The museum

"Well here we are...finally." Rouge stated the obvious after about two hours of getting lost; the rain had not ceased and only plummeted even harder down onto Knuckles' and Rouges' red umbrellas.

Rouge had finally gotten over her melancholy stage and was looking up at the huge building that was the museum, how she could have missed it she never knew. But she refused to fly in the rain and Knuckles couldn't fly anyway so she would have to carry him and just get wet and bothered for nothing. Although...it could have possibly been quicker if she had made the sacrifice.

The many winding streets of the town of Chun-nan made it difficult to find the entrance to the museum since it was like a maze, just when they had thought they were heading towards the huge building that was the museum in the centre of the town they hit a dead end and had to back track. Anyway, it didn't matter now since they had finally found the entrance that was a set of steps ascending to a pair of giant double oak doors.

Thunder rumbled in the mountains surrounding the town and the pink and white blossom trees littering their grey stone were blown around forcefully, their pink and white petals getting caught in the wind and being blown across the town. It seemed the little rain they had expected had transformed into a full blown storm.

"Let's get in before it starts to get worse!" Knuckles shouted to her over the wind as they pushed against the wind with their umbrellas and ascended the white marble steps. Rouge squinted as even with the umbrella stray water droplets soared into her face temporarily blinding her.

As her heels tapped against the marble steps she only started to realise how close to a page they were, this could be the first one to be found so far. She would communicate with Shadow later with the communicator she had given him to see how things were doing on their end. Tails had already told her over the communicator that he was closing in on Holoska which had taken him nearly a full twenty four ours to reach, Blaze and Silver would soon be busy too.

With Knuckles' unbelievable strength he hooked his mitt around the giant, circle, steel handle of one the oak doors and pulled it open with ease. The door creaked loudly as it swung open revealing a very well lit interior of the ground floor of the museum. Walking in they sheathed their umbrellas and hooked them on some wooden coat hangers which Rouge had noticed. As she hooked her umbrella up she noticed a map of the museum pinned to the wall, but it was in Chinese and so was unreadable. But the picture showed that the museum had five floors!

"Where do we start Hun? There are five floors and each floor holds quite a few rooms." Rouge asked with a seductive wink, Knuckles was used to this and just shrugged. They had all day; they might as well observe the place from bottom to top. If we don't find it today we have tomorrow and the day after that...and the day after that... Knuckles shook his head to stop his thoughts wondering and trailing off.

"Well, I will go to the right side of the room and you go to the left, we will explore the glass cases in the middle last where we will meet." Rouge explained as she was already wondering off before Knuckles could object or argue. Besides, Rouge wanted to look around anyway out of interest.

Her heels continued to tap comfortingly against the green marbled floor, which when she looked at was shiny enough for her to see her reflection. The walls were pure white with purple dragons painted stylishly onto it. The room was huge in itself let alone the whole museum, as she gazed up at the very high ceiling in wonder she saw beautiful crystal chandeliers hanging firmly, their separate crystal pieces twinkling in the light and eliciting a bell sound as they gently touched each other. I have got to get Knuckles to get me one of those! Her thoughts squealed, before she managed to avert her gaze and compose herself. Beyond the chandeliers she looked in awe at the ceiling that had delicate and detailed paintings of ponds and water lilies, it seemed Chun-nan was obsessed with water lilies.

"We are here for the page, not chandelier shopping Batgirl." Knuckles called sarcastically from the other side of the room, a broadening grin on his face as he had watched Rouge for the past five minutes. The girl was not even giving a glance to the contents of the glass cases on her side of the room...she was too distracted by the chandeliers above. Rouge laughed embarrassedly with a blush before paying more attention at the cases beside her.

It seemed her side of the room was animals, realistic models of cheetahs, lions and tigers were in the current case she had stopped at. At first she was afraid they were real, but a note said `all models are made by our professional crafters of Chun-nan`. With this she gave a thankful sigh and continued her way along.

Next on her side as she walked happily along, her hands behind her back in a professional yet observing posture, there were fresh water fish. They looked so real that the scales almost looked slimy like the real things; she was impressed by the modelling detail as you could see each individual scale. This case was particularly large with what looked like hundreds of fish. If only I had my camera with me, her thoughts snickered as she physically grinned, also wondering why there wasn't any sea fish in the case.

Now onto the next case, which was absolutely huge since it touched the ceiling, contained birds. She marvelled at the models of birds in midflight, some were diving towards a makeshift pond; some were so big that they were near the top of the case. Birds like the albatross with its full wing span spread elegantly across the case. Rouge looked behind her and spread her bat wings to full wingspan; it was absolutely nothing compared to the giant birds'.

"Well, Rouge, it is obvious that the page is not going to be on that side." Knuckles smirked as he broke her away from her thoughts again as he had already finished examining his side of the room and was already on the middle cases.

Rouge pouted at him at his logic, which was a first may she add. They were searching for a page, not sight seeing which is what she was currently doing. Quickly, she jogged past the other cases holding insects, amphibians and reptiles so she could catch up. Only looking briefly longer at the models of bats in their case hanging upside down more than others, how could bats sleep like that?...I certainly don't, she mentally puzzled as she continued her quick jog. Knuckles was already waiting for her, having already searched the middle cases containing prehistoric animals like the sabre-toothed tiger and the mammoth.

They headed into another room on the same floor through a white marble archway that contained the dinosaur bone collections and fossils, what museum would be complete without the traditional dinosaur collection?

As the hours ticked by they completed four other rooms on the ground floor alone which contained Chinese culture, Chinese art, dragons and the flower room which was outstandingly stunning. The flower room was much smaller than the other rooms and had actual vines curling around the walls and ceiling, there was not a single piece of wall or ceiling visible to the naked eye. Delicate blue flowers that bloomed on the vines released their strong, sweet scent as they entered the room. In the very middle was a pond made out of blue marble, goldfish swam in-between the stems of the many breeds of water lilies as Rouge found this room particularly enchanting.

They completed the first floor and went up to the second. Those rooms contained mostly crystals and meteors; one meteor was literally bigger than a house and had black crystals sparkling in the cracks. Knuckles attempted to touch it but Rouge smacked his hand away furiously...she wanted to touch it first.

Next was the third floor which Rouge could scarcely believe her eyes. It was like an aquarium as they opened a wooden door to a glass circular tunnel, light reflections from the water danced around them as they saw actual alive sea animals. The tunnels were like a glass maze in themselves as each tunnel lead to other sea animals. Rouge loved the sharks that went over their heads and laughed joyfully, this place was amazing! Rouge cooed mostly at a golden seahorse that followed her on the other side of the glass and took particular interest in the bat.

Fourth floor was nothing special, just old war equipment and weapons. It was only then they realised the whole museum was deserted...which was when they started playing around. Knuckles eagerly grabbed a green army helmet and placed it on his head giving a salute, Rouge hissing for him to stop it whilst giggling herself as Knuckles marched around the room looking like a right idiot.

Nothing was seen of the page yet and both felt strangely tense as they went up the next flight of steps leading to the final floor. The fifth floor. A gloved hand tensed on the cold metal handle of the door as Rouge began to turn it. But it didn't budge.

"It's locked!" She said incredulously as she tried again, to no avail.

"You're kidding!" knuckles answered with wide eyes as he too attempted the handle. It was well and truly locked.

"I am sorry but that room is strictly forbidden." A voice with a heavy Chinese accent came from behind them making them jump and spin around to meet two security guards in uniform, both looking incredibly angry.

"We will have to ask you to leave the museum for... messing around with the artefacts here." The second guard continued, glaring particularly at Knuckles. Knuckles blushed; he didn't know he had been seen with the army helmet.

XXXX

"What now? I am willing to bet any rings that the page is on that floor!" knuckles spoke with irritation, his foot tapping away on the wet pavement. Both were now outside and by the looks of things both had spent a whole fun day in the museum, the sky was now clear of clouds and the sun was setting over the mountains.

"The thing I used to do best..." Rouge trailed off with a seductive grin, Knuckles looked at her with wide eyes of utter disbelief.

"You don't mean-"

"Yes, tonight...we break in and steal it Hun."