CHAPTER 12

HEARTLESS BATTLE

Meanwhile, Shadow was running through the long tunnels of the sewers searching for any of his teammates. It seemed he wasn't having any luck so he had stopped in his tracks to think that maybe he had overlooked something. He looked around and found himself in a bigger area. He figured he was getting close to the operating room because of the pipes and some lights hanging against the walls. He continued to look around him and began to worry. 'Where is everybody?' He thought, 'I hope they're not…' Suddenly he heard something flying from behind him. He had took a step to the side and saw a huge axe fly by his face. He saw the blade sink into one of the pipes on the wall that was letting out steam. He quickly spun around and looked closely through the thick steam. His eyes widened when he saw a white bat woman wearing a black body suit approaching him. He had a sigh of relief that he had found Rouge and alive at that but something was off about her. Something different. "R-Rouge?"

The bat woman stood in front of him with an off look in her eyes. It was like she didn't know what was going on.

He figured she was still upset with him for what happened between them the last time they had saw each other. "…Rouge…" He began to slowly walk closer. "I know what I did to you was wrong and I'm sorry. I…I just want to make things right between us." Before he could take another step closer to her, she had drawn a small dagger from the inside of her boot and flung it at him.

He shut his eyes and felt the razor sharp blade lightly slice the side of his cheek. He could feel blood trickling down his face. He took the back of his hand and wiped some of the blood away. His eyes were fixed back onto the bat. "Do you hate me now? You hate me so much, you want to kill me? After all we've been through and this is how you want things to be?" He watched her jump into the air and strike down at him with a kick. Before she could strike him, he had dodged her attack.

She landed back onto the floor and gave him a blank stare.

Shadow couldn't believe how Rouge was acting. He was sure that the woman wasn't even her but it was her. It was her body and she knew how to use her battle suit backwards and forwards. More blood dripped from the small cut on his face. He touched his cheek once again and remembered how uncaring she was towards him when she threw that knife at him. 'Is this really her?' He thought to himself as he saw her take the giant axe out of the damaged pipe. 'If it is…it doesn't matter. She doesn't feel a thing for me anymore…'

She began to approach him while holding the axe tightly in her grip.

Shadow looked down at his blood stained gloves and eyed the golden bracelets that were around his wrists. 'Rouge, you'll never know how I truly felt about you now…'

Rouge started to charge towards the hedgehog with the axe.

He looked away from his bracelets as his hands were covered by a yellow aura. He raised his glowing hands towards her. "Chaos Spear!"

Meanwhile in the control room, Krad was sitting in his chair watching Rouge and Shadow fight in amusement. "My isn't this grand? It's just what I predicted. At this rate, I won't have to consider Shadow and Rouge a threat to me any longer." He turned back to the Chaotix who were still trapped in the electric cage. "Soon Tech City and then the world shall fall."

"Yeah well don't get your head so high in the clouds just yet", Charmy spoke.

"Shadow will realize what's going on and save her!" Tonya added.

Krad looked back at the screen once again and watched as Shadow blasted one of his Chaos attacks at the camera. Now he could no longer watch the fight between the two. "Just great. Now we can't see who will win." He shrugged and then stood from his chair, "Oh well. I guess there will be no winner after all. Which means I get to end your lives a little earlier than I intended to." He turned to Allan, Damon, and Razi and made a small nod meaning that they could kill the group of detectives. "Kill them."

The three of them formed evil expressions on their face and began to approach the detectives while preparing to fire their guns. They were suddenly startled when Espio threw a shuriken star at the lever to the cage and broke the handle off.

"What the hell?" Razi was so startled, he had dropped his gun to the floor.

Tonya took out both of her fan blades and easily sliced the bars apart in the cage.

Krad gave the three men a hateful look, "You idiots! I thought you stripped them of their weapons!"

Allan trembled a bit as he heard Krad's cold loud voice light up the room. "We-we did!"

As Charmy hovered beside the group of detectives, he took out two daggers. "Silly rabbit! Don't you know not to travel without spare weapons?"

A sweat drop appeared on the side of his head. "…This is bad."

Krad pointed at the group of detectives. "Don't just stand there! Shoot them! Shoot them now!"

Vector began cracking his knuckles, "Heads up, guys. It's about to get ugly up in here."

Meanwhile in the sewers, Rouge ran towards Shadow and swung the axe at him but missed once again. When she saw him appear behind her, she swung the axe again but this time, he had caught the axe by the handle and tried holding it back.

He was surprised how strong Rouge actually was. She was putting all of her energy into this fight and she was almost as strong as him with the help of her battle suit.

The bat used her knee, struck him in his abdomen and used the end of the axe to knock him in the side of his head. Once she saw him fall to his knees, she sent a powerful kick to his side and knocked him into another area of the sewer. She saw him laying on the floor struggling to get up.

Shadow saw her suddenly jump into the air and about to stomp on his body. He quickly rolled on his back, caught her foot, and threw her body into a wall.

She fell to the floor and held her side while trying to secretly grab a grenade from her utility belt. She waited for him to walk closer until she pulled the trigger off of the grenade and threw it in front of him.

Once he saw the grenade laying in front of him, he kicked it to a distant corner of the room and watched it blow up a wall revealing another area.

Rouge had tackled him to the floor and pulled out a combat knife. She tried to stab the point of the knife into his neck but he was grabbing her wrist and pushing it away from him. She felt him kick her in her stomach making her weaken her grip on the knife.

He took this to his advantage and punched her in the face, knocking her off of him. When he had gotten off of the floor, he saw her take out a handgun and pulled the trigger without any hesitation. He let out a cry of pain as the bullet shot into his shoulder.

When she saw him hold his shoulder in pain, she quickly walked up to him, grabbed his wrists, and kicked him into another part of the sewer. While he was laying there on the floor, she spotted the combat knife on the floor and picked it up. She walked over to his body, picked him up by his shirt and shoved his back against the wall.

He felt more sudden pain when he felt the sharp end of the knife being stabbed into his stomach. He let out painful groan and felt her take the knife out of his stomach. His heavy eyes were directed down at the floor until he saw little drops of water splash on the floor.

"…Sha…dow…" She spoke in a soft and weak voice.

He weakly looked up at the bat and saw tears flowing down her cheek. He was lost. He just knew that she had every intent to kill him but now she was crying. He looked into her eyes and it seemed that she had so much feeling in them than she had before.

"…Run…a…way…"

He didn't understand her. At first she wanted him to fight her and now she was telling him to get away from her. "Run…away?"

Her words were softening up but her grip on him did not. She attempted to speak to him again. "De-destroy…"

'Destroy?' He thought, 'Destroy what? Me?'

More tears flowed down her cheeks, "Th-the…col…lar…"

'Collar?' His eyes had looked down at the metal collar that was around her neck. He looked into her watery eyes again to try to figure out the rest of her message.

"…De…Des…troy…"

His eyes widened in horror as he finally understood her message to him. He was now aware that Rouge was being controlled by the collar that was around her neck. 'The collar!' He thought, 'That thing's been controlling her this whole time!' He winced as she started to grip around his neck. 'She wants me to destroy the collar!'

More tears fell from her face as she gripped around him harder and harder. "…Sha…dow…"

He slapped her out of his grip and tried to keep a distance from her now that he knew what was happening.

Rouge tossed the bloody knife to the side of the room and picked up the axe back off of the floor.

Shadow stood there holding his bloody shoulder and began to hesitate while he was trying to think of a strategy to get the collar off of her neck. "Don't worry, Rouge", he panted heavily. "…I'll save you."

A/N:

Espio: You have no chance against us!

Krad: I'm more special than you think!

Shadow: Damn! I can't get the collar off!

Rouge:...Sha...dow...

Shadow: Rouge, do you trust me?