When the activities at The Academy were over, Cream did everything in her power not to run into any of the high officials, preferring to avoid a situation similar to the one earlier in the day. She tried to blend in among the crowd of people retiring to their homes. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sergeant Lanolin and Commander Shadow inspecting the retreating recruits, luckily none of them noticed her. When she felt she was safe, in the middle of the city center, that's when she could relax.
As usual, the economic center of Oak Shire was bustling with activity, even though the sun was already beginning to set behind the range of mountains behind The Acorn Castle. Hawkers and itinerant merchants swarmed the informal marketplace offering their wares and services, some truly interesting, others that were clearly a scam. Many of them spoke in languages Cream didn't understand, though she sensed they came from Shamar or Spagonia, places she's never been to but has heard a lot about.
Cream received a message on her cell phone, Vector was asking her to buy fruits and spices at the market, he had already transferred the money to Cream's personal account for her to do so. From the quantities he had asked for, Cream intuited that the food was for one of the community kitchens that Vector helped out at, so she went to comply with the order gladly, as she still loved to help out and it also meant more time roaming the city.
Above her, The Diamond Cutters' Patrol-Gear flew over the market like birds of prey. They were extremely silent, making only a faint rustling sound as they flew, but Cream had already determined how particular they were, so it was easy to recognize them. Their main task was to keep the informal market, which had grown exponentially in recent years due to migration, in relative order. By Royal Decree, any foreigner requesting citizenship within the Kingdom was granted it immediately and without so much bureaucracy, which led to a considerable migratory boom. According to Vanilla at the time, Sergeant Lanolin was not a fan of the measure, since she said that for every 100 immigrants who were hard-working and well-intentioned, at least one entered who did not have the best intentions, capable of making a big fuss, and that it was difficult to identify him among all the others. So it was determined that it was easier to concentrate the new citizens in specific areas to make it easier to identify them and maintain order, or in other words, to put them in Ghettos.
There is much speculation as to what was the real origin of this measure, since Sergeant Lanolin has no influence beyond the police, and what is the Queen's true opinion on the matter. Some say she hates this policy and is working to find a better alternative, others say she was the one who instituted it directly. Prime Minister Jewell has had to step up to the plate and take the blame, although Vanilla herself claims it is not and never was her idea, but she was somehow pressured to admit it. Still, measures have been taken by other means to better integrate immigrants into the kingdom while maintaining their Ghettos, in some respects seem noble, but in others they are more like a filtering of people.
Cream felt that walking through the Ghettos was a bittersweet experience, as she loved the diversity of people she encountered and seeing their customs firsthand, but noticed the great difference in the quality of life between the immigrants and the local residents. She knew firsthand the efforts that were being made for integration, her mother Vanilla from the Ministry of Education was creating educational initiatives for children and adults, while Vector was doing the same by providing support in community kitchens for families who barely earned enough to subsist, but things just didn't seem to be getting better...
As she wandered lost in her ramblings, Cream was able to reach the store where she usually shopped. The merchant was a very jovial old Antelope from Shamar with a strong accent. He always greeted her with joy and repeated that she reminded him of his granddaughter, whom he had not heard from since before The Union. While Cream was selecting the fruits and spices, a young lady entered the shop. She caught Cream's attention because of the way she was dressed: a long reddish skirt with a hooded tunic covering most of her body and a bandana covering half of her face. At first he thought she was an immigrant from Northern Shamar, where it is tradition for women to dress that way, but from the way she spoke Cream could tell she didn't have a Shamares accent, she sounded like a native resident of the Kingdom or the surrounding territories, or perhaps the islands where Cream came from. But beyond that, what interested Cream was her voice, which seemed strangely familiar...
The woman approached Cream and began to select fruit as she did. Cream slyly tried to look at her out of the corner of her eye to see if she could identify her even a little bit. Then the woman reached out her hand to get a distant fruit and much of her arm could be revealed, revealing a large golden ring around her wrist. Cream's breathing stopped for a moment. Automatically her hand began to move, reaching for the woman's wrist and holding it tightly. Immediately the woman turned to look at Cream and Cream could clearly see her green eyes and the pink spikes in her hair.
"Miss Am-!", before she could finish her sentence the woman covered Cream's mouth and held her tightly.
"Shhhhh! Don't scream," she whispered in her ear.
While holding the Rabbit's mouth and restraining her with one hand, the woman used her free hand to pull out a wad of bills and hand them to the merchant.
"Thank you very much! I'll pay for the girl's too, keep the change, bye!".
The woman quickly dragged Cream out of the store and through the entire market. Cream tried to struggle, but even with all the training and being the strongest recruit in her class, it was impossible for her to break free from the woman's grip. She pushed her way forward, pushing people out of her way, but always apologizing afterwards. She only stopped for a moment when a handful of Patrol-Gear flew overhead, took up a position of shelter under a small tent where they were selling clothes. Cream could see how one of the officers turned to look at them, to which the woman reacted by turning around and holding Cream close to her as if she were her daughter, but still covering her mouth. In the end the officer continued on his way along with the others and then the woman continued with her run.
The two arrived at a half-built residential area, walked through a dark alley until they came to the door of an empty gray construction site. The woman kicked the door open, released Cream and closed the door behind her as quickly as she could. Finally free, Cream took a few minutes to catch her breath. She slowly turned to look at her abductor, who began to remove her hood and pull her bandana down from her face. The dim light made it difficult to identify her well, but even in the dim light it was unmistakable who she was looking at.
"Miss Amy...?".
The question was answered by a strong hug, the kind that is suffocating but so comforting, so full of love, that it's hard not to want it to last forever. Cream reciprocated by hugging back with the same intensity.
"By Gaia, you're so tall...", whispered Amy.
"And you grew your hair," Cream replied, to which Amy laugh.
"I haven't had time to cut it, I've been... Busy."
"Doing what? where have you been?".
Slowly Amy broke the hug until she had Cream in front of her to see her better. She put on a melancholy smile before responding:
"It's too long a story to tell you here and now."
"Mr. Sonic! He...", the moment Cream said this Amy's smile disappeared. "Is he okay, is he alive, with you?".
Silence fell. Amy glanced over her shoulder at the window of the house. Cream could recognize the distinctive whisper of the Patrol-Gears hovering outside. When it was gone, Amy continued speaking:
"They must not see me, they must not know I am here."
"Why?"
"I can't tell you," exclaimed Amy pointing to The Academy uniform Cream was wearing.
The situation was too confusing and surreal for Cream. The last time she saw Amy was before she left her old home, almost 7 years ago. The Union had rendered West Side Island uninhabitable, so Cream and her Mother had no choice but to leave. Amy was unable to accompany them because she still had commitments to attend to on the island. After a couple of months of texting and calling, communications failed and contact was lost.
All these years Cream had to deal with the idea that Amy and the others were no longer alive, because that was how the others acted. Even worse was seeing how they seemed to want to forget them, as if they had never existed in the first place. They never talked about them, never said their names, they seemed to want to erase the whole past. That's why Cream clung to her memories, tried not to forget their adventures and misadventures, much to the chagrin of everyone around her pretending that nothing before The Union had ever happened. She knew that her memories were not false, and the fact of seeing Amy now, in flesh and blood in front of her, confirmed her tenacity.
Cream looked down at her uniform and then quickly began to unbutton her jacket, take it off and throw it on the floor.
"You can trust me," Cream told Amy as she looked her straight in the eyes with determination.
Amy gave a big smile that Cream had only seen her mother do before when she was proud, and it made her heart burn with even more determination.
"Always," Amy replied. She then proceeded to untie the bandana from her neck. "And you can trust me too, can't you?" she said to Cream as she approached her with the bandana stretched between both hands.
Cream hesitated for a moment, not knowing exactly what Amy was referring to, but shook the doubt from her head and nodded effusively.
"Always," Cream said at the end.
"Perfect, you'll come with me."
Amy placed the bandana over Cream's eyes and tied it behind her nape.
"D-Don't You trust me...?".
"I could trust you with my life a thousand times without hesitation, Cream," Amy said firmly. "This is for your own good. This way you won't have anything to say if everything goes wrong, and you can always pretend we kidnapped you... Which isn't so far from reality, come to think of it," Amy finished before letting out a laugh.
Even with some difficulty, Amy was able to manage to get out of the city center undetected. She had dressed Cream in some extra rags she had, and if anyone asked, she would say that Cream was her little blind sister, that they had come to the capital for her medicine and were now returning to their home outside Oak Shire.
Completely in the dark, only the whistling of the wind in her ears was what the young rabbit could perceive as they traveled at breakneck speed. Despite not being able to see, Cream could bet her right ear that they had ridden in an Xtreme-Gear. They had been traveling for several hours, which made her think they were approaching the outer rim. The Kingdom of Acorn is a proud one and very rich in resources, but small in size, from the capital to the outer rim, going at the usual super speed of an Xtreme-Gear, wouldn't take more than a handful of hours.
At a certain point in the journey, Cream sensed that they had entered a cave, because of the echoing sound. She thought that perhaps this was how Amy made it to get through the outer rim undetected. As they emerged from the cave, a sudden blast of heat assaulted them, proof that they were outside the Kingdom of Acorn. The desert ruin that overtook everyone after The Union had broken through the meta-sequoias of the outer rim, but the temperature inside the wall was considerably lower than outside, making the territory still habitable. The same could not be said of the lands beyond the wall, even in the night, the heat of the desert wasteland was too much for any living thing, which is why so many immigrants came to the Kingdom of Acorn, the only habitable bastion on earth, as far as was known.
After a couple more hours, Cream felt the Xtreme-Gear slow down, indicating that they were reaching their destination. When the vehicle stopped, Amy carefully picked Cream up and helped her out, then led her by the hand up a hill. The place they were in was surprisingly fresh, a smell of dampness and vegetation permeated the air, as well as other smells that Cream could not yet identify. When they reached the top of the hill, Amy sat Cream on a rock and walked away.
"Did you really bring her all the way here blindfolded?" a familiar male voice exclaimed. Cream began to feel uneasy.
"I told you it's for her safety! So she can have an alibi if we're attacked and they find her," Amy replied.
"If they want to blame her for something, they're going to blame her, period. That's the way they are. Besides, this is all desert as far as the eye can see. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn't know how to find her way around. Even I get lost, and I've been here countless times before.
"You underestimate my sense of location," Cream shot back. "I lost sight of Mom at the market once and was able to locate her-".
"Girl, what are you doing telling us that with your eyes still blindfolded? Take it off! It's not like we're going to shoot you," interrupted the voice before bursting into laughter.
Cream proceeded to timidly untie her blindfold. She did it so slowly and delicately that she seemed to be performing a ritual. Nerves had gotten the better of her and she feared that if she made a sudden movement she might wake up and realize that it was all a dream. She removed the bandana from her eyes, looked up slowly, blinked a couple of times before seeing more clearly what was in front of her and... Again, her breathing stopped.
"Now you can go on telling us," said the hedgehog with a smile.
It was a full moon, the dim, whitish light barely illuminated enough to define shapes, but Cream's dark-adapted eyes were able to identify him very clearly, from the tip of his blue quills to the soles of his feet, it was him without a doubt.
"It...," Cream had to swallow saliva and take a deep breath to regain her voice. "Mr. Sonic. You are alive! and...", she was silent for a moment as she better appreciated the hedgehog in front of her. "You look so tired...".
"I'm very tired, little one," replied that hedgehog with a certain sadness in his voice, but still smiling. "Or should I say Big One! By Gaia, you're huge!", Sonic exclaimed with frank joy and impression.
"That's exactly what I told her! It's amazing how much she's grown," Amy added.
Cream stood for a moment looking at both hedgehogs. They looked undoubtedly older, more mature. Amy, aside from having longer hair spikes, had a more robust and defined physical build, while maintaining that cheerful and energetic aura that characterized her. Sonic, on the other hand, was... strange. While he looked stronger, with more muscle and definition, at the same time he seemed... finished. As if that glow that emanated from him, that wild and hopeful aura of his, had long since vanished. He wasn't the same old blue blur, but a faint trace of his past self was still discernible, that thought comforted Cream a little.
"My mother says I've grown 7.8 inches these past 7 years," she explained as she wiped away the small tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.
"7.8 inches! At this rate you're going to end up bumping your forehead against the door frames in a couple of years!".
Everyone started laughing, and for a brief moment things went back to the way they were.