Fierce

Chapter 11: All She Could Do Was Fight

"It's alright Amy...just let it out." A dark purple wing was at Amy's back, like a blanket of warmth. Although Rouge's wings had a strange texture to them- like a furry reptile -they never ceased to comfort Amy in her times of need.

Until now.

As she cried, Amy's closer friends surrounded in her bed in a semi circle, as she was in a bed against a window. Thoughts of Sonic, possibly injured far worse than her, were all that circulated through Amy's pounding head. Helplessness was something Amy had been looking to abandon: after all, she had been training, and should have been stronger than that.

"It's my fault," she whispered, her friends going silent as they exchanged glances. Surrounding Amy was Tails, Knuckles, Cream (with Cheese, of course), and Rouge, with Shadow standing solemnly to the side a bit, uncomfortable with being in such close quarters with other people. The Chaotix had taken their leave, feeling slightly out of place in the intimate atmosphere.

"It's not your fault!" Cream was the first to speak, puffing her cheeks up with a pout. "Mr. Sonic always gets himself into trouble, and I just know he's going to kick Doctor Eggman's behind, just like he does all the time!" Cheese agreed with a shake of the head and a cooing noise.

"Like always, huh..." Amy trailed off, tilting her head to look at the ceiling. There was a white ceiling fan that stirred the stagnant hospital air, and the monotonous whir of the fan served as background music.

'Background...is that all I am? Someone who sits in the background, useless?'

"Always can change."

Misunderstanding, Cream took a hold of Amy's arm, her brow creased with worry for her friend. "Amy, I'm sure he'll be okay! You ju-"

"No, Cream." Grunting, the pink hedgehog lifted herself out of the bed, her body feeling battered and her head on fire. Gingerly, she began to peel off her bandages to the astonishment and horror of her concerned friends.

Knuckles was the first to react; "Are you insane Amy?! You nearly died because of how much blood you lost!" As soon as the echidna tried to approach Amy to stop her, however, Rouge came in between the two. A glare between the two ensued.

"Out of my way, bat girl."

"In your dreams, knucklehead." Rouge stood her ground, and turned around to give Amy a stern frown. "Now you. What do you think you're doing, pinky?"

Amy cringed at the nickname and continued to peel off bandages, only leaving the ones on her head. The feeling of stitches beneath the bandages spooked her too much to want to see what lay beneath the white strips. "I'm going to save Sonic, just as he's always done for me."

It didn't take more than a few seconds for Amy's friends to practically throw her back onto the hospital bed and page several nurses to put new bandages on the pink hedgehog's flesh. She groaned defiantly, turning to look at her friends and simply grimace.

"If I were Sonic, no one would have stopped me," she whispered icily as the last nurse left the room. A flurry of them had barged in all at once hearing about Amy's crazy idea: after all, many of them were familiar with the name "Amy Rose" to be the girl that was crazily in love with Sonic the Hedgehog, hero of the planet.

"I thought you guys were my friends," came another whisper, although her tone shifted from cold to betrayed. As Amy stared up at the ceiling fan, she could only feel herself grow more and more angry. The fan wouldn't go in the other direction, it wouldn't go at different speeds; it was either on, or it was off.

Nothing ever changed.

"Amy, sweetie," Vanilla started, having come over as soon as she heard from Tails about Amy's want to save Sonic. "We can let Knuckles and Tails handle Sonic. He might even be able to handle himself." Vanilla chuckled at her last comment, somehow making such a dreary hospital atmosphere positive.

Not to Amy, however. Instead of cheering her up, Vanilla's comments only served to further add fuel to Amy's temper.

"But that's just it," she growled. "Everyone always tells me that I have to leave it up to the boys; they always act like I'm just useless!"

"Now dear," The motherly rabbit placed a hand on Amy's shoulder, "you know that we don't think you're useless. But right now, we don't want you to open the stitches on your head. We could lose you this time." Vanilla looked down, and inhaled sharply, worried about upsetting Amy too deeply. She pondered her next statement, and finally spoke:

"Isn't it selfish of you to do that to us when the others can handle it better than you?"

At first, Amy could only stare blankly at Vanilla; her argument seemed valid, however...

'better than you.'

The effects of Vanilla's words lingered on the pink hedgehog as she was checked out by the doctors after visiting hours were over, and still while she watched TV late at night. Amy had even gotten a roommate whom she got along with; talking to her didn't make Amy forget her conversation from earlier, though.

Checked into the same room as Amy was a reddish brown cat named Scarlet; she had tripped into a granite counter top and subsequently broke her nose. She was around the same age as Amy, and the two quickly hit it up. Of course, the girl did recognize Amy, ("You're famous!" Scarlet had shouted upon being admitted to the room, and proceeded to let all of her friends know) but she regarded her as nothing different from a friend.

"If you don't mind me asking," Scarlet piped up after an extended period of silence, sounding slightly hesitant, "I heard that Sonic was taken by Doctor Eggman...is that true?"

Reminded of her folly, Amy sunk back into her rather uncomfortable bed. "Yeah, and as you can see" - Amy pointed to the bandages wrapped around her head - "I screwed up."

Scarlet smiled and rolled her eyes. "But he's the one that messed up! Sonic should have made sure that you didn't get hurt, and in the end he let himself get captured. None of this is your fault."

"Hey now, it isn't Sonic's job to watch over me," Amy retorted, slightly annoyed with her new friend. "Plus, shouldn't I be the one who's looking out for myself?"

"But Amy, he's the hero!" Scarlet shot Amy a concerned glance. "You're not the one who-"

"Alright. That's it."

"Amy, I didn't mean to upset you...I just wanted to-"

"No, I totally get it," Amy interrupted once more. She smiled at her roommate. "Thanks for talking to me." Amy began to pull off her covers.

"Uh...Amy...what are you..."

"No one thinks I can do it," The pink hedgehog summoned her hammer, and once more lifted herself out of the all white bed. "If no one believes me, I just have to prove it."

"Are you nuts?!"

"Love makes you do crazy things," Amy joked, using one of the lines she had given Sonic before. An unfamiliar smirk of determination covered her peach muzzle as she ripped off the bandages she had slowly peeled off before.

She could see Scarlet holding her pager with a shaking hand, looking terrified at Amy's antics.

"Push it," she urged, "I'll be gone before they come."

Scarlet's finger went down on the red button, and a beeping sound resounded throughout the hospital floor.

"Would a nurse-"

CRASH!

"please go to room-"

The ceiling fan above Amy's head was brought down with just one swing of her hammer. Amy smiled sweetly to Scarlet. "Sorry, but that had to go."

"242, a patient is-"

CRASH!

The window burst open, shards of glass littering the sky like stars as they shone beneath the moonlight. Amy's smile managed to grow even wider at the glittering specks, and she positioned herself to use her hammer as a means to jump down the building.

"paging for help."

'Just like he taught me.'

"AMY!" Scarlet shouted, desperate for the girl to simply say she was kidding and get back into her bed. But Amy did no such thing; instead, she continued to analyze the building for a few more seconds, until she could hear the door to the hospital room swing open.

"Miss Rose! What in the world?!"

But Amy was already out the window, smirking as she swung herself over to the building's fire escape, latching her hammer onto the railing.

Nurses began to pile into the room, with one looking down at the ceiling fan in shock.

"This fan has always been here!" The other nurses looked appalled that the woman could even think of the ceiling fan at a time like this; to their surprise though, Amy looked back up at the window and responded.

"Sorry about the fan. But sometimes always can change."

And then she sped off at an alarming speed down the fire escape, only one thought in her throbbing head:

"I can be the hero too. I'll return the favor, Sonic."

GO AMY!

Two updates in one day because I felt bad for not updating for so long.