Princess

Prologue

Shock. Fear. Disbelief. The three ingredients needed for the perfect recipe of panic.

It started out as a normal evening.

The weather was warm, not a single sight of a cloud in the bright, beautiful sky. A light breeze whispered through the limbs of the evergreen trees that made up the forest. It was silent, with the acceptance of a few birds twittering in their nests. A babbling brook flowed gently as a doe and her fawn lowered their heads for a drink.

Nearby, a green hedgehog was walking through the forest, enjoying the warmth of the day and admiring the flora and fauna around him. In his world, such things did not exist. In his world, everything was the opposite.

His name was Scourge the Hedgehog, Sonic’s anti-doppelganger, and the king of Mobius’ sister Zone, Moebius.

He was everything that Sonic was. Fast, brave, and reckless. The only differences that separated him from the hero of Mobius was his looks and his attitude.

Scourge had the same built and quill style as Sonic. His fur was a light shade of lime green, his eyes an ocean blue. He had a peach muzzle, peach arms, and a peach chest with two added zigzags of dark scars. His gloves were smaller than Sonic’s and a bit whiter. He wore a black leather jacket with red and orange flames on the sleeves. The ends of the sleeves were flayed to give him the rugged bad boy look, the same for the belt that hung loosely by his side. His shoes, instead of red and white, were black and dark green, and to complete his look, a pair of red shades rested over his nose.

Along with his bad boy look came an attitude to match.

He was a jokester, a love for pranks in his very being. He loved sparring with Sonic, and causing trouble in his world. He was a criminal, a fugitive from the Zone Police for unauthorized Zone crossing.

In fact, that’s what he was doing in the forest now.

He was hiding from Zonic, another doppelganger of Sonic, and his crew of Zone cops. They had followed him through the different Zones he had jumped, but they lost him three Zones before Mobius.

"Those idiots will never learn." The hedgehog chuckled to himself as he continued walking through the forest, his footsteps crunching against the fallen pine needles of the trees. He whistled a little tune to himself, paying no mind to the skittering rodents across the forest floor. He was more concerned about his plans for being in Mobius.

Maybe he’ll stir up some trouble in town. Perhaps he’ll find Sonic and start up a fight. He snickered to himself as he thought of a third idea of disguising himself as Sonic and bugging Shadow. Oh, that would be priceless!

He was deeply lost in his thoughts until a startling realization snapped him back to reality.

The forest was deathly silent.

The birds had stopped twittering. The rodents had burrowed themselves. The doe and her fawn were gone, and even the babbling brook had silenced its babble. The trees were still, the whispering wind no longer whispering, but gone completely.

It was so silent, you could hear a pin drop.

“What in the world?” Scourge whispered to himself, almost afraid to break the silence.

It was much too early for the wooden animals to turn in for the night. There was still plenty of light left.

Not even Mobian mothers were ready to put their children to bed at this time. So why was it so silent?

...

Meanwhile, in the farside of the forest, Scourge wasn’t the only one that noticed the silence.