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"For goodness sake Amy, would you give it a rest!"
Amy could hardly say she hadn't expected this attitude from Sonic, but he needed to hear it. That's why she'd coaxed him out into the Emerald Hill Zone's meadows for a chat. She'd even got him to sit down on a log for a bit—though he was fidgeting.
"I will not! Not until you actually talk about it," she insisted. "You were off the ball fighting Plasma. I've never seen you give up hope so easily. You put us in danger. And then—"
"Like the situation was ever out of control," Sonic interrupted with a growl. "I beat Plasma, didn't I?"
"And then," Amy continued. It wasn't the right moment to tell Sonic that she'd bailed him out that time. "Then there was the Miracle Planet last week."
"What about the Miracle Planet?" Sonic puffed up indignantly. "There wasn't even any danger!"
"No, but you thought there was. You thought that the kid in the Metallix armour was the real thing." There it was. She felt a flicker of the Chaos Emerald power in Sonic. She'd struck a nerve.
Sonic waved a hand dismissively. "So what?"
"Don't play stupid with me, Sonic! You know I'm infected with Chaos Energy too. I felt you on the edge back there. You nearly went Super and you know it."
Sonic's mouth worked for a moment but no words came out. Realisation struck Amy.
"You—you don't realise when you're getting close to losing control?"
Sonic glared at her, then the glare faltered. Amy could see a wave of emotions crossing his face, centring primarily on worry.
"Of course I realise," he sighed. "Just only when it's too late to stop the change. I fight it, but—"
She sensed another pulse of the power, now feeding on the despair built up inside him.
Her crush on him might have subsided, but Amy's heart still lurched for him in that moment. The poor guy had absolutely no idea what was going on in his own head. Heck, he was probably still processing the transformation of Kintobor into Robotnik, let alone the Metallix war. No wonder he wasn't able to talk about it. It was just too much.
"Oh, Sonic," Amy said, remorsefully. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push you."
She felt the power rising in him again. Oops. If Sonic hated anything more than being called out, it was people feeling sorry for him. He stood up, angry.
"I don't need your pity! In fact, I've just about had enough of you and Johnny and Tails trying to unpick my life right now!" He spun around, and yelled into the green hills around them. "Omni! OMNI-VIEWER!"
A rift of energy crackled into existence behind Amy and she turned around to see the AI burst into their spatial dimension. The Omni-Viewer gave her a quick nod and then looked at Sonic.
"Jeez, dude, I'd just got to Act 2 of… you know, it doesn't matter. What's wrong? Badnik trouble?"
"Like I'd need your help for badniks," Sonic snorted.
"Wow," said Omni, turning back to Amy. "Narked him off, did you?"
"Shut up, Omni," Amy snapped back.
"Omni, just get me out of here," Sonic said bluntly.
"Okay, okay. But you know I'm not your personal taxi service, right? That's what Tails is for."
Sonic jumped into the Omni-Viewer's screen without a second thought. Omni fixed Amy with a stare.
"Want to tell me anything?"
"Just…" she flapped her hands in the air. She'd been zealous. Sonic wasn't her; he wasn't ready to open up yet. "I don't know. Take him somewhere safe."
"Safe? Well. Can't get safer than inside the Floating Island's protective barrier."
Yeah, the Floating Island. Maybe Porker could encourage him to open up a bit. If not, maybe Knuckles could beat some sense—
Knuckles.
The Emerald Chamber.
Amy swore. "No, wait!"
Too late. Omni crackled out of reality.
***
Amy was spending far too long in the Metropolis City sewers lately. She'd preferred the last time; at least the company had offset the smell a bit. But this time it was just making her cranky.
"I told you we should have gone to pick him up,"
She was angry. The power had sensed it. She'd let it out a little with that salty comment. It was the sort of comment Sonic might make reflexively. Maybe he was aware of the power accruing in him, at least subconsciously. Maybe she could help him tune into that.
There were better ways, though. Yelling at Johnny wasn't exactly the best way to skim off some Chaos Energy, as far as their friendship was concerned. Maybe that's what the power wanted. Leaving her alone and friendless…
She shook off the thought. She had previously realised that she'd need to take a break from the freedom fighters for the sake of her own health—if only a short holiday, unlike Porker—and had even started to train Tails in the use of the crossbow so the lad would be able to contribute more in a fight with her gone. But the idea of going solo was still enough to make her gut tighten with anxiety.
She tried to change the subject. "How much further is it to this safe house of your cousin's, anyway?"
"Not far," Johnny replied, curtly. Wow, was even Johnny mad at her?
She took in a deep breath of stale air and let it out slowly. "Sorry I snapped. I just hated having to leave Sonic thinking we were dead."
"We could go back—" Tails started.
"No." Amy cut him off. "If Sonic knows we're alive, Super Sonic does too. I felt Sonic's Chaos Energy after he turned back. He is still extremely volatile."
It kept replaying in her mind's eye: Sonic sinking to the floor, curling up and openly sobbing, assuming that, as Super Sonic, he had just annihilated them all. Maybe he'd cried in private before, but she'd certainly never seen him like that, and she doubted Tails or Johnny had either.
The emotional floodgates opening had dissipated some Chaos Radiation from him, at least. That would keep him from going Super for a while at least—enough for them to figure out a solution.
"Any luck in there, Kintobor?" she asked, peering over her shoulder to where the portable Kintobor computer was strapped to her back.
"I had got a couple of theories," came the computerised voice of Sonic's old pal. "I'll need more power to run the simulations. I don't suppose you would be able to acquire a star post?"
***
Being the bait sucked.
Apparently even with both of them at it, Johnny and Tails were having trouble setting up the star post, because Amy had run out of stalling material.
Super Sonic, staring down at her from mid-air with those wild eyes she recognised from her own Super form, had been curious enough to listen while she told him how they'd got away from him the first time around, but she'd reached the end of the story.
She started ad-libbing, anything she could think of.
"Sonic, please listen… you're not yourself, we just want to help you get better!"
She cringed as she said it. It was the same mistake she'd made last time. Sonic just couldn't open up.
"You fools!" Super Sonic boomed in response. "Why should I want to turn back into the blue weakling that I used to be? I am now the most powerful being on planet Mobius!"
Amy wished she had a clearer recollection of her own time as Super Amy. Did she think of herself as a weakling at those times? Or was this Sonic's own experience of himself, buried deep down?
"The only ones who need help… are you!"
Super Sonic dived straight towards her. "Sonic, no!" she cried, jumping to the floor as he shot past her. She felt the heat of his wake scorch the back of her head.
Feeling a little… hot headed? voiced her own personal nightmare beneath the surface.
Amy had practised pushing the voice back and did so again, but another terrible thought came to mind, this one very much from her conscious self: what if she needed to be Super Amy right now? What if that was the only way to stop Super Sonic?
"Hurry, Tails!" she shouted with a renewed sense of urgency. "Do it now!"
Tails swiped the cover off of the star post and managed to catch Super Sonic's attention, thankfully. Amy didn't even have time to check if she'd started going Super herself; her role was now critical and she wouldn't let her friends down.
She slammed the Kintobor computer open and pulled out the modified crossbow she'd stashed with it. A loose thin cable ran from the computer's data port to the payload of her weapon. She whipped the crossbow around, unravelling the cable with a loud crack, and launched the arrow it was attached to into the upper disc of the star post.
The next minute went past in a blur and Amy felt like she'd held her breath throughout the whole thing, but finally Kintobor's plan worked. The Special Zone, with quite a lot of help, had permanently reclaimed the Chaos Energy that had infected Sonic. Super Sonic was no more.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
"Kintobor worked out how to use the star post's energy to remove all the Emerald Radiation," she explained to a dazed and confused Sonic.
And now it was her turn. They'd reset the experiment, she'd let the power loose, and then it would be over. Finally.
"Amy, I'm picking up really wacky readings from the star post!" the Kintobor computer interrupted, and Amy felt the floor of her stomach drop in crushing disappointment as Kintobor explained that rather than returning pure energy to the Special Zone, they might have somehow unleashed a copy of Super Sonic into the world instead?
"But how…?" Amy stuttered, even as Johnny put his arm around Sonic, escorting him back towards the safe house.
She couldn't let an independent Super Amy loose on the world, completely out of her tenuous control. She was stuck with the power for now.
And I might still need the power in order to fight Super Sonic, if he is still out there. Who else could do it?
With a last mournful gaze back at the star post—they could collect it later—Amy reluctantly followed the others away. Helping Sonic recover was their top priority now. She would fight her demon later.
***
Sonic opened his eyes and looked around until he focused on Amy. He groaned.
"Don't you start," he muttered.
Amy held out the mug of hot chocolate she'd made for him. Sonic sat up slowly in the bed that he'd fallen promptly asleep into at the safe house after arriving there.
"A peace offering," Amy said.
Sonic took the mug. "Hot cocoa? This is seriously uncool," he declared, but sipped at the warm drink nonetheless.
"I pushed you too hard earlier," Amy continued. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, well," Sonic looked away with a frown. "You all practically saved my life. I guess we're even."
Amy nodded. She didn't really go in for keeping count, but it seemed useful to Sonic.
The blue boy continued with his drink. Eventually he spoke up again.
"I'd forgotten you were also infected," he confessed. "You hide it better than me."
Amy snorted. "You should ask Knuckles about that. But don't worry, we don't need to talk about it now. You're cured."
"And you too?"
Amy pursed her lips. Sonic didn't need to know what had gone wrong yet. "No… not yet. But we can discuss that later."
"And there was me thinking I'd never get to meet Super Amy," Sonic said. "Can't say I was too upset about it, though."
Amy shuddered. Sonic was in even more danger from her now that he couldn't go Super himself. "I hope you never do."
He will, said her demon.