Rouge was staring up toward the remnants of the moon. She had aided Shadow and Eggman in their 'demonstration' of the power potential for the Eclipse Cannon, which was only just a trap into luring the Chaos Emeralds to reawaken the Biolizard. But that seemed so long ago, even though only a week had passed since the whole adventure.
She wasn't particularly proud of the fact that taking those three emeralds from Prison Island's Security Hall had contributed to causing such a disaster. Or the fact that it had helped release that…creature from its slumber aboard the ARK. Usually her small cravings for jewels hadn't caused any real harm until now. She returned to reality after hearing another firework explode in the starry blue sky. The village on the land below the floating Angel Island was having a celebration in honor of Sonic's latest victory for the world. Much to everyone's surprise, Knuckles had invited her to stay with him for a while on the floating island while offering to help her learn some more self-control.
"It was Shadow's victory too…" she trailed off sadly. "Of course it is." She turned around to see the crimson echidna behind her. He sat beside her on the rock she was seated on. "Still blaming yourself for unleashing the Biolizard?" he inquired. Rouge looked away from him. "Of course I do! If I had gotten into more detail with my intelligence reports, then maybe, just maybe…" "Shadow would be here?" he asked. "Well, that too. But I'm not worried about Shadow. Even though he's not here, it looks like he can take good care of himself, wherever he is. It's his creator that worries me."
"How so?" Knuckles asked curiously. "The guy was executed by his own government for creating biological weapons. He's not much of a …" His voice trailed off as he began to understand part of what was troubling Rouge. The snowy bat looked up at the sky and frowned. "Before we left the ARK, I got some last minute information off the ARK computer database." Knuckles looked at her and frowned. "I thought I was trying to help you learn some self-control," he growled. "You are", she replied. "But I was curious about something. And the information that I came across confirmed my suspicions." "Although very few people who survived the ARK lockdown were astronauts with little awareness of Dr. Gerald's experiments, one of them, his premier assistant, managed to get off the colony with several of Gerald's calculations and notes."
"So what if some guy smuggled a few notes?" Knuckles retorted. He could understand Rouge's concern, but didn't quite understand what she was getting at. "The guy should be, like Gerald, long dead. Or at least frozen somewhere by G.U.N." Rouge glared back at him. "You don't understand. If he had been 50 yrs old, that would have been the case, but he was 17…the first and only child besides Maria who was aboard the ARK. Gerald was his role model…he looked up to him."
"So what's a 67 yr old guy gonna do with a bunch of notes?" roared Knuckles. "The way I see it, the worst he could possibly do is sell them to Eggman. And considering how much damage he did when he took advantage of Chaos, I wouldn't be too happy about that." Rouge, who was getting rather annoyed with Knuckles' attention span, cleared her throat. "You missed the point. I said he was 17. And that he was Gerald's premier assistant. Putting two and two together, he was obviously some kind of super-genius for his age, whose mind rivaled that of Gerald's. If he was that smart, then he would know how to put the doctor's notes into use."
Knuckles was finally catching on to what his bat companion was beating around the whole time. "You mean that there might be a possibility of more biological weapons like the Biolizard hidden somewhere on Earth?" Rouge looked up at him and smiled, but let her frown slowly return. "That's exactly what I mean. Believe it or not." She looked deep into his eyes. "That's what has me so worried…that another of those creatures might be unleashed to devour the world."
Another firework exploded in the clear night sky. Using the distraction to his advantage, Knuckles changed the subject. "I invited you here for something else other than learning self-control", he finally blurted out. Rouge cocked an eyebrow in his direction. "Is that so?",she responded inquisitively. She could see that the crimson echidna was up to something; he was having a difficult time looking her straight in the face. He was also finding it difficult to put up a tough defense for what he was about to say next. "It's hard to get out a lot considering the Master Emerald…and you came along…and…umm…" He stopped talking when he noticed Rouge get up and stand right in front of him, arms crossed.
"I get the picture.", she said softly. She extended a gloved hand and helped him up. When he was finally able to look into her face again, he found that she had a warm smile on her face. The snowy bat placed a hand on one of his cheeks. "For someone with a rock-hard exterior, you're actually pretty sweet…" She moved in closer and kissed him very softly on the lips…which slowly moved into a soft embrace. And the both of them stayed that way until the end of the fireworks display…