Chapter Text
Turn up the radio blast the stereo right now
This blunt is fizzling, sizzling right
::
Amberly didn't know where she was—only that everywhere she looked, skyscrapers erected with shining steel and glimmering windows, neon signs from every direction assaulting her keen senses. The sounds of the city rose everywhere, and though she had just landed on her feet, rolling into a low crouch, energy cackling and singing through her entire body from her toes down to the shorn ends of her hair—
She had been in cities before, seen floating empires and black markets built into cold ravines—
But all she had to do was take one look around to know she wasn't in Remnant anymore.
What happened?
Where was everyone else?
Well, here (wherever here was) there were plenty of—things. They were animals, standing upright and walking on two legs—anthropomorphic, and they had noticed her arrival as if she'd struck with a thunderclap and a flash of light—
Which perhaps explained why the asphalt was cracked and cratered around her feet, like she was a meteorite that had fallen from the sky.
And had apparently landed on something.
Someone.
“Ack—hey, get off me, you're heavy—!”
Heart leaping to her throat with a small scream, Amberly launch to her feet so fast she blurred and stumbled, taking in what she had just nearly crushed into the ground—
A blue mass of fur and quills and—hands?—was planted facedown right in the center of the crater, groaning before lifting its head. Emerald green eyes blinked in pain, swirling a bit in its confusion before landing on her—and widening. Like she had, it jumped back into a defensive position, an incredulous expression on its face, the mouth on its peach-colored muzzle twisted into a frown.
“What—who the heck are you??” It asked, pointing an accusing gloved finger at her.
She slapped a hand to her chest, affronted. “Me? What are you—you people? And more importantly, where am I!?” Amberly all but screamed, looking around her at the dazzling lights of the city, the skyscrapers that towered over them in any given direction—at the crowds of intelligent animal people gathering, pointing, whispering. The ears atop her head twitched as she easily caught the conspiratorial conversation flowing between them.
Who is that?
Is she a monster?
Is that…the Blue Blur?
Sonic tracked the movement, his eyes zeroing in on her head as the lady looked around, clearly aghast.
She had ears.
Animal ears.
But the rest of her was a human?
Sonic had never seen anything like it. And she had just fallen from the sky as he was streaking through the city, just so happening to land on him—
This wasn't good.
And what she said next only cemented his racing thoughts.
She whirled back to him, brilliantly neon green hair gleaming in the lights and flaring about her jaw— “Where is the portal??”
Portal.
Ah, shit.
Where there was a portal, where there was an energy reading of interdimensional life—
G.U.N wouldn't be far.
Meaning…
Sonic felt his heart slowly sink.
so he made an executive decision.
Streaking forward, he grabbed the nice lady's hand in his own and shook it so fast Amberly was jerked down. At his height, he only came up to about her waist. “Hiyathereit'snicetomeetyouandmynameisSonicthehedgehogandi'mawantedfugitive.”
“What?” Amberly barked.
“You don't know where you are, I shouldn't be out in the open like this, and we're surrounded by Mobians with their phones recording—”
“Mobians? Is that what you animal people are?”
“Correct!” Sonic said, jumping up like the digging of a bell. This girl sure caught on quick. “Unfortunately for us, some Mobians can be snitches.”
“Where I come from, snitches get stitches.”
He looked up at her at the same time she looked down, and he noticed that her eyes were a deep green—her irises consisted of a solid ring of emerald around her near-slitted pupils, followed by an outer ring of bright jade green. Their eyes…were somehow the same colors. And her wildly bright hair wasn't half bad either.
Sonic decided right then and there that he liked her—his eyes skirted down further, over every inch of her exposed tan skin, marked over with black tribal tattoos of flowerbeds and thorns running all down her arms and the parts of her legs he could see. Her outfit was black, a two piece that suggested she had come from somewhere tropical, the triangular skirt tied securely at her waist—and some metal contraptions sitting snug at her forearms, the silver damaged in places but the wicked length of razor claws looking like they could turn his innards to outards with a single swipe.
She must have noticed his eyes, because no sooner than his sights ghosted over what had to be weapons—he could see a round chamber of glowing bullets winding around her wrists—the claws snapped away from existence and the gauntlets powered down, somehow folding into 1/4th of the size, looking like no more than bulky bracelets—
Almost like Shadow's inhibitors.
Shadow.
Sonic jolted.
Amberly took it as a flinch at her weapons deactivating—she took a cautious step back, an apology on her tongue. “Sorry, they were already active when I got here—”
“It's not that,” Sonic said with a wave of his hands. He wasn't put off by his new friend packing some serious heat, but— “Look, I don't mind you tagging along so I can explain what this place is and what may have happened, but we seriously need to get out of here.”
Amberly gave him a stricken look, eyes widening in confusion—before her ear twitched, turning, her gold earrings striking beneath the cityscape as they followed the sound—
The sound of something flying low in the air—not a hovercraft, but blades chopping the air—
She looked over, trying to peer through the stacks of buildings and light pollution.
“Something is coming.” She said with uncertainty, taking another step in the opposite direction. A second later, Sonic's own ear twitched—he heard it too.
His heart began hammering away in his chest.
He was not ready for this.
“We're out of time.” He said desperately, sinking into a runner's stretch, hands holding the tip of his red shoe before switching sides. No sooner than he spoke, a gleaming metal helicopter appeared from the clouds above the towers, searchlights blazing—and training right on the two of them.
“Uh,” Amberly said loudly, above the roar of the machine. “Are those your friends?”
“I mean, we do go way back.” Sonic said with a shrug and an unimpressed look at the G.U.N logo emblazoned in black across the underbelly of the eye in the sky. “We have to dip yesterday. Can you run?”
“Run? Are you crazy? Why can't we fight? I mean, they're coming for us, right? Presumably to cut us open?”
“Well, I don't know about me,” Sonic said, passing his eyes over her again, stopping at the fluffy ears atop her head. “But you, on the other hand—”
“Yeah, fuck that.” She looked back to him, eyes imploring. Wow, she was really banking on his trust, wasn't she? “Are you sure it's better to run?”
“I know exactly who they'll send,” he said with a nod, eyes cast back up to the helicopter getting lower. Shit. “If you're caught—”
“Say less.” She said, and ran to the other side of the street. Upon the arrival of G.U.N the city goers had parted from their crowds, dipping into streetside shops and pressing against the street side to stay out of the way, sensing an impending battle.
Parked beneath a streetlamp was a motorcycle—a nice one, Amberly thought, and despite the circumstances, she felt giddiness rise beneath the flow of adrenaline that would have her flying high even well after this would all be over. She arched her leg over the side, seating herself in an arch against the sleek black ride and kicking the stand back with the heel of her booted foot. With an arctic blue flash surging through her tattoos, she held her two fingers skyward—
A surge went through the block, the diamond lights and glittering signs blackening for a moment before flickering back to life, and when Sonic looked over to ask her what the hell she was doing—
It looked like she held all the power of an arctic blast between her nails, webbing and cackling between her fingers. She grinned to no one but herself, spitting a sarcastic thanks, Dimka beneath the roar of the engine as she pumped the bike with electricity. Coming to life beneath her fingers, she wasted no time kicking it into gear.
Swerving out into the street, she breaked with her foot of the asphalt, leaning the bike to she could look over her shoulder—
Only to see Sonic utterly transfixed.
Following his line of sight, she noticed that the helicopter had completely turned sideways where it hovered stories above the street, the type of military contraption with no doors in the side so that personele could jump out and into the fray. While there were a few camo-clad humans looking down with stony expressions, trained on her in a way that made her ears peel back and a snarl peel from her lips—It was clear who Sonic was looking at.
A black hedgehog, with bright red streaks in his sweeping quills and lining his forearms up to his elbows, a burst of long white hair at his chest and four gleaming gold bangles pulling the whole thing together. Red lined his eyes like fierce eyeliner, his expression cut into a perpetual scowl—but instead of looking at her at all, those crushing red eyes were reserved only for one.
Amberly could taste the sexual tension from here.
That's got to be one complicated situationship.
“Will you stop ogling at your boyfriend and lead the way?” She hollered from her bike, charging it with more power until the oil and gasoline coursing through the thing glowed ice blue.
“Huh?” Sonic said, snapping out of it and whirling on her indignantly. He pointed furiously to the hedgehog in the hovercraft, a fierce blush on his muzzle, which Amberly found the mechanics of interesting. “Shadow is not my boyfriend! He's just—he's like my rival!”
“Your rival that you kiss?”
“Wuh—uh! We only kissed—” He began counting on his fingers. “—six times! Unless you count when we would fight and get too carried away—!”
“Ridiculous.” The black one said, Shadow, and though his gaze flickered to Amberly it went right back to tracking Sonic's blue movements, as if he could never stray for long. His eyes cut into a smoldering glare, like his eyes held hellfire itself in them. “Murderer.”
The implications were clear, even to her.
As if I would ever reduce myself to rolling around with a murderer.
Sonic flinched.
So the blue, supercharged hedgehog was a murderer, was he? Amberly resumed a thoughtful expression as she looked between them. That made two of them.
“I keep trying to tell you, Shads, it was an accident!” His statement rolled into a roar at the end like the progression of an avalanche, and Amberly could tell—it was a sore subject. Such a term being thrown around, used as an insult by the one he loved—
It made him terribly angry.
The anger rising to mask the hurt, the pain of not being believed by those he could trust.
Amberly’s heart squeezed.
She knew that feeling all too well.
“It doesn't matter.” His deep voice rolled over them, blanketing them beneath the whirring and chopping of the bird. “You're under arrest for six counts of murder in the first degree.” And though she didn't know the hedgehog—she didn't know anyone here—there was an undercurrent of something in his voice, something that almost sounded like regret.
But then he looked at her.
Under the weight of that gaze, Amberly couldn't help but bristle—but she'd be damned if she showed it, so instead she gave a cocky tilt to her chin, meeting his eyes with a defiant glint in her eye.
“And you,” He said, one hand raised to hold into whatever fastening so he wouldn't fall out of the helicopter. “You best surrender. Following this fool will only backfire.”
She flipped him off. “Bite me, asshole. I'm not getting captured so you can cut off my ears and harvest my organs to figure out where the fuck I came from.” She was still missing her tail from last time. “You want me!?” She hollered, revving her bike. “Come catch me, King Sombra.”
“What she said, Shads!” Sonic said, jumping up with a wave and a grin before hitting the ground in a crouch, twisting his body to stare down the street—
And then he was gone, the only hint of his direction being the electric blue streak of his blurring afterimage that announced perfectly where he had gone, electricity webbing through his mark.
Shit.
At once, hand twisting the throttle, she streaked after him, getting low on her bike as the air rushed past her, tossing her hair and the thin fabric of her tied skirt. This was not the ideal fit to ride in, with the way the air cut like blades over the soft flesh of her thighs, but at least she had boots? The roads were smooth enough to hum beneath the wheels of her bike, to feel less like she was driving over roads and concrete rather than sliding over smooth ice. She followed the blue streak, her tattoos surging with light as she pumped more power into her bike, and soon the front of her bike rode up as she caught up with Sonic and drove alongside his running.
Glancing at the lights of her dashboard, she clocked the speed.
80mph
It was insane to think of a hedgehog going so fast, but he soon ran closer to her, waving and yelling above the whistling wind.
“We'll never shake off Shadow going this slow!” He said, and looked behind them—sure enough, Shadow had abandoned his buddies to engage on foot, skating lightly over the asphalt and streaking gold and orange as he swiftly caught up. “We have to get onto the freeway! From there, it's a straight shot!”
As soon as Amberly saw an opening to get on the freeway, she changed lanes, rising onto the ramp and pumping it.
“Let's see what this sweet thing can really do.”
She was practically salivating thinking of the things she could make this bike do, but just as her body began glowing with the frozen heat of her power, she heard the viscous sound of something tearing above the sky—
She just managed to look up, ears peeled back against the wind to eye the rip in the sky above the ensuing helicopter, but it's lights were too bright and they flashed straight into her eyes—she yelped at being flashbanged, returning her watering eyes to the road and blinking away the tears there—
Before something heavy fell into the freeway behind them, somehow making the whole thing bounce like it wasn't made of concrete and steel beams, Amberly somehow just able to keep her bike upright against the outrageous infrastructure the Sonic seemed to have no problem with navigating, throwing his body into a ball and riding the waves that way. After the first few undulations, she realized that there was more or less a formula to it, a routine, a way of thinking that made it easier to master the unpredictability of her surroundings, and she spread along next to her new partner in crime.
“Amberlina Impungshe-Kai!”
Her eyes went wide.
Oh shit. Oh shit. There's no way, there's no way—
She knew that voice, and decidedly did not look behind her.
She went even faster, streaking harshly ahead of Sonic as panic seized her heart and rose up her throat, shoulders tensing as she rode.
“Uhh, hey—Amberly, right?” Sonic asked, running forward swiftly as he looked behind them, eyes wide and trained on whoever— “Are they with you?”
Despite how much her better judgement screamed at her not to look back—
—she cast a fleeting glance over her shoulder—
—and snapped her gaze right back to the front, beads of sweat sliding down her temple despite the cold wind. Shit.
This was not good.
“Halt! In the name of the Hunters Association Assault Team!”
“Assault Team!?” Sonic parroting incredulously. “Who did you piss off!?”
“A lot of people!” She yelled desperately. “But they don't understand! Those racist fucks had it coming!” Even she couldn't hide the seething rage seeping into her voice, and she yelled over her shoulder, “Why can't you just leave me alone!?”
She was getting so tired of being chased, hunted like a dog—
Like a lesser being—
While the military threw everything they had at her because she was a fauness, while human criminals walked free—
And worst of all—
Worst of all being the ones hunting her—
“That's not how this works!” Came the fierce growl of a voice she knew better than her own, lashing at her back like a whip crack. “Surrender now before you put more innocent lives at risk!”
Now that pissed her off.
The notion that any of the lives she took were innocent.
She did what she had to, only because she had to—but she didn't feel bad about the blood on her hands.
She had buried her remorse when she had walked into that basement of horrors.
They didn't see what she saw that day.
“Look, Amb, can I call ya Amb? I dunno what history you've got with those glowing maniacs over there—” Sonic said at her side, hooking a thumb over his shoulder before spin dashing beneath the cabin of a merging 18-wheeler only to leap down from the air on the other side of her like nothing had even happened. “—but they look pretty fearsome, and Shadow's there too, so can you ditch the bike? We're gonna have to get creative and go pretty fast to shake ‘em off.”
“You think I can't go fast on this thing?” She questioned, revving it to punctuate her point with a surge of speed.
“No, yeah, you can.” He reasoned. “But for what I have in mind—”
“Tell you what,” she said, and for once she felt comfortable to crack a wolfish grin. “Let's have a little competition. A race.”
“A race?” Sonic gave her a fond look, raising a brow at her and crossing his arms. “You do know I'm the fastest creature in the universe, right?”
“And I'm Jaques Schnee.” She said flatly. “You wanna have fun? I can tell just by looking at you you're itching for mischief. So let's give the people what they want.”
Sonic regarded her with a considering look—before his face washed over in a similar look.
Hook, line, and sinker.
She spared another look behind her—taking in the steel-soled boots meant for crushing Grim beneath its heel, the molded bike that revved like the roar of a Nevermore even louder than her own, the familiar Atlas Military uniform and the green-and-gold textured scarf with its design native to her family holding the ceremonial hat securely to her head, hiding the hair that would have been the exact same shade as Amberly's own—
A part of her wished it had never needed to come to this.
Her eyes skirted over the biker's shoulder, spotting the one person who she knew would be there, but had hoped against hope would have stayed—
His fur-lined hood flapping in the wind, the dark curls on his head blown back at his speeds, the antlers curling from his head looking like they could cradle the moon—
Pain rose up inside her, but she shoved it down and returned her eyes to the front, swerving all the way into the fast lane. Most of the vehicles were smart enough to change lanes out of it, having noticed the commotion—
The two fugitives with three pursuers on the ground and a helicopter monitoring them from the sky—
But in a second, the world was about to flip on its head.
Luckily for Amberly, it was only those two. That blond eyepatch fuck was nowhere to be seen.
“Gotta go fast,” Sonic said to no one in particular, and threw himself into speeds that were more to his liking, letting the thunderous beating of his heart spur his legs on, each breath he pulled in feeling like a cold shock against his lungs—just the way he liked it.
He streaked so far and so fast that the rest of the winding traffic of the highway became nothing more than sounds and lights of passing cars, trucks, even buses, metal and lights bringing him into that racing daze he loved. He knew he couldn't hit top speeds in these conditions, but the added maneuvering made it almost as good, because for all that Amberly stayed in the fast lane, he liked to weave in and out of the din, flashing iconic poses to those he caught the eyes of, children pressing their faces against the windows of their parents cars, people who recorded him, phone lights flashing just in time to catch him mid sprint.
It made him lightheaded with euphoria, and he wove back over to Amberly, taking the backlight of her bike in hand as he pushed it along, the colors of their green and blue mingling tether with the electricity they both produced.
He yawned dramatically. “You're so slow.”
“Well if you want something to do you could always take care of our guests there.”
Technically you're the guest, he wanted to say, but a sparking idea had him quieting.
“You know what? Maybe I will.” He said simply, and slowed down by a lot, swerving on the other side of the freeway to run in time next to the other bike lady. She seemed important, what with the uniform.
When she turned an incredulous, hostile gaze towards him, Sonic noticed they were nearly the same as Amberly’s—except no jade.
He gave her a hearty wave. “Hiya! Why are you trying to kill my friend?”
Amalee startled at the talking creature. “We're not trying to kill her—”
“Well, it looks like you're trying to kill her—”
“—unless she refuses to cooperate with our demands.”
“And what are those demands? Demands for water?” He asked impishly.
“What—?”
“Because you sure look thirsty!” With that, he curled into a spin dash and hit the side of her bike—hard—trying to throw her off balance. She swerved dangerously, nearly hitting the side of the highway where the margin was erected, and a glance over the side revealed black waters of the ship channel, far, far below.
Already nearly out to the coast, Sonic surmised, making a mental note to be careful so he himself wouldn't go over the side.
He slammed her again, and this time she yelled out when his quills caught her leg perched on her bike, but instead of his quills catching the fabric of her boot and tearing it to shreds along with the flesh beneath—
Her entire body rippled with green light as if she was under the glow of water, before she bared her teeth and unhooked a gun from its holster at her hip, a gun Sonic hadn't seen before—
—but now he was seeing it all too well due to staring down the barrel of the gun at point blank range.
“Pest,” she spat, before firing the gun with a flash of electric light.
“Sonic!”
Out of everyone he'd expected to call his name and reach out for him against the lady's gun, it wasn't Shadow.
Hearing the commotion, Amberly slowed her bike on the far side of where her own pursuers were tearing up the highway to get to her, calculating her next move as she got close to a distracted Shadow…
Her arms and legs lit up with the power coursing through her markings and she pointed it down to her feet, feeling the frosty cold build on her soles as she braced herself—
—she threw her body off her bike just as a thick sheen of flat ice shot across the freeway, her booted feet touching down as she turned her upper body with her hands still on her steering, using the momentum if the bike crashing out over the ice to swing it headlong—
—and slammed it straight into Shadow while his hand outstretched for his boyfriend, the bike falling to pieces like a cheap toy.
Her heart mourned the thing, but she focused on keeping herself upright and moving across the ice, jumping up with the flare of her skirts and hair to wave her hand along the soles of her boots—
Hitting the ground again with a few backwards crossovers as she watched Shadow falter from the mean hit—enraged eyes training on her wicked smirk.
“You're a skater, too, huh?” She called, holding out her hands. “Let's dance, pretty boy—”
“Aren't you forgetting about me?” He asked, dropping from the sky like a stone—
Her heart shot to her throat.
Ayal.
“Amberly, stop this nonsense.” He said, struggling to keep himself upright on the ice, stumbling around on his boots, and somehow—
Somehow Amberly didn't think before doing the same for him, tendrils of frost encasing his feet before building up into sharpened blades around the soles of his feet, the very tip serrated edges.
Ayal wasn't a figure skater—not really.
But he was skilled in everything else, and Amberly at least wanted to give him a fighting chance—
Even if she knew it was insane.
Nearly stumbling but catching himself on newly bladed feet, he shot her a look—
A look that, in a different lifetime, she would have labeled as gratitude.
Even after everything, his eyes were still so warm.
“Amberly, don't overextend yourself.” He said, eyeing the constantly moving, ever-forming sheen of ice over the highway that had the cars beside them swaying and careening into different lanes. Amberly just avoided one, sweeping herself into a triple lutz to avoid the hunk of metal that surely would have drained all her aura had she gotten hit with it—then.
An idea.
Ayal reached for her just as she flung her arm, sending a volley of wet ice down the road to make it even more difficult, sliding seamlessly between the cars that slid too and fro, Ayal hard on her heels, reaching for her—
“Why? So you can trick me into thinking you still care about me?” She yelled, enraged that he would even dare—
She got down low, sacrificing some speed to curl her hand beneath the bumper of a car and lifting it straight over her head before throwing it—
As if he read her mind, Ayal caught the car with its family inside, and set it as gently as he could for it to spin to a stop behind them just as Amberly threw another, this time a pick up truck.
“What—Amberly—I do care about you—” plucking the truck out of the air, he tossed it behind him, ensuring it would land right-side up even as a plume of black smoke engulfed the air above him.
Amberly sent a look behind her—they were careening right towards a large bridge with orange lights lighting up the arches of the overhanging structures, and beyond that, more buildings were erected. Not quite as many as a metropolitan city, but still busy. Looking down, the ship channel still swam beneath them.
“Don't give me that shit. You're hunting me.”
“We're just trying to make sure you don't hurt anybody else, because we care about you—”
Amberly had heard enough. She spun around, rounding a car in their path and throwing her first forward in a solid punch—
Shadow Chaos Controled right next to her, reaching low as he delivered a punch right into her lower ribs, blue-green aura rippling over her entire body as he threw her airborne—
Before teleporting above her, bring his foot up in a sweeping axe kick—
The metal of his shoe dug harshly into her stomach, pressing her down with so much pressure she expected her back to shatter her ice and crack the highway completely in half—
But strong arms caught her beneath her back and knees, and she didn't have to look up to know that it was—
“Amberly, I'm sorry.”
Wh—” Something hard bound her wrists together by her gauntlets, the dust webbing through them to ensure they remained deactivated—
Cuffs.
Betrayal simmered low in her gut, a slap in the face, and she grit her teeth, anger rising up so high—
All she did was react.
Kicking out with both her feet, her tattoos lit up with the surge of power she sent down her body, ribbons of air and ice following her movement—
Attempting to hit Shadow, but his eyes widened and he curled swiftly out of the way—
For her attack to hit Sonic and Amalee directly where the hedgehog was curled into a spin dash and riding her into the side of the freeway, striking them so hard—
—the cement and steel of the highway cracked under the pressure, the concrete divider exploding against the massive ice shards that erupted like a mountain—
The momentum of her own attack had her blown backward, clear across the other six lanes of the opposite side of the highway, thrown so high that she watched Amalee and Sonic drop like stones—
Before gravity took her down fast.
The waters churned below, not a single stab of light able to pierce those depths, instead reflected off its ever moving face. Getting closer, and closer—Sonic screamed.
“No, no, nononono!” Falling face first towards the water, it was all he could to to wave his arms frantically, his mind overcome with everything he'd done, everything he wanted to do—
Please don't let this be the end.
Suddenly, the water lit up with a brilliant glow before ice encased the top layer—
His relief was short-lived, because he still landed flat on his face.
With a pained groan, he flipped over.
“Ugh, I think my life just flashed before my eyes.”
And it was about to flash again, because something overhead was falling and falling fast right above him. Pressing his teeth together and jumping up, his body screaming that he move—
Just barely managing to jump out of the way before the death cycle he tried to drive off the highway crashed into the ice, cracking it completely and breaking a huge chunk off just so it could sink into the sea, the shine of its dull metal being swallowed by the channel.
He gulped.
Water.
He hated water.
Looking up, he was someone in white dangling—that lady, clinging to the structural beams beneath the highway with her whip extended—hold on, a whip. And its end looked like it glowed with something ancient slithering through its length.
Sonic clicked his teeth. No thank you. She could stay up there for all he cared.
“Sonic!” He heard the wounded cry of his name, and got to his feet, for once a witty quip forgotten on his tongue. It was Amberly, he knew, and he was just about to dash towards where she had fallen on the other end of the highway when—
Shadow dropped right in front of him, eyes ablaze.
“Going somewhere, Faker?”