If you have read The Many Shades Of Cream, then you would know somewhere along in those many authors notes, I said that I planned on writing a Sonic/Hunger Games crossover! Well, I never lie, so yeah! Hope you enjoy! P.S The storyline has been slightly altered so don't get mad! Nothing major, just minor stuff. Hehe!

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic or The Hunger Games!

The Blood Of A Rose

Chapter 1: The Tributes

"Huh? Cream?" I say groggily as I lift my head from my lumpy pillow. When I didn't feel her soft fur against my own rough bristles, I became worried, but then I remembered that she must have climbed in with mum because today was the day of reaping.

I cross my legs and sit up. From what I can see in the dim light, there is the familiar face of my younger sister, just barely visible above the dirty sheets, cuddled up against mum. Mum looks almost peaceful compared to her somewhat looks of anxiety and fright.

Cream looks as beautiful as ever, her Cream coloured fur glows brightly under the dim candlelight, she looks so serene, it almost makes my heart melt. Held in the security of her arms, was a small blue Chao. Cheese she calls him, chaos are very rare to find in district 12 in Mobius, and they are also another mouth to feed.

It's not that I myself wasn't found of the chao when Cream bought him home, it's just that we I was barely able to get food for the table every night for our broken family, let alone have to feed a pet too!

I don't think Cheese like's me very much, I think he still remembers when I tried to drown him, but you couldn't blame me really, in all honesty I was doing him a favour. I thought that he wasn't going to last the night and I didn't want Cream to get too attached to the scrawny Chao if he somehow managed to pull through the night.

I hop off my bed and slip myself into my hunting gear. Pulling my, big, brown, boots on, I tie my long pink quills back into a long braid. On the kitchen table, I spot a small slice of goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves, Cream gives me some every reapers day, I think she thinks of it as a sign of good luck, I just think of it as a snack to keep me going but that does not cancel out the fact that I am eternally grateful, not only for the goat cheese but for her.

I slide the cheese into my pocket as I step outside.

I take a deep breathe of fresh air as I walk down the rocky path leading away from our small house. I only have to pass a few gates to reach a scruffy field called the Meadow. A large fence with barbered wire separates the Meadow from the forest, in fact, the fence is where district 12 ends.

The barbered wire is meant to have electrified volts running through it all day, but we're lucky to even get electricity for 3 hours at night so it's safe to touch. Just in case, I always listen out for the hum of the electricity, as per usual, it's as silent as the night.

Finding one of the weak spots in the fence that is concealed by a clump of bushes, I easily slide under and enter the woods. When I get to the trees, I retrieve my bow and a sheath of arrows from inside a hollow log.

I know that trespassing in the woods is illegal but a gals gotta eat! Besides, I bet lots of other people would risk it if they had the weapons for it. My bow was crafted for me by my father, he could have made a lot of money off of them but if the officials ever found, he would have been persecuted for it.

I begin to quicken my pace as I climb the hill because I spotted the one I have been looking for, Knuckles. The sight of him waiting for me brings up a rare smile. Knuckles says he only I ever use to see me smile back in the day, the good days, he would always add.

"Hey Ames" Says Knuckles, I hardly ever hear that nickname get used on me, except from Knuckles, most people address me as Amy if they so choose to speak to me.

"Look what I got" Knuckles says, holding up a loaf of bread that had an oddly shape mark indented into it, a mark that resembled Knuckles hard fists, earning a rare laugh from me. It's actually proper bread, not the flat, dense kind we earn from our grain rations.

I take it from him and intake the sweet, luxurious at that, smell.

"Still warm" I muse "How much did it cost you?" I ask, turning to face him.

"Just a couple of fish, he must have been feeling sorry for me, I can even faintly remember him wishing me good luck" Knuckles says with a casual shrug.

"Well you know what day it is Knuckles" I remind him before reaching into my pocket and bringing out the cheesy smelling product "Cream left us some Cheese"

"Well thank you very much Cream, we shall be having a great feast" Knuckles said with a posh accent pulling a sour face before adding "I almost forget! Happy Hunger Games!"

"And may the odds be ever in your favour" I finish, taking a generous bite out of the piece of bread.

It's funny, I only just realised, Knuckles could be like my brother. His quills, like mine, don't stick out, instead they lay flat on his red head. He is also a similar colour to me, his red fur greatly corresponds with my own pink, not to mention more girly, quills.

That's why my I always tend to look out of place compared to my family. I know full well that I was adopted by the friendly rabbit parents at a tender young age before Cream was even born. We are not of the same species so I didn't know why I never figured out as a child that they were not my real parents, it's simple really, and quite obvious too, I'm a hedgehog, they are rabbits, I'm quite surprised I didn't put two and two together Although, Knuckles kept saying I was quite dopey as a child but I never took any notice of him, I still don't actually.

Knuckles takes the loaf away from me and begins to slice up the bread. Spreading a generous coat of goat cheese on top and handing a couple of slices to me while I grab some berries from the bush. Even though no one can see us, we have a clear view of the valley in front of us. The weather today is absolutely beautiful, with the hot sun and a gentle, yet cool, breeze. The food tastes glorious in my mouth, and I suppress the urge to moan as the flavour of the berries explode in my mouth and as the hot cheese melts on my tongue.

"We could do it, ya know" Knuckles states quietly.

"Do what?" I say, mouth full of delicious food.

"Leave the district, you and I, we could make it" Knuckles says flatly.

I consider the idea for a moment then I shake my head.

"You know we can't, I have Cream to look after" I respond.

Knuckles grunts in reply.

"I doubt we will ever be able to find the Master Emerald Knuckles" I state as calmly as I can.

"How do you know?" he spits harshly.

Knuckles wasn't intentionally being mean, but he is a bit of a hot head when it comes to matters like this. He has always been like this, it's just in his nature, as the guardian of the (missing) Master Emerald, he was just too stubborn I guess.

"You know they took it ages ago, they are either using it to harness it's power or it has been destroyed" I state.

By them, I mean the people from the Capitol, when we got involved in the rebellion and we all lost, they took the master emerald away because they thought it would be too much power for our district and that we would probably use it to rebel again. Me and the others were not originally involved in all this rebelling stuff but back when we were so naïve and hopeful we decided to help them out, and it was the worst decision we ever made.

"I'm not in the mood to talk about it, let's go hunt some fish" Knuckles grumbles, standing up and making his way to the small lake.

I roll my eyes at him, but I oblige, anything to get him out of his strop.

…

Once we are done fishing, we drop by the market to sell our many fish. When we finished, we decide to drop by the mayors house so we can sell him a few of our strawberries. He is quite fond of the taste of strawberries and he usually pays a fair amount for them. The mayors daughter, Sally, opens the door. Before I even met her but knew about her, I expected her to be a snobby kind of person but after talking to her on a couple of occasions, I declared that she was an alright squirrel, although we rarely talk, which suits us both just peachy.

Her usual waistcoat and boots have been replaced by an, what looks to be quite expensive, white dress, her brown hair is just left in it's usual messy style though.

"Nice dress" Knuckles comments.

Sally's eyes trace other his face, trying to look for a hint of a smile to see if he was being sarcastic or not. After deep thought, her lips pursed and she gave him a small smile.

"What if I end up chosen? I want to look good don't I?"

Knuckles looks at her in confusion, was she being serious? Or was she just messing about? I think the second one probably rings true, but you never know.

"I highly doubt you'll be going" he replies coolly. His eyes trace over a small gold pin that is pinned at the front of her magnificent white dress. Huh. It's actually real gold! Beautifully crafted and probably worth a fortune, if it was mine, I would sell it in a flash.

"You probably have, what about 2 entries? I had about 4 entries when I first got stuck in this dump!" He begins to become angry.

"That's not her fault" I say, trying to cut the tension building up between the two.

Sally seems to be slightly bored now. She puts the money for the berries in my hand and says "Good luck Amy"

"You too Sally" I say before the door is closed on us.

I was a bit annoyed at Knuckles for taking it out on Sally like that. But he was right, the reaping system is unfair, the poor always gets the worst of it. You become eligible for reaping when you are twelve and since I got here when I was twelve, I was entered straight away, along with Knuckles, who was give or take 14 at the time, maybe 15, I don't know. The year you do turn twelve, your name is entered once, then twice at thirteen and so on, until you reach 18, the final year of eligibility.

But then there's a catch, say if, I don't know, you were poor or starving or maybe both. You can opt to add your name more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tesserae is worth a meagre year's supply for grain and oil for one person, you can do it for each family member as well. So when I was first entered, at the age of twelve, I had my name entered four times.

Every year I have to do this just so that I can keep my family alive, so now that I am sixteen, my name will be entered about twenty times.

So now you can see why someone like Sally, can set Knuckles off. She has never been at risk of having to enter her name more than once each year, because of her wealth and such. Her chances of being drawn are very small compared to all of the other ones trying to survive poverty, like me, of getting picked out of the thousands of names.

I look over to the in rage Knuckles as we walk, his rants seem pointless to me, although I never say so, because I know that, even though I do agree with everything he is saying, the problem of the matter is no one will listen to reason, especially not the obnoxious, not to mention completely and utterly stupid, Capitol.

"See you in the square" I say as we arrive back.

"Wear something pretty" Knuckles mumbles, with little emotion in his deep voice.

As I arrive home, my mum and Cream are already ready. My mum wears a fine dress from her apothecary days and Cream is in my first reaping day outfit, a peach coloured skirt with a ruffled blouse. It's a bit big for her due to her dainty size but mum made it stay in with pins, although, it did have the tendency to un-tuck itself at the back.

I sit down in the tub filled with warm water and I begin to scrub off the dirt and sweat from the woods and I even wash my quills. To my genuine surprise, mum has laid out one of her own beautiful dresses for me. A soft silky dress with matching shoe's, if this was a couple of years back I would have squealed over it's elegancy and beauty but my tom boy side had gotten the better of me ever since arriving at the district due to the fact that I had to toughen up and stop whining like a baby so that I could take over taking care of my family when my father died.

"Are you sure?" I ask, I don't want to sound rude and reject her offers of kindness. And this was something special, her clothes from her past life are very precious to her.

"Of Course dear, lets put your hair up too" she replies in her light voice, braiding my hair so that it cascades down my back, unlike how I do it, which is usually rushed and messy. When I look in the mirror, I don't even see myself, I see past Amy, a young naïve twelve year old who liked to dress up in pretty dresses. I glare at my reflection.

"You look so beautiful" Cream says, hardly above a whisper, interrupting me from my thoughts.

I turn back around and hug Cream, these next few hours are going to fright the heck out of her, it's her first reaping and all…But I know without a doubt she's pretty much as safe as safe can really be.

As I let go of her, I notice the blouse has un-tucked from her skirt in the back again and I force a smile "Tuck on your tail little duck" I say, placing the blouse back in place and smoothing it over.

Cream lets out a cute childish giggle and adds a "Quack"

"Come on lets eat" I say to her, planting a small soft kiss on her furry head.

…

When the clock strikes one, we head for the square. You absolutely have to go unless you're dead or something like that. This evening, like the many other evenings prior to this "special" event, officials will check to see of you have left to go to the reaping, if not, it would be straight away persecution.

The square is usually a pleasant place to walk through, but not today though, even though there is bright banners hung on the surrounding buildings, I can't help but always notice an air of grimness, the camera crew perched on roof tops, only add to the effect.

People file in and begin to sign in. Twelve to eighteen-year-olds are all herded into a small area, separated by ropes and marked off by their ages. The older ones at the front, and the younger ones at the back like Cream.

I vaguely remember one time where Knuckles and I agreed if we had to choose between dying of hunger or getting attacked by chaos control, the chaos control would have been much quicker.

Someone bumps into my shoulder as the space gets tighter, the square maybe fairly large but not big enough to hold a population of more than 8 thousand, if anyone is late, they are told to go to the streets where they can watch it live because it is televised.

I share quick nods with the other sixteen year olds standing around me before we all turn to face the stage. It contains three chairs, a podium and two glass balls, filled with names of boys in one and girls in the other.

I stare at the glass ball that contains the girls names, Amy Rose is written carefully on twenty of them.

The Mayor, Maximillian Acorn, sits on one of the three seats, and Tikal Echidna sits on another seat. With her cheery grin, bright orange fur and spring green suit, she terrifies the life out of Cream and I'm normally the one who has to stay up with her in case of nightmares about the echidna.

The Mayor steps up to the podium and begins to red. It's the same old boring speech every year. It's all about the history of Mobius and when we became district 12, it's a load of all rubbish to be honest.

There is just one simple rule in the Hunger Games "Kill or be killed", each district must provide one boy and one girl as tributes to take part in the hunger games. The twenty four tributes are then in a vast outdoor arena that could vary, anything for a scorching hot desert to a frozen waste land, other the next couple of weeks, the tributes fight to the death and the last one standing wins.

The Capitol use it as a reminder that they are the superior people and the worst of it is they expect us to treat it like some sort of celebration or festival, which it is not, quite the opposite actually. The prize is the district, that the winner comes from, is awarded each year every year a years supply of things like food, while the rest of us try to win the battle of starvation.

We have only ever had two winners from our district in the past four years, only one is still alive. Nack The Weasel. The same Nack that hunted the chaos emeralds and was never exactly a "friend" of ours, more like an enemy. He staggers on stage, obviously drunk, and drops down into his seat.

The Mayor pulls a face, he knows full well like the rest of us that this is being televised so right now, Mobius is the laughing stock of the all the districts, he quickly tries to pull the attention away from the drunk weasel and he quickly introduces Tikal, who is more that happy to get away from Nack so that she can pick out the tributes.

"Happy Hunger Games!" she announces happily "And may the odds be ever in your favour!" She then begins to go on and on what an honour it is to be here. I yawn quietly out of boredom and wanting this anxiety to be over.

Through the crowd, I spot Knuckles who seems just as bored and anxious as I do. He gives me a slight smile, as far as reaping goes, because he is eighteen, this is his last one and if this was me, I would be overly happy by that fact after the tribute were announced and it WASN'T me.

I begin to worry about Knuckles, the amount of times he has entered his name for tesserae never ceases to worry me. The odds were certainly not in his favour and I the horrible butterflies in my stomach were not at all reassuring.

There are still thousands of slips though I reassure myself and I wish I could tell Knuckles the same, who by now had already turned back round to listen to the announcing of the tributes.

"Ladies first I think!" Tikal said in her overly bubbly attitude which made me feel sick. She then crosses over to the glass ball on the left to pick out the girls names. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball and pulls out a small slip of paper. The crowd all draw in a intake of breath as Tikal unfolds the piece of paper.

Don't be me, don't be me, don't be me! I pray in my head as Tikal reads the name out clearly in a perky voice.

And it's not me.

It's Cream The Rabbit.

Sorry if it sounded too familiar to the book! Anyway, this will not be continued until I have finished my other fic the Many Shades Of Cream and I just wanted to give you all a lil sneak peak! Should I continue? Please tell me what you think through you reviews!

Love ya!

Mwah!