I've decided to post a fiction project that I'm working on at the moment. Since last summer, I've become addicted to LiveJournal challenge communities, and it wasn't until recently that I finally got started on my first challenge.

Warning: there are going to be thirty chapters. No more, no less. It's because this is being done for an LJ community by the name of 30_romances, with one theme per chapter.
Another warning: while it may not seem like it at first, this is romance-based writing. No worries, I try at all costs to avoid writing the kind of material you'd find in a novel with Fabio and his bird-magnet face on the cover. But if you do not enjoy reading romance, you can feel free to hit the back button now.
Yet another warning: The events take place after Sonic Adventure, and ignores future game canon/characters. Meaning I'm only working with the original cast of the game (Dreamcast version) and at times the NPCs. So no, there is no Shadow, Rouge, Cream, etc. Also, there are end-of-game spoilers about.
Final warning: the pairing in this is one I enjoy to write. A LOT. Call it a muse if you will. Again, the back button is an option if you care not to see what unfolds.

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Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog
Title: Candy-Pop Fairy Tale (Part One: This Way)
Author: Bacchiguu
Theme: #15: Take a Hint ; Scram!
Pairing: Big the Cat/Amy Rose
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Characters are copyright SEGA/Sonic Team

They say that in a standard fairy tale, the hero of the story saves the day and wins the heart of the fairest young maiden. We've also seen the fractured fairy tales that something goes awry and things turn out differently in the end. Well...this story isn't standard or fractured at all. It's something that is sometimes called Candy-Pop because it's got the sweetness of a standard fairy tale, but some mixed elements from the fractured, making it something that stands out on its own. What it comes down to in the end is something kind of like a piece of candy, but it pops out of existence quite quickly because not everyone's going to want the end result. Quite frankly, those are the folks who are missing out on something special.
So where does this little quirky fairy tale begin? It starts after a monster named Chaos destroyed a good portion of Station Square, and the metropolis is almost recovered from the flood damages and is starting to show signs of life again. But this story's not about Station Square, and really not about its hero, Sonic the Hedgehog, either.
It all begins when a little pink hedgehog is leaving the corner grocer and is headed back home.
And when a large purple cat exits the train station so that he and his frog friend can go fishing for a bit in the ocean.
...and as odd as it sounds, these two are exactly what this little fairy tale is about. And if you give it a chance, perhaps then the ending may be happier than you think.

...

While on her way out of the local grocery store, Amy Rose sighed to herself, feeling like a wave of deja-vu was coming on. Many months ago, she felt the same way she did now: bored, as if her life just wasn't exciting or satisfying. The only thing that was keeping her spirits up was a certain blue hedgehog who could be seen jumping the rooftops on occasion. A little smile crept onto her face as she thought of the adventure she and he had that took care of that previous boredom problem, and she reminded herself of the promise she made that one day. That she was going to stop being so dependent on others for help and start to rely on her own power...of course, it was all for the sake of trying to get Sonic to notice her.
She didn't realize that perhaps Sonic didn't want to get into any relationships with a girl...at least, not a serious relationship, which is exactly what Amy desired.

The city streets and sidewalks were not as vibrant as they used to be, since it took nearly four months for the water to be cleared and the damaged buildings to have all the excess flood water pumped out. A lot of places in the city were still declared disaster areas, and more than half of the people who decided to move back after the city was restored to a liveable state had come down with severe cases of hydrophobia. It was nice that no one ever came to Emerald Coast anymore, but Amy was concerned every time she saw various people scream in terror whenever they made eye contact with bottled water.
But she was still bored of the same thing happening everyday, she wanted that feeling of excitement back. However, the desire to see Sonic eye-to-eye again was stronger.
And her life would be turned upside down when she tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and the fresh fish she bought at the grocery store slipped out of her paper bag.

"Clumsy me!" Amy self-criticized herself after managing to stop herself from landing face first onto the sidewalk, but as a result some groceries had slipped out. Sighing and kneeling down, she picked up everything, one product at a time, until it came to pick up the fresh fish, which was wrapped up in white plastic.
As she picked up the plastic piece, she was horrified to see that the fish was missing. "Wh-what?!"
She quickly stood up and looked around to see if the fish had slipped off into the street, but what she saw instead was a frog that was a few inches bigger than a chao, and in his mouth was...

"HEY!"
Noticing her shriek, the frog hopped towards the train station, fish still in his mouth, but didn't get very far. Amy managed to grab the frog and hold him firmly enough so that he couldn't get away. Speaking amongst the repeated cries of "GEROGERO!", she angrily struggled to keep the large frog under control.
"Give me back my fish, thief! You're getting your icky slime all over it!" The frog's thin slime coating his back proved to be of use to him, as he slipped free from Amy's grasp and sped towards the entrance to the train station. Growling, Amy followed, taking notice that near the set of stairs, the frog looked like he was conversing with a familiar looking cat.

"Ehhh? We didn't even get started yet and you found this?"
The six-foot purple cat asked his friend while scratching the side of his head, confused and curious about the finding. The frog replied with a few cries of "Gero-gero-gero!", and that caused the cat's ears to fold back in disapproval.
"What? Kaeru-kun, I think that belongs to someone, we can't take that! We gotta return it to-"
"YOU!" The cat's ears perked at the sound of the tiny voice screaming, as he and the frog saw Amy running towards them, her Piko-Piko Hammer in her hand. "That stupid frog stole my fish! If you know him, you better make him give it back!"

For a few seconds, the cat stared down at her with blank eyes...then again, his eyes always appeared to be empty, like yellow headlights lacking emotion, yet they always seemed to reflect a current thought. He knew he had seen this girl before, when Perfect Chaos attacked and the two of them plus a two-tailed fox and echidna had watched Super Sonic stop the watery monster.
"I've seen you before, you're that little girl who-"
Perhaps he shouldn't have called Amy a "little girl", as those two words caused the hedgehog's blood to boil.
"Excuse me?! What did you call me?!" She shouted, as she could not stand being referred to as a young person. If anything, she felt it damaged her ego and made her see that she was failing in her goal of appearing to others as a responsible and powerful woman. Pulling out her hammer and holding it upwards, Amy shouted again, "I DARE YOU TO CALL ME THAT AGAIN!"

The cat simply looked down at her worriedly and scratched his head. "Uh, so if I can't call you that, then what exactly are you?"
Frustrated, the hedgehog replied back and shook her hammer at him. "Anything you want, except a 'little girl', got it?!" Without looking up at his face, she yanked the fish out of the frog's mouth and stormed off to get the extra groceries she left behind.
Feeling horribly guilty, the cat looked worriedly down at the frog and asked, "Oh no, we made her mad, what do we do now?" The frog simply croaked his advice, and the cat nodded. He briskly walked fast enough to catch up to Amy until he was trailing behind her.
"I'm really sorry that Kaeru-kun took that fish from you like that, but if I could explain why he did it..."
"Go away." Amy said quickly, not willing to turn her head around or stop to talk to him.
"Oh, before I go on any further, my name's Big, nice to meet you!" He stuck his massive hand out so that it could be shaken, but to his disappointment, it was ignored. The hedgehog girl kept walking with her head facing upwards and her eyes closed, trying her hardest to tune him out.

"Will you just go away?" She asked him again, this time turning her head slightly so that she could get him to see how irritated she was becoming.
"Gee miss, I'm not a bad guy, I just wanna know your name!" Big lightheartedly said, still persistent in trying to make up for what happened earlier. At once, Amy stopped in her tracks, turned around swiftly, and looked up at him with a stern look.
"Amy Rose."
"Really? Wow, that's a pretty name!" She lowered her head and cringed at the cat's compliment, not wanting anyone else other than Sonic to refer to any part of her being as "pretty." When she looked back up, he was smiling brightly as if he had lived the best day of his life. But the way he looked and stank of fish guts, how would he even know what the best things in life are? Big was poor and perhaps scum as far as she was concerned already. Unlike her precious Sonic, who was perfect in every way to her.
"Now go away." Amy finally spoke, and in a cold tone. She was finally walking without being followed, something that eased her a little. But something shining on the beach flashed in the corner of her eye. Peering over her shoulder, she saw that something silver-colored, perhaps scrap metal, washed onto the shore.
"Weird..." She couldn't help but walk up to the small shoreline to investigate what she suspected to be a broken part of an old Eggman robot. But the more she looked at the part, the more she could've sworn that she had seen it before...
And then it hit her.
"I hope we can be friends!" She told the silent Eggman robot that had just set her and her bird friend, Tori-san, free from the prison aboard the Egg Carrier.
The grocery bag she was holding onto collided to the sand, but Amy didn't care.

She froze in her place, staring down at the metal arm that washed up onto the shore. The moment she recognized that arm, all the hopes that she once held so dearly onto had broken apart and turned into dust. It was the arm of a friend she came to respect and hoped to see again after Eggman was stopped and his Egg Carrier shot down, and when she saw the various scorch marks drawn all across the surface...
Amy realized that the worst had happened.

For a few seconds, she stood on the shore, completely still except for her shaking shoulders. Amy finally worked up the courage to pick the arm up and began to hold onto it for dear life as tears began to stream down her face.
How was the robot she wanted to get to know after all the chaos was over destroyed? An incomplete puzzle ran rampant in her mind, causing more tears to spill out of her eyes. She didn't even notice that Big was walking up behind her with a worried look on his face.
"Are you...alright?" He attempted to place his hand on her shoulder, but was too late as she ran off, carrying the arm with her.

"Leave me alone!"
Amy appeared to be running towards the center of the city, not caring if anyone stopped to stare or made a comment about her current emotion. Standing still for a second or two, Big wondered exactly what she was holding as she ran off. A loud "Gero gero!" broke him out of staring into the area he saw her run into.
"Eh?" He looked down at Kaeru-kun, who began to hop and down, demanding something of the gentle feline.
"So...I should follow her?" He crossed his arms and watched as the frog jumped up and down again, croaking multiple times. "I don't know if that's such a good idea, I think she better be alone for a little while and...I don't think she likes us."
However, Kaeru-kun ignored those last few words as he started to jump up and ram himself into his best friend's back, urging him to move forward.

"Hey! Hey! Knock it off! Okay, okay, I'll go! I'll go!"
The moment the frog stopped his persistent behavior, he and Big slowly made their way to the road that would lead them to the center of the city. Somewhere in there, a girl was mourning a loss unknown to both to them.

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