Chapter 9:

Stopping the Darkness

A/N: This chapter is not funny… but very dramatic and romantic instead... (I know, it's supposed to be humor and romance, but it's hard to keep things funny! Especially when you've moved the story to a very serious part! I'm still an aspiring author, after all…)

(Sorry for spelling your name wrong, Gryrozx. Your O.C. appears in chapter 11, by the way. Still trying to figure out how to work his personality and the keyboard aspect, so expect a question or two about him later…)

Violet was roughly pushed against a bathroom wall by the rhino and the panther. The hedgehog looked at her coolly, and the pig had a triumphant look on their face. All four of them seemed to have a hint of lust in their eyes.

"Please don't say this is happening!" Violet said fearfully. The pig Gorman laughed.

"Oh, don't worry. You'll probably enjoy this if you don't resist so much." The pig told her. His disgusting hands reached toward her shirt, and there was very little Violet could do to stop them.

The rhino was standing guard at the doorway, and he quickly motioned to his comrades. "Help!" Violet shouted, receiving a rough slap from the panther.

"You're all alone, you freak!" The panther told her. "Besides, I owe pig his due for him telling me how to get out of trouble. I've got to pay my debt back. Though… perhaps I'll have a taste of you myself later… you do look delicious, even if you have those freak eyes…" The panther then quickly pulled her shirt off.

"Help! Help! Help!" Violet shouted over and over again.

"Oh, shoot!" The rhino cried. "Some student is coming!" Violet impossibly hoped the person to be Cinnamon.

"Well, take care of them!" The rhino quickly stepped next to the doorway, and as the student foolishly entered, he grabbed them from behind.

The pig turned around and snickered. Violet gasped as she saw it was Richard, the arctic fox. "Let me go!" He told them. The rhino laughed as he punched the poor fox in the face.

"Aw, you were Violet's partner, no?" The pig said to him. "I saw the way you look at her. Well, let's just say that after today, you'll learn never to go near her again." The pig motioned to the rhino to step back as he made his way near him. He then kicked and pounded the fox with his feet and hands.

Violet could take no more. She closed her eyes…

And when she opened them… the pig, the panther, the hedgehog, and the rhino had all stopped. There was a fist in mid-air about to hit the cowering arctic fox, but it did not move as the seconds ticked away.

Violet looked at the scene in surprise, but quickly grabbed her shirt and put it back on over her bra, and crept slowly toward the exit. She took another look at the scene, and quickly moved Richard out of the room. She was barely able to drag him out with her poor strength, but sheer determination gave her the strength.

There was no sound in the library, no sound uttered from her steps. There was not even a source of light moving. Time had stopped.

She opened the school's doors, and saw that the buses hardly already begun leaving. Suddenly feeling fatigued, she sat down, leaving the arctic fox next to a tree.

She jumped as she heard sounds of buses moving. Children were chattering to each other, and Richard looked around, surprised. From what he last remembered, he was about to be hit in the face! He looked up at Violet, and it seemed as if a miracle had occurred. "What happened?" he asked her. "I was being smashed to a pulp while they were about to… to…" He seemed afraid to finishing the sentence.

"I don't know…" Violet replied honestly. "But I've missed the bus now!" She sighed sadly.

"Well, doesn't your mom work here?" Richard asked her.

"I can't go to her now, now after…"

Richard nodded in understanding. He put his hand over his face, and Violet nearly gasped when see saw how beat up his face was. It looked as if it was painful to see, and there were still traces of blood near his lips. "Goss, I don't know what happened, but I'm glad that we're out of that place." He smiled at Violet. "Ah, to think that we were able to escape quite a scare! I wonder what they're thinking right now…"

Violet looked at him with much concern on her face. Already one of his eyes was swelling. "Come with me!" She said to him. "We need to treat your face before it swells up too much…"

"You're taking me to the nurse or to the hospital?" Richard asked curiously.

"Better." Violet told him with a smile. Wondering what Violet meant by better, he followed the tri-tailed vixen away from the school grounds…

§§§§§§

"They were just in here!" Kauri the panther shouted disbelivingly. "How do they just slip out of our hands like that?"

"Goss!" Gorman groaned in disappointment. "And to think I was a few seconds away from great fun!"

"Something's wrong about this…" Henri put in. "Maybe this was a trap."

"Not unless…" Then Kauri came up with the solution. "Her father! He probably knows about us, or perhaps her uncle!"

"Then we're in huge trouble!" The rhino pointed out. "How do we get out of this?"

The four thought for a moment. "Maybe there isn't enough evidence." Kauri stated. "Perhaps two people's word may not be enough. And besides, I have a good feeling she'll be too afraid to say a word."

"So we do nothing, just wait it out?" Henri asked his girlfriend. Kauri shook her head.

"Oh no, we will strike very soon." Kauri informed her friends. "And that fox cousin of hers will suffer greatly as we give Violet the time of her life."

"Is she really worth all that?" The rhinoceros asked.

Kauri looked at him with a dark glare. "Have we ever failed to take something that we've wanted? Has anyone escaped our will or our wrath? No, Violet may think she's free, but we're not going to let her taint our record."

The rhinoceros shrugged his head in resignation. He favored pounding more than taking pleasure from innocents. It was so amusing to beat up the innocent… "Alright, but I better get a chance to give a pounding to her cousin." The rhinoceros stated.

Kauri smiled at him. "Then let us prepare. We strike Friday afternoon."

§§§§§§

Gears de Robotnik heard every word they uttered, and his robot slowly crept back up into the building, flying back to its master base. Now would be the time to propose his deal, and he would need his robot to make the transaction.

Of course, they would demand a sum, and he would give them a little less than they would ask for, but enough to please them. He didn't care what they did to her, for as long as he could harness her power, or perhaps use Violet for his own goals...

Already plots were raining into Gears' head…

§§§§§§

Cinnamon was not blind to the absence of her second cousin. Genuine concern came to her heart as she arrived home, though she was quite glad that the panther had decided to not ride the bus. Perhaps she had decided to ride with her boyfriend. "Perhaps she literally did ride with her boyfriend…" Cinnamon thought with amusement.

The bus soon stopped, and Cinnamon began walking home.

"Well, she's probably just with her mother…" She looked up, and saw a figure looking at her, and when he noticed her eyes staring at him, he disappeared. Cinnamon thought it was a wolf.

Not really interested in the wolf, Cinnamon let it slip thoughts as her worries for Violet also began to wane on the walk home.

§§§§§§

Richard awed at the place that Violet had taken him. It was a park that was near her own house. The place was filled with trees, beautiful flowers, and a tranquil lake. Violet told him to sit down near the lake as she went to find some herbs for his wounds.

He watched as Violet retreated in the distance before staring at his own reflection in the water. His arm was beaten and red, his face was bruised, his eyes had blue rings around them, and his lips stained with blood. He thought himself quite hideous.

Violet came around with a several flowers and began to press the petals of one, and rubbed it on his arm. She then managed to squeeze the nectar out of another flower and began to clean the stains on his face. He already felt better, but it was simply from the touch of her gentle hands.

"I can't do much about your eyes," She said to him sadly. Richard looked at his reflection, and saw his lips almost look completely normal. He looked at her with amazement, and she blushed.

"How did you do that?" He asked her.

"My mother taught me." She informed him. "That's why she loves Biology, because it is one of the few fields of science that holds secrets of healing."

She smiled at him. Richard looked at her eyes, and saw the beauty of stars in them. Nothing was grander than her eyes, nothing, but her soul, which was made of pure innocence. "I think I love her…" Richard thought to himself. "Or maybe I'm just caught in the moment."

"Well, I'm going to fly home now, before my dad and mom get home and get worried." Violet stated to him. She began to start spinning her tails wildly fast, but Richard wanted her to stay with him by this lake. Yet he could not utter the words, and she flew away in the distance.

He looked back into the water, and though he didn't look as wounded, he thought himself even more hideous…

A/N: Ah, poor Richard swallowed one too many butterflies and can't speak now…

Personally, I didn't like the beginning of the chapter, mostly because it moves away from the humor, though I did state in the Prologue it was Romance/Humor/Drama… (I also hate the pig, even if he's only slightly based off a real person…)

Tell me what you think, eh?