Stare

When Tails and Sonic landed back on the balcony, they quickly noticed the door to their room was boarded up. There was writing on one of the boards saying… "GET OUT."

"Oh no… don't tell me we're too late," Tails mumbled, horrified. Sonic backed away, before running forward and jumping into the boarded-up glass door. He broke right through the boards and the glass, using his cloak to protect himself. "Sonic! Are you okay?" Tails asked, as Sonic got to his feet.

"Yep… it looks like breaking through windows is my deal now," Sonic replied. Now that they were inside, they could hear hammering sounds. "Amy? Are you in here?"

"SONIKKU!" Amy cried, jumping forward from the darkness and tackling Sonic to the ground with a tight embrace. "Oh my goodness, you're finally here!"

"Erm… yeah… What happened here?" Sonic asked, averting his eyes. As he looked all around, he could see boards nailed to the walls and doors, even the couch. All of them were placed haphazardly with no rhyme or reason. Someone had really gone all-out with a hammer.

"Me! I happened," Amy replied with a big proud smile. "Also, some of those echidnas came here, but I knocked them out with this hammer I found in the bathroom. I put them here!" Amy got off of Sonic and pointed to the ceiling. Sonic looked up and saw multiple echidnas hung to the ceiling… by their knuckles. They all seemed to have suffered injuries to their heads, but they were all alive. "Do you accept my offering, Sonikku???" Amy beamed towards Sonic, leaning forward and wagging her tail.

"Umm, it's… uhh…" Sonic replied, trying to look away from the sight.

"Creepy," Tails said bluntly.

"I didn't ask you, foxboy," Amy replied warmly. Everyone froze as they heard a pound at the door.

"Let us in! We're not gonna hurt you, you little thief!" One of the echidnas outside grumbled.

"You're right. I'M going to hurt YOU," Amy agreed, picking up her new hammer. She walked to the door, looking ready to tear the boards down with her own hands. "This is my room, little man!"

"Hey, let's not get carried away here," Sonic replied. "We should make our retreat. There's more echidnas coming in quick."

"Seconded," Tails agreed. "Come on. Now that we're all together, it's a good time to get out of dodge."

"But I don't want to!" Amy cried. "My art is not done." She looked up to the ceiling sadly.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Sonic bluffed. Amy immediately bounced over and held onto his cloak tightly.

"Noooo, don't leave me Sonikku…" Amy whined, tugging at the ends of his cloak gently. Sonic then smirked and dashed down the building once more, Amy clutching onto the cloak she had made for him as it trailed behind in the wind. "Uwa! So fast!" Tails flew after the two.

The forest fire was slowly yet surely spreading to the parts of the surrounding Angel Forest that hadn't been directly caught in the initial attack. But that didn't really matter, since Sonic was QUICKLY and surely running through it all. They had escaped the flames. Tails caught Sonic up on the situation with the Master Emerald, and all seemed to be going smoothly.

"Brr… it's very breezy!" Amy exclaimed. "Sonic, wrap me in your cloak."

"Umm… n-no…" Sonic mumbled, hiding his face.

"Okay, then I suppose it's time for an overhaul!" Amy exclaimed. She focused her mind, and summoned forth a haze of tarot cards! They began to circle around her, closing in. "Tarot Amy form, activate!" She began to shine brilliantly. When the glow faded, she was standing there in an animated pose, with a completely new set of clothes. Green shirt, orange skirt, a pure gold headband with three angelic spikes sticking out to the sides, and a red bow. In these clothes, she would fare better against the weather than she did in the rags she had on before!

… A little bit.

"Erm… you can do that?" Sonic asked. Amy remained unmoving in her pose. "Tails, I think she turned into a statue again." He groaned, and picked her up with one arm, holding her horizontally like on Little Planet. She still felt warm, but she didn't move a muscle.

The three continued on through Angel Forest, until they reached a wooden bridge over a titanic cascade. The air was teeming with mist and water droplets coming from the waterfall. "Wouldn't wanna fall here," Sonic stated, kicking a pebble into the waterfall.

"You know I'd catch you," Tails reminded him, a hint of laughter in his voice.

"Yeah, I know," Sonic replied. "You're always on the---"

"Look out!" Tails exclaimed. He jumped at and pushed Sonic onto a pillar of solid ground connected to the bridge. Sonic caught only a glimpse of a large flying machine with metal barrels on its sides. They both landed on the pillar just as one of the barrels tilted downwards to shoot out a large ball of flame, completely destroying the bridge. Tails grunted in pain when he landed. Sonic opened his eyes now that the impact had been taken, to see Tails with a large bruise on his elbow.

"Tails!" Sonic exclaimed. He helped his best friend up, all while looking at the machine towering over them. There was a strange figure in the cockpit, with a bald head and round physique. But… it was nothing more than a robot. A special robot, but a robot nonetheless. "No way--- a Robo-Robo?" Sonic asked. He wasn't sure because of the angle. The barrel tilted towards the ground, and shot another ball of flame towards the grass that quickly became a wall of flame. Sonic hopped to the other side of the pillar, holding both Tails and Amy. The ground was extremely thin, and if there was another blast, there would be nowhere to go but down. It looked like the Robo-Robo knew this, so it shot forth another blast. As the flames closed in, Tails sucked up the pain, and quickly lifted Sonic and Amy into the air in the nick of time. The entire pillar below them became a bonfire of grass and roots.

"What's that Robo-Robo doing in the Rob-O-Matic?" Tails asked, as Sonic Homing Attacked into the Flame Mobile and bounced back to grab onto Tails' hands. When he was up close, Sonic saw that the Rob-O-Matic was indeed docked into the Flame Mobile. Observing the damage he had caused, Sonic noticed he had hardly even left a dent in the Flame Mobile.

"Dunno… but I can't get much momentum like this!" Sonic exclaimed. "Gimme a good throw!" Tails nodded. He began to spin Sonic around, winding up a throw. This continued until…!

"Ouch!" Tails yipped. He stopped spinning, and almost dropped Sonic. But he was just about able to support his weight while hovering in place. No throw, however. It looked like Tails had really hurt his arm in the landing.

Sonic looked to the Flame Mobile and tried to focus on it, to deliver a truly powerful Homing Attack. However, his eyes were only drawn to the opposing glare of the soulless Robo-Robo inside the cockpit. Sonic's heart skipped a beat, as the world around him and the Robo-Robo seemed to melt away into a cold darkness. Because the look in the robot's deep red optics almost made the thing seem like it was alive. Sonic couldn't look away, or move, as the Flame Mobile's barrel rose towards Tails and began to charge up a blast.

"Don't hurt my Sonikku!" Amy suddenly cried. She shot her hand forward, breaking her stillness. In her hand, was some kind of card picturing a blackberry bush entanglement. "Thorns!" The card morphed into a long spiked thorn that sliced the barrel off of the Flame Mobile. "Wooo!" Amy cheered, shooting her fist into the air as the barrel fell into the flames.

"I thought you were paralyzed again…?" Sonic asked.

"No. I was only standing still so you would hold me," Amy replied, with a smug look.

"Well, it worked," Sonic sighed, smiling somewhat. He was still shivering from the look in the Robo-Robo's eyes.

The Flame Mobile regained its balance, and shot out another fireball from its last remaining barrel. Tails just barely dodged it, and he could feel the heat next to his face as it nearly burnt him. Sonic then produced a whip of lightning, and following up Amy's attack, sliced the last barrel off of the Flame Mobile. The barrel fell into the cascades. With both its barrels gone, the Flame Mobile was left disarmed. Sonic then focused on it, jumped towards it, and unleashed a barrage of Homing Attacks all over, until he cut right through the bulky iron shell and destroyed the interior.

Sonic landed on the charred ground. The fire had already been extinguished by the moisture in the air. What was left of the Flame Mobile crashed in front of him. The Rob-O-Matic was still lodged in the center, and with it, the Robo-Robo.

"Hmm…" Sonic hummed, walking to the Robo-Robo. The thing appeared to be powered off, and slightly damaged. "Just what were you doing in here?" Sonic asked. He pulled the Robo-Robo out of the Rob-O-Matic. The robot slumped onto the floor powerlessly.

"Good thinking, Sonic! We can use the Rob-O-Matic to get out of here. We should get a good view of the island, and determine where the Master Emerald is. We probably shouldn't let the bat girl have it, and the echidnas are too dangerous to be allowed its power," Tails stated. He jumped into the seat. Amy too. There was no room left in the pod. It had only been built to hold one Lord Robotnik.

"Where do I sit?" Sonic asked. Amy looked over to him expectantly, patting her lap. "Erm… pass…?" Sonic turned away. "I'll try my hand at this whole 'skurfing' thing again. Except… in the sky this time. Hey, at least there's no water." Sonic wrapped an energy beam around the Rob-O-Matic.

"Leaving so soon?" Knuckles' voice asked. Everybody turned to the source of his voice. The red echidna was standing atop a cliff above the pillar. Definitely too high for Sonic to jump. "And in the same pod that I saw take away the Master Emerald… I had my doubts about you being the real thieves, but now I don't have any reason to go easy on you." Knuckles looked to a button on the ground. "Sonic… I know you can't swim. Give me the Master Emerald AND your powers, and I'll let you go. If you don't… I'll leave you and your friends to drown."

"Sonic would never!" Tails shouted. "Get lost!"

"Fine! It was your call!" Knuckles stomped onto the button. There was a deep rumbling. Then the rock formation shifted, and with it, the waterfall. A large blast of water sent Sonic and the others in the Rob-O-Matic over the edge of the pillar, plunging into the abyss below. They all yelled as they fell, with Knuckles scowling. He lifted his foot from the button, and walked away.