CHAPTER 25: New Love

Wonder if I shouldn't go to see her, Knuckles thought to himself, punching a large oak tree. It was the largest tree on Angel Island, and his favorite punchtoy. No one knows the Master Emerald is here, so I really don't have to worry about its safety. Well, she does, but I'll be with her, so even if she wanted it, she couldn't slip away from me. Knuckles launched his final punch, which he always threw his full body into. His fist collided with the tree, which shook but stood strong.

"You are as strong as they say," a raspy male voice said from nowhere. Knuckles whipped around, his fists raised. He saw a tall man, perhaps seven feet tall, standing before him, partly hidden by a smaller tree. The man wore a hooded brown cloak that hid his whole body, except for an opening where his face should have been. The only problem was, he had no face, yet his voice came from directly behind the hood.

"Who are you?" Knuckles demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"I bear a warning," said the stranger, slowly stepping out from behind the tree and toward Knuckles.

"Stay back!" the echidna warned.

"A new beast has arisen" the stranger said, ignoring Knuckles and still walking slowly forward. "I see it, growing more powerful by the day. It has no gender, and works through others. It turns the innocents into its pawns, it enslaves the masses, it forces them to do its bidding. It has no name, no heart, no mercy. It would take from you all that you hold dear, your friends, your family, even those who you feel close to but do not feel close to you. Even now it is hatching its wicked plot, and has sent an unknowing agent to gather the Seven."

"The 'Seven?'" Knuckles repeated. "What seven? Why don't you start making sense?"

"For now, there is nothing you can do. Cherish your time with your loved ones, for they may be leaving you in time." The stranger turned away from Knuckles and began to cackle. Knuckles clenched his teeth and rushed forward to catch the one in the cloak, but he showed surprising speed. He ran toward the edge of the flying island, turned his back to the edge, and jumped backward, falling straight down. Knuckles stopped at the edge and looked down after him, but he was nowhere to be seen against the mass of blue that was the ocean below.

"Who was that? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" Knuckles closed his eyes and shook his head. The sun began to sink over the horizon.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Rouge called out, hearing a knock on her door. It was a clear Saturday morning, and she had scarcely been out of bed for an hour. At least she'd had time to get cleaned up, brush her teeth, have a cup of coffee, and all that good stuff. When she pulled open her front door, she found none other than Knuckles on her doorstep. He was wearing a red jogging suit that wasn't really his look.

"Surprise," he said with a grin, holding up a bouquet of roses. The flowers bloomed a brilliant shade of red with deep green stems and leaves. Rouge smiled, hugged him, and took them.

"Hi Knuckles," she said. "Wow, these are beautiful! Where'd you get them?"

"They grow rampant all over Angel Island," he said casually. "Thought you'd like them."

"I do," she said. "Thank you so much! Don't just stand there, come in!" She stood back from the door and gave Knuckles room to walk in. Upon entering, he took a look around and saw that the place was very... lightly furnished. Rouge closed the door and walked into the kitchen to put the roses in water.

"If you put those in some potting soil, they'll grow new roots and you can keep them pretty much wherever you like," Knuckles called after her.

"I'll do that later," she called back. A moment later, she walked back into the living room, where Knuckles had made himself at home. She sat down on the couch beside him, rather closer than was necessary, and wrapped her arms around him. "So," she said, "what brings you here this early in the morning? It's like 8:00!"

"You," he said simply. "I wanted to see you, so I did. By the way, nice nightgown."

"Thanks," Rouge said. She was wearing a straight-white nightgown that only went down to about her knees. "Couldn't call me first?" she joked. "There's gotta be a phone SOMEWHERE on that island, right?"

"Well, even if there was, it probably wouldn't have been the right phone book! And I don't have any money on me, so pay phones are no go." Knuckles had a huge grin on his face.

"Well, at least you caught me on a day where I didn't have any plans," Rouge said with a smile. "Any idea where you wanna go today? Y'know, just the two of us for the day?"

"Well, I saw an ad for a mini-carnival in the paper. It was supposed to open today."

"When'd you see that?"

"Couple days ago when I left the island for a quick swim at the beach. Someone left a page full of ads in the sand."

"Well, guess that works. What time does it open?"

"Around noon, I think it said. That gives us four hours to kill until then."

"Well shoot, what can we do in all that time?"

"I can think of a lot of things... A couple of them shouldn't even be on the list either."

"I can imagine. Well, we could always go out and have breakfast first. I know this place that makes good bacon and eggs."

"Okay."

When noon finally rolled around, Knuckles and Rouge had pretty well caught up on everything that had happened since they'd last seen each other. Knuckles had just finished telling Rouge about the weird guy at Angel Island as they were walking up to the booth to get some tickets. Rouge had long since changed out of her nightgown into a white tank top that left her belly button explosed, gray windbreaker pants, and white tennis shoes.

"Ah, don't worry about him," she said. "He was just an old loony. Nothing to worry about."

"I suppose you're right," Knuckles said, reaching into his pocket for his credit card. This wasn't a credit card in the traditional sense; rather, it was a debit card for paying the payee in full, on the spot, directly from the payer's account(the currency, of course, being credits). After paying and getting their 100 tickets(that's a lot when all the games and the few rides only cost one apiece), Knuckles and Rouge set off toward the game area, since most of the rides were scary... for three-year-olds(childish, for those of you who are of strong... God knows what, but of weak mind). They rather quickly noticed a large crowd gathered around one spot, which wasn't very large. Knuckles recognized this as the standard formation of the innocent bystander watching a fight.

"Hey, check it out," Rouge said. "Looks like a fight or something. I can't see anything, though. I'll be back in a few seconds." She spread her powerful bat wings and flew straight up, rising to twenty feet. She then flew out over the crowd and took a look at what was going on before flying back to Knuckles.

"See anything?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'll say," Rouge said with a grin. "Some really big guy's in the middle of the crowd taking on some guy that looks like he has beer and pussy every morning for breakfast, before he gets out of bed. The big guy's winning. The sign said anyone who could beat him would get 2000 credits. The only catch is, you lose, and you lose the fifty credits you gotta pay, you lose a lot of blood, a lot of pride, and maybe your testicles. Well, actually it just says you lose your money, but the rest of that seems like a fair assumption."

"I wonder if I shouldn't go and ruin his day," Knuckles said with an evil grin, popping his knuckles.

"Be my guest," Rouge said. "Not like I can stop you. Just try not to kill him. It would be a SHAME for him to put all that work into buffing up like that, just to get killed playing his own game," she added with an equally evil grin. From the cheers that rose up around them, the big guy had stomped the (more than likely drunken)challenger. Knuckles took this opportunity to make his way through the crowd, heading for the center. Rouge flew up and got herself a good viewpoint above. Knuckles reached the center of the crowd just as Rouge had found her place. The battered challenger from twenty seconds before was being led off to the side to a card swiping machine to pay up.

"Well, don't you look tough!" exclaimed the behemoth in the center. He was about 6'7", weighed 300 pounds, had big front teeth(even by rabbit standards(this mattered because he was a rabbit)), had black fur all over his body, and black leather pants. His massive chest and stomach were covered in large muscles so tight that Rouge could've sworn that she could get a diamond out of them by sticking a lump of coal in his belly button and coming back two weeks later. His ears were tied back in a mock ponytail.

"Hey, I may be smaller than you, but my fists are sure bigger than yours!" Knuckles retorted. This was true, his fists WERE quite a little bigger than the big rabbit's. "Before I ruin your day and your fun, you got a name?"

"Folks call me Slug, mostly because that's how I solve my problems!" exclaimed big, black, and dumb-as-a-brick.

"People call me Knuckles. Here's why!" Knuckles darted forward before Slug had time to get back on guard. He threw a vicious uppercut at Slug's jaw, smashing right into the big rabbit's chin and forcing his head back unnaturally far. Slug staggered back two steps, then he slowly began to fall back. Once he was down and out, Knuckles grinned and said, "Timber." At this point, Rouge flew down to meet him.

"Nice shot," she said with a wide grin on her face.

"Eh, lucky punch," Knuckles replied. "Least now I'll have some more spending money for next time."

"Assuming you can catch him," Rouge said, pointing. The weasel who'd been collecting people's credits was trying to sneak off with the card swiping machine. He saw that he was spotted and made a mad dash for it.

"HEY! GET BACK HERE YOU DICKHEAD!" Knuckles shouted, chasing that fool down.

"Well, today's certainly been eventful, hasn't it?" Rouge asked that evening, sitting on the beach next to Knuckles. The sun was setting, its beautiful golden color reflected perfectly in the water, creating the image of twin suns. The sky was more of a pink color, with purple clouds here and there.

"I'm still trying to get over the fact that I hit that button as hard as I could, didn't make it halfway to the bell, then watched you hit it with maybe half your strength and nearly break the thing," Knuckles said, grinning sheepishly. After he'd beaten down Slug and gotten his money, his luck had gone downhill. He couldn't shoot baskets, he got stomped in the go-cart races, he couldn't play Skee-ball for shit, and so on.

"Oh, that's right, I told you I was going to explain that," Rouge said. "It's simple, really. It's an old trick. See, the botton is sticking straight up in the air, ready to be hit. The hammer, while both surfaces are totally flat, is fixed. One side of it is perfectly aligned, while the other is slanted a little. If you hit with the slanted side, the impact on the button is weak as anything. Hit with the correctly-placed side, and it's easy to ring the bell."

".....Oh. Um, I knew that all along. I just wanted to see if you knew!" Knuckles put on a clueless face, and Rouge laughed out loud.

"At least it wasn't a TOTAL loss," she said. "Getting to watch you nearly beat the money out of that weasel was pretty fun."

"I should've hit him" Knuckles said. "But hey, he paid up, so I didn't have to sink to his level."

"There you go," Rouge said. She lay her head on Knuckles's right shoulder and looked out on the water. After a few moments, she said, "I love the beach. The sunset's beautiful, the air is fresh and clean, the sound of the waves is so relaxing... Most of all, no one's around for moments like this." And without warning, she reached up, turned Knuckles's face toward her own, and kissed him on the lips. The kiss was short and shallow, yet still soft and warm. She broke apart after maybe three seconds.

"I love you Rouge," Knuckles said, putting his arm around Rouge's shoulders.

Mkay, here's the next chapter fer ya. Sorry I took so long with it, but tht's what happens when you're trying to fight off writer's block, the blah sort of feeling you get from waking up too early every morning, and the tired feeling that school leaves you with. So, the scoop on this one is, Knuckles goes and visits Rouge a bit early in the morning on Saturday, and the two of them decide to hit the mini-carnival that's in town(it mainly consists of kiddie rides and a lot of games). Knuckles beats some dude down, get 2000 credits, and has bad luck the rest of the day. But the climax comes that evening, when Rouge suddenly kisses him on the beach. Nice one Rouge. Anywho, I'm hoping this one gets a few more reviews than my last few have gotten. From what one of my buddies told me on AIM, it may have to do with me putting R&R in every chapter. Just a reminder, when I put that in there, I don't mean don't bug me about the next chapter. S'matter of fact, I like when people do. Motivates me, I guess. So, as always, R&R please. Hope you Knux/Rouge fans enjoy this one.