CHAPTER 21

LIEN-DA

Much later on Angel Island, Rouge was sitting on the nicely trimmed cut grass under a shady tree. A gentle breeze had flowed through her hair allowing a calm smile to form on her face, as she enjoyed the warm weather. She looked over at the female pink echidna woman sitting next to her. She had pink hair with one cybernetic dreadlock, half of her right arm was cybernetic as well. She wore a black and green sleeveless vest, black skinny jeans, and knee high green boots.

She smiled as she saw her watching other young echidna children playing tag with each other out in a field full of white flowers near them.

The pink echidna watched as one of the young echidnas approached her while holding a single white flower up to her.

The echidna child was a young boy whose fur was red and had white tips at the end of his dreadlocks. He wore a blue short sleeve vest, blue denim shorts, and white sneaker. He appeared to be ten or possibly eleven. "Aunt Julie-Su! Look what I got for you!"

She carefully took the flower from him and sniffed it. She then gave the child a warm smile. "It's beautiful. Thank you, Rutan."

The small child smiled wide and then ran off to play with the other echidna children once again.

Rouge admired the tender moment between the two. "I didn't know you had a nephew, Julie?"

She turned back to her with a small smile. "Yeah", she spoke. "I don't get to spend much time with him cause of work and all. He stays at an orphanage nearby."

A worried look had appeared on Rouge's face. "Why is that? Something happened to his parents?"

Julie-Su glanced back over to him and made sure he was distracted by playing with the other children before she started to tell Rouge briefly what had happened to his parents. She looked back at Rouge and began to explain in a low voice. "His mother went psycho and killed his father and then ran off."

Rouge placed her hand over her mouth in shock. "Oh my God…"

"Yeah it's sad but it all happened when he was just a newborn so he wasn't old enough to understand."

"…Does he know?"

She shook her head slowly, "We've been telling him that he was simply abandoned by his mother and father. Everyone tells him that no one has ever met his parents. Everyone just agreed to try to keep everything a secret around him. It's just too horrifying to tell him at such a young age. He'll know the truth when he's older."

She placed a finger to her chin and then nodded as she agreed that telling him about his parents once he matured enough would be best for him. "I see…" She then decided to change the depressing subject. "Oh! Thank you again Julie, for having me here. I've been having a rough past couple of days over in Tech City. I really needed a break from all of the drama."

Julie-Su gave her a sudden worried look. "No problem. What's been going on anyway, hun?"

She bit her lip as she hesitated to explain her situation with Shadow. She had to admit to herself it was depressing to even talk about it but she knew if she didn't, she would never get her problems off of her chest. "Well, Shadow and I have hit a snag in our relationship…"

"Aw shit…what happened?"

She sighed sadly as she replied, "Shadow cheated on me."

She couldn't believe the words that was coming from her mouth. She couldn't dare imagine Shadow ever cheating on any woman. Least of all Rouge. Not after all the times and years they shared working so closely with each other. "…What? Shadow? Shadow The Hedgehog? I don't believe this…"

The bat woman nodded sadly. Just by saying those words, she felt herself wanting to cry all over again.

"What happened?"

"Well", she began. "He had got a new job as a lieutenant at the G.U.N. military facility."

"Oh I see", she replied with a surprised look on her face.

"And ever since, he started getting close to another woman lieutenant who was trying to get close to him even though she already knew we were dating."

"Wow", she spoke in surprise. "What a bitch."

"Tell me about it", she added in a bitter tone.

"But I don't understand. What made him want to do something like that to you, Rouge?"

"Well, Espio apparently had talked to him face to face about it yesterday. He said the real reason why he had done it was because I didn't trust him enough…" Her eyes slowly wandered down to the ground.

Julie-Su arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Oh that seems like a good enough reason to cheat", she spoke sarcastically.

The bat woman's ear flopped down in sadness, "I don't know, Julie. Looking back at it now, I can kind of see why he did it. No wonder he went after her. I pushed him away…"

Just by hearing the hoarse tone in her voice, she could tell Rouge was on the verge of shedding tears. "So you and Shadow were both at fault. At least now you two see what led up to this." She turned to her with a serious look on her face, "Rouge, in my opinion I'm sure Shadow feels like shit over what he's done. If I were you, I'd talk to him about it face to face one final time to see if he's really sorry."

"…But…what if he hurts me again?"

"Then that has to be risk you're willing to take to give the guy you know you still love another chance to come back into your life."

She made a small nod, "Well, he did seem like he was falling to pieces over it and he sounded really sorry…" She looked back up at her with a small smile. "You're probably right. I'll try to talk to him again. Thank you, Julie."

Her smile widened as she saw Rouge become full of hope that her and Shadow's relationship would eventually get back to where it once was. "Hey I'm no love doctor, but I'm glad I could help."

Rouge felt so thankful she had good friends such as Julie-Su to lean on for support.

"What was the skank's name anyway?" Julie-Su had asked in curiosity.

"Oh, she was actually an echidna. She probably originated from here to be honest."

She arched an eyebrow towards her when she found it interesting to hear that Shadow found interest in an echidna woman. "…Really?"

She made a nod. "Yeah. Who knows? You may have heard of her. She goes by the name Lien-Da."

All of a sudden, Julie-Su's eyes had widened and her heart raced inside of her chest.

Rouge stared her shaking hands. Just seeing her strange reaction had worried her. "…Julie?"

"…Lien-Da…" She slowly looked back at the worried bat woman with a horrified look on her face. "…Did you just say Lien-Da?"

She shifted her eyes nervously before replying to her. "…Yeah?"

Julie-Su clenched her fists tightly and gritted her teeth as she looked back down at the green grass. "It can't be…All these years…This entire time?"

Rouge began to become frightened by Julie-Su's reaction. She figured that Julie-Su had to have some kind of connection with Lien-Da. "Julie, is omething wrong?"

"Yes...very wrong." She slowly turned back to her. "Rouge, Lien-Da is a S ranked criminal here on Angel Island."

"…Wha-What? You…you're kidding?" She watched as she slowly shook her head.

"Lien-Da is Rutan's mother…and also my older step sister."

Rouge uneasily stroked her hand through her hair as she tried to take everything that she had just said in. "I can't believe this…Julie, what's going on? What is this all about? Who the hell is this woman?"

She sighed heavily as she tried to calm herself down so she could start explaining to Rouge about her relationship with Lien-Da. "I suppose I'll start from the beginning…" She stroked her fingers against her cybernetic dreadlock and stared at it as she held it in the palm of her hand. "Years ago, Lien-Da and I used to be apart of a group known as The Dark Legion. They were a group who had claimed to make Angel Island a better place to live in. However, their version of a better world was far from what I had expected. It turned out they were an evil organization that hurt and killed innocent lives but in their eyes they were just simply proving a point so others wouldn't rise against them."

As Rouge listened to Julie-Su explaining about The Dark Legion, she figured that in some point of her life she had followed a few of their examples and have hurt others in the past as well.

"As soon as I figured out what they were about, I left the group along with Lien-Da after I had convinced her. Afterwards, Lien-Da had settled down with a nice guy and throughout their time together, she eventually got pregnant and later gave birth to Rutan. However, shortly after that, her boyfriend had found out she was still secretly working for The Dark Legion. She told him that she was planning to initiate Rutan into The Dark Legion as well."

"…Initiate?" She repeated blankly.

Julie-Su flashed her cybernetic dreadlock at her. "I know you've always been curious about this right? Well, The Dark Legion were extremely reliable with technology so every member of the group had replaced an organic part of their body with cyber enhancements. The classic was always having the one cybernetic dreadlock."

She gasped in horror as she stared at her mechanical dreadlock, "My God…she was going to do that to Rutan?"

She made a small nod, "Yes and when her boyfriend knew about it, he immediately didn't approve of it. At that point, he knew it was too dangerous for Rutan to be around her. So he tried to take him away from her. When she had learned that he was trying to take their son from her, something inside of her snapped…"

Rouge continued to listen carefully to her story, "What happened then?"

"She killed her boyfriend and then started to aimlessly rampage throughout our village." Tears swelled in her eyes as she continued. "She killed my mother and father and also other innocent lives that night. When I found her, she was holding Rutan in her arms while he cried and screamed. They were both drenched in blood from her slaughtering so many of our people."

Rouge's mouth hung open in horror as Julie-Su continued to speak.

"Her eyes…", she spoke in a hoarse voice. "As I looked into her eyes, I could see right then that she was already far too gone…" A tear fell from her cheek, "I tried to stop her but I couldn't. But I did save Rutan before she had taken him with her."

Rouge glanced at Rutan playing with the other kids and then looked back at Julie-Su. Judging by Rutan's current age, she knew that the events that involved Lien-Da had happened at least ten years ago.

"Lien-Da disappeared from Angel Island for years and no one has ever heard any talk of her." She slammed her fist down on the ground hard. "And now knowing she's been in Tech City all this time…And serving as a G.U.N. lieutenant as well…" She had to admit that having Lien-Da working in such a place as that was just surprising that no one had ever heard of it.

"Well, G.U.N. has had some evil leaders in the past so its no surprise how she got the job there", Rouge had spoke.

"Rouge", Julie-Su called. "Listen to me. This woman is very dangerous and if she's as close to Shadow like you say she is, then Shadow maybe in grave danger and to anyone else around her as well."

Rouge gasped in horror at the thought of Lien-Da possibly trying to kill Shadow. Especially when she knew that Shadow was going to supposedly break off any connections he had with her. She had feared the worst. "…Oh God…Shadow…" She saw Julie-Su standing from the ground with her dreadlocks fluttering within the wind.

"There's no time to waste! We need to get to Tech City to warn the others!"

Rouge stood from the ground as well and nodded. "Right!"

Julie-Su looked down at her tightly clenched her fist, 'Lien-Da…it's time to end this…'

In The Next Chapter...

Trevor: Every morning you would walk through those doors and lie to our faces!

Sierra: I don't understand any of this...

Gin: We never wanted to hurt anyone...

Lien-Da: But we'll do whatever it takes!

Shadow: You're crazy! Both of you!