Hello folks. I haven't updated this story in a while, but now I think I know where I want to go with it. You'll notice that this chapter uses similes a lot more than the last one. I hope I didn't overdo it and I really hope I wrote this whole chapter in past tense without switching to present tense by accident. I'm sorry that this chapter was uploaded a full three weeks after I promised.

Splash and Dash

Having to get so close as to smell the brushed metal surface of the recorder so the microphone would pick up on his speech, he began in a sincere, grateful tone…

For the first time in months, I've found some space to take a few weeks off, for me anyway, it looks like Shadow and Rouge will still have to work-hahaha! Ah, I won't put as much faith in the Eggroll's chance of destroying Sonic as I have for my past mechanical monsters, so when I attack tomorrow, the goal is not to go after Sonic. Instead, I'll be downright belligerent and smash the pathetic tinker-toy Station Square causing as wide a destruction path as possible. Hopefully, Sonic and company will help rebuild the junk I smash and the manhunt for me will end within a few days from then. In terms of physics, rings, chaos emeralds, hyper-dimensional space, I haven't made any astounding breakthroughs. Disappointing. My journals have been reduced to something like an idiot's Lazy Sunday blog…uh…

On a much less serious subject, I seem to have noticed that there's a Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon on television. How cute. Intrigued by the strangely colored backgrounds and how ridiculous the idea of a cartoon based off Sonic was, I stopped my channel surfing and leaned in a little close; it was titillating f-for maybe a split second. A few minutes later, I heard my name mentioned by the animated hedgehog. The screen panned to a fortress, and my interest rose even more. I was at the edge of my seat and then…then I leaned back into my natural repose. I was outraged at the portrayal of myself! My mustache looks nothing like broom bristles nor have I ever had a pin-shaped head! At least they did a good job at showing that Sonic is an arrogant prickly prick, and that his two-tailed friend is completely useless. Rouge saw me fuming at this, so she made mention of how my likeness is all over the even bigger international wasteland known as the World Wide Web. When I get these renovations done in the coming month, the little punks responsible for this humiliation will help me by becoming the first human beings to be used in a badnik alongside the flickies!

END OF RECORDING, JULY 17, 2008, 23:53:06 PM

Dr. Robotnik had riled himself up while recording this rather unspectacular entry, but he knew just the solution for a healthy release. The scientist flung the contraption so it flew into the wall with an unremarkable, tinny clatter. Before he ended up throwing something more fragile and explosive, he got his fury under control, decided to leave it at that and made his way down to the sixteenth floor. Rouge was due to be there any minute. Speak of the devil; there she sat with her legs crossed.

"Ta-dah." She said in a flat tone, with the camera in her palm. Robotnik snatched it and transferred the image to a large bubble screen and took a gander at it. Despite the camera's small size, the pictures were extremely defined in each capture, perfect for a stickler for detail like Eggman.

He turned halfway around and with a palm facing upward, mentioned "Well, you made sure to take several pictures of what you found so I can get a…an idea of the scale…"

Rouge remained perfectly still so her ears could pick up on the little tidbits Eggman mumbled to himself. He always did.

"Why would he have a ramp anyway, I got ramps…what…a spotlight too, for nighttime. Hm, I'm not attacking at night, why would I do that…"

Rouge's fangs bit down on the corners of her mouth to fight back a grin. This was the one recurring instance in which she saw a "human side" to the doctor. Plus, it was just plain odd to listen to. Her eyes were closed, as if trying to block out Robotnik in her mind. She made an effort to take deep breaths, and she almost lost it while doing so. By the time he turned back around, he noticed the bat appeared to be in a good mood. Within seconds? Impossible.

"What are you so happy about all of a sudden?" His brows rose.

Almost gasping, Rouge retorted "What? I didn't know I was restricted to acting serious for the moment."

"Are you hiding something?"

"No…I'm sorry, I won't smile anymore around you." She said almost too quickly. Eggman waited another moment to see if she had to say anything else. When he was convinced, he would continue.

"Well, you didn't give me much. A ramp and a spotlight." The doctor reminded her of her poor work.

"I told you,"—she said with some frustration "the kid's got nothing on paper. It's all on hard drive. And there migh-

"Why didn't you take the hard drive?" He asked as if it was the easiest question he had asked all night.

"Because…"—she started again, ready to stand up and kick him right square in his pug face "It might have set off alarms and then everything would have been ruined."

Both pause.

"What are you getting so flustered for?" he pushed with a tone of voice entirely unlike his own. It sounded clear and unfiltered.

"Because I don't know what the hell else you want me to say!" Half confused, half pissed, Rouge threw up her hands in defeat.

"Watch it." Dr. Robotnik said as he furrowed his brow and leant in and towered over her. Rouge cleared her throat and did her best to smile and placate the doctor. He took that as a sign of her giving in, and he backed off but kept his gaze upon hers.

"Just go to your room. I'll sort this all out myself, then." He barked as he waved his arm to dismiss her. Rouge didn't skip a beat and got right up and stormed out of the room and up the stairs.

"Ooooh! Who does that fat bastard think he is? If I wasn't short compared to him, I'd…Ugh!" was all she could think of. Dr. Robotnik was just so unpredictable. One second, he would be laughing about the most mundane screw up, the next second, one's lapels would be twisted into a wrinkly mess by his giant, brutish hands as he hollered about how he would throttle the life out of you like air from a Ziploc bag. Standing at a strapping six foot eight, with impenetrable goggles, he was a frightening man, indeed. The only clues she had to determine his mood were the doctor's bare eyebrows and his twitching mustache. Two years of working with him did nothing to change her hidden uneasiness around the eccentric man. She shuddered as her train of thought began to switch to a different track. She needed a cool shower to lift the grime and yuck from the surface of her taut skin.

Within minutes, she was vigorously scrubbing the salty sweat away, with her jumpsuit placed in a laundry hamper. As the many, small, cool droplets began to beat down on her arms, they all melted into an icy film. As she took her fingers and her scrubber to spread the soap around in short, directional strokes, she could barely see the reflection of her other hand. Night after night, this was still an interesting action for her to witness. The stream suddenly seemed chilly due to her lack of movement, so she continued making her way down to her shapely legs.

Outside of her locked room, a small, red robot was rolling across the metal quilt-like floor towards the bat's room. It's "hand" was actually a square pad with Eggman's handprint smack dab in the middle. As it approached Rouge's door, the robot stretched up, its spine making a noise similar to a ridged straw being pulled through a cup's lid. It placed the handprint onto the door's right side, and a tone that gave the robot a signal to enter. The robot went straight towards Rouge's jumpsuit and searched the chest pad. To the machine's steel fingers, Rouge's chest pad meant nothing. No subtleties in texture, no recognition of where it was still warm, no nothing. It could only distinguish between what was small and could be plucked out of the suit. A crinkle alerted it to just that.

Without the slightest squeak from its gears, it left the room and the door closed shut. Soon, it approached the stairs, and some suction cups came from underneath the robot's treads, so it wouldn't make noise while going down the stairs. A fat, rhythmic plucking bounced off the steps and was absorbed by the grand fortress as it moved diagonally downward, just above the steps as it rode the wall. The suction cups disappeared beneath the treads. Back to rolling about the place. It had two floors to go. This was a machine on a mission!

Meanwhile, there was a slippery twist of a handle, a rumbling silence, and then one last burst of water. There were so many leaking droplets coming from the faucet that it made a flangering noise as it went down the drain. Another silence.

"Oh…that felt nice…" Rouge moaned.

She slid the foggy glass door open and made her way towards her lingerie. The bat wanted something a little more casual tonight rather than sexual, so she slipped on a pair of smog-black underwear and a bra to match. She slipped on a translucent, tinted nightgown as a finishing touch. She noticed that the lid to her laundry had been open.

"I know I closed that before. Did I forget to check if I was carrying anything? I don't want to wash any jewels." Rouge thought aloud. She took the top part of her jumpsuit and flipped it upside down. Nothing. Nothing? By this point, the bat was starting to become unnerved. She tried retracing her steps as to when she could've lost the private letter, when suddenly…

"Are you hiding something?" a voice echoed in her conscience.

"Eggman, you snoop!" Rouge shouted with a little hesitation as she barreled barefoot out of her room and down the stairs. One floor to go.

Only one floor to go for the brave red robot, now rolling at full speed, its engine sounding just like a wind-up toy truck, except even more labored. The gears whined as it cut to the left, towards the surveillance room. Rouge's feet were now practically fluttering, barely touched the floor, light as a soap bubble. She leaned in ever so slightly downward, in a sprinter's running style. Her ears began to pick up on a grinding noise that kept sputtering. She decided to up her top speed one more time as she was quickly gaining on the little machine. It was embarrassing enough to read the letter from someone six years younger than her, but Dr. Eggman? She would never hear the end of it. The robot made one last cut, now in the surveillance room itself! Rouge sprung for it. Airborne, she targeted the thing and her foot was now coming down like an axe on wood. Too late. The robot attached the letter to a parachute and fired it like a missile, fractions of a second before its head was smashed to glitter. She dashed towards the projectile to intercept it, but it did a high-arching loop, throwing her off its path, and it sailed right into Dr. Robotnik's fingers.

"And what might this be?" the doctor hissed. "I thought you weren't hiding anything from me, Rouge."

"It's private." She pleaded. "Please, it doesn't have anything to do with you, sir."

Robotnik sneered. "I'll be the judge of that." As his eyes went from hers to the note, he looked back up. "Hey! What in the world are you wearing?"

"It's a nightgown, okay?" she snapped back in defense while her eyes were fixed upon her feet.

The doctor unfolded the tiny yellow paper with impatience and began reading the letter to himself. His reactions were the same as Rouge's, except with a touch of malevolence. Suddenly, an explosion. A wheezing, despicable explosion of laughter. Rouge couldn't stand it. The reverberation of his voice in the room amplified his annoying laugh to the bat.

"What's so funny?!" she said with a tremor in her demand.

Robotnik was laughing uproariously. "This is, this is—HA, Ha ha haha ha! You Rouge…and this boy? That's insane!"

"There's nothing between me and him! I had no idea he had these feelings for me until a few hours ago!" Rouge bared her teeth, ready to attack. Her legs tensed up, revealing just how toned and incredibly muscular her thighs and calves were. Her face twisted into an enraged grimace as she was preparing herself to snatch the letter and destroy it, until…

"New plan!" Eggman's voice boomed. "Instead of piloting the Eggroll myself to attack Station Square, Tails will!"

"What?" was all Rouge could manage to say without being cut off, staring at him.

"Yes! I'll set the Eggroll on a predetermined path with him inside, knocking him here and about inside my war machine." The doctor's hands pedaled around each other into a blurred wheel to show his imaginative unscrambling of the little fox's body. "I just have to disable the nano-layer between the outer shell and the inner chassis so the inner chassis will roll around the same speed the outside does! This way, I can do some major damage to Station Square, and,"—he turned around with his fingers drumming the pair of goggles resting on his forehead, "We can subdue that, that little pest! We just need him to come here! And guess who's going to catch him?" His eyebrows rose as he paused, motioning towards Rouge to finish his mental enthusiasm.

"Me."

"Yes, you!" His finger flicked from his wrist and stopped an inch away from her nose. Rouge's eyelashes fluttered faster than a hummingbird's wings as she registered his large finger, close to jabbing her beautiful nose.

"Why do I have to do everything lately?" Rouge leaned back and crossed her arms with an indignant look on her face.

"Because I said so!" Eggman bellowed, putting much emphasis on the word "I". "And if you must take someone along to do this take Shadow." As the scientist slowly began to reel himself back into his regular state, he felt a little hot from flailing around for the past few minutes. He was tired, and it was time to retire to his bedroom. He took a few deep breaths and began to walk out of the surveillance room, but something caught his eye; Rouge's nightgown. He stopped, turned to her once more, and making no effort to hide his disgust, said "And Rouge?"

"Yeah? What?" she groused.

Dr. Robotnik sneered "Wear those terrible things somewhere else, out of my sight from now on, understand?"

"Whatev—yes sir." She corrected herself as she saw his sneer become more pronounced. She watched him walk up the stairs and fade away, the man standing straight up and with his shoulders rolled back. Rouge took the cue and let out a yawn as she too, left the dark room.