Disclaimer: Sonic, and everything related to such is property of that wonderful third party game developer Sega. This is purely made for the entertainment of myself and others. No profit is being made from this. The disclaimer will be only said once
Summary: Shounen ai is a big possibility in later chapters. I haven't yet decided. This is set in the Sonic Adventure universe, and follows vaguely the start of Sonic Heroes, although for the most part is ignored.
Soulseeker: Reunification
A thud. A spray of dust, a cry. "Ow, damn it!" A figure dressed in a catsuit fell to the floor, landing on her rear. She was sitting with her eyes closed. As the dust settled, she opened one eye to survey her surroundings. "Hmm, let's see then. Dirt covered metal hallways, smell of oil and grease. I must be in the correct place." She opened her other eye and the entire world came into focus. Dusting herself off, she rose to her feet. The light levels were hardly ideal, and she could barely see a thing, she cursed her eyesight. Fortunately, her hearing was a little better than average, and she was sure she could detect any problems before they were much of a threat.
Robotnik wasn't too smart when it came to plans, but damn, he was good at design. These corridors full of twists, turns and pitfalls confused and hindered Rouge to no end, but her natural skill at detecting jewels gave her at least a point of reference to work from. That is of course, why she was here. There were rumours of abandoned treasure vaults kept in this deserted base. It also didn't help that every step she made emitted a distinct 'clink'. If anyone had been around to stop Rouge, they could have done so at five hundred paces by sound alone.
"Ooh, this better be worth it. I haven't figured how to get out of this place yet." She grumbled. It was true that she could use the jewel's location as a sort of pointer, that pointer wouldn't work for getting out. Foolishly, she had forgotten to mark her path, meaning she would have to make her own way out. Her day just got better.
She came to a large metal-walled hall that had a distinctly blue tint to it. It was illuminated by a series of overhead flickering lights. Obviously there was still some power keeping this place online, if marginally. The hall was big enough for her to spread her wings, and she did so. Rouge opened them out to their full span, and flapped them a few times experimentally. When she was happy, she walked over to the centre of the room, and came upon a crossroad. "That's interesting. Where should I go?" She muttered to herself. She closed her eyes in concentration for a moment, her 'jewel-finder' homing onto nearby items.
When she opened her eyes a frown was automatically put on her face. Apparently, all three of the exits had strong signatures coming from them, but the path on the left had the strangest. She'd felt that signature before, when she was 'assisting' Knuckles with the Master Emerald shards. This piqued her interest, so she headed over to the left exit. A partially open doorway led to a giant transparent tube with a walkway going through the middle. The clinking sound she made when she walked had now turned into a 'tonk'. To her eyes, the tube seemed to go on forever. To her ears, it only went on another hundred yards or so. She started to pick up speed as the signature got more powerful.
She came to a point where the walkway widened onto a large platform. She felt her boot hit something. Glancing down to see what it was, she was suddenly blinded by an intense flash of light, and momentarily deafened by the grinding of machinery. "Argh, what's going on." She said to herself, irritation laced in her voice.
"Identity confirmed; Rouge the Bat. Classified as hostile. She must not reach the altar room." Resounded a mechanical tone of voice. As her vision returned to normal, she looked around, rather nervously. She could now see past the utter blackness of the tube's outline, and to the floor of the room. She was high up. A gigantic behemoth of a battleship lay below her, similar to the Egg Carrier that had crashed just off the shore of the Station Square ruins. She now realised she had a more pressing concern.
"One of Eggman's pets? I should have no trouble with you then." She said confidently, adding a smirk to her face.
"I beg to differ, miss." The cold voice said. A pair of eyes just ahead of her glowed a strange Sunburst yellow. A clonking noise echoed around the tube as the robot stepped forward. Rouge noted that it resembled a certain blue hedgehog, if said hedgehog was silver, and covered in a lethal array of razor sharp spikes. Something told the bat that this was going to be a little trickier than any regular Badnik.
"Take this!" She cried, sending a foot in the direction of the robot. She could feel it being caught by Silver Sonic. She was then sent spinning in the air, coming face to face with the steel floor. She could feel a sliver of blood trickle down the side of her face from her forehead, and wiped it off her fur with a finger. Narrowing her eyes at the construct, she grinned a devilish grin. "You'll pay for that, freak."
Rouge dived forward, avoiding a few lazy punches from Silver Sonic, she then jumped onto its head and pushed off, sending it reeling backwards. Using the added height, she flapped her wings to give her a bit more lift. This was one advantage over Silver Sonic. Rouge could fly, it could not. A ball of steel zoomed past her right side, a single spike catching her arm and ripping her suit along the forearm. Blood dripped from the wound as she realised with no small comfort that, "It can jump."
She growled as she dropped down to the platform. It was more dangerous in the air for her than it was on the ground. She adopted a defensive stance, bringing her wounded arm back. When Silver Sonic had jumped past her she had lost track of it. She scanned the room with her eyes and ears. It was around, she just couldn't pinpoint it. A sudden impact sent her staggering forward. She recovered as she stumbled and swung a leg around in a high kick. It was deflected quite easily by a steel arm. "This thing's defences were impenetrable.
"Rouge the Bat, surrender and you shall be afforded the mercy of a swift death." It said, pausing for a moment. Rouge remained silent and decided to capitalise on its mistake. She jabbed at an un-spiked section of its underbelly, denting it slightly, then brought her leg round in a low arc, thus tripping it up. As the robot fell, it dived into a ball and shot off in Rouge's direction. She swiftly dodged it.
"I'm doing this the wrong way." said Rouge, glancing at the tube around her. She made a sprint towards the altar door, hoping to grab Silver's attention. Being one of Robotnik's earlier designs, she figured that it would have a poor AI chip. Maybe she could deceive it somehow, it was her speciality, of course. Her thoughts rushed by in a flash of colour. She turned her view to the huge glass pipe that surrounded her. "If I could just....Oomph!" She groaned. Silver had pinned her to the platform. He was using one arm to keep her steady, and one arm he brought down to her neck. This is the arm that Rouge was using her full strength to struggle against. It had several razors on it, and it wouldn't take long to finish her off if it made contact with her head. With a burst of strength quite uncommon for her, she shoved Silver Sonic off her. Her palms were cut to ribbons from the struggle.
'Palms be damned.' she thought, curling her hands up into fists. Rouge winced at the sting that the action did, and decided that punching something as hard as steel wouldn't make it feel better. Trying not to use her hands, she went into a frenzy of kicks and feinted jabs. Silver Sonic didn't try to avoid them. He didn't have to. What he did do was come off in a series of dents and scrapes. Only superficial damage was caused. Nothing that could tip the fight in Rouge's favour came from it.
"Miss Rouge, I will offer you one last chance to surrender yourself to a quick death." the thing said, its eyes flashing as it hit the last syllable.
"Sorry you pathetic excuse for a hedgehog bot, I don't give up that easily." said Rouge, giving off an eerie smile.
"Have it your way." said Silver Sonic, it its emotionless voice. It clunked forward on its legs, obviously not wanting to use its speed advantage. Rouge thought that maybe it couldn't control itself fully when it was in its ball form. She could make use of that. The batgirl picked up a discarded wrench and threw it at Silver Sonic. The hedgehog effigy didn't even break a stride as it clanked off his front armour. "I assure you miss, this battle is quite futile."
"Don't you get tired of your own voice?" She thought back to her time on ARK, and pulled something out of the blue, "Faker."
It seemed to have the desired effect. His eyes changed from a sunburst yellow to a blood red. He then rolled forward into a ball, picking up speed. He'd taken the bait, or so it seemed. Rouge jumped away from Silver sonic as he hit into the barrier. It held, just. He then continued chasing Rouge around the room, occasionally coming into contact with the edge of the platform. Rouge had to dive to the floor on several occasions to avoid the spiked ball of death. On the last such incident she found herself cornered against the side of the platform. She clambered to a standing position, checking the rail behind her. It wobbled ever so slightly. She looked around, and noticed Silver Sonic was in a standstill spin. The Badnik was aiming himself directly at her.
"It has been a pleasure, miss Rouge." He fired forward, zooming towards Rouge at a fairly fast speed. As it approached, the world seemed to slow down for Rouge. She jumped at the last possible second, catching her calf on the razors all over Silver. The added force made her spin in the air. As gravity reaffirmed its hold on Rouge, the bat opened her wings, and floated gently to a stop on the platform. She immediately fell down on one knee as the pain of her recent injury came to her brain.
Rouge had noticed one thing since she landed. She wasn't dead. She wondered had happened to Silver. As if in answer to her question, there was a sharp clash of glass being broken. She jumped up, and hopped over to the edge of the barricade, where she noted there was a section missing. Looking down over the ledge, she could see in the now intense light a figure falling. The bat heard a distant but satisfactory crunch of metal as Silver Sonic impacted with the hull of the battleship below.
Rouge made a list of her injuries. Two lacerations on the left arm, one deep cut on the calf, palms shredded, pristine fur covered with dry blood. Ironically, out of all her problems, the last one was the most important in her mind. The cuts on her arm weren't too bad. Her palms would cause no major problems, but her calf. If she didn't do anything about it soon, it would get infected. Looking at the arm of her suit, she sighed and said, "It's ruined anyway." She tore away a strip of material from her outfit and used it as a makeshift bandage, staunching the flow of blood and covering the wound.
The now weary Rouge limped over to where the door to the 'altar room' was. 'That is what Silver Sonic had called it, wasn't it?' she thought. The door itself was like every other door in the complex. Drab, dull, economical. Something fairly important must reside within if a Silver Sonic was put on guard before this place was left to rot. She examined the area for a switch of some sort. When none were forthcoming she took another step back. The door didn't look like it could take much of a beating. She guessed Eggman must have thought that Silver Sonic would take care of any intruders. With her good leg, she hopped forward and delivered a semi-powerful kick to the door. It was about as substantial as tin foil.
The door was knocked inwards and collapsed onto the floor. It bounced a few times before it settled into its new position. Behind her the high-powered lights in the tube shut off systematically, leaving the bat in pitch-blackness. The power then came to this room. However, only a single light still worked in this area, giving the room an eerie feel. The light reflected off an object in the middle of the room. Sure enough, there was an altar in the room's centre. What was on it looked strangely enough like an escape pod of sorts. It was still functioning, the light emitting diodes on the control panel said that much. There was a glass viewing port on the top of the object that spanned around it until it was around head level. The object itself was slightly taller than Rouge.
She looked around the room for a moment. It was dark, and she could barely see the wall from the centre. She could see that this room was a mess, and that there were signs of a struggle long finished, possibly another 'treasure hunter' that had tried his luck with Silver Sonic. There were several wooden crates around, but all of them were empty. Turning her attention back to the altar, she peeked into the viewer. There appeared to be a greenish liquid bubbling on the inside, with a few bits of black to be seen. "Hmm. There's something in this..." Rouge said, moving her hand down the tube and to the control panel affixed to it. She tapped a button called 'Release'.
The pod sounded a beep, and Rouge took this as an indication to move away from it. Slowly but surely, the green liquid drained from the tank and into the grating on the floor. The viewer was still blurred from the recent presence of liquid. Another series of beeps sounded from the pod. The entry hatch opened up. What she expected was a huge pile of jewels. Onyx, ruby, sapphire, emerald and diamonds of all descriptions were meant to be stored in the pod. What she did not expect stored in there was body of Shadow the Hedgehog.
Rouge thought that when the dark hedgehog fell to the planet, he would be burned up in the atmosphere, leaving no visible corpse. How on earth did he get here, even his body could stand the heat of re-entry. There were no physical imperfections Rouge could see. It was if he hadn't died at all. The white bat took a step forward, to examine Shadow more closely. She took a bounding leap backwards when he opened his eyes.
"But you...but I...aren't you...." said Rouge, babbling. When she reasserted control over her mouth, she finally voiced what she was trying to get at. "Hey, you're supposed to be dead!"
The 'ghost' of Shadow coughed and spluttered for a moment, getting rid of any of that green water out of his system. He took two steps out of the pod and onto the grating below. He immediately shielded his eyes; the single light in the room was enough to hurt them if he looked at it. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure. Who are you?" Shadow said through gritted teeth.
Rouge blinked, 'He doesn't know me? Amnesia? How terribly cliché.'
"I asked you a question, bat. Since you know more than enough about me, feel like sharing any information?" growled Shadow, moving his hand away from his eyes. The newly reborn hedgehog was now adjusting to the dim light.
"You don't remember me, do you?" asked Rouge rhetorically. "So I don't suppose you'll remember ARK either?" asked Rouge again, rhetorically. "I'm Rouge the Bat, treasure hunter extraordinaire! Pleased to remake your acquaintance, Shadow." she said, offering her hand as a gesture of good will.
He took her hand and shook it gently. "Treasure hunter says 'thief' to me bat." He said, grinning menacingly. "I suppose I have no need to introduce myself. What do you refer to when you say ARK?"
"I shall be more than glad to tell you anything you want to know about yourself, just as soon as we get out of this hellhole." She said, taking her hand back. "Now, listen to me carefully. We may be in this complex for a while. I have no idea as to where the exit is. To hell with any jewels that may be around, I don't want to spend another second here."
The dumbstruck, and extremely wet Shadow stood there and for the most part, ignored the girl. Who was this bat to think she could order him, the Ultimate Lifeform, around? His eyes took on a far off look to them as he went through his inner monologue. 'These things she is saying, it all sounds so familiar, but then again, so foreign. I have heard of ARK distantly, but other than that, I know nothing of it. I do not know any Rouge, but she seems to know me. Where am I?' Shadow was snapped out of his reverie by Rouge prodding him and asking "Are you coming?"
"I will come, but do not presume that you can order me around. I am the Ulti-" he was cut off by Rouge.
"Yes, yes. Ultimate Lifeform. I've heard all this crap before. I didn't believe it to begin with, I certainly don't believe it now." Rouge said, furrowing her brow in irritation. "Now be quiet, I can still feel that strange energy signature around here." She ordered. Shadow shut up and stood perfectly still, although the occasional drip was heard where the water drained off him. Rouge walked over and around the back of the machine. "Well, well, what have we here." She tugged at something on the pod's back end. She held it high when it came loose. Shadow widened his eyes at the blue gem.
"A Chaos emerald!" said Shadow, his arm extending as if to grab it. Rouge was a few metres away, so the gesture was futile.
"Oh, you know what this is then?" She paused to consider Shadow for a moment. "Then I hope you remember how to Chaos Control. It'll be handy for getting out of this place." Shadow shook his head, sending the last few drops of liquid down to the abyss below the gratings.
"I need to know the place I plan to teleport to. If I can't, I may just end up teleporting into a wall. Since the only place I know is this room, and that walkway over there, I'd say I can't." explained the black hedgehog, now noticing something for the first time. "You're injured."
Rouge waved her hand dismissively, "I'll be fine." She looked at Shadow, then at the emerald. "Well, at least it hasn't been a complete waste of time coming down here, isn't that right, my pretty?" said Rouge.
Shadow was taken aback by this comment, and sheepishly said "Thank you."
Rouge turned to face him and laughed. "I wasn't talking to you dummy. Now come on, the sooner we leave this room, the sooner we get out." She turned tail and walked rather cautiously out of the room, every so often gasping when she put her foot down.
Shadow raised an eyebrow. He was rather frustrated at the moment. He couldn't believe he was being bossed around by this woman, and allowed it. She was even mocking him. Any other time he wouldn't stand for it. At the minute, it was in his best interests if he obeyed. He skated after Rouge, rather leisurely, surprised that the anti-grav boosters in his shoes still worked after being exposed to that water.
He took point as he barged past Rouge, eliciting a 'Hey! Watch it!' from the bat. He swerved around after he skated a few metres ahead of Rouge. "That area around the door looks a mess, and it looks recent. What happened here?" He asked, starting to walk backwards.
"I got into a fight with a robot. Suffice it to say that's where I got these injuries. You're lucky that the lights aren't on here. They would have burned your retina out if they had come on." She stopped dead for a moment or so, and then giggled. "Why am I walking?" she asked herself. Rouge opened out her wings once more and took to the air. She floated gently alongside Shadow who had now turned around to face the proper direction.
They reached the crossroads room. The door Rouge had come through on her original visit to the room had closed, which was quite bizarre. She hoped that this base was as abandoned as it was meant to be. Now that left another two doors to go through, and neither of them looked promising. She made a note of Shadow leaning against the wall in a dimmed area of the room, probably trying to get used to the slightly more powerful amount of light in the room. She flew to the centre of the room, and touched down where the four paths would meet. One of her ears twitched as she heard a familiar 'clonk' noise. "Surely it can't be him...he fell a good two hundred feet. He should be dead!" Rouge shouted, a little louder than she had wanted. She looked over at the confused red & black hedgehog, also saying to herself that he also, should be dead.
Shadow was rather worried about this girl. She was talking to herself. Shadow knew he was supposed to be dead. They had gone over this before, but Rouge was talking about something different. Was anyone who knew this girl supposed to be alive? Shortly after that moment, he too heard the 'clonk'. It was like someone was slowly hitting a sledgehammer off the floor. He then heard the sound of something not unlike a buzz saw.
Rouge was panicking. She was in no condition to have a fight against another one of these things. The noise of the buzz saw got louder, and finally a large metal ball of spikes came into view. It shot directly at Rouge and connected with her gut. The wind was knocked out of her, and not her vital organs as she thought would be. 'Must have been a flat bit.' She fell backward, and her eyes bulged out of her sockets. The bat was sent in an arc over by the yet unnoticed Shadow's feet. The blue Chaos emerald fell out of her hand, and Shadow picked it up.
Silver Sonic uncurled himself. The imitation of Sonic looked a mess. An eye lens had caved in, leaving only one to be seen. One arm had been ripped off at the elbow, and there were numerous scratches and dents all over the thing. It looked over in Rouge's direction, and spotted the character hiding in the Shadows. "Identify yourself, or you...youuu shall shall be consid-d-dered hostile." It said, its tone of voice fluctuating wildly. The Ultimate Lifeform took a step forward. "S-S-Shadow the Hedgehoooog; escapee. Terminaaaaaaaaate with extreme prejiduce." It said, its head twitching slightly.
Shadow grinned as he threw and caught the Chaos emerald repeatedly in his left hand. He didn't know what power Silver Sonic had, but he thought, nay, knew that he was more powerful than it. He spoke in a cold unfeeling tone, a little like the robot's, but less synthesised. "You are nothing to me. Chaos Control!"
As Shadow performed that little trick that altered time and space, the area around the room seemed to bend and wave at the call of the command. Shadow leapt forward, moving in normal time as the universe slowed exponentially. He jumped to the side of Silver Sonic and performed a high kick to the head. This succeeded on removing the vital component from the robot's body. As Time finally locked onto what had happened, it moved to fix the problem, and the flow of time returned to normal. The robot's head hit the ground with a clash, and the yellow lights in its eyes finally winked out of existence. The body of the robot stood eerily still.
Rouge had finally brought herself to a sitting position, but she was still gasping for oxygen. It was warm in the room, and there was little of it. Shadow didn't seem to mind. When she had regained awareness of her surroundings, she gawked at the display. Shadow was standing next to the body of the headless Silver Sonic. "Still as powerful as ever, Shadow, eh?" She said, going into a coughing fit afterwards.
Shadow signed a melancholy sigh, and helped Rouge to her feet. With an arm around her shoulder, and hers around his, Shadow supported her weight down to the passageway Silver Sonic had come from, under the orders of the bat. When questioned why take that route, she said, "I knocked him down to a hanger area where a giant battleship was, maybe we could use that to escape this place?"
After a few minutes, Rouge had recovered enough to support her own weight, and she and Shadow disentangled with as much grace as they could. The corridor they were in descended and spiralled. It led on for quite a while. Eventually, they arrived at the bottom of the passage. Silver Sonic had knocked down the door on his way up, but Shadow thought that maybe 'knocked down' was an understatement. The thing was shattered. The Ultimate Lifeform was relieved he got the first, and final hit on the machine, otherwise he might have been nursing his wounds for days. Much like the bat would have to, he supposed.
There was no visible way onto this flying fortress. Neither of the two seemed bothered by this. Rouge used her wings to fly onto the deck above. Shadow took the more creative approach of skating up the wall. Speaking of creativity, Eggman had none when designing the deck on this thing. It was completely flat. Maybe he didn't have time to add defences. Maybe the whole thing wasn't complete. He sincerely hoped that the latter was false. This place was giving him the creeps, even though it had been his home for god-knows-how-long.
He didn't expect a challenge right now, so he was annoyed when Rouge spouted out "Race ya!" and took to the skies without warning. Shadow assumed they were racing towards the command deck in the distance. Holding the emerald in his hand, he held it forward, facing it towards the bridge. He yelled out to no one in particular, "Chaos Control!"
In the blink of an eye, time slowed down again and he sped up. Rouge was suspended in mid-air, looking backwards to where Shadow should be. In reality, he was halfway to the command deck, skates going at full power. Once again Time pulled itself back together and returned to its normal rate.
Rouge looked back and saw nothing. She plastered a grin on her face and turned towards the goal. She opened her mouth and her eyes widened as she saw Shadow already at the entrance. Pushing herself up to top speed, she landed, nearly barging into Shadow, who was throwing and catching the Chaos emerald. "You little rat, give me that!" she snarled, grabbing the blue emerald out of the air and storming onto the bridge.
Shadow had a patent-pending smirk on his face as he followed her in. Rouge was tapping a few buttons on the table nearest to the viewing window. Light came flooding all over the control centre, leaving Shadow once again to shield his eyes. Rouge jumped for joy. "Yes! There is power to the engines, no weaponry or shielding however. Looks like Egghead didn't have time to finish this version of the Egg Carrier." She said, tapping a few buttons experimentally. She thought to herself for a moment. 'Hmm, if we're underground, that means the only exit to this hanger is up.' Rouge pressed a few more buttons, and a control stick emerged from behind her control panel. There was a roar of engines powering up. Rouge grabbed the controller and pushed it forward experimentally. The back end of the giant vehicle lurched upwards, sending both Mobians forward. "Okay, that doesn't work!" Rouge nervously observed, pulling the stick back to a centred position.
She pressed another button on the control panel, and sighed. "Why didn't Robotnik have this stuff automated?"
Suddenly, there was a surge from below them, and they both watched as the wall in front of them started to descend. Or was it descending? Rouge touched the most recent one she pressed again, and another increase in ascending speed replied. They were flying.
Shadow had finally gotten used to standard light levels, but it came slowly. First, there were outlines and blobs of matter inside them. Second, the world came into focus, but not in colour. Finally, things were how they should be. The black hedgehog moved over to the window and looked up. What he saw was a giant hatch open up, albeit it was doing it slowly. Shadow prayed that any active generators feeding this derelict site would hold out for a few more minutes.
The light of day finally revealed itself to the duo, and for that they were happy. As the hanger doors came fully open, Rouge fiddled with the ascent controls with amazing vigour. The giant Egg Carrier shot up into the blue skies of the world.
Summary: Shounen ai is a big possibility in later chapters. I haven't yet decided. This is set in the Sonic Adventure universe, and follows vaguely the start of Sonic Heroes, although for the most part is ignored.
Soulseeker: Reunification
A thud. A spray of dust, a cry. "Ow, damn it!" A figure dressed in a catsuit fell to the floor, landing on her rear. She was sitting with her eyes closed. As the dust settled, she opened one eye to survey her surroundings. "Hmm, let's see then. Dirt covered metal hallways, smell of oil and grease. I must be in the correct place." She opened her other eye and the entire world came into focus. Dusting herself off, she rose to her feet. The light levels were hardly ideal, and she could barely see a thing, she cursed her eyesight. Fortunately, her hearing was a little better than average, and she was sure she could detect any problems before they were much of a threat.
Robotnik wasn't too smart when it came to plans, but damn, he was good at design. These corridors full of twists, turns and pitfalls confused and hindered Rouge to no end, but her natural skill at detecting jewels gave her at least a point of reference to work from. That is of course, why she was here. There were rumours of abandoned treasure vaults kept in this deserted base. It also didn't help that every step she made emitted a distinct 'clink'. If anyone had been around to stop Rouge, they could have done so at five hundred paces by sound alone.
"Ooh, this better be worth it. I haven't figured how to get out of this place yet." She grumbled. It was true that she could use the jewel's location as a sort of pointer, that pointer wouldn't work for getting out. Foolishly, she had forgotten to mark her path, meaning she would have to make her own way out. Her day just got better.
She came to a large metal-walled hall that had a distinctly blue tint to it. It was illuminated by a series of overhead flickering lights. Obviously there was still some power keeping this place online, if marginally. The hall was big enough for her to spread her wings, and she did so. Rouge opened them out to their full span, and flapped them a few times experimentally. When she was happy, she walked over to the centre of the room, and came upon a crossroad. "That's interesting. Where should I go?" She muttered to herself. She closed her eyes in concentration for a moment, her 'jewel-finder' homing onto nearby items.
When she opened her eyes a frown was automatically put on her face. Apparently, all three of the exits had strong signatures coming from them, but the path on the left had the strangest. She'd felt that signature before, when she was 'assisting' Knuckles with the Master Emerald shards. This piqued her interest, so she headed over to the left exit. A partially open doorway led to a giant transparent tube with a walkway going through the middle. The clinking sound she made when she walked had now turned into a 'tonk'. To her eyes, the tube seemed to go on forever. To her ears, it only went on another hundred yards or so. She started to pick up speed as the signature got more powerful.
She came to a point where the walkway widened onto a large platform. She felt her boot hit something. Glancing down to see what it was, she was suddenly blinded by an intense flash of light, and momentarily deafened by the grinding of machinery. "Argh, what's going on." She said to herself, irritation laced in her voice.
"Identity confirmed; Rouge the Bat. Classified as hostile. She must not reach the altar room." Resounded a mechanical tone of voice. As her vision returned to normal, she looked around, rather nervously. She could now see past the utter blackness of the tube's outline, and to the floor of the room. She was high up. A gigantic behemoth of a battleship lay below her, similar to the Egg Carrier that had crashed just off the shore of the Station Square ruins. She now realised she had a more pressing concern.
"One of Eggman's pets? I should have no trouble with you then." She said confidently, adding a smirk to her face.
"I beg to differ, miss." The cold voice said. A pair of eyes just ahead of her glowed a strange Sunburst yellow. A clonking noise echoed around the tube as the robot stepped forward. Rouge noted that it resembled a certain blue hedgehog, if said hedgehog was silver, and covered in a lethal array of razor sharp spikes. Something told the bat that this was going to be a little trickier than any regular Badnik.
"Take this!" She cried, sending a foot in the direction of the robot. She could feel it being caught by Silver Sonic. She was then sent spinning in the air, coming face to face with the steel floor. She could feel a sliver of blood trickle down the side of her face from her forehead, and wiped it off her fur with a finger. Narrowing her eyes at the construct, she grinned a devilish grin. "You'll pay for that, freak."
Rouge dived forward, avoiding a few lazy punches from Silver Sonic, she then jumped onto its head and pushed off, sending it reeling backwards. Using the added height, she flapped her wings to give her a bit more lift. This was one advantage over Silver Sonic. Rouge could fly, it could not. A ball of steel zoomed past her right side, a single spike catching her arm and ripping her suit along the forearm. Blood dripped from the wound as she realised with no small comfort that, "It can jump."
She growled as she dropped down to the platform. It was more dangerous in the air for her than it was on the ground. She adopted a defensive stance, bringing her wounded arm back. When Silver Sonic had jumped past her she had lost track of it. She scanned the room with her eyes and ears. It was around, she just couldn't pinpoint it. A sudden impact sent her staggering forward. She recovered as she stumbled and swung a leg around in a high kick. It was deflected quite easily by a steel arm. "This thing's defences were impenetrable.
"Rouge the Bat, surrender and you shall be afforded the mercy of a swift death." It said, pausing for a moment. Rouge remained silent and decided to capitalise on its mistake. She jabbed at an un-spiked section of its underbelly, denting it slightly, then brought her leg round in a low arc, thus tripping it up. As the robot fell, it dived into a ball and shot off in Rouge's direction. She swiftly dodged it.
"I'm doing this the wrong way." said Rouge, glancing at the tube around her. She made a sprint towards the altar door, hoping to grab Silver's attention. Being one of Robotnik's earlier designs, she figured that it would have a poor AI chip. Maybe she could deceive it somehow, it was her speciality, of course. Her thoughts rushed by in a flash of colour. She turned her view to the huge glass pipe that surrounded her. "If I could just....Oomph!" She groaned. Silver had pinned her to the platform. He was using one arm to keep her steady, and one arm he brought down to her neck. This is the arm that Rouge was using her full strength to struggle against. It had several razors on it, and it wouldn't take long to finish her off if it made contact with her head. With a burst of strength quite uncommon for her, she shoved Silver Sonic off her. Her palms were cut to ribbons from the struggle.
'Palms be damned.' she thought, curling her hands up into fists. Rouge winced at the sting that the action did, and decided that punching something as hard as steel wouldn't make it feel better. Trying not to use her hands, she went into a frenzy of kicks and feinted jabs. Silver Sonic didn't try to avoid them. He didn't have to. What he did do was come off in a series of dents and scrapes. Only superficial damage was caused. Nothing that could tip the fight in Rouge's favour came from it.
"Miss Rouge, I will offer you one last chance to surrender yourself to a quick death." the thing said, its eyes flashing as it hit the last syllable.
"Sorry you pathetic excuse for a hedgehog bot, I don't give up that easily." said Rouge, giving off an eerie smile.
"Have it your way." said Silver Sonic, it its emotionless voice. It clunked forward on its legs, obviously not wanting to use its speed advantage. Rouge thought that maybe it couldn't control itself fully when it was in its ball form. She could make use of that. The batgirl picked up a discarded wrench and threw it at Silver Sonic. The hedgehog effigy didn't even break a stride as it clanked off his front armour. "I assure you miss, this battle is quite futile."
"Don't you get tired of your own voice?" She thought back to her time on ARK, and pulled something out of the blue, "Faker."
It seemed to have the desired effect. His eyes changed from a sunburst yellow to a blood red. He then rolled forward into a ball, picking up speed. He'd taken the bait, or so it seemed. Rouge jumped away from Silver sonic as he hit into the barrier. It held, just. He then continued chasing Rouge around the room, occasionally coming into contact with the edge of the platform. Rouge had to dive to the floor on several occasions to avoid the spiked ball of death. On the last such incident she found herself cornered against the side of the platform. She clambered to a standing position, checking the rail behind her. It wobbled ever so slightly. She looked around, and noticed Silver Sonic was in a standstill spin. The Badnik was aiming himself directly at her.
"It has been a pleasure, miss Rouge." He fired forward, zooming towards Rouge at a fairly fast speed. As it approached, the world seemed to slow down for Rouge. She jumped at the last possible second, catching her calf on the razors all over Silver. The added force made her spin in the air. As gravity reaffirmed its hold on Rouge, the bat opened her wings, and floated gently to a stop on the platform. She immediately fell down on one knee as the pain of her recent injury came to her brain.
Rouge had noticed one thing since she landed. She wasn't dead. She wondered had happened to Silver. As if in answer to her question, there was a sharp clash of glass being broken. She jumped up, and hopped over to the edge of the barricade, where she noted there was a section missing. Looking down over the ledge, she could see in the now intense light a figure falling. The bat heard a distant but satisfactory crunch of metal as Silver Sonic impacted with the hull of the battleship below.
Rouge made a list of her injuries. Two lacerations on the left arm, one deep cut on the calf, palms shredded, pristine fur covered with dry blood. Ironically, out of all her problems, the last one was the most important in her mind. The cuts on her arm weren't too bad. Her palms would cause no major problems, but her calf. If she didn't do anything about it soon, it would get infected. Looking at the arm of her suit, she sighed and said, "It's ruined anyway." She tore away a strip of material from her outfit and used it as a makeshift bandage, staunching the flow of blood and covering the wound.
The now weary Rouge limped over to where the door to the 'altar room' was. 'That is what Silver Sonic had called it, wasn't it?' she thought. The door itself was like every other door in the complex. Drab, dull, economical. Something fairly important must reside within if a Silver Sonic was put on guard before this place was left to rot. She examined the area for a switch of some sort. When none were forthcoming she took another step back. The door didn't look like it could take much of a beating. She guessed Eggman must have thought that Silver Sonic would take care of any intruders. With her good leg, she hopped forward and delivered a semi-powerful kick to the door. It was about as substantial as tin foil.
The door was knocked inwards and collapsed onto the floor. It bounced a few times before it settled into its new position. Behind her the high-powered lights in the tube shut off systematically, leaving the bat in pitch-blackness. The power then came to this room. However, only a single light still worked in this area, giving the room an eerie feel. The light reflected off an object in the middle of the room. Sure enough, there was an altar in the room's centre. What was on it looked strangely enough like an escape pod of sorts. It was still functioning, the light emitting diodes on the control panel said that much. There was a glass viewing port on the top of the object that spanned around it until it was around head level. The object itself was slightly taller than Rouge.
She looked around the room for a moment. It was dark, and she could barely see the wall from the centre. She could see that this room was a mess, and that there were signs of a struggle long finished, possibly another 'treasure hunter' that had tried his luck with Silver Sonic. There were several wooden crates around, but all of them were empty. Turning her attention back to the altar, she peeked into the viewer. There appeared to be a greenish liquid bubbling on the inside, with a few bits of black to be seen. "Hmm. There's something in this..." Rouge said, moving her hand down the tube and to the control panel affixed to it. She tapped a button called 'Release'.
The pod sounded a beep, and Rouge took this as an indication to move away from it. Slowly but surely, the green liquid drained from the tank and into the grating on the floor. The viewer was still blurred from the recent presence of liquid. Another series of beeps sounded from the pod. The entry hatch opened up. What she expected was a huge pile of jewels. Onyx, ruby, sapphire, emerald and diamonds of all descriptions were meant to be stored in the pod. What she did not expect stored in there was body of Shadow the Hedgehog.
Rouge thought that when the dark hedgehog fell to the planet, he would be burned up in the atmosphere, leaving no visible corpse. How on earth did he get here, even his body could stand the heat of re-entry. There were no physical imperfections Rouge could see. It was if he hadn't died at all. The white bat took a step forward, to examine Shadow more closely. She took a bounding leap backwards when he opened his eyes.
"But you...but I...aren't you...." said Rouge, babbling. When she reasserted control over her mouth, she finally voiced what she was trying to get at. "Hey, you're supposed to be dead!"
The 'ghost' of Shadow coughed and spluttered for a moment, getting rid of any of that green water out of his system. He took two steps out of the pod and onto the grating below. He immediately shielded his eyes; the single light in the room was enough to hurt them if he looked at it. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure. Who are you?" Shadow said through gritted teeth.
Rouge blinked, 'He doesn't know me? Amnesia? How terribly cliché.'
"I asked you a question, bat. Since you know more than enough about me, feel like sharing any information?" growled Shadow, moving his hand away from his eyes. The newly reborn hedgehog was now adjusting to the dim light.
"You don't remember me, do you?" asked Rouge rhetorically. "So I don't suppose you'll remember ARK either?" asked Rouge again, rhetorically. "I'm Rouge the Bat, treasure hunter extraordinaire! Pleased to remake your acquaintance, Shadow." she said, offering her hand as a gesture of good will.
He took her hand and shook it gently. "Treasure hunter says 'thief' to me bat." He said, grinning menacingly. "I suppose I have no need to introduce myself. What do you refer to when you say ARK?"
"I shall be more than glad to tell you anything you want to know about yourself, just as soon as we get out of this hellhole." She said, taking her hand back. "Now, listen to me carefully. We may be in this complex for a while. I have no idea as to where the exit is. To hell with any jewels that may be around, I don't want to spend another second here."
The dumbstruck, and extremely wet Shadow stood there and for the most part, ignored the girl. Who was this bat to think she could order him, the Ultimate Lifeform, around? His eyes took on a far off look to them as he went through his inner monologue. 'These things she is saying, it all sounds so familiar, but then again, so foreign. I have heard of ARK distantly, but other than that, I know nothing of it. I do not know any Rouge, but she seems to know me. Where am I?' Shadow was snapped out of his reverie by Rouge prodding him and asking "Are you coming?"
"I will come, but do not presume that you can order me around. I am the Ulti-" he was cut off by Rouge.
"Yes, yes. Ultimate Lifeform. I've heard all this crap before. I didn't believe it to begin with, I certainly don't believe it now." Rouge said, furrowing her brow in irritation. "Now be quiet, I can still feel that strange energy signature around here." She ordered. Shadow shut up and stood perfectly still, although the occasional drip was heard where the water drained off him. Rouge walked over and around the back of the machine. "Well, well, what have we here." She tugged at something on the pod's back end. She held it high when it came loose. Shadow widened his eyes at the blue gem.
"A Chaos emerald!" said Shadow, his arm extending as if to grab it. Rouge was a few metres away, so the gesture was futile.
"Oh, you know what this is then?" She paused to consider Shadow for a moment. "Then I hope you remember how to Chaos Control. It'll be handy for getting out of this place." Shadow shook his head, sending the last few drops of liquid down to the abyss below the gratings.
"I need to know the place I plan to teleport to. If I can't, I may just end up teleporting into a wall. Since the only place I know is this room, and that walkway over there, I'd say I can't." explained the black hedgehog, now noticing something for the first time. "You're injured."
Rouge waved her hand dismissively, "I'll be fine." She looked at Shadow, then at the emerald. "Well, at least it hasn't been a complete waste of time coming down here, isn't that right, my pretty?" said Rouge.
Shadow was taken aback by this comment, and sheepishly said "Thank you."
Rouge turned to face him and laughed. "I wasn't talking to you dummy. Now come on, the sooner we leave this room, the sooner we get out." She turned tail and walked rather cautiously out of the room, every so often gasping when she put her foot down.
Shadow raised an eyebrow. He was rather frustrated at the moment. He couldn't believe he was being bossed around by this woman, and allowed it. She was even mocking him. Any other time he wouldn't stand for it. At the minute, it was in his best interests if he obeyed. He skated after Rouge, rather leisurely, surprised that the anti-grav boosters in his shoes still worked after being exposed to that water.
He took point as he barged past Rouge, eliciting a 'Hey! Watch it!' from the bat. He swerved around after he skated a few metres ahead of Rouge. "That area around the door looks a mess, and it looks recent. What happened here?" He asked, starting to walk backwards.
"I got into a fight with a robot. Suffice it to say that's where I got these injuries. You're lucky that the lights aren't on here. They would have burned your retina out if they had come on." She stopped dead for a moment or so, and then giggled. "Why am I walking?" she asked herself. Rouge opened out her wings once more and took to the air. She floated gently alongside Shadow who had now turned around to face the proper direction.
They reached the crossroads room. The door Rouge had come through on her original visit to the room had closed, which was quite bizarre. She hoped that this base was as abandoned as it was meant to be. Now that left another two doors to go through, and neither of them looked promising. She made a note of Shadow leaning against the wall in a dimmed area of the room, probably trying to get used to the slightly more powerful amount of light in the room. She flew to the centre of the room, and touched down where the four paths would meet. One of her ears twitched as she heard a familiar 'clonk' noise. "Surely it can't be him...he fell a good two hundred feet. He should be dead!" Rouge shouted, a little louder than she had wanted. She looked over at the confused red & black hedgehog, also saying to herself that he also, should be dead.
Shadow was rather worried about this girl. She was talking to herself. Shadow knew he was supposed to be dead. They had gone over this before, but Rouge was talking about something different. Was anyone who knew this girl supposed to be alive? Shortly after that moment, he too heard the 'clonk'. It was like someone was slowly hitting a sledgehammer off the floor. He then heard the sound of something not unlike a buzz saw.
Rouge was panicking. She was in no condition to have a fight against another one of these things. The noise of the buzz saw got louder, and finally a large metal ball of spikes came into view. It shot directly at Rouge and connected with her gut. The wind was knocked out of her, and not her vital organs as she thought would be. 'Must have been a flat bit.' She fell backward, and her eyes bulged out of her sockets. The bat was sent in an arc over by the yet unnoticed Shadow's feet. The blue Chaos emerald fell out of her hand, and Shadow picked it up.
Silver Sonic uncurled himself. The imitation of Sonic looked a mess. An eye lens had caved in, leaving only one to be seen. One arm had been ripped off at the elbow, and there were numerous scratches and dents all over the thing. It looked over in Rouge's direction, and spotted the character hiding in the Shadows. "Identify yourself, or you...youuu shall shall be consid-d-dered hostile." It said, its tone of voice fluctuating wildly. The Ultimate Lifeform took a step forward. "S-S-Shadow the Hedgehoooog; escapee. Terminaaaaaaaaate with extreme prejiduce." It said, its head twitching slightly.
Shadow grinned as he threw and caught the Chaos emerald repeatedly in his left hand. He didn't know what power Silver Sonic had, but he thought, nay, knew that he was more powerful than it. He spoke in a cold unfeeling tone, a little like the robot's, but less synthesised. "You are nothing to me. Chaos Control!"
As Shadow performed that little trick that altered time and space, the area around the room seemed to bend and wave at the call of the command. Shadow leapt forward, moving in normal time as the universe slowed exponentially. He jumped to the side of Silver Sonic and performed a high kick to the head. This succeeded on removing the vital component from the robot's body. As Time finally locked onto what had happened, it moved to fix the problem, and the flow of time returned to normal. The robot's head hit the ground with a clash, and the yellow lights in its eyes finally winked out of existence. The body of the robot stood eerily still.
Rouge had finally brought herself to a sitting position, but she was still gasping for oxygen. It was warm in the room, and there was little of it. Shadow didn't seem to mind. When she had regained awareness of her surroundings, she gawked at the display. Shadow was standing next to the body of the headless Silver Sonic. "Still as powerful as ever, Shadow, eh?" She said, going into a coughing fit afterwards.
Shadow signed a melancholy sigh, and helped Rouge to her feet. With an arm around her shoulder, and hers around his, Shadow supported her weight down to the passageway Silver Sonic had come from, under the orders of the bat. When questioned why take that route, she said, "I knocked him down to a hanger area where a giant battleship was, maybe we could use that to escape this place?"
After a few minutes, Rouge had recovered enough to support her own weight, and she and Shadow disentangled with as much grace as they could. The corridor they were in descended and spiralled. It led on for quite a while. Eventually, they arrived at the bottom of the passage. Silver Sonic had knocked down the door on his way up, but Shadow thought that maybe 'knocked down' was an understatement. The thing was shattered. The Ultimate Lifeform was relieved he got the first, and final hit on the machine, otherwise he might have been nursing his wounds for days. Much like the bat would have to, he supposed.
There was no visible way onto this flying fortress. Neither of the two seemed bothered by this. Rouge used her wings to fly onto the deck above. Shadow took the more creative approach of skating up the wall. Speaking of creativity, Eggman had none when designing the deck on this thing. It was completely flat. Maybe he didn't have time to add defences. Maybe the whole thing wasn't complete. He sincerely hoped that the latter was false. This place was giving him the creeps, even though it had been his home for god-knows-how-long.
He didn't expect a challenge right now, so he was annoyed when Rouge spouted out "Race ya!" and took to the skies without warning. Shadow assumed they were racing towards the command deck in the distance. Holding the emerald in his hand, he held it forward, facing it towards the bridge. He yelled out to no one in particular, "Chaos Control!"
In the blink of an eye, time slowed down again and he sped up. Rouge was suspended in mid-air, looking backwards to where Shadow should be. In reality, he was halfway to the command deck, skates going at full power. Once again Time pulled itself back together and returned to its normal rate.
Rouge looked back and saw nothing. She plastered a grin on her face and turned towards the goal. She opened her mouth and her eyes widened as she saw Shadow already at the entrance. Pushing herself up to top speed, she landed, nearly barging into Shadow, who was throwing and catching the Chaos emerald. "You little rat, give me that!" she snarled, grabbing the blue emerald out of the air and storming onto the bridge.
Shadow had a patent-pending smirk on his face as he followed her in. Rouge was tapping a few buttons on the table nearest to the viewing window. Light came flooding all over the control centre, leaving Shadow once again to shield his eyes. Rouge jumped for joy. "Yes! There is power to the engines, no weaponry or shielding however. Looks like Egghead didn't have time to finish this version of the Egg Carrier." She said, tapping a few buttons experimentally. She thought to herself for a moment. 'Hmm, if we're underground, that means the only exit to this hanger is up.' Rouge pressed a few more buttons, and a control stick emerged from behind her control panel. There was a roar of engines powering up. Rouge grabbed the controller and pushed it forward experimentally. The back end of the giant vehicle lurched upwards, sending both Mobians forward. "Okay, that doesn't work!" Rouge nervously observed, pulling the stick back to a centred position.
She pressed another button on the control panel, and sighed. "Why didn't Robotnik have this stuff automated?"
Suddenly, there was a surge from below them, and they both watched as the wall in front of them started to descend. Or was it descending? Rouge touched the most recent one she pressed again, and another increase in ascending speed replied. They were flying.
Shadow had finally gotten used to standard light levels, but it came slowly. First, there were outlines and blobs of matter inside them. Second, the world came into focus, but not in colour. Finally, things were how they should be. The black hedgehog moved over to the window and looked up. What he saw was a giant hatch open up, albeit it was doing it slowly. Shadow prayed that any active generators feeding this derelict site would hold out for a few more minutes.
The light of day finally revealed itself to the duo, and for that they were happy. As the hanger doors came fully open, Rouge fiddled with the ascent controls with amazing vigour. The giant Egg Carrier shot up into the blue skies of the world.