A/N: Warning – this fic is very dark. Shadow is not a very nice person in this story. Expect violence, including sexual violence. If these things are uncomfortable for you, you should probably stop reading now.
Chapter One
Stolen
It was night in the Sol Dimension. Blaze should have been asleep, but even though she was in her palace quarters, with the finest silk pillowcases and bedsheets money could buy, sleep wouldn't come. After spending what felt like hours tossing and turning in bed, eventually she decided she may as well get up. She draped a silk robe over her nightdress and went over to the balcony adjoining the bedroom.
Her royal bodyguard, a raccoon named Chief, heard her stir and rapped on the bedroom door.
"Is everything alright, my princess?" he called from outside.
"Everything's fine," Blaze responded wearily. "I cannot sleep is all."
"Shall I have the servants fetch you some chamomile tea, my princess?"
"Thank you, but that won't be necessary."
"Very well, princess."
Blaze let herself out onto the balcony. She felt herself relax slightly as the cool night air, carrying the salty tang of the nearby sea, ruffled her fur.
It was difficult to sleep when there was so much for her to be worrying about as Princess of the Sol Dimension. Serving her people and protecting the Sol Emeralds was hard enough, but lately she had heard disturbing reports from the Chaos Dimension, where her friend Sonic lived. Apparently a black hedgehog calling himself King Shadow had taken over, killing the government in the process. If the reports were to be believed, he was cruel and ambitious, and ruled over the dimension with an iron fist. Blaze shivered – she feared for her friend Sonic, and for her own kingdom.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a disturbance in the nearby harbour. There was shouting – she narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the cause of the disturbance in the darkness.
Then suddenly there was an explosion. It was green.
The Chaos Emeralds, Blaze realised.
Before Blaze could react, Chief had barged into her quarters.
"My princess, it is King Shadow," he breathed. "We are under attack."
Blaze rapidly tried to calm her quaking nerves. She was afraid, but she was the princess, and her people needed her.
"Thank you, Chief," she said, forcing her voice to sound calm. "Please escort the palace servants to safety. I will seek out King Shadow and use my fire to cut off the attack."
"But my princess, I need to make sure you are escorted to safety. You are the heir to the Sol Kingdom – if anything happened to you…"
"I will be fine, Chief," Blaze said sharply. "Go now, please."
Chief nodded and scurried away.
Blaze took a deep breath and wrapped her silk robe more tightly around herself. She was only in a nightdress, but there was no time to change. Against all instincts telling her to run, Blaze forced herself to go in the direction of the danger. She ran down the staircase towards the entrance to the palace, where she could hear the sounds of fighting.
She turned the corner – and found that her palace was swarming with enemy soldiers. She noticed that most of them seemed to be echidnas, like her old friend Knuckles. All of them were draped in black clothes bearing a strange red emblem.
Her royal guard were desperately trying to fend off the attackers, but Blaze could tell they were losing this fight. It seemed like there were hundreds of them against the eighty or so household guards stationed in the palace – and worse, they were strong. Blaze watched as one of the echidnas shattered a royal guard's shield with a single punch from his spiked fist.
"Stop," Blaze ordered, trying to raise her voice above the din. "Take me to your leader or have him show himself, if he is brave enough. I do not know why you are here but whatever it is, let us resolve it without violence!"
The echidnas ignored her. Her palace servants – not the fighting men but the cooks, the maids, the housekeepers – screamed and scattered as a group of the attackers fell upon them. Blaze watched in horror as one of the echidnas plunged a dagger through a young maid's chest – she screamed and crumpled to the ground, blood soaking her shirt.
They had killed her. Blaze's eyes hardened. It was time to use her flames.
Furious, she launched a fireball in the group's direction. It caught them off guard – the echidnas roared as the force of the fireball sent them flying across the palace hall. She summoned a fiery cyclone that swirled around her like a cloak and pushed through the mob of attackers; they fell away, hissing as her flames singed their fur.
Chief reappeared by her side, breathing heavily.
"You are fighting most valiantly, my princess, but we are grievously outnumbered," he huffed. "I fear they are after the Sol Emeralds. You should go now, before the emeralds fall into their hands – we may be able to hold them off until then."
The Sol Emeralds, Blaze remembered in alarm. She had been so concerned with protecting her palace staff that she had forgotten about the emeralds she was sworn to protect. They were her dimension's equivalent to the Chaos Emeralds: seven jewels that held immense power. If King Shadow got hold of them, she didn't know if she would be able to stop him.
Blaze darted away from the battle, down a corridor towards the treasury where the Sol Emeralds where kept. She thought she had managed to slip away unseen, until she heard an enraged shout from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. She was being pursued by an echidna, dressed in the same black garb as all the others.
She hurried towards the treasury, willing her flames to help her run faster. But she was not fast enough and before she could react, the echidna was upon her.
He tackled her to the ground, straddling her so she could not move. She struggled against him.
"Let me go," she hissed.
She began to summon her flames – but before she could attack the echidna punched her with such force that her head smashed savagely against the tiled palace floor. Blood welled from a cut in the back of her head and soaked her fur. Her vision swam.
She was dazed but not defeated. "I will never let you get your hands on the Sol Emeralds," she choked.
To her surprise, the echidna threw back his head in a cruel laugh. "You think it's the Sol Emeralds I want, princess?"
She looked up at him, confused.
The echidna bent over her until his lips were brushing her ear. When he spoke, his voice was almost gleeful. "Do you know what happens to pretty little kittens like you during an invasion, princess?"
Blaze froze. Before she had been filled with fury. Now a sinister feeling of dread washed over her. She did not quite know what the echidna meant – she only felt certain that he was going to hurt her.
She heard the hiss of fabric tearing as the echidna ripped open her silk robe. She tried to summon her flames, but the echidna grabbed both her arms and pinned them over her head. When she tried to wriggle away, the echidna only moaned and rocked his crotch against her. He was looking at her with a dark expression she had never seen before, but which frightened her to her core.
"Help me," she begged. "Chief! Help me, please!"
Suddenly the weight was lifted off her.
Blaze scrambled onto her side. "Chief?"
It was not Chief. Holding the echidna against the wall, hands wrapped round his neck, was a familiar hedgehog.
Sonic? Blaze thought hopefully. But no, it was not Sonic – it was dark but in the moonlight she could see that this hedgehog's fur was black, not blue. Yet it wasn't the hedgehog's fur that gaze it away – it was his gaze. He was looking at the echidna with so much hate and fury that it sent a chill down Blaze's spine.
He was looking at the echidna like he wanted to kill him.
Her vision swam again – she suspected she was concussed – so she heard, rather than saw, the black hedgehog choking the echidna to death. The sounds of the battle seemed far away, as if she were hearing it from underwater. She tried desperately to focus but she could feel herself drifting in and out of consciousness. A wave of nausea rushed over her.
She was vaguely aware of being scooped into the black hedgehog's arms. A small voice in the back of her mind questioned it – who was he, and why was he helping her? – but she felt too weak and dazed to listen. She could feel his chest fur tickling her nose.
She heard Chief's voice, but it was far away: "Princess – I'm sorry – the Sol Kingdom has fallen…"
Then last thing she heard was another voice, but it was loud and deep and clear.
"Chaos control."