Chapter 49: Input! More Input!
"Something doesn't add up," Sonic said to himself, stowing the Emerald under his bed. The gem's glow illuminated the floor of the entire bedroom, which disturbed the occupant. He said to himself, "I won't be able to sleep with that..." He knelt down once again, pulled the gem back out, set it on the bed, then walked to the closet. "Hope I still have that... There it is." He reached up and pulled down a thin blanket; thin, but still sufficient to block the light. He returned to the bed, unfolding the blanket. He wrapped it around the Emerald, then stuffed it back under the bed before he climbed into it.
Need to go talk to Rouge tomorrow, he thought as he lay his head on the pillow, facing the wall on his right. Or, later... Whatever. Sometime in the next twelve hours.
Knock knock knock. Rouge groaned and flicked her left ear. Knock knock knock. She groaned once more, then stretched. Knock knock knock. Her eyes slid open slowly, and she sat up blinking. She called, "Alright, alright, I'm coming!" She lifted herself off the couch, where she had fallen asleep the previous night, and strode over to the door. After opening the deadbolt, she turned the knob and pulled open the door. No one was there.
Damned kids, Rouge thought, simultaneously thinking up a new recipe for dead child. She closed the door rather harder than was necessary and turned around. She took two steps before someone knocked again. This time she turned around, grabbed the doorknob, and yanked the door open, hoping to catch the one who did it. There stood Sonic, his hands behind his back, showing no sign of running away.
"Hey," he said.
"Hi," Rouge said. "Sonic, you didn't happen to see who just did that knock-and-run on me, did you?"
"That was me," Sonic said, grinning.
"And... why would you do that?" Rouge demanded. "And what do you have behind your back?"
"Well, first," Sonic said, "I did that because... well, I've just always wanted to. As for this..." He produced from behind his back an object covered in a blanket. "I'd like not to unwrap this out here."
"Okay," Rouge said, puzzled. She stepped aside, allowing Sonic to pass. Once he was inside, she closed the door and headed toward the couch, Sonic following.
"Are you okay?" he asked, sitting down. "You don't look too good."
"I'm fine," Rouge said. "You just woke me up, is all." She yawned widely and shook her head, her neck popping at the same time.
"Why'd you sleep in here?" Sonic asked.
"No real reason," Rouge said. "Couldn't sleep in my room last night for some odd reason, so I came and passed out on the couch. It happens occasionally. Nothing big."
"You don't sleep with a blanket?" Sonic asked.
"Not always," Rouge said. "Warm night last night. But anyway, enough about me. What's with the blanket?" She pointed to the object Sonic was holding.
"Oh yeah, nearly forgot," Sonic said. He unwrapped the object, and Rouge gasped, her eyes going wide. The bright yellow glow of the Emerald served to enhance the shine in her eyes.
"Wow!" she breathed excitedly.
"See why I didn't want to unwrap it outside?" Sonic asked with a grin, very amused at Rouge's face. She nodded slowly. "I figured you'd like to hang on to this," Sonic continued. "Until it 'officially' becomes mine."
"Wh-what do you mean?" Rouge said. At this point, she was overcoming her initial amazement at having one of the most sought-after gemstones in existence right in front of her.
"It's Shadow," Sonic said. "He claims that he's been bored and decided he'd try and gather as many of the Emeralds as he could get in one try. I found him one night, nearly dead. Said he'd been smashed by a giant hammer, and he evidently only just survived."
"Is he okay?" Rouge demanded, suddenly totally alert, the Emerald out of her mind as the thought of Shadow hurt pushed itself into her head.
"He's okay now," Sonic said quickly, surprised that Rouge would react in such a fashion.
"Are you sure?" Rouge demanded.
"Yes, I'm positive!" Sonic exclaimed, almost yelling.
"Okay," Rouge said, calming down.
"Anyway, I deliberately screwed up my sleeping pattern so I'd be awake at night and asleep most of the day," Sonic said. "Only took me a day or so. I've been watching his place at night since then, and last night he headed out again. I followed him, and he headed out to an area near where I found him. He went in after the same Emerald, and he blew it again. I confronted him and produced the Emerald. I told him there must have been more to the story if he went back to try the same Emerald again, but he said he'd had a plan he wanted to try, just to see if it worked. Then he asked if he could have the Emerald. I said no, but I challenged him to race for it. It goes up for grabs tomorrow, 3 o'clock. I figured you'd like to hang onto it until then, since I'm sure you've probably had dreams about having these."
"Yeah, I have," Rouge said. "But, I have a question. Your story was interesting, but you neglected to tell when you got the Emerald."
"Yesterday afternoon," Sonic said. "I wanted to see what it was that nearly killed Shadow. You remember, back when Metal Sonic tried to kill us all by transforming into that huge monster thing, he used those giant robots with the hammers? The ones that had that heavy armor, spinning hammer attacks, and some of them helmets?"
"One of those?" Rouge asked. Sonic nodded.
"He destroyed it and screwed the whole thing up," Sonic said. "There were little blobs of energy chasing me while I was in there, and I guess he lured some of them into the robot and fried it. I don't know who or what makes this stuff up, but it's good at its job. Too good. It was totally by accident that I got the Emerald. But, one good thing came of it all: I was dodging those things so long, I tired myself out enough to actually sleep last night."
"I see," Rouge said. "But, I can't help thinking... There's something you're not telling me. Like there's more to the story than meets the eye."
"You're sharp," Sonic said. "Before I tell you this, I want you to understand something. I'm not trying to push you into something you don't want to do."
"You want me to consider this whole thing whenever I think about whether to call the agency and say I'm in," Rouge said.
"Yes, that's right," Sonic said. "I mean, think about it. Whoever the asshole is who tried to whack us, they're smart. They've got resources. They know us. They know we've used the Emeralds in the past to defeat Eggman. They might have somehow tricked Shadow into gathering the Emeralds to keep us from getting them, to keep us from resorting to our old standby of letting me go super and going Old Testament on them."
"If they have even one Emerald, they've got the job done," Rouge said.
"Yeah," Sonic said. "True. But, they may want the other six for some reason. If they want Shadow to get all the Emeralds for them, that could be our lucky break. If we can somehow watch Shadow without him realizing it, maybe someone will contact him."
"And we can follow them back to whoever their leader is!" Rouge said, finishing Sonic's statement.
"Exactly," Sonic said.
"I'll bear all this in mind," Rouge said, "but there's one thing. If this guy is that smart, he may not contact Shadow again for a while. He'll probably know that you're onto Shadow."
"True," Sonic said. "That should give you some time to think about this. If we're lucky, we'll be able to figure something else out without having to resort to that."
"Yeah," Rouge said. "There's really not too much to think about, but you have to understand, this is no small thing. It's something that needs to be dwelt on for a while."
"Take as long as you need," Sonic said. "I just hope no one else dies or is injured within that time." Rouge sighed and shook her head, then sat silent for a moment, head hanging, deep in thought. Finally, after perhaps two minutes, in which Sonic gave her the silence she needed, she spoke.
"You're right," she said. "Tell you what. I want you to help me on this one."
"How?" Sonic asked, puzzled: this was Rouge's decision, not his, so what role could he possibly play in making it?
"Don't spend all your time on this or anything, but kind of keep an eye on Shadow for me, would you?" Rouge requested. "If someone contacts him within a month, I'll go back to the agency. If not... We'll get to that later."
"You got it," Sonic said. Rouge looked at her watch.
"I need to get a shower," she said, standing up.
"Okay," Sonic said, standing up. He stretched for several seconds before he turned and headed toward the door. "You can hold onto the blanket, just in case. If I lose, and that's a pretty big if, I'll take it back with the Emerald wrapped in it."
"You got it," Rouge said. "Do me a favor, and don't lose, okay?"
"You got it," Sonic said, pulling the door open. "See you later."
I'm so sorry, everyone. I took much longer with this chapter than I'd expected. I still haven't figured out how, but I lost the file the first time I typed it out, so I never got to upload it. Well, for better or worse, I suppose, since there was a discrepancy that I didn't catch until the second copy of the file(I forgot to include the part where Sonic explained when he got the Emerald). Hope you like it, I'm sorry I took so long with it, I'm going to kick my own ass if I do that again with the next chapter. Enjoy.
Oh, and one more thing... About that line where Rouge thinks up "a new recipe for dead child"... That doesn't mean she thought cannibalistic thoughts. Just means she was thinking up new ways to kill the kid she thought was screwing with her.