Chapter 35: Scandal at the Supermarket:
My name is Rouge the Bat! Better known as the government agent Rouge!
It seems that once again, I overcame all odds and made it through the night...with
a little help from Shadow and Amy, of course! Thanks to both of their assistance, I'm
definitely feeling a bit better about this whole ordeal, and now it's time to step out of
my room for the first time since two days ago! Yup, this is gonna be alright; nobody
else in the house knows about this, and it's not like the paparazzi can get in here!
And who knows? Maybe I'll get TRIPLE the luck and be given a weekly chore that
allows me to stay in the confines of this house for just a bit longer!
The next morning after breakfast, the entire household was looking at the Sunday chores-list. Each Sunday, everyone each had their own chore to do in order to get prepared for the week. After looking through the list, everyone dispersed, wanting to get their chores over-with in order to do other things for the rest of the day. The list of chores to be done stayed the same, but the person who had to do each chore changed weekly. The chores on the list were: cooking dinner for the week, going to the supermarket, cleaning the pool, dusting the furniture, mopping the floors, going through the refrigerator, tending the chao-garden, and doing the laundry. Of course everyone had to focus on their own individual responsibilities as well.
This week, the person who needed to go the supermarket was Rouge, who had finally summoned the courage to leave home after the embarrassing headline had hit the Mobius Street Journal. The supermarket was one of the first things you would see upon leaving the neighborhood where Sonic and co. lived. It was the largest in all of Mobius, and was known for selling many expensive and rare items, as well as lots of merchandise shipped from other countries. Due to the high prices for most of the merchandise, the place was mainly frequented by upper-class people, with the occasional middle-class person who was trying to find something they couldn't at their usual supermarket.
Rouge was pushing the shopping cart through the aisles with one hand, while holding the grocery list in the other. She was wearing sunglasses, a scarf on her head, and a long coat with lots of fur around the neck, making herself look older, as well as making it difficult to tell what species she was. She hated the look, but went with it anyway if it meant keeping a low profile.
"Hmm, so what does Tails need now?" Rouge mumbled, staring at the small sheet of paper in her hand, "Okay, sweetbreads, black truffle oil, quinoa, (Damn, this sounds good)..."
In just under an hour, Rouge had gotten just about everything that Tails needed for this week's dinner, as well as the other food items on the list. There was now only one item left: sweetbreads. Rouge looked up and saw a large sign that read "Exotic Meat Counter". As the title suggested, this was the area one would go to if they wanted to find meats that were usually not found within the continent.
"Let's see now, we have goat brains, blood sausage, ground ostrich, duck kidneys, suckling pigs, aha! Sweetbreads!" Rouge said as she made her way along the circular counter.
"Okay, so I need a pound of these? Yeesh, sounds pricey! Hmm, maybe I can get 'em for free!" She continued, a slight smirk on her face as she looked around for the person who operated this area.
The man who was in charge of the Exotic Meat Counter was standing behind the glass case where all of the meats were, waiting patiently for someone to come and buy something. Rouge took a deep breath before coming into the man's view.
"Oh hey there. You looking for customers, handsome?" She asked, strutting towards the cash register that he was standing behind.
"Uh, heh heh, well I..."
"Shhh!" Rouge cut off his response, "Well here's one now! Anyways, I'd like a pound of those sweetbreads, if you don't mind. Could you be a nice cup of sugar and get them for me?"
She leaned on the counter, making sure some of her cleavage was in his view. The plan was working. The man twitched as an eye dropped down onto the cleavage line.
"Well?" Rouge ordered. The man hurriedly grabbed the pound of sweetbreads, but just as he was about to start up the cash register, Rouge leaned in further and planted a kiss on his bulbous nose. The hypnotized cashier stood there stricken, slouching slightly, with a pink kiss-shaped lipstick mark remaining on his nose, as Rouge made off with her final purchase. As she was nearing the elevator back down to the first floor however, many whispers were heard amongst fellow customers. Sentences such as "Wait! You don't think...!?" and "Could that be who I think it is?" were uttered.
By the time Rouge made her way into the check-out line, word of her recent doings had already spread throughout the multitude of customers in the supermarket. She was unaware of this however, and proceeded to pay for all the groceries. The trouble began when she was loading the groceries into the car she was borrowing from Amy. Fellow customers proceeded to follow her through the parking lot, constantly asking her questions. Rouge finally cracked upon reaching the pink sports car she was borrowing from Amy.
"Alright, what do you bastards want?!" She asked impatiently.
"We know it was you." A woman said.
"Yeah, you're Rouge the Bat!" Her son added, pointing a finger at the disguised shopper.
Rouge grew uncomfortable.
"Wait! How did you know it was me?!" She demanded.
A teenage girl held up her smartphone with a smirk, showing pictures of Rouge flirting with the meat man from earlier. At this point, Rouge realized that as she was leaning in to kiss him, one of her ears came out of the scarf, and her eyes were visible from under the sunglasses.
"Not to mention that we could all tell who you really were when we heard your voice." The girl explained, only to realize that Rouge was gone.
The group of fellow customers saw the car speeding out of the parking lot and onto the avenue, with Rouge wiping away tears of humiliation as she stripped off her disguise.
"Heh, she can try to run away if she wants, but there's no way in hell the Mobius Street Journal is not going to hear about this!" The girl sneered, suddenly realizing that the other customers had left too, tailing Rouge down the residential road.