Chapter Text
Amy crouched down behind a large boulder, tightening her grip of her hammer and tensing as the backdraft of Sonic racing by washed over her. She shook her head a little to resettle her quills before cautiously moving her eyes to one side, turning her head, intent on peering around her hiding spot to check the location of the enemy; but she stopped short when she noticed Knuckles standing a short distance from her, his back pressed against a cherry tree. He caught her eye and did a double-take, frowning a little when he saw the way she was staring at him, her eyes wide. She shook her head, but he merely shrugged in reply.
“Get away from the tree!” she hissed, jerking her head to one side to indicate that he should move away from the tree.
“I’m waiting to ambush those beebots!” he whispered back.
Amy shook her head again and Knuckles screwed up his face, as though he thought she was being ridiculous.
“Don’t you remember what Tails told us?” she tried.
“Yeah, he said Eggman put bug eyes on his beebots!”
Amy started to tell Knuckles that was correct, to remind him exactly what that meant: but before she could finish, a shadow fell over him.
“Look out!” she squealed, diving at him.
She gored the echidna, throwing them both to the ground. He roughly pushed her off of him almost as soon as they landed, sitting up to glare at her. She pushed herself up and opened her mouth to explain her actions, but when his eyes refocused onto something behind her and his jaw fell open, she realised he had finally noticed what she had been saving him from: there was a whole swarm of beebots poised over them, ready to attack.
“Run!” Knuckles yelled, grabbing Amy’s arm and hauling her up with him.
She yelped in protest, but quickly matched his pace as they fled. But, as fast as they ran and as quickly as they dodged and swerved, the beebots effortlessly matched their movements.
“Did these dumb things get smarter?” Knuckles complained.
Amy sighed as best she could whilst running at her top speed.
“Yes!” she replied with irritated exasperation. “Remember what Tails told us? Eggman put real bee eyes in his beebots!”
“Yeah, I got that!” Knuckles shouted back at her.
“Tails said it means they can see pollen!”
“So?”
“So you’re probably covered in pollen after pushing yourself up against that cherry tree that was full of blossom!”
Knuckles threw Amy an alarmed look over his shoulder and she returned it with a critical scowl.
“So it’s just me they’re tagging?” he asked.
Amy nodded.
“Gotcha.”
He released Amy’s arm abruptly and swerved off to the left, tearing away at his top speed. Amy stumbled to a halt, swinging her hammer desperately, but only managing to take down two of the beebots and clip one other, damaging its wings, leaving it flying in a wavering pattern, smoke billowing from its back. But, despite her assault, the beebots doggedly pursued Knuckles, ignoring her entirely. She sighed, lowering her hammer to rest it against the ground. She turned her head as a familiar swishing sound reached her ears, finding Tails hovering above and to one side of her.
“He got covered in pollen?” Tails asked.
“We all will soon running around like this,” Amy replied, looking about herself.
They had started their battle at the beach, but had somehow ended up further inland, and were moving towards a meadow and wooded area, where it would be impossible to avoid picking up pollen.
“It’s a good job you knew about this, Tails,” she added, smiling up at her fox friend.
Tails smiled back a little awkwardly. He was not usually shy about his accomplishments, but, for some reason, he always seemed almost bashful whenever Amy, Sonic or Knuckles mentioned how great it was that he had managed to hack into Eggman’s secret research files and had access to data on the new cyborgs he had been developing.
“I guess we should be grateful that Eggman’s only been using his new technology on his most basic robots,” Amy commented, turning her attention to the scene some way ahead of them as a blue blur shot through the swarm of beebots, shattering several of them and scattering the remainder.
“What do you mean?” Tails asked, as Knuckles leapt up and punched out a couple more of the beebots.
“Well, the only robots Eggman has upgraded so far have been his most basic ones, right?” Amy replied.
“What’s your point?” Tails asked.
“I just meant we’d really be in trouble if Eggman actually got good with this bioengineering stuff, or if he used it on one his robots that’s actually a threat.”
“Like what?”
Amy frowned, turning suspicious eyes to Tails, who was visibly sweating in the air above her.
“Tails?” she said slowly. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”
“Oh look! Sonic needs our help!”
On instinct, Amy swung up her hammer and charged towards the ongoing battle. As she reached it, Knuckles landed in a crouch after an attack, and, ignoring his “hey” of protest, she used his back as a springboard to propel herself up, hammering a beebot to launch herself even further into the air, where she finally met Sonic, a good thirty feet up, above the remaining circle of functioning beebots.
“Hey Ames, what took you so long?” he asked her with a smirk.
She simpered a little as his eyes met hers, only recovering her senses as she began to fall. She quickly drew her feet in together and jabbed her heels into a rising beebot's face, driving it down to the ground before nimbly leaping off it.
“Next one's mine!” Knuckles yelled at her as she landed at his side.
He leapt up from his squat, punching a beebot with enough force to send it flying into one if its kin, the pair becoming entangled in each other before falling to the ground in a sparking, fizzing mess. Amy brought her hammer down onto them, sending bolts and screws flying and finally silencing them. She looked up as Sonic, Knuckles and Tails – who had finally caught up to them – each launched themselves at a beebot, striking their foes simultaneously and ending the battle. They landed together and let out a cheer, high-fiving each other.
“That was some seriously nice work again, buddy,” Sonic said.
“Thanks, buddy!” Knuckles answered, putting his hands on his hips and puffing out his chest with a smug grin.
Sonic shook his head and Tails rolled his eyes.
“Nice work,” Sonic said again, pointing at his younger friend.
“Oh yeah,” Knuckles said, turning to Tails. “Nice job, Tails!”
The echidna gave the fox what he probably thought was a playful slap on the shoulder, but the blow was hard enough to make Tails stumble forward a step.
“Thanks, Knuckles,” he replied with an awkward laugh.
“Those were some pretty sweet moves too, Ames.”
Amy's hammer vanished so suddenly it startled her: but that was the effect Sonic looking at her and smiling the way he was had on her.
“We should celebrate this victory, don't you think?”
Amy paused, momentarily overwhelmed that Sonic was still looking at her, still smiling that lop-sided smirk at her, and that he appeared to be asking her out on a date. She dipped her chin and nervously moved a hand to her quills, tucking them behind one ear.
“We could maybe... Go out for dinner?” she tried.
“Awesome idea!” he answered, holding out his arms.
Amy knew that his gesture was just a quirk of his manner of speech, but she still had to steel herself from throwing her body into his open arms. Even though, in all the time she had known Sonic, he had never exactly reciprocated any of her advances, she still optimistically believed that he would, one day, love her back the way she loved him. It had been eleven years since she had first met him on Little Planet, when she had been just 8 years old, and although, with time and maturity, she had toned down her outward affections towards him, on the inside, she loved him every bit as much as she always had.
“Any idea which dumb sack of bolts Eggman's gonna send after us next?”
Amy kept her eyes on Sonic, but, on the edge of her field of vision, she saw Tails once again look nervous upon hearing Knuckles's question.
“Oh, I'd have to go back to my computer and take a look,” the young fox said in a strained voice.
“Do it tomorrow, buddy,” Sonic said, turning his attention to his best friend. “You've earned a rest today.”
Tails laughed a little nervously, and, with Sonic now moving away from her, Amy refocused her attention onto Tails. Before that moment, she had never thought to question how Tails had – after all these years – somehow managed to gain access to Eggman's plans, and although his information had been invaluable, it was starting to become unusual that he had both managed to maintain his access – undetected – to the files, and that he was continuing to pre-empt every launch of new cyborgs sent their way. Amy started back with the others, but lingered to the back of the group, deciding to use the time to monitor Tails as he chatted with Knuckles and Sonic. As they went, Tails seemed more at ease, and the conversation soon shifted away from their battle, away from Eggman, away from the new technology he had been using.
But Amy's mind remained on the matter. She tried to remember when they had first encountered a cyborg, and although she could not remember the exact instance, she could remember that, for the first few weeks, the cyborgs were crudely built, and so, despite not having advance knowledge of their approach, the team had been fit for them in battle. It had continued that way for a short time, before more sophisticated cyborgs began to emerge – often they would have organic eyes that granted them the vision of the creature they were based on, or organic limbs that allowed them more natural and less predictable movement. This was the time they began to become a problem in battle, they began to become genuinely formidable as foes. After one particular battle that had drawn on, a battle that had left Amy, Tails and Knuckles out of commission, a battle Sonic had only eventually won after Shadow and Rouge had appeared and assisted him, Tails had somehow correctly predicted the next wave of cyborgs. He knew what they would be, when and where they would come, what attacks they were capable of, what their weaknesses were and how best to battle them. Thinking about that moment more, Amy remembered that she had still had one arm strapped up after breaking her collarbone in the previous battle, she remembered Sonic insisting she sit out the next battle, but Tails backing her up when she had determined to join them. Tails was so confident that they would gain their victory swiftly and painlessly, he led the way, leading the still recovering team into a battle that, despite being as loaded as their previous one had been, proved a lot easier to best. Every single thing Tails had predicted proved true, down to the exact minute and location the cyborgs would attack. Afterwards, everyone had been so excited, so caught up in their victory, nobody had thought to ask Tails how he had become privy to this knowledge. In fact, it took another three such battles before Sonic finally asked Tails how he was gaining his advance intelligence.
Tails's story was that he had hacked into Eggman's main computer, and could see the plans for all his cyborgs. He told them all about how the doctor had started experimenting with bioengineering, adding organic matter to his existing robots to create cyborgs. He had spoken of failed experiments and some aspects of the work being too brutal and cruel to discuss, and, upon hearing this, Sonic had ended the discussion, telling Tails simply to be careful and to alert them if he ever suspected that Eggman had noticed he was accessing his files. And although Amy was no expert on hacking or anything computer-related, she knew enough to know that any hacker was usually eventually detected, their presence noticed, their access spotted. Considering just how sophisticated Eggman's cyborgs were becoming, Amy was confident that a man of his intelligence and technological genius would surely have noticed the presence of a hacker by now. She made a mental note to grill Tails about it later, remembering then that she had a date with Sonic to get ready for, and that was, frankly, more important in the short term.
As Knuckles bid goodbye to the group, Amy moved up to join Sonic and Tails. She gave Tails a hard glare, and, although he was usually a little slow to take a hint, he instantly looked nervous and excused himself, pretending that he had to go out to buy parts for the Tornado, and he swiftly took off, leaving Sonic and Amy alone for the last stretch of their journey home together.
“So, dinner tonight, huh?” Amy began, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt.
“Yeah, let's go to Charlie's!” Sonic replied with a smile.
“Charlie's?” Amy echoed.
“You've never been?” he asked.
Amy shook her head.
“Oh, well, it's great, you're gonna love it!”
Amy bit her tongue to stop herself from telling Sonic that she would love anywhere he took her simply because she was with him.
“Let's meet there at eight,” Sonic suggested. “That's the best time to go!”
“Okay,” Amy agreed, before daring to ask: “does something special happen at eight?”
“Yeah, it does,” Sonic replied, smirking slyly in a way that made Amy's heart skip a beat. “But it'll be a nice surprise for you.”
Amy bit her lip as she pictured sitting at a table with Sonic as a string quartet serenaded them and he handed her a single red rose.
“It's on King Street,” Sonic said, his voice cutting her thoughts.
“King Street...?” Amy muttered.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Take Main Street to the big statue, turn left, then head right down King Street. You can't miss it.”
“Oh, okay...”
“Catch you later, Ames!”
Amy opened her mouth to ask how it was she would identify the restaurant, but, as expected, Sonic was gone from sight already. With a small sigh, she continued towards her own house by the beachfront, silently hoping she would not be too excited to eat when she finally arrived at her date with Sonic.
~*~*~*~
Next Chapter: Amy goes to meet Sonic at the restaurant, but when she gets there, she discovers she may have misunderstood his invitation. Feeling embarrassed, she decides to just go home, but, on the way, she encounters what appears to be a poor homeless man, who she decides to offer help to. Chapter 2: Misunderstanding