Sandy beaches gave way to tall buildings, and out of the corner of his eye, Shadow could see Rouge looking around in awe, like it was her first time seeing a city. A teasing jab formed on his tongue, until he realized that, thanks to the memory loss, this would be, in a way, her first time seeing a city. The thought hit him like a truck, made so much worse when he remembered that they first met six months ago in a city like this one, on a rooftop overlooking the bay, and the taunt died in his mouth.
"So that guy was Eggman…" he heard Rouge mumble to herself, and yeah, he didn't blame her for still processing it. To be held captive with no memories by him, to hear two people wish for his demise, and then to go up against him, only for him to escape?
Shadow felt his blood boil when he remembered that hard-boiled bastard fly away like the coward he was. "Whatever it takes, he's mine," he growled, his hands balling into fists. That guy really did find Rouge and keep her in the dark, then shrug it off like it was nothing! Like Shadow's emotional turmoil and suffering meant nothing! Like he hadn't been trying to cope for months and months with all the guilt and stress and uncertainty and-
"Let's find this prick and fry him," Shadow ordered, glancing back over his shoulder at his haphazard team. "Any objections?"
"NEGATIVE," Omega chimed in agreement, while Rouge gave a slow nod of the head, expression unreadable, and Shadow knew that was as much as he was going to get.
As they all dashed down the ramp before them, Rouge finally piped up. "Is this the energy plant?"
Shadow blinked. You recognize a power plant but not a city? "That red shit they pump out gets traded at high prices," he remarked, keeping his eyes focused as the group jumped off a dash pad, flying through the air towards a new platform. "I've looked into it. If I wasn't a sucker for jewels, I'd nab a few canisters to make a pretty penny."
"EGGMAN MUST HAVE PLANS TO CONTROL THE ENERGY."
"Well duh," Shadow snarked. The team came across another ramp made of blue solid hologram technology. The hedgehog tucked himself into a ball and rolled down it in the blink of an eye.
But what does he need with all that energy? I know it's not the money… The man makes total bank off of his bagel slicer alone.
The ramp turned into a loop, and the loop led to more of Eggman's robots, standing guard by another holo-platform which appeared to be deactivated. Shadow hesitated upon seeing them, but Omega charged forward and blew two of them up with no hesitation before opening fire on an armored turtle-like robot, and Rouge caught up just a second later. Shadow took a deep breath, fighting back the swarming feelings of inadequacy that festered within him.
I'm holding them back… The more I think, the less I do, and the more of a burden I become.
Mentally slapping himself with the urge to do better, Shadow took out one of his homemade bombs and chucked it at the large, turtle robot that was blocking their way. It exploded upon impact, knocking the bot onto its back and leaving it vulnerable to attacks. Rouge flipped in the air and kicked down on it; without its armored shell for protection, it was destroyed immediately, and the holo-platform next to it reactivated.
"Good job," Rouge said to him, and Shadow felt his heart melt.
"Well um… I mean, yeah, sure, yeah, it was nothing, I mean…"
"MORE EVIDENCE THAT SHADOW REACTS STRONGLY TO CONGRATULATIONS," Omega remarked. "DID YOU NOT GET ENOUGH ATTENTION AS A CHILD?"
"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Shadow screeched, pounding one of his fists uselessly against Omega's hull. "I WILL TURN YOU INTO SCRAP METAL!"
"UNLIKELY."
"Stop," Rouge commanded, and both hedgehog and robot looked over to her. She flew over to the holo-ramp, continuing their way forward. "We have better things to do than fight each other."
Shadow, as much as he wanted to toss Omega off the platform for reading him like he did, had to agree with her, and so with a passing glare at Omega, he followed Rouge across the winding and dangerous paths and platforms. All too often, they would find themselves stuck at a point with a holo-path drained of energy, and a bunch of robots standing guard before it, but once the robots were cleared out, the path would reactivate and become accessible again.
"Those machines are sucking the energy out of the road!" Shadow realized as Rouge crushed another one under her heel.
"TERMINATE THEM ALL, REGARDLESS OF PURPOSE," Omega ordered, and without waiting for any sort of agreement, he charged forward, already looking for his next targets.
"Why is the trigger-happy robot leading us now?" Shadow groaned.
"If it gets us forward, then I'm with him," Rouge replied, focusing ahead again, and Shadow took a moment to remind himself why he was here. Why he was doing this.
Who he was doing this for.
"Fine then," he quipped, smoothing back his spines, remembering to grin and relax. If he was getting through this day, he was going to do it with confidence and style like he always did. "I'm not gonna be the one to drag my feet on this mission!"
Rouge looked at him quizzically, but relaxed once she saw him looking so calm and easygoing. She gave him a brief nod before moving forward to join Omega…
…and maybe Shadow was just a teensy bit happy about making that happen for her.
Shadow wanted to find whichever deity was dishing out his luck that day and beat them up.
Their journey through the city was cut abruptly short when their team spotted another trio on the same platform as them… an all-too-familiar trio of crocodile, chameleon, and bee.
Shadow swallowed, the lump in his right pocket feeling a lot heavier than it did before. It had to be a coincidence, right? There's no way the Chaotix knew about his not-so-legally acquired Chaos Emerald… right?
Still, they had tailed him for his heists before, and Shadow wasn't sure if he could run off scott free without Espio noticing. That damn chameleon was too sneaky for his own good... And what if they stopped him? What if they found the emerald on him and ruined everything? What if-
"OBSERVATION: SHADOW IS NERVOUS."
"Shut your whore mouth, Omega," Shadow returned without thinking.
"IMPOSSIBLE. I HAVE NO MOUTH."
"Why are you nervous?" Rouge asked, cutting off any retort Shadow may have had and reminding him of the situation at hand.
"Oh! Nothing, nothing… Just those guys over there look like trouble," he hurriedly explained, waving an arm in the direction of the Chaotix, who, unfortunately, were looking back at them.
Fuck.
"So yeah, um, let's just get going now and-"
"Trouble, huh?" Rouge muttered, and to Shadow's horror, she glared over at the other team in distrust. Omega seemed to read into her hostile body language, as the sound of weapons reloading echoed across the platform.
That certainly grabbed the other team's attention, and the three detectives all turned right around to face them.
Double fuck.
"And you are?" Espio asked, his hand already up and ready to cast his invisibility ninjutsu, and Shadow was fighting every single urge he had to drop his team and flee. Running into these three was the absolute last thing he needed!
Unfortunately, Rouge took a step forward, and Shadow, in a spectacular show of improvisation and possibly his worst idea of the day, sauntered up behind her, his hand on his hip, trying his hardest to act even the least bit intimidating to back up his battle-ready teammates.
Immediately, Shadow felt Vector's sharp eyes on him and he regretted every decision he had ever made in his life.
"What are you doing here?" Rouge demanded, ignoring Espio's question entirely and 一thankfully 一 bringing Vector's attention back to herself.
The crocodile in question looked over at his own teammates. "Who's this broad?" he asked, sparking a rage inside Shadow.
"Excuse me?!" he demanded, pushing his way to the front of his group and interrupting whatever it was that Espio was saying. "Of all the disrespectful fucking things… You wanna run that one by me again?!"
And just like that, all three members of the Chaotix Detective Agency looked directly at him.
Triple fuck.
"Shadow's here!" Charmy exclaimed, doing a backflip in the air before pointing emphatically at him, as though it were the most surprising thing in the world. "Does that mean these are the bad guys?"
"HOSTILE LANGUAGE DETECTED. NEW TARGETS ACQUIRED."
At this point, a fight was inevitable, and even though Shadow wanted nothing more than to pull on his spines and scream until the world gave him a break, he knew he had to play along, unless he wanted to keep holding his team back.
"If it's a fight you want, then it's a fight you'll get!" he snarked, smacking his fist into his hand. "I'll teach you to stay out of my way!"
From the corner of his eye, he saw Rouge tense up, ready for battle, while on his other side, he could hear Omega readying his weapons. In front of them, the Chaotix got into their own battle stances, and though this was one of the exact scenarios Shadow was hoping to avoid, he couldn't help but be a little excited at the prospect of fighting along his team again.
The trio trudged along once more, somewhat scuffed, singed and bruised, making their way into the more adult part of the city, as evidenced by the bright flashing lights and casinos all around.
Their fight with Team Chaotix had ended inconclusively, their match being interrupted by a new signal from Eggman being picked up by Omega — redirecting his attention to his primary objective of 'destroying his creator and everything he holds dear' — and a call on Vector's walkie-talkie. Both teams had called a reluctant truce to continue on their ways, though Shadow was secretly relieved about moving things along.
For starters, he hadn't wanted to battle the detectives in the first place. He supposed that, in the end, they hadn't found the stolen emerald on him, which was good, but while he was tangling with Espio, he had noticed Rouge keeping an eye on him while she tried to wrangle Charmy, and Shadow couldn't tell if he loved or hated the attention more.
He wanted her to trust him again. Chaos, he wanted that more than anything at the moment, but he kept making dumb decisions and putting his foot in his mouth and-
"Who were they?"
Rouge's question caused Shadow to jump and stumble, though he pulled himself back together in the blink of an eye, fighting the urge to clear his throat.
"Oh them? I wonder, but whoever they were, they looked like trouble soooo… Glad we got them out of our hair, you know?"
"HEART RATE INCREASED," Omega droned, rotating his head to look directly at Shadow. "TREMORS IN HANDS." Shadow looked instinctively down to check his hands as Omega continued. "INABILITY TO MAINTAIN EYE CONTACT. WAVERING IN VOICE. ANALYSIS RESULT: SHADOW IS A TERRIBLE LIAR. 99% PROBABILITY."
"EXCUSE ME?!"
"UPDATE: 100%."
"Shadow?" Rouge's voice was quiet, but thick with disapproval. Shadow felt his heart sink into his stomach as her eyes pierced through him, no doubt seeing the nervous, uncertain boy that he tried so hard to hide away from the world. "What are you hiding?"
Omega stopped walking, with Rouge coming to a halt beside him. Shadow bristled, realizing that they weren't going forward until he confessed.
They won't trust me if I don't come clean.
The understanding dawned on him, and Shadow felt even worse than before. Guilt mixed with unease; he had always worked solo before this. He always had his own agenda, even when in a group. He never shared everything… It always paid to have his trump cards, his secrets, his bits of leverage to make certain that he never ended up empty-handed.
Yet, it was clear that this was a different case. Shadow was going to lose his team if he kept quiet. They would deem him untrustworthy, a liability, someone who would bring more obstacles than he tackled…
A hindrance. A burden. A side character in their big story.
It felt so raw, so vulnerable, so uncomfortable to reach inside his vest pocket and bring out his white Chaos Emerald and present it to the others, but Shadow was much more afraid of what would happen if he didn't.
I don't want to lose them. I don't have much else.
"They're called the Chaotix," Shadow explained, resisting the urge to pull away his emerald as Rouge and Omega both zeroed in on the glowing gem, twin pairs of red eyes staring at it as though it were the only thing in the world. "They run a detective business… They've come after me before, after I um… freed a bunch of gemstones from the cruel confines of a jeweler's vault. I thought… maybe they were after me. Because of this."
He lifted the emerald higher, where it caught the lights of the signs flashing around them, seeming to absorb the neon colors before refracting them back outward, in much more graceful and naturally beautiful strains of rainbow. Rouge looked enthralled. Omega looked as though he were analyzing carefully.
Upstaged by a gem, Shadow thought with a sense of bitter irony. I never thought I'd see the day when one of you lovelies would betray me.
A memory locked deeply within his mind resurfaced, one of a timer counting down and being trapped and thinking he was going to die, alone and unloved with a bunch of beautiful but ultimately useless gems in his hands. Of a white gloved hand reaching out to his and of a space station. Of a tender pat to his head.
Shadow banished that memory before it made him cry yet again.
"What is it…?" Rouge's voice was a whisper, and Shadow couldn't find it in himself to answer her. He just watched, paralyzed and unable to breathe, as the bat drew closer and closer, her hand reaching out, just like that day in the locked vault, reaching for the gem in his hand… closer… closer… closer-
"ENEMIES DETECTED 200 METERS AHEAD," Omega interjected, causing them both to snap out of the moment and whip around to face him. The robot readied his weapons, pushing past Shadow and Rouge to head into the casino zone. "INITIATING BATTLE MODE!"
Rouge glanced over at Shadow for a split second, her eyes dropping to the emerald in his hand. Her ears fell flat for a moment; it was clear that she still had questions, but Omega was not stopping in his charge forward, and, like it or not, he was their best resource for tracking down Eggman. Shadow pocketed his gem again, jerking his head in Omega's direction, and Rouge's ears lifted again, one of them flicking in acknowledgement.
Wordlessly, the duo ran in after their robot, and Shadow felt a small glimmer of warmth at knowing that he hadn't been rejected for keeping his secret.
At least, not yet...
Through a series of brilliant neon pathways, pinball games and bingo numbers, as well as hostile robots all around, the trio found Eggman in his carrier, floating above a small platform, smirking as though he was expecting them.
"Doctor!" Shadow called out, taking a step forward, but Rouge jumped to the front, her wings spread wide to capture Eggman's attention, and Shadow felt his confrontation die on his tongue.
"Tell me, Doctor!" Rouge demanded. Her voice, though still monotonous, seemed to fill the empty air around them, commanding silence from all else. "What was I doing, asleep in that base?" Her hands raised, floating in front of her face, and her one golden ring gleamed in the light that saturated their surroundings.
Shadow had never seen someone look so lost before, but he knew that feeling oh so well.
"And… what about my memory?"
That question came out softer, but no less potent. All the same, Eggman laughed, and Rouge's wings stiffened.
"Your memory?" the doctor scoffed, looking down his nose at the three of them. "Hmph! What memory?" He pointed a finger directly at Rouge as he proclaimed something that gave Shadow chills down to his core.
"You have no past to remember!"
Rouge's wings drooped as Shadow's mind raced a mile a minute. What did that mean what did that mean what did that mean?
"Wh… What?" Rouge asked, her voice even softer than before, and Shadow felt his soul shatter for her, still so confused and scared at what this could mean. It seemed that even Omega was affected by it, as the robot made no move to target his creator, standing uncharacteristically still and silent as Rouge seemed to fall apart; her hands shook, her wings trembled, and any semblance of her cool, put-togetherness had crumbled and left a frightened husk in its wake.
"Well!" Eggman said, his voice far too happy with himself. "I believe our time is up!"
Without any further ado, his hovercraft floated high into the inky black sky, deftly dodging the bullets that Omega took the opportunity to fire at him. In the blink of an eye, the trio were surrounded by more enemy robots, all readying their targeting programs, and the cruel doctor's voice seemed to echo back down to them.
"I'll see you again soon…"
Without any other choice, Shadow began to fight off the robots surrounding them, spin-dashing into the ones closest to Rouge and himself, while Omega took out the ones further away. All the while, Rouge stood there, still shocked and shaking, while Shadow fought the urge to give up fighting and join her.
What did that mean, that she had no memories? What did that mean, that she had no past to remember? This was Rouge, wasn't it? The Ultimate Lifeform, Gerald Robotnik's greatest creation and the epitome of scientific achievement? One of the most powerful fighters in the world? Rouge the Bat?
It felt hollow. It all felt wrong, from her strange resting place, to her inability to remember anything, to right now, seeing her look more like a frightened child than a living weapon. It felt wrong, off, unreal, unnatural, but what else could he believe? What else could he let himself believe, because…
Because if that wasn't Rouge…
…then who had he given her ring to?
Next chapter: The gang catches up with Eggman at Rail Canyon, but they're left with more questions than answers.