Going Batty?
Authors Note: Hi Hi everyone! Sparkling is back and brighter than ever! I've been gone for a while thanks to my super horrible school work, so what better way to kick off my grand literary return that with a little Sonic fun! With this particular story, I decided to try my hand at a little brain teaser. A sorta of mystery to see if you can figure out what's going on before it's revealed. If you have any guesses, then your welcome to speak them out, but beware, I won't make it very easy to guess. Anyways, enjoy the story. ^^
Chapter 1: Breaking and Entering
The Bright Corps Main Building. One of the most heavily secured places in all of Station Square. The Bright corporation was renowned for being a people's company, donating millions each year to charity organizations and even sending their own workers into the field for their own brand of cheerful service to the community. None the less, they were a multi-billion dollar corporation, which meant their security was nothing to laugh about.
The building itself was at least fifty stories high, the entire outside covered with pressure sensitive glass. There was only one entrance to and from the building directly in front with two motion sensitive security cameras mounted on either side. To get in one not only had to have a clearance I.D. Card, but also had to enter an password known only to employees and hold their eye up to a mounted retinal scanner directly above the keypad as they did it.
"Looks like somebody doesn't want me to pay a visit."
From two hundred feet away, a certain white haired figure was spying at the building through a sleek pink scope. Slowly she lowered the scope, slipping it into a pouch at her hip with a smile. She had actually designed the pouch itself so that it could be opened from both the top and bottom. If one were upright, one could simply open up the top and reach inside like anyone else. And if one were upside down, one could open up the bottom for the same effect, making sure nothing fell out towards the ground. It was the perfect accessory for someone who had a habit of hanging upside down. Someone like Rouge the Bat.
The white haired bat laughed to herself lightly as she stared at the building before her. The image of the glass covering the building reflecting the light from the surrounding city made the entire thing look like a massive jewel. At least to her eyes anyways. Unfortunately, if all things went according to plan tonight would yield something a little different than the jewels she loved so much to take for herself. The thought of not being able to clutch a freshly stolen piece of jewelery to her chest tonight was somewhat saddening, but the thought of what a success tonight might lead to more than made up for it. The bat thief's eyes drifted sideways as she watch a pair of men in blue security uniform start to walk across the square that lead to the building.
"Right on time, boys." said the bat to herself. The two seemed so content, chatting as they walked along to their perfectly happy job, probably thinking about the easy night they would have guarding a building that already had more security features than most major banks in the known world. It almost made the thief sad to have to ruin their night.
Almost. But not quite.
The smiling bat dropped from her upside down perch in one of the trees a moderate distance from the buildings central plaza. As she landed she reached into her bag, and pulled out what appeared to be a sleeping squirrel. She then pulled out a key, like one would find in most wind up toys. The bat stuck the key into the back of the squirrel, turning it three times in succession before removing it. Immediately the squirrel perked up, adorable eyes flashing open, as it cutely stretched and started to clean its mechanical paws.
"You remember what to do?" she asked the squirrel resting in the palm of her hand. The tiny robot nodded before scurrying off across the plaza towards the two men. Rouge couldn't help but smile as she drew a black mask over the bottom half of her face. Her little friend may have cost her a pretty penny, but he really was a great investment.
"She didn't!"
"Oh, yes she did."
"I don't believe it! You're making this up."
The first security guard shook his head slowly with his arms crossed. "No, I'm telling you it's true. On the last episode of Rosa por mi Amor, Juanita found the letter that confirmed that the guy she had been dating was not her life long childhood best friend turned handsome doctor slash part time model who she was reunited with after the volcano exploded, but was actually his long lost evil twin brother who had been switched at birth with the child of a circus freak show act who passed away in a freak trapeze accident two years after the long lost twin was brought home causing him to go insane and strive to steal his brother's life after finding out from the psycho hobo who was actually Juanita's mom's next door neighbor's crazy dog groomer that he actually had a brother in the first place."
"So what did she do?" asked the second security guard.
"I don't know yet." admitted the first. "It took twenty episodes just for her to open the letter after she found it. There was this whole inner emotional battle thing where she kept contemplating whether or not she really wanted to know what was in the letter, and how she thought she would feel if what she thought was in the letter actually was in the letter."
"That took twenty episodes?"
"Well, there were a couple of those flashback episodes where the main character reflects on everything that's been happening while trying to make up their minds about something, which leads to those really long montages of things from past episodes."
"Uuuuuuuuuuuugh." moaned the first. "I always despise those episodes. It's like I've already seen all the stuff that they're flashing back to, so why do I need to watch it all again? If I wanted to do that I could just buy the box set and watch a bunch of reruns."
"I think they put them in there so people who are new to the series can get caught up on everything that's going on without having to actually go back and re-watch the entire series from the beginning. Besides, it wasn't all those kinds of episodes. There was also this abstract fantasy episode where she imaged what life would be like with an evil twin. That one guy from those commercials made a special guest appearance."
"Which commercials?"
"You know, the one where that guy is having a bad day and then all the sudden starts dancing around with all these ladies dressed in flower costumes? And then it shows all of them dancing in the streets with rainbows and fireworks blasting off behind them as they make their way to the ocean and hold a beach party with that old rock and roll band your mom always listened to playing on a stage in front of a giant smiley faced shaped bonfire?"
"You mean the butter commercial?"
"Yeah!"
"I love that butter!" exclaimed the first. "It kind of tastes like regular butter, but it's got zero percent flibocarbons in it! I wasn't even aware of how many flibocarbons the average person consumes in a day."
"Really? How many flibocarbons does the average person consume in a day."
The second security guard put a finger to his chin. "You know, I'm not actually sure, but the little blurb at the end of the commercial made it sound like it was a lot."
The first security guard nodded. "Maybe I need to start watching my intake of flibocarbons. You know lately I..."
The man was brought to an abrupt stop as the second one held out his arm. The first man looked curiously at the second for a moment before following his gaze down before the fountain in the central plaza.
"Look!" said the second. The two stared down at the ground where a tiny squirrel was wrestling on the ground with an acorn. The squirrel rolled over the acorn like a ball, occasionally lying on its back with the acorn on top of it, batting it swiftly between its two tiny paws before having it roll off causing the tiny squirrel to have to chase after it and start the process all over again.
"Isn't he so cute!" whispered the second security guard to the first with a big smile. The first simply smiled and shook his head.
"We can't be getting ourselves distracted by a squirrel." he said in a light reprimanding tone. "Now, come on. If we don't hurry we'll be late and I don't really feel like..."
"Awww, come on!It's just so adorable!" said the second, now crouched down closer to the ground as he watched the squirrel continue to play with the acorn. "I'm gonna try to pet it."
"You're not supposed to pet wild animals!"
"It won't hurt it!" said the second in protest as he turned back to the squirrel. "Besides, I think he likes me." The security guard held out his hand and started making little kissing noises. "Come here squirrely squirrel. Come here. I won't hurt you." As the man continued to make the sounds, the squirrel slowly started to inch towards him, cautiously sniffing ahead as he moved. "See? That's a good squirrely squirrel! Who's a cutie face? Yes you awe. Yes you awe."
The squirrel slowly climber up into the man's hand, sniffing around a bit before smiling up at the man with a grin so adorable it could make a Ebinizer Scrooge give cash for the holidays.
"I told you he liked me!" said the second guard as he first simply smiled, shaking his head. "I told you he, woooaaah!" The man suddenly stood up as the rambunctious squirrel ran into the sleeve of his shirt and started running around beneath. The man tried to grab the squirrel infiltrating his uniform even as he suddenly started to double over laughing. "Hey now! No. That tickles. Stohahahaha~! Stop it! Stop ihahahahaa~!"
The first man shook his head, laughing lightly to himself as he watched his companion struggle to get his new friend under control. A sudden gust of wind from behind the man caused him to pause for a moment. He turned around for a moment, but there was nothing there. All that could be seen were the trees of the nearby park a couple hundred feet away. The man seemed to pause for a long moment before he turned back around to his friend, still enthralled in fits of giggling.
"Okay. Okay. Now we really need to cut this short. We're already gonna be late."
The second man giggled for a moment longer before the squirrel crawled out through his sleeve, and leapt, going back to batting his acorn all around the front of the building, occasionally looking at the second man as if he wanted him to come join in the impromptu game of acorn ball.
"Sorry little fellow." said the second security guard. "I gotta go now. See you."
The two security guards began walking away towards the door, where the mounted motion sensitive security cameras were having a field day twisting back and forth as they stared at the apparently hyperactive squirrel. The two guards walked up to the front door, both still laughing at all they had experienced.
"I wonder if the vending machines have nuts." pondered the second security guard as he held his eye up to the scanner, sliding his card through slot below. As beams from inside began scanning his retina to confirm his identity he typed in a seven digit password on the mounted keypad. With the scan complete he stepped back to allow the first security guard to repeat the same process.
"Do you really think that squirrel is still going to be there after our shift is over?"
"You never know."
The first security guard stepped back as the front door began making several clicking noises like bolts unlocking. Eventually the door hissed open, and the two entered into the building, the second security guard waving back to the squirrel one more time as the doors began to close.
As the two guard disappeared inside, the squirrel momentarily stopped in his play to watch the door shut. He gave a cheerful smile before grabbing his acorn and running off into the trees of the park once more where immediately ran up a tree a little further in. The squirrel yawned and stretched, before spinning in a tight circle and laying down. There was an almost inaudible clicking sound as the robotic squirrel's inner mechanisms started to wind down in preparation for sleep mode. With a final look at the building the squirrel closed its eyes, going to sleep mode, knowing that it had been a job well done, and wondering if it would get a treat for performing so well.
The second security guard watched the squirrel scamper off into the park as the doors finished closing. A sudden breeze from behind caused him to turn around. He looked to either side. Had he imagined it, or...
"Come on!" shouted his friend from down the hallway. The second security guard shrugged off his suspicions as he chased after his friend, oblivious to the bat currently clinging to the ceiling above him. Rouge spring green eyes sparkled with mirth as she watched the two go on their merry way.
'They're making this way too easy.' she said smiling.
The ivory-haired thief crawled along the ceiling using her nails and the sharpened tips of her boots to keep her grip. She carefully peaked around the corner as the first hallway split in two directions. A building such as this wasn't very easy to navigate. At least not with all the security cameras that were lining the hallway. As she peaked around the corner she noticed the two security guards still walking down the hallway, the security cameras each following their movements for a moment before going back to sweeping scans. She quickly looked around, trying to find some way to avoid the security cameras.
It only took her a second to notice the slender air vent position right in the middle of the place where the hallways split. She acted fast, pulling out an acorn from her bag. She lowered her mask.
"Squeek! Squeek!"
The bat quickly dropped the acorn to the ground before ducking back behind the wall.
"Did you hear that?"
The two security guards rushed back to the intersection in front of the first hallway. One of them picked up the acorn on the ground.
"Do you think that squirrel somehow got inside?" asked the one who had played with the squirrel.
"We better hope not." said his partner. "The boss would kill us for letting a squirrel get in to this building."
'What would he do to you for letting a bat in?' thought Rouge silently as she looked down from above.
"Which way do you think he went?"
The first security guard put his hand to his chin thoughtfully. "We didn't see him when we ran down the hallway, but we can't take any chances." He looked up. "You head down that way, and I'll head down this way."
"Got it."
The two security guards rushed away in opposite directions, with the camera following their every move. There was just a split second before the cameras went back to sweeping. As quick as a bolt of lighting, Rouge flew across the hallways, quickly yanking out the grant before sliding in, dragging the grate back into position as she went.
The bat waited silently as she listened for signs that she had been noticed. Her sensitive ears tensed awaiting the dreaded sounds of alarms or the rapid footsteps of guards approaching, but all that was heard were the echoing footsteps of the two security guards as they plowed off into a wild goose chase. She waited until the sound all but disappeared before smiling to herself. Slowly she started to scoot backwards through the narrow shaft, making sure her steel toed boots didn't clang against the walls.
She continued backwards for a long while. The shaft was too narrow for her to turn around in. Normally a shaft like this wouldn't even accommodate a full sized human, but luckily for Rouge she was a bit more slender then the average thief. Eventually, her feet touched on thin air, signifying the area where a vertical shaft in the air duct system converged with a horizontal shaft. Rouge continued backwards, her lower body dangling in the air for a moment before she allowed herself to drop into the vertical shaft. Quickly her hands reached out pressing against the side to keep her from falling.
"Muuuuuch better." she thought to herself. The air ducts were pitch black. Not a speck of light shown into the inner workings of the building, which suited Rouge just fine. The bat closed her eyes, and let out an ultrasonic wave of sound beyond the range of human hearing. The sound rang out silently through the air ducts, echoing off the walls and out into the various branches of the air conditioning system. The bat smiled. To her sound was better than any light switch she could flip on. Bats didn't need light. Though seeing with her own spring green eyes was wonderful, it was a bat's ability of echolocation that kept her safe when flying at night, or when sneaking into the main building of a multibillion dollar company.
The ivory-haired thief continued to climb, continually emitting ultra-sonic waves along the way to guide her towards her destination. She climber higher and higher for what seemed like hours. However, eventually she made it to her destination, the forty sixth floor. She climber into a side branch in the air duct system, this time belly crawling forward along the cool metal surface. She was glad that not even a spider could normally get in this place, otherwise she would have covered in cobwebs by now and nursing quit a few spider bites. She had been in air ducts before that we so fully of the things that she came out looking like stick full of coconut flavored cotton candy.
Time passed quicker the closer she got to her goal. She loved that feeling. The rush of adrenaline as she got closer and closer to your goal. Further and further into the grip of danger. It was one of the most wonderful feelings to straddle the line between victory and defeat, and became all the more glorious the thinner that line got. She still prefer jewels, but that sensation definitely came in her top ten of things she lived for.
Light shined up through a nearby vent causing her breath to catch in her throat as she tried to make her movements as silent as absolutely possible. Slowly she slide forward, peering down ever so subtly at what lied below. She smiled as she saw what she had been looking for. Slowly she reached into her bag, removing a small screw driver from her side as she started to work on screws that held down the vent.
Only a minute passed before vent was completely unscrewed and shoved off to the side. The ivory haired thief dropped to the floor as silently as a feather falling on new fallen snow, looking around with a satisfied smile.
"Well well well." she said as she looked around. The entire room was like the inside of a massive computer. Monoliths, hard drives, and computer screens lines most of the walls, with the back wall cleared of everything except for a large metal door held shut by no less than six massive dead bolts. The room was decked in shadows with only a deep green light coming from the computers to provide illumination.
Rouge glanced at the door, and couldn't help laughing to herself. For all the security this company had, it still hadn't been enough to keep her out. She started to walk over towards the computer screen when her eyes focused on something right in front of her face. A single red beam shining ever so neatly across the space in front of her. The bat slowly, deliberately moved a had into her pouch, pulling out a bottle of a peculiar chalky white powder. Carefully she sprinkled a tiny bit into her hand before gently flinging it into the air.
A silent hiss ran between her teeth as the beams that currently surrounded her came into sharp focus. She slowly started to look around, noticing exactly how close she had come to touching several of them. An inch further in any direction and she would have set off more bells than a Christmas sleigh. She stood still as a statue, pondering her next move, and the move after that, plotting ever movement that would need to be made in order to avoid detection and thinking of any way possible to make sure she got to that computer.
Slowly, deliberately, a smile crossed her face as she reached into her pack once more. She pulled out a pair of heart shaped sunglasses. The carefully moved the reflective surface in front of the closer beam, causing it to shoot off into the corner of the room.
"Lucky I'm always so fashionable." she said smoothly as she carefully made her way between the beams, stepping lightly over the lower ones and using her glasses to deflect beams that would be too complicated to move through normally. Sometimes her movements appeared elegant and graceful, like a ballerina performing to Beethoven on stage, yet other time they were more reminiscent of a back up dancer performing in a pop music video. Either way she eventually made it to the main console, slipping her fabulous shades over her eyes as she carefully sat down in the large chair already in front of the desk.
"Now, time to get what I came for." The bat reached into her bag and pulled out a what looked like a heart shaped portable hard drive, plugging it into the nearest USB drive she could find. She quickly started typing away at the key board, but then stopped for a moment. She sniffed the air lightly, and then, slowly leaned over and sniffed the back of the chair she was sitting in. She quickly withdrew, a look of slight disgust across her face.
"Uh. Even the chair smells like nerd." she muttered under her breath as her finger went straight back to typing. Swiftly she opened up a file from her hard drive, and dragged it onto the main server of the network. In a matter of seconds, the silhouette of a large, anthropomorphic bat appeared, blowing a kiss at the screen before dispersing into several smaller bats that appeared to flood into the network.
The computers all around the room seemed to hum with electricity as the virus began to take over. Sparks flew from the consoles for a moment before all the green lights on the monitors suddenly turned pink, casting the room in a much more glamorous hue. Rouge sat back in her chair for just a moment, savoring victory before quickly sitting back up, going straight back to work. Her virus would only give her five minutes of completely undetected access, which meant she had a very limited time frame to get what she came for. She quickly began going through the previously classified files, searching for anything and everything to her interest. Several articles caught her eye, but they weren't exactly what she was looking for. Branch after branch of files and folders flew by as she raced against the clock. At the twenty second mark she stumbled across a file label "top secret", which of course translated to "Come right on in a read me you beautiful bat you." With a quick click of the mouse she opened it, scanning the text as fast as she could. Her eyes started to sparkle as she poured hungrily over the information. This was what she had come for.
A message popped up in the lower screen alerting her to the fact that she had only five seconds left. She quickly ejected her hard drive and deleted all records of her having ever accessed the elaborate mechanism as the lights once more switched to green. She sat in her chair, committing all she had learned quickly to memory, making sure every last detail was etched into her brain. Five minutes passed before she was finally done.
"Glad that that's over." she said, reaching into her bag. "Now it's time for the real fun to start." The bat's spring green eyes gleamed deviously under the light of the monitors as she slowly started to pull out something red.
"Are you sure they're not just playing a trick on us?" asked a muscular security guard as he and his thing partner walked down the hallway forty six stories above the ground.
"Why would they lie about a squirrel possibly being in the building?"
"Because they want to make sure they get all the donuts before we get any." said the muscular security guards crossing his arms.
"You think so?"
"Are you kidding? I'd bet a weeks pay that we don't hide nor hair of anything amiss tonight. I..."
The security guard was cut off as the wall directly in front of him exploded outwards. The two stumbled backwards, falling on their behinds as the dust cleared a crimson haired figure as they rushed from the hole, long dreadlocks blocking the face from view. The figure quickly crashed through the glass wall lining one side of the hallway, and glided off into the night without saying a word.
The two guards continued to sit dumbstruck for a moment before both hurried to their feet to look out the window at the disappearing figure.
"Was that..."
"Couldn't be..."
The two turned around towards the hole in the wall directly beside the large bolted door. Slowly, cautiously they stepped inside, and both gasped with horror. The entire computer system had been destroyed. The machinery was mangled beyond recognition, and several of the more critical pieces were actually on fire. The muscular guard ran from the room to look for a fire extinguisher while the thin one moved deeper into the room towards the main console. The light from the fires lite something wedge directly between two surviving keys on the keyboard. The guard slowly reached out a picked up a card, staring at it in disbelief. There, right on the front of the card, was a stylized picture of a very familiar looking echidna giving a thumbs up, with the word "Thanks" written in blocky letters below.
Rouge laughed to herself as the distance between her and the blaring sirens grew greater and greater. She would have to go back later to retreive her mechanical friend of course, but for now she had to focus on making a clean escape. As soon as she was sure she was out of range of the cameras, the ivory-haired theif reached up on top of her head, removing a wig of crimson dreadlocks, and shoving it into her bag along with the crimson cloak that covered her slender black wings from view. Things were about to get very interesting for her and a certain annoying echidna very quickly, and she for one couldn't wait to see what was going to happen.
For a moment Rouge's eyes seemed to grow distant. She flew in silence for just a moment before the thought of the echnidna's face when he found out what was going on flashed through her mind. The sheer hilarity of the image in the theif's mind cause her to start to chuckle lightly, and then burst into full blown laughter! Her gleeful cries filled the night time sky over the shining city below. Eventually she managed to calm herself, starting to glide lower as she prepared to go return to retrieve her mechanical companion still waiting in the woods near where she had just came from. As she began to turn her eyes drifted in the direction of Angel Island, and she imagined Knuckles sleeping soundly, completely unaware of everything that would soon occur.
"Get a good night's sleep, Knuckie." she said softly. "For soon sleep will be the least of your worries."
Author's Note: Yay! The very first chapter of my very first Sonic story is complete! I hope you all enjoyed it. Let me know what cha think if you have time. Thanks a bunch! Until next time. ^^