CHAPTER 8

ONLY IN DEATH

Much later, Rouge had suddenly woken from her sleep. She felt it strange how she had suddenly woken up in the middle of the night. She had a feeling that something was not right. A bad feeling was settling at the pit of her stomach. She had the urge to go and check on Joseph. She slowly got out of bed and began to walk towards the door of her bedroom until she spun around and turned to Shadow. She watched him still sleeping peacefully like a sweet child. She decided not to wake him and continued to leave the room. When she finally made her way into Joseph's room, she looked around the dark room to see if she could spot her body sleeping in the small bed. With the moonlight shining from the small window of the room, the light had radiated on the bed. From where she was standing the bed seemed empty. Her heart raced in uprising panic. She quickly turned on the lights and didn't see any trace of Joseph in the small room. Her body shook in panic. "No…" she murmured.

When she ran back into her bedroom, she turned on the lights and tried to wake Shadow. "Shadow!" She called as she ran over to him and began to shake his sleeping body. "Shadow, wake up!"

The hedgehog peaked his eyes open in annoyance at the worried bat woman. "Wha? What the hell is going on?"

"Joseph!" She shouted in alarm. "She's gone!"

He rose his head up from his pillow and gave her a worried look. "Are you sure?"

She made a nod, "Yes! I looked everywhere for her! She's nowhere in the house!"

He stood up from the bed and rubbed her shoulders to calm her down. "Calm down. I had a feeling she would attempt to run away so I placed a tracking device on her."

"You did? Shadow, that's brilliant." She saw him pull out his communicator from the holster on his pants. She noticed him staring at the screen. "Well?" She spoke eagerly. "Do you know where she is?"

He responded without looking away from his communicator. "She's somewhere in the outskirts of the city."

She gasped in shock from his answer. "What? What is she doing way out there?"

He shook his head and placed the communicator back in the holster of his pants. "I don't know but we have to find her before she gets hurt."

She made a nod in agreeing with him. She had hoped they both found Joseph before something bad happened to her.

Later, Joseph was wandering around the dark and eerie woods that was far from the city. As she walked throughout the deep woods, she looked around nervously. 'I didn't want to run away', she thought. 'Detective Hedgehog and Detective Bat are really nice but they were going to bring me back home…I just know it…' She stopped in her tracks when she heard a radio off in the distance and someone responding back.

"Still no sign of subject X-23. Resuming mission."

She looked around until she saw someone walking throughout the woods wearing a dark blue military like uniform. He wore a black helmet so she couldn't see his face. He was also carrying a rifle with a flashlight attached to it. She looked closer at the words that were imprinted on the chest of the vest the person was wearing. Her eyes widened as she saw the word, G.U.N. She thought that the strange figure in uniform was a military officer. She had wondered why a military officer would be roaming around the outskirts of the city during this time late at night. Whatever the reason was, she had no intention of finding out. Before could she walk away, she had accidentally stepped on a stick and snapped causing the military officer to look in her direction.

He pointed his rifle around the area Joseph was hiding in. "Who's there? Come out now!" He ordered. It wasn't long before the small raccoon child peeked her head out and nervously confronted him. He slowly lowered his gun when he saw sight of the child. "What are you doing out here?"

She hesitated to answer to him. "I…um…" Her eyes widened when she saw him walking over to her.

"It's too dangerous here. Come with me. I'll take you home."

As he walked closer to her, she began to step away from him. "No! You won't make me go back!"

When he saw her turn and starting to run away from him, he began to run after her. "Hey! Stop!"

She continued to run from him until she suddenly bumped into a familiar bat woman who was dressed in a purple uniform. She screamed when she felt her arm being grabbed by her. "No!"

"Joseph!"

When she heard the familiar feminine voice, she looked up at the bat woman and realized it was none other than Rouge with Shadow standing by her side. "Detective Bat?"

Rouge hugged the frightened child in relief. "Thank God you're okay!"

When the officer caught up to her, he saw her with the two detectives. "Who are you? State your names!"

The black hedgehog flashed his eyes over to the man in uniform in uprising anger. He figured by the way Joseph was reacting to him, he must had frightened her pretty badly. "Who the hell do you think you are? What did you do to her?"

The officer confronted the angry hedgehog. "I don't know who the hell you think you are! Step aside! I'm taking that child with me!"

"Joseph is in our care! Back off!"

While Shadow and the officer were arguing, Joseph turned to Rouge with a worried expression. "Detective Bat, we have to go!"

She gave her a confused look. "I know you're scared but everything is going to be okay."

The child shook her head. "No! You don't understand! It's here!"

Rouge's heart raced when she noticed Joseph panicking. "What are you talking about? What's here?"

The officer still continued to argue with Shadow. "You're pretty bold going up against a G.U.N. soldier. Insubordination against orders can have you placed under arrest!"

Shadow had a deep hatred for the G.U.N. military and the officer he had confronted wasn't changing this thoughts on the military one bit. He grabbed the officer by the collar of his dark blue vest. "Listen to me you pompous piece of shit!" Before he could say anymore, a strange four legged brown creature with sharp claws, sharp fangs, a long tail, and bloodthirsty red eyes had came from the darkness of the woods and confronted the group.

Rouge stared at the creature in disbelief. "Oh my…"

Shadow fixed his eyes on the strange creature as well. "What the hell?"

"It's the subject!" Before he could raise his gun to fire at the creature, the creature took its tail and whacked him hard into a tree. The impact hit him so hard, it knocked him unconscious.

Afterwards the creature fixed its sights on Joseph who was standing beside Rouge.

When Shadow saw the creature making its way towards them, he took out his handgun and shot it in the back to distract it.

Even though the gunshots didn't do much to slow it down, it spun around to confront the hedgehog and charged at him with its fangs parted.

He kept firing the gun at it until it ran up to him and knocked him to the ground.

When Rouge thought he needed help, she looked down at the frightened child standing next to her. "Stay here, Joseph."

The child did as she was told and watched her send a powerful kick to the creature's side to knock it off of Shadow. She helped Shadow off of the ground and turned to the monster that was still determined to kill them. "What the hell is that thing?" Her eyes widened when she saw the creature fixing its eyes on Joseph. She gasped in horror, 'That thing…was this the thing that Joseph foresaw?' Her heart raced when the thought occurred to her.

When the officer gained consciousness again, he saw the creature slowly approaching the small child.

Frightened, Joseph began to step away from the creature that was approaching her. It was only a matter of time when it started to run over to her to attack her. She screamed and closed her eyes as the creature approached her.

Before it could touch her, Rouge jumped in between them and stabbed it in its throat with a combat knife. The creature cried in pain and collapsed to the ground.

Shadow let out a huge sigh of relief.

Rouge slowly spun around to the scared child and formed a warm smile. "I told you everything would be okay. You're still here."

The child couldn't believe it. She just knew that the strange monster would've taken her life but in the end, Rouge had saved her. She was beginning to think that death could be cheated after all. She looked up at the bat woman with a wide and warm smile.

Shadow's heart skipped a beat when he saw the creature starting to slowly moving its body. "Rouge!"

Rouge saw the creature standing behind Joseph. Before she could do anything, she heard a loud gunfire and she was suddenly covered in blood. She looked back at Joseph who was staring at her with a frozen look on her face and a gunshot wound had appeared in her chest. Tears swelled in her eyes when she realized that the shot had pierced through Joseph and at the creature killing it instantly. "…Joseph?"

A small smile formed on the child's face. "…Thank you", she spoke weakly. "…For trying to…save me…"

Shadow and Rouge watched in horror as the child collapsed to the ground.

"Joseph!" Rouge kneeled down to the little girl and shook her body trying to wake her up. "Joseph! No!"

The black hedgehog's red eyes flashed over to the officer who dropped his rifle to the ground and took off his helmet.

When he dropped his helmet to the ground, his appearance was of a red middle aged fox man. In shock, he stared at Rouge who was holding the body of the dead girl close to her. "My…God…what have I done?" He suddenly saw the hedgehog violently grab him by his vest and give him a furious look.

"You son of a bitch!" He yelled, "Do you realized what you've just done!"

"I…I didn't mean to…"

Rouge's eyes widened when she saw Shadow's reaction and thought they he would probably beat the man senseless for accidentally killing Joseph. She made her way over to the two and broke Shadow away from him. "Shadow, stop! He…"

He never took his angry eyes away from the saddened military officer. "He killed her! That bastard killed Joseph!"

Tears streamed down the man's face as he sadly stared at the little girl's dead body. He broke down on the ground and began to sob as he was filled with regret and remorse. "It was an accident!" He cried, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Author's Note: One chapter is left! Get ready!

In The Next Chapter...

Shadow: G.U.N. soldiers are here...

Rouge: You can't blame the entire military for one soldier's mistake...

Shadow: You call yourself trying to help people! You and the entire military are shit!

Vector: Shadow, stop!