12. Mothering a Weapon
"Welcome back!" Tails voice sounded rather tinnily from the receiver beside Rouge's computer. "You guys were gone a while!" A noise that might have been a gasp - it was hard to tell - followed by, "W-what happened? You both look horrible!"
Knuckles gave an uncomfortable chuckle as the bat looked away from her screen to the receiver. A useless move, since there was no video, but she'd like to know the answer to that question as well. She'd listened to Emerl and Knuckles arriving at Eggman's hideout, but then the connection had gone totally dead for a long time, before abruptly the sound was back with Knuckles fuming under his breath about - something.
"Look what we found!" declared the echidna, clearly dodging the question.
"Hey! The other two Emerald shards! I have enough shards to make a whole Chaos Emerald!!! Hold on one second . . ." Rouge looked back to the computer screen, keeping on ear tuned to the receiver. She was trying to track down Shadow's mysterious 'agents' but not having any luck. She'd enlisted her friend Amber, the GUN Commander's primary aide, and verified that no GUN agents had been sent to instruct Shadow to retrieve the Gizoid. At the moment, GUN's official position was that the Gizoid needed to be under governmental control. The Commander's private view was that the robot was too dangerous for anyone to use and should be destroyed, but he was realistic enough to know that such destruction was unlikely to occur. It was an unusual mindset for a military officer, but he had after all been one of the colonists pulled off the ARK in the original tragedy, and knew all too clearly what both military officers and the Gizoid were capable of if not closely monitored. Rouge drummed her fingers on the desk while she considered her next move. She'd snagged images of the alleged agents from the hospital security cameras (and deleted her own visit while she was at it), and started a scan through several government rosters for any matches. (Oh, would she be in trouble if anyone found that one out. But that was half the fun of the game, after all.) She tapped in a few quick commands and started a search through the GUN files. They may not have been sent by GUN, but they might still be part of it, and that would give them easy access to the equipment they left Shadow. I do wish he'd wake up; I want my couch back.
She flicked her attention back to the distant workshop. "There you go Emerl!" said the fox cub cheerily. "How do you feel?"
"Really good! Thanks Tails!" Rogue raised an eyebrow. It sounds more like a real person all the time. I wonder what other effects the Chaos Emeralds are having on it?
Tails laughed. "You've grown a little bit more! But if you're going to thank anyone, thank Knuckles!"
"Oh, yeah! Thanks, partner!"
"Partner?" queried Tails. Rouge lost interest, having already heard Knuckles and the Gizoid on the beach, until a whisper from the echidna caught her attention.
"Hey Emerl! Let's just keep the fact that Eggman tricked me our little secret, ok?"
"Sure thing, partner," whispered the robot agreeably, while the bat smirked. So old Eggy got him again, hmm? Will he never learn? Then Emerl said, loudly, "It's a secret, but my partner got tricked by Eggman again! A secret! Right partner?" Rouge dissolved into laughter.
She didn't hear whatever Knuckles or Tails said next; she was laughing too hard to listen. Oh, poor Knuckles. Boy, will he hear it from me later! She got control of herself in time to hear the robot say, in clear puzzlement, "What is a secret Knuckles?"
Someone spluttered - presumably the echidna, because it was Tails' voice that answered the perplexed robot. "A secret is something that you don't tell anyone else, Emerl. You keep it between yourself and the other people who already know."
"But Eggman told us about the Final Egg Blaster and I didn't know about that until he told us. And then he said it was a secret. Oh, does that mean I shouldn't have told you that either?"
"Umm," Rouge could picture the little fox trying to work out how to explain the difference between secrets you kept and secrets you told. "Well, Eggman told you about the Blaster thing by accident," said Tails after a moment. "He tends to get carried away when he's bragging, and say things he didn't intend to. But you probably shouldn't tell anyone else about Knuckles getting tricked. It's not nice."
"Gotcha! It's really our secret now, okay, partner? Forgive me?"
"I suppose," muttered Knuckles. "You stay with Tails now, okay? I need to go clean up and check on . . . my other duties." Now that's interesting, thought the bat, he doesn't want to tell Emerl about the Master Emerald? I wonder if that's important, or just the Guardian being cautious. Albeit belatedly. A door opened and closed and Tails returned to his own tasks, apparently leaving Emerl to watch and absorb, or think, or whatever a robot did with free time.
But Rouge had her own answers to pursue, and the computer was asking for attention. "Match found" said the screen. Rouge called up the personnel files retrieved from GUN's own databanks. "Aha!" she said triumphantly. The two 'agents' had, in fact, worked for GUN for nearly a decade apiece, but both had been discharged several years ago. The man had left first, for insubordination: he'd refused to work with a dokan on an inter-governmental assignment. Now why does that not surprise me? Rouge sniffed, remembering his casual dismissal of Shadow. The woman, a Major Stephanie Tildwell, had left seven months later, after being written up several times for associating with an unapproved group. To her annoyance, Rouge could find no details on that group, but both false agents were currently living in a commune called Nocturne Chorale. Nocturne? That sounds familiar. Where have I – ah yes, the offer to Eggman, to purchase the Gizoid. Rouge quickly pulled up information on Nocturne Chorale; it seemed to be a typical commune, if there was such a thing, rejecting worldly possessions and economy in favor of a 'simple, natural life'. This particular one also seemed to believe in the 'heartening' influence of classical music, and had speakers that played appropriate tunes to the plants and animals as well as in the buildings. Otherwise, lots of farming and hard manual labor and growing your own clothing. Rouge couldn't imagine anything less appealing. I like worldly possessions, thank-you-very-much. And supper in a box or at a local restaurant, and clothing that I only have to pick off the rack and pay for. I don't like coincidences, but I don't see how this could possibly be connected. This lot may not be anti-robot, but they certainly wouldn't be in the market for one either, so this can't be the 'Nocturne' that contacted Eggman. Although, the ex-GUN pair live there, and they were trying to get Shadow to bring them the Gizoid, so perhaps they do want one? They want to teach him to be a hippie robot?
That image appealed to her sense of the ridiculous, and she was laughing as she went to get pull a nice, processed, frozen meal out of the freezer and heat it up. Frowning at her slumbering houseguest, she finally threw together a peanut butter sandwich and left the plate on the end table by his head, along with a glass of water. If he wanted anything fancier, he could wake up and ask for it. Tails had apparently shut down for the night - he was asking the Gizoid to watch the lab until morning - so she turned off the receiver. On a whim, she pulled up information again about the faux janitor and the People Are Human organization. I really don't like coincidences, and we've got this 'Nocturne' word, at least, connected to interest in the Gizoid through both Shadow and Eggman. And this Garret person may not be interested in the Gizoid, but the timing of the bug, right after I was assigned to recover it, is - again! - coincidental. Perhaps there's some link between Sam Garret and Shadow's agents? She keyed in a search for that, and another for 'nocturne' in general. Yes, drinks, music, and a fair number of adult clubs and lingerie shops, plus a brand-name for ladies' nightclothes. Sighing, she set about eliminating the largest groups, trying to see if there was anything useful. A horse named 'Silent Nocturne', standing at stud. A borzoi named 'Nocturne in D', who'd taken top honors at some dog show. With a grimace she stripped the animal-related entries from the results. Still FAR too many. On a whim she cross-referenced the three names she had; she'd found nothing coming from the other direction, but search engines were sometimes balky beasts and . . . .
She lost her train of thought as she got three hits, all under Stephanie Tildwell. Apparently, Major Tildwell had been contacted by a 'Nocturne' via her GUN email address about four years ago. All non-critical emails were supposed to be purged after twelve months, but that was a practice more honored in the breach than in the keeping. The 'sent' emails were apparently lost, since Rouge couldn't find them, but the received were interesting indeed. An unknown party had contacted the Major, seeking information related to the Knuckles clan of echidnas and the power stones. The second missive (apparently sent after the Major had replied to the first) clarified that the stones in question were the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald. The third essentially thanked her for her assistance and asked her to inform the sender of any further information regarding the Emeralds or echidnas. All three bore the word 'Nocturne' as a signature. I wish I could find the emails she sent back. Hmm. No mention of the Gizoid here, though. She recalled Professor Gerald's diary entry, the one that discussed the Gizoid being linked to a 'lost' tribe of echidnas. Perhaps someone was researching or trying to revive that hypothesis? Looking for information on echidnas to connect them to the Gizoid, and trying to obtain the Gizoid itself for the same reason? But then why not contact Knuckles directly? Or maybe someone has . . . . She considered asking the Guardian, but couldn't come up with a plausible reason. And the secrecy . . . . It just didn't feel right to be anything as innocent as historical research. Which left her with what? The bat scowled at the screen for a while, drumming her fingers in time to the music from below, then gave it up and went to bed.
In the morning she returned to her computer and flipped on the receiver to hear Amy accosting Tails: "Tails! Where's Sonic?"
"Umm . . . he isn't here," was the nervous reply. A corner of the bat's mouth quirked as Amy made the cub repeat it. He's lying.
"What?" demanded the pink hedgehog again. "He's not here?"
"That's what he said . . ." started Tails. Rouge shook her head.
"So he is here!" cried Amy. There was a sudden commotion of doors and (it sounded like) cabinets being hauled open and slammed shut, accompanied by the crash and clatter of things falling on the floor.
"Hey Emerl," said a harsh whisper, "don't say anything, but let's head for the beach." Rouge grinned. Sonic could take on Eggman, giant robots, ancient 'gods', armies of aliens . . . but not a single twelve-year-old girl. But then, he was hardly alone in that; many males had found females to be their undoing.
The two made good their escape to the beach, but then Amy caught up with Sonic again, and he threw the Gizoid to the wolf, as it were. Shortly after he made his escape, a Phi appeared and announced its orders to capture Emerl. Rouge listened to the resulting battle between Amy, Emerl and two Phis, followed by Amy's discovery of two 'dropped' Emerald shards. Then she reached for her boots. Sounds like I'd better get out there and track them, she sighed.
"Emerl," said Amy thoughtfully, "you gain new abilities when you take Chaos Emeralds, right?"
"Yep," agreed the robot. "Lately I have been able to tell if there are Chaos Emeralds within my surroundings!" he added proudly.
"I wonder if you've got a sensor of some sort–" The transmission was cut off as Rouge pocketed the receiver and headed outside. She flew lazily towards Emerald Beach, but spotted the pink hedgehog and golden robot turning onto the street that Amy's apartment was on. To the bat's annoyance, they went inside.
She flipped the receiver back on and spent a long, dull period listening to the Amy bullying the Gizoid and her friend Cream into exercising with her. Rouge pictured the gleaming stones of her new jewelry, and tried to decide what sort of gown would set them off best. Which reminded her . . . She pulled out her phone and placed a quick call to Amber, to report the necklaces she'd recovered from Marauve. As it was her friend's lunch break, she flew quickly home, and then to a café they both liked, to meet her and hand over the jewelry. Amber opened the bag and took a quick peek, carefully shielding the contents from sight by anyone else at the café. "What! Rouge the bat, jewel thief extraordinaire, returning jewelry?"she teased.
Rouge gave her a mock glare, then grinned. "I need the reward money to buy a set at Eureka. If you happen to pass by, you should stop and look at them - a gorgeous group of necklace bracelets and earrings." In truth, it was a wrench to give them up, but it would look good to her bosses, and help counter accusations of thieving - if she were a thief, would she be returning jewelry?
"Uh-huh," said Amber skeptically. "Eureka, as in the store that a Chaos Emerald was stolen from last night?"
"What!? No!" exclaimed Rouge. "You mean someone broke into there? They had at least four guards when I was there and that was during the day- surely they've got security at night!" She feigned sudden dismay. "You don't think the thieves might have taken my jewelry, do you?"
Amber eyed her, and Rouge knew that the human knew perfectly well who had robbed the store. But her friend merely shook her head. "I'm sure that if your gems were taken they would have notified you already. When do I get to see them?"
"Hmm, are you coming to the Inauguration ball? I'll wear them then." The talk shifted into more general gossip about who would be there, and with whom, until Amber said that she needed to get back.
"I have a little discretion, but I still can't take an all-day lunch. I assume you want the rewards credited to the usual account?"
"Please. And I really do appreciate this, Amber."
"That's alright. It wouldn't do to have the President's favorite spy getting arrested under suspicion of being a common thief, would it." The fair-haired human waved and headed back towards the GUN offices.
Rouge paid the bill - only fair, since she was asking a favor - and ambled back in the direction of Amy's apartment. She flipped on the receiver in time to hear: "Mom! I think there's an Emerald around here. There's definitely a Chaos Emerald around here ! It's there!"
"You serious?" asked Amy's voice.
"Mom! Over here!" A door opened, and footsteps.
"Cream stay here and watch the place for us!" Amy sounded like she was trying to catch up to Emerl. "We'll be right back!"
That sounded interesting. Rouge took to the air and flew much more quickly towards the apartment building. She was in luck, for she spotted the pink hedgehog turning a corner, and swung a sharp right to follow. There was the Gizoid looking left and right at the next intersection.
"Which way, Emerl?" Rouge could hear that perfectly well, so she switched off the receiver and landed on a convenient ledge. The answer was equally audible, but not from Emerl.
"Target identified! Initiate capture mode." Rouge recognized the voice but couldn't spot the speaker.
Amy did, though. "Hey, it's Gamma! It is Gamma, right?" She sounded thrilled, as if she'd just rejoined a long lost friend. Which fit with Rouge's research; that Amy's befriending of the original E-102 Gamma had led to the decommissioning of all the early E-series, to free the Flicky family trapped within them. But while she had considered the robot a friend, it had really been the effects of the biopowering bird within, and this wasn't the same robot anyway.
Chaos Gamma was not impressed. "Initiate battle mode," it announced, rolling into view and bringing its weapons to bear on the pink hedgehog and her companion.
"Hey, wait up!" At first Amy was more indignant than frightened. "You're Gamma, right?" Uncertainty was creeping into her voice, though.
"No such code name in memory," droned the red robot, "I am not Gamma." The guns crackled, but Amy wasn't the target. Emerl dodged as the projectiles hissed towards him, and then jumped forward to slam the other robot with a mallet pulled out of thin air.
Amy recovered from her shock much faster than the watching bat had expected, and countered Emerl's attack with her own, letting the momentum imparted by the Gizoid's strike impel Chaos Gamma into her own approaching hammer. Rouge relaxed slightly; she'd been ready to interfere if it had looked like the girl was in real trouble, but it didn't look like she needed to. Emerl had fought the gray versions of this robot with Rouge outside of Gimme Shelter, and had fought Chaos Gamma itself inside the shelter with Knuckles. Therefore he had no trouble anticipating and countering the red robot's moves. He also appeared, from Rouge's perspective, to be deliberately interposing himself between the opponent and Amy, thereby shielding her from most of the other robot's attacks even at the cost of taking extra blows himself. (Which admittedly did not seem to be much of a penalty, as none of the attacks seemed able to damage the gold exterior.) Meanwhile Amy kept raining blows of her own on the red armor, doing a decent amount of damage herself. Abruptly, Chaos Gamma collapsed, and Emerl grabbed Amy and shoved her behind himself. "Unable to fight," droned the red robot - then leapt up and fled, leaving the Gizoid visibly startled. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't that, thought Rouge. It was vaguely reassuring that the Gizoid couldn't absolutely predict his enemy's moves.
Amy wasn't pleased that the other robot had gotten away. "Hey! You! Wait!" she called after the departed Gamma imitator. "We lost him," she turned back to Emerl, who was looking around with his head tilted up, like someone trying to locate a faint scent.
Suddenly he snapped a golden arm up, finger pointing in a straight line towards Club Rouge, although even the watcher above couldn't see it through the intervening buildings. "That way, mom!" he declared confidently.
Amy looked - and frowned. "Isn't that," she started, then stepped back shaking her head decidedly. "Sheesh! It's Night Babylon. I really don't want to take you to that spooky place," she trailed off as Emerl marched past her.
"Let's go, mom!"
"Hey, w-wait! Emerl!"
Snickering quietly, Rouge took off and followed. She suspected Emerl had picked up the Chaos Emerald that Shadow almost certainly had, and possibly her second shard. She intended to get ahead of them before they got to the building, but wanted to make certain they weren't delayed - or sidetracked.
Delayed turned out to be the key word; they were intercepted by a Phi. "Enemy detected!"
"Who are you calling an enemy?" demanded Amy. A wrist flick, and the hammer appeared. "Emerl! Let's take care of this robot real quick and get our Emerald shard!"
"OK, mom!" agreed the Gizoid, as a second Phi stepped out of the alley. With a sigh, Rouge settled on another convenient ledge and waited for the fight to end.
This time the Phi that attacked Emerl used gliding attacks and a variety of punches that Rouge considered 'classic Knuckles'. Amy's bout was more interesting, since she had ended up facing one of the Sonic imitators. And it did prove to be an interesting fight.
Rouge didn't think Sonic had spent much time sparring with Amy - he frequently left when she arrived, and her crush probably wouldn't permit her to risk damaging her blue hero. But she had no problem anticipating or fending off the Phi's attacks, even to using several counter moves that Rouge made note of to copy herself. At some point, Amy had clearly sat down and studied Sonic's moves until she'd not only memorized them but been able to design defenses against them. Which is interesting; surely she didn't think she'd need to protect herself from Sonic's attacks? Unless perhaps she thought he might start chasing her one of these days? But a defense implies that she wouldn't want him to do so. Maybe the defenses were intended to be used against Shadow? That made more sense; after all, Shadow had become known to the world at large as a thief and then turned out to be working for Doctor Eggman. So perhaps the attacks and counters Amy was using were originally designed for fighting Shadow rather than Sonic. A bit grandiose of her to expect to take on Shadow, but she does have a history of standing up for herself. Ouch! Amy had just done a sort of roundhouse strike where she brought her hammer around three hundred sixty degrees and jumped - slamming it into the whirring ball of the home-attacking Phi. With a resounding clang the robot was deflected sharply into a nearby window, but the hammer was jolted out of Amy's hands. Shaking her right wrist, she scrambled after it while Phi tried to disentangle itself from the tangle of clothes and mannequins it had landed amid.
"Mom! Duck!" shouted Emerl, and Amy dropped flat as the Knuckles Phi flew overhead. It had suddenly turned from fighting Emerl to launch a fist-first glide at the pink hedgehog, which could have been very bad if it had hit her mid-torso as it had intended. The Gizoid blasted it as soon as it had passed her, sending a shower of metal bits onto the pavement. Amy scrambled up just in time for the remaining Phi to yank clear of the window dressing and spindash towards her again. Swinging her hammer like a croquet mallet, she knocked it back to Emerl, who used one of Knuckles' ground punches to flatten its metal skull. "Emerald shard!" Emerl crowed, extracting a pale blue gem like a pearl from a metal oyster.
"All right!" agreed Amy, as she picked up a similar crystal from the confetti of the other Phi. "So, now we have a total of four shards. All we need is one more, and we'll have enough to create a Chaos Emerald! That wasn't so hard!" She frowned; the Gizoid was doing his questing thing again. "What is it Emerl? Do you sense another Chaos Emerald in the area?"
"Over there," he pointed in the direction of Club Rouge again. "It's the same one, only these bozos interrupted me before I got to it. But we sure showed them, huh, mom?"
Rouge didn't have the best view of Amy's face, but the hedgehog didn't seem to quite know how to take the robot's hodgepodge speech styles. With a shake of her head, she finally said, "Where?" Moving over to sight along the golden arm, she stepped back and looked up at her companion in dismay. "Club Rouge?"
"Over at Rouge's place!" confirmed the Gizoid, as Rouge took wing to beat them to her apartment.
She had her key in her apartment door as Emerl flung open the door from the stairs, saying, "It's in here! I wonder if Rouge has it?"
Amy was looking back down the steps as she came through the door, so she didn't see the bat waiting for them. "What a dump! This really isn't a good place for you, Emerl!"
"A dump?" Rouge was insulted. Admittedly the staircase to the apartment looked like public stairs anywhere, but they were at least clean! And the club itself, which Amy must have come through tangentially, had been designed by Rouge herself, so if the hedgehog was referring to that –! "Look who's talking, you obnoxious little girl!" she snapped.
"You have an Emerald shard, right?" Amy met her gaze squarely, not giving an inch, nor showing any embarrassment at having been overheard.
"So what if I do?" countered Rouge, rather sulkily.
"Why don't you just hand it over to us. It's not useful to you anyway," pointed out Amy.
"Gems are their own use,"replied the bat. "Why should I give it to you?"
"Now, now, you two," the robot overrode whatever Amy was about to say. "There's no need for you two to fight, OK?" Both females blinked at him in surprise.
Rouge cocked an eyebrow at Amy. "I know he didn't get that from Sonic or Knuckles. Was that Tails?"
"I think it was Cream, actually," Amy answered with a grimace. "She was exercising with us and she really hates fighting, even as practice. But that's your answer there," she waved at Emerl, "I need the Emerald shard to help him get powered up, so we can make him safe. Um, weren't you the one who told Tails about that?"
"Guilty," admitted Rouge. "But are you sure you can't let me keep just one little shard? There's so much power in a Chaos Emerald anyway, it'll hardly be missed!"
The pink hedgehog crossed her arms and glared at the bat. Then she shook her head slightly. "You'll have to take that up with Tails, since he's the one putting the gems back together. We're just supposed to bring him five pieces. Unless the one you have isn't light blue?"
Rouge made a face. "It is. So what are you going to give me in return? I'm not a philanthropist, you know."
"Uh," Amy hadn't expected that. She frowned, clearly trying to think what she could offer the bat. "How about an Ultimate Weapon that won't simply destroy the planet for fun?"
"I did it, mom!" announced Emerl, startling Rouge as he stepped out of her apartment. The robot had the cyan shard cupped in one hand. He tipped his head at Rouge. "My thief skills are good, aren't they?"
Rouge gaped at the robot, while Amy cheered. "Good job, Emerl! Now hand over the Emerald shard!"
The bat gave up. "Yes, yes," she waved irritably at the pair. "Here, take it!"
"All right, we now have a total of five light blue shards!"
"That wasn't too difficult," said the robot.
"Let's go back to Tails'," Amy continued, "and put these pieces together!"
"The dear Doctor had a total of three Chaos Emeralds," said Rouge warningly. "One more and we'll have all his Emeralds, but knowing him, he's going to pull a trick on us at the very last minute. He must have a plan by now."
Amy looked at her in surprise. "We? Us?"
"As I've said before, I don't want to see the planet destroyed, or Doctor Eggman triumphant. But you really can't expect me to just hand over something I had to work to get - I'm no hero. I've already given out more free information than I usually do in a year."
Amy gave her a skeptical look, then shrugged and looked to the Gizoid. "Don't worry Emerl, I'll protect you. You can count on me!"
Emerl agreed enthusiastically. "Yeah, we'll beat him together!"
Rouge snorted. "Good luck," she said, resigning herself to the loss of her second Emerald shard.
"But, Amy," said Emerl, "there's another Emerald here."
"It must be the Chaos Emerald that Shadow has," said Rouge. She hadn't been certain he had one, but she'd have been amazed if he didn't. Emerl had just confirmed its presence for her. That's all seven accounted for then, and only one more in possession of Eggman.
"Shadow?" asked Amy. "He's here?"
"He's been here for a while, but he still hasn't woken up." The bat frowned. How long has he been here now?
"What's he doing here?" demanded Amy.
"It's a long story," Rouge temporized. Besides, I'm not sure how much to explain. She shook her head. "When he wakes up, he'll go directly to this robot," she said finally, avoiding the question. "That's certain. You'll need to wait if you want to find out."
Amy scowled, then marched off with Emerl in tow.