Jayde the Hedgehog • Rising Adversity [2]

12: Guilty✔️

Music: Apollo - Malik Bash

With the Moebians

Jaylee walked through the halls of Acorn Castle, throwing up a tennis ball. She thought back to her Mobian lookalike – how did she meet the Sonic gang? She could only guess it was better than her meeting with Scourge. She stumbled on his castle when she was running from home. She was malnourished and weak, and fainted before she could respond to the green hedgehog's yelling. When she woke up, she was on a table in a lab – which didn't help the state she was in. That's when she first met Miles. He told her that she was healing from her injuries, and that they weren't doing any kind of experimentation on her.

It took a while for Scourge to let Jaylee into his team. At this time, the Suppression Squad and Fiona were all still together. Her and Fiona became good friends, and she helped Jaylee train to the highest standard.

And then it was the final test.

Scourge never said it was a test, but Jaylee believed it was. It all happened after she told him why she was running. That was the reason most of the team left. They believed that Scourge was forcing Jaylee to turn evil. She didn't try and stop them, and it was like her and Fiona's friendship came crashing to a halt, Jaylee almost becoming emotionless.

But she still remembered the flames.

Jaylee shook her head from the memories and turned into the throne room, watching as the king paced the floor, glaring at every tile like it was his lookalike, "Hey, Shades." Jaylee didn't know whether he heard her or not, but the male blatantly ignored the female.

"Scourge." She walked up to him and punched his arm. The male glared at her, but she showed no response of fear. Maybe that's why Scourge took an interest in her - she never once feared him, "Why are you just pacing around the room like an idiot?" she crossed her arms and smirked, "You're not worried about the Mobians, are you?"

"Of course not!" he snapped, "I'm just trying to come up with a plan to end their pathetic lives."

Jaylee hummed and walked up to the throne before slumping on it, "You know, a couple of those Mobians are pretty powerful – my lookalike has inhibitor rings like mine."

Scourge stopped, "What's your point? You don't even know what your inhibitor rings are for!"

The grey female twisted the rings around her wrists, looking at the shiny red band around the middle – that was the only different between them, "But she is full of untapped potential. It's clear that Jayde has only recently joined that team. In reality, he's still undecided on whether she's good or bad."

Scourge smirked at the grey hedgehog. He knew what she was doing because he had tried the same thing with the blue blur, and him vice versa – they would've been unstoppable, "You have a plan, I assume?"

"Just keep the others distracted," Jaylee smirked, "All it takes is a bit of... encouragement."

With the Mobians

The next morning, everything was silent.

No one even dared speak a word.

The five Mobians were wondering aimlessly around the Moebian forest, not knowing where they were or what they were doing. But the thing that Sonic, Amy and Tails knew was that Shadow and Jayde weren't going to talk to each other anytime soon.

The grey hedgehog had a guilty look on her muzzle and glanced over at the ebony male every so often. But Shadow never even turned his head in her direction. His crimson orbs stared straight ahead, and his posture was strong as he strode forwards. Sonic had attempted to talk to him a while back, which ended up with him pummelled into the closest tree – now he was pouting next to the rose female.

The twin tailed fox didn't even want to talk. The situation was so awkward, he'd probably end up saying something he shouldn't. Instead, he occupied himself by fiddling with his communicator, trying to get a better connection with the two back on Space Colony ARK. Rouge and Knuckles had been made aware of the situation, and even they had nothing to say about it and the conversation was quickly dropped.

Jayde knew she was in the wrong – there was no one to blame but herself. Even if she was upset and angry with herself at the time, she still should've been more considerate of Shadow – he had been through worse as well.

The silence was broke when the Acorn Castle of Scourge's dimension came into view and the familiar Moebians came into view. Scourge smirked, "Ready for round two?"