Winter Wonderland

Disclaimer: Sonic, Amy Rose, Tails, Tikal, Knuckles, Maria, and…*gasp* A character named after a silhouette, a reflection, a penumbra, a SOMBRA! ...are all ã to SonicTeam/Sega. =D! *severely whapped* And Skyla (Sky Fox) is ã to me and ONLY me, just for the record n.n; XD READ ON, FOO’! READ OOOOOOOOOON! ;D Enjoy the fic!

Oh yes, one other thing. I know a few of you who might be reading this are thinking “YOU TOLD ME ABOUT THIS FIC LAST YEAR. WHY ARE YOU JUST NOW PUTTING IT UP?!” …and if you’re thinking that, I’ll have to whap you with a fish, because…all right, I never got around to writing this fic ^_^;; So if you’re one of those people, just keep in mind that if you annoy me about it, I_WILL_THWHAP_YOU with my fishie of doom ^v^ So read and enjoy!

~*~

The sky was a soft gray-blue, as if it were about to release clouds of powdery snow. Amy Rose stepped out onto the porch of her new house, and inhaled deeply. She could smell the scent of her burning fireplace, but most of all, she could smell winter (if it had a scent). She smiled widely as she pictured where she’d be in only a few short hours. She clasped the handle of the suitcase that she was supposed to be putting in the van, and gazed dreamily down the quiet street she lived on. It was only a week before Christmas arrived, and she couldn’t be happier. The loud *BANG* that came from behind her caused her to jump nearly a foot in the air, startling her out of her thoughts. She whirled around to see Sonic standing behind her impatiently.

“Amy, you need to put that suitcase in the van! You were the one who was just whining about not leaving quickly enough, so let’s go!” Sonic gave her an exasperated look, causing Amy to look upset. His face soon cracked into a smile. “I’m just kidding, Amerz,” he said affectionately, and then wrapped her in a hug. She snickered.

“How’s that down jacket holding up?” she asked innocently. Sonic rolled his eyes and chuckled.

“Fine, thank you very much.” He looked at the puffy cobalt blue down jacket that he had on, and smiled, amused. He wasn’t one for wearing much, and especially not down jackets, but it did help to block out some of the chilly air. He glanced at Amy, and then continued to laugh. “And how are YOU holding up there, Miss Rose?” She looked at her attire briefly, and then looked back at him. She was dressed in deep pink snow pants that made a swishing noise when she walked, a magenta fleece jacket under a bright rose down jacket. Her usual boots remained on her feet, and she was holding a pair of mittens to replace her usual gloves, a scarf, and a hat. She looked warm, happy, and wistful, and Sonic noticed this.

“I’m fine” she said, her cheeks flushing. Sonic looked at her curiously.

“You look lost in thought,” he commented. She gave him a quick smile.

“Nah, I’m fine, thanks.” She picked up her suitcase and put it into the open trunk of the car. Then she slammed the trunk shut, smiled at him again, and went back into her house. Her friends had gathered there before their trip, with all of their luggage. She stepped into her cozy living room, where a warm fire was burning and her friends were waiting. Immediately, they all noticed her arrival.

“Hi Amy. Can we go now?” Tails said quickly. Amy giggled.

“Yes Tails, we’re ready to go. Are YOU ready to go?” She turned to the rest of her friends. “I put the last suitcase in the car, and so I’m completely ready. Now all we gotta do is drive there.” She grinned.

“All right,” Tails said cheerfully. Sky, who had been sitting next to him, stood up and took hold of Tails’ hand. Everyone went outside to where the van was waiting, and opened the van’s doors. Knuckles, who had been sitting quietly with Tikal back in Amy’s house, smiled slightly.

“Our trusty old van. This is the van we’ve gone everywhere to in.” He smiled almost sadly as he remembered all of their trips. They had gone to a tropical island for a vacation in it, they had escaped to Sonic’s hideout in it. Then he remembered their trip back to the Space Colony ARK. It had been a wonderful trip, except for when they had returned to the ARK itself. That had been a sad time for them all, as they had looked down at the earth the same way they had when Shadow had been lost from them. Knuckles abruptly shook his head. It had been many months since that had happened, and he felt foolish to be dwelling on it. He turned to Tikal and smiled. She, who had also been lost in thought, smiled back at him. He took her hand and squeezed it. I am so lucky to have a girl like her, he thought happily.

Tikal was another thing in his life that he couldn’t stop thinking about. He had been amazed to see her during their time with Chaos, which had nearly been a year ago. He smiled sadly again, this time looking at Tikal. She looked at him curiously, almost worried.

“Is their something wrong…?” she asked cautiously. Knuckles looked at her apologetically.

“Oh, of course not! I was just thinking about how lucky I am to have you,” he said. He pulled her closer to him and smiled. He could feel her heart beating, and it was another reminder that he had her for life. She was everything to him.

“Yeah, good old van,” he repeated, suddenly noticing that everyone else was looking at him.

“Are you okay? You just sort of stopped short of speaking there,” Amy commented.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, I was just thinking,” he said, hoping he didn’t look too much like an idiot. Amy smiled and then opened the door to the shotgun seat. She jumped in and climbed over the seat, so she was sitting in the second row of seats.

“How about we have a girls row?” she suggested slyly to the others, speaking through the open car door.

“YEAH!” Sky agreed cheerfully, following suit. She plunked herself down next to Amy, and strapped herself in. Sky was already dressed in her snow clothes, as well as Amy. Sky was dressed warmly in a cream colored, very soft sweater that she had made herself, a light blue scarf, navy blue snowpants that were identical to Amy’s, and black snow boots. She grinned.

“This trip is going to be great! I can’t wait to get up into that fresh, powdery snow,” she said. Amy smiled.

“You’ll love the cabin! It’s really nice. It’s big, and very cozy, and it’s nestled in between all of these mountains. Oh yeah, I was just curious, how are we going to divide up the rooms? I think that since there are three bedrooms-” She was cut off by Sonic.

“FOUR!” he called from outside the car. She giggled.

“All right, FOUR bedrooms, then I think we can maybe just use two and leave the other two as they are.” She noticed that Sky was giving her an odd look.

“That would make it three to a room. Uh…Amy…are you thinking about who’s going to be in each room?” Sky blanched. Amy paused for a moment, trying to grasp exactly what Sky was getting at. Then she chuckled.

“Yeah, I have. We could have a girls room, and a guys room. Sound good?” Sky’s face returned to its normal color, and she grinned sheepishly.

“Sounds fine.” Amy snickered, and Sky promptly whapped her with her scarf.

Tikal, for one, opened the door that would put her in the second row of seats, and climbed in. She stepped over Amy and Sky, and sat down, putting her seatbelt on in the process. Excitement was visibly present on her face. Amy noticed this.

“Excited, huh? I don’t blame you. The place is awesome, and just to be there for Christmas…” she shivered with delight.

Sonic threw open the door that led to the drivers seat with a bang, and hopped in. He was followed by Tails and Knuckles, who were choosing to sit in the row of seats behind the females.

“Yo, Sonic, how long is this going to take again?” Knuckles called up to Sonic. Sonic thought for a moment, and then said,

“About three hours. Meaning that by the end of this car ride, we’ll all be loopy with relief.” Knuckles snickered.

“Yeah, remember our van ride on the way to the shuttle that would take us to the ARK? Tails wouldn’t shut up.” Tails looked offended.

“I shut up!” he protested indignantly. Knuckles chucked.

“Whatever.” Amy rolled her eyes.

“If you remember correctly, by the end of that van ride, you were singing like a drunkard”. Tails looked away from her.

“Yeah, suuuure I did,” he gave her an annoyed look, and then began to laugh. They were all interrupted by a loud “SHUT UP!” from their fellow driver.

“SHUT UP!” Sonic yelled. “I’M TRYIN’ TO LISTEN TO THE DARN RADIO!” Everyone grew silent.

“Uh, Sonic? Is something wrong?” Tails asked, sounding slightly concerned. Knuckles, who had had his arm around Tikal’s shoulder, pulled away from her and leaned towards the front of the van.

“Yeah, is everything all right up there?” Sonic glanced at them in his review mirror.

“No, I wouldn’t say so.” He turned up the volume of the radio slightly, so that they could hear what he had been listening to.

“SNOW WARNING,” announced an official sounding radio announcer. “SNOW STORM ON IT’S WAY TOWARDS THE CASTA MOUNTAINS. AVALANCE WARNING! BE ALERT. That is all.” The car suddenly grew silent. Amy looked at Tikal nervously.

“Avalanche? That could be deadly.” In reply, Tikal only bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes in thought. Sky spoke up.

“I love the idea of spending the holidays up at the cabin, but is it worth it?” Sonic looked back at them all.

“Yeah, actually, it is. Don’t forget, the cabin is nestled between a few other mountains. And usually, the avalanches begin up near the top. The cabin is lower than many of the mountains around it, but it’s still taller than a few. We’d be safe, or, if for some reason an avalanche DID occur, we could run to a taller mountain where we’d be safe from the avalanche. What do you say?” Sky sighed.

“I suppose. It sounds all right. I’m just a bit nervous.” Sonic gave her a friendly smile that she could see from his review mirror.

“They’ve given those warnings before, and nothing’s ever happened. Let’s just go and have a good time.” And so they decided on that, and the car grew loud again with their laughter. The warning was mostly forgotten, and they concentrating on just enjoying themselves.

~*~

“I can’t believe we made it alive!” cheered Sky. Amy giggled.

“Yeah, considering how TAILS went loopy at the end there, I didn’t think that any of us would survive”. Tails heard this.

“HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO-OOF!” Tails was cut short by a snowball being chucked at his shoulder. Sonic ran off, laughing, towards the tramcar that would take them up the mountain. Tails rolled his eyes and then ran after Sonic, half-laughing. Amy grinned.

“This is gonna be great!” she declared. She scooped up a handful of the hard but still good snow. She smiled, and looked up at the clouds. The sky was a gray color, and it looked like it was about to begin snowing any second. She turned to Tikal, who was looking at the snow with an expression of delight.

“This is the snow that you were mentioning?” she asked slowly and carefully, as she was still adjusting to the world she was in. Amy nodded.

“Yup, sure is. Isn’t it great? And there’s more to come, and there’s NOTHING better than fresh, powdery snow.”

The land around them truly looked magical, and as Sky stepped out of the van, she noticed this. She had been up to the snow before, but like Amy had told her once before, there was no snowy place like Sonic’s cabin. The snow seemed to shimmer and sparkle more than any other snow she had seen, and although the sky was gray, it seemed to twinkle and hold majesty. Sky felt caught up in the magic, and she smiled and felt like nothing could go wrong. She felt Tails come up from behind her and give her a hug, which only proved her theory. She turned around and blushed.

“Nice place, huh?” she asked, not sure why she felt so shy around him all of she sudden. He gave her an understanding smile, which seemed to tell her that he didn’t mind that she felt so awkward. She leaned towards him and kissed him on the cheek.

“Sure is. C’mon, let’s get in the tramcar and up to that cabin, I’m starved!” Tails nodded in agreement, so they both went over to the van, retrieved their suitcases, and carried them over to the tramcar. Sonic spotted this, and called out,

“Put your luggage into the tramcar, and then we can go up”. They all agreed to do so, so they unloaded the car and loaded the tramcar. With a few pushes and pulls of buttons and levers, they were all soon looking down through the glass walls of the tramcar, marveling at the view.

“So Sonic, how long have you owned this cabin?” asked Knuckles. He felt a pain inside of him as he remembered their adventure with Chaos. Sonic had found it to be more of an adventure than he had. He was having to deal with his feelings for Tikal during the time, and he had also felt lost and angry when Chaos had attacked. Just the remembrance of the Icecap mountains that they had had to travel though during their time with Chaos caused the memories to flood back. He felt himself choke up with emotion. Tikal looked at him curiously.

“Are you all right?” she asked him softly. He glanced at her, and his eyes seemed brighter than usual.

“Yeah, I’m okay…”, he said. He put an arm around her and drew her close, trying to calm down. Sonic looked at him curiously, but answered his question without inquiring about what was wrong.

“I’ve had it for a while now, more than a year. It’s a nice thing to have”, he stated. Amy grinned.

“I remember when he took me up here one time…” she sighed dreamily. “It was wonderful…” She snapped out of it as soon as she heard Tails and Sky’s choruses of “Ooooooh” ringing throughout the cold air. She blushed scarlet. “Stop, guys, really”. Sonic chuckled, although his face was red like hers.

Tikal pressed her face to the glass wall nearest to her. She had rarely been up in the snow, so this was a special treat to her. Sky smiled, as Tikal had always seemed special to her. She had taken an interest in Tikal because of her mysterious past.

“Pretty, huh?” she asked kindly. Tikal smiled, and seemingly, a light shone in her eyes.

“Truly beautiful”, she stated simply. Sky grinned.

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. It gets better. Wait until you get inside the cabin, it’s even greater.”

Tikal’s eyes widened.

“This gets better?” Sky nodded.

“You’ll love it here, I’ll bet you anything.”

“I know I will,” Tikal said happily.

Little did they know that the trip they were beginning on would change their lives, and some of their ideas would never bet the same again…

What will happen on this trip? Will the avalanche really occur? And why does Knuckles seem to be acting differently? Find out in chapter two- The Arriving Cold.