Bracing herself in the air as Angel Island plummeted down, Rouge felt herself go dizzy with triumph. Finally! Finally the ultimate treasure was hers! Through the cloth slings, she felt the Emerald's enormous weight tugging on her arms, making her shoulders ache. It was murder just keeping it level, let alone lifting it—but all the same, an intoxicating joy seemed to flow from the gem's glowing facets. Dimly Rouge heard the ponderous crunch of Angel Island hitting the earth, far below. The megalithic landmass lay tilted against a mountainside, its trees skewed oddly. That silly echidna was probably still hopping around in fury right now.
Well, no time for him. First to get her precious prize to a safe hiding place. Turning with difficulty in the air, Rouge flapped in the direction of the secret cave, the one where she kept all her pilfered treasures.
The Master Emerald seemed to only grow heavier. Rouge's unbridled joy began to mix with exhaustion, as she sank lower and lower towards the craggy ground below.
At last she knew she had to rest. She was a long distance from the crashed Angel Island, and not too far from her secret cave. She could stop for a moment to rest and relish her victory.
Gently she set the Master Emerald down in some gorse-bushes. Her breathing was slightly labored from her recent exertion, but she still refused to sit down. She had to look at her beloved Emerald, touch it, reassure herself that it was really her very own now.
"So beautiful," she whispered, sliding her vision reverently along the stone's smooth surfaces and sharp edges, drinking in its seductive fluorescent glow. She looked down at her gloved hand; it was tinted a soft, gentle green by the light exuding from the Emerald. Dare she touch it? Dare she?
But after all, why not? It was all hers, now. Slowly, almost fearfully, she stretched out her hand and skimmed her fingertips over one of the Master Emerald's facets.
Bliss. So cool, so smooth, a more beautiful feeling than the most smoothly polished mirror. Mystical powers rushed up her fingers and through her arm, singing in her blood, filling her head like the highest climatic note of a choir. Almost without her willing it, her hand stroked lovingly along the Emerald's nearest facet, again and again, filling her with a heady, almost incoherent euphoria. Was this what it felt like to be drunk? she wondered dimly, feeling her eyes sliding closed and her body crying out to just lean . . . closer, nearer, bury itself in this beautiful radiance—
"Rouge!" bellowed a voice in the distance. "Rouge!"
Her head snapped around, her teeth flashing briefly in the green light. Knuckles. The blasted echidna was still after her. No! Not when she was this close! Not when the Master Emerald had been all hers for such a short little time! He would not have it. Never!
Rouge backed up against the Master Emerald and scowled as Knuckles came plowing into view. The echidna was still dripping wet and muddy from the pond, and worn out from the long chase. Rouge would have felt sorry for him normally, but not under these circumstances.
"Give that back!" he shouted between gasping breaths. "You crazy bat!"
"No way! Face it Knuckles, it's mine now!" Rouge shouted back. "Do you hear me? MINE!"
"You have to give it back!"
Knuckles was already drawing back his fist as he stumbled closer. Before he could do anything, Rouge sprang forward and struck him across the jaw, viciously. He reeled back, hand pressed to his cheek in pain.
"Get lost!" snapped Rouge. "You and your stupid rock. Maybe I want it for a change!"
Knuckles swung at her. She shifted aside, feeling the breeze from his fist skim her ear. Tumbling back nimbly, she lashed out with her feet, driving one toe into his midriff and letting the other crack him under the chin. No mercy today, no going easy. That gem would not go back to him if she could help it.
The blows were well-calculated. Knuckles crashed back against the side of the mountain, then slid limply down to the ground.
"Rouge," he whispered, barely conscious. Shivering with exertion, he slowly staggered to his feet.
"Lie down and give up, why don't you?!" barked Rouge. "I don't want to hurt you, but you give me no choice!"
"I have to . . . stop you . . . " hissed Knuckles, stumbling towards her. She hesitated, her breath coming sharp and quick. Could she dare raise her hand against him? When he was this pathetically battered? She—she didn't want to cause him pain, she—why did he have to keep coming? Why? Couldn't he understand how it hurt her to hurt him, couldn't he just leave her alone so she wouldn't have to hit him anymore?
By then Knuckles was upon her. His fist stung against her shoulder. The pain roused her to fury once more, and the brawl became rapid and mindless. Determination sang through Rouge's veins as she advanced upon Knuckles, pushing him back, forcing him to block helplessly, drawing the occasional cry of protest as she struck where she knew it would hurt. He struck back with equal fury.
Suddenly time seemed to stop. There was a faint crunching of stone, the heels of Knuckles' shoes struck air, the dark maw of a chasm loomed underneath him. His eyes flew open wide as he strained forward, his feet scrambling desperately for purchase—and Rouge pushed him back. A cry; he vanished down into the blackness.
Rouge stepped back and placed her hands on her knees, panting. Well, that got him out of the way! Lucky thing Knuckles had his dreadlocks. He'd make it to the bottom safely. By the time he climbed back up, she'd be gone.
She retrieved the Master Emerald, laboriously hoisted it off the ground, and began to fly away with it. As she crossed the chasm, she glanced downwards idly, to see if Knuckles was climbing to the top yet. When she squinted down into the black depths, a sudden realization came screaming into her brain.
Knuckles' dreadlocks didn't work when wet.
Everything in her went cold. Her wings stopped moving. It was a wonder she didn't break her neck, because she dimly remembered plummeting down into the chasm, getting tangled with the Master Emerald, tumbling through the air in her blind haste. It was all a blur; all she knew was that soon she was at the bottom of the chasm, the Master Emerald was plunged halfway into the ground from the fall, and Knuckles was lying sprawled before her.
He was dead. That was inevitable, of course, falling from that height. His neck was broken, his arm at an odd angle, his eyes (mercifully) closed. The other details of the scene you can supply yourself, based on your experience with and preference for horror. However you imagine it, it was a gruesome sight.
Rouge stood numbly, rooted to the ground. The ability to scream would have been nice, just now . . . death had never been on her list of tricks, she took jewels, not lives. She had never killed anyone, never tried to, never stepped beyond that boundary. And now, not just anyone, but that lovable brute of an echidna? No . . . no. It couldn't be. It couldn't.
"Knuckles," she whispered. "Knuckles, don't be—"
Something inside her snapped, and she fell to her knees at the echidna's side, shook him desperately by the arm, choked in horror as the arm flopped loosely, the bone no longer connected to the torso. How could he be dead? How? How could she have killed him?!
Tremblingly she slid her hands under Knuckles' broken body, drew him close, buried her fingers in his dreadlocks and her face in the top of his head, whispering incoherently into his blood-matted fur.
"Please don't be dead Knuckles, please, please don't be dead, please Knuckles . . . "
She must have lost consciousness. That, or pure misery rendered her so numb that she left the outside world for a while. Either way, it felt like hours later when she finally lifted her head, still clutching Knuckles' body close. Her temples throbbed as she fixed the Master Emerald with a look of pure hatred. The unspeakable—! Blame was easily shifted in times of desperation. This was all the stupid rock's fault. What good was the stupid, stupid rock? It couldn't save Knuckles. It didn't save him, and now he was DEAD!
"Why don't you do something, you stupid good-for-nothing rock?!" Rouge choked, dashing angry tears from her eyes. "You damned good-for-nothing rock! You're supposed to be so damned all-powerful, and you can't even save him! You—you—"
She broke off as a blinding green light suddenly shot from the Master Emerald's side. It swept rapidly around the area like a swinging searchlight, flashing across rocks and vegetation and scratching infinitely into the dark sky for just the briefest instant. Rouge watched, frozen in awe, as the beam finally came to rest upon Knuckles.
The echidna's body began to glow green. Gently the beam of light seemed to tug him out of Rouge's arms, lay him softly on the ground. Small tendrils of energy sprouted plantlike around the prone red form, swirling like wisps of glowing green smoke, melting away the dried blood on his fur. Slowly the light grew brighter and brighter, enveloping his body in a curtain of white-green luminescence. Rouge shielded her eyes, squinting between her upraised hands wonderingly.
At long last, the light faded. Knuckles' body twitched. Slowly, laboriously, he moved. Got his arms underneath himself. Heaved himself to his feet.
"Kn—Knuckles!" gasped Rouge. "You're all right!"
Knuckles swayed slightly, catching his footing. His head hung low, as his still-battered body struggled to remember how to stand.
"Knuckles," whispered Rouge, stumbling to her feet herself. "I'm—I'm so sorry—"
Silently Knuckles turned away from her.
"I didn't mean to! Honestly, I—I forgot you wouldn't be able to glide, and I—Knuckles, I never meant to hurt you—"
His back remained turned. Sharply he held out one arm for silence. When Rouge complied, he walked limpingly away without so much as a backwards glance.
Rouge plopped back down on the ground, awash in a mixture of delirious joy and utter pain. Of course, of course Knuckles wouldn't want to even bear the sight of her. She'd—for a time there, she'd killed him. She had no right to ever show her face to him again. But he was alive! He was alive again! That was all that really mattered. Perhaps someday she could go and apologize fully, plead forgiveness, somehow atone for what she'd done. But right now, attempting to follow him with empty apologies would only cause him pain and anger. Later.
But now . . . Rouge looked again at the Master Emerald. Knuckles had left without it. It had saved him, but now his distaste for Rouge evidently overpowered his desire to retrieve his Emerald. Now that Rouge's grief had dissipated, she again recognized the glorious luster of the precious stone. Ah . . . well. Everything had turned out all right, hadn't it? So she might as well finish what she started . . . but her secret cave wasn't safe enough. No. She would take the Master Emerald home and hide it in the guest bedroom, that's what she'd do.
Smiling through her last few tears, Rouge scooted forward and began to dig the Master Emerald out of the ground.
