Hello everyone, I'm back with a new chapter. = )
So here you go. I won't make you wait any longer. ^^

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STAGE 5:

TROPICAL JUNGLE

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Rouge stared at the spot the portal had disappeared, feeling her chest heavy as she breathed short breaths, struggling for air.

A familiar green glint caught her eye. Rouge noticed the green Chaos Emerald lying on the floor and picked it up as she wrapped her head around the events of the day.

She was back in Soleanna, back in the present time. She had one Chaos Emerald out of the two Sonic and Shadow used to make the portal. The portal had closed. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and her made it through, and she assumed Sonic and the others had taken the second emerald with them. They were nowhere in sight. Rouge sighed.

"Shadow…" she breathed as worry crept on her, "And he doesn't have a Chaos Emerald anymore."

Rouge stood up while she racked her brain to think of a way she could help him. He had always been there for her in the most critical of times, she had to be there for him now. The only problem was how. She gazed at the Chaos Emerald in her hand, reminding herself that its power was not bound to time. Apart from Shadow, she knew one other being capable of withstanding the effects of time. There just might be a way…

Suddenly, her G.U.N. communicator started beeping.

"Agent Rouge," the agent began urgently, "Report your status immediately. Have you retrieved the Scepter of Darkness?"

Rouge thought the agent sounded irritated and guessed that he must have been trying to contact her for a while now. "Well," she answered calmly, "I'll provide a full report shortly. Right now, I have a priority situation to deal with."

"I need to contact E-123 Omega immediately," she ordered the agent.

Both her and Shadow knew for a fact that Omega still existed 200 years from now. And here she was with a Chaos Emerald, a tool that could easily keep the top E-series robot running for far longer than that. It could work. She had to try.

Her G.U.N. communicator beeped again. Rouge quickly answered. The agent at the other end told her the location of her robotic friend. He had been sent to the coastline, where there had been eye-witness of Eggman's robots. Omega was there to destroy everything labelled Eggman industries.

Rouge was already on her way when she wondered why her head seemed to be spinning. She soon remembered that she hadn't slept in almost 30 hours now. She promised herself she'd try to sleep after finding Omega.

Rouge had arrived at the coast and was amazed by the beauty of it all. The exotic palm trees and flowers reminded her of the dry lagoon she had visited while searching for fragments of the Master Emerald when she was pretending to work for Eggman while gathering information on Project Shadow. She even spotted a few turtles just like the ones in that dry lagoon, but only bigger.

Now that she was in range of finding Omega, she got out her tracking device to see Omega's location popping up as a blinking dot. Rouge took flight and headed to meet him as quickly as she could.

This peaceful view was a nice change from the one she had witnessed in the future. Although, when Rouge spotted the mentioned Eggman robots, it reminded her that all was not so peaceful in the present either.

She stayed clear of robots, relying more on her stealth skills than her combat ones. Her fatigue was catching up to her. She looked at her tracking device again and was happy to find out that she was almost there.

Rouge persevered and soon had a visual on her destructive friend blowing stuff up. She landed not too far from him and waited for him to finish his destructive rampage calling out to him.

Omega's head spun slowly in her direction, followed mechanically by the rest of his body as he made his way to her. "Hi, long time no see," she greeted him cheerfully.

"ROUGE THE BAT," Omega computed after a quick scan.

Rouge explained the situation to him quickly, knowing he'd catch every bit of information easily.

"SITUATION UNDERSTOOD," Omega replied, "WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO?"

Rouge showed him her Chaos Emerald. "Take this, and deliver it to Shadow," she requested.

Omega reached out and took the emerald in the bat's hand, and placed it into his storage compartment. "SYSTEM REACTIVATION COUNTDOWN INITIATED," Omega began as Rouge took a step back to watch, "BACKUP POWER SOURCE AND SPARE MAGAZINES SECURED. COMMAND PROGRAM PRIORITY CHANGED."

Rouge watched as her friend prepared for a 200 year secured shut down, from what she understood anyway.

"NEW MISSION: SHADOW SUPPORT," Omega continued, "EXTERNAL ACCESS NO LONGER PERMITTED. CONFIRMED."

"I'm counting on you," Rouge said as she watched her friend walk away to be at the right spot to assist Shadow.

What most people would call his best friend, Omega could only refer to Shadow as teammate and occasional sparring partner. One that he was willing to do anything and give everything for.

Shadow glared at the dark aura immerging from the ground. He ignored the portal he had created as it disappeared behind him. This aura was evil, and Shadow recognized it.

As suspected, Mephiles morphed from the aura. He appeared in the form of Shadow again, with all red from his body replaced by gray. Mephiles manipulated the earth under his feat to create a pillar on which he stood, an obvious attempt to intimidate Shadow.

Shadow's blood red irises stared into the creature's toxic green ones, one of the few things that told the two hedgehogs apart.

Shadow had a feeling that if Mephiles had a mouth, he would certainly be grinning evilly at him.

Shadow clenched his fists at his side, ready for anything, and so thankful that Rouge was out of danger.

"So," Mephiles said with an amused tone in his voice, breaking the silence first, "decided to void your return ticket now, did you?"

"Why are you here?" Shadow asked, ignoring him. "Did you ruin this world?" Shadow glared at him, feeling this creature definitely had the power to do so.

"The answer's yes," Mephiles answered, "and no."

This irritated Shadow immensely. Yet another manipulative demon who wanted to toy with his mind. Shadow swore to himself he'd destroy this new enemy.

Mephiles enjoyed the reaction he got out of Shadow and continued, "Perhaps it's better to show you."

At the click of his fingers, appeared an energy-based cage.

Shadow studied it, finding it looked more like a capsule than a cage. One he had been trapped in before. One that still haunted his days and nights.

There was a creature within the capsule, and as soon as Shadow recognized it, he backed away in disbelief.

"Yes. That's you," Mephiles said, savoring the black and red hedgehog's reaction again. "After the world was devastated by Iblis' flames, what do you think happened?"

Shadow was only half listening now, since he knew very well where Mephiles was going with this. It happened before and Shadow trusted humanity to do it again.

"A search for the guilty," Mephiles answered himself, not really expecting Shadow to answer anyway. "Who did this you may ask?" he continued, making Shadow grit his teeth.

Shadow hated this and was now burning holes into Mephiles' head with his glare. Mephiles ignored his threatening glare and continued to speak. "Humanity wasn't just jealous of your power," he said, enjoying the pain his words caused, "They feared it."

Shadow's gaze left Mephiles and found the ground. His anger was being replaced by memories of his past. He looked back at himself, trapped in that capsule by humanity. Trapped in it because he was a deemed a threat, a weapon, a tool, a monster, and… Maria's hope.

"They used this incident as an excuse to hunt you down," Mephiles was still talking. Shadow's mind was racing through memories while also trying to convince himself that Mephiles just wants to use him. Hi anger was boiling up again, but he couldn't find enough will to fight.

"Come with me, Shadow," Mephiles offered sympathetically. Shadow's eyes returned to him.

"Let us punish this foolish world of humanity," he continued. "It's only fair to give back what was intended for you. You have every right to want justice"

'What was intended for me?' Shadow thought. What was intended for him was to help find a cure for Maria's disease, it was to help the world. After that, it was to complete the Eclispe Canon, and destroy the earth. Those were the intentions of Professor Gerald Robotnik for him. And he has completed none of those intentions. Black Doom's intent of using him, Eggman's intent of using him, they were all uncompleted because of Shadow's will. Because of Shadow's intent.

"That's absurd," Shadow finally spoke. His will to fight renewed, Shadow forcefully stared back at Mephiles.

"Whatever it is you want to do," he continued without a blink, "you can do it alone."

Anger welled up in Mephiles. "You forgive humanity this folly then?" he asked in disbelief as he gestured back to the cage.

Shadow glared at him before making his statement clear, lifting his fist to his heart, "I determine my own destiny."

Mephiles furiously glared back and without saying a word, his purple aura burst out of him. As it dissipated, Mephiles appearance had changed to a much more menacing one: his fur was now crystalized black and purple, the true colors of darkness, his fingers were now claws and the white of his eyes was now a poisonous red.

"Such foolishness,"Mephiles said, recomposing himself as that amused tone was back in his voice, "Very well," he continued, "let's see if you can entertain me."

Mephiles then instantly vanished and hundreds of shadows came bursting out and scattered around Shadow.

Shadow readied himself for the attack, searching the area for any sign of the real Mephiles, "Don't bother to try and deceive me," he called out, "I know who I am!"

With that, multiples shadows launched themselves at him. Shadow dodged and hit them but felt no contact when hitting them. They disappeared nonetheless, but this only meant that they were mere pawns wasting his time.

Shadow tried to focus on finding the real Mephiles, but shadows kept lunging at him in every directions. He was able to make them disappear but found out that there claws where sharp and very real one tore through his cheek. Shadow heard Mephiles laugh at this.

"I'm your shadow," he said, somewhere, "you can't even touch me."

That's when Shadow looked to the ground after finishing a homing attack. His shadow was not his shadow anymore. It was a silhouette of Mephiles, orchestrating the attacks of his shadow minions. Shadow realized where his enemy had been hiding all this time and cursed for not realizing it sooner.

Chaos energy flowed into his hand as he darted towards the ground, effectively avoiding another dozen shadows coming at him. He pierced his Chaos-filled hand into the ground where his Mephiles-shaped shadow was. He pulled his hand out of the ground, dragging Mephiles by the throat. "Gah! Shadow! You!" he said, choking.

Before Shadow had time to react, Mephiles sent a blast of poisonous aura at Shadow's chest, making Shadow crash into a rock pillar Mephiles had created by the force of the impact.

Shadow dropped to the ground, out of breath. He gasped for air but the poisonous aura had reached his lungs. It burned to breathe and Shadow began to cough blood.

Mephiles started to walk up to him proudly, preparing to finish him off, when suddenly, bullets pierced his body and sent him flying away from Shadow.

On his knees, Shadow's eyes left Mephiles to find the source of the attack.

"Omega!"

Speaking was painful as well and caused him to cough again, but Shadow was certainly glad to see his friend.

"NOW IS DESIGNATED TIME," the E-series robot said as he retracted his guns into his arm and replace them with his clawed hand, "I SHALL ASSIST."

Shadow was still struggling to breathe as Omega approached him. He lent his metallic hand to him and Shadow took it to get back on his feet. "SHADOW," Omega spoke as his friend got up, "ROUGE ASKED ME TO SUPPORT YOU," he explained.

Shadow breathed his first breath that didn't hurt, his lungs already healing. Omega opened his storage compartment and revealed the green Chaos Emerald to him. Shadow took it and smirked. Rouge had proven yet again how useful an ally she was to him. Shadow held his chest as his breathing steadied and he watched Omega march up to Mephiles who was getting himself up.

"You're just a nuisance…" Mephiles warned, "Robot!"

Mephiles launched another burst of his poisonous gas at Omega, who vanished in a flash of blue light before being touched. "What?!" Mephiles exclaimed angrily. He turned around and spotted Omega behind him, readying his canons to fire.

Before Mephiles could create another attack aimed at Omega, the flash of blue light was back and was inches beside him this time. Shadow appeared from it and delivered a powerful, chaos-filled, kick to Mephiles' head.

Mephiles went flying sideways and was struck mid-air by Omega's canons.

Mephiles forcefully crashed into the ground by the impact. He angrily struggled to lift himself up. He did not anticipate this power Shadow would have with a Chaos Emerald, nor did he anticipate the teamwork Shadow and Omega would have together. He had to retreat if he wanted to complete his goal.

As Shadow and Omega cornered him, Mephiles summoned one of his own time portals.

Shadow quickly recognized it from the one he had used to send Rouge and him in this destroyed future. "Mephiles!" Shadow called as Mephiles passed through the portal.

Shadow grabbed Omega's arm and dashed into the portal just before Mephiles could close it. He wasn't concerned as to where or when the portal would take them, as long as it took him to destroy Mephiles.

The portal dropped them onto a street. They would have gone undetected if it weren't for the loud clanking sound Omega made when landing. Shadow quickly assessed his surroundings. They were back in Soleanna, and from what Shadow could tell, in the present time. Shadow gritted his teeth. This meant Mephiles was back in the present to do whatever he wanted.

"IT APPEARS MEPHILES IS NO LONGER HERE," Omega concluded, "I WILL ASSIST IN PURSUING HIM," he told Shadow. Shadow simply nodded in response.

"SHADOW," Omega spoke, "ROUGE MAY HAVE INFORMATION ABOUT MEPHILES."

Shadow nodded again and reached his own G.U.N. communicator. "This is Shadow," he spoke into it, "Contact agent Rouge immediately."

"Agent Shadow," the G.U.N. agent answer hastily, "Agent Rouge has cut off communications with G.U.N since morning…"

Shadow growled in annoyance. Why couldn't she be more disciplined?

The G.U.N. agent sputtered before continuing, "She was in the warehouse district before we lost contact, maybe you can still find her there."

"Damn it, Rouge," Shadow said under his breath as he ended the conversation. "Let's get moving, Omega."

Rouge hadn't bothered to go back to her apartment in Night Babylon. It wasn't anywhere near Soleanna, so she rented a hotel room in the city under G.U.N.'s name, of course.

After waking up that morning, Rouge had contacted G.U.N. to give them the mission report they had asked from her. She explained her trip to the future and what she saw there. She informed them of the new threat in the form of Mephiles, while also warning them not to target Shadow because of Mephiles' looks. The agent she was speaking with brushed her warning off and Rouge quickly finished her report before shutting off her G.U.N. communicator.

The bat was now waiting at the Soleanna port, finding the sight prettier than that of the warehouse district she was in earlier.

She rested her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees as she sat, perched on a fence facing the water. All she could do was wait, either for another mission from G.U.N., or any sign that Shadow and Omega had returned from the future. She sighed as she hoped for the later.

Humans passing by were giving her judgemental looks. Rouge ignored them, slightly rolling her eyes. Citizens of Soleanna had still never seen anthropomorphic animals like her before. It made her think of her old life in her world, before a handful of her kind were brought here, including herself, Sonic and his crew, and Team Chaotix, if she remembered correctly.

The more she thought about her life back there, the less she missed it. Sure, the Earth was filled with dangers and judging humans, but she preferred it here. This world gave her a job she excelled at and so many treasures she had yet to find.

It's not like she had left many friends behind. She was alone back then…

Besides, this is where she met her teammates. Both Shadow and Omega were created in this world. She wondered briefly how they would react to be in the world she was born in, until something caught her eye.

Sitting on the steps leading to the dock, was a gray hedgehog. Rouge quickly stood up, perfectly balanced on the fence.

Her curious eyes were glued onto the new hedgehog she had never seen before. As far as Rouge knew, Sonic, Amy, and Shadow were the only hedgehogs of the sort on Earth. How could she not know of this one?

She walked steadily on the fence, making her to him. His quills were groomed much differently than Sonic or Shadow. But, similar to Shadow, he had a patch of white fur growing out of his chest.

As Rouge got closer, she noticed more details about the hedgehog. He had black fur marks around his eyes, the same way Shadow has red ones around his. The gray hedgehog had golden irises and wore strange boots that faintly glowed an aqua shade of blue.

Unexpectedly, a lilac cat walked towards the hedgehog from the corner of a building. Rouge quickly dropped from the fence and stealthily hid it, startled to see yet another creature like her that she didn't know. Rouge studied the cat as it approached the hedgehog. This one was female and seemed to be acquainted with the hedgehog.

Rouge shook her head and turned her G.U.N. communicator back on and spoke quickly into it as she kept her eyes on the two newcomers. "This is Rouge. I want a full background check on two suspicious characters…"

"Agent Rouge!" This was the G.U.N. commander speaking and sounded pretty mad, "It is strictly unauthorized to shut down your communicator unless permitted and you know this agent!"

"Commander," Rouge objected, "Look, I just need information."

"Agent Shadow and E-123 Omega are looking for you thanks to your selfishness. Meet them in the warehouse district. Now," the commander ordered angrily and ended the conversation.

Rouge was already flying towards the warehouse district. She hurried as fast as she could.

She flew over one last building and there they were, her teammates, Shadow and Omega, safe and back in the present.

She hurried to them, giggling as she watched Shadow march in circles impatiently.

That's when Shadow spotted her as she landed. Rouge's smile widened as she gazed upon him.

As Shadow gazed upon her, he breathed a deep breath, relaxing a bit and relieved to see she was alright.

A smile of his own even tugged at his lips. Rouge was irresistible as always.

'Damn it' he thought as he struggled to hide his smile.

Thank you for reading! Leave a review and tell me what you think about the story or anything you want!

Until the next chapter, bye-bye! ^^