The Greatest of Hunts
By DreamShadow
Chapter Two: New Experiences
Rouge made her way to what could be called the front of the island, standing a few feet from Knuckles's side, watching the massive floating island loom closer as they approached. The scenery she saw before was closing in as they came to the edge of what looked like a massive forest starting on one side of the island. They were still going straight and at their height were now just barely clearing the trees as they passed over the large island. Both treasure hunters could feel their momentum slowing as they approached a thinner section of the forest where a large pit was located in the ground. The island continued to slow until it was directly over the pit, then stopped before descending down slowly. A moment passed before the small island settled into the pit with a shudder, fitting the hole exactly. Rouge glanced around at the now expanded island, noticing many fragments of what may at one time been the other parts of the broken ruins Knuckles had the Master Emerald in, though they had many years of moss covering them now.
"So this is where you pulled your little island up from..." She said, still glancing around. Rouge turned to look at Knuckles, but he had left his place near the front. She turned toward the Master Emerald to see Knuckles beside it, now holding a backpack he must have been storing away in a burrow. He was channeling power from the stone again with his free hand, causing the emerald to faintly glow. Rouge was about to ask what he was doing when the gem started shaking a bit. The glow increased in brightness until it was almost blinding, forcing Rouge to look away. When the light dimmed again and she could turn back, she saw the massive emerald now only slightly bigger than a normal Chaos Emerald and resting in Knuckle's hand.
"Remind me sometime to figure out how you make that toy of yours do so much." Rouge said. Knuckles smirked at the comment as he let the smaller emerald into the backpack. He closed it with a strap hanging off the top, fastening it with a button on the side before throwing it over his shoulder to put it on.
"It's not exactly something you "figure out", that trick alone took about a year to figure out." The echidna replied. Knuckles turned from where the emerald once rested and stepped away, passed Rouge toward the edge of the land that was his island. "We've got a long way to go, last chance to bail out." Rouge wished she could at this point, the trek she didn't mind, it was the ending she didn't look forward to. As much as she wanted to take the offer, she just shook her head no, dismissing the option.
"Drop the loner routine, I told you I'm coming." She spat just to drive the fact into Knuckle's head. The red echidna just shrugged and smirked, eager to see what Rouge would do wrong first. He continued his walk toward the deeper parts of the forest before them, now with Rouge close behind, who was taking in the scenery with some caution for anything that may be dangerous. She wasn't about to let Knuckles be right about this.
As the two walked Rouge started to notice an odd trend in the scenery. The deeper into the forest they went, the more she seemed to be noticing orange mushrooms growing everywhere, some particularly big.
"I hope the fungus around us wasn't what you warned me about." She said, still looking around at the area.
"Hardly." Knuckles replied back. "This is Mushroom Hill, they grow everywhere here. They aren't even poisonous, just tough, really rubbery." Rouge looked down at one smaller one that had grown in the path they were on and idly gave it a kick as they walked. It bounced around like a tall spring for a moment but it didn't budge otherwise.
"I can see that..." She said, continuing to walk. "But it still doesn't explain what you said would be so tough about this place." Knuckles stopped, putting up his hand to indicate for Rouge to do the same.
"If you were here alone you would be." He said, putting his hand back down. He looked back toward the path they were on, which was about to head into the thickest parts of the forest. "When Sonic came here, this is the path he was on. But to keep ahead of him, I took a few easier routes." Knuckles stepped to the left side of the path, toward a large wall of tall grass, easily twice Knuckles's own height. With his large gloves he began clutching the grass a patch at a time, ripping it from the ground. Rouge watches as he went to work, noticing what it was hiding, another mushroom, only as tall as she was and looking much stronger than the one she had kicked over earlier. She also took note of the rock wall behind it, and where it ended about 20 feet up above the mushroom.
"Well, you don't seem like the kind for secret paths." She said with a smirk. Knuckles looked back at her just to return the smirk, then looked back at the mushroom he had revealed.
"Like I said, I had to stay ahead of Sonic." He explained. "There's an easy way up the wall, the mushroom works like a..." He couldn't finish before noticing Rouge at the top of his eyesight, jumping over him and landing on top of the mushroom, her legs bending as she landed to spring up. As Knuckles was about to say, it acted like a spring board, shooting Rouge upward as she kicked off. With a quick front flip she landed gracefully at the edge of the cliff, turning to look back down at Knuckles, who couldn't help but be confused.
"You said the mushrooms were rubbery." She yelled down at him. "Doesn't take a genius to know what happens if you jump on one, Knucklehead." With that she turned and stepped forward, giving Knuckles the room to jump up. The echidna's smirk turned to an irritated frown, he didn't like being shown up on his own island. He followed suit, using the mushroom as a spring to jump up to the cliff edge, though not with the grace of Rouge, who was several feet ahead by now.
"Don't get confident over one lucky guess, that's easy compared to the rest of this place." Rouge giggled a bit at the comment, only irritating him more.
"When will you get it?" Rouge said, continuing down the new path. "I'm all the treasure hunter you are and mo-" She was cut off as she felt something grab her ankle suddenly, making her fall face first to the grass. The white bat pushed herself up a bit to hear Knuckles laughing behind her without much restraint. She stood up, glaring viciously back at him.
"That was not funny!" She shouted in anger. "You should have warned me about this... whatever it is!" Rouge looked down at her ankle, seeing a segmented vine wrapped around it tightly. She took a few steps out, trying to pull it off, only to discover it was as springy as the mushrooms. Rouge stretched it as far as she could on just her feet, then sat on the ground, taking it by both hands and pulling from a sitting position against it, still with no luck, only drawing out Knuckle's laughter. A few minutes passed before Rouge stopped trying to pull, dropping both hands to her sides as she sat, waiting for Knuckles to do something, who has now stopped laughing and was walking her way.
"It's called a tangle vine." He said. "They latch onto anything going passed them in hopes they break the segments apart, it's how they spread seeds. You have to be able to roll into a spinball like me and Sonic to break it." Knuckles stopped beside Rouge, looking down at her with the confident smirk again. Rouge kept her eyes on the vine, not giving Knuckles the satisfaction of her minor defeat here.
"When was the last time you saw a bat roll into a ball, let alone spin while they're in it?" She said sharply, giving her leg a few more tugs to see if the vine had given up, which it hadn't.
"Don't, it won't lose grip for hours." Knuckles said, moving behind Rouge. "We have to do this the hard way. Stand up and give me your arms." Rouge gave one more feudal tug at the vine before admitting defeat, slowly making her way up to her feet so she didn't get pulled back by the vine. Once standing she held out both arms, which Knuckles quickly grabbed onto by the wrists, starting his pull. Rouge pulled up with him, latching to his wrists as well, both now starting to pull the vine farther. Knuckles closed his eyes and gritted his teeth for one hard tug, trying to snap the vine in one motion.
A loud snap filled the air as the segments of the vine gave way. With the loss of pull against them Knuckles fell to his back, Rouge falling on top of him right after. She wasn't heavy enough to take the wind out of him, but he was a little stunned at least. Knuckles opened his eyes, only to stare right into Rouge's, their faces only a couple inches from each other. They blushed slightly as both realized they lost their grip, their arms were now around each other on the ground. Both stayed like that for a moment, too nervous over what the other was making of the situation to move, but the moment went fast as both regained their senses, Rouge quickly pushing up off of Knuckles, who was quickly on his feet and a few steps back from her.
"Can't you ever help me without trying to touch me like some love-sick creep?" Rouge said, quickly covering up whatever embarrassment she was feeling a moment ago.
"Fine, next time you get caught in one of those you can wait for it to let go, that any better?" He replied. Knuckles didn't mean to sound so aggressive in the retort, maybe he was overcompensating for the incident.
"Let's just keep going..." Rouge said with a sigh, already eager to forget all about this. Knuckles just shrugged and turned back around, walking on down the path. Rouge started to follow, then turned back to the vine, still laying on the ground, but she noticed the segments didn't really break apart, the goop holding them together did and was still mostly attached, pulling it back together now as it retreated into the hole it emerged from. She turned and continued to follow Knuckles, looking to the grass now to make sure she didn't catch another one of them.
**********
Their trip continued, all the while Rouge being extra careful not to get overconfident like she did before. She missed the rest of the vines as they walked through the forest, across massive vines, over large hills and ridges, and through more massive mushrooms. It seemed like every time Rouge thought this wasn't the "easy" path Knuckles meant to take, they reached a high area where she could see where Sonic would have passed through, noting many loops in the vine paths and odd elevator systems to reach higher levels, easing her doubts about their path.
Now the two were stopped for a rest on the inside of a hollowed out tree that separated two sections of the forest. Rouge leaned back against one side, looking out the views to her left and right. To her left was where they just came from that surprised her enough, an area where the grass and leaves had turned orange like it was the middle of fall. To her right, on the other hand, was more of a surprise where the grass and leaves had a light tan, almost off-white color like it was almost winter. The sun was already beginning to set, casting a light orange glow on both views. Knuckles was busier deciding what to do about Rouge, it was bad enough he had to watch his own back in this place let alone hers, as well.
"We can stay here for the night if you want, it's better than continuing until nightfall when all the worst comes out." He said. It was really just to give himself and Rouge more time for her to change her mind. Knuckles didn't mind the company but he would rather do the job alone, if they went any farther she wouldn't be able to turn back.
"What is it about this place that makes you so paranoid?" Rouge said, looking over at him from across the hollowed tree. "I told you I was coming with you, stop trying to scare me away." Knuckles was starting to get annoyed, she had been like this the whole trip so far and there was still a long way to go.
"I'm not trying to scare you off, I'm giving you fair warning." He replied. "I don't want to hear you complain about something I didn't warn you about so I warn you constantly." Now Rouge was the irritated one, bad enough he wouldn't stop with the half-warnings, now he was getting an attitude with it. She wished he would just tell her to leave so she could be done with this mess.
"Look, if you want me gone, just say so and I'll leave, simple as that." Rouge spat. Knuckles didn't want to do that, Rouge was still his friend and he still had to have her around to know what his dreams were about, but something that tugged at him in the back of his mind seemed to give him other reasons... It took a minute for it to sink in that he really didn't want her to leave at all, a strange sensation to someone who lived as a loner his entire life, he wasn't sure what to make of it.
Knuckles didn't answer and Rouge didn't continue to push the issue, leaving the two in an awkward quiet with only the sounds of the forest around them to keep it from total silence. The sun was almost down now, it's orange light from the west exit, the one they entered from, dimming and giving way to the dark. It made Rouge redirect her attention to the two views, fall on one side of the passage and winter on the other.
"...Knuckles, tell me about this forest..." Rouge said to break the silence. "In one day we've seen three different seasons in it." Knuckles glanced back over at her, seeing the curiosity in her eyes as she continued looking out at the white fields now losing their orange tint and starting to gain the blue hue of the moonlight.
"...I don't even know myself." He responded after a moment. Rouge raised an eyebrow in response, only confused a bit more than before.
"Come on, you've gotta know." She said. "There had to be someone around when you were a kid that knew this and taught you..." Rouge looked over from the entrance, back to Knuckles, but she was surprised to see his head was lowered a bit, eyes closed like something hit a nerve. "...okay, what did I say wrong?" Knuckles looked back up at her. With his eyes opened Rouge could see a bit of sorrow in them, surprising her to see such an emotion in someone as hardened as Knuckles.
"...my father died before I was born and my mother died when I was still too young to remember her." He explained, a bit of sadness in his voice. "I'm the last of my kind, I was alone all my life..." Knuckles only now realized what he was saying, he didn't like to talk about his past, but he did it to Rouge like it was natural... Somehow it didn't seem bad to let her know.
"...I'm... sorry to hear that..." Rouge managed to say, taken back by his explanation. "It must have been hard to be alone all your life..." Knuckles simply shrugged as if to say he was used to it, which he was. Rouge was about to ask further when Knuckles surprised her again, this time hearing a slight chuckle from him. "Okay, what now? Don't tell me you found that funny." Knuckles looked up at Rouge with a slight smirk, shaking his head.
"Just something I remembered..." He began. "Remember what you said about the emerald shards right after I saved you over the lava pits? You said they stunk like echidnas. I was too happy to get the emeralds back at the time but later when I remembered it, it made me wonder if you had actually met other echidnas to know what they smell like." Rouge had almost forgotten she had said that, it was just a quick reason to give him the emeralds back instead of because she was thankful to him. Just a bad attempt to save face after turning into the damsel in distress.
"Sorry, you're the only one I've known." She admitted. "At least you're better off now than you were the rest of your life, you've got plenty of friends now. Sonic, Tails, that ditsy pink hedgehog girl... and me." Including herself only made her remember why she was there, the Master Emerald. In this short part of the trip she had forgotten all about having an actual mission.
"...thanks, Rouge." He said quietly, just loud enough for her to hear. Knuckles knew his friends but it was nice that someone else was concerned, it was a rare privilege after living alone for so long. He looked back out of the tree's opening to see night was already upon them, the starts now coming out and the moon full in the sky. "...we might as well stay here the rest of the night, get to sleep early so we can head out as soon as the sun's up." Rouge glanced over at the moon just visible from the east opening. Being a bat she preferred the night, but after such a long trip just to get to this point, she wouldn't mind turning in early.
"Fair enough, I could use a few extra hours tonight, anyway." Rouge said. She moved her hands together, taking hold of the tip of one of her long glove's fingers and giving it a tug, freeing one finger. She repeated this for her other fingers, then took hold to pull the glove off her tan-skinned arm and set it aside. Rouge repeated this for her other glove, freeing both her arms for the night. She started to take hold of a boot to remove it when she glanced over at Knuckles, who was already laying down with his back to Rouge, both gloves and shoes still on.
"Don't tell me you intend to sleep in those boxing gloves of yours..." She said. Knuckles sat back up and turned to look at Rouge, obviously a little annoyed at the interruption.
"There's no point in taking them off if I'm just going to put them on again as soon as I wake up." He said simply. "Just get to sleep so we can get going in the morning." Rouge smirked slightly and stood up, stepping over toward Knuckles.
"Sorry, now I'm curious, and you know how curious treasure hunters get." She said, now standing over Knuckles, bending down a bit.
"Rouge, forget it." He said sternly. "I just prefer them on, okay?" Knuckles was starting to get agitated, what was wrong with wanting to keep his gloves on? Rouge persisted, though, eyeing the large gloves in front of Knuckles.
"Come on, it will do you good to get them off for one night..." She said. Rouge reached out quickly to take hold of his hand, intent on removing it herself, only to have it snapped away just as quickly. She shifted her glance to Knuckles, now shooting a piercing glare into her eyes. Rouge took a step back from the reaction, her smirk gone and her curiosity dashed. She returned the glare, though not as viciously, then turned back to walk back to her side of the tree.
"Fine, be touchy, keep the gloves on till your hands get too big to get them off for all I care." She spat, laying down on the floor of the tree's hollow with her back to Knuckles, using her removed gloves as a pillow and her wings as a blanket. She didn't take as much care with her boots, kicking them off to expose the rest of her body suit running down to her toes. Knuckles kept his eye on her until she was settled, then turned his back to her, as well, curling up to get comfortable enough to sleep.
**********
Only a few hours passed before Knuckles jumped up in his sleep with a small yell, sweating and panting. It was the nightmare again, Rouge falling into the lava, but he never had it two nights in a row. He looked across the tree hollow toward Rouge, hoping he hadn't woken her up. Luckily she was pretty deep in her sleep, still with her back to him. Knuckles couldn't explain it, he had thought letting Rouge stay close would relieve him of his nightmares, so why did they repeat so quickly with her right there?
Watching Rouge's sleeping form and remembering the visions from the dream, Knuckles was starting to feel terrible about snapping at her before, she was only curious, that's a treasure hunter's nature. He was just so used to keeping to himself it was instinctive, but he never felt this bad when the same thing caused him to react badly to his other friends.
Knuckles watched on, still in thought, when Rouge started to shift in her sleep, rolling over to her right and off her make-shift pillow, now facing Knuckles in her sleep. Like this Knuckles couldn't help but think she looked more peaceful than when she was awake and retorting to his every comment. Watching her like this, he suddenly noticed something, not about what he saw, but felt. An odd instinct, not something that just spawned in this moment, it felt like it had been there all along. Knuckles stood from his place and stepped over to her as quietly as he could manage. He walked over to her head, kneeling down to the gloves she had been using as a pillow and placing a hand beside them, putting the other under her head as carefully as he could. Knuckles gently lifted her head and slid the gloves back under her head, softly laying her head back on them. He stayed there a moment, watching her sleeping form from up close to make sure she stayed asleep before standing back up and returning to his place.
Knuckles sat back down, again looking over at Rouge, now resting, obvious just by sight that she was more comfortable with her head off the hard wood. Knuckles took a moment to rethink this feeling he had and realized he had it before, but for the Master Emerald. It was a need to protect, to keep her safe. As strongly as he felt it out of instinct for the Emerald, he felt it out of emotion for Rouge, as though his life would end if he didn't. As strong as the feeling was, though, it was still confusing to have. He had a duty to the Master Emerald, but why feel the same need to protect Rouge? He had no reason to watch over her, she could take care of herself as well as he could, it was just logical she could handle anything as well as he could. But logic failed to shake the urge to keep her safe, confusing him further. Knuckles was getting too deep into thought for his own good and decided the morning was a better time to think this over. He laid back down and rested his head on his arms as he curled up again, the thoughts still floating in his mind. Knuckles ignored them as best he could until he fell asleep, but not before settling them with the same vow that he made to the Master Emerald. To protect her as long as he was able, regardless of the cost.
End Chapter 2
Next: Chapter 3 - Buried Truth
By DreamShadow
Chapter Two: New Experiences
Rouge made her way to what could be called the front of the island, standing a few feet from Knuckles's side, watching the massive floating island loom closer as they approached. The scenery she saw before was closing in as they came to the edge of what looked like a massive forest starting on one side of the island. They were still going straight and at their height were now just barely clearing the trees as they passed over the large island. Both treasure hunters could feel their momentum slowing as they approached a thinner section of the forest where a large pit was located in the ground. The island continued to slow until it was directly over the pit, then stopped before descending down slowly. A moment passed before the small island settled into the pit with a shudder, fitting the hole exactly. Rouge glanced around at the now expanded island, noticing many fragments of what may at one time been the other parts of the broken ruins Knuckles had the Master Emerald in, though they had many years of moss covering them now.
"So this is where you pulled your little island up from..." She said, still glancing around. Rouge turned to look at Knuckles, but he had left his place near the front. She turned toward the Master Emerald to see Knuckles beside it, now holding a backpack he must have been storing away in a burrow. He was channeling power from the stone again with his free hand, causing the emerald to faintly glow. Rouge was about to ask what he was doing when the gem started shaking a bit. The glow increased in brightness until it was almost blinding, forcing Rouge to look away. When the light dimmed again and she could turn back, she saw the massive emerald now only slightly bigger than a normal Chaos Emerald and resting in Knuckle's hand.
"Remind me sometime to figure out how you make that toy of yours do so much." Rouge said. Knuckles smirked at the comment as he let the smaller emerald into the backpack. He closed it with a strap hanging off the top, fastening it with a button on the side before throwing it over his shoulder to put it on.
"It's not exactly something you "figure out", that trick alone took about a year to figure out." The echidna replied. Knuckles turned from where the emerald once rested and stepped away, passed Rouge toward the edge of the land that was his island. "We've got a long way to go, last chance to bail out." Rouge wished she could at this point, the trek she didn't mind, it was the ending she didn't look forward to. As much as she wanted to take the offer, she just shook her head no, dismissing the option.
"Drop the loner routine, I told you I'm coming." She spat just to drive the fact into Knuckle's head. The red echidna just shrugged and smirked, eager to see what Rouge would do wrong first. He continued his walk toward the deeper parts of the forest before them, now with Rouge close behind, who was taking in the scenery with some caution for anything that may be dangerous. She wasn't about to let Knuckles be right about this.
As the two walked Rouge started to notice an odd trend in the scenery. The deeper into the forest they went, the more she seemed to be noticing orange mushrooms growing everywhere, some particularly big.
"I hope the fungus around us wasn't what you warned me about." She said, still looking around at the area.
"Hardly." Knuckles replied back. "This is Mushroom Hill, they grow everywhere here. They aren't even poisonous, just tough, really rubbery." Rouge looked down at one smaller one that had grown in the path they were on and idly gave it a kick as they walked. It bounced around like a tall spring for a moment but it didn't budge otherwise.
"I can see that..." She said, continuing to walk. "But it still doesn't explain what you said would be so tough about this place." Knuckles stopped, putting up his hand to indicate for Rouge to do the same.
"If you were here alone you would be." He said, putting his hand back down. He looked back toward the path they were on, which was about to head into the thickest parts of the forest. "When Sonic came here, this is the path he was on. But to keep ahead of him, I took a few easier routes." Knuckles stepped to the left side of the path, toward a large wall of tall grass, easily twice Knuckles's own height. With his large gloves he began clutching the grass a patch at a time, ripping it from the ground. Rouge watches as he went to work, noticing what it was hiding, another mushroom, only as tall as she was and looking much stronger than the one she had kicked over earlier. She also took note of the rock wall behind it, and where it ended about 20 feet up above the mushroom.
"Well, you don't seem like the kind for secret paths." She said with a smirk. Knuckles looked back at her just to return the smirk, then looked back at the mushroom he had revealed.
"Like I said, I had to stay ahead of Sonic." He explained. "There's an easy way up the wall, the mushroom works like a..." He couldn't finish before noticing Rouge at the top of his eyesight, jumping over him and landing on top of the mushroom, her legs bending as she landed to spring up. As Knuckles was about to say, it acted like a spring board, shooting Rouge upward as she kicked off. With a quick front flip she landed gracefully at the edge of the cliff, turning to look back down at Knuckles, who couldn't help but be confused.
"You said the mushrooms were rubbery." She yelled down at him. "Doesn't take a genius to know what happens if you jump on one, Knucklehead." With that she turned and stepped forward, giving Knuckles the room to jump up. The echidna's smirk turned to an irritated frown, he didn't like being shown up on his own island. He followed suit, using the mushroom as a spring to jump up to the cliff edge, though not with the grace of Rouge, who was several feet ahead by now.
"Don't get confident over one lucky guess, that's easy compared to the rest of this place." Rouge giggled a bit at the comment, only irritating him more.
"When will you get it?" Rouge said, continuing down the new path. "I'm all the treasure hunter you are and mo-" She was cut off as she felt something grab her ankle suddenly, making her fall face first to the grass. The white bat pushed herself up a bit to hear Knuckles laughing behind her without much restraint. She stood up, glaring viciously back at him.
"That was not funny!" She shouted in anger. "You should have warned me about this... whatever it is!" Rouge looked down at her ankle, seeing a segmented vine wrapped around it tightly. She took a few steps out, trying to pull it off, only to discover it was as springy as the mushrooms. Rouge stretched it as far as she could on just her feet, then sat on the ground, taking it by both hands and pulling from a sitting position against it, still with no luck, only drawing out Knuckle's laughter. A few minutes passed before Rouge stopped trying to pull, dropping both hands to her sides as she sat, waiting for Knuckles to do something, who has now stopped laughing and was walking her way.
"It's called a tangle vine." He said. "They latch onto anything going passed them in hopes they break the segments apart, it's how they spread seeds. You have to be able to roll into a spinball like me and Sonic to break it." Knuckles stopped beside Rouge, looking down at her with the confident smirk again. Rouge kept her eyes on the vine, not giving Knuckles the satisfaction of her minor defeat here.
"When was the last time you saw a bat roll into a ball, let alone spin while they're in it?" She said sharply, giving her leg a few more tugs to see if the vine had given up, which it hadn't.
"Don't, it won't lose grip for hours." Knuckles said, moving behind Rouge. "We have to do this the hard way. Stand up and give me your arms." Rouge gave one more feudal tug at the vine before admitting defeat, slowly making her way up to her feet so she didn't get pulled back by the vine. Once standing she held out both arms, which Knuckles quickly grabbed onto by the wrists, starting his pull. Rouge pulled up with him, latching to his wrists as well, both now starting to pull the vine farther. Knuckles closed his eyes and gritted his teeth for one hard tug, trying to snap the vine in one motion.
A loud snap filled the air as the segments of the vine gave way. With the loss of pull against them Knuckles fell to his back, Rouge falling on top of him right after. She wasn't heavy enough to take the wind out of him, but he was a little stunned at least. Knuckles opened his eyes, only to stare right into Rouge's, their faces only a couple inches from each other. They blushed slightly as both realized they lost their grip, their arms were now around each other on the ground. Both stayed like that for a moment, too nervous over what the other was making of the situation to move, but the moment went fast as both regained their senses, Rouge quickly pushing up off of Knuckles, who was quickly on his feet and a few steps back from her.
"Can't you ever help me without trying to touch me like some love-sick creep?" Rouge said, quickly covering up whatever embarrassment she was feeling a moment ago.
"Fine, next time you get caught in one of those you can wait for it to let go, that any better?" He replied. Knuckles didn't mean to sound so aggressive in the retort, maybe he was overcompensating for the incident.
"Let's just keep going..." Rouge said with a sigh, already eager to forget all about this. Knuckles just shrugged and turned back around, walking on down the path. Rouge started to follow, then turned back to the vine, still laying on the ground, but she noticed the segments didn't really break apart, the goop holding them together did and was still mostly attached, pulling it back together now as it retreated into the hole it emerged from. She turned and continued to follow Knuckles, looking to the grass now to make sure she didn't catch another one of them.
**********
Their trip continued, all the while Rouge being extra careful not to get overconfident like she did before. She missed the rest of the vines as they walked through the forest, across massive vines, over large hills and ridges, and through more massive mushrooms. It seemed like every time Rouge thought this wasn't the "easy" path Knuckles meant to take, they reached a high area where she could see where Sonic would have passed through, noting many loops in the vine paths and odd elevator systems to reach higher levels, easing her doubts about their path.
Now the two were stopped for a rest on the inside of a hollowed out tree that separated two sections of the forest. Rouge leaned back against one side, looking out the views to her left and right. To her left was where they just came from that surprised her enough, an area where the grass and leaves had turned orange like it was the middle of fall. To her right, on the other hand, was more of a surprise where the grass and leaves had a light tan, almost off-white color like it was almost winter. The sun was already beginning to set, casting a light orange glow on both views. Knuckles was busier deciding what to do about Rouge, it was bad enough he had to watch his own back in this place let alone hers, as well.
"We can stay here for the night if you want, it's better than continuing until nightfall when all the worst comes out." He said. It was really just to give himself and Rouge more time for her to change her mind. Knuckles didn't mind the company but he would rather do the job alone, if they went any farther she wouldn't be able to turn back.
"What is it about this place that makes you so paranoid?" Rouge said, looking over at him from across the hollowed tree. "I told you I was coming with you, stop trying to scare me away." Knuckles was starting to get annoyed, she had been like this the whole trip so far and there was still a long way to go.
"I'm not trying to scare you off, I'm giving you fair warning." He replied. "I don't want to hear you complain about something I didn't warn you about so I warn you constantly." Now Rouge was the irritated one, bad enough he wouldn't stop with the half-warnings, now he was getting an attitude with it. She wished he would just tell her to leave so she could be done with this mess.
"Look, if you want me gone, just say so and I'll leave, simple as that." Rouge spat. Knuckles didn't want to do that, Rouge was still his friend and he still had to have her around to know what his dreams were about, but something that tugged at him in the back of his mind seemed to give him other reasons... It took a minute for it to sink in that he really didn't want her to leave at all, a strange sensation to someone who lived as a loner his entire life, he wasn't sure what to make of it.
Knuckles didn't answer and Rouge didn't continue to push the issue, leaving the two in an awkward quiet with only the sounds of the forest around them to keep it from total silence. The sun was almost down now, it's orange light from the west exit, the one they entered from, dimming and giving way to the dark. It made Rouge redirect her attention to the two views, fall on one side of the passage and winter on the other.
"...Knuckles, tell me about this forest..." Rouge said to break the silence. "In one day we've seen three different seasons in it." Knuckles glanced back over at her, seeing the curiosity in her eyes as she continued looking out at the white fields now losing their orange tint and starting to gain the blue hue of the moonlight.
"...I don't even know myself." He responded after a moment. Rouge raised an eyebrow in response, only confused a bit more than before.
"Come on, you've gotta know." She said. "There had to be someone around when you were a kid that knew this and taught you..." Rouge looked over from the entrance, back to Knuckles, but she was surprised to see his head was lowered a bit, eyes closed like something hit a nerve. "...okay, what did I say wrong?" Knuckles looked back up at her. With his eyes opened Rouge could see a bit of sorrow in them, surprising her to see such an emotion in someone as hardened as Knuckles.
"...my father died before I was born and my mother died when I was still too young to remember her." He explained, a bit of sadness in his voice. "I'm the last of my kind, I was alone all my life..." Knuckles only now realized what he was saying, he didn't like to talk about his past, but he did it to Rouge like it was natural... Somehow it didn't seem bad to let her know.
"...I'm... sorry to hear that..." Rouge managed to say, taken back by his explanation. "It must have been hard to be alone all your life..." Knuckles simply shrugged as if to say he was used to it, which he was. Rouge was about to ask further when Knuckles surprised her again, this time hearing a slight chuckle from him. "Okay, what now? Don't tell me you found that funny." Knuckles looked up at Rouge with a slight smirk, shaking his head.
"Just something I remembered..." He began. "Remember what you said about the emerald shards right after I saved you over the lava pits? You said they stunk like echidnas. I was too happy to get the emeralds back at the time but later when I remembered it, it made me wonder if you had actually met other echidnas to know what they smell like." Rouge had almost forgotten she had said that, it was just a quick reason to give him the emeralds back instead of because she was thankful to him. Just a bad attempt to save face after turning into the damsel in distress.
"Sorry, you're the only one I've known." She admitted. "At least you're better off now than you were the rest of your life, you've got plenty of friends now. Sonic, Tails, that ditsy pink hedgehog girl... and me." Including herself only made her remember why she was there, the Master Emerald. In this short part of the trip she had forgotten all about having an actual mission.
"...thanks, Rouge." He said quietly, just loud enough for her to hear. Knuckles knew his friends but it was nice that someone else was concerned, it was a rare privilege after living alone for so long. He looked back out of the tree's opening to see night was already upon them, the starts now coming out and the moon full in the sky. "...we might as well stay here the rest of the night, get to sleep early so we can head out as soon as the sun's up." Rouge glanced over at the moon just visible from the east opening. Being a bat she preferred the night, but after such a long trip just to get to this point, she wouldn't mind turning in early.
"Fair enough, I could use a few extra hours tonight, anyway." Rouge said. She moved her hands together, taking hold of the tip of one of her long glove's fingers and giving it a tug, freeing one finger. She repeated this for her other fingers, then took hold to pull the glove off her tan-skinned arm and set it aside. Rouge repeated this for her other glove, freeing both her arms for the night. She started to take hold of a boot to remove it when she glanced over at Knuckles, who was already laying down with his back to Rouge, both gloves and shoes still on.
"Don't tell me you intend to sleep in those boxing gloves of yours..." She said. Knuckles sat back up and turned to look at Rouge, obviously a little annoyed at the interruption.
"There's no point in taking them off if I'm just going to put them on again as soon as I wake up." He said simply. "Just get to sleep so we can get going in the morning." Rouge smirked slightly and stood up, stepping over toward Knuckles.
"Sorry, now I'm curious, and you know how curious treasure hunters get." She said, now standing over Knuckles, bending down a bit.
"Rouge, forget it." He said sternly. "I just prefer them on, okay?" Knuckles was starting to get agitated, what was wrong with wanting to keep his gloves on? Rouge persisted, though, eyeing the large gloves in front of Knuckles.
"Come on, it will do you good to get them off for one night..." She said. Rouge reached out quickly to take hold of his hand, intent on removing it herself, only to have it snapped away just as quickly. She shifted her glance to Knuckles, now shooting a piercing glare into her eyes. Rouge took a step back from the reaction, her smirk gone and her curiosity dashed. She returned the glare, though not as viciously, then turned back to walk back to her side of the tree.
"Fine, be touchy, keep the gloves on till your hands get too big to get them off for all I care." She spat, laying down on the floor of the tree's hollow with her back to Knuckles, using her removed gloves as a pillow and her wings as a blanket. She didn't take as much care with her boots, kicking them off to expose the rest of her body suit running down to her toes. Knuckles kept his eye on her until she was settled, then turned his back to her, as well, curling up to get comfortable enough to sleep.
**********
Only a few hours passed before Knuckles jumped up in his sleep with a small yell, sweating and panting. It was the nightmare again, Rouge falling into the lava, but he never had it two nights in a row. He looked across the tree hollow toward Rouge, hoping he hadn't woken her up. Luckily she was pretty deep in her sleep, still with her back to him. Knuckles couldn't explain it, he had thought letting Rouge stay close would relieve him of his nightmares, so why did they repeat so quickly with her right there?
Watching Rouge's sleeping form and remembering the visions from the dream, Knuckles was starting to feel terrible about snapping at her before, she was only curious, that's a treasure hunter's nature. He was just so used to keeping to himself it was instinctive, but he never felt this bad when the same thing caused him to react badly to his other friends.
Knuckles watched on, still in thought, when Rouge started to shift in her sleep, rolling over to her right and off her make-shift pillow, now facing Knuckles in her sleep. Like this Knuckles couldn't help but think she looked more peaceful than when she was awake and retorting to his every comment. Watching her like this, he suddenly noticed something, not about what he saw, but felt. An odd instinct, not something that just spawned in this moment, it felt like it had been there all along. Knuckles stood from his place and stepped over to her as quietly as he could manage. He walked over to her head, kneeling down to the gloves she had been using as a pillow and placing a hand beside them, putting the other under her head as carefully as he could. Knuckles gently lifted her head and slid the gloves back under her head, softly laying her head back on them. He stayed there a moment, watching her sleeping form from up close to make sure she stayed asleep before standing back up and returning to his place.
Knuckles sat back down, again looking over at Rouge, now resting, obvious just by sight that she was more comfortable with her head off the hard wood. Knuckles took a moment to rethink this feeling he had and realized he had it before, but for the Master Emerald. It was a need to protect, to keep her safe. As strongly as he felt it out of instinct for the Emerald, he felt it out of emotion for Rouge, as though his life would end if he didn't. As strong as the feeling was, though, it was still confusing to have. He had a duty to the Master Emerald, but why feel the same need to protect Rouge? He had no reason to watch over her, she could take care of herself as well as he could, it was just logical she could handle anything as well as he could. But logic failed to shake the urge to keep her safe, confusing him further. Knuckles was getting too deep into thought for his own good and decided the morning was a better time to think this over. He laid back down and rested his head on his arms as he curled up again, the thoughts still floating in his mind. Knuckles ignored them as best he could until he fell asleep, but not before settling them with the same vow that he made to the Master Emerald. To protect her as long as he was able, regardless of the cost.
End Chapter 2
Next: Chapter 3 - Buried Truth