For a good few days, nothing happened. Knuckles didn't come at all. Besides, Rouge had figured out his little scheme. Apparently the echidna was out to punish her for his near-death with psychological tactics. He must have watched one too many cheap horror movies and decided that a creepy act and a bit of scratching would scare her. Well, nice try, but no dice. Rouge was very cheerful and productive, utterly unhaunted, for more than half a week. Though that's not to say she didn't have eerie dreams at night, about emerald eyes hanging in a huge black void, always mixed with echoing cries of pain and the crunching of bones.
Then, five days later, Rouge went sailing out on a jewel heist. She managed to knock down a nearby museum, getting off scot-free with a foreign jewel it had borrowed for display. My, there'd be a row over that one. She might have to give it back secretly if things got too jumpy, internationally.
As she winged home, Rouge pulled the brilliantly cut ruby out of her treasure-hunting sack. Lovely little bauble, she mused, holding it up against the moon. Still didn't compare to the Master Emerald, though. She smiled slightly, thinking of the huge gem still safely ensconced in her spare room. She went to see it every day, and drinking in its beauty and power never got old.
Rouge landed on her own doorstep without incident. Folding away her wings, she pulled down the black cloth tied over the lower half of her face; she was still in her full stealth outfit. Humming to herself, she unlocked the door, stepped inside, and flicked on the light in the mudroom.
Knuckles stood at the other end of the room. Stock still, eyes still hard and green and angled, looking at her lifelessly. Rouge fell back against the door, dimly hearing it slam shut.
"How did you get in here?" she hissed. The door had been locked. Had he broken a window?
No reply.
For a moment Rouge gazed at Knuckles in silence, as he began to step very slowly closer. Instead of looking better than he had before, he looked worse. The wounds had not healed. If anything, they almost seemed to be larger and more numerous. His limp was gone, but his left arm now hung utterly loose at his side, attached only by flesh, swinging sickeningly as he walked. He came ever closer, till he was within arm's length of Rouge. She couldn't move; those crystalline green orbs seemed to lock her in place.
"Why, Rouge?" Knuckles slurred, swaying slightly.
"Listen, I don't know how you got in, but get out the same way, right now!" Rouge barked.
"Why, Rouge? I didn't wanna die . . . "
"I didn't want to kill you!" Rouge shot back, trying to look away, but failing.
"I didn't wanna die . . . " Slowly Knuckles lifted his right hand, slowly, slowly, reaching towards her face . . .
Rouge stood paralyzed. Every molecule in her body tried to press farther back against that door. He wasn't going to touch her. He couldn't. Not with that horrible blood-striped hand. But the hand kept coming, coming closer, till it almost brushed her cheek—
At the very last second, Rouge struck out, slapping Knuckles' hand away. Even thus briefly touching his glove sent a chilling shock through her gut. It was cold. Icy, life-sucking cold, and faintly mushy, as if there were no blood in his veins at all. But she had done it; she knew she wouldn't be scared to touch him now.
Meanwhile Knuckles held his hand strangely in midair, where Rouge's slap had left it. The two emeralds in his head never once wavered away from Rouge's face. He made no motion.
Rouge drew up her courage and held up her fists.
"All right, I'll tell you one more time. Get out of here, or I'll make you get out!"
Knuckles continued to stand stock-still, staring at her. The only sound in the room was Rouge's breath. Tension seethed in the air.
Abruptly Rouge threw herself aside and flung open the door.
"You heard what I told you!" She pointed grimly. "OUT! Get out this instant, or I'll kick you out!"
Knuckles surveyed her quietly, dolefully.
"You don't want me around?" Plaintive, yet heart-stoppingly sinister. "Is that why you—"
"No it's not!" Rouge shook the door in frustration, reluctant to actually grab Knuckles by the arm and throw him out—particularly as that would mean pulling his dangling left arm. She wasn't quite sure it would stay attached . . .
Mercifully, Knuckles began to step deliberately towards the doorway.
"Maybe you don't want me around," he murmured in passing, staring off into the night. "But I'll be around."
Rouge said nothing. She merely slammed the door shut as soon as she could.
Once she had recovered a little, she went around and checked all the windows. No damage anywhere. There was no indication of how the echidna could possibly have gotten in. The chimney? wondered Rouge. It was a somewhat ridiculous notion—especially, she faintly realized, with that arm of his—but all the same she took care to close up the chimney flue.
The night after that, Team Dark got the evening shift, which meant that after midnight, they were home free. As Rouge sauntered home, her mind strayed as usual to the Master Emerald. But the minute she touched the doorstep, she felt a shiver go through her. Last night she had stood right here, and when she opened the door . . .
It startled her how much willpower it took to unlock that lock and twist that doorknob. Grimly she threw the door open and strode inside.
She looked around. Nothing. Swiveled her ears. Not a sound.
Relaxing, she slapped herself in the forehead.
"Get ahold of yourself, woman," she muttered, heading upstairs to change. She was getting way too paranoid over all this. So the echidna shimmied down the chimney or something, one time! That was no cause to tremble like a stupid kitten every time she walked in the front door. At this rate, she scolded herself, she would soon be expecting Knuckles to be hiding behind every corner. And then behind every chair, and under the table, and tangled in the clothes in every closet, and huddled under the rug, and miraculously crammed inside the refrigerator and toaster oven—
Rouge broke off suddenly as she realized she was laughing. She fell silent immediately. Bad policy, laughing in the silence like that, at things that went on inside your own head. Very bad policy. Better avoid it, to prevent questions.
Shaking off a sudden wave of unease, she went to the little bathroom down the hall to wash her hands. As she lathered up the soap, she looked into the mirror at the reflection of her bathtub's plain white shower curtain. Against her will, her skin began to crawl.
When Rouge had been a little girl, she had never harbored any delusions about monsters under the bed. It just never occurred to her to worry about creatures lurking down there. No, her childhood paranoia had been shower curtains, and something gruesome and carnivorous standing quietly behind them. It was a deliciously terrifying game her mind used to play with her: You know there's nothing back there. You know it. But what if you pulled aside that curtain . . . and something WAS?
Rouge smiled, remembering how her six-year-old self used to stand frozen for ages in the middle of the bathroom, body tense, hand extended uselessly towards the shower curtain, ears straining for the sound of toothy breathing, trying to work up the nerve to actually draw that stupid curtain aside. Geez, she had been just as bad a little idiot as any other kid, back then.
Shaking her head, she shook her hands dry and ironically tossed open the shower curtain on her way out.
And there Knuckles was.
Rouge stumbled back against the sink, her fingers locking onto the edge of the counter. If she couldn't scream, all the same she felt inclined to.
Knuckles wasn't conscious this time. He was sprawled grotesquely at the bottom of the bathtub, looking almost exactly the way he had at the bottom of that chasm. Eyes closed, head lolling, arm dislocated, body crushed, twist of agony in his expression. Blood and various mushy compounds dribbled along the sides and bottom of the tub.
Rouge swallowed the urge to vomit and gradually resumed breathing. For a while she waited, unable to move. Nothing happened. Slowly, with effort, she unclenched her fingers from the countertop and shifted forward slightly. He was dead?
She forced herself to step closer to the tub. She squinted, tensed to jump back. He wasn't breathing. No heartbeat. She'd have been able to hear either of those. Swallowing again, she leaned over to make sure.
The cold emerald eyes shot open. Ragged lips pulled back to reveal snarling teeth, and a hand flew up to snatch her. The next thing Rouge knew, she was in the spare bedroom, wildly, frantically locking the door and throwing herself back against it, her breath coming in sobs. He was going to come. He was going to drag his mangled self out of the tub and down the hallway and go scritchy-scratchy at this very door, this very door she was leaning on . . . she couldn't take it. She'd just outright die on the spot. That's all.
Still trembling, she waited. Her ears strained almost off the top of her head, listening for the sound of Knuckles staggering down the hall.
The tension was agonizing, but fortunately she had locked herself in the guest bedroom, not her own one. The Master Emerald glowed faintly from beneath its blankets, casting a sweet green light across the floor. Rouge fixed her eyes on the gently shifting streaks of luminescence, and, as the minutes dragged on, felt her breath and heartrate ever so gradually steadying.
Slowly, fury built up inside her. Enough with the running! Enough with being freaked out by that stupid echidna! She'd never been scared of him before. She'd never been scared of Shadow or Omega or Eggman or any of the villains and monsters she'd ever run into. It's not like he could hurt her, so why should she worry about him now? Just because he had a weird pair of eyes and looked a little battered? Pshaw.
Standing up, she threw open the door grimly. She was going to find that echidna and boot him once and for all, creepy eyes or no creepy eyes. She stormed down to the bathroom. Knuckles was gone. Even the blood in the tub was gone. What, he'd been nice enough to clean up after himself? thought Rouge sarcastically. She turned around and began to search the house.
She didn't have to search for long. She went down the stairs, and there Knuckles was in kitchen. Blood pooled around his shoes as he rocked unsteadily back and forth, his lifeless stone eyes slanted sadly in Rouge's direction. He seemed to have just been standing there, waiting for her, for a long time.
Rouge felt a sudden pang of regret. He looked so hurt! Maybe . . . maybe there was some way she could help him? And just maybe, if she soothed his suffering a bit, he would forgive her and leave her alone.
"Knuckles?" she said softly, stepping into the kitchen. "There's got to be a way to stop that bleeding. Come on, sit down. If you promise to stop barging into my house like this, I'll fix you up and make you better. How's that sound?"
"Can't pay you," rasped Knuckles.
"That's all right. Come on, sit down."
"Can't pay you," repeated Knuckles in a monotone, his head lolling forwards sadly. "You always want payment. You like jewels, Rouge, don't you?" He gave a chuckle that sounded like it belonged in a tomb. "I remember. You like jewels. Like that Master Emerald most of all."
Rouge paused, uneasy. What was he leading to with this?
"I remember, you came to take it," continued Knuckles in a thin drone. "What was it you said when you took it? Oh, oh yes. Stick your finger in your eye, you said. And you took it." He lifted his head with some difficulty and blinked his hard, soulless eyes at Rouge. "I'll pay you."
Lifting his good arm, he began to gauge at his eye.
"What the hell are you doing?!" choked Rouge. "Stop that! Stop it right now!"
She moved forward to strike him, to yank his hand away. Too late. Deliberately Knuckles dug into the socket, wrapped his hand around the jewel that served as his right eye, pulled. With a sound of sucking flesh, it slid out. Slowly he held the dripping stone out to Rouge. One eyelid sagged loosely over the newly-vacant socket.
Rouge stood welded back against the wall, whispering every possible curse she knew in a jumbled, quivering stream. Her breath heaved as she stared at Knuckles in pure horror, unable to move. He in turn stood motionless, holding his eye out to her. His remaining eye travelled to Rouge's face, surveyed the fear wilding her eyes and plastering her ears against her head. Slowly a horrible, malicious grin oozed across his face.
"Take it, Rouge. Take it."
He took a step closer. Rouge snapped. She flung herself at him, hammered a kick into his skull, heard the kitchen echo with the crack of her boot against bone.
He barely even seemed to notice. Seizing her arm, he threw her to the floor.
The fight must have gone on for hours. Rouge's body sang with pain, from the exertion and the thousands of times those sharp knuckle-spikes dug into her flesh. She attacked furiously, with her feet, her hands, right down to tooth and claw, and yet she couldn't beat him. He was barely able to stand upright, dammit! How did he manage to stand under so many blows? Her hands were soaked up to the elbows in his blood, how much did he have left in him?!
She grew too exhausted to stand up. She half-rose and kicked out whenever Knuckles tried to approach her. Soon she was so tired she could no longer even do that. Knuckles' good arm snaked forward, and his hand wrapped around her throat. Gasping, she kicked him in the stomach; by now the effort was almost feeble.
Knuckles' icy grip didn't loosen. He hoisted her upright by the throat and slammed her back against the wall. A flood of black exploded in her vision, but she fought it off and kicked him again. The lifeless mitt tightened around her throat.
"Lie down and give up, why don't you?" droned Knuckles, his one jewelled eye and one empty socket staring into Rouge's soul. She wasn't going to give. Even all this couldn't break her. She kicked again, lashing blindly with her feet. Her lungs cried out for air, as her windpipe came dangerously close to caving in.
Slowly, sadly, Knuckles shook his head. His icy grip tightened further. Rouge's eyes stared at him pleadingly; then they glazed and slid shut.
