A/N: Updated this chappie from preview, to finalised version. Also, this is a spinoff of my 'Adventures' series, so this includes Scarlett – she's a little different, but still the same ol' Italian we all know and love ;)
Okay. So this should be explained that the reason this is named 'Mobius' is because this is the first time Scarlett has visited Mobius, period. She does live on Mobius, but she wasn't born on Mobius, she was born on Earth like Shadow, Gerald, and Maria. This is one of the few adventures she has when she has amnesia shortly after living with Chris (Thornedyke), but she's only staying with the Team for a short time – er. I'll explain in the story ^^;
~Andi Rose
Mobius
By: The Andromeda Rose
Chapter 1: The Human
Autumn. A quiet, dark forest, a loud, screech, and several distressed hoots of an owl broke the silence, startling the hiker in the lonesome woods. The hiker peered around her to examine the surrounding forest. Pausing in her footsteps, the soothing sounds of nature seemed to grow harsher when the sound of crunching leaves stopped.
A grimace crossed the girl's lips in relief when the owl stopped hooting for a few moments, "Why did you stop?" she whispered to the owl, its glowing yellow eyes made a shiver run down her spine, "I was rather enjoying that." she spat sarcastically as she turned to her left when she heard the sound of a chipmunk running by, then the owl suddenly swooped overhead in the same direction of the rodent.
Curious now about this predicament, the lass ran in the direction from which they came, hoping no danger was to follow.
Her eyes lay upon forest animals ducking and hiding as they ran by, paying no attention to the girl, "That's some odd behaviour." she noted, studying one of the animals in the trees ahead of her which appeared to be observing something before it, too, took off for what seemed to be safety, What's going on up there? Is there a fire? she feared the latter may be, or perhaps a deadly predator to both man and animal alarmed her.
Stumbling down a steep drop-off, the hiker hit rocky ground with a disturbingly loud crack followed by a thud. A searing pain jolted throughout her leg and body as she lay in the dirt as blood from the gashes and scrapes began to stain her pale skin.
She glanced down to see what damage had been done only to find her leg had broken during the steep fall, leaving part of the bone exposed. She clenched her eyes and jaw together to suppress a gasp of agony when she touched her leg, then lower stomach when the movement caused a distinctly familiar pain she experienced periodically, "Why now?! First my leg – now this?" she felt a trickle down her forehead and limbs. She looked about as trees, bushes, and the drop-off she tripped over became more indiscernible. Weakness came over her, but faded momentarily when an adrenaline rush strengthened her to help force herself to lift her upper body up as an approaching sound caught her attention. She lay back down when she saw that it was a deer that rushed off into a similar direction the other animals had taken.
Leaning her head against a fallen branch, she continued to observe her surroundings: she now saw that there was, indeed, a fire about two miles from her location. She close her eyes, listening to the sounds of scared creatures about her, cursing herself for not bringing a cell phone with her. When she opened her eyes, she spotted a childlike figure a less than quarter mile away heading toward her direction, "Aiuto!"
Upon hearing her, the white figure changed his direction and traversed the area with ease, which she thought odd, but she assumed he knew the area well. What was happening? Who was this person?
Once they were close enough to see each other, he rushed up to her, shouting something, "Scarlett!" he dropped to his knees, immediately checking her over, then tried to pick her up in some sort of cyan glow.
Startled by this, she pushed away from him, not recognising the white hedgehog, "Who are you?!"
He didn't respond. Golden eyes only stared intensely into the distance in the direction of the danger until their gaze drifted down to the girl he just picked up, seeming to note to himself that she was generally doing fairly well overall despite the deep gashes which caused a fair amount of blood loss and would later need stitching, not to mention her broken leg which would need professional medical care.
Reflexes began reacting as she shrunk back in pain, reluctantly allowing him to carry her to safety. She forced herself to lean against his warm, furry body to keep herself warm from the shock her own body was experiencing.
Wait…Fur? closing her eyes, she ignored the fact that he had fur, and instead tried concentrating on something other than the growing pain.
It bothered her that he reminded her of someone, but couldn't figure out whom.
The two travelled for a good half an hour, until the ivory one, presumably male, finally stopped in the middle of the forest, which was calm compared to the area they were in a while ago.
It had begun snowing by this time, making the crisp, cold Autumn air even colder, and more frigid. He wandered about the area for a short time, searching for something.
He finally approached a little hill, and laid the Italian girl in the dip of a tree trunk, then turned away to go somewhere. Panicking, she called to him. She faded in and out of consciousness, "Wait! Don't leave me!"
He paused, noticing her panic, and turned back to kneel beside her. He grasped her hand, squeezing it firmly in reassurance, "Don't worry, sweetie, I'll be back in a few minutes."
She pulled away from his grasp, backed away from him in fear and pain, and biting back sobs. Should she still trust him? Certainly, she didn't want to be alone in this forest, but she didn't and did want him near her.
"Hey…shhhhh…it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. If it makes you feel better, I'll stay with you a little while longer before I go to look for the others. Okay?" he reached toward her to brush her hair messy, yet curly, blonde hair out of her face.
She watched him watch her. She shivered violently in the cold Autumn breeze, resisting the urge to cry, Why is he helping me? What does he want?
He gazed at the young Italian woman, watching her worriedly when she faded for a few minutes. He crawled nearer and opened a messenger bag he had slung over his shoulder, and pulled out an old shirt which he tore into strips. He went over to a nearby puddle and dipped one of the cloths into it. When he returned, he attempted to lay the wet cloth over her forehead, but the teenager flinched when he reached toward her with it.
"You're bleeding." he stated simply, "We need to stop that before you lose too much blood." he laid the cloth over her hot forehead, then took it off to show me a blood stain branching out over the cloth. Her eyes widened, suddenly feeling very light headed, even more so than the previous times she had felt this way. She stared for a few moments at the blood-stained cloth before tearing her gaze away from it. Shortly after, she closed her eyes tightly, and fainted from the blood loss.
"Hey, you okay?" the white creature shook her body, only to find it limp as he failed to wake her up. He stopped after a few attempts to wake her back up, and glanced about him, I ought to get her back to the others as soon as I bandage her wound – and I need to find the others quickly!
The snowy hedgehog ran away in search of his travelling party, glancing up to ensure he was heading east to their camp. He ran for an hour until he descended a hill piled up with a snow drift at the bottom. He stumbled forward, rolling down the side of the hill, snow crunching all about him until he stopped in an incredibly deep ditch. before he sank too deep into the snow drift. The snow about him glowed cyan as he was lifted up into the air. Nothing surrounded him or even appeared to be holding him in place in the cold, crisp air. His entire body was engulfed in the cyan glow as he floated up and out of the ditch of snow he fell in landing softly in a patch of snow a few inches deep. He wandered about the area, trying to get his bearings after being spun about countless times, "I'd better be more careful. I can't be injured now!"
Instinctively, he reached down for his messenger bag, but it wasn't there, "Where'd it go?" he shivered, "I need my jacket! – it's too cold without it!" he frantically began searching for his jacket as he remembered the girl and how he forgot to place a blanket around her, "I need to hurry!"
The violet cat gasped at the sight, "You didn't tell us she was a human!"
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does. You-you helped a human! We shouldn't associate with them!" she pushed him back, whispering harshly, "We're at war with those humans! They're taking over and have no respect for sapients."
"No!" he spat back in anger, "Human or not, I couldn't just leave her out there to die! I would have been responsible for her death if I just left her there – I can't just sit back and watch another living creature die like that."
"You and your compassionate side is going to get you in deep trouble someday, Silver!" the violet cat turned away from him abruptly, "You should have just left her out there to die!" she spat bitterly.
"Blaze, Silver's right." the ebony hedgehog leaned against the far wall, "There are some good humans out there." he closed his eyes, remembering some bad memories of abuse from the humans, "Despite being treated like I was, I respect the ones who rescued me and treated me with kindness."
"He's choosing her over us. Doesn't that bother you?"
"NO! Just because you had a bad experience doesn't mean that all humans are bad." Silver turned away from the cat, walking in the opposite direction back to the girl, "There's good and evil in everyone, Blaze. Sapient and human."
"That-that's Scarlett!" Shadow ran up to the girl, brushing dirty, blonde hair out of the way to reveal her face, to ensure that it was, in fact, Scarlatto Rosa Macioci, his life-long friend and companion, "How–? Where–? Is she okay?"
The ivory hedgehog, Silver, turned back to the girl, lifting her unconscious body into his arms, carrying her to his pack horse and slung her over the front of the saddle, then proceeded to climb behind her and held her upright in one arm, "If you won't help her, then I guess I'm the only one who can."
"I'm going with you, Silver." the ebony and crimson hedgehog mounted his horse and grabbed the lead of another horse to his left, "There is no way you can survive in this blizzard and care for that girl at night."
At this, both the white, and the black, hedgehogs spurred their horses, abandoning their group.
Several hours later, nightfall came...
"I can't believe them." Shadow's ageing eyes looked straight ahead at the wall of snow blowing before them, "Every Mobian and Sapient has lost their trust in the humans because of a goddamned misunderstanding!"
"They were in slavery to evil and brutal humans and now they think every human is like that, because that's all we've ever encountered since the war."
"They don't even trust Scarlett anymore!" Shadow halted his horse and opened one of the saddle bags to find a flashlight, meanwhile, grumbling and cursing unintelligibly.
"Here." Silver tossed him a blanket he had been carrying in his lap, and dropped off his horse, "Spread that by a tree or somewhere where there's hardly any snow. We need to take Scarlett off the horse and put up a lean-to for the night."
"It's not wise considering we're close to a G.U.N. base and if they find us–"
"We need to stop to check on her leg." he retorted, turning to lift the girl of the horse with his telekinesis and lay her in front of Shadow.
"About that..." he ran his fingers down the bandaging over the girl's leg, ensuring everything was still set and taut, "What kind of Mobian will actually do that considering her species?" he motioned back to the human lass laying before him.
"Either we take her to the G.U.N. base" he glanced to the north where the base lie, "or we can try to disguise her and take her to a Mobian doctor?"
"I vote for the military." he cocked his gun, "We get her in, get her out."
"Or we can wait until she wakes up and knows it's us so she doesn't freak and run away."
"Run?" he half-heartedly laughed, but his tone turned serious almost immediately after, "I think she can barely do that in her condition."
"She was pretty scared earlier. She acted as though she didn't even know me, more or less trust me."
"It's a chance we'll have to take." he lifted Scarlett into his arms, "Let's go. She's already lost a lot of blood and we can't waste any more time or the damage could become permanent."
A/N: Okay. This chapter originally was RAW to give you guys a preview of it before I finalised it – which is what I've been doing with most of my stories recently: posting raw chappies, then updating with the finalised version within the next week or so...
So here's some of the stuff I updated in this chapter and summary:
-Fixed broken dialogue leaving out important information. There's a bit of information I didn't add in when I was rushed...my bad! This story was originally just a few paragraphs' worth of summaries. Even I didn't know what was going on in the summary of this story on FF.
-Gave 'the girl' a name. When I first wrote the plot to this story, I had no name for her. I didn't know who she was, all I knew is she was injured, Silver finds, cares for her, and they slowly become friends. Now I've made her a version of Scarlett, my character which many of you remember from my 'Adventures' series. I know, I know.. she's a blonde in this one, and not her normal fiery red hair -_- No worries, it's only hair colour! She's still the same ol' fiery tempered Italian we all know from TASH&MB 1 and 2 as well as the spinoff stories ;)
~Andi Rose