The day was gray and dull. Mrs. Charis occasionally glanced out of the window at the men and Rouge, who stood outside and looked very bored.
"Nothing's happened all day, mom," Agatha commented as her mother sighed.
"I know, honey. How long will that last, though?"
Agatha pursed her lips as she was at a loss for words. She thought it was unfair that Rouge got to stay outside and she had brought it up with her mother multiple times that day. Of course, Mrs. Charis won that argument.
The day continued to move along, quiet and uneventful. As the sun set along a pink horizon, Mrs. Charis prepared a dinner for the ones outside and, as it cooled down, went to to care of two crying children in the next room.
"Agatha, could you please take the food outside?" called the distraught mother. Agatha called back,
"Yes, mom!"
In a few moments, the girl had two containers of steaming-hot food ready for consumption. She tiptoed out of the garage, looking to see if the coast was clear. When she saw nothing suspicious, Agatha stepped out into the darkening outdoors and quietly called for her father.
"Daddy? Dad? I've got the food!"
"Great, I'm starved!" cried a voice loudly, startling the girl. Knuckles jumped from the shadow of a tall tree and right in front of the girl. "What's for dinner, huh?"
Agatha breathed heavily and chuckled, her heart racing from Knuckles' sudden appearance.
"Well, Knuckles, there's some potatoes, and meatloaf, and some cheese . . ."
She opened the container and let Knuckles take a long whiff of the fresh food.
"Ahh . . ." he sighed dreamily. Agatha giggled again and took a quick look around.
"Where's all the other guys? And Rouge?" she inquired, afraid that they'd jump out at her in the dark as Knuckles did. The echidna, caught with food in his mouth, mumbled a slightly comprehensible response.
"They're all . . . mmph . . . out dere somewhere," he said, indicating the woods off to the side of the house with a gesture of his arms. "I know Rouge . . . was on de udder side of de house."
"Swallow your food, Knuckles!" the girl laughed. Knuckles gulped his food down and grabbed the two containers.
"Well, I guess I can take this to them, then," he said grimly, as though unwilling to share, "Thanks, Agatha, and have a good night."
"You too, Knuckles," she replied, waving as the echidna ran off into the darkness. Chuckling, Agatha headed back inside the house and locked the door behind her.
"Hello, good-lookin' !" cried Rouge when she saw Knuckles coming towards her. Knuckles' face grew hot in embarrassment.
"Now, really, I'm not all that-"
Rouge laughed heartily as Knuckles stuttered.
"Not you, hothead! I was talking about that."
The master thief pointed at the container and inhaled the sweet smell of food. She smiled contentedly at the aroma. Knuckles' face was hot again, but no longer in embarrassment.
"Hmph. Fine, then. I need to save some for the other guys, you know."
Rouge gave Knuckles a thumbs-up.
"No problem," she said with a full mouth, "Oh, and have you by any chance seen Shadow anywhere?"
Knuckles crossed his arms and grunted unhelpfully.
"No. Why? Does he need to be contained again?"
Rouge carefully replaced the lid on the container.
"I don't think so."
The two were silent for a minute, and then Knuckles awkwardly ended the short visit.
"Um . . . well, I'll just get this to the other guys, then. Good luck out here, Rouge. If . . ." Knuckles paused and then hesitated, "if you ever need me, then-"
"Then I'll come and pour my little heart out to you, hon. You'd better get the dinner to the other guys before they get rowdy . . . or before the food gets too cold."
Knuckles barely responded to the bat's small comment.
"Uh, yeah . . . see you, then."
"Bye, hon! Don't you catch a cold, now," she teased. Knuckles growled.
"I won't," he muttered as he walked away.
"It's about time!" Sonic said gleefully as he saw Knuckles coming by with the food. Gabriel and Peter's voices came from nearby.
"Is the food out yet?"
"Is that dinner?"
The three of them munched on the food for about five minutes as the sun's last bit of light vanished over the horizon. Stars began to appear in the sky, becoming more visible every minute. The moon rose as well, shining brightly even in its crescent sliver form. Peter lit a lantern to give a small amount of light while they dined. No one spoke while they ate, and by the time they had almost finished off the food, Sonic grunted as his mouth was full of food.
"Wait, you guys!" he said, swallowing his food, "where's Shadow? We gotta save some of this for him!"
Everyone stopped eating and looked at the meager portions left inside the container. Sonic sighed.
"Ohh, Shads ain't gonna be happy," he said in a "we're doomed" sort of voice. "By the way, where is he?"
Peter, Gabriel, and Knuckles shrugged or murmured "I don't know". Sonic snapped the lid of the plastic container back into place.
"Maybe he went off into the woods," suggested Gabriel. Sonic shrugged.
"Eh, who knows? That guy's unpredictable."
"You're telling me. Next thing we know, we could find him destroying more helicopters," Knuckles growled.
Everyone gave a false sort of chuckle, and then glanced nervously back and forth.
"We'd better go find him," Peter said quickly.
"Right," the other boys replied.
"Sonic, go tell Rouge to be the lookout while we look for Shadow."
"Yes, sir!" Sonic replied excitedly, saluting Mr. Charis. He ran off to the side of the house where Rouge sat on the step of a doorway. When she saw Sonic approaching, the bat rolled her eyes.
"Now what, dessert?" she said in salutation to the blue hedgehog. Sonic laughed.
"Hate to burst your bubble, but no," he replied. Rouge groaned.
"Well, then, what news have you, scout?" she asked, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back on the step.
"We're lookin' for Mr Tall, Dark, and Fluffy. He hasn't eaten yet," Sonic said. "Have you seen him anywhere?"
Rouge shrugged.
"Nope; I haven't seen him. Is that all you came here for?"
"Heh, I'm afraid so," answered Sonic. "Well, just keep your eyes peeled. We're going to be looking for him."
Rouge yawned and twitched her ears.
"No problem; I've got nothing better to do."
Sonic nodded his approval and sped off. As Rouge rested her hands on the back of her head and leaned back, Shadow's voice rang out from nowhere.
"So they want me to eat, huh?"
Rouge jumped up and tried to locate where the voice came from. Shadow watched and chuckled at Rouge's spinning around in search of the black and red hedgehog. He hopped down from where he sat: the roof above the step on which Rouge had sat.
"Shadow, is that what you live for? Scaring other people?"
"Heh, I'll admit that it's kind of fun," Shadow said, cracking a tiny smile. Rouge could feel his smirk, even though it was dark and she could only see his outline against the house. The thief sighed and walked closer to him.
"I think you should probably tell them where you are," she said, "after all, you heard what the faker said."
"Chances are, that gluttonous echidna probably ate all the food and there's most likely not enough for me."
Rouge snickered at the hedgehog's complaints.
"If you're hungry, hotshot, why don't you go find out if they have anything left before making assumptions?"
"If I interpreted that comment correctly, I'd say you're defending that red cretin."
Rouge scoffed, as though shocked by the very idea.
"Of course not! I'm just saying you should stop sulking around and get something to eat."
"Right," mumbled Shadow. He started to walk away when Rouge asked a very serious(highly unlikely for her) question.
"What do you think happened to Omega?"
Shadow stopped and hesitated to turn around.
"I'm sure he's doing fine. Was he with us during the explosion?"
Rouge scratched her ear, pondering.
"I don't remember. Do you?"
Shadow shook his head.
"I don't either. I'm sure that, wherever he is, the big guy's doing just fine."
"Poor guy, out on his own. He seems almost innocent for a robot, even though he's tried to kill you."
Shadow huffed in response.
"He's doing great, I'm sure," he said shortly.
"Mission accomplished. Search successful."
The mechanical voice came from somewhere in the woods. Shadow and Rouge prepared themselves for battle. Shadow let off a few sparks of Chaos Energy and Rouge assumed a fighting stance.
"Targets located."
Rouge and Shadow, although in the dark, exchanged glances with wide eyes. Rouge started to speak.
"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say that was-"
As she spoke, a large figure erupted out of the woods, and before either one could react, Shadow had been tackled by the figure.
"Hey!" he yelled.
The figure got up and grabbed Shadow by the fur on his chest and lifted him up. Shadow, in return, shot a blast of Chaos Energy at the large figure. The figure flew backward and shot small heat-seeking missile at the hedgehog. Rouge ran towards the figure and punched him on the back. She noticed that the back of this character was cold and metallic.
"So nothing's changed, then, huh?" she said from behind the figure. The figure slowly turned around, twisting with creaks of metal. Two illuminated red eyes stared back at the bat. "Omega!" cried Rouge, "As if on cue, you big lug."
Shadow groaned and stood up, recovering from the explosion of the missile.
"More like freak coincidence," he grumbled. Omega started to charge at the hedgehog again, but Rouge countered with a screw kick that left the robot on the ground, motionless.
"What did Shadow do now, you hunk of metal?" she asked playfully.
"You know I never do anything to deserve his attacks," Shadow protested with a low voice.
"My analysis shows that it was Chaos Energy that sent us to this planet. Further analysis has revealed to me that the Ultimate Life Form had been endowed with great amounts of the energy that sent us here."
"So you're saying that you're blaming Shadow for us being here?" Rouge inquired.
"Affirmative."
Shadow and Rouge were both silent until the bat let out a short laugh.
"Ahh, isn't it great to be Team Dark again, Shadow?"
"Yeah, great," Shadow replied bluntly, as Omega charged at him again and the hedgehog ran around in large circles, "Just peachy."
A/N: That little twist at the end came as a mild surprise to me as well as you guys. If I haven't captured his personality or speech correctly, then I apologize because this is my first time actually writing about the big guy.