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Description

PRELOGUE

Thunder struck, lighting up the dark room with white light. Shadow the Hedgehog flinched awake from another nightmare--the same one he had for many years now. The one where Maria died right in front of him. Frowning, he sat up in his bed, blinked the world around him into view, and ruffled his quills in annoyance with his rough hands. It was starting to get really bothersome. Maria died a long time ago and there was nothing he could do about it now. It was time to move on. Really. Maria would want the same for him. Unfortunately, his mind disagreed, returning to the past every night and replaying the same images again and again. What could he do to stop this madness? Was his mind trying to tell him something? Something missing in his life?

Really.

It was starting to get really bothersome.

If only the world made sense.

No. That’s not it.

If only the world held no secrets.

However, that was why the world existed. For holding secrets. Giving away clues, but never true answers. That would be too easy. The world wanted you to find the answers.

At least, that was what it was for him.

3480394823048923948032493840239842304830406984506984560984069845069856058606

It was raining. Pouring and hammering and greying up the world with silver water. One lonely pink hedgehog floated along beside the drowning road. She was unsure why she decided to leave the comfort of her sweet bed and go into the rain. Unsure what awoke her in the first place. But she knew she could trust her instincts. Well. She hoped she could. Either way, she wasn’t able to deny the call. Amy Rose could only believe that the world was calling for a good reason and not for death, because that would just suck.

She couldn’t die so early, after all. She had yet to successfully capture Sonic the Hedgehog for herself!

Her train of thought trickled away like the rain and Amy continued to walk, not fully awake, deeper and deeper into the storm until the light could not find her anymore.

She was gone. The world was gone. Everything had evaporated into the dark sky.

CHAPTER 1

The air was breathtakingly clean. One could breathe in and feel full with it. There was a calming scent in the air—warm and comforting like a room full of freshly washed sheets, a home. Amy blinked the sleep away and woke up to the new world.

Her mouth slacked open.

“Where the hell am I?” Amy screeched, her eyes raking all around her. Her ears twitched, trying to gain a bearing.

This place was not her room, not the city in which she lived, or anywhere familiar. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she was still on Earth. A bubble of panic grew inside her, twisting her stomach horribly and chocking her in the cruelest way.

‘How did I end up here?!’ she thought. She shook her head away from panic. ‘Okay. Step by step thinking, Amy. Everything has a reason. So. I was asleep in my bed, then I woke up and went into the storm….and that’s it. I walked in the storm. Why did I do that? Hm…some kind of call. That does not help me figure out how I wound up here. Where is here anyway?’ She took another look around before shifting into a fetal position. ‘No need to panic. There is always a reason for everything. You just got to figure this out, Amy. Calm. Peace. Tranquility. Maybe there is someone you can ask for help!’

Lit with new hope, Amy peeked up and looked around a third time. Trees, some dark violet and others different shades of red, all placed a few yards away from the meadow-like area in which she was currently in. No life forms. Black soil, so hard and unyielding that Amy couldn’t believe she wasn’t sore from sleeping on it. No life forms. Shrub-looking plants scattered here and there in yellow-greenish shades. No life forms. Blood red sun. No life forms. Thunder clouds with no thunder. No life forms. Bright white stars. No life forms. Mountainous silhouettes in the distance. Life forms?

Amy nearly tripped over herself trying to get up, hurriedly dusting off the black dust off her dress and arms. Those silhouettes actually looked like buildings! Twisted, rocky looking buildings, but buildings none the less. Where there are buildings, there are life forms. And life forms meant that she wasn’t alone on this strange planet. Leaving behind any thoughts of possibilities that the life forms she will find might not be so friendly, she took off into the alien forest, heading for the distant shadows. The moment she crossed the line between the meadow and forest, the world morphed. It didn’t take long for the odd planet to trap her in its labyrinth of vampiric trees. They gloomed over her, blocking out the sinful sky. The once clean air had been diminishing more and more the further she ran. It was getting frighteningly hard to catch her breath. She tried to touch as little trees as possible, but the outstretched limbs seemed determined to scratch and claw at her hands and knees. After a half an hour of just sprinting blindly, Amy slowly came to a stop beside a very large tree. It was much bigger than the others, looking very much like a baobab but with wine red leaves and a glassy black trunk. It stood out from the rest not only by its size but by its small ring of space between it and the other trees. In her delusional state, Amy thought it looked like a prince among savages—a tree that didn’t look like it wanted to eat her.

Panting, gasping for breath, Amy leaned against the tree with one hand over her heart. It was beating loudly and much too quickly to be a healthy pace for hearts to beat. It felt as if she had just run away from a raging dragon plus grizzly bear plus a Knuckles with a lost Master Emerald. She shivered. Did the temperature drop just now? Amy looked up into the sky shattered by twisted, black branches. The blood-stained sun was no longer there. Instead, an eerie yellow moon grinned down at her. A small blue moon accompanied it, peeking out from its place behind its older, larger brother moon.

Moving her gaze to the black soot ground, Amy continued to try and gain some oxygen in her aching lungs. Her mouth gaped open and her eyes were impossibly rounded. Both of her hands were now clutching her chest and digging deeper into her chest. Nothing helped. She felt as if she was dying. Why couldn’t she breathe?! Panic blinded her. Tears sprang up in her eyes as she felt her consciousness slip away. The returning panic was making it all the worse.

Suddenly, she was staring into blood orbs.

“Calm yourself.” Someone growled.

The stranger wrapped its hands around her fragile neck. Amy’s panic rose to new heights. Calm herself? CALM herself?! How could she do that when this stranger was going to choke her?!

The stormy beast cursed as the pink being fainted.

5609850695605860456850968450698450684506845608560958605684596845069850684506

When Amy woke up again, she was back in the clearing with that breathable air. Instead of jumping awake like last time, she didn’t even attempt to get up. She wasn’t entirely sure she even could. Her body ached and her throat felt raw. Her lungs were gasping with relief. Not being able to breathe can do that to you apparently. But then she heard that growl again and she wanted desperately to run again (even if it hurt to move). Instead, she rolled her head to the right, towards the same line of trees she ran to before.

Crouching a few yards away was the stranger, who was also probably her saver. It was deviously magnificent, looking three times her size even in its small stance. It had long, red-striped ears fanning from both sides of its face, ends pointed like arrows. There were spikes on the top of its head, on its shoulders, and down its back—the exact same color as its hide and tufts of raggedy fur that was littered over its cheeks, arms, legs, and tail. The same red stripes on its ears also decorated its body like a tigers. Diamond-white claws and teeth gleamed from their places, making the three blood orbs for eyes appear redder, darker, deeper. The third orb located right in between the other two was smaller, looking more like a jewel than an eye.

Looking into it, Amy heard her heart skip a beat. Not out of any form of happiness though. The skip was for the fear that pierced through her. That third eye was a source of evil and corruption. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. The perfectly round third eye leaked with malevolence.

“Who—What are you?” She screeched, jerking upright only to collapse back onto the sooty dirt as pain spiked along her body.

The ears flattened against its head in a wince. “Quit with the screams, female.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Amy blubbered as panic returned to her like a stalker.

In a fit of alarmed fury, Amy lashed out at the beast, throwing anything she could grab hold of (which mainly consisted of dirt and little shrubs). They never reached their target since she was still lying down on the ground and so couldn’t aim very well.

“Cease your panic! Calm yourself!” The beast growled. “Do not be alarmed, odd one. I won’t hurt you. Yet.”

“Shut up!” Amy screamed. She couldn’t think straight. She was panicking too much. She began to hyperventilate.

Amy clutched her chest once more, gasping in the air that burned instead of healed. She shut her eyes tight, trying to erase the alien surroundings. She was far from home for sure. The beast confirmed her suspicions. There was no way a thing like that existed on Earth. No one she could rely on was nearby. Only a stranger. A stranger with an evil eye. And even that was questionable.

A slight scuffling sound announced themselves to her. Then, she felt gentle arms wrap around her and she opened her eyes to stare into the blood orbs, not the third one, just the other two. The large rubies that functioned as the main eyes. Amy’s eyes searched deep within them just as she had with the third eye. Surprisingly, the rubies were gentle and concerned. There was still a wild spark to them, but it wasn’t evil—just determined-- as if the beast had a schedule, a goal. A small part of her calmed at this. Perhaps the beast wasn’t completely evil.

The beast held her for a long time until it was sure she was okay, then it released her and took a couple of steps away.

“Have you calmed yourself?” it asked.

Amy took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m good.” She looked up at it shyly. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

“That would be as waste of time.” It replied immediately.

Amy wasn’t sure if she should take that as a compliment or not. She decided to ignore it.

“So. What are you?” Amy asked.

The beast puffed its chest outward, drawing itself up to stand regally, towering over Amy. “The son of Black Doom. Prince of the Black Arms. I am called Black Light.”

Amy blinked at the new information. ‘Black Arms…I feel like I’ve heard that before.’

"Well?” Black Light demanded. “What are you?”

“Amy Rose.” She replied with a shrug. “A hedgehog.”

“A…hedge…hog?” he frowned. He had never heard of such things. “Where are you from?”

“Earth, of course.” Amy frowned back. “That reminds me. Where am I?”

“Gomjong Sek.”

“What?”

“Gomjong Sek.”

“…Gom….jong…. Sek.”

“Yes. Gomjong Sek.” Black Light started to get a little frustrated with the pink female. “You are on the planet Gomjong Sek, home of the Black Arms race.”

“Oh my—How the hell did I travel through space?!” Amy screeched, panic rising again.

Black Light gently patted Amy’s head. “Calm yourself.”

“Don’t tell me to calm myself! You didn’t wind up on a whole new planet overnight!” Amy hissed. Her eyes wet with frustrated tears. “I don’t even know you! I don’t know this place! I want…I want my bed. My friends.” Then the tears started flowing and they wouldn’t stop.

“Calm y—“

“I can’t even tell if you’re a girl or a boy!” she wailed.

That got the beast frozen.

Amy frantically wiped at her tears. “Are you a male? Or do all female Black Arms have deep voices?”

“Of course I’m a male you insolent fool!” Black Light sputtered, looking shocked for the first time since their meeting.

Amy’s reflective emerald eyes looked up at him, then she laughed.

“What?” He growled.

“Nothing! Sorry.” She laughed, again. “I’m just very emotional right now. Long day and all.” Tears were making their way back into her eyes.

Black Light huffed. “Are all hedgehogs this emotional?”

Amy immediately thought about Shadow. “No. Not all of them.” She mused.

Black Light rolled his eyes in a very childish manner. His ears flicked in slight annoyance as he let out another huff of air. Amy was still giggling to herself. The moon was clearly visible in the night sky now that the trees weren’t surrounding her from all sides. Amy smiled up at it for awhile until she realized that she should probably sleep. It was night after all. However, she was stuck with a beast that seemed to not need sleep and only hard, black earth for a bed. She didn’t even realize that her eyes had fixed upon her stranger with a hesitantly questioning gaze until he barked at her.

“What? Out with it, female.”

Amy blushed and opened her mouth, but the words were lost.

“Well?”

“I-I want to s-sleep.” She finally stated, blushing even more as Black Light raised one eyebrow.

“Sleep?”

“Yeah. I’m guessing you don’t need to sleep then.” She sighed. ‘Not to self. Black Arms do not sleep.’

“Is sleep the same as a rest?” he asked.

“Yeah. I need to sleep every night for a couple of hours to regain my energy.”

“Every night?” His voice was colored in disbelief. “You hedgehogs sure run out of energy quickly if you need rest every night.”

Not knowing what to say, Amy just shrugged.

A silent pause filled the space between them as the stared at each other.

“Well?” Black Light growled. “Go to sleep.”

“I can’t.” Amy growled back.

“Why not?”

“You’re here.” Amy stated bluntly.

Black Light blinked slowly at her before getting up and moving closer to the edge of the meadow, grumbling about needy hedgehogs.

“I won’t leave you completely. I’m still unsure of what to make of you.” Black Light spoke loudly to make sure Amy heard him. “In the morning, you will follow me to my father’s palace. He will deal with you as he sees fit.” He paused as he contemplated something. “It might take a few days journey to reach him, however, since your pathetic lungs are unable to withstand the air pressures of the forest.”

Amy should have been angry. She should have said something equally rude back at him. However, she was really tired now and just wanted to go to sleep and dream about a world that wasn’t here.

Description

PRELOGUE

Thunder struck, lighting up the dark room with white light. Shadow the Hedgehog flinched awake from another nightmare--the same one he had for many years now. The one where Maria died right in front of him. Frowning, he sat up in his bed, blinked the world around him into view, and ruffled his quills in annoyance with his rough hands. It was starting to get really bothersome. Maria died a long time ago and there was nothing he could do about it now. It was time to move on. Really. Maria would want the same for him. Unfortunately, his mind disagreed, returning to the past every night and replaying the same images again and again. What could he do to stop this madness? Was his mind trying to tell him something? Something missing in his life?

Really.

It was starting to get really bothersome.

If only the world made sense.

No. That’s not it.

If only the world held no secrets.

However, that was why the world existed. For holding secrets. Giving away clues, but never true answers. That would be too easy. The world wanted you to find the answers.

At least, that was what it was for him.

3480394823048923948032493840239842304830406984506984560984069845069856058606

It was raining. Pouring and hammering and greying up the world with silver water. One lonely pink hedgehog floated along beside the drowning road. She was unsure why she decided to leave the comfort of her sweet bed and go into the rain. Unsure what awoke her in the first place. But she knew she could trust her instincts. Well. She hoped she could. Either way, she wasn’t able to deny the call. Amy Rose could only believe that the world was calling for a good reason and not for death, because that would just suck.

She couldn’t die so early, after all. She had yet to successfully capture Sonic the Hedgehog for herself!

Her train of thought trickled away like the rain and Amy continued to walk, not fully awake, deeper and deeper into the storm until the light could not find her anymore.

She was gone. The world was gone. Everything had evaporated into the dark sky.

CHAPTER 1

The air was breathtakingly clean. One could breathe in and feel full with it. There was a calming scent in the air—warm and comforting like a room full of freshly washed sheets, a home. Amy blinked the sleep away and woke up to the new world.

Her mouth slacked open.

“Where the hell am I?” Amy screeched, her eyes raking all around her. Her ears twitched, trying to gain a bearing.

This place was not her room, not the city in which she lived, or anywhere familiar. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she was still on Earth. A bubble of panic grew inside her, twisting her stomach horribly and chocking her in the cruelest way.

‘How did I end up here?!’ she thought. She shook her head away from panic. ‘Okay. Step by step thinking, Amy. Everything has a reason. So. I was asleep in my bed, then I woke up and went into the storm….and that’s it. I walked in the storm. Why did I do that? Hm…some kind of call. That does not help me figure out how I wound up here. Where is here anyway?’ She took another look around before shifting into a fetal position. ‘No need to panic. There is always a reason for everything. You just got to figure this out, Amy. Calm. Peace. Tranquility. Maybe there is someone you can ask for help!’

Lit with new hope, Amy peeked up and looked around a third time. Trees, some dark violet and others different shades of red, all placed a few yards away from the meadow-like area in which she was currently in. No life forms. Black soil, so hard and unyielding that Amy couldn’t believe she wasn’t sore from sleeping on it. No life forms. Shrub-looking plants scattered here and there in yellow-greenish shades. No life forms. Blood red sun. No life forms. Thunder clouds with no thunder. No life forms. Bright white stars. No life forms. Mountainous silhouettes in the distance. Life forms?

Amy nearly tripped over herself trying to get up, hurriedly dusting off the black dust off her dress and arms. Those silhouettes actually looked like buildings! Twisted, rocky looking buildings, but buildings none the less. Where there are buildings, there are life forms. And life forms meant that she wasn’t alone on this strange planet. Leaving behind any thoughts of possibilities that the life forms she will find might not be so friendly, she took off into the alien forest, heading for the distant shadows. The moment she crossed the line between the meadow and forest, the world morphed. It didn’t take long for the odd planet to trap her in its labyrinth of vampiric trees. They gloomed over her, blocking out the sinful sky. The once clean air had been diminishing more and more the further she ran. It was getting frighteningly hard to catch her breath. She tried to touch as little trees as possible, but the outstretched limbs seemed determined to scratch and claw at her hands and knees. After a half an hour of just sprinting blindly, Amy slowly came to a stop beside a very large tree. It was much bigger than the others, looking very much like a baobab but with wine red leaves and a glassy black trunk. It stood out from the rest not only by its size but by its small ring of space between it and the other trees. In her delusional state, Amy thought it looked like a prince among savages—a tree that didn’t look like it wanted to eat her.

Panting, gasping for breath, Amy leaned against the tree with one hand over her heart. It was beating loudly and much too quickly to be a healthy pace for hearts to beat. It felt as if she had just run away from a raging dragon plus grizzly bear plus a Knuckles with a lost Master Emerald. She shivered. Did the temperature drop just now? Amy looked up into the sky shattered by twisted, black branches. The blood-stained sun was no longer there. Instead, an eerie yellow moon grinned down at her. A small blue moon accompanied it, peeking out from its place behind its older, larger brother moon.

Moving her gaze to the black soot ground, Amy continued to try and gain some oxygen in her aching lungs. Her mouth gaped open and her eyes were impossibly rounded. Both of her hands were now clutching her chest and digging deeper into her chest. Nothing helped. She felt as if she was dying. Why couldn’t she breathe?! Panic blinded her. Tears sprang up in her eyes as she felt her consciousness slip away. The returning panic was making it all the worse.

Suddenly, she was staring into blood orbs.

“Calm yourself.” Someone growled.

The stranger wrapped its hands around her fragile neck. Amy’s panic rose to new heights. Calm herself? CALM herself?! How could she do that when this stranger was going to choke her?!

The stormy beast cursed as the pink being fainted.

5609850695605860456850968450698450684506845608560958605684596845069850684506

When Amy woke up again, she was back in the clearing with that breathable air. Instead of jumping awake like last time, she didn’t even attempt to get up. She wasn’t entirely sure she even could. Her body ached and her throat felt raw. Her lungs were gasping with relief. Not being able to breathe can do that to you apparently. But then she heard that growl again and she wanted desperately to run again (even if it hurt to move). Instead, she rolled her head to the right, towards the same line of trees she ran to before.

Crouching a few yards away was the stranger, who was also probably her saver. It was deviously magnificent, looking three times her size even in its small stance. It had long, red-striped ears fanning from both sides of its face, ends pointed like arrows. There were spikes on the top of its head, on its shoulders, and down its back—the exact same color as its hide and tufts of raggedy fur that was littered over its cheeks, arms, legs, and tail. The same red stripes on its ears also decorated its body like a tigers. Diamond-white claws and teeth gleamed from their places, making the three blood orbs for eyes appear redder, darker, deeper. The third orb located right in between the other two was smaller, looking more like a jewel than an eye.

Looking into it, Amy heard her heart skip a beat. Not out of any form of happiness though. The skip was for the fear that pierced through her. That third eye was a source of evil and corruption. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. The perfectly round third eye leaked with malevolence.

“Who—What are you?” She screeched, jerking upright only to collapse back onto the sooty dirt as pain spiked along her body.

The ears flattened against its head in a wince. “Quit with the screams, female.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Amy blubbered as panic returned to her like a stalker.

In a fit of alarmed fury, Amy lashed out at the beast, throwing anything she could grab hold of (which mainly consisted of dirt and little shrubs). They never reached their target since she was still lying down on the ground and so couldn’t aim very well.

“Cease your panic! Calm yourself!” The beast growled. “Do not be alarmed, odd one. I won’t hurt you. Yet.”

“Shut up!” Amy screamed. She couldn’t think straight. She was panicking too much. She began to hyperventilate.

Amy clutched her chest once more, gasping in the air that burned instead of healed. She shut her eyes tight, trying to erase the alien surroundings. She was far from home for sure. The beast confirmed her suspicions. There was no way a thing like that existed on Earth. No one she could rely on was nearby. Only a stranger. A stranger with an evil eye. And even that was questionable.

A slight scuffling sound announced themselves to her. Then, she felt gentle arms wrap around her and she opened her eyes to stare into the blood orbs, not the third one, just the other two. The large rubies that functioned as the main eyes. Amy’s eyes searched deep within them just as she had with the third eye. Surprisingly, the rubies were gentle and concerned. There was still a wild spark to them, but it wasn’t evil—just determined-- as if the beast had a schedule, a goal. A small part of her calmed at this. Perhaps the beast wasn’t completely evil.

The beast held her for a long time until it was sure she was okay, then it released her and took a couple of steps away.

“Have you calmed yourself?” it asked.

Amy took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m good.” She looked up at it shyly. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

“That would be as waste of time.” It replied immediately.

Amy wasn’t sure if she should take that as a compliment or not. She decided to ignore it.

“So. What are you?” Amy asked.

The beast puffed its chest outward, drawing itself up to stand regally, towering over Amy. “The son of Black Doom. Prince of the Black Arms. I am called Black Light.”

Amy blinked at the new information. ‘Black Arms…I feel like I’ve heard that before.’

"Well?” Black Light demanded. “What are you?”

“Amy Rose.” She replied with a shrug. “A hedgehog.”

“A…hedge…hog?” he frowned. He had never heard of such things. “Where are you from?”

“Earth, of course.” Amy frowned back. “That reminds me. Where am I?”

“Gomjong Sek.”

“What?”

“Gomjong Sek.”

“…Gom….jong…. Sek.”

“Yes. Gomjong Sek.” Black Light started to get a little frustrated with the pink female. “You are on the planet Gomjong Sek, home of the Black Arms race.”

“Oh my—How the hell did I travel through space?!” Amy screeched, panic rising again.

Black Light gently patted Amy’s head. “Calm yourself.”

“Don’t tell me to calm myself! You didn’t wind up on a whole new planet overnight!” Amy hissed. Her eyes wet with frustrated tears. “I don’t even know you! I don’t know this place! I want…I want my bed. My friends.” Then the tears started flowing and they wouldn’t stop.

“Calm y—“

“I can’t even tell if you’re a girl or a boy!” she wailed.

That got the beast frozen.

Amy frantically wiped at her tears. “Are you a male? Or do all female Black Arms have deep voices?”

“Of course I’m a male you insolent fool!” Black Light sputtered, looking shocked for the first time since their meeting.

Amy’s reflective emerald eyes looked up at him, then she laughed.

“What?” He growled.

“Nothing! Sorry.” She laughed, again. “I’m just very emotional right now. Long day and all.” Tears were making their way back into her eyes.

Black Light huffed. “Are all hedgehogs this emotional?”

Amy immediately thought about Shadow. “No. Not all of them.” She mused.

Black Light rolled his eyes in a very childish manner. His ears flicked in slight annoyance as he let out another huff of air. Amy was still giggling to herself. The moon was clearly visible in the night sky now that the trees weren’t surrounding her from all sides. Amy smiled up at it for awhile until she realized that she should probably sleep. It was night after all. However, she was stuck with a beast that seemed to not need sleep and only hard, black earth for a bed. She didn’t even realize that her eyes had fixed upon her stranger with a hesitantly questioning gaze until he barked at her.

“What? Out with it, female.”

Amy blushed and opened her mouth, but the words were lost.

“Well?”

“I-I want to s-sleep.” She finally stated, blushing even more as Black Light raised one eyebrow.

“Sleep?”

“Yeah. I’m guessing you don’t need to sleep then.” She sighed. ‘Not to self. Black Arms do not sleep.’

“Is sleep the same as a rest?” he asked.

“Yeah. I need to sleep every night for a couple of hours to regain my energy.”

“Every night?” His voice was colored in disbelief. “You hedgehogs sure run out of energy quickly if you need rest every night.”

Not knowing what to say, Amy just shrugged.

A silent pause filled the space between them as the stared at each other.

“Well?” Black Light growled. “Go to sleep.”

“I can’t.” Amy growled back.

“Why not?”

“You’re here.” Amy stated bluntly.

Black Light blinked slowly at her before getting up and moving closer to the edge of the meadow, grumbling about needy hedgehogs.

“I won’t leave you completely. I’m still unsure of what to make of you.” Black Light spoke loudly to make sure Amy heard him. “In the morning, you will follow me to my father’s palace. He will deal with you as he sees fit.” He paused as he contemplated something. “It might take a few days journey to reach him, however, since your pathetic lungs are unable to withstand the air pressures of the forest.”

Amy should have been angry. She should have said something equally rude back at him. However, she was really tired now and just wanted to go to sleep and dream about a world that wasn’t here.