The following is a work of fan fiction by Joshua D. Tarwater and is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS.*
*SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS retains full rights over the Sonic the Hedgehog™ intellectual property and can terminate or take control of this work at any time.

~EPISODE OF AMNESIA ISLAND 08~

         ★Love

         It is an emotion that drives the world like no other. A forger of bonds and toppler of empires. Yet for as much as it drives so many, it is almost impossible to understand. A series of simple chemical reactions in the brain that serve no real purpose and trigger without sound reasoning. Perhaps it is because love is a thing of the heart, the self beyond the flesh. Then what is love when those who experience it have no memories of who they are? If memories are the form of the soul, then what is the love of one with no memories?

High above the world in skies so blue
Great white clouds rolling off a Ring of impossible size
A fractured thing
Three-fifths missing
Cogwheel turning through
Pinprick of Darkness at frame’s center
No different from crystal fingertipped right arm
Soft blue light
Joining with that of coral underground
Ringed beach
A moment cut off from the world

         Blue.

         It was the color of the light given off from the hearts of the white crystals growing from Tempest’s body. It showed his emotions had found a place of peace. It was also the color of his eyes, and that of Rosy’s as well. A color the black hedgehog found himself lost in. A color from which he drew no breath and his heart seemed to stop. For a moment he was perfectly still and nothing in the world could move him, lost in blue.

         “Are you okay? Rosy asked as she lowered her hands and stepped forward to look up into Tempest’s eyes.

         “…beautiful…,” the single word was barely breathed by the black hedgehog, the moment of stillness coming to an end.

         “EEH~!” Rosy gasped as she jumped backwards in surprise. “Ooh~! You can’t just go springing that on a maiden! You’ll embarrass her~~”

         The overflowing energy Rosy demonstrated should have easily broken the moment, but it simply pulled Tempest in deeper. Her every movement and fidget. The sound of her voice. He was a prisoner to them all and Rosy could only find further conversation by turning to the fairy that emerged from her sand covered spines.

         “Mote, is he alright?”

         “I would say he is,” Mote sighed as she fluttered up into the air shaking sand from her own detached wings. “I’ve seen this look on your face too, Rosy.”

         “No way!” Rosy gasped in surprise. “We just met! And we both have amnesia, and–”

         “No different from you with Sonic,” Mote corrected Rosy and earned a pout from the pink hedgehog.

         She also elicited a red spark of lightning within Tempest’s crystals. “Sonic…”

         “Yeah! Sonic!” Rosy jumped excitedly at the chance to get Tempest out of his stupor. “Sonic and I are destined lovers!”

         Another and more violent arc of red lightning tore through Tempest’s crystals, and a hint of red light started to appear in the otherwise serene blue. The look of worry on Rosy’s face seemed to at last break the spell Tempest was under, even as he felt his muscles tense from a discomfort that tore through his whole body.

         “I… I’m sorry…?” Tempest managed unsure of the words that he was choosing. He was lost and needed a moment to clear his thoughts.

         “Are you okay?” Rosy asked again as Tempest turned away from her and clutched awkwardly at his chest due to the crystal growing from it. Rosy could tell he was obviously off balance as the blue light from Tempest’s crystals slowly turned purple and she tried to shift the conversation. “You may have been carrying some Rings, but that crab still hit you pretty good a couple of times.”

         “It-It did, yeah,” Tempest agreed, Rosy’s words overwhelming him. Still, he turned back to look at her and again it felt as though his heart stopped as she looked on him with concern.

         “My word,” Mote exhaled loudly and suddenly zipped straight into Tempest’s forehead and near knocked him off his feet from the impact.

         “Wah~! Mote!”

         “Is that any way to greet someone?” Mote chided Tempest who looked at the angry fairy surprised. “Perhaps you should start over, with an introduction maybe.”

         “An… an introduction?” Tempest asked confused before realization came and a look of embarrassment came over his face. “I’m so sorry! Um… I’m… Well, I think you already know… Maybe…”

         Tempest’s nervous fidgeting brought a smile to Rosy’s face, and she could not contain the laughter that escaped her. The sound near froze Tempest where he stood again if not for Mote flying up directly in front of his eyes. Yet as Rosy spoke, he looked past the fairy. “Ooh~! So, you decided to use Tempest after all!”

         “That, and the Black Hedgehog, kind of…,” Tempest looked down and scratched at the back of his head with his right arm. “So, it’s more like, Tempest the Black.”

         “It’s so~ nice to meet you, Tempest!” Rosy surprised Tempest as she grabbed his left hand in both of hers and began shaking it while barely keeping herself from hopping up and down. “I’m Rosy! Though Nana and Mote both call me Rosy the Rascal somedays. Hee-hee~♥ I don’t mind though because I really do always get into trouble.”

         Releasing Tempest’s hand, Rosy spun away and playfully pointed at the Titan King Crab and the colony of automobile sized crabs that were futilely trying to right it. Tempest barely noticed the crab and rather caringly stroked where Rosy had held his hand. Rosy didn’t notice as she continued talking.

         “And that was definitely a lot of trouble you got me out of today! Hee-hee~♥ I was so caught up in getting our fish back from the crabs that one thing led to another and before I really knew it–”

         “You were in over your head,” Mote finished irritably. “You should have consulted me before acting my vassal. The world needs saved, and you chose to endanger the only current path I have to its salvation by chasing after troublesome crustaceans.”

         “Well, they shouldn’t have been stealing our fish,” Rosy harumphed loudly and placed her hands on her hips. “They really do have the whole ocean to get fish from!”

         “Maybe we should go…,” Tempest suggested, seeming to find himself again. “At the least it’d be safer if I caried you out. I mean, I can easily outrun these crabs.”

         “You can!” Rosy agreed enthusiastically jumping to the side to shift her attention from Mote to Tempest. “You were really amazing! And you were fast like Sonic too! I wonder if you knew him before you lost your memories.”

         The mention again of Sonic called forth a red spark in Tempest’s crystals, even as a blue light returned to them. He clenched his fist as Rosy pondered aloud about the relationship the two hedgehogs had but forced himself to relax and exhaled slowly as he unclenched his fist.

         “I don’t know,” Tempest, tried to dismiss the notion. “I mostly just moved on and trusted my instincts.”

         “Well, I think it worked out for the best!’ Rosy exclaimed, clasping her hands behind her back as she began swaying her body back and forth. “At the least with your speed and strength you can definitely convince these stubborn crabs to stop stealing our fish.”

         “He-he,” Tempest laughed and scratched at his cheek with his right hand. “I’d rather not keep getting into fights with them if I don’t have to. I mean, with my arm, maybe I could just fish for us every day, so you don’t need to rely on the fishing machine.”

         “Ooh~! I hadn’t thought of that! I could go back to exploring the island more then too! You’d definitely have to come with me though! Tee-hee~♥”

         “I’d… I’d love to,” Tempest smiled as the light from his crystals returned to a gentle blue. “First though, let’s get out of here. As I said, I can carry you. It’ll be easy with this arm.”

         “Ah! Wait!”

         Rosy’s attempt to stop Tempest came too late. His right arm stretched out and grew and she found herself suddenly sitting on it. Sitting on it and sinking into it as crystals erupted from it and started crawling across her body coating her in the same liquid Darkness that comprised the arm.

         “Wha– What’s happening!” Tempest cried out in a sudden panic, watching the crystals grow larger with more violent forms as they began increasing their pace.

         “I tried to warn you!” Rosy shouted as she tried futilely to pull the crystals from her body, simply giving them more points of contact to crawl over her. “Ooh~! It’s spreading way faster than when I carried him to Nana’s Mote! I’m really sinking too!”

         “I– I don’t understand!” Tempest shouted in panic as he tried to get his arm to shrink, but it ignored him as it continued to grow instead so that it could easily hold Rosy within. “It won’t stop! It’s not listening to me! I don’t understand, it didn’t do this with anything else!”

         Tempest’s crystals had started to produce a red light as his panic intensified, and Mote tried to treat the situation as though it were not a big deal.

         “We wondered about that as well,” Mote began. “It seems that your arm has an affinity for Rosy here only though as Nana was able to pull it off of her when you were brought to the old hen’s home.

         “Can you get yourself out at all?” Mote asked as she switched her attention back to Rosy. “My word!”

         Rosy likely heard Mote as her ear was still above the Darkness and crystals that crawled along her pulling it after her, but she had almost been completely absorbed by Tempest’s arm now. Tempest who was panicking more than ever as he desperately pulled futilely at the liquid Darkness with his left arm. “Stop! Let her go! LET HER GO!”

         But it was too late. Tempest looked helplessly at his massively swelled arm as all signs of Rosy disappeared within it. He could not hold it up either as he could feel her weight within it and his fingers twitched as his arm lay on the sand.

         “No! No! I don’t understand! WHY~!”

         Inside the Darkness of Tempest’s arm, Rosy was cut off from the world and she sunk into the abyss.

         There was an unnatural quiet on the underground beach where once a pink hedgehog and black hedgehog stood, joined by a yellow fairy. Perhaps it was love that brought the silence, the all-consuming force that it was. The force that could drive people to lengths and heights they did not know. Both good and bad.

         The Titan King Crab was a creature that love was lost on, and it only saw the stunned still black hedgehog as vulnerable as it was returned to its feet. Raising one of its four automobile sized claws, it moved to strike Tempest who looked on it with glowing eyes that now matched the red light from his crystals.

         “DON’T YOU DARE!” Tempest screamed as he at last lifted his right arm and it swelled to a size where his clenched fist dwarfed the Titan King Crab.★