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With each pitter of her feet hitting the ground, Amy Rose kicked up dirt and glitter in her exhilaration. Her beloved was here! He was back! She could feel it! She ran as fast as her threadbare purple sneakers could carry her, her bright orange skirt flouncing with each pounce across the grassy flower fields of Green Hill. She felt her heart thumping wildly beneath her ribcage, her breath becoming labored, but she couldn't stop now, she had to find him! She ran and ran until she saw a speck of blue about twenty yards ahead of her. Breaking into a full sprint now, she began yelling out toward the other young hedgehog.
“Sonic! S ooooo nic!!! You're back!!” She shrieked in her elation. He was taking his routine cat-nap among the trees in between another one of his globetrotting adventures. When his ear caught wind of the girl yelling for him from across the field, he winked one eye open to see who wanted his attention at this most inconvenient hour. Realizing who it was blazing toward him, he hopped down from his resting branch, eyes blown wide in alarm. Before he could even think to prepare himself, she closed the distance between them.
“I finally found you!” She yelped, bending her knees and launching herself into him. He stumbled backward onto the plush grass, holding her at an arm's length as she attempted to wrap her arms around him in her sweet embrace.
He groaned and wriggled himself from beneath her body as gently as he could manage. When he finally did so, he stood up, flustered and brushing blades of grass out from his quills. He shook his head incredulously at the girl. He would never be able to shake her, would he? Amy still sat on the grass, hugging her knees and looking up at him as if he had hung the moon; blissful stars glimmered in her eyes. He couldn't help his grimace softening, microscopically, at the pretty sight.
“Oh, Sonic! Now that you're back, we can finally spend some time together! I found this really beautiful strawberry field and I really wanna pick some to make strawberry shortcake later! Have you ever had it?” Her voice was as saccharine as her suggestion, all topped with a playful, candy-coated smile.
Sonic scrunched his nose and shook his head. Not only did the thought of meandering slowly through a field of fruit sound incredibly boring to him. In fact, he had tried strawberry shortcake, once before, at Amy’s behest. He remembered thinking it to be way too sweet for his taste. She must have forgotten.
“You have to try it! It's so yummy! Please come with me!” She pleaded, hopping up from the ground, she began bouncing up and down like a spring, hands clasped as she repeated in sing-song, “Oh, please-please-please! Pretty pleeeeease !!”
Just as Sonic shot up his palms and turned his head to shake in rejection of the girl's offer, their young fox friend came in hovering by his namesakes, looking quite distressed. Sonic made an attempt at recollecting his cool demeanor and gave a two-finger salute to his friend.
“Sonic! I tracked one of the Chaos Emeralds out by Aquatic Ruin, we need to get a hold of it before Eggman!” Tails informed his friend, already pivoting his body in the direction they would go, ready for Sonic to set off in a snap.
Amy’s attention flickered toward the kit and her eyes widened. This was it! Finally, a chance to really prove herself to her friends!
“I'm coming, too!! I wanna help find the emeralds and smash that bad man's machines to bits!” She joyfully hopped up and down, taking Sonic’s hand in her own.
All he had to do was hold his arms out, and she would be ready to jump right into them so he could rush with her into another adventure. This time, she would be fighting alongside her beloved Blue. She would finally be able to show him just how strong she was.
Only Sonic turned to Amy again, giving her a stern look as if to say, “You stay right here !” before releasing his hand from her grip and speeding off into the opposite direction.
“Sorry, Amy. The infrastructure of Aquatic Ruin is dangerously unstable and Eggman has all sorts of traps set! I think Sonic just wants to make sure you stay safe. Maybe you could come along next time, but we’ve gotta get there quick, see ya soon!” Tails gave the girl an apologetic, amiable smile before following Sonic in tow.
“Ohh! You boys are always leaving me behind!” Amy cried out as she watched Sonic run off, once again, just as she had finally caught up to him.
It seemed that every time trouble came around, Amy was excluded from participating in making things right again. Ever since her kidnapping by Metal Sonic, she had dedicated herself to becoming stronger, all so she would be able to keep up with her friends. All she had wanted was to fight side-by-side with Sonic, to answer that call to adventure she felt so deeply in her heart since that fateful day on Little Planet. She wanted to explore new places and see all the wonderful things the world had to offer outside of her home. She knew the world was beautiful and she knew with an unyielding certainty that her calling was to experience all of it with him. And yet, with every opportunity that arose, Sonic wouldn’t even take a chance on her. She would stay put, just as he would insist. She understood that to be out of concern for her safety, and while she found his protective nature to be cute, it often came with the cost of feeling unheard and, literally, bored to tears.
“When will Sonic let me fight, too?!” She sighed, face falling into a pout as she wilted back to the ground, laying on her back and looking toward the sky, “We could have so much fun together! One day I'll get to show him just how strong I am. He'll be sorry he ever left me behind! I can see it now. I'll get to fight Egghead alongside him and he'll fall madly in love with– Eeek!” Amy’s soliloquy was stymied by something prodding her cheek. She turned her head toward her interloper and found a small, pink rabbit-like creature nudging its nose against her to get her attention. When she studied the pocky closer, she noticed it repeatedly hopping about three paces backward before coming back to her. When Amy didn’t quite get the message, the pocky began to paw at her.
“What do you need, little friend?” She asked, reaching out her hand and steadying the creature’s movements. The pocky wrapped its paws around her hand and began pulling her. The Pocky appeared urgent, but not quite distressed, and certainly determined to get Amy to follow their lead. Amy hummed, deep in thought as she tried deciphering what it was the pocky was attempting to convey to her.
When she thought she had it figured out, she gasped.
“I get it! You know where the other Chaos Emeralds are! That has to be it! I'll find the other emeralds, give them to Sonic, and he will finally let me join him on his adventures! You're brilliant, Tiny!” She sprung to her feet and beamed a smile at the pocky, “Show me the way!”
The pink critter hopped toward the forest and Amy skipped along in tow, mystical chimes playing in her head to the rhythm of joy.
Entering the threshold of the budding forest felt much different from the vast meadows and grass fields of Green Hill. The air felt much cooler as it brushed delicately across Amy’s fur. It made the leaflings sprouting from the treetops dance and the flower sprouts sway with promises of a beautiful future. Flickies were nesting in their branches, preparing homesteads for their young while the other tiny animals were scampering about across the forest floor scavenging for seeds and insect larvae. Amy had been so taken by the beauty of it all, she had almost forgotten her mission. She shook herself to refocus and continued trailing the pocky who had led her here.
The pocky stops short near what Amy assumed to be their home. Beneath an impressive tree, nestled between its large, rugged roots was an Amy-Sized rabbit-hole. With a pointed look into Amy’s eyes, the pocky poked one of its paws toward it. Amy ambled closer toward the void, dropped to her knees, and crooked her neck to look within it.
“Is it stuck in there? Do you need me to get it out for you?” She asked, cocking her head to eye the pocky. The little pink creature only sniffled and nudged her to look deeper into the hole.
“Okay... But if there aren’t any Chaos Emeralds down here, you’re gonna be in some big trouble, Mister!” Amy chided. She wrapped her fingers over the edge of the rabbit hole and shifted her body to dip her head inside. The soil was dark, damp, and deeper than Amy expected it to be. For the life of her, she couldn’t see anything hiding down there. She let out a frustrated huff.
“Hey! I can’t see anything down here! What exactly am I supposed to--” Her would-be tirade against the poor pocky was interrupted when it suddenly used its full strength to push the young hedgehog down the rabbit hole.
She screeched horrifically as she felt her grip on the edge of it loosen, her body falling into the hole headfirst. The fall felt as if it went on for an eternity; further and further Amy fell through the hole, her body tensing in preparation for an impact that seemed as if it would never come. She wondered again about the Chaos Emerald, could it have really turned up this far down in such a place like this? Who in the world would have found it if it weren’t for the pocky who disturbed her doldrum and wistful yearning? Would it eventually have to use its own inherent magic to find its way out?
What if it had stayed down here forever? Sonic would never be able to make use of it again! He couldn’t turn into Super Sonic without all seven of the Chaos Emeralds and if one of them were to get lost in the vastness of this rabbit hole, no one but Amy herself would ever know how to retrieve it. Would he be angry with her if she returned without it and withheld this knowledge from him? She decided that she was determined enough to find the emerald and her way out of this never-ending void.
But she was scared. Her heart drummed against her ribcage like a battering ram against stone walls. And as she drove deeper within the rabbit hole, darkness began to enclose around her, the light from above dissipating into nothingness. What if she got lost forever and no one came to find her? Would anyone even care that she was gone?
No way. Sonic would always care for her. He was always there to save her when she needed him most. Even if it took him an eternity to find her, as it was taking her to fall; Sonic would always find her. She believed in him, more than anything in this world.
Moreover, she knew that this time, she was strong enough to save herself. She had been kidnapped by an evil mechanical version of Sonic and had been threatened numerous times by an even more evil mad genius. This fall was a cakewalk! She would find her way out herself and show Sonic just how capable she was. She would retrieve the emerald all by herself without any help, dig her way to the other side of the planet if she needed to and find her way back to Green Hill where she would show every one of her friends that Amy Rose was incredible, and smart, and strong!
When she finally bottomed out, she landed with a dull thud. She had landed gently enough that she expected the darkness to only be her eyes shut tightly as they were. She tried desperately to catch her breath, holding her hands to her heart until it returned to its normal pace. And indeed, when she opened her eyes again, she saw the light above her, the sun shining as it had been when she first entered the forest. She sighed a breath of relief and brought herself to sit up.
With a little more light to look around, Amy began to feel around for the Chaos Emerald. When she found nothing but soil, she huffed.
“All of that falling for a whole lot of nothing! Hmph!” She pouted, kicking her heel into the dirt in frustration, “That little pink pocky is gonna hear an earful from me!” She stood up indignantly and began her climb up and out from the hole. Peeking out from the hole, she looked out at her surroundings. She leered at the forest floor around her, in search of the little trickster of a creature, but was surprised when she found everything to be strangely out of the ordinary.
At first glance, everything around her looked similar enough to the way it had looked before she fell into the abyss. But upon more careful inspection, something about each small detail of the forest felt peculiar to the young girl. The trees appeared to be larger, more bountiful and mature. The flickies in their branches were different colors than those from her known world. The air felt a smidge warmer than it was before she had fallen through the void, and the breeze was all but gone, until she felt a whirl of wind ruffle her quills, a streak of blue buzzing past her at an extraordinary speed. She yelped when she saw a figure stop several yards further into the forest.
“S--Sonic?” She whispered to herself, recognizing the hedgehog for who he was and balking at how different he looked. This Sonic was much taller than her own, his eyes were a striking verdant paradise, and his quills appeared a little messier than her own Sonic’s. He still wore the same charming smile she knew well and his shoes were pretty much the same. Same, same, but different. Older and even handsomer, and how was that even possible!? She wanted to jump out of the hole and tackle him into a hug all the same.
But, she stopped herself, her heart stuttering to a halt when she saw another girl, a pink hedgehog, in his arms. He set her down and a flash of envy shot icy through young Amy’s veins as she watched this other girl stretch to place a sweet kiss against his muzzle. She scrutinized the girl’s form; her quills hung down, relaxing slightly above her shoulders and adorned with a red headband similar to Amy’s own. She wore the prettiest red backless dress she had ever laid her eyes on, hoop skirt and ruffled white bloomer shorts to boot; and those boots! They nearly matched Sonic’s own shoes, red with white stripes traveling vertically up their knee-high length. She accessorized with gorgeous golden bangles on her wrists and smaller golden hoops pierced through her ears. She was so beautiful .
Who was this girl? This girl that Sonic was laughing with, looking at her with those stunner emerald eyes, as if she had hung the moon! As long as Amy had known her Sonic, he had never looked at her the way this Sonic was looking at this girl now. What was so good about this other pink hedgehog, anyway? Amy pouted as she observed the two lovebirds looking so conspiratorial and enamored, like they had known each other forever!
He whispered something inaudible to little Amy from her hiding hole, pressed the pads of his fingers against her back, and leaned in close to the other girl. He returned a kiss of his own, this time on her lips! Young Amy’s eyes shot wide in disbelief, her hands flying up to shield them from this breach of privacy between the lovers. Coyly, she flicked one of her fingers to allow herself another peek, and felt her disbelief double when an army of robots came crawling, flying, and rolling at the pair, paying young Amy no mind through their rampage.
“Looks like our great escape was all for nothin’. You ready?” A challenging grin graced the muzzle of the male hedgehog as he side-eyed his companion.
“Ready!” She exclaimed.
The pair of older hedgehogs were now in their defensive stances, prepared for an onslaught of robotic henchmen.
The girl splayed out a graceful arm and summoned a large weapon-- a hammer very similar to Amy’s own-- into her hand. Amy gasped as her mind caught up to the feeling in her heart. This girl... This absolutely glamorous, magical girl who was cozying up with her beloved Sonic and smashing up bots with fantastical strength was her! Amy Rose was staring straight into the future of Amy Rose herself!
She watched herself in awe as her future self strong-armed a multitude of enemy combatants with a hammer that looked a bit heavier-duty than young Amy’s Piko Piko. The head of her hammer looked as if it were forged from solid gold and the red detail connecting each end gleamed like chrome in the bright sunlight. Amy performed acrobatics over the handle and swung the large weapon around as if it weighed nothing to her.
“This is what we get for sticking our noses in an abandoned Eggbase! This was supposed to be a chill day for us!” She shouted at Sonic, though there was humor laced in her voice. A robot with large metallic claws skittered toward her, she stomped on the bug-like bot, separating it's claws from the hinges and scattered the base into pieces with her hammer.
“But we’re havin’ fun, aren’t we, Ames?!” He heckled back, simultaneously using a homing attack to pounce onto a different enemy, breaking it down to mere shrapnel.
Ames...? Ames! Sonic had a cute little nickname for her in the future and everything! Ah! Amy could die happy hearing that name forever and ever from him.
“Curiosity killed the Hedgehog!” She chided sweetly with a wag of her finger. A robot crept behind her, but before it could dig its claws into the girl, Sonic hopped into the air, bound-jumped over and head-on to the robot's base.
“Haha! Never!”
“Thanks for the save! Though, again, this whole predicament wouldn't have been a thing if you hadn't insisted that Eggman had been hiding anything more than defunct bots in that base.” Amy twirled herself around Sonic, swinging her hammer up and over her head to smash up yet another robot attempting to stealthily attack the two of them. Sonic and little Amy watched in awe.
“ Au contraire , Ames, I remember seeing a lot more than scrap metal in there... We got the whole ‘makeout in our sworn enemy's lair’ thing out of our systems.” He kicked an enemy flying at them from his two o'clock, winked and wriggled a brow. This enticed a giggle from Amy and a scandalized gasp from the younger Rose.
“Yeah,” Amy conceded with a dreamy sigh, “It's been a good day.” The whirr of a motobug ended as quickly as it came when she crushed the handle of her hammer through its base.
“That's the last of ‘em anyway. We can continue the day bot-free.”
“You sure about that, Blue? Egg Flapper, six O'clock.”
As he turned around, the robot charged up a blast from its cannon and fired it toward the two hedgehogs. Sonic took hold of his companion and quickly dashed away from the bot’s range of fire. The blast left part of the earth scorched, nearly hitting the two of them. Sonic looked into Amy’s wide eyes with a look of relief as he held her close, one arm wrapped securely around her waist.
“Shit... Close call! Croquette bomber?”
“Ugh, your mind! I’m in love with it!” Amy gave the blue hedgehog a shrewd grin and nodded. Sonic reciprocated her expression before releasing his hold on her and charging up a spindash.
From her rabbit hole, young Amy watched the two intently as her older counterpart choked up on her hammer, much in the same way as one would with a golf club. With a mighty swing, she connected the head of her hammer with Sonic’s pinwheeling body, sending him airborne. His body hurtled toward the robot with tremendous speed, and in the instant that Sonic made contact with the bot, it exploded with an ear-piercing ka-boo m! The impact sent Sonic barreling backward. Amy hopped into the air and caught him before he could crash into the ground.
“Hey...” He greeted in a dizzied daze, looking at her as he felt the world around him swirl. Amy giggled and reached a hand around to brush soot from his fur before setting him down when he recovered.
“ That was the last of them, by the way.”
“Oh, good, now we can finish that thing we had started.” He grabbed the girl by her hands and pulled her closer. He guided her hands over his shoulders, cupped his palms over her flushed cheeks, and pulled her in for a kiss. Amy's arms wrapped the Blue hedgehog in a gentle embrace. She found herself giggling as he placed fleeting, sweet little pecks on her forehead, cheeks and nose. His lips floated over hers for a few beats before she closed the distance in her impatience. It was sweet and loving, but far too short-lived.
What in the world made this happen? Even with her love for other-worldly mysticism, Amy never thought she could ever experience traveling through time and space to witness herself waging a battle against armed robots and kissing Sonic the Hedgehog. What force in the universe wanted her to see this exact moment in her future?
“Y'know, Ames. You should really see yourself fighting. I could watch you scrap with bots all day.” Sonic kept Amy in his arms, but pulled slightly away from her lips as he reflected on their battle. Amy's eyes blinked open. With an uncertain glint embedded in her expression, she looked into Sonic's own. His expression was reassuring, gentle. He almost looked proud .
“Yeah? Why's that?”
Sonic gave his own explanation, but young Amy knew exactly why it was important that she saw herself. She was struck with a sense of pride in herself and what she would become. A sense of warmth and admiration for herself wrapped around her, hopeful and reassuring. Amy was strong. She was needed. She was an adventurer. She was beautiful, and beautifully, wildly loved by the person she had always been certain was destined to be a part of her life. Everything she wanted to be most, she was. Everything she had thought about herself, every nagging doubt vanished as she watched all of this unfold before her eyes. The feeling radiated from the child, like a bright, warm light, and reached the very corners of adult Amy's wildly beating heart.
Both Amys thoughts and feelings mirrored one another's. Amy thought she could almost feel that version of herself present in this moment. The idea didn't feel too out-of-this-world, they had met Sonic's kid counterpart on multiple occasions; although, those instances had been under life-altering, cataclysmic circumstances. There seemed to be no sign of anything of the sort brewing at the present moment.
But this felt so real, Amy began to look around for a small child in the woods around them. Clad in her green blouse, orange skirt, and purple tennis shoes– she'd theoretically be hard to miss. But Amy saw no sign of the young girl anywhere.
“Huh... That's so strange.” Amy murmured, pulling away from Sonic's embrace. Her eyes scanned the dense forest around them in search of something. Sonic followed her gaze for a moment before raising an eyebrow at her and shrugging.
“Am I missing something? Did I forget to mention how incredible and beautiful you are?”
“N–no, you really hammered that point home, Sonic” She laughed and squeezed his hand affectionately, “I just feel this presence near us?” Her eyes continued to search through the thick foliage of the trees but she couldn't place exactly where she was feeling this energy.
Sonic bristled, taking on a defensive stance. His arm extended in front of Amy's body, ready to fight. Young Rosy watched the couple from her hiding place, burrowing deeper into it. Something told her the two of them spotting her could have deleterious effects on this future she was apparently growing toward. Her older counterpart placed a gentle hand in Sonic's, soothing his tension somewhat.
“It's okay, Sonic! It doesn't feel threatening, just... familiar. I just can't place it for the life of me, though... And anyway, it seems like we're the only ones out here.”
“Oh,” Sonic mouthed dumbly, sucking in air between his teeth, “it’s probably just some pockies hoppin’ around!”
He chuckled a bit, looking sheepish before interlocking his fingers in between the spaces of the girl’s own.
“Maybe...” Amy's face flashed doubtfully before her gaze softened as she looked upon the blue hedgehog. She smiled at the way he tugged her hand with a mirthful grin, raring to get his feet moving again. Young Amy also found herself smiling, that was her impatient Sonic.
“Well, Ames, since your weird insights seem to be telling us we're in the clear, shall we continue on?” He was smiling so sweetly at Amy but his anxiously tapping foot told Amy everything she needed to know about his inner thoughts. She simply smiles, squeezing his hand and taking the first steps forward.
“Let’s go! I’ve been waiting all day for you to get us out of here!” She said in mock-complaint, tugging his hand in return. Sonic laughs and grins at her before scooping her up into his arms and dashing away from the small child. Young Amy’s heart warmed at the thought of the two of them heading off to explore more of the world with each other. As the two hedgehogs vanished from the forest, young Amy felt a sudden release of pressure from beneath the soles of her shoes as the earth below her appeared to sink into a void, Amy followed shortly behind.
✧˖°_✧˖°_✧˖°
When Amy opened her eyes again, all she saw and felt was the blur of trees as her body rushed by, the warmth of an arm holding wrapped around her, and the wind against her face. Within that same second, the world stopped around her, the arm retracted, and the air stilled. She looked up from the couch she was placed on in Tails’ workshop and saw Sonic with his face creased with concern for her. Tails peeked from behind the blue hedgehog with a similar expression.
“Sonic found you stuck down a hole in the woods! You weren’t responding to us when we first saw you, are you okay?!” Tails asked with a jittery quality to his voice.
“I’m okay! I don’t remember how I got there, though, hmm...” Amy scratched her head as she tried to remember what it was she was doing after the boys had left. She recalled her Pink pocky friend, and how it led her to a rabbit hole in the woods. Amy understood that the pocky had needed her to get...
“The Chaos Emerald!”
Of course! She went down into that hole in the woods because the chaos emerald was taking up too much space in its little home. She feels around her skirt for it, and finally retrieves the pink gemstone, showing it off to her friends. The two boys stare at her in disbelief, eyes wide and mouths ajar.
“You found one!” Tails exclaimed, his shock quickly dissolving into pure joy.
“Yeah, I found it! And all by myself! Pretty cool, huh, Sonic?” She asked, flitting her lashes at him playfully. Sonic’s cheeks tinted the lightest shade of pink and he brushed his nose in response. He could only imagine the kind of adventure Amy had to go on by herself to find it.
It took years for the boy to ever admit how cool he thought that was.