After our trip to Little Planet, Amy and I traversed back to the old base in just a few days. Little Planet had likely disappeared at this point, so I collected all the seeds I could for the year. I did hope Amy and I could visit again. I had fun with her. I similarly hoped that the robot we found did not give her bad memories.



I carried the robot over my back while Amy carried the robot's hammer as we went inside the base. I needed to go to the main laboratory, which was fairly deep underground. I wanted to keep the robot safe from intruders and potential suspicion, so the smaller lab by my garden wouldn't cut it. Speaking of my garden, though...



"Hold on," I said to Amy. I put the robot down, then quickly went into my garden. I had automatic sprinklers installed for long departures, but I still wanted to make sure they were okay.



... And they were. I checked and saw they were all properly watered. While the sprinklers were convenient, I found them particularly unreliable in giving well-proportioned bursts of hydration, no matter how many adjustments I made. My own watering was superior. I turned off the system since I would be around for a while, then I pondered on how I could make them better... I did have to focus more on the robot, though.



I left the garden to rejoin with my Amy Rose. She smiled warmly at me. "Everything good?" she asked.



"Yes." I picked up the robot again. "We're going to a section of the base you haven't been to," I told her.



"Ooh, secret."



Past the hall with the room Amy made her own, there was another locked panel with a massive set of doors. I typed in a code on a nearby keypad, and then the doors opened to reveal an equally massive elevator. We both went in and I selected one of the lower floors.



"Whoa... This place really does go deep underground," Amy said as she bent over to look at all the elevator buttons. "Have you been everywhere in this base?"



"Most areas, sure. Maybe you'll be interested to know we're going to the room I was made in," I said. The elevator eventually stopped and the door opened to another huge hallway. We continued forward.



"Ooh! Yes!" she beamed. "Didn't know you were born so far down. And to think Eggman has like, a billion bases," she mumbled. "Why's the lighting all dark and spooky, anyway?"



"It takes a lot of maintenance to keep a place like this running, and since there are no more pawns here..." I glanced at her. "I can power the sections of the base I need either way. I'll need to activate that down here..." I looked around. I hadn't been in this particular section of the base since before my Master left and took everything he found significant. I was significant enough. But...



I unlocked another huge set of doors. We went into an incredibly dark room. In the middle, I put the robot down.



"I'll go turn on the lights, Rosy. Just give me a second."



"Wow, yeah, I can't see a thing," she sighed back, dropping the hammer. "Hurry back!" she called as I left her.



I briefly left to go activate the section of the base's power. There was usually a power source nearby that would provide all the energy I needed... but, to fix something as complex as a robot version of Amy Rose, I would probably have to make the base a little more functional. There would be time for me to figure it out. I turned on the power and watched as the lights turned on and the room livened with subtle machinery.



When I returned to Amy, she stared behind me and stood incredibly still. I turned around.



At the far end of the lab, there were three large glass tubes filled with green liquid. The middle one was empty, while the ones on the left and the right had old versions of me. One was a much older model and looked fairly intact, while the other was extremely damaged, missing legs and head ripped open. Both were offline and hooked up with several wires.



I turned back to Amy, realizing her shock. "Don't be alarmed," I said.



"Does... that not freak you out?" she asked.



I shook my head. "One of them is an empty shell. Another is... I don't remember." I glanced at the damaged one. I wasn't sure that one was ever me. "The smaller one is my old body."



"I thought you said you went through upgrades over time. So... the body you're in now isn't your original?"



I thought for a moment. "Not necessarily, but I have been in this body for a long time... Parts of me got replaced over the years and there have been some design adjustments, but I've also been in more than one body. What actually makes me, 'me', is my core. My CPUs." I went over to the tank that had the older model and typed into a console in front of it. The liquid completely drained through a filter at the bottom of the tank, then the interior was dried out. The top of the tube opened up, allowing me to remove all the wires. "Here, let me show you," I started, lifting the body out and placing it onto the floor.



She walked up to me as I opened the back of my old body's head. I showed her the complex circuitry there, but there were clearly missing parts. "There's wiring that would make me function, but my CPUs aren't there, for obvious reasons." I opened the back of my own head and showed her, pointing to some of my core systems. Some of my systems were deeply embedded in my head so not all of it was easy to see, but she got the point.



"Oh, wow..." She said, taking in a deep breath. "I don't think I've ever seen your wiring like this... It's so... intricate!"



"Yes. I am very complex," I replied proudly.



She giggled. "I can see that. Very well crafted, as we know," she teased, touching the side of my head. "Is everything important for your, uh, being you, in your head?" she asked.



"Yes. We will not test that, though." I closed the back of my head, then checked through my old body a little more. "... While all of my data was transferred, there might be some-- Hold on." I took the body to a nearby console and monitor, just to test if it worked. I connected the console to the body.



Success-- I could pull up all the remaining data. I had all of these files on myself as well. I wondered if there were any recordings on here I had to delete over time... But I always kept everything special. I searched for a specific recording by typing into the console. Amy curiously stood beside me, her head turned slightly to watch the old body.



"Wow, you were short."



I briefly stopped and squinted at her. "Yes, and you were a self-proclaimed ankle biter."



She laughed. "True!" She put her arms around me and rested her chin on one of my shoulders as I searched through data. "What are you doing, smarty-pants?"



"I want to show you something." I brought up the recording I was looking for and tilted the monitor towards her a little so she could see it better.



The screen turned white. At first, there was nothing. Shuffling sounds came from nearby speakers.



"O-kay!" squeaked a very young Amy from the monitor. The Amy beside me lifted her head when she heard her voice. "We're here! Get up, lazybolts... Urngh...!" She grunted, and the white shifted to show a bright green coat, orange skirt, and some gloves. The screen focused on a small Amy Rose, expression sweet and bright. Behind her were red-brown walls of my Master's base, the entire landscape frozen. The screen panned down to her sneakers and the snow, more focus on the snow.



My Amy hugged me a little tighter and leaned her head to me. "Aw...! That's the ankle biter..."



"Here's the plan, Metal," the young Amy said. The screen went back up to show Amy with her hands on her hips. "We're gonna get you back inside! Eggman will take you back with my help, you'll see. We just, uhh... Hmm..." She averted her eyes and tapped her chin with her glove. "Oh! I know." She dug into her pockets, then slapped a red bow over the screen, out-of-sight. With how the screen moved, I could tell I rolled my eyes. "There! You look so cute! It's hard to turn away anything cute."



My Amy giggled too.



There was more shuffling as the screen was turned towards the door of the base. "And you can ask to come back inside by... giving something. Liiiike... this!" The hands from my old body were visible; the young Amy placed a little flower in one of his palms and closed his claws around it. "This is the perfect gift for anybody," she beamed. The screen looked back up to Amy. She took a deep breath and puffed her cheeks, preparing herself. She exhaled, glanced at the base door, then glanced at the screen one more time. "Um... Bye!" she whispered excitedly, ringing the doorbell at the base and running away. The screen panned towards the escaping Amy, then back down to the flower. With his free hand, he gently touched one of the petals. He looked back to where Amy ran off to, but she was already gone.



I stopped the playback.



"Aw...! You looked back?!" Amy asked, her voice choked up. "This is the cutest thing I've ever seen... I'm gonna cry. I'm gonna do it."



When I brought my focus to her, she actually did look like she was going to cry. I slightly nudged her. "That was the moment I fell in love with you," I said. "I didn't know it at the time... But now I do."



She eagerly kissed me. She moved away from me, like she was about to speak, but then she just kissed me again. I was very amused... and happy.



I disconnected the body from the console and moved it to the side; it was unnecessary to put it back in the glass tank. I brought my attention back to the collapsed Amy robot, while Amy herself kneeled down to my old body. She put her arms around it and leaned her head against it, letting out a whimsical sigh.



"I think it's amazing you have so many of those recordings. You can view so many wonderful memories..."



And plenty of awful ones. I wiped most of those recordings though... Except ones I feared to ever forget. I carried the Amy robot over to the console.



"Metal?" she asked. "I get why you have this body, but... Why is a broken one in that tank, too? It's... Um..." She warily watched the tank containing the remains of another look-a-like.



"My Master must've wanted to do something with him, but it was just never finished. I don't know if I was ever in that body. I don't think so," I said, opening the back of the Amy robot's head.



Amy hummed to acknowledge me, then eventually walked back over to me. She watched what I was doing.



"I'm hoping we can pull data from her..." Though I spoke to Amy, I mumbled unintentionally. "She's in no condition to be brought back online yet, but we should be able to get something. Uh... Keep a distance, just in case."



She backed away some by my request. I successfully connected the wires and tried to pull data the same way I did with my old body.



The screen turned a dark blue and displayed a similar interface as my own file access. I saw only one folder, which was very strange. I could at least see the owner of the folder-- "I believe her name is Carillon Rose," I said to Amy.



"That's a kinda weird name. Not really fitting the 'Neo' pattern..."



"There's only one Neo. That's me," I said, raising my head a little. "... Not literally at the moment."



She giggled a little. "Well... What else can you find?"



I went into the single folder. There was nothing, literally no visible files. I... didn't understand. She should have something. She spoke to us before, which in itself would give some files. If there were files I couldn't access, I should have been able to at least see that they existed, indicators of storage use, anything at all. Since she was from the future, it was possible this console was too primitive.



I tried some tricks to get access to her code, but that didn't work either. All I could possibly get was the same empty folder with the file owner's name. "I can't get anything else right now," I said, crossing my arms. "But... Now you know she's not Amy or Rosy."



"Admittedly, that does make me feel less weird about the whole thing," she replied. "Don't get me wrong! We're past my whole episode yesterday. Just..."



I glanced over to her. "I understand, Rosy. I'm relieved you feel better." I gave her a single nod, then turned back to the monitor. I thought I would be able to at least pull up simple data, like what I grabbed from my future self's arm... I couldn't even do that here. There was no way for me to feed her data either, so I couldn't try anything with the flower code. I was truly at a loss. "I think gathering additional data is going to take a very long time..." I carefully unhooked her from the console.



"I'm sorry... That sucks," Amy sighed. "If there's anything I can do to help, let me know, alright? I'll do what I can."



"I will." I turned to my Amy Rose, then walked closer, gently taking one of her hands. "Carillon Rose is in a safe area now. I'll focus on her another time."



She smiled more. "What are you focusing on next, then?" she asked, swaying her hips a little.



"I believe my girlfriend needs attention."



"You believe correctly~"



We left the laboratory together, the lights shuttering off as we stepped away. I locked the door behind us, then swept Amy off her feet. She let out a cute squeal and clung to me as I rocketed down the hall to get to the elevator. We had a small intimate moment with one another while the elevator took us back to the top floor, then I took her to our private room.



We spent more time together, bonded affectionately, watched a movie that we did not actually watch. I could not get enough of her. I loved Amy Rose...



She eventually began her leave when she had to go eat. I hated that organic beings needed to eat. I wanted to stay with her. I followed her to the entrance, then tugged on her hand to keep her from exiting entirely.



"Metal...!" she quietly whined, her free hand on the side of her face. "I have to go! The RV isn't mine either so I have to take it back. I'm sorry, cutie."



"... Wait here... for a minute. Please."



"Okay, but only because you said please," she said lightheartedly. I let go of her hand and went to my garden.



I wanted to give her something more special to reaffirm our bond. Instead of one flower like our tradition, I cut several flowers... I cut the flowers that came from the seeds we gathered together the first time we went to Little Planet for fun. They were vibrant pink, blue, purple, yellow... I arranged them in a pleasing way and found a band to tie them together.



I returned to my Amy and gingerly held the bouquet in my hands. She tilted her head and gave a wide smile, her gaze on the flowers. "Aw, Metal..." Her voice was soft. She sounded happy. "Is that for me?"



I offered her the bouquet, which she eagerly took.



"These are so beautiful!" She admired them with sparkles in her eyes. Her tail wagged as she took a whiff of the bouquet. I loved watching her.



"We gathered these seeds together a month ago," I said. "... I love you. Goodbye."



"Don't say goodbye like that! And I'm not done!" she shouted, her face red. "Thank you for such a beautiful gift... Wow...! We picked some good bots to bash."



I slightly waved one of my hands. "Luckily I wasn't one of them."



She giggled. "Oh, you're not safe--!!" She lightly tackled me, careful to not harm the flowers. I held her and froze completely when she gave me a long kiss.



I had to expel some hot air. She was too much, even with all I was used to... I wasn't sure I'd ever get used to her affection and how it made me feel.



"I love you so much," she softly sighed. "I had an amazing time at our long date... Let's do more when we can, okay?"



I... slowly nodded.



She gazed at me in a way I couldn't handle for long. I was overheating. She kissed me again, much shorter but just as desired.



"I'll miss you, my sweet Metal. Don't make me wait for you long..." She let go of me and rubbed the side of my face before walking away. I watched her until she was gone.



I would do everything in my power to see her again. I struggled to function when my mind was taken over by thoughts of her... but I no longer thought I could function without her.