Author Notes: Thank you very much, Musical Angelic Hedgehog, for sticking up for me against that "Secret Person"... person. As a warning to anyone who will attempt to flame this story, I will delete those reviews (several reasons, one of which is that I don't think the review board should be abused like that). I really don't want to have to block anonymous reviews... I don't think that's fair to the other anonymous reviewers. :)
Anyway, an apology for taking so long to update. ^^;; I'm extremely busy at the moment... But don't worry, I'll continue to type as much as I can! (I'm on vacation! Yay~!)
"I hate this. I hate this jungle. I hate this stupid, stupid jungle..." Rouge found herself muttering as she halfheartedly pushed her way through the thick brush.
"This is pointless..." she sighed. G.U.N. had obviously covered their tracks... and done it well. Tracking them through the thick forest, where they obviously would have had to break down branches and leaves, seemed easy at first, but...
"They must have split up or something... left a false trail," Rouge groaned, exasperated, as she flopped down on the rather uncomfortable ground.
"Guess I can't try to track them anymore... might as well just start searching the entire, stupid jungle for 'em," she muttered furiously as she began to scale the nearest tree...
Once she had launched off the treetop and was airborne, Rouge felt a whole lot better. Flying has that effect on people.
Shading her eyes against the morning sun, she took a complete survey of the area.
But as far as the eye could see... nothing.
Sighing once more, Rouge began to circle the jungle aimlessly, without a lead, without a hint as to where G.U.N. might be. All by herself, with only the loud screechings of birds and other wildlife, which became quite irritating after a short while...
As she flew above the trees, Rouge began to ponder, once again, what G.U.N. was really after.
She had spied on them. Once. She had pretended to be working with them for a short time, just a small mission or so to find information about the national government's top weapons, in order to find out how their database was built... and how to get into it.
Project: Shadow. How far were they going to go to capture him?
She grimaced as she remembered the blueprint of G.U.N.'s new weapon. The one that would drain Chaos Energy.
But, if what Knuckles' ancestor had said was true...
...then G.U.N. might actually kill Shadow before he gave himself up.
Did they know that?
Was G.U.N. aware of how much Shadow relied on Chaos Energy...?
Rouge shook her head.
No. That was just a theory of hers, that Shadow's life depended on Chaos Energy...
Suddenly, something didn't seem right. Rouge stopped in the air.
The birds, the animals of the jungle... it was quiet.
Unnaturally quiet.
Closing her eyes, Rouge listened with keen ears to the sounds of the forest.
Trees rustling...
The wind blowing...
Humans talking...?
Rouge opened her eyes and dropped to the ground.
She was close to G.U.N.
~*~
Prof. Kagaku sat, isolated from G.U.N. Two guards watched him offhandedly, not paying much attention at all. They knew that G.U.N. had covered the trail well enough that no normal person could find them...
As he sighed, he looked up at the dense jungle in front of him.
Briefly, he thought he saw something move...!
Blinking, he took a closer look... and was surprised when a bat girl appeared, hanging upside down from one of the nearby trees.
The bat looked at him, also somewhat surprised. She motioned for him to get closer.
Making sure no one was watching (which they weren't), Kagaku inched closer to the tree. The bat did her part and hopped from one treetop to another.
Finally, Kagaku sat with his back to one tree as the bat hid around the other side, out of sight from anyone else in the camp.
"Hey, old man," she whispered, loud enough so Kagaku could hear, but still unnoticeable to the rest of the humans. "Do you have a hedgehog friend named Talula?"
"Yes, I do. Now, if you'll excuse me, who do I have the pleasure of addressing--"
"Forget the manner. My name's Rouge. And if I'm not mistaken, this is G.U.N., isn't it?"
"Yes... it is," Kagaku muttered. Rouge was somewhat surprised by the old man's rage towards the company...
"Now, I've got to talk to you about a few things. One... are you working with G.U.N.?"
"Heavens, no," Kagaku whispered loudly. "They took me away from my home by force. I'm not going to work with them."
"Good. And your name is Kagaku, isn't it?"
"That's right."
Rouge sighed, relieved.
For she had remembered that the name of the man that G.U.N. needed to finish their machine was Kagaku. When Talula had mentioned that her friend who had been taken away was named Kagaku, it wasn't hard for Rouge to put two and two together. Prof. Tamine Kagaku was needed to work for G.U.N., but he wasn't willing to...
"I'll get you out of here. I'll attack the guards, you know, stir up some confusion, then you get out of here," Rouge hissed.
"Young lady, could you do me one favor?" Kagaku shifted so Rouge could see his hands, bound together. "If you could just--"
"No problem," Rouge responded, quickly freeing the old man. "But you have to bolt, as soon as you can, all right?"
"Right."
~*~
Sonic had reached the jungle that morning, his unspoken anxiety putting extra speed in his pace. Like Rouge, searching for G.U.N., he had no idea where Shadow might be.
Sonic ran as fast as he could, trying to cover as much ground in as little time as possible.
Trying to find a track.
Trying to find something.
Trying to find Shadow, after all.
Something caught his attention.
Footprints. Obviously not Shadow's, but maybe they belonged to someone who had seen him.
Sonic wasn't one to stop and take in details, but he saw that whoever had made the footprints either had rather heavy shoes or was tired. In any case, the footprints were rather deep in the mud.
Sonic followed them.
It took him only seconds, a minute to cover the ground that it had taken Rouge much longer to travel.
When the footprints stopped, he saw that they led to a tree. The tree's bark was scraped off in places, showing that someone had been climbing it with those heavy shoes.
Scratching his head as to how he was going to solve this one, Sonic curled up into a Spin Dash and sped up the tree trunk.
Once at the tree's summit, Sonic looked out over the jungle. Shrugging, knowing that there really wasn't anything to go on, he ran out over the treetops, the branches creating a path.
And, more by accident than design, he was also able to catch the faint voices of humans as he almost ran past them.
As he dropped with a dull thump to the ground, he spotted a familiar face...
And called out, without thinking.
"Hey, Rouge!"
~*~
Rouge was about to launch an attack on the guards, when Sonic's voice reached her.
And the rest of G.U.N.
As the guards whipped around, startled, Rouge's instincts took hold of her as she knocked each one out with a kick.
She turned around quickly, spotting Sonic.
However, as it always goes, if you're desperate to see something, that's what you'll see...
The combination of Rouge's desperation to find Shadow, added to the fact that light scattered through leaves tends to play tricks on your eyes, caused Rouge to call out the first word that came to her mind...
"Shadow?!"
By this time, any covers had been blown, and G.U.N. was fully aware of the presence of the intruders.
"It's Project: Shadow!" someone yelled, pointing at Sonic.
"Shadow? What? No, Rouge, it's me!" Sonic yelled, pointing at himself and dashing towards Rouge.
"Sonic?" Rouge stared. "Get out of here!"
"Get him!" a G.U.N. officer ordered, as the group of soldiers ran for Sonic.
'They think I'm Shadow,' Sonic thought.
A sudden thought bubbled to his mind...
'The hair-dye...! Shadow was blue the last time these people saw him!'
Sonic jumped clear over the heads of the humans, an idea forming in his head, for he detested G.U.N. as well.
Lowering his voice as well as he could, trying to imitate Shadow, Sonic called out...
"Hey! Do you really think you can catch me, the Ultimate Life Form?"
Now that the humans were able to get a good look at him, one called out, "That's not Project: Shadow! I heard Project: Shadow was black and red!"
A different person retorted, "Hey, stupid! I was there the last time we tried to catch it! It was blue!"
Sonic had to keep himself from laughing at their argument. Just then, a scream rang out from across the clearing.
'Rouge,' Sonic remembered.
Dashing across the camp, Sonic grabbed Rouge's hand and freed her from the G.U.N. officers trying to attack her. He ran up a tree, pulling her with him.
"I haven't got much time, so I'll explain now. Get yourself out of here, get to Station Square, and tell Tails to head to South Island. He'll know what to do," Sonic whispered to Rouge, hurriedly but clearly. She nodded. "I'm going to stay with G.U.N. for a bit..."
As Sonic was about to leap down from the tree, Rouge halted him. "Wait," she said. "See that old man? I've got to have time to get him out of here, too--"
"No problem," Sonic grinned. "I'm pretty good at making distractions..." He got ready to leave again.
"Wait!"
"Now what?!" Sonic asked, getting slightly irritated.
"What are you going to do when they find out you're not Shadow?"
Sonic shrugged. "Beats me. I'll figure that part out when we get there."
Rouge groaned. "You're impossible..."
Suddenly, Rouge remembered one last thing.
"G.U.N. is building a machine, a weapon... it's supposed to drain Chaos Energy. Sonic..." she looked at him pleadingly. "Kagaku, the old man, he was supposed to help them finish it. Since I'm going to help him escape, they won't be able to. The thing is, I don't think they need him so much as they need knowledge about Chaos Energy. Sonic, please don't give them any answers..."
"Sure thing, no problem. Is that all?" Sonic asked, poised to head back to the skirmish.
"Yeah..."
"Thanks. I'll see you sometime." Sonic flashed a grin. "Remember. Station Square. Tails. South Island. Get him that message."
"Right." Rouge and Sonic parted ways.
"All right. Do you think you can beat me?" Sonic yelled in his 'Shadow' voice, taunting G.U.N.
While Sonic distracted the soldiers, Rouge pulled Kagaku away from the area. Rouge cringed, listening to Sonic. "Who does he think he is? He doesn't sound like Shadow at all..."
Kagaku smiled. "Maybe not... but we do owe him a lot."
"Yeah..." Rouge agreed. "Come on, let's hurry it up."
When they had gotten a fair distance away from G.U.N., Rouge said, "All right. Now, hold onto my wrists and whatever you do, don't let go."
"What? Whatever for--" Kagaku was startled as Rouge picked him up by the wrists and began to fly towards the treetops.
"Forgive me if we're going a bit slow," she muttered, "but humans such as yourself are quite heavy for a girl to carry..."
"My apologies..." Kagaku said.
"Ah, forget about it. Anyway, there's something I want to talk to you about. You worked with Gerald Robotnik when he was creating Shadow, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did," Kagaku said, surprised that anyone knew about it. "How did you--"
"Never mind how I know. But can you answer this for me?"
"Yes, anything. What?"
"Does Shadow... live on Chaos Energy?"
~*~
After a brief struggle, more to give Rouge and Kagaku a chance to get away, Sonic had given up to G.U.N.
Now, his hands tied behind his back, he was being made to walk through the jungle.
A horribly long and boring journey for Sonic the Hedgehog.
"Are we there yet?" he whined like a little kid, forgetting that he was supposed to be Shadow.
"No, now shut up," someone said, poking Sonic in the back with a rifle.
'I really hate you,' Sonic thought hotly. 'As soon as I get out of this mess, I'm going to--'
At that moment, the entire party stopped in front of a wall of rock. A G.U.N. official touched a nearby tree.
A door in the rock opened up, and to Sonic's amazement revealed a giant building, concealed within.
As the group proceeded inside, Sonic stared in awe at all of the high-tech gizmos and machines that he'd never understand nor need in his life.
'What Tails would give to be here,' he thought.
'Well, he will soon enough...'
~*~
"Project: Shadow..." Kagaku murmured, deep in thought.
He had been thinking for several minutes over Rouge's question, sometimes pondering out loud.
"I'm not quite sure," he finally answered, knowing that he was disappointing Rouge. "I'm sorry... but I was mostly a helper to Professor Robotnik. He did all of the work, and when he died those secrets went with him. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Rouge said, although inside she felt that it was anything but all right. "I didn't expect it to be this easy."
"However... Project: Shadow was created in a search for immortality... so it's very likely," Kagaku offered.
"Mm." The two continued their flight.
"Rouge?" Kagaku said, breaking the silence. "Do you know where Talula has hidden herself? I would like her to know that I'm all right..."
"Yeah, sure." Rouge changed her path slightly, and in a few minutes they had reached the site of Kagaku's house.
The professor sighed when he saw the mound of ashes that was left. "No matter," he finally said. "No one was hurt. That's all that matters. Come this way," he motioned for Rouge to follow.
As the two walked on a well-trodden path, Rouge had to ask.
"How did you meet Talula? It wouldn't seem likely for a scientist of your status to be living here in the jungle."
"Oh, I moved here quite a few years ago... I'd visited the jungles once, and I had to live here... after I left G.U.N.," Kagaku admitted.
"You worked for...?"
"Yes, once. But after I learned that they were only after power and weapons, I had to leave. I'm sorry that it took 30 years before I officially left them..." Kagaku sighed. "I met Sayil and Mani, Talula's mother and father, while I was on vacation. This was before Talula was born," he added.
"The three of us became very good friends. Mani taught me much about how he worked and how they lived, and Sayil taught me which herbs were good for treating wounds and disease. When their daughter was born, it seemed like a perfect life."
Kagaku paused. "However...
"Their daughter, Talula, was born with a genetic disease... an immunodeficiency. It was a less severe form of the disease that had afflicted Professor Robotnik's granddaughter."
"Maria," Rouge said.
"That's right. But at any rate, that hedgehog baby wouldn't have lived. And I knew too much about the disease by then to let it go without doing anything. So I..." Kagaku sighed. "I went back to G.U.N. and took some of their equipment. I returned to the jungle and treated Talula with gene therapy. I gave her the chance for a life.
"But G.U.N. didn't see it that way. They felt that I had betrayed them. As a result, they have always had a grudge against me.
"Sayil and Mani were grateful to me, though. They gave me a home, they gave me food, they taught me how to live in my paradise. They were my friends," Kagaku reminisced, smiling at the memories of days gone by.
"What happened to them?" Rouge asked.
"Life in the jungle is difficult... when I had first arrived in the jungle, I had been given vaccinations for the many diseases here. However... Sayil and Mani fell ill one day. They passed away when Talula was about five." Kagaku looked down at the trail. "That was ten years ago."
"Fifteen years..." Rouge thought.
She stopped. "Fifteen years ago, something occurred called 'Project: Shadow 02'. Did you have anything to do with that? Is that... Talula?"
"'Project: Shadow 02' was a failure," Kagaku replied. "All it was was an attempt to create a new Project: Shadow, using the genes of the one we had. Basically a clone. It was supposed to be even more advanced... but it never happened. It became lost." Kagaku shrugged. "At least, that's what I've heard. I left just after the final stages were initiated."
"Hmm..."
"We're here," Kagaku said, pointing to the small hut ahead of them. He turned to Rouge. "I can't thank you enough. Would you stay for a late lunch?"
"I'm sorry," Rouge said. She looked up at Kagaku. "I have something to do. For Sonic."
"I understand." Before turning and heading to the house, Kagaku added, "When you see that young man again, please let him know how much I appreciate what he did for us."
"I will." Rouge turned and took off.
Kagaku stood behind, waving farewell.