Steel Your Heart: Ch. 4

<Amy's POV>
It has been a very slow, very grueling hour and a half since Knuckles and I had managed to get Tails medical attention for the barbaric amputation of his tails.  It was about fifteen minutes after we'd showed up that a doctor, dressed differently than the others I'd seen so far, entered through the doors of the ER, looking for the doctors who had called him in for a veterinary consult.  (I was initially thinking to ask him questions, but it was clear from the look on his face that he didn't know any specifics about the case yet, and was probably wondering why his animal expertise was needed in a hospital for humans.)  I stood up and watched him being led down the same hallway that I saw Tails being carted, probably to the same operating room.  I anticipated that someone would come over and give me a status update, but no one did, and so I sat back down.  The texture of the chair on my legs reminded me that I was still sitting there without pants, and so I got up again, walking over to the triage desk, asking if there was something I could be given to wear on my legs (and also my feet) for the time being.  Since a back-tied hospital gown wouldn't do me much good, and the standard-issue scrubs wouldn't have fit someone of my size, I was given a towel, which I wrapped around my waist and tied off like a long skirt, and some disposable slippers.

About fifteen minutes after I saw the veterinarian disappear into the maze of hallways, he came back out to finally give me some information on Tails' status (and as small and pink as I am, I'm sure I wasn't too hard for him to spot).  "I know this may not be what you want to hear, ma'am, but in my professional opinion...I don't have much confidence in being able to re-attach your fox cohort's tails.  I've sutured up a few bite wounds in foxes before, but I've never dealt with a tail being chopped cleanly off before.  And he's got two tails in a configuration I've never seen before."  He was right; it wasn't the kind of news I wanted to hear, and my face fell.  "Please, Doctor, I beg of you, do everything in your power to attach Tails' tails again.  It would cripple him in ways you couldn't begin to comprehend."  He looked down at the floor for a second before returning his gaze to mine.  "Oh, we definitely will," he responded.  "I just want to make you fully aware of the risks and difficulties involved.  That tourniquet you tied around his waist may have stopped his bleeding, but it also mashed down the bones and muscles and nerves in the stubs of the tails that remain, meaning we'll have to 'unscramble' all those parts to line up properly first."  I took hold of the vet's hand as tears began to bead up in my eyes.  "I trust your judgment, but...please...do what you can.  There's so much riding on this."  The vet opened his mouth to speak, but closed it and simply nodded.  Then he rose to his feet and turned to face the other doctors who were waiting on him.  As he walked away, I could faintly hear him saying "We're gonna go forward with this.  I'll help out where needed."

Several minutes later, once the OR had been prepped and the surgery started, I was invited to a preview room one floor above the OR, on the chance that overseeing the whole procedure would give me peace of mind.  I politely declined the offer, saying "I'm rather squeamish and it'll already take a long time to get the image of Tails' bloody amputation out of my mind.  I don't want to add to the nightmares by watching him go under the knife.  Just keep me in the loop with any complications."  And I've been anxiously waiting through his surgery up to this point, assuming that no-news-is-good-news since no one has come forth to tell me anything.  I decided to take matters into my own hands, and asked a nurse to check on the status of Tails' surgery.  After picking up a phone and calling the OR, she told me the wonderful news: against all odds, they'd managed to successfully get one of his tails attached and were currently working on the second.  For a moment I pondered whether this meant he'd have full functionality of his tails like he used to, but I didn't say anything about it.  Emboldened by the progress, I decided to step outside for a few minutes to clear my head.  By this point, the morning had melted into the early afternoon, but the mostly sunny sky had since grown thick with gray clouds, just as the city street in front of the hospital had grown thick with traffic.  As I watched the snail's pace of the automobiles, I tuned out the honking horns as my mind reflected on where Knuckles might have run off, and whether he was able to find Sonic.  Suddenly, on the street, I saw something zip by at incredible speed.  I first blinked my eyes in disbelief, then gasped to think that Sonic had shown up in Station Square.  I turned myself in the direction I saw him run and I started waving my arms and calling out to get his attention, but by that time he was long gone.

I wanted to track down Sonic and find out where he'd been and what he was up to now, but I also realized that he wouldn't have haphazardly blazed a path up the middle of a busy street unless he was on a mission, and that mission probably had something to do with going after Robotnik.  I definitely didn't want to interfere with that, and besides, I promised Knuckles that I'd stay here and look after Tails, so I went back inside and waited for Tails' surgery to finish up.  For 20 minutes I heard nothing from a doctor or nurse, but I did notice one particular middle-aged man in the ER waiting room whose cell phone rang (and that only stood out in my mind because of a "no cell phones" sign I saw posted on the wall).  The call was brief, lasting no more than thirty seconds, but the man's responses grew more worried/frantic with everything he heard.  He shot to his feet and walked over to the triage desk, almost shouting "You have to switch the TV over to the news.  My daughter just called and said there's something BIG going on outside!"  The attendant looked around for the remote that controlled the TV sets, then flipped through the channels.  Channel 5 was showing a breaking-news report of a street on the other side of downtown, and as the camera swept the scene, it looked as if it had been ravaged by a tornado; automobiles lied crumpled and overturned in the middle of the street, fire hydrants looked to be ripped off their foundations and were spraying into the air like geysers, and the windows of an adjacent building appeared to have had two lampposts thrown right through them.  The broadcast then switched to amateur video footage from somebody's cell phone, showing a different street in the process of being destroyed by some unknown object.  It stopped on one frame to reveal a blur of blue punching a hole right through a parked car like a fist punching through paper.  A voice-over stated "If you have any information on the identity of this unknown assailant, call Station Square police immediately."  I clasped one hand over my mouth which hung agape.  Is that the same thing I saw pass by on the street a few minutes ago?  Is that...Sonic?  No, it can't be.  Sonic would never cause that kind of wanton destruction!

By this time, I was seriously torn between remaining here at the hospital for Tails, and venturing out into the city streets to locate Sonic and (with any luck) ask him why he was acting like this.  It'll be dangerous for sure, but if he sees me, I just might be able to convince him to stop this rampage.  Oh, what should I do?  I weighed the odds in my mind, and stood up to take action; I'd decided to go look for Sonic.  I told some of the nurses that I was here waiting on Tails' surgery, and that I'd be stepping out for a short while but coming back.  I first thought about using the news footage to approximate Sonic's current location, but I didn't know how old that footage was, and as fast as he could run, he could literally be anywhere in the city by now.  So instead, I stepped outside, cinched up my towel-skirt, and took off jogging down the street in the same direction I last saw him run.  I only got about four blocks down the road before I realized I was getting strange looks from passers-by because of the way I was dressed.  I would've had a hard time chasing down Sonic in a towel-skirt and disposable slippers anyhow, and fortunately for me, I recognized the area and knew that my apartment building was within walking distance.  I promptly headed over there, keeping an eye and an ear out for Sonic or any destruction he might have caused (which didn't appear to have plagued this part of the city yet).  Up the elevator I went, having to resort to the secret key I left out for my friends for getting in the door.  I put on a proper T-shirt, opted for a pair of jean shorts that didn't fit too tightly in case I needed to break into full run, and a matching pair of sneakers.  I also took this opportunity to check the news on TV one more time, in case there was any new information on Sonic's behavior.  The only statement was an official advisory from the chief of police, warning everyone to stay indoors and away from any windows until things calmed down.  There was no way I would heed that warning, though; I felt like it was my job to get to the bottom of this.

---

<Tails' POV>
I slowly opened my eyes, still feeling lethargic, and saw nothing but a blur of greenish blue.  I blinked to try to bring it into focus, and saw the coarse threads of a hospital bed sheet.  As the anesthetic I'd been given started to wear off and I regained a sense of feeling all over my body, I detected that I was lying face-down on a bed, with something soft placed under my neck and chin to elevate my face.  One arm was lying by my side, but the other was draped somewhat uncomfortably in front of me, and as I raised my head to look at it, I winced to see a needle stuck in the crotch of my elbow, with a tube of blood running out of it.  I couldn't lift my head high enough to determine whether that blood was being taken out, or being put into, my body.

I felt stiff all over and still didn't have any sensation in where my tails once were, so I weakly called out for a nurse to tell me how my tail reattachment surgery went.  Nobody answered after a minute, so I carefully turned my head to the side to scope the room out.  From what I could see, the room was rectangular, with mint-green seamless tile flooring and a complementing darker shade on the walls.  There were two other (empty) beds in a row next to mine, and lining the walls were various storage cabinets and a few portable medical monitoring devices.  I focused on an open door in a corner of the room, waiting for someone to pass by so I could call for attention.  But apparently there was another door into this room that I couldn't see, because I heard footsteps behind me and I turned my head back around to see a nurse approaching me with two empty syringes in hand.  I asked about my surgery, and she informed me that it was cautiously declared a success -- "cautiously" because about half an inch of necrotic tissue had to be removed from each of the severed tails before the procedure could begin.  (I learned that one of the factors leading to the success was how cleanly the tails had been chopped off, and not shredded or torn.)  After the operation, my tails had independently been put in splints to prevent movement during the healing process, with the instruction that they were not to be removed for two weeks.  No wonder my tails still feel all heavy and stiff, I thought.

"You're currently being given a blood transfusion to recover the blood you lost from the incident, and we'll keep you overnight for observation," she added.  I was fixing to ask her why she'd brought syringes with her, but that question was answered when I felt a sharp prick at the base of each of my tails, one after the other.  As I cried out in pain, she said "I'm drawing blood samples near the site of the sutures to check for elevated potassium levels."  To my look of obvious confusion, she replied "High potassium in the blood is a telltale sign of tissue death, so essentially we'll be checking to see that your re-attached tails are getting the nutrients they need to survive.  If not, we'll have to remove your tails once again to prevent the spread of infection or gangrene."  I shuddered at the thought of losing my tails all over again, so to brighten the mood, I asked to see either Amy or Knuckles.  This particular nurse wasn't present when I was brought into the hospital, so she had to leave the room to ask around.  Another nurse came in the room a few minutes later and notified me that the pink hedgehog that accompanied me said she had to leave the hospital for a short time and that she'd return.  Now what would possess Amy to do that?  Did she not know how long it would take me to wake up?  And where would she go?...

---

<Knuckles' POV>
Keeping a straight course with my boat had carried me all the way to shore, as I knew it would, but it was a stretch of coastline I wasn't really familiar with; I had to putter up the coast for a short distance before I found a suitable spot I could dock my boat for a while.  After climbing ashore and putting the slipcover back over my boat to shield it from the rain clouds that loomed above, I took a look around and noted that the skyline of Station Square was clearly visible in the distance, unimpeded by trees or tall buildings, and wondered if the hovercraft I saw was en route to the city.  Station Square was a big place, and even if it was headed there, there was no telling what specific location it was aiming for -- I couldn't simply assume that its destination was the same park where the three of us were dropped off, though I felt it was a good place to start checking.  Exactly how to cover the distance between the coast and the city in a short time was something I had yet to figure out, since I didn't possess great speed like Sonic, but as I looked across the highway and the expanse of grassy field that lied beyond, I got an idea: I could see high-voltage power lines hovering over the landscape, supported at regular intervals by tall steel trusses.  My plan was to cross the highway and field, climb the truss nearest me (being careful to not grab any electrical wires or touch more than one piece of steel at the same time), and smoothly glide from truss to truss.  And that's exactly what I did, though I did have a few close calls once or twice when coming in for a landing.  This method got me as far as the suburbs of the city, and from that point, I resorted to climbing cell phone towers, which were farther apart but also taller, allowing me to glide for longer periods of time.

I made my last leap count, as the skyscrapers of downtown were probably close to a mile away from the closest cell tower.  After doing a mid-air twirl to avoid colliding with a formation of pigeons, my eyes scanned the city streets below, looking for the park or the hovercraft I'd seen before (and sincerely hoping that I was right about the hovercraft flying into the city).  I climbed a little higher on the side of one building to look around, and spotted the park a few blocks away, on the western side of downtown.  I pushed off and started gliding over to it, not seeing anything unusual at first, but before I could touch down, I saw something zip by on an adjacent street, almost too fast to see.  I guess Sonic was piloting that hovercraft after all.  But why is he running so fast?  I'd better catch up and speak with him.  I banked right and followed the hedgehog, but my speed was clearly no match for his, and he was long gone by the time I hit the pavement; I'd have to save my questions for another time.

But then I heard a noise behind me like heavy panting, and turned around to reveal Amy Rose running up the sidewalk in my direction.  Her clothes were different, she had her trademark hammer in her hands, and once she got close enough, I was surprised to see that her nose was bleeding and she had a black eye.  I instinctively raised my fists in self-defense, but instead she exclaimed "Knuckles!  Thank goodness I found you!  You've gotta help me out!"  I started to ask "Amy, what happened to--"  She cut me off by saying "Don't worry about me.  Right now, we've gotta work together to stop this thing!"  I was understandably confused, and inquired "But I saw Sonic from the air just a few seconds ago.  Isn't he--"  She shook her head and nearly shouted "I don't know what it is, but it's not Sonic!  I got a glimpse of it up close and this is how it repaid me!", pointing to her face.  "Take a look around, Knuckles...would Sonic cause this kind of destruction?"  That's when I finally took a good look at the surroundings, and I noticed that on the street behind Amy, stretching as far back as I could see, there were heaps of crumpled and flaming cars, broken glass, and pulverized concrete.  My mouth hung open, and without breaking my gaze, muttered "Oh...I see what you mean."  Then I blinked and looked at Amy again, wondering if she already had a plan in mind.  "So what were you thinking?  Do we even know where this thing is going or why it's wreaking havoc like this?  And where is Sonic himself in all this?"  Amy was looking down when I was speaking, still trying to catch her breath from running, and she looked up at me once again to respond, but suddenly her eyes went wide and she screamed "KNUCKLES, LOOK OUT!"  I spun around to see what Amy was freaking out about, just in time to get slammed by an automobile body thrown right at me.