The hurried march of Eggbots resonated throughout the bunker. With lances in tow and sensors set to the sharpest discrimination, there would be no saving repeat of the ignorant raccoon incident. Rouge wasn't sure how many were filing into Shadow's chamber, but they were surely outnumbered.
But not outsmarted. "Why haven't they found us yet?" Shadow whispered from a dark corner.
Rouge was nowhere as concerned about keeping a low profile. "Because they're checking on an alarm from that green-capsule room! They don't care about anyone in the room across the hall!"
"Oh." The Ultimate Life Form fell into silent contemplation. "Are you certain?" he asked again.
"They're stupid robots, Stupid. Now sit still and let me get these shoes on!" Robotnik had created some impressive replicas of Shadow's original attire (and they must have been reproductions, because Professor Gerald did not stamp his mug-shot on sneaker soles like a corporate logo.) Rouge shoved the levitating skates into place and pulled the manacled gloves over Shadow's weak fingers. To complete the dress-up was a wristlet set with a fiery, red stone. Rouge eyed this shrewdly.
"Trade ya," she offered, jingling the jewel pouch on her belt. Shadow only shuffled further into the corner, mumbling some excuse while he clamped his peripheral to his wrist.
"No, no, I … that is, I … I – I'm going to need this, if you don't mind." He was still terribly impressed and worried by the white lady, and though she was his partner, his instincts whispered for vigilance.
Rouge just smirked back. "Whatever." It was almost cute how he tried to explain himself without bruising her feelings. This really, really was so unlike him.
They listened a moment to the thunder of footsteps. Shadow's eyes were scrutinizing her. "You don't act like we're in any danger."
The bat looked at him with gentle concern and patted his knee. "If you're scared, I can hold your hand."
"NO!"
Rouge laughed gaily. Now they were getting somewhere she remembered! "You sure?" she teased, creeping her fingers to his wrist and the ring.
Shadow pulled his hand away. "You stay away from my things," he snapped.
"SSHH!" Rouge hissed back. "Jeez, don't be so loud, they'll hear us!"
"But you started…"
Her finger zipped to his lips and hushed him. The mink could feel his skin burn under her handling, but she only turned her nose up and tested her echolocation on the door.
She considered the sound waves, slightly distorted from the wall. "There are … two guards outside the door to your room. … Everyone else must be inside and looking." She stood up and stretched her wings. "Okay, time to move. I'll take the guards; you just make like a shadow and follow me."
He refused her hand up, rising by the strength of his own legs. "I can fight," he growled, and took a few glides around the small passage to demonstrate. Rouge was impressed – only a few minutes ago, he couldn't even put on his mittens.
"You heal up pretty quickly," she noted slyly. The cuts she'd slashed across his face were already brown scabs, and that was acknowledgement enough.
"Okay Shadow, you can help … if you can get them first!" Rouge dashed through the automatic doors and attacked while Shadow waited for the order to go. The black hedgehog grimaced. She had dazzled and frightened him, but now this white lady was starting to annoy him. He skated out to survey her work. One of the overturned robots was beeping frantically and he kicked it to stop the distress signal.
"Good boy," Rouge said with a tiny applause. She spun on her heel. "C'mon, the elevator's this way."
"Coming, Madam," he jeered. This angel with black wings must have taught him great patience in his forgotten life.
While they raced each other down the hallway, the security team came charging to the call of the fallen sentries. The front line scanned the broken bodies, picked up the fleeing intruder and rushed.
Rouge stabbed the elevator's call button like a jackhammer. "C'mon … c'mon …" The Eggbots were gaining every second. She cursed fluently.
Quiet at her side, Shadow observed the approaching ranks. A mad gleam seemed to kindle in his eye. "Leave this one to me," he smiled, and before she cold grab him, her new treasure skated off into combat.
Rouge yelled at him to come back, and informed Shadow that he would kill himself. The new robots were elite: their armor was strong, and they could adapt to battle, punching and parrying at close range. But the Ultimate Life Form could not be stopped – Rouge could only watch as he rushed with a killing frenzy on his mind.
The hallway forced the army to line up in triplets, and the first wave slowed their charge to meet the enemy. He'll be skewered on those lances! Rouge thought. But the Eggbots stopped to a casual pose with weapons relaxed, and just before Shadow attacked, she swore she saw one raise a hand and salute…
Then Shadow's hoverskates tore the front row apart, and the next line retaliated. The hedgehog was too agile, too nimble to be caught in their sensors and he weaved through their attacks like a dancer on performance. He felled another, dodged a bit and whipped his feet into the next line, and on it went: kicking and dodging, and Rouge wincing whenever her black gem came near death, until ten Eggbots lay on the floor, each head clipped off with an assassin's precision.
Shadow glided back, and his stony face glinted pleasure at its corners. She quickly erased any strong amazement her features displayed. "Oh please – They came at you in rows! Now, if they all attacked at once…"
He cut her off. "Elevator's here."
Rouge glared daggers. She wasn't about to let an amnesic rodent get smug with her – especially not Shadow! "We would have been done faster if you just spun at them with that spine-ball trick you do," she retorted while the elevator doors closed.
"Spine-ball?"
"Uh! Don't tell me you can't remember that … spin-dash thing. And when did you study martial arts?"
"You tell me, Partner."
"No, serious – you never used Judo moves when I knew you." That was one truth he could credit to her. But Shadow just looked at her oddly.
"That's how I remember fighting. It's like instinct to me."
"Well I'm telling you: that's not your style, Partner."
The accusation lingered in the air. Shadow breathed slowly, glowering at her with a face that hid all thought and emotion behind an icy scowl. One had better luck searching a robot's features. Rouge waited for his reply with a little more openness on her face than she preferred, but Shadow had no more to say. He frowned and withdrew behind his crossed arms.
The match was a stalemate – Rouge didn't feel any superiority, only bother over this discovery without explanation. Each of them retreated to their minds to ponder.
The lights flickered and cut out. "Power's gone," Shadow commented quickly.
Rouge snarled, seizing her chance. "Nice work with that fight! You gave them enough time to call the entire base!" Her night vision adjusted and she saw the slit of the doorframe. "C'mon! Grab a side and pull!"
The elevator was stuck halfway up the entrance to sub-floor three. The capsule began to heave: higher up on floor two, robots had forced the shaft open and were firing shots at the cab. Rouge sucked in her gut and crawled out into another dark hallway with egg-shaped doors. "Did we move at all?" Shadow asked, unaware of the identical design plan.
"Move it!" Rouge ordered. The laser shots were getting dangerously accurate.
"Are there stairs?" Shadow inquired, looking up and down the matching doors. "They won't open," he added in the same breath.
"Password protected," Rouge seethed, staring down the keypad next to every door.
Robots started dropping on the elevator and sticking their gun barrels through the space provided. Shadow flattened against the walls. Rouge dropped and dodged the hailfire. While his comrade fired, a second Eggbot crouched to enter the hallway.
Rouge saw this. "Shadow! Get the gun!"
The black blur slid down the wall and hammered his foot on the protruding gun arm. It snapped off at the wrist and Rouge moved in, setting her steel boots on the robots. The toy-like soldiers fell and their large bodies wedged in the entrance. More were dropping into position, pulling at the stuck corpses and preparing for assault.
"Which door now?"
"I'm working on that!" Rouge fired back. It hardly mattered – the entrances looked thick as armored tanks. They would have to fight up the elevator shaft, and she remembered how many robots had been stored on the second floor.
Shadow could see no difference in their choice of doors, but he knew that the elevator - at the end of the hall - was important. What was behind that far-off door opposing the lift, and was it important enough that it deserved a wall to itself? He grabbed Rouge and started skating.
Gun barrels poked through the elevator blockade and tested their luck. Shadow pumped his legs harder; Rouge's heels began to kick up sparks. At the other end of the hall, she vented everything.
"You creep! I can move just fine, I don't need you to pull me! What are you doing now? You think you can crack the code on that keypad?"
"Move!"
A rocket fizzled down the hall and blew into the armored door. When the smoke settled, Rouge found herself pinned to the wall with black quills shielding her body. "Get off!"
Shadow was not pleased that she slammed him into the opposite wall – it only upset the burns on his back further. But the pain would be worthwhile: "There's our exit!" The door had cracked down the middle, and a hole crumbled open under their footwork. Shadow and Rouge squeezed through.
The keypad on the wall outside was conjoined to a sister console inside. Shadow attacked this with his fingers, looking to summon reinforcing security doors while his partner ran down the tunnel and into the main room. He heard the bat tear up the air with her effortless swearing, and he asked what was wrong.
"Great pick, Shadow! This place is barley a broom closet! We're trapped!"
He slid down the tiny path and into the chamber. It was very dark, with only random buttons and lights flashing on the wall. The main feature was a small, inclined plane leading to a circular pedestal with control panels for some unknown machinery. But that was all – in five steps he could cover the length of the room. "Isn't there another door?"
Rouge threw her hands to the air. "Does it look like it?" She swore again and looked to the ceiling. "We'll have to try the vents."
A hammering shook the room. "They're here!" Shadow gasped, and dashed away to defend the door. Battle cries resounded, and she heard him punching the keypad, trying to call down further security. Something large slammed down with the jarring whine of metal scraping metal.
"It's jammed! This won't hold long! Find an air-duct bat!" She could hear the robots firing their weapons into the half-shut barricade.
"Right!" Rouge would bitch at him later about handing out orders. There was enough of a break in the darkness to see the ventilation duct; she could reach and rip it off with some height. Rouge ran up the small incline to the elevated circle.
The ground beneath her feet burst with powerful light. She shrieked, and in the outer hall, even Shadow grimaced at the intensity. The brilliance came from the round platform, exploding power like a demonic pentagram. Rouge squinted, and felt bands of laser sweep up and down her body, from boot to ear tip, then across her figure, from front to back. The beams sliced and dissected her measurements like a holographic scalpel, and the blinding instruments paid special care to sting her eyes.
"Rouge, cut it out!"
"I'm trying!" she snapped back, but she could feel the tug of a gravity generator locking her limbs into position. I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying. Her voice rebounded through her ears – an electronic echo was being passed through the machinery of the room. On the control panels, status bars were filling to completion. A wire-frame bat rotated on the monitors and downloads began.
The light faded, and Rouge clutched her eyes as they struggled with immediate darkness. The battering of the door rang through her ears once again, as did Shadow's whining that he couldn't keep them out much longer. Rouge felt completely disoriented.
Another light flicked on. This one was dim and comfortable, and it illuminated a hidden alcove in front of the platform, a secret that Rouge had overlooked. She wished it had never existed. The shelf in the wall contained a very big robot.
The bands holding its arms and legs were popping loose, its motors were twitching to life, and its two red eyes were snapping on-line. The robot flexed its gears and stepped out of its casing. Ka-chunk! Ka-chunk! Its legs were like pneumatic drills blasting at the ground. Rouge backed away from this impressive warrior.
The giant mecha was some strange hybrid of an armor-plated knight and a biker punk. Its legs were thin and agile, with long flipper-feet and metallic cloths hanging to its knees. Its arms were massive as cannons, with broad, knightly shoulder-pads and spiked cuffs at its wrists. Its claws were large enough to grab her head and crush it like dough. Rouge inched down the incline, with her eyes fixed to this new doom. The robot looked at her with a face tucked into its torso – all but optics were concealed behind a black ventilator and a yellow, cap-like visor. Its attention was locked on the bat.
The world outside their stares broke in: Shadow was yelling. "Rouge, what is going on back there?" He probably turned around at that point, because she heard him gasp. "Oh my …" He lacked the time to finish that. "Rouge: Get Away!" He flung himself into the room and at the monster.
One swipe of its paw took down the hedgehog. Shadow slammed into the wall, screaming and clutching his left arm. The robot released a grating, synthesized roar at the attacker – a warning not to interfere with its prey. Its optics focused on the bat once more and it marched forward with cold determination.
Rouge backed away until her wings were up against the wall. She looked up, and the robot towered over her like a metal giant.
The funny things you noticed when oblivion came: its shoulder-pads were branded with a Greek rune that looked like Death's cloaked head. The symbol was Omega – The End of Everything. And now it was her end. She shut her eyes and looked away.
The robot seized her hand in its enormous paw, and Rouge flinched to prepare for the crushing pain. The mech bowed down with one knee on the floor and leaned over until its respirator face touched the tip of her knuckles. Rouge opened her eyes, and then widened them some more. The robot was kneeling before her!
"I await your command."
The voice was no simple monotone: there were several lines of rich voices speaking together on individual pitches, blending and harmonizing into a lovely baritone.
"What will you have me do, my Mistress?"
Rouge couldn't even think straight, never mind speak. "I – ab-ab … uh …"
Explosions rocketed the door. "They're breaking through!" Shadow cried against his pain, and crawled to heir last defense, ignoring whatever evil his partner was up against. He started yelling and the noise of hacking limbs entered the room. The robot was still at her feet, and Rouge was still at a loss of what to do.
She gathered her wits. "What … what are you?"
The robot stood tall and sprang into self-introduction. "Classification: All-Terrain, Heavy-Assault Mech! Badnik Series: E-100, mark III design! Assembly Division: R-45! Model Number: 1-2-3!"
The mech stretched its posture and clenched its fist with pride. "Codename: Omega." Rouge followed with miniscule comprehension.
She tried her luck. "Stand on one leg." E-123 raised its right leg and balanced.
She tried again. "Spin your head." Omega rotated his headpiece in a full circle. Rouge grinned wickedly.
"Jump up and down!"
Her lackey gave a funny pause. "Do you wish this unit to attain a specific displacement from the ground?"
Rouge's face began to tremble, and she shook until she laughed! "Who am I?" she asked, for confirmation.
"You are my Mistress. I await your next command. … May I put my leg down?"
Rouge's laugh turned into a wicked cackle that caught the attention of Shadow. "Rouge, I need back-up!"
Omega was peering down the corridor, where the black hedgehog had managed to slam the security doors shut again. "Incoming transmission," he announced. "I am receiving multiple hailing frequencies. 30 Egg Pawn-class units requesting access to this location." The lummox turned to Rouge. "Shall I comply?"
Rouge snapped her orders like lightning. "No!" She repeated for emphasis. "No, no, no NO! Don't you dare let your buddies in or they'll kill us!"
Omega processed this. "Termination of Mistress is incompatible with primary objectives. Do you wish to designate all Egg Pawns as enemies?"
Rouge had a new favorite gem. "Yes," she hissed greedily.
Omega nodded. "Confirmed." Before Rouge could ask why, he stomped out of the room and to the door. "Please step aside, Shadow-Zero." The hedgehog stared perplexed at the mecha. Rouge pulled him aside. Shadow gasped, but she ignored his broken arm. The bat hushed for silence and watched Omega approach the thundering door.
The E-Series raised his arms and clenched his fists. His hands retracted into their sockets with a bit of clicking and whirring. For their replacements, out came two short cylinders, mounted on a central screw and sub-divided into six barrels. The new appendages began to spin and whine.
"Weapon systems primed! Preparing to engage!" Omega had only to look and beep at the controls and the security doors opened with a hiss. Thirty heavily armed Egg Pawns stood guard outside, and each one looked up at the massive E-Series and awaited his report on the situation.
E-123 Omega swept a red laser over each Pawn and lowered his arms at their heads. In his baritone voices, Rouge could hear him grin with mad satisfaction.
"Destroy!"
The hall blasted into chaos under the powerful sweep of duel chain-guns. Rouge covered her ears and clenched her eyes against the flash of laser fire. Explosions blossomed and body parts flew wild. She couldn't hear any return fire – Omega was mowing them down like a tractor! Shadow watched with barefaced amazement.
Rouge poked him for attention. "If you're a good little Ultimate Life Form, maybe I'll let you play with him sometime!"
"Ultimate what?" But Rouge was too giddy to listen. There was always, always, always – even in the darkest hour – always a way out. And sometimes, it came with missile launchers.