10. Powering Up a Weapon
Rouge returned to her apartment to find Shadow still asleep on the couch. She watched him a few moments, thinking that he looked even more like Sonic asleep, with his usual stern expression relaxed. She tried to picture him gold-furred instead of black with red accents, but couldn't quite manage. Then she shook her head sharply. I must be tired. Doesn't matter what color Gerald meant him to be - and there's no guarantee he'd have gotten it anyway - Shadow is what he is. I'm going to bed.
She did exactly that. She was a light enough sleeper that she'd waken if she heard an unfamiliar noise, so she wasn't concerned about Shadow sneaking out before she had a chance to talk to him. Not that it mattered anyway; when she got up about noon, the black hedgehog was still out like a light. "I'm going to have to charge you rent, pretty soon," she commented to him softly. She got herself lunch, not being particularly quiet, but he slept on, and continued to do so when she unwrapped his arm. The injury to it was gone as completely as the mark on his side. Shaking her head, she went back into her room. Pausing beside her desk, she lifted the golden Emerald shard from its place of honor and admired it, turning it in her hands for several long minutes. I wonder, do I really feel the power in it, or am I just imagining something I know is there, but intangible? Sighing, she put the gem fragment back and turned on the computer.
She'd left a trace to run the night before, searching for any reference to the missing Chaos Emeralds. Purple and white she'd seen the night before, in the Gizoid's possession, and yellow she knew the Doctor had, so she eliminated those results and any prior to the Black Arms invasion and began skimming those that remained. It was a very short list. The green one had not been seen, and she wasn't certain if both of the blues had; not everyone distinguished between the true blue and the light blue gems, but a blue Chaos Emerald had been found in Soleanna, and then stolen by robots. The images with the news reports - to her utter lack of surprise - clearly showed the mechs in question to be Egg pawns. Hmm. Perhaps I'd better pay a little visit to this 'Gimme Shelter' of Eggman's. Even if I don't find the Chaos Emerald, it's a lot easier to access one of his computers in person, and there may be some useful info on the Gizoid, or various other items. A bit more poking revealed strong evidence that the Doctor was currently pretending to be a law-abiding businessman at his Robotnik Inc. facility, so she didn't need to worry about interruptions of the organic variety. She retrieved a couple of gadgets from her shielded drawer and set out into the afternoon light.
Gliding along at rooftop level, she noted once again that people rarely looked up. Not one of the humans or occasional dokan below her glanced up to see her, even when she deliberately let her shadow pass over a couple of them. As she neared her destination she left off such games, taking care not to be seen even if someone should glance skyward. Only when she had turned into the alley did she descend below second-story level, landing neatly on the low step by the Gimme Shelter door. Pulling out one of the devices she'd brought from home, she waved it in front of the door, then hung it around her neck by its attached strap. Recognizing the electronic signature of one of the Doctor's robots, the door obligingly raised itself, granting the bat entry into the base. That particular trick she had learned from Omega, when the robot had requested assistance in altering his own signature. Doctor Eggman was intelligent enough that he had banned Omega's original code after the robot had rebelled against him, but it was not possible to ban any code the robot might use - not while still allowing the thousands of obedient robots to move as ordered. So Rouge had consulted with a military contact and gotten Omega a variable code emitter that he could change at will, and herself one that replicated one of the evil genius's scads of Egg pawns - or more accurately, a lot of Egg pawns, since there only appeared to be two dozen identity codes for the hundreds of pawns.
Once in the base, she moved up to the ceiling again. There were plenty of pipes and conduits running along it to cling to, and Eggman had not programmed his robots to look up any more than most pedestrians did. So she traveled along upside down (which was no great hardship for her), working her way above the occasional patrolling guard until she reached the main computer room. The computer was a bit of a surprise; either the Doctor had salvaged the mother computer from his shattered battleship after the Metal Sonic fight, or one of these was a duplicate of the other. However the external appearance wasn't what she was interested in, and she quickly started cracking her way into it.
Security was the first order of business, and the bat told the computer that she was Doctor Ivo Robotnik and ordered the room's door closed and privacy-locked. That done, no robots could wander in and notice that their boss had not only shrunk considerably, but changed species and gender. Next, she went hunting for word of Chaos Emeralds, and discovered that there were - or had been- a total of thirty Phi units made, half of which had been activated with a Chaos Emerald shard. A few others were running on Chaos drive power, although at considerably reduced efficiency. Still, considering that the original Gizoid needed an entire Chaos Emerald to function at all, and two to be at a reasonable efficiency, it was clear that Eggman had improved on the original power design. The skill capture and durability were not as successful, and she noted that the one she had beheaded outside Cental Lab was listed as 'Under study' while the scientist worked on improving it. One of the shard-powered ones remained in Gimme Shelter, and the remainder were listed as out in the city. The unpowered were still in storage, and the Chaos drive-driven at the Robotnik Inc. Headquarters, being studied as potential house-robots. She assumed the local Phis were looking for Chaos Emeralds and/or Emerl. The fifteen shards had come from three Emeralds: yellow, blue, and cyan; fitted numerically into the robots, such that Phi 1 through Phi 5 had yellow shards, Phis 6 through 10 had cyan, and 11 through15 the true blue. Rouge nodded. So he has got both the light and darker blue gems. But how did he break them? A bit more hunting provided the answer: with great difficulty. Eggman had concluded that since the Master Emerald could be broken, with each shard retaining some power, the Chaos Emeralds should function similarly. However, breaking the Emeralds proved far more difficult than he'd anticipated. He'd actually been working on it before the Black Arms invasion, but it wasn't until a few days ago that he'd managed to accomplish the feat. He'd been experimenting with a new machine designed to cleave each Emerald into five pieces, when abruptly there had been some sort of power drain on the stones. It had lasted a fraction of a second - but the machine had already been exerting maximum force, and when the power flickered the gems shattered. Rouge had a nasty suspicion that she knew where– yep, that laboratory is half a mile from where Shadow was knocked out by the big meteorite. So it's his fault that the Emeralds got smashed, and their fault that he did. Laying that matter aside, she looked for files related to the Gizoid.
The first thing she pulled up was peculiar. It was a copy of an e-mail that someone had sent anonymously, offering to purchase the Gizoid from Eggman. Obviously someone had known that he had it. The Doctor had appended a few sentences of his own to the file: Attempted to trace back to original author. Originating address is registered to a 'Nocturne' - whether person or corporation cannot be determined. Attempts to trace back further all ended in failure. After not responding as directed, no further communications received.
Rouge frowned. 'Nocturne' was a type of music, she thought, and she knew it was an alcoholic drink as well. The name meant no more to her than it apparently did to the Doctor, but she made a mental note of it. Moving on she found a repeat of the Phi information, under 'Gizoid Replicas', and skipped over it. Aha! The next file described how the Doctor had found the golden robot in the first place. While looking for inspiration in the original, long-since-closed Robotnik Inc. building, he had found a shipping crate sent to his father from Prison Island. Although it had been recorded as containing returned parts, when he'd opened it he had found an old robot and a computer disk. The robot had been transferred to one of his bases and essentially forgotten again, because the disk described the great, last, secret weapon of Professor Gerald Robotnik, hidden on Prison Island. And that's where I came into the story. The weapon, of course, was Shadow. After the resulting rediscovery of the Space Colony ARK and the Eclipse cannon, and the setting off of Professor Gerald's doomsday plot (and subsequent loss of Shadow), the Gizoid had been looked at again. Eggman had attempted to download its memory with the same degree of success (or lack thereof) as Gerald and Tails had had, then changed tactics and copied and adapted its physical structures instead.
Rouge paused her research to try and locate the battle data he'd managed to recover from the overloaded computers crashed by the Gizoid, but apparently the Doctor had already removed that information to an offline computer. Doctor Eggman with ancient and exotic weapons made by a people who had space travel and the technology to manipulate Chaos Emeralds four thousand years ago? My boss is going to flip when he hears that. Not to mention the GUN higher-ups. The bat tapped a gloved finger impatiently alongside the keyboard. Finally she shrugged and moved on. If the computer with the information isn't accessible, I can't copy or delete it. Hmm, what next? Oh, what about that red Guard Robo?
E-102 Gamma turned out to be one of the earliest of Eggman's E-series robots, which had culminated with E-123 Omega. The first Phi, E-121, had actually been created before Omega, but as the attempt to power it with a Chaos drive had not worked well, it had been shelved at that time. The earliest E-series robots had apparently been the last of the Doctor's robots to be powered with small animals, except for a specific group of Egg pawns. Huh? How do you power a robot with an animal - put in a little treadmill? No, this says that Gamma, and the other early E's contained Flickies which were related, and that was why Gamma 'failed'. You can't run a bird in a treadmill. Rouge pondered a moment. Flickies were small birds that came in a rainbow of colors and were rumored to be able to travel between dimensions. But apparently other animals - frogs, rabbits, mice, and more - had been used as well, not only for the E-series but in older robots the Doctor had used to try to take over several islands in the southern, dokan-governed lands. I wonder what powers Omega? Later E-series robots had been largely Chaos drive-powered, as most of the GUN robots and Robotnik commercial robots were, but she guessed that Omega, given the special criteria of his construction, must be powered by something that couldn't be affected by Shadow's Chaos powers.
At any rate, Gamma itself may have failed, but the design was modified to run on Chaos drives and mass produced as Robotnik Inc. Guard Robo XGR102, gray or painted with whatever livery the buyer desired. Also a number of the original (red) parts and intended spares had been reused, trying to run a robot on either Chaos drives or a Chaos Emerald shard. The Doctor had also been researching several other mythical power stones, such as the Time Stones, but had been unable to locate any. Rouge snorted. That's what mythical means, Doc. They don't exist. She'd had a look for some of them herself - the Atlantean Rubies, the five-colored Xanadu Diamond, the Black Opal of Ghertis Cahn. The Julian Topaz, a deep golden stone, was the only one whose existence she ever truly found proof of, and that stone held pride of place in her most secure safe. (Julius the Just was traditionally the first dokan king after the old racial-tribal system had been abandoned, but he was now considered largely apocryphal. But the giant topaz that legend had mounted in his crown was anything but, as the bat had proved, though no one else knew what had become of it.)
A noise from the door interrupted her daydreaming about her secret prize, and Rouge spun to see one of the Phi robots walking through the supposedly locked door. A small numeral 8 was embossed on the chest plate beside its identifying Apatosian letter 'Φ'.
"You are not Doctor Eggman," it informed her. "You are an intruder and must be eliminated." Then it bent over in a crouch and did a spindash at her. Rouge vaulted out of the chair and up into the pipes running along the ceiling, then scrambled hurriedly sideways as the robot made a midair spindash that sliced through the pipe she'd initially caught hold of. As steam and a greenish fluid began gushing from the damaged pipe, she dove out the door right before it closed automatically.
Another spindashing robot! Do all these things think they're Sonic the Hedgehog? Abruptly she felt her fur stand on end along her left side and flung herself to the right, and the robot appeared in a flash of pink light. A metal hand lifted, and suddenly a spear of glowing light was flying towards her. I guess this one thinks it's Shadow the Hedgehog, she corrected herself. "All right then," she said to the robot, "let's see what you've got."
In response the robot skated rapidly towards her, small jets of fire appearing below its hovering feet. Recalling the first battle, she took wing and aimed a kick at the robot's chin. It braked before she made contact, snapping its fingers and generating a ball of glowing Chaos energy that floated toward her. Rouge dodged, but it followed her, as the robot stood and tracked her with its glassy black eyes. Unnerved, she pitched one of her bat-bombs at the orb, and one or both exploded, resulting in the mutual destruction of orb and bomb. The robot vanished in a flash of Chaos energy and reappeared midair beside her, lashing out with a foot as it started to drop back down. Rouge blocked the kick and retaliated with one of her own, this time striking the robot's nonexistent nose and knocking its head back, but either it was better constructed than the last one or the Doctor had already made revisions, because nothing broke. A pair of patrolling Egg pawns marched around the corner, and stopped, whether because the Phi was already dealing with the intruder or because their programming didn't cover interrupting a fight between an intruder and another robot, Rouge didn't know.
Nor did she wait to find out. She veered towards the newcomers, snatching a lance from one and stabbing it at the Phi. The Phi blocked the spear and hurled a Chaos spear back at her. She dodged into the air again, pulling a second bat bomb out, and flicking on the magnetic clamp. Diving at the Phi, she slapped the bomb against its back as she swooped past. Phi repeated its spindash and then tried a homing attack. She avoided both, and was relieved to see that neither had knocked the bomb loose. Then it exploded, and the robot's chest plate flew open. While its arms flailed about randomly, she dropped to land beside it and reached up through the neck to claim the shard whose light she could see leaking into the chest cavity. The robot went still as she ripped its power source free, but the cessation of its movement triggered the other two guards to attack. Rouge's steel-toed boots put debilitating dents into their casings quite nicely, and she fled the base with a cyan shard in hand.
"Whew," she muttered to herself, when she paused several blocks away, "That was certainly a tougher Phi than the first one. But this beauty . . ." she turned the pale blue shard in her hand, admiring the aquamarine tint as it shifted towards green and then back, "this is worth any trouble." She sighed and tucked it away. "Pity I'll have to hand it over to power the Gizoid. I wonder, will it need ALL the shards to work, or can it get by with one missing?" She looked up as the sound of colliding metal suddenly registered in her sensitive ears. She glanced up and down the street half-expecting to see a car crash, while listening intently. There, more banging, and some decidedly non-robotic grunts and exclamations. That's Knuckles, fighting something, she realized, and set off up the street to the closest corner.
The fight was actually several blocks away, once she turned the corner, and she glided the distance because it was less energy-intensive than walking. She landed on a second-floor balcony, overlooking a battle between the red robot that wasn't E-102 Gamma, and the Gizoid and Knuckles the Echidna. She had actually missed the fight; even as she got settled, Knuckles landed one last spike-fisted punch that sent the red robot weaving away in the direction of the Gimme Shelter. Mildly disappointed, Rouge rested her chin on her hands, listening intently.
"I can't imagine what's gotten into Gamma," the echidna was saying to the Gizoid, "I mean, I was never particularly friends with it, but Amy was, and it was never aggressive to us after that - it just wanted to destroy the other robots that had trapped its family." The red brow furrowed a moment, as Knuckles scratched his head. "Or something like that," he concluded. "Oh well, at least it's gone. Even when you were with Tails, it looked like it was after you."
"It is," called Rouge from her perch.
The echidna nearly jumped out of his skin. "Rouge?!" he called, looking around twice before looking up enough to spot her on the balcony. He walked over to stand beneath her.
Emerl followed. "Hello! Where the heck have you been?"
Rouge raised her eyebrows, and looked at Knuckles. "Looks like your little baby has got quite a mouth on him."
The echidna flushed. "Hey it's not me! Blame Sonic!"
The bat snorted. "Quick to blame others, as usual, I see."
Knuckles opened his mouth but his retort was interrupted by Emerl. "Hey it's not me!" the robot echoed gleefully, "Blame Sonic!"
Knuckles turned even redder. "All right, all right," he mumbled, looking away. "I'll be more careful."
Rouge smirked, and winked at Emerl, who tilted his head in a manner reminiscent of the fox boy. She cleared her face as Knuckles looked back up, and told him, "That robot you just fought probably isn't the robot you guys know as Gamma."
"What?!" demanded the echidna.
"Doctor Eggman has been experimenting with using Chaos Emeralds on robot cores," the white bat explained. She carefully omitted the shards, not wanting to give away all her information at once, certainly not gratis. But if Knuckles and the others kept trying to be friendly with this Gamma look-alike, it might just manage to recover Emerl for the Doctor, and that would be a nuisance. So she gave Knuckles some edited advice for free, knowing he'd pass it on to Sonic and Tails. "He used a bunch of old parts to create guinea pigs for his experiments. That robot probably just has parts that you recognize."
Knuckles frowned, rubbing his chin. Then he looked at his companion, who was crouched down and poking an anthill with a very unrobotic air of curiosity. He looked back to Rouge. "Even if it's someone else . . . . Why is it after Emerl?"
"Well," Rouge thought fast and came up with a lie on the spot. "Emerl took the Chaos Emerald that Doctor Eggman was using for his experiments. I think he wants revenge or something. I mean, Chaos Emeralds are very powerful. I sorta understand how he feels." Knuckles looked at Emerl again. "Well then, you boys be careful out there, okay?" Rouge flipped off the balcony and up to the roof, ducking behind a dormer while the echidna was still looking away.
"That might explain why it seemed like that robot wasn't trying," the echidna started, then looked up at the now empty balcony. "Huh? Where'd she go? And what was she doing here, anyway?" There was a pause, and Rouge pictured him scratching his head again while he tried to think fast. "Hey, Emerl!" he called, and she peeked around the dormer edge to see the robot was wandering off. "You'd better be careful! I don't think they've given up on trying to take you back yet!"
The robot looked back curiously for a moment, then replied, "Gotcha! You'd better watch yourself, too!"
"R-right," responded the echidna, a bit weakly. Rouge watched them leave, heading towards the midtown shopping areas, which had been spared from the blast that took out the Presidential Mansion, and most of the rest of the Black Arms' destruction. Unlike the utter devastation of Westopolis, the attack on Central City had been largely symbolic; the Mansion and its immediate surroundings had been destroyed, but fortunately most of the major museums and the Senatary Rotunda were outside the range of the blast. In fact, the President had set himself up in one of the museums, which had a display replicating the Presidential Office and its wing, while the Mansion itself was being rebuilt. Although, had the museums been hit, think what I might have recovered from the wreckage, she thought wistfully. She shook her head and returned to the club, checking in briefly with the manager before going up to her rooms. Shadow had moved, at least; the blanket she'd tossed over him was now mostly on the floor, and he had the top of his head ducked against the back of the couch. She picked the blanket up and replaced it over him. She pulled out her new Chaos shard and he stirred uncomfortably, shaking his head slightly and then raising a hand to cover his visible ear.
Intrigued, Rouge backed up, then moved to stand by her door, and watched him settle again, although now he was frowning in his sleep. She matched his frown with her own as she stepped into her room, shutting the door as if it would block the Chaos energy from disturbing him. She laid the pale blue shard on the display cushion that held the yellow one, and flipped on her computer. An email from one of the GUN officers, informed her that Sam Garret, the faux janitor who'd been spying on her, was actually a private with GUN and was, it had been discovered, active in the PAH. He was now being held for court-martial, accused of moonlighting without permission for an organization that was not only unapproved but bordered on illegal. "People Are Human," said Rouge softly, with disgust. She knew about PAH - all the dokan north of the equator knew about the group, because it was a possible threat to them, although most of the members were utterly ineffectual and more given to complaining among themselves than actually attacking their alleged 'enemies'. As the name suggested, much of the group believed that only humans were 'people', and the dokan were merely animals, and so should be restricted to reserves or zoos and their land taken over by humans. A second, more dangerous faction was convinced that the dokan were plotting against 'real' people and would eventually kill all humans unless the humans killed them first. It certainly made sense that the group would object to the President's favorite spy being dokan. Although why they should want to plant a bug on her was beyond her, unless they were hoping for evidence to use against her.
Her phone chirped, and she reached over to hit the intercom button. "Rouge here."
"Miss Rouge, there is a, ah, a yellow robot here to see you," the manager's tone was exceedingly perplexed. ("Hey, man, lemme in," said Emerl in the background.)
Rouge grinned. Boris was an excellent manager for the club, but he didn't adapt well to unexpected problems, such as robots strolling in to ask for the owner. "I'll be down– no, on second thought, tell him to come on up."
"Yes, miss." He clicked off.
A couple of minutes later she met Emerl at the door, and he challenged her to a sparring match. She led him to the training room, and they squared off.
"Ha! You rustbucket, I'll tear you apart!" proclaimed the Gizoid, enthusiastically if not very appropriately.
"Shouldn't that be my line?" she asked him, just as Knuckles yanked open the door. An irritated-looking Boris was behind him.
"Emerl! What are you doing?" exclaimed the echidna, as Rouge waved a hand at Boris, telling him to stand down. He mouthed 'no cover' at her, and left at her nod of comprehension.
Unfortunately, Emerl took advantage of her moment of distraction to start the match, striking with a roundhouse punch that had very often done Knuckles proud. Rouge managed to roll with it, tumbling in a back somersault and rising to her feet again to snap a kick at the Gizoid's chin. Since he hadn't seen the somersault before, he didn't check his forward motion, and his momentum and her kick resulted in a blow that would probably have beheaded even the second Phi she'd fought. The original was made of sterner stuff than the copies, and she didn't even dent him. She did manage to knock him back a step, though, and used the chance to get clear.
"I am invincible!" declared the Gizoid, although whether in answer to Knuckles or challenge to her wasn't certain.
"Emerl!" snapped Knuckles again.
Emerl stopped abruptly, as if just noticing the echidna. "Hey Knuckles! I've been lookin' all over for ya!"
"I'VE been looking for YOU! Let's go!" But the red dokan's attempted exit was blocked by Rouge's hand on his chest. He jumped back as if burned.
"I suppose you think echidnas are special and you don't have to pay the entrance fee?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. She didn't actually expect him to pay the cover charge; she doubted he had any money. But it was the principle of the thing.
"Rouge!" Knuckles fumbled a moment then opted to go with a verbal attack. "What're you planning to do with Emerl!?"
Rouge hmmphed at him. "How rude." She stepped over and draped an arm over the golden robot's shoulders. "Emerl came to me. He probably missed me." She turned her back on Knuckles and looked the Gizoid up and down. "My, you've grown strong." She glanced slyly over her shoulder and cooed, "Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it."
Knuckles actually ground his teeth; she could hear the grating noise from where she stood. "So much confidence," he muttered.
The bat laughed, and guided Emerl over to the echidna, looping her other arm around Knuckles before he could escape and steering both out into the hall. Boris was waiting against the wall, arms folded. Just then the door to the stairs was blasted open, making everyone jump.
"W-who the heck are you!?" demanded Boris, who was closest to the stairs. A silver form stepped through the smoke and shot him, sending him to the floor with a cry of pain.
"Located! Located!" exclaimed an unfamiliar voice.
"Is that . . . Phi?" Rouge blinked to clear the afterimages of the explosion. Sure enough the robot resembled Emerl except for the small letter phi on its left breast, and the number 3 beneath it.
"What!?" Knuckles sounded confused. "It looks just like Emerl. That must be why those shopkeepers kept siccing their Guard Robos on us! Time for some payback! All right, Emerl, let's do this!" One large fist raised, she echidna plunged towards the intruder, just as a second one appeared in the doorway
"All right!" cheered Emerl, surging forward as well. "Let's blow this taco stand!"
"Those two are sounding more and more alike," muttered Rouge, as she bent to check on Boris. A steady stream of profanity made it clear that he was very much alive, and after verifying that he'd only been hit in the leg, she managed to haul him up and into her apartment. She snatched the first aid kit off the end table by Shadow and tossed it to the human as she looked back out into the hall. These Phi, for a change, didn't seem to think they were hedgehogs. Phi #3 was doing the tailless tail attack that had puzzled her when Emerl had used it, and now she could see it was somehow generating a sort of force tail, or rather a pair of them, that vanished again after each attack. It also produced a variety of weapons, some of which she recognized as being made by Tails, and some of which she'd never seen before. The other, which had a 2 on its chest, opened a pair of nearly invisible force-wings, and flew over the others' heads towards Rouge. The bat rose to meet it, and now had the unusual experience of fighting herself.
Neither Rouge nor Phi #2 could maneuver very well; the hall was designed as walkway to the apartments, not a fighting arena. So as if by mutual agreement, they dropped and closed on foot, Rouge facing off with her steel-toed boots against an opponent with literal steel toes. Kick, block, dodge, every move exactly matched by the robot, not mirrored, as a normal opponent would, but copied exactly.
Knuckles and Emerl were also having trouble in the close quarters of the hall, until the Phi for some reason tried to replicate Tails' tailicopter move. That was a very bad choice, as it raised the silver robot to a level where both of its opponents could strike without interfering with each other. Emerl fired a silly gun that launched a boxing glove on a spring, which slammed the other robot into the wall, and Knuckles landed a punch that caved in the silver thorax. The Phi made an odd electronic squeal, then went silent in a shower of sparks. Knuckles now discovered that his namesakes were caught in the metal plating. Planting a foot on the crushed chest, he ripped his spikes free, and yellow light shone through the holes.
"It's going to explode!" shouted the echidna, jumping back. He collided with Phi #2, knocking it off balance and right into Rouge's jump kick. As the robot staggered back towards Knuckles, he slammed it in the head and sent it down for the count as well. "Ha!" he declared triumphantly, "Nothing's better than the real thing!"
"Shard! Shard!" shouted Emerl excitedly, jumping up and down beside Phi #3.
"Shard?" echoed Knuckles, turning towards him.
"There! There!" Holding something on one hand that glowed with yellow light, Emerl pointed at Phi #2, then grabbed the fallen enemy by its horns and shook it sharply. A second yellow shard tumbled out of the damaged head.
Knuckles blinked at the glowing fragment of crystal, then bent to pick it up. Cupping it in one mitten-like glove, he examined it and then looked to Rouge in puzzlement. "This thing fell out of Phi," he started.
"Phi is powered by Chaos Emerald shards," Rouge agreed. Making a quick decision, she told him, "I've actually got one, too." She ducked through her apartment into her room and retrieved the yellow shard. Stepping back out she handed it to the golden robot. "Here, take it."
"Thank you very much!" said Emerl. "Looks like you've got a use after all!"
Rouge gaped at the robot a moment. "Well I never!" She glared at Knuckles. "How exactly are you raising him, anyway?"
The echidna's face had gone as red as his fur, although she had a strong suspicion he was trying not to laugh. "S-sorry," he stammered.
She glowered at them both for another moment, then flicked her hands at them in a dismissive gesture. "I've got no use for a measly shard. I'll collect on this debt some other day by taking your Master Emerald."
That killed any hint of laughter from the echidna. "You wish!" he bristled at her.
Rouge grinned. He was so easy to manipulate - you just didn't give him time to think. "Hah! Are you forgetting that I'm the world's greatest thief? But perhaps you should ask your little fox friend what he knows about the shards. I've already seen Emerl absorb a Chaos Emerald, perhaps he can make use of these too, in some way."
"Good point," admitted the echidna grudgingly. "We should go back and talk to Tails about this."
"Come back to Club Rouge any time, boys!" She winked and fluttered a hand at them.
"No thanks!" said Knuckles firmly, and marched down the stairs, dragging Emerl with him. Rouge's laughter followed them.