CHAPTER 4

THE FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT

Rouge was a little afraid, "Dark is here, but why?"

Dark walked up to the group a bit and smirked, "So my robots are right, there is a strange girl wandering about in my city and a very familiar girl at that."

"What do you mean your city? This isn't your city. You took it over", Rouge said with anger.

He laughed a bit, "Everyone's attempts to stop me failed, it was highly pathetic."

Shadow looked like he wanted to fight him, "What are you doing here?"

"To eliminate the trespasser and to take your son away", he answered with the same smirk still on his face.

The white bat held Spike closer, "What? You can forget it! You won't take Spike away from us!"

"Humph, your funeral. Attack!" All of Dark's robots took charge at them with their guns attached to their arms firing as they were running.

Vector eyed the robots that we coming their way, "Shadow, we'll take care of the robots. Save your family from Dark."

Shadow nodded and ran towards Dark with a punch, but it didn't hurt him.

Instead Dark hit Shadow hard down on the ground, "You are pathetic, Shadow."

Rouge, Vector, Charmy, and Tonya were fighting the robots and the robots were losing. Even when they were all older they haven't lost any of their fighting spirit.

Vector had a long blade inside his cane and sliced every robot that came in his path.

Tonya still had her fans, she had an advantage with her razor sharp blades at the bottom of her weapon, slicing half of the robots that came in her path as well.

Charmy just used basic fighting skills.

Rouge just ordinarily kicked every robot she saw with her iron boots.

Soon they were done destroying all of Dark's robots.

Vector put his blade back in his cane, "Is it just me or are they a lot easier to beat today than in the past?"

Shadow was still on the ground trying to get up.

"Have you forgotten, Shadow? I have all the Chaos Emeralds, I have total ultimate power. You're useless", Dark said.

"Leave him alone, Dark!" The white bat wanted to fight him, but she couldn't risk Spike's safety.

Dark laid his eyes on her, "That reminds me." He turned away from Shadow and walked up to the white bat while holding his hand out, "Give me the child."

The white bat held him closer than usual, "No, stay away!"

Shadow had finally got from the ground and came to Rouge's aid, "Rouge!"

Dark took his powerful tail and struck him back on the ground.

Rouge then knew it was up to her. She jumped up in mid air and kicked Dark in his back. She landed back down on the ground, "Leave them alone."

Dark stood from the ground quickly and looked at her with the same evil smirk, "You wanna fight, girl?"

"I'm getting really sick of seeing that damn smirk every five seconds", she said with annoyance.

Dark ran towards her with his claws extending out from his hands in a stabbing position he almost stabbed Rouge, but she moved and he had gotten the white bat just the way he planned.

The white bat fell to the ground bleeding from her stomach, soon she died with baby Spike still in her arms crying stained with her blood.

Everyone was devastated that she had died and Rouge thought it was her fault. She kneeled on the ground sobbing.

Shadow cried with anger, "Dark, you bastard!"

Dark walked up to the white bat's dead body and took the crying Spike away from her arms.

"Put him down now!" Shadow ran towards him trying to hit him, but Dark had used none other than Chaos Control to warp himself away from them with Spike in his possession.

Shadow fell to the ground with anger and sadness. He was forever hitting the ground hard with his fist. He seemed to not care if he was hurting his hand making it bleed.

Vector put his hand on Shadow's shoulder looking at him melancholy, "Shadow..."

Shadow wiped away his tears and walked over to Rouge, but not with anger, but with happiness. Looking at Rouge was like looking at his wife again. He held out his hand for her, "Come on, we gotta get you home."

Rouge took his hand to get up from the ground while wiping away her tears looking at Shadow with confusion, "What? What about your son?"

"Getting you home is what we need to be focusing on right now."

Rouge made a slight smile and nodded.

A couple of minutes later Charmy finished the machine which created a portal ready for Rouge to go back to her own time. She still wished she could do something about the conflict that was happening. Before she went through the portal to her own time she looked back at the Chaotix once more. "Is there nothing I can do to change this horrible future?"

Shadow walked up to her gazing into her green eyes, "Only you can decide that."

Rouge felt as though she wanted to kiss him, but something held her back from doing it, telling her to wait. She walked through the portal and a couple of seconds later she found herself in the regular Chaotix building again. She couldn't be happier when she saw everyone's faces. She was overfilled with excitement. She ran to Vector and hugged him, "Vector, you're not walking with a cane!" She ran to Charmy and hugged him, "Charmy, you're still wearing that stupid helmet!" She ran to Tonya and hugged her, "Tonya, you're not an old hag!" She ran to Espio and hugged him, "Espio, you're not dead!" She stopped when she saw Shadow and hugged him passionately, "I especially missed you, Shadow."

Shadow blushed as she was hugging him. He enjoyed it for a couple of seconds until he pulled her away from him. "You feeling okay, Rouge?"

"Where did you go?" Charmy noticed she didn't have his toaster with her.

"I went to the future."

Everyone gasped.

Shadow seemed interested in hearing the story, "No way, tell us what it was like."

Rouge only told some of it, "Well...we're gonna split up."

"Split up!" Charmy shouted, "But I don't wanna split up."

Rouge smiled, "We will never split up if we always look after each other. Something's telling me the future looks pretty bright."