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Sitting in his first period class, Scourge was pretending to listen to Eggman babble on and on about all the rules of his class-- no chewing gum, no taking parts (while staring at Tails), no asking for more than ten questions worked (he obviously didn't want anything like what happened in {Forces Edition} to occur a second time), and even no name-calling behind his back (which invoked an eye roll from Sonic)-- but Scourge's mind happened to be in another classroom entirely. The first classroom to the right of the bottom of the stairs in the building up the hill was the biology lab, within which his greatest fear lay dormant.
He had picked up a lot of useful skills while working under Dr. Finitevus in the comics. Some of the Doctor's love of knowledge had rubbed off on him surprisingly. Mostly he was just motivated to read more, to look into psychology (not so much psychaotology, though. That was really just a made-up field), and to hang out around Chaos energy. He didn't get any greener, so don't get too excited, but he did learn to respect it a bit more.
Hehe, Scourge learning respect, the green king thought, grinning at that last ironic bit of information about his past. Within his mind, Scourge was more of an intellectual composition of who he wanted to be, a character he had created himself in order to hide who he truly was. In truth, he was just another of the millions of versions of Sonic in the multiverse.
"Um, Scourge? Would you like to share with the rest of the class just what is making you smile all dreamily like that when what you're supposed to be doing right now is listening to me recite the rules?"
When everyone in the class turned to him, Scourge's face lit up red. "Oh, uh, I was-"
"...And that's what brings me to our eighty-third rule: no spacing out in my class." The Doctor began to write this rule on the board next to all his other rules, which were beginning to fill up the board even though he had written them all rather microscopically.
Everyone turned away. Scourge recalled all of their expressions. Most of them had neutral expressions. Those people were probably tired of all the rules they just had to sit through. Some people's expressions though were of excitement. Were they expecting him to say something witty and break the monotony of class?
Was that all he was good for? Comedic relief?
Scourge slammed his face down on the desk, his glowing ears the only sign left of his embarrassment.
No. Of course not. His purpose was a lot bigger than that. Next period was study hall. He'd look into it then.
Coming out of the classroom after the bell, he came face-to-face with his dorky duplicate.
Scourge sighed deeply as Sonic tilted his head at him. "So, what were you thinking about in class that made you space out like that?"
"That's none of your business," he told him, attempting to move past the blue idiot.
However, Sonic just stepped in front of him. "Now you're starting to sound a lot like Shadow."
Scourge looked at Sonic in confusion. He was pressing closer to him with the most multi-layered expression in the world but it was mostly... the only word Scourge could come up with was dangerous. He pushed the other hedgehog away.
"Sorry, Blue. I need to get to study hall with time to dry off. It's pouring outside." As he turned to leave, the viridian monarch found himself being called back.
"Wait." Against his better judgement, the green king halted. Spinning around, Scourge saw that Sonic was pulling something out of his spikes. It was an umbrella. That thing fit in there?
"Here, you can have this," he said, extending the purple umbrella out to him.
Scourge looked at him, confused once again. "You're... giving this to me?"
"Sure. I have another one in my locker," Sonic explained.
Scourge took it and opened the door behind him, pressing the release button and having the umbrella open up outside. Rain ran down its sides, but the sidewalk below remained untouched. To Scourge's knowledge, his azure double was still standing behind him. "Thanks," he said.
"No problem!" Sonic exclaimed as his viridian doppelganger left, the door to the outside closing shut behind him.
Scourge began picking his way down the sidewalk, trying to dodge all of the people swarming around him on the way there. Eventually, upon nearing the agriculture building, the crowd began to thin. That's when he spotted Rosy.
Without an umbrella, she was essentially an unobstructed, free-of-access target for the howling winds and rains of the harsh, severe, and unmerciful weather around them to act upon and influence. She seemed unaffected, but was she really? That's when Scourge stepped in. He extended his umbrella to shield them both.
Huh, Scourge helping others, the green king thought, frowning in a hopeless manner at this rather uncharacteristic action. In his head, Scourge was more of a made-up concept than who he was. A character he had created himself in order to hide who he truly was, which was just another of the millions of versions of Sonic in the multiverse.
But... was this him or Scourge acting?
Rosy looked up at him and smiled thankfully, her cheeks, well, rosy. Seeing such vivid color in the otherwise monochrome atmosphere of a rainy morning was dramatic in a sense. Maybe that was why Scourge then blushed instinctively. Or, perhaps it was due to her reaction aligning so well with the ideals of romanticism, which was one of Scourge's most favorite intellectual movements.
"What class do you have next?"
"Study hall."251Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpi32uFkFtz
"Me, too."
Whatever the cause of his sudden build-up of emotion was, it was making Scourge feel limitlessly unsettled. However, he forced it down as they walked to class.
Scourge and Rosy entered the class, and Scourge's first move was to visit the teacher's desk. He wanted to get to the library as soon as possible. However, the desk was vacant. The bell would ring any moment now, and yet the teacher still hadn't shown up.
A crocodile then stuck his head into the room.
The source of the upcoming joke was well-known to Scourge.
"Phew! I finally found the computer room!"
Well, it was a computer room. The croc strode across the room and took a seat at his desk. As soon as his bottom had hit the cushion of the chair, the bell rang. He regarded the two hedgehogs before him. "You guys need something?"
"The library," Scourge told him, laying his hands on the desk. "I wanna go there for study hall."251Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg0exVAgjJh
Vector didn't give his answer right away. He first turned to Rosy.251Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHdVExIfqMI
"Oh! Oh! I wanna go to the library, too!"
Scourge looked at her with a confused expression. How many times would he be baffled today? "Why do you want to go to the library?"
"Because," Rosy told him. "I want to read the encyclopedias."
That didn't make sense to Scourge, but he just decided to roll with it.
"Okay, you can come."
He then turned back to Vector to await his answer.
The green lizard thought about it a moment and then an idea flashed into his mind.
"How about the whole class visit the library?" The viridian hedgy opened his mouth. Without waiting for Scourge to object, Vector told everybody that they were going. He then closed his mouth and shook his head hopelessly.
Now in the library, Scourge was trying desperately to look through the stack of books he had gathered from the shelves of the nonfiction section, but the library was utter chaos around him. For some reason the librarian, the fastidious beaver from Sonic Boom, was off-duty this period, so everyone was completely abandoning the whisper-only rule and running around like it was recess hour. What were they, fourth-graders?
Scourge's ears stood up straight as he began to hear a conversation going on behind him.
"I'm still scared, Honest. This new teacher, from what you've told me, sounds like a big time villain. Like, Dr. Eggman-style. Shouldn't some more precautions be taken other than 'don't volunteer for a class demonstration'?"
"Don't give him any rings, protect Knuckles... Most of it is just overall paranoia." Scourge turned around to see what was going on. Honest and Shadow were sitting at a table facing the opposite direction. Shadow was sitting in the chair on the right with his hands resting in his lap while Honest sat on her knees in the left chair backwards, looking rather bemused while Shadow sweated. "And I don't think you should have any problem with the paranoia part."
Scourge waved his arm and both the cat and the striped hedgehog turned around. Honest's expression lost its comical aspect as she opened her mouth in a large smile. She then leapt out of her chair and scrambled towards him. Shadow was irritated to find out that Honest considered the green recolor's request to communicate an urgency, but he suppressed the urge to call her out as he stomped after her.
"I have Doctor Finitevus next," Scourge told them, attempting to stress to them just how urgent his situation was.
"I do, too," Shadow told him, lifting his head to stare at him with his bright red eyes. The fur stood up on Scourge's neck just then. Woah. The dude looked demonic!
"Oh! So you guys will team up, right?" Honest asked, excitedly shoving the two together. "That's perfect! Please treat each other well then, okay?"
"Wait, what?" Scourge asked, seeming to be completely against this idea.
Shadow just kept staring at him, not revealing anything specific.
Now was a pretty fitting time for Honesty.
"Let me repeat. You're going to work together on this. This is a matter of your guys' personal safety. Protect Shadow for me. He's a newbie. You always need to look out for newbies," Honest told Scourge sternly.
Maybe it would be best for me to stick with Stripes, Scourge thought. When he looked back up at Honest, she was beaming as if to agree with his thoughts.
"If you help acquaint Shadow with Dr. Finitevus, he'll protect you physically in exchange. He can be your bodyguard in a sense." Shadow then looked at Honest with a vein visible on his forehead. "I said 'in a sense'," she added callously, shrugging.
"A-Alright," Scourge answered, intending to follow this up with 'just so he can protect me', but he changed his response at the last second. "Since this is a matter of Stripes' personal safety."
Honest gave him a concerned look immediately afterwards. "It's for your safety, too. You're looking out for each other." When she saw Shadow's vein attempting to reveal itself again, Honest took a deep breath. "And it's Stripes's, not Stripes'. It's a proper noun. Same thing with Knuckles's. If you were talking about a couple of knuckles possessing something, then it would be knuckles'."
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Thank you so much for reading this chapter, and I hope you like the new format! Less of Honest's point of view and more of everyone else's. The next chapter will be mostly in Scourge's point of view. And, it's in real-time-- not skipping around from event to event. I'm hoping this style will enable you to get much more into the story much quicker. See you next time!
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