These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot.

When this song came on my MP3 Player, I realised with a certain degree of alarm that I had not yet done a single ficlet about Rouge in this entire collection. This will not do, and this was the perfect song to change that.

Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated.

26. Nobody's Side, Chess Soundtrack.

Rouge has never pretended to understand this crazy, backwater planet.

Earth, they call it. The people who live here insist on naming their planet after a clod of dirt, but it's more thought that anyone's ever given to anything on her world, she supposes. Then again these humans spend most of their lives thinking.

Rouge honestly doesn't get it. Wasting their short existences and shining gems on inane issues and government procedures. Topaz says that these complications are a necessary evil to keep the people of this world in check.

('Stops people like Doctor Eggman from crawling out of the woodwork and going insane too often, you know?'

'Hm. ')

Rouge wonders, in a rare moment of honest thought, whether or not the way the people of earth do things causes more problems than all their paperwork and money-pushing solves.

But that isn't her problem, in the end. She's looking for what she can get out of it, and so long as she can milk the current situation for what she desires, she doesn't have much problem with going along with the humans' way of doing things. And what she wants is bright, shining, and something that humans seem more than willing to flaunt in every direction. If their wasting time and energy on all their paperwork and words distracts them for long enough for her to get a paw in, then that's fine with her.

Topaz knows this. In fact, she frequently reminds Rouge of it. "You're a thief" She'll say, and it sounds far more like a statement of fact than any kind of insult. Topaz is at least classy enough for that, Rouge supposes. And where Topaz is concerned, that's really saying something. Elegance just isn't her thing.

We'll have to work on that; teach the woman a little bit about real glamour, Rouge thinks sometimes, and is surprised with herself for actually meaning it.

If there is one thing Rouge the Bat knows she understands, then its beauty. She knows when it's internal, based on confidence and certainty and your own knowledge of yourself as well as your body, and when it's pasted on and decorated with gaudy stones and nine-carat gold. She knows when ugliness hides under elegance, and when beauty is hidden under grubby slacks or sensible uniforms.

Topaz could probably be pretty if she put her mind to it. Probably. But she doesn't seem to care about anything like that. Like all humans, she's all wrapped up in this silly thing called duty. She only cares about that, and the darned paperwork and stopping Rouge's fun every chance she gets. Her loss.

And it's not that she's letting Topaz or any of that paper-based complicated diplomacy stuff gets to her. Not really. Rouge s the kind of bat who takes what she can get when she can get it. And right now, in a world full of humans, working for a government which is more than willing to part with jewels for the sake of security, Rouge is taking everything she can get.

"Everybody's playing the game,

But nobody's rules are the same

Nobody's on nobody's side

Better then to go it alone,

Recognize you're out on your own

Nobody's on nobody's side."