I'm baaaaaaack! After months of trying to find time to type this thing, Chapter 2 of Project F is up and running! (insert fanfare here)

Fuchsia: Well, it' about time, M1!

FUCHSIA? What're you doing outside of the main story?

Fuchsia: Complaining! What does it look like?

(stares at Fuchsia awkwardly) Have you been hanging out with PFoC, again?

Fuchsia: How'd you know?

Lucky guess. That, and the sarcasm. Oh, and before I forget: I do not own SEGA, Sonic Team, or any characters that are owned by the above companies Claiming them as my own would be illegal. And rather rude.

"So you seriously can't remember a thing before I woke you up?" Sonic asked as he, Fuchsia, and Tails approached Tails' Lab.

"No…" Fuchsia admitted sheepishly with a shrug. "I can't remember anything… my past… my name…" Tears began to well up in the kit's eyes once again. "…My family…"

Tails noticed that the waterworks were about to begin. "No, no, no, don't cry," he consoled Fuchsia. "We'll find your parents if it's the last thing we do. Right, Sonic?"

Sonic drew an "X" on his chest with his finger. "Cross my heart," he said with a smile, "and swear to die."

Fuchsia smiled back as the tears dried away.

"Hey, Sonic?" Tails asked.

"Yeah, Tails?"

"What are we going to do if we can't find Fuchsia's parents today? We don't have a place for her to stay."

Sonic stopped walking as the question rang in his mind. "Hmm…" he pondered, scratching his head in thought. "I don't exactly know…"

"Oh, SOOOOOONIC!"

Sonic jumped. "Yikes!" he yelled. "It's Amy!" He turned to the two foxes as he charged up a Super Peel-Out. "I gotta make myself scarce! Good luck finding Fuchsia's family, Tails!" And, just like that, Sonic was off, throwing up a cloud of dust behind him.

Tails was outraged at Sonic for ditching him and Fuchsia like that. "SONIC!" he shouted, his hands cupped over his mouth. "We still need to find a place for Fuchsia to stay!"

"Who's Fuchsia?"

Both foxes turned around to see a rather tired Amy staring down at them, propping her right arm up on her hammer like a crutch.

"Oh! Hi, Amy!" Tails greeted, somewhat surprised at the pink hedgehog's sudden appearance. "If you're looking for Sonic, you just missed him."

"So he's not here?" Amy asked, before stomping her foot on the pavement. "Dang it!"

"I know how you feel. He ditched me when we were supposed to be looking for this little girl's family." Tails pointed to Fuchsia.

Amy looked where Tails was pointing and finally noticed the young, pink kit standing half-next to him, half-behind him.

"Aw…" Amy cooed, kneeling down to Fuchsia's level. "Aren't you just the cutest little thing?"

Fuchsia giggled.

Amy looked back up at Tails. "What's her name?" she asked him.

Tails shrugged. "We don't know her real name, but she likes to be called Fuchsia," he said as he turned to Fuchsia. "Fuchsia, this is Amy Rose. She loves Sonic, but according to Sonic, it's a one-sided relationship."

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Amy growled, glaring at Tails.

"Aah!" Tails screamed, his hands flying up to protect himself. "She also scares me when she does this!"

Fuchsia laughed at Tails' predicament. Even though she had just met her, Fuchsia felt some sort of deep bond with Amy. It's as if they just clicked together.

Her rage subsided, Amy returned to her cheery self. "So why did you say that you don't know her REAL name, anyways?" she questioned.

Fuchsia went sullen. "I-I can't remember anything…" she admitted, in the same sheepish tone she had when Sonic asked the same question.

"What?" Amy said in disbelief, before turning to Tails. "Please elaborate."

"She has total amnesia," Tails stated. "She must've damaged her cerebral cortex before we found her."

"So she can't remember a thing?"

"Well, not exactly. She still has excellent fine motor skills, and an apparent case of aerophobia, so she apparently retained SOME memories of her past. Sonic and I were looking for her parents in Emerald Town until you showed up. Sigh… unfortunately; we don't have a place for her to stay until we do. I wish Sonic were still-"

"She could stay at my new house for a while," Amy interrupted.

Tails' eyes went wide. "Really?" he asked, not believing what he was hearing.

Amy nodded her head yes. "It's the least I could do for her," she said.

Fuchsia was so excited at the news that she did a back flip out of joy. "Yay!" the pink kit exclaimed.

Tails was also excited, but he had something else on his mind as well. "That's great," he said to Amy, "but I need you to make sure that you both come by my lab tomorrow morning. I want to make sure Sonic knows that Fuchsia's staying with you until we find her family."

Amy grinned. "Does that mean that Sonic will be there?" she half-asked, half-swooned.

Tails' started to sweat at the question. "Uh…" he stuttered, "I guess…"

"Okay!" Amy confirmed. "We'll be there!"

Fuchsia laughed again.

Amy's new house (she had moved out of her apartment in Station Square not long ago) was a very pretty two-story Cape Cod, if you could get past the hot pink paint scheme she had added. The inside was also pink, though it was more of a pastel pink. The furniture was either purple or cherry red in coloration (it depended on the room). However, to Fuchsia, the inside could've been rainbow-colored and she wouldn't have cared. From what her memory recalled, this was the first time she had ever been inside a building, and she was fascinated.

Apparently, Fuchsia was a little TOO fascinated at being indoors, because Amy was starting to think something was wrong.

"Hello?" she asked, waving her hand in front of the kit's face. "You okay?"

Fuchsia snapped back into reality. "Oops!" she apologized. "Sorry, I've never been inside before. Or… at least in what I can remember."

"Oh, no, I should be the one saying sorry. I forgot how little you remember now. Practically everything is new to you."

The kit shrugged. "I guess…"

Amy chuckled. "Well," she said, "this is the living room. Over there is the TV on that media shelf…" – she pointed to the HDTV sitting on top of a shelf in the corner – "… and there's a bookcase in the other corner. Now, PLEASE do not read the diary I keep over there."

"Why?" Fuchsia asked, seriously not knowing the answer.

"It's private. Now-" Amy pointed to the room next to the living room – "that's the kitchen over there. There's also a bathroom over there as well, along with the dining room."

"Where's my room?" Fuchsia asked.

"Upstairs," Amy answered as she began to walk up the flight of stairs. "Come on, I'll show you!"

Fuchsia followed Amy up the stairs like a puppy follows a little child home. On the second floor, they walked past a room with a picture of Sonic thumb tacked to it (which Fuchsia correctly guessed was Amy's room), a full bathroom, and stopped at a white door at the end of a hallway.

"This," Amy said, "is your room."

Amy opened the door, revealing a purple-colored room with a royal blue bed and closet doors in the same shade. The vanity and the chest of drawers were also blue, but the curtains covering the window were, appropriately, fuchsia.

"Wow!" Fuchsia exclaimed, looking around the room in awe. "This is amazing!"

"This is where I keep my old clothes from when I was younger," Amy noted, "so you can look around and see if any of them fit. You probably want to change out of that torn, beat-up jumpsuit, don't you?"

It was only then did Fuchsia get a really good look at what she was wearing. The collars of the suit were frayed and torn, there was a rip in the suit below her left knee, and it stank of low tide. It was also generally uncomfortable… actually; it felt rather gritty, too.

"Amy?" Fuchsia asked. "Do you think I could take a bath, first?"

"Why?" Amy responded, puzzled at the comment.

Fuchsia pulled at the waist of the jumpsuit, letting it snap back into place afterward. "I think I have sand where sand should never be."

Amy winced slightly. "Okay," she agreed. "I'll help you pick out clothes, afterward." With that, Fuchsia strolled out of the room towards the upstairs bathroom as Amy went down the stairs to the living room.

When Amy was sure that Fuchsia hadn't followed her downstairs, Amy grabbed a pencil and her diary off of the shelf, and began to write:

Dear Diary,

Normally, I would be writing about how I came thisclose to seeing Sonic today, but something else happened today that was a little more interesting. While I was looking for Sonic today near Tails' Lab, I found Tails standing next to a little, fuchsia-colored fox. Her name is Fuchsia, after her fur color, and it turns out that she lost her memory somehow. Tails told me that she also didn't have a place to stay, so I offered to let her stay with me in the spare bedroom.

Amy was about to start writing the next sentence when she realized something she had forgotten.

"Fuchsia!" she yelled. "Don't turn the right knob or else the water's…"

"Aah!" Fuchsia screamed from the upstairs bathroom.

"…Cold." Amy finished with a sigh.

Lights were flashing.

Alarms were blaring.

And Fuchsia was running for her life.

She was running through a metallic labyrinth away from some unknown terror. She wanted to know what was making such a malicious noise, but feared slowing down if she looked back.

"Don't let her get away!" a foreboding voice behind her said, prompting the kit to run even faster away. She frantically looked around for an escape route-

There! An open window!

Freedom!

Fuchsia skidded around a corner as she made a beeline for the window. When she was within a few feet of the window, she jumped and dove cleanly out the window and away from the terror.

And she started falling.

Fuchsia had to be over a mile in the air (without a parachute!) and was closing the surface of the ocean fast. The kit was so overwhelmed with sheer terror that she felt as though she was going to throw up. She screamed at the top of her lungs for someone to save her, ANYONE, as she came closer and closer to her watery grave. But there was no one to be found, and the ocean came closer and closer, until-

KRAK-KABOOM!

Fuchsia shot straight up in her bed in a cold sweat. She was panting heavily, and her new white and blue nightgown was partially stained with sweat around her neck. Rain was pounding down on the window outside her room, the darkness only split temporarily by jagged bursts of lightning.

Fuchsia felt a tear run down her cheek. "It was only a bad dream," she tried to reassure herself, repeating it over and over with little effect.

Suddenly, Amy burst into the room, wearing a pink nightgown and holding her hammer over her head. Fuchsia, already shaken from the nightmare, was almost scared to death at Amy's sudden entrance (literally, she felt her heart skip a beat or two).

"What's going on?" Amy questioned. "What's wrong?"

"Amy!" Fuchsia cried as she leaped out of bed and ran over to the pink hedgehog. No sooner had she wrapped her arms around Amy did Fuchsia practically explode into tears. "It was so scary!" she bawled. "It-it felt so REAL!"

"I could guess," Amy said to Fuchsia, the kit's tears beginning to soak through the front of her pink nightgown. "You were screaming in your sleep."

"I-I was?"

Amy picked Fuchsia up and placed her gently back onto her bed. "What was the bad dream about?"

The more Fuchsia told Amy about her nightmare, the more concerned Amy grew – and the harder Fuchsia cried. By the time Fuchsia had gotten to where she was falling through the sky, her eyes were red and puffy from crying.

Amy, a little shaken from Fuchsia's unusually vivid detail, patted the kit on the back to calm her. "There, there," she soothed her, "no need to cry. It was only a dream."

Fuchsia's crying didn't slow a drop. Amy thought about letting the pink kit sleep in her room for the night, but then got an even better idea.

"Wait here," Amy said, placing her hands on Fuchsia's shoulders. The hedgehog then stood up from her kneeling position and walked calmly out of the room towards her bedroom.

Fuchsia sniveled as she waited for Amy to return. However, the longer she waited, the more the darkness and the storm went to her head. She felt as if the monster from her dream was hiding somewhere nearby, ready to attack her at any moment…

SLAM!

"Aah!" Fuchsia screamed as Amy slammed the door to her room open again. The kit then turned to face the door, half-enraged, half-petrified. "Stop doing that!"

Fuchsia calmed instantly as she caught sight of what Amy was holding in her hands. It was a small, plush doll of Tails, crafted out of yellow and white cloth.

"I thought you might want someone to stay with you during the night," Amy said as she offered the doll to Fuchsia. Fuchsia readily took the doll in her hands and gazed into its white thread and blue button eyes. It seemed to have an eerily soothing effect on the kit.

"I…" Fuchsia stuttered, trying to find the words but failing.

Amy smiled. "Love it?" she finished Fuchsia's sentence for her.

Fuchsia simply smiled back as Amy tucked her back into her bed. "Now, promise me you won't be scared anymore, okay?" Amy asked.

"Yawn…" Fuchsia yawned, her eyelids starting to lazily fall shut. "Of course, Amy… Mini-Tails will protect me…"

Aww, Amy thought. She already has a name for that little doll.

"Goodnight… Amy…" Fuchsia mumbled as she drifted off to sleep once again.

As she tiptoed to the door, Amy looked back at the sleeping kit. She had a pleasant smile on her face, and the light from the hallway was reflecting off of Mini-Tails' button pupils, the doll's head nestled in the crook of Fuchsia's arm.

"Goodnight, Fuchsia," Amy said as she slowly closed the door.

"Come ON, Fuchsia!" Amy yelled to the kit from the bottom of the steps. "We're going to be late!" Secretly, Amy was just as excited to see Fuchsia in her new clothes, as she was to see Sonic at Tails' Lab later that morning.

"I'm coming!" Fuchsia responded as she hopped down the stairs, two at a time. When she reached the bottom step, Amy took a moment to reflect on Fuchsia's new appearance.

Fuchsia had thrown away the trashy red jumpsuit she had been found in, and was now wearing a sleeveless purple dress with a white collar and frill that came down to about the kit's knees. Her once scraggly pigtails had been brushed, braided and spritzed with enough hairspray to make them stand up by themselves, and each ended in a white hair-tie that made the loose fur on the ends fan out like a paintbrush's bristles. The fur on the top of her head had also been styled into a wavy shape that ended in a fine point. She still wore the same gloves and shoes as before, although they had been cleaned and shined beforehand. She also wore a pair of bright pink socks underneath her shoes.

"Well?" she asked, spinning three-sixty on one foot.

"Perfect!" Amy replied, making her hands into a frame. "Now come on, Sonic will be at Tails' Lab any minute!"

"Why are you always thinking about Sonic if Tails said he didn't like you?" Fuchsia asked innocently.

"HE DOES TOO LIKE ME!" Amy screamed as she bolted off towards the lab, leaving the pink kit in the dust by mistake.

Fuchsia blinked. "Was it something I said?"

When the duo arrived at Tails' Lab, the first thing they saw outside of the building (which was fashioned in the shape of Tails' head) was Sonic sleeping peacefully in a hammock, his arms propped up behind his head and one of his legs dangling out of the side. He had to be asleep, Fuchsia guessed, or else he would've run away at the first sight of Amy.

"Hi, Sonic!" Fuchsia and Amy yelled simultaneously.

"Whoa!" Sonic shouted as he snapped awake, his arms and legs flailing around in surprise. Unfortunately for him, a hammock is not designed for that much movement, and he promptly flipped out of it, landing with a painful thud.

Fuchsia, concerned about what happened, ran over and lifted the hedgehog's head off of the ground.

"Sonic!" she cried. "Are you okay?"

"Ow…" Sonic groaned as he rose to his feet, rubbing his injured head. "What hit me?" Suddenly, the blue hedgehog froze in place, finally spotting Amy a few feet away from him.

"Hi, Sonic, dearie!" Amy cooed as she waved hello.

"Err…" Sonic stuttered as he tried to figure out just what the heck was going on.

Just then, the doors on Tails' Lab flew open, and Tails appeared out of them. The twin-tailed fox lit up when he saw that all three of his guests were there.

"Sonic! Amy! Fuchsia!" he exclaimed. "You're here!"

This made Sonic even more puzzled. "Wait…" he stammered at Tails, pointing to Amy. "You invited her here?"

"Long story," Tails hastily explained. "I'll tell you inside."

Inside, Tails was working on the Waterspout's engine while Fuchsia watched him intently. Amy had explained why she was at the lab to Sonic, and the pink and blue hedgehogs were now in the other room, no doubt the latter trying to avoid a kiss from the former.

Meanwhile, Fuchsia was almost spellbound by Tails' handiwork. Having total amnesia, everything was new to her, and, like most six-year-olds, everything new was enticing.

"Whatcha doing?" Fuchsia asked Tails, her curiosity finally getting the better of her.

"Trying to modify the Waterspout's engine so that it will run at full power," Tails explained, not looking up from his work. "The thing is, I can't seem to figure out what's wrong with it. Maybe it has something to do with the pistons, here…"

PIKO-KEERASH!

"Amy!" Sonic yelled from the other room. "Watch where you're swinging that thing!"

Tails sighed. "I'll be right back," he said as he placed his wrench down on his tool-bench before going to repair whatever Amy's hammer broke.

The instant that Tails walked through the door, a naughty idea came to Fuchsia's mind. What if SHE helped Tails with the engine before he came back? It didn't seem all that hard. When Fuchsia was positive that Tails wasn't coming back anytime soon, she leaped over the tool-bench into his workplace. Remembering that Tails had said something about the pistons being the weak link, she picked up the wrench and began to loosen up the bolts on the pistons – but not too much; she didn't want one flying through someone's head while the engine was running. Next, she added some grease to the sides of the pistons so that they would slide easier. However, while she was inspecting the engine, she noticed something extremely odd. According to the current position of the pistons, the spark plugs wouldn't be firing at the right time for maximum power. THAT must've been why the engine couldn't outrace those fishy-robot things they had ran from yesterday. Unplugging the battery from the engine, Fuchsia moved the pistons ever so slightly to the positions that would give the best compression ratio when the plugs fired. She then quickly plugged the battery back in and, deciding that Tails would be back any moment, turned around to go back to her seat.

And ran right into Tails' nose.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked her in a stern voice.

"Uh…" Fuchsia stuttered, stiff as a board as she tried to fabricate a decent excuse to be messing with the Waterspout's engine.

Tails lifted Fuchsia out of the workspace and plopped her back into her original seat. "You shouldn't be playing around in my lab," he scolded, inspecting the engine. "You could get-"

Tails stopped cold as he saw what Fuchsia did to the engine. According to his calculations, she hadn't ruined the engine at all. In fact, she actually… made it BETTER.

"I don't believe it…" Tails said in awe. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "SONIC! AMY!" he yelled. "Fuchsia fixed the Waterspout for me!"

Being the world's fastest hedgehog, it took Sonic no time at all to rush into the room where the foxes were. Amy was right on his heels.

"What's this about Fuchsia fixing something?" Sonic questioned.

"Fuchsia fixed the engine on the Waterspout in less than a minute!" Tails exclaimed, almost hysterical with excitement.

"WHAT?" Amy gasped, shocked by the news. "Is this true, Fuchsia?"

"Well, yeah," Fuchsia admitted. "It was rather easy. I also would've tried to make the purge system automatic, but I didn't have enough time…" Out of the corner of her eye, Fuchsia spotted a grease stain covering the back of her glove. She then reflexively glanced down at her dress, and, lo and behold, there were at least five more oil and grease stains dotting the fabric. "Oh no! My glove! My dress!" she cried.

Amy grabbed the kit by her unsoiled hand and began to lead her out of the lab. "Come on," she said as the girls walked out of the front door, "let's get your dress washed before it sets up."

Tails shook his head. "Girls…" he sighed.

"I know, right?" Sonic responded, before looking towards the front door. "What I don't get, though, is how Fuchsia was able to even know HOW to fix the Waterspout. I don't have any clue about what Step 1 would be, and I'm almost ten years older than her!"

"She has to be some kind of genius to be able to fix it that quickly – not to mention her saying that she was going to automate the purge system!"

"Really? Wow, I can't believe I didn't catch that."

"Of course, I'll have to run some tests to see how intelligent she really is. I'll see if Amy can bring her back here tomorrow for them."

"By the way, Tails, did you ever find Fuchsia's parents?"

"No. In fact, no one in Emerald Town has even seen Fuchsia before."

Sonic rubbed his chin thoughtfully, before snapping his fingers. "Maybe not in Emerald Town," he said, "but I think I know someone in Casino Strip who might."

"Really?" Tails asked. "Who?"

"Why our friendly, neighborhood government spy, of course."

Hope you enjoyed the new chapter. Sorry about the half-year wait, though. I don't get that much time to type these things, but I'm already up to Chapter 16 in hand-writing Project F. I blame global warming.

Please review! Oh, and tell me if Fuchsia escapes the story again. I need to keep an eye on her until her shock collar comes in from Ebay.

Fuchsia: It has.

Really? Then where IZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAOOOOOOW! (glares at Fuchsia) You swapped it with my belt this morning, didn't you?

Fuchsia: (holding shock collar remote) I have NO idea what you're talking about.