Return of Maria Robotnik part7

Part 7: The encounter

The next morning
it is a warm morning, the sun is shining bright and the birds are singing, Amy is light sleeping, dreaming about her hero in blue.
"Oh yes, Sonic! Of course I will marry you!" she says in her sleep and smiles while she hugs softly the pillow. However the peace is all of sudden broke by the sound of crying. Amy gets a shock and jumps up, she looks tumultuous around the room till she spots the basket next to her, and right away sees the problem. During the night the child had grown... a lot! The now all too small babysuit she is wearing makes it difficult for the child to breath!
Amy picks her up from the basket and tries to take it off, but it is too tight, especially around her arms and legs, the crying become more intense as pink hedgehog sees with her naked eyes, the child grows more. Confused and desperate, Amy rushes downstairs with the kid, grabs a pair of scissors from a drawer in the kitchen and cut the child free from the suit.
the child finally calms down and Amy sighs by relief. She places her on the sofa in the living room, and goes back to the bedroom to get the dress and a new dipper,
"What on earth just happened? This can't be normal! What did that Egghead do to her?"
She goes back to the living room with the stuff, and after she gets dressed, Amy takes a closer look at her, the child had grown to the size and appearance as a 2 year old, with golden hairlooks.
"I better go see Tails after I have visited Vanilla and Cream.... Huh? What the matter?" the child suddenly seeming sad and looks at Amy with begging eyes.
"What the matter sweetie? Hungry?" she asks. The kid nods as response.
"But I don’t have more yoghurt and neither have I any food in liquid form..." The child looks at her with a more sad expression and then takes herself to the belly.
"Hmmm...." Amy opens the kid's mouth and spots a new set off milk teeth.
"I know what you can eat! Wait here." she rushes back to the fridge a grab some bananas. When she returns the child gets very excited and eats with great pleasure when Amy hands her a piece, when that is gone, Amy hands her another piece, that continues till she has eaten tall the bananas, except for the one Amy took for herself for breakfast. The child sighs and looks all blissfully at Amy when she is finished. Amy sighs too by relief since she feared there wasn’t enough. She couldn’t help but smile, the way the child seemed so peaceful and happy.

After breakfast they went to Vanilla and Creams place to get some stuff for a growing child, and in Amy´s case some advice to how to care for a child till the mother was found.

At the door Cream, Cheese and Vanilla receives them, and while Amy is helping Vanilla with finding the stuff, Cream and Cheese takes the kid outside. Cream finds a blue ball which they play with, however only few moments later the child is hungry again.
"Don’t worry. As soon as Amy and mother are done, mom can make you a delicious meal." Cream assures her, and they keep playing a little longer, but the hunger intends and the little girl starts to feel sick. She sits down and takes herself to the belly.
"Hold on! I'll find you something to eat!" Cream says worried when she realize how serious it is, and rushes inside to find a cookie. She hurries back and hands it to her. In a couple of bites the cookie is gone. However Cream can see she is still hungry.
"Don’t worry. You can have another one." She says comforting and pets her gentle on the head before she goes back inside for another one.
While Cream is gone, a black wind passes by to a small patch in the wood, the kid raises her ears and stands up, the little Chao, who has been left back to keep an eye on her, tries desperate to hold her back. But it's no use. She runs the fastest she can with her small legs to its destination, in a light spot, a black male hedgehog is standing. He stands completely still and inhales the fresh air. The kid’s curiosity drives her to go closer, and careful she nears him, Shadow peaks his ears by the sound of small footprints and turn around to see the small yellow/honey colored hedgehog girl with blond hair, standing few meters away from him. For a moment he just stares cold at her.
"What are you looking at?" he says annoyed. The kid takes another step closer to him. [link]
"You shouldn’t be here... where are your parents?" he says tired.

His rejective attitude doesn’t seem to bother her at all and she keeps coming closer to him like she is drawn to him. As she comes closer she raises her small hand to reach him, suddenly she stumbles over a small rock and grabs his leg. Shadow gasps by the touch and then gets and odd feeling in his whole body, like a wind is racing through all the corners of his body. For a moment he sees an image of a younger Maria, about the same age as the girl. That motion felt somehow very familiar. From being annoyed by her presences, he turns all sudden turns curious and at same time enchanted by this strange little girl. Since all of his senses except the sight tells him that he very is familiar with her, the feeling of her presence and scent from her hair reminded him a lot of his beloved Maria… the strong emotions gave him all of sudden a strange urge to cry, but he held back. He didn’t wish for anybody see him like this.
Carefully he removes her from his leg and kneels down in her height, the kid points at him. He doesn’t move and allows her to touch his black nose "Sha...do" She says with a small voice. Once again he had that odd feeling. This time stronger.
"Who are you?" he ask the child, but she only tilts her head in responds also seeming wondering. But before he could say more he could hear Amy calling in the distance.
Not so far away she appears from a tree and then sees them. The sight of Shadow made her more worried, but she tries her best to remain calm. If the doctor had ordered him to bring the child back, she didn’t stood a chance against Shadow alone. She knew quite well Shadow was unstoppable if he is determined on something.
"There you are! You have made me all worried!" Amy rushes to the child and grabs her, holding her tight as she steps aways in a safe distance from Shadow.
"You better keep a better eye on her... with that curiosity of hers, she can easily get into trouble" Shadow says with his usually dark tone. However with an odd glimt in the eyes, before he leaves them. The kid starts to cry and tries getting out of Amy´s grip, desperately Amy tries to comfort her and after some time she finally calms down but is however still sniffing a bit.
"You know Shadow?" Amy asks her.
"Sha...do fri...end."
Amy raises her eyebrows, not knowing what to say. A rain drop hits her cheek and she looks up in the sky, a dark cloud is approaching.
"Amy! Come back inside! It is going to rain again! This time worse!!!" Cream´s voice sounds behind her, Amy looks back and sees the cream colored rabbit giving her sign to follow her.
"Off course I am coming..." Amy says and they run back to the house while the rain gets more and more intense.

At a window Amy is watching the rain on the ground and Vanilla's flowers. Cream and her mother approach and offer her a cup of tea.
"Thanks." she receives it and takes a small sip.
"What is on your mind?" Cream asks her.
"It’s the girl, isn’t it" Vanilla asks.
Amy nods. "I am starting to believe that perhaps she is Eggman's work and not an orphan. I mean how come can she can grow that fast and... knowing Shadow? What is their link? When I took her it was like separating a child from its parent or someone very dear. I felt terrible, even though Shadow possibly won’t admit it. He too seemed kind of disturbed by my interruption. Am I doing the right thing?"

"You do what your heart is telling you to and that is the most important." Vanilla tries.

"But am I the right one to decide if Eggman is a good father figure or not? Maybe all this 'saving an orphan' is just another failed attempt from me to be a hero for once... and to impress Sonic" Amy says sadly.

"No! No! Amy, you did the right thing. And if she is his work, he would just raise her to be evil, and make her do bad things." Cream exclaims.

"Chao! Chao!" Cheese exclaims while he jumps.

"Things might not be that bad." Vanilla says comforting and rests her hand on Amy’s shoulder.

"You know? You might be right!" Amy smiles a little.

In the background they hear child calling for food.

"Oh boy. Here we go again." Amy laughs and goes to the kitchen.


Not so far away, out in the rain, a dark shape is watching the small house before it disappears.


The summer rain outside intensifies and it starts to thunder, Amy and the young Maria stay the rest of the day and spend the night there.

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Sorry it took so long, I just wanted to make the picture for this episode little bit special since it is the first time Shadow is introduced to Maria ^-^
Hope it was worth the wait.

The original Maria Robotnik and all the other characters are copyright SEGA!!!

Part 1 --> [link]
Part 2 --> [link]
Part 3 --> [link]
Part 4 -- > [link]
Part 5 --> [link]
Part 6 -- > [link]
Part 8 -- > [link]


The background picture is a touchest up rip from "Watership Down"