This story takes no particular place in the Sonic timeline, just a lame story. Tails is also retconned to eleven for the sake of this story. I hope it's decent.


No Blueprint

Dr. Robotnik's chapped lips tightened as he took two gnarled fingers and twisted his mustache. He paced toward his surveillance cameras which acted as his eyes throughout his giant mechanical fortress. Then he turned back around to see Rouge pulling her sleeved gloves up. Shadow was patiently waiting for the good doctor to continue, but his eyes were narrowed.

"Ahem. Now, concerning our budget deficit…I don't have as much money as I did only months ago. I am in trouble, and this whole fortress is about to go belly up if I can't figure out what the hell I have to do!"—the scientist pounded his fist into his palm several times to accentuate his point. "I am stressed!"—Eggman paused and gauged their reactions. "We know Sonic's a problem, he's always the problem, but there's someone else assisting him in dodging all of these bullets, the, the fox-boy …" he trailed off with a sneer.

His appointed assistants didn't seem to mind all that much. The two never did when he was discussing something that was actually important. They always jumped on those extra details though, which at times, would completely derail the meeting into a cacophony. Well, not this time, he huffed. After that meeting, he would be seen as a true leader of malevolence and evil.

"That being said, to stop Tails from intercepting my plans, I'm going to send one of you on a mission to sabotage his efforts, so that my entrance to the city will go unnoticed until I want myself to be noticed. And I think it should be the best spy here." Robotnik's eyes rolled to Rouge. She was already staring intently at him, listening for further instruction. That certainly got her attention, he mused.

"Go on." Rouge pushed.

"Mhm. Tonight, camp out near his laboratory. When he leaves, go in and search for anything that even hints to the counterattack of my war machine, blueprints, a-a mechanical doodad, whatever! Take this camera with you, as well--"

"What's it do?" Rouge wrinkled her nose while holding the small contraption.

"It tells the time! What do you think it does?" Robotnik raised his voice. "As I was saying, get back here and simply report to me what you found. Tomorrow, I'll modify my newest war machine to be impervious to any weakness it may have had before, and-I'll-crush-the-city! Is that clear, Rouge?" said the doctor as his mustache twitched.

"Clear as a jewel?" She smirked as she raised her brow. Immediately following that question, a sharp intake of breath and a sigh emanated from the doctor.

"Yes yes, you will receive eh…compensation for this," Robotnik groaned as he plunged his large hand in his pocket to pull out a topaz smaller than his palm. "Now go!" She simply shrugged at his demand and briskly walked out of the room, feeling his demanding stare all the way from where he stood. Behind his goggles, Robotnik looked at the gem with his eyes narrowed.

"Hopefully," he thought, "She will not demand to have any jewels larger than this one." He flipped the precious stone so that it would glint underneath the light.

"Shadow, would you like to look at…" Shadow had already left. Robotnik was not one to be ignored, but he wasn't going to get into it with a three foot high, ink-black hedgehog. The scientist decided to be truly alone when he dimmed the lights' stare as he clapped twice and ambled up the wide, metal staircase. This action was followed by rapid clanking down the flight of steps. "I'm going the wrong way,"—his palm pushed into his bald head. "I'll take the elevator." Once he stepped inside, he pressed an indented metal button, and without skipping a beat, the elevator shifted before dropping down to the basement. On the way down, he reminded himself that he needed to do something about the new smell of the elevator, to him it was nauseating. Before he took in another breath, a deep "boong" alerted him to the shifting, metal door.

This had to be the most impressive floor of the whole fortress, if Robotnik did say so himself. The large, uneven concrete ground and ceiling with deep red beams housed two kinds of machines only; the 2004 Egg-soldier series and his latest war machine, the Egg-Roll. A brutish giant that bore a strong resemblance to its creator, and for extra strength it was practically carved from one steel ball, with a few functions added to keep the machine from getting stuck. Around forty-eight feet in diameter, weighing in at an impressive sixty-one tons, this ball was sure to mow down any obstacle in its way, but with a costly drawback. There had to be ramps to steer the ball towards the city to prevent flying far outside its boundaries. Of course, the scientist added some boosters to try and push the ball in the direction he wanted to, but at that speed and with that much weight, it was going to do much, so ramps it was.

As always, his machines had the option of being attached with his infamous Egg-Mobile. To keep the Egg-Mobile flush with the metal sphere, he made it so only the convex top of his mobile flyer would stick out. The other glaring fault of the machine was that it would be hard to pursue the hedgehog should he ever arrive. The ball would be spinning so fast that placing a window on the ball to try and find Sonic was out of the question. Along with the yellow ramps, he had also placed nearly a hundred cameras that would transmit the images inside of the chassis; a quick fix to such a severe problem.

"Speaking of problems…" Robotnik reeled himself back in. He pulled down his left sleeve to reveal a microphone on his wrist. He punched in four numbers, and he gave himself three seconds before continuing. "Rouge…Rouge have you arrived at that workshop yet?"

"Huh?" a voice replied with a hint of frustration. Meanwhile, Rouge was having a rough time dealing with the 87 degrees Fahrenheit dusk and strong gusts.

"Did you arrive yet?" Robotnik repeated himself with impatience.

She answered this with "Almost."

"How close is 'almost'?" The doctor hid his whining with a mocking tone.

"I mean like, maybe four minutes alright? I'm having some trouble over here with these winds, and for the middle of May, it is hot. I'm dying over here!" Rouge complained.

Robotnik snorted into the small speaker, expressing his apathy. "Yes, it must be so taxing on you to fly all the way there, I'm sorry."

As her ears rang of the loud crackle of the fat man's booming voice, Rouge's half-lidded gaze quickly changed into a wide-eyed glare. She couldn't believe how rude her boss was acting right now. She had always bickered with him more than Shadow, and Robotnik hardly ever got onto his case. This really took the cake. Before she risked yelling at the scientist, she muted her communicator with a "Hmph."

"Rouge? Rouge! Hey! God…damn it." He growled as he gave up and decided to get back to the surveillance room.

--

Meanwhile, Rouge continued to tough out the warm, humid breezes. They felt like they were coming from directly underneath her. The updrafts pushed her every which way, like a toy airplane on a string.

"Ugh, I can't stand it. Even to nature, I'm some sort of plaything!" she whined to no one in particular. Rouge always paid attention to the weather, especially during the summertime, as she was vulnerable to becoming woozy and getting sunburns. In the forecast, no such event of a warm or cold front was even suggested. These mysterious "gusts" had to be man-made. As she tried to go further down, the winds blew harder, carrying some of the grit high into the air and into her face. Rouge managed to make out what appeared to be a metal grate, and something was spinning underneath.

I knew something was up. It must be one of fox-boy's experiments, she thought as her tongue rolled against her bottom row of teeth. Were those a part of the counterattack against Robotnik's war machine? Better take a picture just in case. She took out the compact camera as she waited for it to focus and took a snap of a large metal grate covering the ground, the fan now motionless. There were a couple dozen of these, she noticed as she tried to peer through the walls of the woods. As the rest of the fans began to slow down, she could smell the forest air again, a pungent, syrupy, smoky aroma. The bat just decided to let her black button nose open up to it all, she might be there for a while, anyway. She slowly twisted her toned body so that her legs were in front of her, and her heels made contact with the soft soil. Her delicate wings flexed outward once more, and then hid themselves behind her back.

She whisked her hand through her hair to pick out any nasty dirt. The texture of it felt disgusting; dry, tiny, rough and grainy, a lot like sand. Unlike the smooth, varied feel of the makeup she used to powder her face or the lotion she used to moisturize her skin. Rouge put her priorities at the front of her mind again, and she tried to shake off the thought that there was filth in her gorgeous locks. Her heels sank into the uneven mud as she made her best effort not to brush up against anything else that would taint her beautiful appearance. The moon was cleverly hidden by the clouds that night, but it would still try to observe the Earth below it by taking a gaze through the thick sky above and bathing the landscape with the slivers of light it reflected. If this was at all a magnificent sight to behold, Rouge couldn't say. She had gotten very close to the laboratory, but it didn't matter if she was twenty yards or twenty miles away. She was going to have to wait it out, all the while crouching uncomfortably behind some leafy window to stay out of sight. Or did she? She thought the situation over once more. A moment later, her hands were on her hips.

"I'm gonna do this my way, I've had enough." She stood back up, and after a vain moment of dusting herself off, dived out of the barrier of the forest and rolled up to the front of the laboratory.

--

"This place is a mess…"

Tails had his head propped up by his rough glove. For the past hour or so, he kept falling in and out of a trance that made his eyes dribble like a basketball. He had ignored his mattress for over two days now; the bed without a hint of his warmth. The boy only went to sleep once every other day anymore, he felt confident enough to continue experimenting and refining his beloved machines without a dream to take the magic away. He sighed as he continued to make an outline for a new electrical route for the laboratory. The old route appeared to be jumbled, with some wires going nowhere. He had to carry out the new plan soon, before the outdated route created a blackout that would debilitate his work. Tails took another deep breath through his snout, though he picked up on something new this time. It wasn't any type of metal or rust or gas he had ever smelt before. It was nice, a creamy, jasmine vanilla. Too little, too late. Before he could turn around to survey his lab, two, soft fingers rapped on his narrow shoulders.

"Rouge?" he asked, incredulous.

A silky, yet threatening tone from behind him spoke. "Aww, are we having trouble sleeping? Allow me." The fingers curled back into a group and snaked around to clasp his muzzle. Tails upper body thrashed around for only a moment before Rouge's grip tightened to where her palms painfully smeared the skin underneath his fur, as if it were pulling his nerves to the surface. At that point, he didn't know what else to do but express his disapproval with a loud grunt. Rouge took another look at the kid before smirking.

"Far be it from me to tell you when bedtime is, but I've got a job to do."

Tails' became overpowered with a sense of weariness. Her delicate, yet firm hands blocked the oxygen his lungs yearned for. Another fifteen seconds passed, a muffled rattle alerted the bat to his unconsciousness. After his chin rolled down and rested on his chest, she grabbed the scruff of his neck and gently laid him down on the cool linoleum. The search for clues began.

Rouge wasted no time. Her steel heels clicked along the floor at a brisk pace as she began a full circumspection of the lab. The woman made her way towards a large spotlight with a complex, scarlet frame attached to the ceiling. It could have possibly been a tool Tails was going to lend Station Square in case Eggman ever attacked at night... suspicious enough. She pulled out the camera and with a click and a flash; she dropped all interest in the contraption. Another invention she took notice of was a dull, yellowish ramp.

"A ramp…oh! Just like the ones Eggman showed me and Shadow, as he lectured us two weeks before about his upcoming toy!" Rouge's conscience echoed. "I have to take a picture of this." She took a few snapshots of the ramp, from the front, from behind, and from the side so Eggman could later measure it. After twenty minutes of finding nothing else, Rouge made an inference as to why there were no blueprints to be found—Tails must have done it all of his drafts on a computer. As enticing as the option was to try and hack the computer and reveal the inner workings of Miles Prower's mind, it was out of the question. She didn't have the password, no need to risk setting off any alarms that may call for the little fox's friends to arrive. It would still be a novel idea to check his "office".

The moonlight shone dimly through the clerestories and passed the transom above his office door, likely the most ornate piece of architecture that she saw in the whole workshop. Not until the polished, wooden door swung open with impressive force was the room violated with the eerie hum and occasional clang of the laboratory. The first thing her eyes locked onto was a metal file cabinet. She hastily walked over to it and started pulling all the doors out, looking for something that preceded the actual creation of the machines she glanced at earlier. Still nothing, nothing but little, hand-painted models of various buildings located in Station Square, oddly enough. The brush strokes were rough and uneven.

"Strange, I thought fox-boy would be a little more caring when it came to painting such intricate designs…" The bat thought as she used both hands to rotate the city hall sculpture. The building gave a nod towards Greek architecture with its pillars, and a hint of neo-gothic architecture, looking at the decorative windows. A strange mix, indeed. Out of all the models, there was one particular model that seemed to wear a smoother coating than the rest, with a sparkly level of coating underneath. The bright red biplane had a silver propeller at the front. Sonic's name was emblazoned in tall, fat, italicized letters on the side. Unlike the other ones, this model had been made from steel, and was cool to the touch. She carefully rolled the plane so its underbelly faced the ceiling. There appeared to be some small lettering. Her pupils dilated so she could take in more light to read the encryption…

"CLASSIC SONIC BIPLANE MODEL 'TORNADO', c.1992"

This description was embossed on the bottom hatch of the biplane. Already curious, and having never seen this version of the Tornado, she slipped off her right glove so her fingernail could push the latch. Rouge jumped when she heard a small crinkle that broke the silence. There was paper in the small compartment. Her fingers pinched the little slip and tried not to have it snag on anything. She unfolded the note and began to read through the message inside. As her finger skimmed the words, dragging her eyes through the difficult, vivid metaphors and imagery the note gave her, she was at first perplexed.

"It's a…love letter. Fox-boy wrote someone a love letter!" she chuckled. He must have staved off from his tinkering hobbies for a while to sit down and write this supposedly honest letter, so she commended Tails for that. Her little moment was short-lived, however.

"There's no way a little rabbit like Cream is that physically developed, plus the note is written above her level..." She slowly began to calculate. "Is it Amy? I don't know…maybe?" Some discomfort began to eat at her. Rouge stretched her tapered arms behind her back and rolled her shoulders. Even for her, the letter seemed like a puzzle. It was so well written for someone who was only twelve years old. She couldn't find any other girl in her mind that Tails had encountered more than five times. And then all of a sudden she could. Her rosy cheeks became as pallid as her white, close-lying fur. This was the girl? Her small tail kept twitching to the left. Her shock began to escape her audibly.

"What…is he serious? Where did these feelings come from?" She murmured as she folded the thin note back up and slipped it between her cleavage and chest pad.

Immediately, she straightened up and made her way out the door, out of the laboratory, and out of the now tense environment. The smoky smell she enjoyed not half an hour ago now only added to the intensity of the letter; it strengthened its disturbing, poetic aphorisms to her, it was psychologically strangling. She spread her wings to their fullest extent and began the journey back to Eggman's fortress. She felt even warmer than she did before, and her thought process was working so irrationally at this point that the letter itself seemed to produce warmth of its own, burning her bosom. Then she remembered her last exchange with the doctor. He must've been furious at her for turning the transmitter down. She collected herself and tried to keep her voice low and calm when she rolled her fingers to type in the sequence.

"Eg-Doctor? Doctor Robotnik?" she successfully delivered her question. One moment, two moments, three moments in time…

"Yes, what is it? Surely you must have something by now…" a garbled, thick voice snarled.

"You're right, sir. I gathered some information that you might find useful. It's not much, but the kid doesn't have any hand-drawn blueprints. I'm heading your way." She coolly stated.

"Good, good. Tell me more when you get back here." said Robotnik. "And remember, it's the sixteenth floor."