Chapter 6- The Search for Shadow
It was still raining when Rouge and Omega arrived on the outskirts of Westopolis. The sky seemed to boil and froth, churning within itself like a slate colored whirlpool. Icy drops of stinging wetness cascaded down on their heads, soaking the huntress to the bone and making her cat-suit cling tightly to her skin, but clanging osily off Omega's metallic surface.
The weather conditions were interfering with the robot's satellite reception, so in an effort to boost this, a small dish protruded from the back of his head, resembling a comically small parasol extended in a futile effort to keep dry.
Rouge felt totally useless; all she could do was follow her robotic companion as he followed the signal. Unfortunately, the rain was falling hard enough and the gales howling fiercely enough to totally inhibit her from flying, or she might have been able to spy the dark hedgehog from the air and make their search much quicker.
The pair trudged silently along, forced at times to wade through what seemed to be at least six inches of water and mud. Rouge was much to preoccupied to engage in any sort of conversation, and even if she hadn't been, she rarely held any true conversation with Omega. She'd never really felt a connection with him like she had with Shadow, and true to his nature, he was always dreadfully straight-to-the-point, stop-wasting-my-time in mentality. The few times she's bothered to treat him as a real person had been disappointing to say the least, whereas Shadow seemed to only grow more amiable as he grew used to the bat's company.
And so the only sounds that reacher her sensitive ears was that of the pattering raindrops, and the shifting and clanking of Omega's joints as he walked.
Suddenly her robotic companion stopped moving, causing her to bump into him since she had not been paying very good attention. She was no harmed in the slightest by their impact, but was rather surprised by their sudden stop, and glanced up at Omega speculatively.
His torso rotated slowly around until he was facing her, his great bulk looming above her. The bat's bright aquamarine eyes shone with terror, anticipating what he would say and already vehemently denying it in her heart and mind. Omega seemed vaguely sympathetic, or perhaps as sympathetic as an expressionless robot could be. Nonetheless he spoke the hard, cold words into existence, his monotone voice seeming inexplicably to make them harsher.
"This unit has lost the signal for Shadow's tracking device," he droned. "Weather conditions are hindering scanners. Attempting to reacquire signal. "
"But you said Shadow might not have that long," she pleaded, her face fierce with fear and longing. "Please Omega, you have to try harder!"
He paused and stared at her, as if choosing how to best break her heart, for there was no easy way to go about it.
"This unit's scanners are at maximum capacity. Analysis predicts chances of survival at .00001 percent."
Rouge sank to the ground and hugger her knees, more to ward off the frigid coldness inside her than that surrounding her. Bitter, salty tears coursed down her cheeks, intermixing with the freezing ones the sky had cried over her.
"Rouge, state the cause of your... sadness," surprisingly, Omega picked a word that didn't seem as if it had been carved out of steel, likely because he genuinely saw how distressed his ally was.
She continued to cry, looking at Omega with wet eyes, and failing to notice the violent shivering of her wet body.
"Shadow will die unless we find him!" she sobbed pitiably. "How can you not care?"
"I am concerned for Shadow's safety, but analysis of your hormones and pheromones indicate your reaction is one of greater emotional significance."
"I care about Shadow, something you could never understand!" she lapsed into anger for a moment, before returning to her weeping.
"You are concealing something. My polygraph detects that you are not being fully honest about your feelings towards Shadow," he said matter-of-factly, simultaneously seeming to know what she felt and be making no innuendoes towards it, a first among her friends.
She stared down at the ground, clutching handfuls of grass to anchor herself in the turbulent world she lived in. He was right, she couldn't imagine life without Shadow. She, the strong, independent woman had become utterly dependent on him, and now she was about to lose him.
"It doesn't matter anymore. He'll be gone soon, and it will be too late," she mumbled darkly, before slipping into a state of lethargy.
Omega came and sat down next to her, covering her with his arms and blocking the icy downpour as best as he was able. She leaned against him briefly, but unlike her ebony companion, he was utterly devoid of warmth, and she soon took to her original position, sitting and shaking miserably until her entire body, inside and out, was numbed by a terrible gnawing sensation.
Omega's satellite dish spun futilely on his back, beeping periodically like the sound of a flatlining heart monitor to indicate that it had no signal, and Shadow would soon be dead.
They sat in silence for a moment, but Omega stood up, renewing the downpour on her head and rousing Rouge. She noted that he was staring intently at something, and followed the line of his sight to find what it was. A patch had cleared in the boiling sea of rainclouds frothing in the heavens, allowing a cylinder of pure, iridescent light to shine down about a patch of the field.
In the distance, under the beam of illumination, a green point of light glimmered, catching her eye. As the pair approached, she could see that the glow had been a Chaos Emerald, which until now had not shone because of the cloud cover.
"Omega, if you use this, can you boost your scanner power?" she asked hopefully, as she picked up the gem and offered it to him.
The robot nodded, his metallic claws wrapped around the emerald. The dish on his back stopped rotating immediately, and the timed beep suddenly died.
"Shadow located. We don't have much time."
Omega rushed over the grassy field against the beating daggers of ice that fell down, propelled by his rocket boosters and with Rouge sitting on his shoulder. After the miraculous moment of clarity that allowed them to find the Chaos Emerald, the storm had intensified, adding yet more urgency to their mission.
They came to the top of the hill, the sea-like expanse of soaked grass spread out surrounding them. Staring out at this emerald infinity, they saw that it was broken by a solitary object: a tall, withered oak tree with sparse Autumn leaves that whipped about in the winds.
Under the tree lay sprawled a shivering and miserably soaked mass of black that could only be Shadow. Rouge's breath caught in her lungs for a minute when her eyes caught sight of him, as Omega propelled them rapidly towards the tree. The world raced by as a colored blur while they approached the hilltop, as the radar dish disappeared into the robot's bulk.
Skidding to a stop in front of the ancient oak, the ivory huntress dropped down from her perch on Omega's shoulder, landing next to her ebony companion. He was absolutely soaked in water, and only his being on top of a hill had kept him from being entirely submerged and subsequently drowned.
Shadow's fur covered chest rose and fell sharply, as if he struggled and labored violently for each breath, and his eyelids were closed almost all the way, revealing a thin sliver of dilated crimson orbs.
"Rouge?" he coughed, his eyelids fluttering as he tried weakly to get up.
"Sh, I'm here now. It's going to be okay," she said soothingly, as she wrapped her arms around his limp body. He felt as cold as a block of ice, so she hugged him tightly to herself, pressing him against her soaked form.
Omega lifted the pair up in his mammoth arms, igniting his rockets without a moment's notice, allowing the reunited team to make their way hastily away from the ruins of Westopolis. As Rouge sat in the robots grasp, Shadow lay incoherently over her lap, shivering and pulling himself into her comparably warm body.
She was surprised by this seeming display of affection on the part of the black hedgehog, and her cheeks became a deep rose in response. Rationalizing however that he was delirious, if not unconscious, she shrugged slightly, and began gently stroking his quills.
A few residual drops of water still rolled off of the trio as they finally arrived at the front door of Club Rouge, as the ivory huntress slid down from Omega's grasp, her prince cradled within her arms. Shadow was dead weight, sinking heavily into her arms, making her strain with all her might. It reminded her of once before when the same thing had happened.
Flashback
"This isn't good... Oh, well I'll take you to Club Rouge..." she said to the disoriented Shadow, who had sustained a heavy blow from one of the doctor's guard robos.
"Shadow, can you even walk on your own?" he wasn't moving, he was completely unconscious.
She heaved up the limp form of the unconscious Shadow, dashing out of Gimmee Shelter as fast as she possibly could while carrying the ultimate lifeform. She soon arrived at the door of Club Rouge, Shadow's weight beginning to exhaust her.
"You're still alive, right? Shadow?" she huffed, setting him down in front of the club to fumble with her keys.
"He's not bad looking, but..."
End Flashback
She'd carried him to Club Rouge once before, and as he'd laid there helpless in her arms, those were the moments when she'd first begun to really, truly feel for him. When they worked together for Dr. Eggman, Shadow had been an assignment, an attractive assignment, but an assignment nonetheless. But when she'd come to grips with the fact that even with his impressive speed and agility, his powerful muscles and mysteriously potent energy, Shadow could still need help, she'd begun to see him as a person and not a lab experiment.
Feelings she'd never known she had rose up in her, and from that moment onwards, she'd always looked upon him with a complete distinction from the rest of the world. She was fiercely independent, but she felt as if she and Shadow complimented each other, made up for each others faults with their individual strengths. She thought of him as the one person in the world she knew she could count on, ideas which were only perpetuated by his recent heroics.
And now she was in that same position, standing in front of Club Rouge, fumbling with her keys, the object of her desire laying at her feet, a mere hair's breadth away from death and utter separation.
Once she'd unlocked the door, she stooped over, trying to pick Shadow up again. When she encountered some difficulty, Omega offered to carry Shadow for her, but the thieving bat refused to accept his help, insisting on carrying their obsidian ally herself.
Coming into the front room, she set Shadow down on the couch while she slipped out of her boots, as Omega stomped in behind her. The robot stared first at Rouge, and then at Shadow, seemingly to be calculating something mathematical in his head, before abruptly turning, and disappearing into the walk-in closet he'd claimed as his own when Rouge had offered him a room.
Rouge's apartment in the Club was by no means spacious, but it had adequate living quarters for Rouge, and enough room to be comfortable, while been close in enough not to feel cavernous. Off to the side there was the main floor of the nightclub, where there was a casino and bar that Rouge had not operated in some time, and probably would not for some time hence.
Picking Shadow back up, she hefted him into her room, laying him down in the middle of her soft queen size bed, and pulling the covers over him in order to warm him up.
Realizing that her clothes were still completely soaked, she opened the closet and thumbed through, picking something more casual to change into. She stepped out into the bathroom, leaving the sleeping Shadow.
A few minutes later, the ebony hedgehog's eyes cracked open, the light initially irritating them. He felt as if he were swimming in clouds, warm... feathery... clouds. His eyes opened rather abruptly, darting around to room, certain he was dead.
To his relief, he'd not passed into the next world, but rather into the heart covered, pink folds of Rouge's bed. He was, despite a pounding in his skull and a horrible clawing feeling in his insides, coherent enough to at least realize where he was and how he must've gotten there, and after straining a minute, he thought he could hear water running in the next room.
Straining to sit up, the ultimate lifeform found himself utterly incapable of even moving, as his entire body was wracked by soreness and chills, as if he existed inside a cocoon of ice that was wrapped in fire. Resigning himself to the fate of laying in such an incredibly... pink bed, which was a tad bit awkward considering it was Rouge's bed in particular, he laid back and breathed deeply, attempting to quell his headache.
The water stopped and the bathroom door opened, releasing a cloud of steam into the room with it. Rouge stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her otherwise bare form, the outfit she'd chosen folded neatly on the counter. Ironically, the steam released helped to quell the black hedgehog's aching head, but he continued with his deep breathing, giving the appearance of being asleep.
"Hm, so the prince still hasn't awoken?" she cooed, stepping forward to kiss Shadow on the forehead.
A fraction of a millimeter before her lips brushed against his skin, cracked crimson eyes shot open, flicking first to her and her puckered, descending lips, and then to her towel covered body.
"Shadow, you're awake," she backed up, producing a smile so innocent it seemed an invisible halo floated above her head.
"Um... yeah," he choked, his cheeks burning as his eyes roved over her uncontrollably. "You're... in a towel."
She looked down at herself, feigning that she had forgotten this.
"Right you are, Shadow. I'll just have to change into something more suitable, won't I?"
She could hear Shadow choke on his own breath, as he half buried himself under the covers.
"Oh, don't worry Shadow, of course I'll change in the bathroom," she winked, before stepping in and closing the door.
"That girl is going to be the death of me," he sighed, trying desperately to calm himself before she came back in.
In a moment Rouge had come back through the door, now wearing a regular t-shirt that didn't quite manage to cover her midriff, and and some fuzzy, heart printed pajama bottoms.
'Thanks Rouge, you went from steam covered and barely wrapped in a towel to bare-bellied and barely wearing pajamas!' he gulped involuntarily. 'Why God, do you hate me?'
The alluring huntress came and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over Shadow slightly as she attempted to make conversation with the simultaneously pained and embarrassed hedgehog.
"So what were you doing in Westopolis anyways, Shadow?" when she said his name, there was a distinctive ring in her voice, a happy little chirp.
"Well, to be honest, I was running from all the attention I've gotten since the whole 'Black Comet' incident," he managed to cough hoarsely out, now beginning to feel something in his limbs other than sheer soreness, but the absolute lack of ability to move still present.
"Shadow, have you become a celebrity?" she giggled, laying forward over his legs and pressing her chest down on them.
"Uh... well, I certainly hope not," he stammered. "I'd die from all the public attention."
"Well, if you don't get your rest, you'll die anyways," she noted with a hint of sarcasm. "And we wouldn't want that, now would we?"
He nodded, as she got up, and turned on a lamp by the bedside, before turning off the main light. "I'll let you get your rest now. You've had a long day, Shadow."
"Rouge?"
She stopped at the doorway and looked back at him, aquamarine eyes glimmering in the glow provided by the bedside lamp, dim streaks of blackness crawling over her features, and giving her a sense of dimension and singularity.
He had to force out the single word, but he needed to tell her how much he appreciated all she'd done for him, how much he appreciated her.
"Thanks," was all he could muster. She seemed to understand, returning a broad smile before turning around, hips swaying gently as she left, shutting the door behind her.
Rouge opened a drawer in the front room, retrieving a couple of spare blankets she kept around and an extra pillow, before arranging these in a comfortable position on her couch. Sinking down into the bed that was admittedly, not as soft as she was used to, she reminded herself that she was doing this for Shadow, to show him she cared about him.
'He doesn't have a clue how you feel, and as soon as he can get out of that bed, he's going to be gone again,' she said in dread to herself. Initiating in a parody of Shadow's arguments with himself.
"I can win him over..." she mused quietly to herself. "I love him, and in time, he may come to love me."
Author's Notes: Very An Ultimate's Legacy inspired at the end there, but with my own original twist, he he. So, Shadow and Rouge are together now (sort of) with each harboring feelings of one sort or another for the other, and each similarly unaware of the reciprocity. They're so cute. XD
*Mimicks TV comercial narrator* Will Shadow ever figure out exactly what he feels for Rouge? Will Rouge gain enough confidence to force Shadow to come to grips with it? Dr. Eggman has been cooking up something nefarious that probably isn't brownies; exactly what is he up to? Will Shadow ever stop being taken by surprise by Rouge's attire, and subsequent cleavage?
Well, probably not on the last one...
Find out, in the next exciting and romantic installment of "Ebony and Ivory."