Sega owns Sonic and ARC. I thought up Drake.

            This chapter doesn't really move the story forward much, but it was a funny little scene I had in my head. Some people might not like Rouge and Knuckles going out on a date, but they're not really on a date. You'll see when you get there. I have no idea what movie they're watching, but whatever it is, it has a very silent moment. It's a little longer than the others. (Yea!) (I had this broken into two chapters, but chapter 10, To Getaway Isle, was so extremely short, I just combined them.) 

            Please send reviews! I love reviews.

Chapter 9: Disastrous Date

            Meanwhile, Knuckles was outside, also going frantic. He still had six more pieces of the Master Emerald to find, and he couldn't find them anywhere! His instinctual emerald radar seemed to have gone nuts, telling him the emeralds were moving. They were moving around near a building in the distance. Knuckles began running in the direction of that building.

            As he ran by, a kid standing on the sidewalk called, "Excuse me! Knuckles!"

            He stopped for a moment and looked back at the kid. "Whaddaya want? I'm busy right now."

            "Do you have a brother?" the kid asked.

            "No," Knuckles answered, scowling. "Why in the world would you ask me that?" He was planning to run away and leave this crazy kid to his crazy thoughts, but his next statement kept him standing there.

            "Well, there was this guy walking around here earlier that kinda looked like you. He was black and had these weird sneakers. He said his name was Drake."

            Knuckles scowled again. That Drake! At first, he hadn't been angry with him for breaking the Master Emerald again, but now he felt like pounding him into the concrete. It was his fault he was on this wild goose chase, after all.

            The little kid saw the wild look on Knuckles' face and ran off in terror.

            With that out of the way, the red echidna continued his sprint to the building. When he got closer to the base, he suddenly slammed into Rouge, coming from the opposite direction.

            Rouge was about to scream, "Oh there you are!" but contained herself and bit her tongue. She had devised a plan on how to get Knuckles on a date with her without actually admitting that she liked him.

            Knuckles jumped up. "Rouge!" he cried. "That's it, you must have the rest of the Master Emerald pieces! Hand 'em over, you thief!" Rouge stood up and Knuckles prepared to fight with her.

            "Hey, calm down. I don't want to fight. Let's make a little deal."

            Knuckles looked a little suspicious. "Are you trying to trick me? I know how much people like to try and trick me." A little voice in the back of his head said, "And they usually succeed."

            "No, not at all," Rouge assured him. "You're right, I do have the other Master Emerald shards, but instead of fighting, I thought we could work out a deal. You see, I'm in a little trouble and I need your help. If you help me, I'll give you the emerald shards back."

            "What kind of help are you talking about?" Knuckles asked.

            Rouge took a deep breath. "Well, I made this bet with my friends. They bet me a hundred dollars that I couldn't get you to go on a date with me, and I'm broke! I can't be paying them a hundred dollars!" Rouge tried to look distressed, but her heart was beating very fast.

            Knuckles scratched his head. "Um…what did you just say?!"

            Rouge was getting a little frustrated. "I said I made a bet with some friends…"

            "Yeah, yeah, I heard that," Knuckles interrupted. "But why would you make a bet like that?!"

            Rouge shook her head. "I have no idea. I don't think I was in my right mind." She held out her emerald pieces. "So will you do this little favor for me? I'll give you your emerald pieces back…"

            Knuckles thought it over for a while. He couldn't find any way out of it, except to suddenly attack Rouge and take the Master Emerald shards back by force. He looked around at the city residents staring at them. That was a bad idea. If the people saw him attacking Rouge, they'd think he was an assaulter or a woman-beater. Knuckles sighed. "All right, I guess I'll do it," he muttered through clenched teeth.

            Rouge felt like jumping for joy. She hid her jubilation and handed the emerald pieces back to him. "Remember, we made a deal," she said. "If you run off on me, I'll have to fight you!"

            Knuckles pocketed the shards in relief. He didn't put the emerald back together right then, afraid that Rouge would try to steal it once it was intact, but if she did that, she was breaking her end of the bargain, and he could fight her for it.

            Rouge looked around. "Okay, we're pretending we're on a date, so why don't we go see a movie?"

            Knuckles frowned. "Can't we just take pictures and make it look like we were on a date? We don't have to actually go on one."

            Rouge pretended to be disgusted. "Yeah, I wish we could do that too, but my friends are also spies, and they'll be secretly watching to make sure we actually go on a date, so unfortunately, we have to."

            Knuckles desperately looked around as he trudged into the movie theater behind Rouge. He thought there was something a little fishy about this, but he just went with it.

            Drake was watching them as they went into the cinema. "Oh, that's right! I have to warn the other keeper!" he cried. He ran up into the line and also paid for a ticket to get into the movie.

            Knuckles sat beside Rouge in the movie theater, arms crossed, and looking very cross himself. He hoped that no one he knew could see him now.

            Thirty minutes later, there was a very quiet moment in the movie, and the whole theater was silent, except for people munching popcorn. Knuckles leaned back in his chair and tried to catch some Z's.

            Suddenly, a black head popped up between them. "Hi, am I interrupting something?" he asked.

            Rouge shrieked and scattered popcorn all over the man sitting in front of her. All the people in the theater turned and looked at them. Knuckles wished he could dissolve into the fluffy red carpet.

            Drake smiled at them. "Sorry, miss, I didn't mean to scare you like that. Is that your girlfriend, Knuckles?"

            Now, Knuckles had had it. He turned around and kneeled in the chair backwards. "No, she's not my girlfriend! Why can't you leave me alone, you half-wit?! This is all your fault, you know! If we weren't in public, I'd…"

            "Shh," Rouge said, popping another piece of popcorn in her mouth. "I can't hear what they're saying!"

            Drake shrank back a little. "Sorry, I just needed to tell you something important. It's about the Passage…The two sides are on the verge of being joined!"

            "What?!" Knuckles cried. "You come all the way in here to tell me that?! Go away! I don't know what the heck you're talking about!"

            Rouge reached up and tugged on his arm. "Pipe down, big guy. You wanna get us thrown out?"

            "Actually, I would like to be thrown out right about now," Knuckles muttered. He sat back down, but gave one last warning glance to Drake.

            Drake slowly crept out of the movie theater. He leaned against the wall. "What am I going to do?" he said in a worried tone. "The Chaos Emeralds have already been gathered, I'm still missing five Chaos Medallions, and the other keeper has never even heard of the Passage!" He banged his head against the wall. Finally, he decided he had to get going if he expected to even come close to saving the worlds.

            An hour later, Rouge and Knuckles came out of the cinema.

            "Well, it was nice after that weird guy left," Rouge said.

            Knuckles squinted in the bright sun. "Yeah. Sorry I yelled like that, but I'm really ticked off at that guy." He suddenly realized he had no idea why he had apologized to Rouge.

            Rouge frowned. "Now I forgot to tell you the rest of the bet…they said it had to be for a day."

            "Great," Knuckles said. "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?"

            "Well, I kinda forgot," Rouge lied.

            Knuckles sighed. "Now what?"

            "Well, why don't we go to that new vacation spot, Getaway Isle? No one will see us there."

            Knuckles let himself be dragged into the Getaway Island Ferry, because he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

            Sonic was racing along the sands, still keeping a lookout for Amy, Tails, Eggman, Drake, or any new zone entrances. So far, it had been two hours since he'd lost Amy and he was growing frantic. With all the friends he had nowadays, Sonic had been constantly surrounded by other people, and he was actually getting a little lonely. He hid his loneliness by racing around the island.

            At last, he began to see some sort of life form up ahead. As he drew closer, the figures came into better view. They were something red and something white and pink. "Knuckles and Rouge?!" Sonic said to himself. "What are they doing here together?" Sonic zipped up next to them in amazement.

            Knuckles jumped a foot in the air. "Aaaaugh! Sonic?! I thought this was supposed to be a deserted vacation island! You liar!"

            Rouge held back laughter.

            Sonic looked confused and still frantic. "Well-I-can't-stick-around. I-still-have-to-find-Amy-and-Tails-and-get-the-Chaos-Medallions-before-Drake!" He zoomed away.

            "Hey, wait!" Knuckles ran off after him.

            "Where are you going?!" Rouge yelled. "We made a deal!" She ran after the two of them.

            Sonic was shocked as Knuckles came running up beside him. "You're coming with me???" he cried.

            Knuckles shrugged. "It's better than being stuck with Rouge."

            Sonic raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, why were you there with Rouge? I thought you two couldn't stand each other."

            Knuckles glared at him. "That's none of your beeswax." Sonic just left it at that, because he didn't feel like having a fight right then.