At the last second, Amy covered Tania's eyes and shut her own, even as her legs continued to pound away at the ground…
woosh
A pair of arms suddenly crashed into the pair from the side, fast enough to crash-tackle Amy and Tania down and under the 'meteor' before it hit the ground. The three bounced and rolled across the dirt, disorientated by the rapid movement and the sounds of 'meteors' crashing down all around them.
Eventually, the three slid to a halt, their arms essentially wrapped around each other.
Amy squealed joyfully. "Sonic! I knew you'd come! I knew you'd rescue me! Nothing could possibly keep us apart!" She squeezed her rescuer hard, snuggling into their chest.
"U-um…"
Amy froze, and her eyes flew open.
That wasn't Sonic's voice. That was a girl's voice.
Her rescuer was, in fact, a yellow-furred mongoose with long purple hair, wearing a violet tank top and skirt. Her expression conveyed about as much awkwardness as Amy herself felt right now. "Amy, um… hi?"
"Who are you?" Tania asked curiously, saving Amy the trouble. Her head popped out of the tangle of limbs, the young girl sandwiched between her elders.
The mongoose untangled herself from Amy, the pair of them blushing furiously as they stood up. "Oh, um, hi. I-I'm Mina. Mina Mongoose."
"Hi Mina!" Tania said brightly, standing up and brushing herself off. "Amy's really fuzzy at the moment, so she might not remember you or she might think you're dead."
Mina blinked slowly, the embarrassment in her eyes giving way to confusion. "Dead? Huh?"
There was a loud thud as a 'meteor' landed only a few meters away, knocking the three into the air.
"Ack!" Amy's outline flickered, and she shook her head. "Quick, the tower!"
"Oh, um, right!" Mina blinked several more times, seemingly only just getting a grip on herself. "Grab a hold!" She offered Tania and Amy both a hand.
"Uh, why?" Amy cocked her head, taking Mina's hand anyway.
Her eyes went wide when Mina's legs revved up, her feet blurring into circles, and suddenly she and Tania were flying across the landscape, dragged by a super-fast mongoose running across the landscape.
"You can run like Sonic?!" Tania screamed, her eyes once again brimming with star-struck excitement.
"U-um… not exactly…" Mina wilted. "Sonic was born fast, and I… well… I got my speed as part of an evil wizard's plot."
But instead of whatever reaction Mina apparently expected Tania to have, she looked awed instead.
"You have an origin story." She breathed.
Mina blinked, her posture subconsciously straightening up. The hint of a smile played at the corner of her mouth.
With a proper speedster pulling them along, dodging the 'meteors' was almost easy – and the distance to the tower was being eaten up fast. In less than a minute, they'd be there.
"Amy, do you know what's going on?" Mina asked, suddenly. "Last I remember, I was in New Mobotropolis, and there was this light, and now I don't know where I am!"
Amy frowned. Another person who knew her, but that she couldn't remember? What were the odds of that? Still, she looked around herself. The walls of the valley to their side were orange, and pine trees were scattered all around… "This looks like… wait, Hill Top Zone?! What am I doing on West Side Island?! I was on South Island just before!"
"I don't know where any of those places are!" Mina yelled, somewhat helplessly.
A 'meteor' slammed into the ground just behind them, making Mina flinch. "Oh, I really wish there was a proper Freedom Fighter here…!" She whined.
Amy frowned. "I have the strangest feeling, like I've just been insulted?"
Mina jumped, glancing back at Amy as though only just realising that she was there. "Um, er… I didn't mean…!"
"LEFT!" Tania screamed, and Mina looked forwards again just in time to see the falling rock she was about to run into. Letting out a frightful squeak of her own, she veered left just in time to have the 'meteor' narrowly miss Amy.
"Oh, I'm doing this all wrong…!" Mina groaned, her shoulders slumping a bit. "Here, Amy, you better have your hammer back." She nodded her head back, indicating the giant hammer she'd strapped to her back with her shirt.
Amy blinked. "But I still have my hammer?" She held out the second hammer in front of her for Mina to see.
Mina looked between the hammer in Amy's hand and the one in her back. "Wait, I thought this one was yours! Whose hammer is it then?!"
"Mine!" Tania gleefully claimed, reaching over and grabbing the first hammer out of Mina's shirt. Almost immediately, her whole right side dropped like a rock; her young body struggling to lift the massive hammer above the ground.
"Eh heh…" Mina winced, swerving around another 'meteor'. "Amy, um, who exactly is this girl?"
Mina wasn't looking back at the time, and so didn't see Amy's outline flicker again.
"…Mina?"
Mina's eyes widened, and she quickly looked back. Amy had turned white as a sheet, staring at Mina like she was looking at a ghost.
"H-hi." Mina smiled awkwardly. "Is… is this the part this girl was talking about? You thinking I'm dead?"
"My name's Tania!" Tania interjected.
But Amy just shook her head, her eyes still wide as saucers. "No… no you didn't die, Mina. But… how can… How can you be here?! It's not… Tails, Nicole, even the notes we stole from Eggman! They all said it was impossible, that there was no way to bring you back!"
"Bring me back?" Mina glanced forwards just in time to swerve around another falling rock. There was a giant lump in her throat. If Amy had just said she was dead, she could have laughed that off, but… "Back from where? Where have I been gone?"
"Nowhere!" Amy shook her head again, more insistently. "Mina, you were erased! I… I can barely even remember…!"
Amy's body glitched again, and she groaned, pressing a hand into her forehead in distress.
Tania looked nonplussed. "What does that mean?"
But Mina couldn't help remembering a white light that seemed to swallow up everything, the final memory she had before waking up here…
Abruptly, the tower they were running for was right in front of them. Without thinking, Mina tried something she'd only ever seen Sonic do – she ran right up to the base of the tower and tried to run up the side.
Amazingly, given it was her first try, she made it nearly half-way up before the universe figured out that she couldn't actually do that, and she found herself falling back and away from the wall…
"Hup!" Amy cried, swinging her hammer around with such force that it became embedded in the wall. Amy dangled from her hammer, Mina danged from Amy's other hand, and Tania dangled from Mina.
"Sorry!" Mina cried.
Amy didn't respond. Instead, her face turned an interesting shade of red as she heaved with all her might, swinging Mina and Tania up and around to a windowsill just out of her own reach. Tania and Mina both grabbed hold of the sides of the open window, and between the two of them pulled Amy up and through.
Inside the tower was a central piece of machinery straight out of a b-movie. Tesla coils sparked, gyroscopes swirled, and pulleys whirred for no reason that Amy could tell.
"Eggman!" Amy held her hammer out in front of her like a sword. "Your cruel experiments stop…" She trailed off. "Who are you?"
Standing at what was obviously the control console was… a gerbil woman? Who scowled angrily back at the group of three. "Who am I? The better question is who are you, barging into my tower like this!"
"Uh…" Mina and Tania shared an uncertain look with each other, but in front of them Amy glitched again, her white T-shirt returning and her eyes narrowing.
"Windy Wallis the Weather Gerbil." Amy said, casually dropping her hammer on the ground. "I should have guessed."
"Why does Amy suddenly have a Mohawk?" Mina whispered to Tania, confused. "And what accent is that? It – it's a little like a Merican accent, but…"
"I know, right?" Tania stage-whispered back, nodding excitedly.
"Amy Rose." Windy sneered. "One of those pathetic 'Freedom Fighters'. Bah! I didn't recognise you in that stupid dress!"
The light suddenly glinted off of something in Amy's hand, and Mina looked down… and took a step back in shock. Amy was pointing a crossbow at Windy's chest.
"Turn the weather-control machine off, Windy." Amy said evenly.
Rather than be intimidated, however, Windy just cackled. "Make me!" She shouted, lunging for the controls and pulling a level. Strong winds suddenly spun up inside the tower, blowing away the bolt Amy tried to shoot at the mechanisms.
As Amy cursed in frustration, she tried to brace into the wind – to no avail. Her legs lifted off the ground as the indoor hurricane tossed her, Mina and Tania about like rag-dolls. As Windy's mocking laughter filled the room, the three were tossed behind a bank of machinery next to the wall.
"Ugh… now what?" Mina asked, looking to Amy. But Amy was already glitching again, her T-shirt swapping out for the mini-dress that Tania had already seen a couple of times.
"Now?" Amy thumped a fist into an open palm. "Now I use my psychological expertise and feminine intuition to break down the barriers around her heart and let out the innocent little child I know is still inside!"
Mina blinked. "Um… what?"
"Windy!" Amy yelled over the roaring wind. "Why are you doing this? What possible reason could you have for such destruction?!"
"I hate people!" Windy yelled back. "And I want them all to go away!"
Amy didn't react for a moment, before slumping over. "Okay, I got nothing." She groaned.
There was a loud crack and the sudden smell of ozone, and the three girls yelped as a lightning bolt came down right next to where they were crouched; sending the three scrambling for cover with panicked cries.
"Try to take me down in my own tower, will you?!" Windy growled. "Who do you think you are, Sonic?!"
"Amy?" Tania asked, lying with her back to the wall, upside down, resting on her head with her eyes spinning. "Do you think the reason Sonic keeps leaving so quickly is 'cause he has to deal with crazy people like this lady, not just Eggman?"
Windy spun around to glare at Tania, her hands clenching like she wanted to wring Tania's neck. "Is it madness to want to destroy the world?!"
"Yes!" Amy, Mina and Tania all yelled back in unison.
Windy growled. "Well, it's certainly maddening trying to make it happen! I should have control over the entire planet's weather system by now, but it keeps changing on me! It's like there's a mountain range somewhere that's moving around!"
"My heart bleeds for you!" Amy glitched into one of her red-dress versions, grabbed her hammer as it swung around in the winds, and jumped into the maelstrom, her hammer raised and poised to swing…
But Windy just scowled, and twisted a dial on her control column. The winds suddenly doubled in speed, flinging Amy around and around in circles in the enclosed space.
"I've had enough of heroes ruining my plans at the last minute." Windy spat. "So say goodbye to your friends, Amy Rose!"
Dramatically, Windy pulled a great big lever on the control panel.
And with a great big grinding noise, the winds…
…died away, leaving Amy to fall roughly against the floor?
Windy blinked. "What?" She raised and lowered the lever several times, but the wind did not come back.
Amy groaned as she got back to her feet, swaying a little… but smiling. She glanced out the window to her right, and saw a rabbit hole emerging from the patch of soil nearest the tower. Johnny, Joe, Tux, Chirps and Flicky were outside, busy throwing packets of peanuts and potato chips into the giant air intake nearest to them.
Windy growled. "Even without the wind, I can still control lightning!" She dashed around to the other side of the control panel…
…only to see Tania, standing on top of the panel; Mina's hands still under her arms from when she'd just lifted her up. With the kind of viscous grin that only a small child deliberately making a mess could make, Tania hefted her copy of Amy's hammer and started smashing up the control panel.
Windy backed away. "No… no! Not again!"
She felt a tap on her shoulder.
Fearfully, Windy turned around… just in time to receive the flat of Amy's hammer to the side of her head. Windy was sent flying all the way across the room to slam into the wall, slumping down into a boneless pile on the floor, unconscious.
Amy rotated her shoulder in its socket. "Finally." She grumbled. "That felt like it took forever to deal with!"
"I'll say! And that was a brutal take-down – even for you, Amy!"
Amy spun around, hammer at the ready, to face the new voice.
"H-hey hey hey! Don't you know the old saying to not smash the messenger robo?!"
The newcomer to the scene was about the size and shape of a human toddler, pitch black in colour and a pair of enormous 'horns' protruding from the sides of his head. He was wearing red boots, a belt with the letter 'M' on it for some reason, and a jetpack – the latter of which explained how he had gotten up to the second-story windowsill.
He was waving his arms rapidly in warding motions as Amy stomped on over to him. "What do you want?!" She growled at him, absolutely fed up with everything.
"Well, I want to find Sonic, but I've looked all over for him and I can't see him anywhere." The newcomer pouted. "I've been at this for ages! You always seem to find him, Amy. If I give the message to you, will you pass it on?"
"Messenger… robo?" Mina wondered over, utterly confused. "As in… robot? Does that mean you work for…?"
Amy glitched – red dress again – and sighed. "Play the message, Bokkun."
The messenger robo – Bokkun – beamed at her. "Okie dokie!" He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small rubbery object that somehow expanded out into a television only slightly smaller than he was.
Mina was joined by a slightly soot-covered Tania in staring at the odd display.
The TV meanwhile activated, the easily recognised face of Doctor Eggman filling the screen. "Oh ho ho ho! Hello Sonic! It is I, your eternal nemesis Doctor Eggman!"
"That's Eggman?" Tania wondered. "Huh. I didn't realise he had a neck."
…okay maybe not quite so easily recognised for everybody.
"If you are hearing this message, I'm busy with something – probably your imminent demise – and can't afford the time to record a new message to taunt you!" The recording of Eggman waved a finger. "But I don't want you to feel left out, so this messenger robo will read out to you my message."
"Ah-hem." Bokkun coughed, pulling out a sheet of paper and a pair of reading glasses from his pocket. "'Attention, Sonic! My new invincible Egg Fleet has enough power to exceed anything you've ever seen before! You'll never be able to stop my imminent attack at –'"
"How about you just pass me that paper, Bokkun?" Amy suggested in a tired voice, dropping her hammer, walking over to the unconscious form of Windy and picking her up. "I'll make sure Sonic gets it."
Mina and Tania continued to stare in confusion, but this time at what Amy was doing.
Bokkun pouted. "Fine, take all the fun out of it for me!" He took off his glasses, rolled up the paper and tossed it at Amy, who caught it under her chin.
"Come on, girls!" She said, putting one foot on the windowsill opposite where Bokkun was. "Time to go!"
"Go?" Mina and Tania echoed, slowly walking over to the windowsill. "Why?"
The recording of Eggman was now tapping his fingers on the table in front of him, looking quite bored. "Well, that should be enough time for whatever message I have to be read out." The recording said. "So this message will now self-destruct!"
"Jump!" Amy yelped, hopping out of the window with Windy. Mina and Tania shared a look of sudden panic, but then jumped out after her.
As the three fell down, they were back-lit as the exploding TV belched fire that erupted out of every window – and than again as Windy's weather control machine went up in a huge secondary explosion.
Amy grunted as she landed on her feet, Windy still in her arms.
Mina managed to get her feet under her, and then quickly speed over to catch Tania before she hit the ground.
"Ugh…" Mina looked up at the burning tower, even as Bokkun's cackling form flew off and the boys from earlier started to make their way over. "That… sounded bad."
"Yep." Amy agreed, unceremoniously dumping Windy on the ground.
Several bits of debris from the weather-control machine were scattered around… including one shining purple gemstone the size of Amy's fist, which Amy quickly picked up.
"We should probably make sure the Freedom Fighters know about it, then." Mina suggested.
Amy frowned. "There's that insulted feeling again!" She complained.
Bokkun is from Sonic X (as is the slightly yandere Amy who can pull hammers out of thin air).
Windy Wallis is from Fleetway (as is t-shirt Mohawk crossbow Amy).
Mina Mongoose is from pre-SGW Archie (the Archie versions of Amy do appear in this chapter, but they look exactly the same as Game and X Amy, so you kind of have to pick them out based on what they know).
Minidress enerbeam Amy is from Sonic Boom (the enerbeam only appeared in the show a couple of times, but it was a major gameplay mechanic in Rise of Lyric).
Tania, like her brother Nicky, is from the Sonic manga (as is the classic-style Amy with no fighting ability).
Johnny, Tux, Joe Sushi, Flicky and Chirps are from the "Early Sonic canon" that SEGA of America created, then never really used beyond the names "Mobius", "Ivo Robotnik" and "Sally Acorn" – but that all the British Sonic stories were based on. Specifically these versions are from the Virgin Books, but they do have counterparts in Fleetway.