Through the use of her anti-gravity and thrusters, it hardly took any time at all to arrive back at the clearing, though she probably should have been much more aware of the reaction her sudden reappearance (without Knuckles) was likely to cause.
The moment she arrived both her friends looked back at her with surprise, then worry, then, in Rouge’s case, a great deal of anger, far more than Amy remembered seeing from her before. Actually, she recalled very few times of seeing her bat friend angry, since the woman seemed to prefer maintaining either a ‘playful’ or ‘aloof’ persona instead.
“Where is Knuckles?! What did you do to him?!!”
Amy was taken aback at the vehemence of Rouge’s response and also (though probably not justifiably) at the implication she may have done something horrible to him.
“I stopped him from interfering.”
Only immediately after saying this, she realized what a poor choice of words it had been, particularly when delivered in the near monotone of her current vocal settings.
“What am I, an idiot?! ‘I stopped him from interfering.’ Delivered in my ‘robot’ voice, after I just appeared out of the woods alone. What do I think that they are going to believe that means?! Why didn’t I just say ‘I knocked him unconscious’?!”
Indeed, the fact that Tails began to look sick and Rouge actually screamed with rage made it very clear that they had taken the statement in just the way Amy had feared. Any further attempt at explanation went pretty much out the window as Rouge actually charged her next, while launching various small devices.
Amy’s systems quickly assessed many of them as additional EMP devices, though not all of them, some were indeed also highly compact explosives. She didn’t need her TAS to tell her that evasive maneuvers were ‘highly’ recommended this time. After a few careful weaves and dodges, she used her abilities to launch herself quite a bit further up into the air, hoping to gain enough distance that Rouge wouldn’t be able to easily attack her, at least with those types of weapons. Seeing Rouge now looking up at her with frustration, she came to a rather unavoidable conclusion.
“Flight is kind of unfair.”
Still, she was soon reminded that she was far from the only one among her friends who could fly (even if her own flight was something of a recent development) as Rouge began running at one of the nearby trees with the clear intent to use it as a launch pad. Though the bat preferred to glide most of the time, Amy now recalled that Rouge could actually fly, but said that she was usually tired out by it so much afterwards she generally avoided it.
Amy very much wanted to avoid an aerial battle, not exactly so much for her own sake, as she unfortunately thought she would be unlikely to come out of such a battle as anything but the ‘victor’, but it seemed that avoiding serious…possibly even fatal…injury to Rouge would then become all but impossible (or, as her TAS so unhelpfully put it, an aerial confrontation was 85-95% likely to result in death or crippling injury to the bat ‘target’).
She realized she had to end this now and, unfortunately, she was soon clear on what would be the quickest, safest, but probably not the most painless way to do so. With Rouge almost at one of the trees, she couldn’t afford to hesitate any longer, and so launched the equivalent of an electrified net. It struck Rouge just inches away from the tree she had been running towards and then briefly lit up with a bright, blue light.
Rouge’s body collapsed to the ground afterwards, smoking slightly, and didn’t move any further. Fortunately, Amy’s sensors could confirm that, like Knuckles, Rouge was only unconscious, though she had likely suffered some minor burns and was unlikely to feel very good when she woke up.
Manipulating her anti-grav unit, Amy touched down on the ground a short distance in front of Tails, who, in contrast to the signs of confusion, hope or happiness she’d seen at various moments before, was now only looking at her as if she were a monster….She couldn’t say she disagreed.
But still, she had to try….
“Tails…”
Anything further though was cut off as a glowing ring suddenly formed around her fox friend.
“Excellent work, Unit-Metal Rose, in fact, SPECTACULAR work!! Your success exceeds even my humble expectations of my genius…but then I suppose with a genius like mine, one should expect to exceed their expectations!!!”
Amy’s processors nearly glitched at the sight of Dr. Robotnik now walking into the clearing, chortling all the while, with his disgusting orb assistant floating beside him. Disbelievingly, she saw that Knuckles, also surrounded by one of the glowing rings, was being levitated along behind them. Meanwhile, she watched as one of the doctor’s common labor bots (Unit-E 67…she didn’t care!!) freed Rouge from the net, and a third glowing ring soon surrounded the bat Mobian as well.
In a matter of moments, all three of her friends were lined up before her and Robotnik (and the orb), and, in the case of Knuckles and Rouge, were already beginning to reawaken.
“What…how…when….”
Even with all of her new computing power, Amy couldn’t understand how this could be happening right now.
Meanwhile, it seemed neither Knuckles nor Rouge were happy at the faces they saw upon their reawakening, though the relief was obvious, almost extreme, on Rouge’s part when she saw that Knuckles was still alive. Amy would have probably found that very painful to see if she hadn’t been so overwhelmed with trying to understand just how they had ended up in a situation like this.
Tails was the first to speak among her friends.
“Eggman, how could you do something like this?! Where’s Amy?! What have you done with my friend?!!”
The round doctor only chuckled for a moment in response, while Rouge added her own comment.
“You sick piece of work. Kidnapping our friend and sending this metal mockery in her place. She’d better be alright or you’re going to find out exactly how unpleasant a lady with a grudge can be.”
Knuckles, for his part, just glared.
The threats (verbal or visual) didn’t seem to faze the fat roboticist, who just laughed harder before eventually quieting down.
“Oh, how I have enjoyed watching your pitiful struggles through Unit-Metal Rose, really, the best entertainment I’ve had in years. I’ve even saved several of the files for later enjoyment.”
These comments were enough to break Amy out of her confused stupor.
“Watching…through…me…What does he m…?”
And then she found it, a program that would link her audio and visual processing units to Dr. Robotnik’s world-wide satellite network and report on her current location and activities. He could see and hear everything she did and know where she was at all times. She immediately removed the program (and logged its removal as a delayed 'consequence' of the earlier EMP and needed software repairs), but, as before, the damage had clearly already been done.
“How…how could I have missed that?”
The answer, immediately apparent, was because she hadn’t looked. Unless forced or in immediate need of something, she’d actually taken very little interest in her programing or hardware (beyond confirming thousands of times over that the ROP hadn’t worked), she had in fact preferred to be as willfully ignorant as possible, to avoid any reminders about not being what she once was as much as she could.
The program had been there, it wasn’t hidden, and she could have removed it at any time. If needed, she could have even easily spoofed it if she had been worried about the doctor’s reaction (which would have potentially been a better reaction than the removal due to ‘EMP damage’ she’d just completed)….But she hadn’t wanted to know and hadn’t checked, and now it looked like it was her friends who were the ones who were going to pay the price for it.
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Because she recognized those glowing rings, knew exactly what they were, and how little hope they now provided for her friends’ chances of escape or for her to have any chance of safely rescuing them from him. In fact, even the doctor seemed to recognize the importance of explaining just how terrible a situation her friends were in.
“But before we get on to more important matters, I suppose a warning is in order, since I am well aware of your tendencies, extremely annoying tendencies….”
The doctor glowered for a moment before regaining himself.
“These are a new prototype I’ve recently developed….Honestly, I had been hesitant to use them….Despite their genius, they are…rather expensive to make and maintain…and might be the occasion of some…regrettable…waste.”
For the moment, even he managed to look a bit somber.
“But, anyways, I call them my ‘Power Rings’, or at least I will until I come up with a better name. They should be nearly indestructible…even for the red brute….”
His smirk and the look he was currently giving Knuckles left no doubt about who he meant.
“But, if anyone did manage to destroy them…well, escape would be prevented in another way….”
He paused, seeming to enjoy leaving that ‘way’ to their imagination for the moment, a luxury Amy wished she shared.
“Well, again, I do want to avoid the waste…so I’ll be upfront about it….Really the only way I could be sure you annoying and annoyingly ‘noble’ creatures would stay caught and allow the others to remain so, given your nearly inexplicable ability to escape or rescue each other from apparently any trap I set, no matter how genius. These ‘Power Rings’, if destroyed or if anyone other than me attempts to remove them, will immediately detonate….”
Amy felt sick seeing her friends all flinch at the revelation.
“...Actually, any ‘Power Rings’ within a ten-mile radius will also simultaneously detonate….”
And suddenly, it wasn’t only Amy that appeared to be feeling sick.
“...The released energy should be sufficient to reduce anything continued within one to less than subatomic matter in a matter of picoseconds….But, don’t worry, the energy release would be extremely contained and only the imprisoned subjects would face that fate….There’s no chance I would be harmed if I happened to be nearby….They are entirely safe….”
Surprisingly, no one found this ‘reassurance’ comforting….And, Amy noticed that her friends’ earlier struggles against their bonds had now ceased…something it was clear the doctor noticed too.
“Well, now that we have that cleared up and I properly have your attention, it is time to discuss more important things…including addressing a misconception you all seem to be laboring under….”
Amy felt a new round of horror come upon her….She had….She knew what he was likely about to say next…and it wasn’t anything like how she wanted her friends to find out.
“...Unfortunately, I can understand, considering how thoroughly my genius has elevated her from her prior imperfect form, but still it seems like a real failure on the part of her friends not to recognize the new, improved ‘Amy Rose’, or rather now ‘Unit-Metal Rose’....”
Robotnik just gazed back at her friends, smirking. Of course, they didn’t immediately buy it.
“Like I said, you’re one sick bastard, Eggy. There’s no way we’re going to believe your latest tin can is our friend.”
Rouge made her opinion clear in no uncertain terms. Knuckles, for his part, just continued his glaring, while Tails shook his head furiously. At their continued denials, Robotnik did begin to look a little disappointed.
“Again, perhaps I should have considered this better, given how far I have elevated her beyond the simple, weak, and altogether useless girl she used to be. It probably is too much to expect that lesser minds would be capable of realizing the truth….My success does surprise even myself at times after all. That I could transform something like that into something as astounding as this.”
For the moment, the doctor frowned, clearly considering how best to bring Amy’s friends to realize the sublime truth he wished to inflict upon them, when it was now obvious to him that her prior entirely unimpressive nature and near complete contrast with her current perfection made that nearly impossible.
However, an-other soon stepped in to handle it.
“Apologies, Doctor, it appears there is something else I need to correct.”
The doctor whirled around, surprised. In a way, he had almost forgotten she was there. Though, seeing something uncomfortably…familiar…he tried not to shudder.
Unit-Metal Rose was once again cloaked in her ‘Amy Rose’ projection, and the voice he had heard…couldn’t have more of a resemblance to that of the silly, pink hedgehog he’d once known, as did, it seemed, every aspect of her current appearance and manner. Though, why did it still seem like he saw two burning red orbs looking back at him from behind its now sparkling green ‘eyes’?
“Ah….yes, Unit-Metal Rose, any assistance you can provide in resolving their ignorance of your true and now…per..fected…nature would be…valuable.”
Almost unconsciously, he took a few steps backwards, considering whether it would appear too ‘cowardly’ to maneuver himself behind his floating robotic assistant.
Meanwhile, ‘Amy Rose’ sighed. It was a heartfelt, 'beautiful' thing.
“The Doctor has really been wasting a lot of time here….Though, no offense is meant by that, of course. Geniuses of his caliber cannot be expected to think like ordinary, mundane beings or have their same valuation of time and…so many other things.”
Robotnik couldn’t stop himself from immediately agreeing with that assessment, while also shuffling himself behind Orbot, as little of him as the floating robot actually covered.
“Yes, indeed!! It is exactly as you said, Unit-Metal Rose….”
‘Amy’ gave barely any acknowledgement of his response, instead turning her attention to the three bound by the ‘Power Rings’.
“Let me make this quick…as I have really been getting tired of all of this.”
“Tails, read these files.”
With that, she ejected a small device that hovered in the air for a moment before projecting a holoscreen in front of the young fox. Seemingly satisfied, she turned her attention to Rouge, who was now looking back at her with a fierce anger.
“Don’t even try it, Chrome….There’s no way I’m going to….”
“Oh, Rouge, I know it’s tough to believe that something as ‘astounding’ as this could be in any way connected with something as ‘silly’ and ‘weak’ as the clearly…pathetic…thing I used to be…but we’re just going to have to work through this…like we have a lot of things.”
Rouge’s glare only intensified.
“Do you remember, Rouge, when we talked about….Well, it’s not really for sharing here, I am your friend after all, but I’m sure you remember that time after the surprise birthday party we threw you? What we talked about then…after everyone else had gone home?….Really, I think that was one of the closest moments we shared.”
Rouge froze. And, Amy ‘smiled’.
“But like I said, you can trust me, I’d never break that confidence….”
Leaving a still frozen Rouge behind, ‘Amy’ finally turned her attention to the glaring echidna.
“Honestly, Knuckles, you’re probably the hardest one but I think I have just the thing.”
She ‘smiled’ back at him, clearly amused as his glare only intensified. For a few seconds, there was only silence while ‘Amy’ seemed to be studying him…or maybe just his fur and spines(?)…before appearing to give a satisfied nod.
“I’m glad you listened to my advice. It really does give that healthy sheen and extra volume I thought it would. It’s why I insist on it as part of my morning routine. The fact that it’s ‘technically’ a female fur and spine care product doesn't really matter. Though, I really do regret having undone so much of its benefit through our earlier ‘discussion’.”
Knuckles’ glare was suddenly replaced with a look of intense embarrassment, and had red not already been his color, it seemed it now would undoubtedly be.
‘Amy’ took a last look at the three bound figures, one of whom was now shifting in evident embarrassment, the other who was still frozen in shock, and the last who was now obviously crying…before giving another seemingly self-satisfied nod. Turning back to the (‘technically hiding’) doctor, she gave another genuine ‘smile’.
“I think I’ve managed to convince them now, Doctor. Apologies for the delay.”
Robotnik froze for a moment at once again having the abomination’s…Err…Unit-Metal Rose’s attention.
“Ah…yes, thank you, Unit-Metal Rose. Your…effectiveness…once again…astounds me.”
‘Amy’ only gave a lighthearted giggle in response.
Meanwhile, Dr. Robotnik whispered to his floating assistant:
“Five times, Orbot. FIVE. Twice was clearly not enough.”