A/N: I'll be honest—the whole first half of this chapter is entirely unnecessary. I couldn't resist slipping in a bit of fluffiness . . . feel free to skip to the line break if you'd rather get to the meat of the story. ^_^''

A few days passed. A lot of haggling went on as to who should get the blue Chaos Emerald, and it was at last determined that Knuckles, who had first found it, would be its keeper. Knuckles himself was still rather subdued, but the others visited and conversed and teased him gently, until he slowly began to accept that they bore him no ill-will. It seemed it would still be a while before he could forgive himself, though.

However, his encounter with the purple crocodile did give them a bit of new information: what happened when one of Fiolet's solid forms was killed. The info was greatly sought-after . . . not least by one particular party.

"Tell us, Mr. Knuckles! Please?" begged Cream, her eyes wide and hopeful.

"Yeah, pleeeeeeeeeease?" singsonged Charmy. "Pretty please?"

Knuckles raised his eyes heavenwards in resignation. He'd been hearing much the same for the past twenty-five minutes, nonstop, and he'd also been giving much the same answer:

"Sorry, kiddos. It's too scary for li'l tykes like you."

"We're not little!" protested Charmy, folding his arms. "We're tough! It's not fair, you told the others what happened!"

"Yeah, we're just as tough an' ready for advencha as they are!" added Marine. Tails, a little embarrassed by all the fuss, but curious himself, chuckled awkwardly. Even Bokkun was lurking around nearby, pretending not to be interested.

At last Knuckles, worn to a threadpaper, gave in.

"All right, all right! I'll tell ya. But don't blame me if it gives you nightmares, and mental scars, and complexes."

"It won't!" chorused the kids. Knuckles sighed, settled down, and began.

"So, I was out catching fish in the little pond near here. I catch 'em there all the time. There was a big, juicy fish, right within my sights, and I was thinking I'd have a really good dinner tonight."

"What kind of fish?" asked Marine innocently.

"Jungle snapper," replied Knuckles, without batting an eyelid. Marine nodded, satisfied as to his veracity.

"So, I was just about to catch that fish, when it suddenly darted away, for no reason at all! I knew it wasn't me that scared it, so I looked into the water to see what had." He stopped and looked around surreptitiously, checking if the suspense was getting across. It was; Cream was drawing Cheese close in preparation, and the others were waiting with rapt attention. Admittedly, a little gratifying . . . Knuckles fought back a smile and continued.

"For a minute, I didn't see anything. The water was all dark and still, nothing swimming down there at all. Then suddenly, I thought I saw a darker shape, gliding along at the bottom of the pond. I looked closer . . . and then! I saw it! A sunken log!"

A beat. Then the children all erupted into howls of protest at this deception. Knuckles waved his hands furiously in self-defense, laughing.

"Hold on, hold on, don't lynch me! There really was a sunken log, I swear!"

"You said you'd tell us 'bout the crocodile, mate!" scolded Marine. "You said you would!"

"I'm getting to that part," promised Knuckles. "Honest."

Still grumbling and looking suspicious, the kids sat back down.

"All right," resumed Knuckles. "So I realized that it was just a sunken log, and, well, I'll admit maybe I felt a little dumb for getting so tense about it. I kinda waved it off and sat back, thinking maybe I'd go get something else for dinner. But just as I was thinking about that, BAM! Something else leaps right out of the water, and chomp! It's got my arm!"

"Oooooooh!" chorused the kids, as Knuckles seized hold of his still-bandaged arm dramatically.

"Did it hurt?" asked Charmy, wide-eyed.

"At first, yeah," admitted Knuckles. "But then the adrenaline took over. And when that happens, you don't feel a thing; you just fight."

"And you fought?" asked Marine, bouncing with excitement.

"You bet I did. That beast was at least ten feet long, all scaly and ugly and bristling with purple teeth, with the coldest, deadest, evillest purple eyes that ever existed in this world." Knuckles glanced about dramatically. "And it was just hangin' there, hangin' right off my arm, and one of those cold lizard eyes was just starin' at me. Just starin' and saying, you'd better just give up right now."

"Were you scared?!"

"Ehh." Knuckles waved his uninjured arm dismissively. "The adrenaline takes care of that too.

"So anyway, for a minute I was kinda in shock, and I just stood there. But then, boy, I just laid into that critter!" Knuckles swung his fist, belaboring the open air. "I just let 'im have it, right in the nose! Between the eyes! In the jaw! In the side! But it wasn't enough!"

"Did he keep hanging on?!" squealed Charmy, as Cream clapped her hands over her mouth in shock.

"Nope," said Knuckles, and shook his head solemnly. "He pulled me underwater."

A barrage of cries and gasps of horror, as the kids all subconsciously drew closer together, shivering appreciatively.

"It was dark, and cold, and deep," said Knuckles slowly, waving his hands as if thrashing underwater. "I couldn't see a thing; all I could do was feel that that monster was pulling me down. That—and fight. I just kept laying into that crocodile, using up all my oxygen, because if I didn't get him off my arm fast, I wasn't gonna need oxygen." Knuckles paused, taking a deep breath. "He was tough. I hit him again and again. I fought him and punched him and wrestled him until we hit the surface again, and then I threw him up onto the shore, and I gave him a whack! And he was dead."

Silence. The kids continued to sit and gaze at Knuckles rapturously, savoring the climax of the story, but sensing it wasn't over just yet.

"So," continued Knuckles. "I got my arm out of his mouth, and I knew I was in trouble. It was torn up, well . . . pretty bad . . . and then I remembered the venom. So I tried the ancient echidna cure, the way we used to treat poisonous snakebites—I tried to suck out the venom. I just knelt there, and I sucked and spat, and sucked and spat, and hoped I was doing enough.

"But eventually, I stopped. And then I looked up at that crocodile, and I didn't believe it. He wasn't a croc anymore! When I wasn't looking, he just . . . turned into mush. This really weird, lumpy, purple slime, right where the croc used to be, just oozing all over the leaves."

"Ew . . . " muttered Marine faintly.

"And even as I looked at it," intoned Knuckles, "it just . . . melted away. It sort've hissed, like when you burn wet lumber, and clouds of purple smoke rose off it, and then it just all melted into smoke and blew away." His voice trailed off, his eyes fixed on something far in the distance.

"And then what happened?" Tails broke the silence.

"Uh . . . well, not much," shrugged Knuckles, suddenly jerking back into reality. His face became sober very quickly, and he looked away awkwardly. "I, uh, hung out and tried to fix up my arm a little, and then . . . well . . . the venom kind of . . . took over." He bit his lip. He'd gotten so wrapped up in retelling his dramatic encounter with the crocodile, he'd forgotten for a moment what happened after that. Now he remembered and was struck with shame all over again, especially since he'd gotten so enthusiastic about it.

The kids, however, had no such qualms.

"That was AMAZIN'!" crowed Marine. "That was just rippah!"

"No, I, uh—" Knuckles stammered.

"You were so brave, Mr. Knuckles!" cooed Cream, shaking her head in amazement. "Not even scared!"

"I-I—"

"CHOMP!" yelled Bokkun, leaping on Marine from behind and causing her to screech in fright.

"Bokkun!" scolded Cream, and the little robo let go of Marine's arm at once, chuckling sheepishly and looking duly chastised.

"Woah, woah, kiddos," interrupted Knuckles, waving for quiet. "Hold on there. It's nothing to get that excited about, honestly—it was a pretty terrible story, you know. I mean, considering all the stuff that happened afterwards, and everything . . . "

"Oh, come on! Everyone knows you get loopy when Fio bites ya!" scoffed Charmy. "But before you went loopy, wow! That was just epic!"

"I . . . uh . . . " Knuckles reddened modestly, rubbing the back of his head.

"No, I'd agree," came a new voice, followed by a round of single-player applause. "Absolutely epic, Knux."

"Rouge!" Knuckles gulped. "How . . . long were you there?"

"Since the start," grinned Rouge, a note of laughter lacing her voice. "That was waaaaay more exciting than the tidy little report you told the rest of us, Knuckie. 'Fifteen minutes until venom activation, and it turns to goo and purple smoke when it dies,' you said. You've been holding out on us, Knuckles hon!"

"You didn't need to hear the rest of it," muttered Knuckles, his muzzle bright red. "I told you all the important stuff, but the kiddos just wanted a more exciting story, all right?"

"Of course," said Rouge. "That's just the kind of good sense I'd expect, coming from the great Knuckles, Fish-Nabbing, Crocodile-Wrestling, and Evil-Monster-Bashing Champion of Angel Island."

Knuckles groaned and sank his face into his hands, though mostly to hide a rueful grin.

"I'm going to be hearing about this for a while, aren't I?"

Rouge choked on a bout of giggles.

A few days slipped by. Tails, in cooperation with G.U.N., mixed up enough antidote to provide everyone with a custom-measured shatterproof flask of it, to be worn on a cord about the neck at all times. The international security organization was also keeping a tight eye on the surrounding cities and towns, cooperating with the police forces to make sure they caught the first sign of unusual activity. There was no guarantee that Fiolet wouldn't start preying on humans too.

"Still, it's probably not likely," said Tails optimistically. "Humans don't often have traits as pronounced and obvious as we Mobians do. They also aren't as powerful. Fio would want to pick on targets who can do a lot of damage when reversed—making a nice human grumpy or a graceful human clumsy is probably too trivial for him."

"Well, like they say," said Sonic ironically. "When you've got it, everybody wants it."

"They say that?" Tails raised an eyebrow. Sonic grinned and shrugged.

"Well, they do now."

Team Dark, to their displeasure, was getting packed off on more missions these days, as many of the other agents were being deployed to maintain higher security levels. They were all getting a little frazzled.

"I'm heading home to bed," said Rouge wearily, after a double-shift day. "Tell me how the meeting goes."

"You should come," said Shadow. "It's impossible explaining anything to you if you weren't there; it's bad enough repeating everything you weren't listening to even when you were there."

"Sod off," grumbled Rouge. "Not all of us can be machines, you know. And I refuse to swig as much coffee as you've been swigging."

Shadow shook his head, but didn't press the matter.

The meeting was fairly short, going over the past few days' events—no signs of attack on humans yet—and detailing what was expected for the next few days. More of the same; just thinking about a repeat of the past week was exhausting.

And the other question was what they should do in the long run. It was all very well monitoring the local towns for now, but how to actually get rid of Fio? He would come back every time he was killed, and he would probably never go within a hundred miles of an active volcano again. The only remotely feasible option was to kill every single one of his forms—and that was a task that seemed to stretch forward into eternity.

Needless to say, it was not a cheerful discussion—even for a G.U.N. meeting. Shadow was glad when it was over.

"I for one have had it. Going to turn in too?" he asked drowsily, as Omega turned to clank down the hall.

"I do not yet require recharging," Omega replied. "I am going to practice."

"Practice what?"

"The throwing of small four-pointed flat objects. I believe the chameleon calls them, 'shurikens.' He has offered to instruct me in their use, and although they are not nearly as effective as artillery fire—"

"Say no more," interrupted Shadow, holding up a hand. He raised his eyes at the ceiling resignedly as Omega clanked onwards. "I knew we shouldn't have let him get acquainted with that ninja . . . "

For a while he stood in the hallway, massaging his eyeballs with the heels of his hands and debating with himself whether he should go for another coffee or just go to bed. At last he decided on bed, and clambered up the stairs leading to the agents' quarters.

Not many agents spent their nights at HQ.; most of them had homes of their own, even if just little apartments. The agent sleeping quarters were not at all welcoming—just a lot of identical, tiny little rooms, each with a cot and a nightstand, crammed into the center of the building's sixth floor. A hallway ran around the central block of rooms, leading past door after dingy brown starkly-numbered door. There were some tinted windows in one hall providing a pretty charming view of the world below, but otherwise the entire level pulsed with an overpowering sense of loneliness and impersonality, like an abandoned cheap hotel.

It was just fine by Shadow. He didn't care for creature comforts, so long as he had a place to lay his head; he didn't care for company, so long as he could hear the faint bustle of movement on the floors below. He impassively counted off the empty rooms as he walked past; those without occupants, those whose occupants were out on missions or leave or in the hospital, those whose occupants were out slogging liquor in the nearest bar. Foolish, all these trivial amusements. He would rather sleep.

Why Shadow kept his room locked, though, even he didn't know. There was nothing inside except his cot and nightstand, and a framed picture of him and Maria. Nothing anyone would want to take, nothing anyone would want to pry into. Damn him for being so territorial, he told himself for the hundredth time, fumbling through the dim light to procure the room's key.

One of the windows behind him exploded. Shadow whirled just in time to see the sprays of glass shards sparkling outwards as a dark-and-light form plunged through and hit the floor, rolling hard and crashing against the opposite wall.

"Rouge!" barked Shadow, lunging to her side. The bat slowly dragged herself up onto her elbows, her breath heaving, long gashes torn into her fur and clothes.

"He . . . turns into . . . mythical creatures, too," she gasped, her eyes roving to Shadow as he crouched down next to her. "I'm bit . . . H-he's after me . . . "

"The antidote, quickly!" Shadow said, pulling the flask from the cord around Rouge's throat. "It may act preemptively!"

"Mmh . . . " Rouge clutched at the bottle shakily, shivering from either pain or shock, and slopped back its contents. Before Shadow could say another word, the same window suddenly shattered even more, accompanied by a piercing screech. The last few jagged pieces of glass came flying loose from the frame as a gigantic purple creature poured itself through the opening, claws flashing.

It was a griffin. All purple, a deep luxurious purple, purple in its cruel hooked beak and cold avian eyes and magnificently layered feathers and fur. Its claws screamed against the tile floor as it landed violently, twinkling glass crystals flying from its outstretching wings. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous creature—but it was out to kill.

Snarling, Shadow leaped to his feet and drove a Chaos Spear at the intruder. It leaped aside smoothly, its elegant purple lion's tail swishing.

"Do not deny me my prey," rasped an unfamiliar voice. Smooth, cold, subdued, edged with a bloody razorblade of hatred, it could only be coming from the griffin itself—and yet the beaked mouth never moved.

"You speak," hissed Shadow, a second Chaos Spear still glowing in his hand. "You can speak."

The griffin's only response was to hurl itself at Shadow, its claws spread and its beak opening wide, aiming for his flesh. The Chaos Spear flashed searing green light all down the hall, and the griffin screamed as the bolt of energy met its mark. For a second it flailed in midair, its gaping chest smoldering; then it crashed to the floor, limbs flung out in the agony of death.

Cursing, Shadow wiped sweat from his forehead. The creature's beak had missed him by mere centimeters.

A sudden shuffling scrabble from behind stopped him cold. Rouge. Had the antidote prevented the onset of the venom? Had a transformation taken place after all? What would it be?

He turned around, tensed for the worst. Rouge was still slouched near the wall, her head hanging low over her hands. Something was wrong; her fur seemed darker, almost gray-brown; her breath rattled oddly; her wings twitched open ever so slightly as her body spasmed.

"Rouge?" Shadow stepped closer, trying to see her face. "Are you all right?"

She lifted her head. Shadow stopped, transfixed by her eyes. They were still the same glimmering blue-green, but they seemed narrower, harder, full of a strange new light. He'd seen them turn cold before, but never this cold.

Slowly the bat pushed herself to her feet, stood, swaying slightly, one foot turned coyly towards the front. Her wings flared wide—they were suddenly enormous, more than twice their usual span, the lower edge ragged as if it had been gnawed away. Her fur was indeed darker, scruffy now and longer. Her eyes stayed metallically hard, roving appraisingly over Shadow's body; her lip curled upwards slightly in a knowing smirk, revealing the glint of a—much-too-long canine—

"Rouge," Shadow growled softly, as realization rushed over him. This was—

Rouge dove with a leathery crash of wings, turning into a scruffy tan bullet. Shadow, unprepared, felt a driving impact in his chest, then a dull slam as his back hit the wall.

"Get off!" he snarled, pushing away a hand that clawed for his face. "I'll hurt you if I have to!"

Rouge grasped his hand and forced it back against the wall above his head, compensating with leverage for the disparity in strength. Her other arm slid to brace over his throat, pressing just hard enough not to be deadly. Teeth gritted, Shadow grasped her wrist with his free hand, struggling to wrench her away, failing.

Then he made the mistake of looking up.

Rouge's eyes were locked on his own, barely inches away. They pierced straight through him, icy, thirsty, as her breath ruffled quickly back and forth against his face. She was pinning him to the wall with a full-body hold now; he could feel her arm gradually, slowly increasing its pressure, her heart thudding against his ribs, the warm fur of her body pressing against his own, her breath slowing and deepening—and those eyes, full of death and steel and yet asking . . .

The moment was short. Then it was over. Shadow blinked, broke the spell, tossed his head furiously, kicked out with both legs and threw Rouge back, sending her sprawling. He slid down the wall slightly, gulping for air, as Rouge twitched and slowly sat up, dazed.

She moved faster than Shadow could have imagined. Ears snapping back, an animalistic hiss of displeasure, and suddenly she was on him again, ignoring his warning fists. A screech of fury, a swipe—Shadow felt a searing pain in his forehead, and his vision filled with red. Then a thud, a duller pain—and his vision filled with black.

A/N 2: Break for a fun fact: The ending of this chapter was actually one of the first parts of this story to be written; Rouge's transformation was one of the earliest inklings I had of the entire plot, and I couldn't wait to write it. The uncanny part is, after writing this half a year ago, the time to post it comes today—literally the day after my friend smileaway96 posted the precise reverse of this situation in her story "Collapsing."

Smileaway, if that's you out there, we mayyyy have to come to some sort of compromise on who in Team Dark is attacking whom. At the current rate, I foresee a very peculiar and uncomfortable stalemate. :P And if you're reading this and you're not smileaway, what in the world are you standing here for? Go read "Collapsing"! ;)