In the afternoon, most of the villagers were gathered in the square of the village, where there were 7 tables scattered around and forming a sort of huge circle. Each table was decorated by a white tablecloth with golden colored ornaments sewed into it, almost as if this was supposed to be something royal. When in fact, it was just a Fuzzy Puppy competition. There were boards with colorful spots scattered all around them sitting on top of each table along with the pieces and dice. Everything was prepared for this competition and a male snow leopard stepped up onto the medium sized stage. Clearing his throat in the microphone next to him he tried to get everyone's attention.
"Dear citizens of Seaside Island, we have gathered here to celebrate tenth anniversary of the classic game Fuzzy Puppies, which many of you are surely very excited about!" he greeted everyone and applaus with cheerful whistles echoed through the whole square. Lifting his hand up, the leopard managed to shush everyone.
"At this moment, the brand new legendary puppy is going to get revealed to all of you and the game participants will receive a list of the tasks to complete in order to obtain the new figure," he continued his speech, everyone seemed to listen carefully and the said game participants were burning upon impatience, already wanting to get it over with and melt in joy while wielding the new legendary piece of art in form of the puppy figure. The one problem was, that only two winners could obtain it, so this is truly going to be a battle among the participants.
Sonic was part of the crowd too, but didn't seem too amused by this sensational event. Amy approached him and gripped his arm tightly.
"Finally, there you are! Follow me!" she spoke to him hastily and before he could say or do anything, he got dragged to a secluded area, where a few mobians stood in small groups all around and just quietly chatted while using some snacks and drinks from the refreshments stalls standing in every corner of the square.
"What's up, Ames?" Sonic raised his brow once he regained his balance.
"This!" Amy smiled brightly while showing him the perfume vial she got from Eggman.
"Wow, you really got it? How did you-"
"Pfffft, easy, I told him, that there is an annoying guy, who wouldn't leave me alone and I need to get rid of him with a scent of another male on me," she explained her little mischievous action from earlier and it made Sonic grin in victory.
"That was smart," he complimented her and she nodded in agreement while popping the cap of the vial open.
"Now hold still," she aimed it carefully at Sonic's bandana and sprayed this masculine scent all over it, making sure, that it caught on perfectly. Sonic grimased, though, when his nose got straight hit by the strong smell of ocean and musk.
"Geez, who would smell like this," he slightly coughed, which was a sign for Amy to stop spraying as she cupped the vial again and smirked.
"You~" she teased him, earning a low growl from the male.
"Hope this is gonna be worth it," Sonic crossed his arms while sneering at her.
"Don't worry, now let's just enjoy this event, shall we?" Amy tried to comfort him and help him think of something else, secretly, she herself disliked the smell, but if it's going to keep Sticks at bay, then it's the best thing they could use at the moment.
And as if on cue, the badger ran towards them with a happy smile on her face.
"Amy, you're so going to win this legendary puppy! I am rooting for you!" she exclaimed in joyful manner before pausing and sniffing the air due to her sensitive nose catching up the new scent.
"Yeah, I really hope I will," Amy sighed, now thinking about the deal she has with Eggman. She did not realize, that only one player can obtain the figure and get an addition to their collection.
".....I repeat, all participants, please, gather around the tables! You'll be playing in pairs and each winner shall receive ten points before moving onto the rest of the tasks!" the snow leopard announced loud enough for even the three mobians to hear him. Amy perked up and her quills shortly bristled in nervousness and excitement.
"I gotta go now!" she quickly trotted through the crowd towards the tables and stood respectively in a discreet zone, for all the tables were occupied by pairs of the participants already, while many others waited in the zone for their turn.
Sticks glanced at Sonic with narrowed eyes before tilting her head curiously.
"New perfume?" she asked simply.
"Yeah, since this event is so big, I decided to come in with style," Sonic turned the awful smell into his advantage as he confidently smirked and tugged on his bandana in a cool way before slowly walking back towards the crowded square to watch how Amy will be doing. Sticks followed behind and wondered, why the other male scent - actually Shadow's, but she did not know that - got lost from her tracks. She was halfway on discovering, whom this scent belongs to, but now she was back in a zero point. For now, anyways.
"You're cool, Sonic," she smiled at him while walking next to him.
"Yeah, thanks," Sonic snickered and approaching the spectators area he took a seat on an available chair, so he could watch the players competing with each other in order to gain as many points as they could. Sticks stood next to him, for there was no more available chair for her to sit on.
"Wanna sit here, Sticks?" Sonic asked her and was ready to get up, but she misunderstood his meaning and giving him a nod she simply sat onto his lap, which made the hedgehog turn full deep red in his face.
"Thanks, you're- WAH!" she felt him poking her lower back with his hand, which made her jump and quickly stand up again while glaring at him. Sonic stood up and grabbing her by shoulders he gently pushed her on the chair instead of himself.
"This... is what I meant," he was still so flustered and Sticks didn't really seem to understand, why was Sonic acting like this and why his face was red.
"What's wrong about sitting on your legs?" she asked obvliviously, in a sense she was innocent. Sonic smacked his burning hot face with his hand and sighed.
"Nevermind, Sticks, just... sit and watch," he turned around to face the players, now seeing Amy sitting by one of the tables with Eggman being her opponent. Oh, this shall be interesting now! Sticks was still confused about Sonic's behavior, but noticing Amy and Eggman by the table she rather focused on them, soon forgetting about this little incident with Sonic.
"Oh, you must be kidding me," Eggman grumbled under his breath while staring at his pink opponent sitting opposite of him.
"Ready for this competition?" Amy asked him with a small grin on her face.
"As ready as ever," he nodded and barely restrained from smirking in mischief. Of course he planned to cheat a little, because that's just who he is. Each of them threw the dice and the higher number shall begin. Eggman intentionally threw the dice harder, so it would roll out of the table and get lost somewhere on the ground among all the various shoes and boots of the spectating mobians standing or sitting around.
"Whoops..." Eggman gave Amy a little sheepish, apologetic smile.
"Uh, this isn't a real battle, no need to use such force," she stated and sighing she stood up.
"I'll find the dice real quick," she added, but he then stopped her.
"No, wait! Luckily, in case such a thing happens, I brought my own dice here," he pulled the same looking dice out of his pocket and set it on the board. Amy glanced at the item and not seeing anything weird or suspicious she nodded as she descended back on the chair.
"All pairs ready up! And GO!" the snow leopard officially allowed the players to start their matches and each of them instantly began their little competition. Amy had the advantage of throwing the dice first, she got three points, so she moved her figure across the spots three times to match the number. 'So far, good beginning,' she smiled confidently to herself. Eggman's turn was next, so he threw the dice and got five points, moving his figure to a fifth spot on the board. Amy threw again, getting four points. Eggman got six points during his turn. As it went on and on, Amy was getting always lower points than Eggman and in the very end of the match he was the winner.
"HAHA, YES! I MADE IT!" he exclaimed, receiving ten points from the snow leopard, along with the other winners of the match. However, the other winners got different points depending on the span of time they finished the match in. Some got 15 points, some 10 points and the slowest got only 5 points for the start.
Amy stared at the villain in disbelief, feeling a bit worried now. What if she won't win the whole competition? Little did she know or realize, that Eggman won thanks to his dice being actually controlled, so he would always get the higher points and thus win.
"Well, good game, Eggman," she forced a smile on her face.
"Why thank you, Amy! Don't worry, you can still gain some points in the other tasks," he wasn't really that bad at all, as he even tried to comfort her.
"I know, but so can you," Amy crossed her arms, feeling something a bit off here and not feeling that much comforted at all.
"Alright, we got another seven winners, congratulations! Last round for the remaining fourteen participants, please, take a seat in pairs you all and ready up!" the snow leopard shooed the previous players away, so they could be replaced by the remaining pairs. The third round began and several minutes later another seven winners joined the former ones.
"Onto the next step, you shall stay in the pairs you played in and finish the tasks together as teams! Let's see, who's going to be the winning pair!" the leopard announced and heard many surprised mutters and gasps of the losing mobians catching a new hope to win this competition.
"Why did that blue pest have to say anything!" Eggman grumbled, not feeling too well about having to work together with Amy.
"It's not Sonic's fault, Eggman. The quests would be like this either way," Amy rolled her eyes, sometimes feeling like Eggman was an oversized baby. Constantly whining about something he deems uncomfortable or inconvenient.
"Hmmm, he jinxed it, still!" Eggman growled grumpily.
"Come on, it's not that bad. You and me both still have a chance to win! Besides, we got the deal, right?" she reminded him and that finally got him to cooperate.
"Fine, fair point, I suppose," Eggman brushed it off, dropping the subject.
"So, what do we have in the quests? Hmmm, find seven colorful flags under the limit of 10 minutes, each flag having to be of a different color," Amy read out loud the next task and noticed some of the other pairs already travelling around in search of these flags.
"We should probably move it," she added and along with her frienemy she did the same.
Approximately 8 minutes later, they ended up finding successfully seven flags of different colors, but they weren't really the fastest, as there were another three pairs ahead of them, already doing the next task. But there were also many other pairs, who were behind, still looking for the flags. Bringing the flags to the leopard they received 20 points. So altogether, they now had 30 points. However, the first three pairs got higher points thanks to a time bonus, since they were able to find the flags in a short span of time.
"Shoot twenty targets in archery under a limit of five minutes," Eggman read another task and they both looked at each other.
"This is going to be a challenge," Amy stated calmly, yet felt nervous about it. They approached the archery area and each grabbed their bow. Taking an arrows after each shot they did their best and Amy seemed to be surprisingly good, as she was able to hit ten targets on her own under three and half minutes. Eggman hit four targets during the whole time, which made fourteen targets hit in total. Six more to go, one and half minute remaining. They can do this! As the timer hit the last ten seconds countdown, Amy managed to hit the last target in time and thus they won 40 points as a team. In total, they currently had 70 points in their score. Not too bad for sure.
Next task was searching for a hidden treasure. Overall, there were only 3 treasure chests hidden across the area of the labyrinth full of various unharmful traps and dead ends. That meant, that only three teams could gain points to their score. To make it fair, any team, that gets caught in a trap is out, no longer getting a chance to gain these points, so everyone had to be careful. There was a guard standing by the entrance and always let only one pair enter and move through the corridors of the labyrinth. Four pairs were already out due to getting caught in the traps, another four went through the trial and two of them managed to find the treasure chests. One last chest remained to be found and it was almost Amy's and Eggman's turn. The pair, that went before them, failed and got caught in a trap, so they were let out through the back exit of the labyrinth and Eggman with Amy were allowed to enter. As they stood in the first corridor, Eggman pressed a button of his wrist device, which launched a scanning laser, so they were able to see, where the traps were located and thus they could avoid getting caught in them. Amy disliked the fact, that Eggman did it thanks to cheating, but it got them closer to victory, as they managed to find the last treasure chest in a span of 20 minutes.
"Congratulations, you earned fifty points for finding the chest," the leopard said to them after they returned to the square. 120 points in total, surely not bad.
"Since all the pairs are now done with the competition, I shall name the top three winning teams!" he then spoke to the microphone while holding a piece of paper in his hand, most likely with the pairs' titles and their score points.
"Third place belongs to the team Chaotix!" he shouted out while holding a sack containing 50, 000 rings. A purple chameleon with a green crocodile approached the leopard and thanked him for the reward they received from him, then left somewhere to the crowd, that cheered for them.
"Second place belongs to team Ambush!" the leopard shouted out while holding one of the epic ranked puppies figures and a chaos emerald as a reward. A female bat wearing a dark purple attire and a green male hawk stepped forward, the hawk took the figure, the bat gladly accepted the chaos emerald.
"It's been a pleasure," she said confidently with a wink aimed at the leopard, who faintly blushed at the flirty bat.
"Rouge! What are you doing here?" Amy approached the bat, recognizing her as one of her oldest friends she has.
"Fancy to see you again, Amy. I see you grew up pretty well," Rouge chuckled while looking at Amy up and down, then her teal irises landed on the villain standing in the back.
"Hm, teamed up with Eggy?" she smirked.
"Not by my own choice, during the first game he was my opponent," Amy shook her hands to avoid any misunderstandings from the bat's side.
"I see. Well, I need to take care of some business now, so I'll see you around," Rouge waved Amy goodbye and along with Jet she flew away.
"And for the first place winners these brand new puppy figures are waiting here!" the leopard quickly recovered from the fluster caused by the bat and held up the two figures. They were made of a solid plastic covered by a layer of plush, which made them look fluffy. The puppies were fully black with golden miniature gems as their eyes and a spiky collar around their necks, along with tiny golden crown sitting on top of their heads, while dettachable cape made of a silky fabric surrounded their backs. Amy's eyes glistened, when she saw the special puppies and so badly wanted to have one of them. And so did Eggman, as in anticipation he waited for the leopard to finally announce the winning team, that took the first place.
"First place belongs to......"