Rouge tossed the loose panel to Stone's room aside, the metal clanging as it slapped against some distant surface inside the ceiling. The man released a startled, undignified yelp and jumped to his feet, a customary reflex ever since Rouge had begun her frequent visits.
"Yoohoo!" she sang, wiggling her fingers with her characteristic – though he was never sure if it was genuine – cheer. Stone gave her a meek wave back. She floated down, teal eyes shimmering with excitement and pink lips spread in her signature smile. She brandished a bundled cloth toolkit. "Today's the day!"
"'The day'?" he repeated, raising a brow.
"Ah. The guac maker," Shadow drawled, making Stone yelp again. The hedgehog remained in the ceiling, taking a seat to watch the scene unfold below. He drew one leg up, the other dangling over the edge of the makeshift entrance, and hooked his elbow over his knee, leaning slightly forward so he was only partially shrouded in the darkness of the rafters. He scowled as he waited impatiently for Rouge to finish her 'errand'.
"'The guac maker'," Stone mimicked in a poor imitation of Shadow's raspy baritone, making the hedgehog grumble at the mockery. The prior G.U.N. agent appeared ready to continue on an annoyed tirade but slowly trailed off. Momentarily still, then apparently rebooting and remembering the entirety of the Eclipse Cannon saga, he cried, "SHADOW?!"
"Oh, lovely! You two are already acquainted," Rouge said warmly in pseudo-surprise, keeping low and out of sight of the window as she crept towards the door.
"Unfortunately," they acknowledged.
"Well, I can't wait to hear the details," she purred, unraveling the bundled toolkit on the floor beside her, humming happily as she picked through its contents. She settled first on a portable, high-powered fiber laser, turning and, with practiced precision, cutting through the metal to access the robust lock on the outside of the door, painstakingly avoiding tripping any of the programmed alarms.
"However," she continued breezily, "We'd better save story time for later. We're in a bit of a time crunch."
"How do you know the spy?" Shadow asked the dumbfounded Stone, as casually as if they were discussing the weather; as though he hadn't all but risen from the dead. Rouge frowned deeply at the insinuation.
"Not a spy!" she corrected for what felt like the umpteenth time, the emphasis dripping with sarcastic glee.
Stone and Shadow shared a look. "Definitely a spy," the pair confirmed simultaneously.
Rouge's snout scrunched in unspoken frustration, but before she could continue to argue, Stone answered the question: "Rouge just appeared one day in my cell. Same as you just did, actually."
"No doubt sent by Commander Rockwell," Shadow conjectured, voicing his suspicion.
"Excuse me," Rouge snapped with growing shrillness, flicking off the laser and tossing it back into her kit. "I feel it necessary to point out I'm currently helping both of you escape – a decision that'd make for a pretty terrible spy!"
"Or a terribly good one," Shadow mused with a partial smirk.
"Um, hi," Stone interrupted, waving at the hedgehog to get his attention. He cleared his throat as Shadow's gaze slid to meet his.
"HOW ARE YOU ALIVE?!" he yelled, making Rouge cover her sensitive ears with a squeak and Shadow snarl at his stupidity.
Outside his room, in the centrally located security booth, the two guards on duty peeked through the metal mesh separating their kiosk from the surrounding cells, watching Stone seemingly ranting to himself through his cell's window. They exchanged knowing glances. "Poor guy's losing it," one muttered to the other.
"Keep your voice down," Shadow hissed through bared fangs, tempted to hop down and throttle the man.
"Then answer my question!" Stone hissed back. "And by the way, though I appreciate the sentiment," he told Rouge with a dismissive flutter of his hand, "I'd prefer to stay here."
Now it was the aliens' turns to nearly shout. "What?"
Stone turned from the incredulous Rouge and shot Shadow a dark look. "Dr. Robotnik is still missing." Thanks to you, his gaze relayed accusingly.
"And? You think he's in here?" Rouge asked, a generous helping of are you kidding me? sprinkled in her tone as she motioned at the small room. "I think you would have found him by now."
"I think," Stone grouched, "That there's no point in teaming up with a couple of cuddly furballs on some whirlwind adventure. I've had just about enough of those."
He deposited himself stubbornly on his lumpy bed, staring ahead and crossing his arms. He didn't bother explaining how there was no adventure he wanted to be a part of without Ivo.
"Well, that's that. Come on, spy."
"First of all: it's Rouge," she replied to the impatient hedgehog, "You really are bad with names, aren't you? And second of all…"
Rouge's voice lowered to a soft, motherly timbre, momentarily leaving her work with the lock to approach the scientist. Stone looked up in surprise as she set a comforting hand on his knee.
"If Shadow survived, don't you think there's a chance your doctor may have, as well? Don't you want to find out for sure?"
Shadow's gaze narrowed. He was tempted to, but didn't point out the low likelihood of Dr. Robotnik's survival. No sense in being cruel. Who was he to rob the man of any hope, no matter how faint, when he struggled to retain his own regarding Maria?
Stone released a shuddering breath, starting to shake his head, seeming to have already accepted the foregone conclusion Shadow himself didn't voice. "Dr. Robotnik. He's…"
Rouge's grip tightened, pleading eyes finding Stone's. "What's the harm in trying?"
Repeated disappointment, Stone wanted to respond. Soul-wrenching, mind-numbing, earth-shattering heartbreak the likes of which he couldn't go through again. He had already experienced Ivo's last broadcast. He had already watched as the genius had saved the less-than-deserving planet; couldn't tear his eyes away from the implosion that must have claimed the life of the only man who had ever understood him. All he craved in the quiet, surreal moments of the intrusive memories and pathetically hopeful ideations was to sit with Ivo again, dutifully listening to his plans for a perfect world over lattes with steamed Austrian goat milk.
Shadow recognized the pain in the man's eyes: the morose, empty gaze. After a moment's hesitation, he spoke.
"You should leave this place, Agent Stone. I know the pain of losing someone you care for too soon. If you stay and sit with it, the pain you feel will only compound. It will consume you. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by joining us."
He drew no comparisons. He made no belittling comments. Shadow only offered what he could: a way forward. It was the same small step he himself was trying to take – though on a far different path.
Stone and Rouge stared at the looming hedgehog, who stubbornly turned his gaze away.
"Enough wasting time," he ordered, the pair below reeling from the abrupt switch in demeanor, "We still have one more stop. If he's coming with, then he needs to come now."
Rouge looked to Stone questioningly, letting him decide.
The scientist nodded with a resolution he didn't yet quite feel. "Alright. What's this 'last stop'?"
Rouge spared an appreciative glance at Shadow, whose eyes were still focused anywhere but at the two, before adopting her chipper disposition. "All that's left is to steal back Shadow's Chaos Emerald," Rouge explained, striding over to finish her work on the cell's electric lock, now able to access it from inside the room and making quick work of hacking it.
Stone gawked.
"You two have been lucky, seeing how this base is a sensitive compartmented information facility," he began slowly.
"No cameras allowed in a SCIF," Rouge clarified upon glimpsing Shadow's confused look.
"So you haven't been caught yet," Stone continued. "But if G.U.N. has a Chaos Emerald in their possession, they undoubtedly will have it locked down with stringent security measures."
"Well, then we'd better be prepared to run," Shadow commented.
"And plus," Rouge tittered, "I may have prepared a little distraction before breaking Shadow out."
A punctual demonstration proved her point. Stone's rescuers ducked out of sight as a guard entered the prison, sprinting to the watch station and speaking animatedly with the two soldiers inside. After a brief conversation, all three of them raced out together, abandoning their post and leaving an unmanned lockup behind.
A click echoed in the space. Rouge grinned as she finished hacking the room's lock and pushed the door wide open.
"Well, that's convenient," Stone said.
"I can't believe we're back on 12-hour shifts," a guard groaned. He whirled around in his office chair with a disgruntled sigh, the wall of monitors transmitting multiple feeds of the sealed Chaos Emerald spinning in and out of sight. "And they didn't give us any notice. Just: boom, thought your shift was almost over? Surprise, six more hours. Bro, we had the perfect schedule. Six-hour days; three days on; three days off. We have plenty of manning to stay on 6s; so what's Rockwell's problem?"
"I heard she reassigned a ton of guys for guard duty down in the basement, so we got stuck with longer shifts to cover."
The first guard perked. "The basement? No way."
"Way," his buddy confirmed, yawning. "Steve said they got one of the aliens off the ship and are gonna interrogate it."
"You're telling me while I'm stuck here, bored to tears watching a stupid space rock, they get to torture a little green alien? That is so unfair."
"Just be happy you're not the one getting questioned. I heard Rockwell's taking lead."
They both shivered.
"Well, I'm getting some coffee. You want anything?"
"Yeah, get me an iced vanilla latte."
"Yeah, right after I pull an espresso machine out of my ass."
"Hey, didn't the prisoner used to own a coffee shop? Get him to make it. Tell him we'll take time off his sentence."
The duo laughed jovially while the second guard stepped out of the overseer's station to fetch them caffeine from the breakroom. The other was still chuckling to himself and still facing away from the dozens of monitors. He didn't catch a certain 'little green alien' teleporting in, lifting the glass, swiping the Emerald, and teleporting right back out.
"A glass box? They couldn't even spring for vibration sensors? Lasers? What kind of rinky-dink operation are they running here?" Stone scoffed in disbelief, casting a judgmental glare over the poorly fortified gallery in question. The escapees stood on an empty catwalk overlooking the area.
"Neat trick," Rouge told Shadow with an approving look. "Anyone ever tell you you'd be a great spy?"
"Should I submit my resume through you?"
"Dude!"
The trio froze in place as the second guard rushed back into the overseer's booth.
"Somebody brought in a foosball table to the breakroom! You gotta check this out!"
The group sighed in relief, all glancing at each other. Rouge smiled smugly.
"Man, what?! Sure thing! Hang on, let me grab my keys—"
The first guard, who had contented himself with reading a magazine while waiting for his coffee, finally turned around to face the camera feeds. His eyes bulged as they locked on to the wall of screens, all broadcasting the empty case where the Chaos Emerald should have been. "H-Hey!"
"Nice distraction," Shadow sneered as Rouge bashfully grinned and shrugged.
"It worked until it didn't," she argued weakly.
The soldier repeatedly mashed his finger into the emergency button, panic blooming across his face – either due to the powerful artifact's mysterious disappearance, or at the prospect of losing his job, was unclear.
Alarms wailed to life.
The three sprinted down the catwalk, Rouge leading them to a staircase that returned them to ground level. The two guards spotted the motley crew as they dashed down an adjacent hallway, shouting directions into their radios as they took off in pursuit.
"Unbelievable," Shadow groaned.
"You know…this kind of proves our point," Stone added, already regretting not using the prison's gym – specifically the treadmills – as he fought to keep up, his panting ragged and a stitch forming in his side. "How'd you get…a tabletop game delivered…if you don't work for them?"
"I'm what you'd call a contractor," Rouge crooned, pulling an eyeroll out of the hedgehog.
"We don't have time for this," Shadow insisted. "Rouge, what's the fastest way out of here?"
She led them around a corner.
"Dead ahead a thousand yards, then a left," she pointed. With the clock ticking, he had no choice but to take her for her word, but a meaningful glare was enough to insinuate the consequences if she was lying.
She waved him off. "Consider my contract with G.U.N. terminated," she teased, missing a telltale flick of Shadow's ear as his sensitive hearing picked up an all-too-familiar sound.
Rouge gasped as Shadow lunged for her. "What are you do—?!"
He tackled her from where she was floating, hooking an arm around her waist to drag her down. His hands roughly gripped her back, keeping the bat locked in a firm hold. He ducked, using his body as a shield while a laser whizzed through the spot Rouge had been occupying seconds before, close enough to nearly singe his fur. Body coiled like a spring, Shadow dove to seek shelter behind the wall of the intersecting hallway, the befuddled bat in tow. He bluntly deposited her and poked his head out to assess their assailants, expecting to see the two guards that had failed to protect the Chaos Emerald.
Instead, a squad of broad, stocky gunner robots faced them at the end of the hallway they'd just come from. The lead sentry, a blocky "101" painted on its side, retook aim with its laser rifle.
Stone gasped indignantly. "Those are DR. ROBOTNIK'S designs!" he roared.
Instead of immediately taking cover, Stone looked for all the world like he was about to take the mechs on single-handedly. His outcry drew their attention, the four bots swiveling together in terrifying synchronization to refocus their aim on the human. Shadow reached out and grabbed Stone by the wrist, yanking him alongside him and Rouge as the gunners opened fire. The sound of echoing, harmonized marching alerted the escapees to the squad's slow but steady advance.
"Both of you," Shadow yelled over the din of thundering artillery, "Run. NOW."
They didn't need to be told twice. Shadow sprinted out first to draw the gunfire, giving the others time to rush down the hallway Rouge had indicated, staying low to dodge any stray shots.
Shadow dodged back and forth through a quick succession of teleports, evading the constant stream of lasers and bullets and making his way towards the attackers. He threw himself into the four sentries, tearing through the team with ruthless efficiency. He pounced and grabbed the closest one's arm and built-in machine gun, grunting as he swiveled the barrel in an arc that sent a spray of rounds into the rest. Two collapsed, torn circuitry smoking, instantly incapacitated.
He teleported away before the remaining pair could retaliate. He reappeared behind the lead sentry, grabbing its head and twisting violently with a battle cry. He ripped out its processor, a blast of sparks from ruptured wiring showering over him. It whirred feebly and buckled beneath him. Shadow reared his arm back and threw its disconnected head at the final mech, the projectile blasting cleanly through the robot's chest and lodging snuggly into the wall behind it. It dropped with a resounding crash.
With an unimpressed scoff, baffled by what was supposed to have been G.U.N.'s 'stringent' security measures, he turned away to race after Rouge and Stone.
Shadow jolted as he felt cold metal clamp down on his extended wrist. He tried to jerk away, turning back to see the headless "101" clasping onto him in a last-ditch effort at capture. He casually ripped its offending limb off, bending back each of its jagged claws to free himself. But as he did so, he discovered what the robot had tried to detain him with.
"It's a suppression cuff," Rockwell leered, stepping out from around the junction she had taken cover behind. She had sent her accompanying guards to fetch more back-up, no one having answered their harried radio calls. Her confidence had momentarily wavered when her sentries were defeated, but the application of one of the cuffs gave her a boost of reassurance.
Her weapon was drawn and leveled at the hedgehog. "Courtesy of Gerald Robotnik," she continued, making the alien twitch. "They're a little different from your inhibitor rings. These don't just diminish your Chaos energy." Her eyes glinted with steely satisfaction. "They cut your powers off entirely."
Shadow gave the cuff a sharp pull, but it didn't budge. His glare shifted to the Commander.
"I offered to help," he growled through grit teeth.
"The only 'help' we need from you is the information you're hiding," Rockwell snarled, "I have no doubt you're the reason we're in this latest mess." She moved her finger to the trigger, training the gun sights on Shadow's chest.
He sailed forward, barely dodging a tranquilizer dart due to his impeded movement. He wobbled unsteadily, the surge of speed he was expecting startlingly absent.
But even with his new restriction, he was still faster than Rockwell.
He weaved out of the path of another dart and skidded to a halt in front of the woman. Before she could grab him, Shadow shifted onto his back leg, crouching and quickly pivoting to sweep the Commander's legs out from beneath her with a powerful kick. She gasped, bracing for the fall—
—that never came.
She blinked, realizing her torso was suspended just off the ground. She looked down to where Shadow had caught her by the front of her jacket. Once he was sure she had processed what he'd done, Shadow released his hold and unceremoniously dropped her the rest of the short distance to the ground. The original fall almost certainly would have resulted in a severe head or back injury. Now, thanks to his interception, only her pride was stung.
"Sorry, Commander," he said, "I don't have time to play twenty questions with you."
He picked up her tranq gun and lowered it at her leg, sending a shot into her thigh. She gasped with incredulity, but almost instantly felt the effects of the drug, chin dropping onto her chest. Her face turned tomato red as he stashed the weapon and frisked her, searching for his cuff's key. He stepped deftly out of the way as she tried to swipe at him. No key, he realized with no small amount of irritation. He had no choice but to figure out the cuff later.
"You'll pay for this," she promised, words slurring from the sedative.
"It's nothing personal, Commander. 'It's a matter of national security,'" Shadow told her, a faint smirk spreading across his tan muzzle as he echoed her cold words back at her.
He lifted onto the balls of his feet and sharply brought down his heels, activating his shoes' rockets, then darting off. Rockwell tried to stagger to a stand in a half-hearted attempt at pursuit, too dizzy from the tranquilizer to make much progress. Then, she was tugged back.
She turned to see the problem. "Oh, come on!"
At some point during Shadow's pat down, he had shackled her wrist to the smoldering scrapheap that had been one of her sentry bots.
Rockwell snatched her radio from her belt, noting with building fury that he had taken and used her own handcuffs against her.
She screamed into the walkie-talkie's speaker: "THE ALIEN ESCAPED! SECTOR FOUR'S EXIT! HURRY!"
Rouge had devolved into kicking the exit hatch's terminal, which had rudely refused to be successfully hacked; her attacks intensified, as though the harder she struck it, the more it'd want to comply.
"Let! Us! Out!" she seethed, bits of metal and glass flying from the decimated console.
"Shadow can teleport us when he gets here," Stone reassured her, though each time he checked over his shoulder, Shadow still hadn't— There!
Both turned as they heard the unmistakable swish of Shadow's Air Shoes skating across the floor. He drifted around the corner, but as they waited expectantly for him to slow to a stop, he continued approaching at full speed. The deafening clamor of the response team trailing mere moments behind the hedgehog revealed why.
"Get out of the way!" he boomed. Stone and Rouge leapt aside.
Using his momentum, Shadow charged forward and slammed into the sealed exit, his digits digging into the invisible seams of the smooth metal. He bared his fangs and heaved. His Chaos energy completely restricted, and barely empowered by the Chaos Emerald as a result, his body shook as he pried the towering titanium doors apart using only his inherent might. Rouge and Stone watched in mutual shock at the display of strength.
"Go!" he croaked. Rouge and Stone ducked under Shadow's trembling arms and through the narrow opening as Shadow held the doors in place. The hydraulics shrieked in protest, struggling to shut the hatch again. He managed to wait until the G.U.N. troops were but a few steps away.
"Stop right there, freak!" one of the soldiers hollered, springing forward with an electric prod.
Shadow glanced over his shoulder, red eyes flashing at the insult. He bolted forward, the doors snapping shut with a dangerous squeal in the face of his would-be assailant. The soldier's helmet bounced off the metal, prod flying out of his hands. He buckled to the deck with a groan.
Shadow, Stone and Rouge caught their breath while the muffled protests on the other side of the door raged. Stone was doubled over, hands on his knees, while Rouge offered a steadying hand to Shadow as he swaggered. He didn't immediately protest, as his new accessory completely disoriented and drained him.
"Souvenir?" she asked, nodding her head at the cuff.
"Parting gift from the Commander," he conceded. "Couldn't get the key."
"What's it do?"
"Can't you teleport us up there?" Stone moaned, distracted from the pair's exchange by about six stories worth of spiraling staircase they still had to ascend to reach the surface. Shadow hadn't realized they were underground; but he became painfully aware of this fact as he craned his neck to follow Stone's gaze up the narrow, winding shaft.
He raised the wrist sporting the suppression cuff in response. Though Rouge understood, Stone shrugged, a mute 'That REALLY doesn't answer my question' scrawled across his frowning features.
"We're walking," Shadow sighed.
"Well, you two are," Rouge replied, wings flexing. She leapt into the air as they stared after her.
"See you boys up there!"
A foosball table.
Purportedly highly trained, seasoned special forces personnel at a secret underground black site in New Mexico had been ultimately thwarted by a foosball table.
It was almost too ridiculous. She could have laughed if she thought it wouldn't devolve into more screaming.
Rockwell stood stiffly at sector four's exit as a platoon worked diligently to cut through the broken hatch, its doors stuck in place thanks to disconnected hydraulics and devastated inner mechanisms. She glared blankly ahead, processing the disaster that had been her day.
The investigation was still underway, but details were already revealing how the escape had unfolded.
The lab where Project Shadow had been held in cryostasis had been accessed using one of her agent's digital certificates, who vehemently denied any involvement.
A server room had had scores of information illegally downloaded from a terminal, logged into with the cryotech supervisor's credentials. The man sobbed as he begged for a polygraph test to prove he had also had nothing to do with the escape.
The prison guards argued they had seen Stone talking to himself but hadn't seen anyone else in the room with him. After just a few questions, they admitted they hadn't left their kiosk to fully inspect and secure the cell of the site's only prisoner. They had instead left the prison unattended to play in the breakroom.
The morons responsible for monitoring the Chaos Emerald – both firmly at the top of her in-progress "TO BE FIRED" list – explained they'd seen Rouge and Shadow accompany Robotnik's lackey when stealing the artifact. They initially failed to mention that the stolen Emerald was all but handed to the prisoners on a silver platter, busy as they were blathering in the overseer's station.
And then, when Rockwell thought she simply didn't have the mental capacity to take on any more bad news:
A soldier reported a missing toolkit, something he noted while retrieving the apparatus being used for the current effort to unseal sector four's exit. A missing toolkit that hadn't been properly reported as such on the inventory sheets in the site's logistics center. Inventory sheets that were logged daily.
It was such a small additional and overall insignificant detail, but it was damn near the final straw.
Everyone quaked when sharing their personal perspectives, each expecting to be on the receiving end of the Commander's untold wrath.
But their failures were her failures.
If Commander Walters had taught her anything, it was that a team was only as good as its leader.
So Rockwell simply accepted the facts and dismissed them all, their pending punishments dependent on the conclusion of the inquiry still being conducted by G.U.N.'s security office. Regardless of those outcomes, she intended to dole out her own punishment in the form of heaps of unpaid, after-hours remedial training and extra duty.
All the pieces had come together like a very costly, very annoying puzzle; except for how and why Rouge, one of her newer G.U.N. agents, had inexplicably decided to run off with dangerous prisoners. The extent of the bat's involvement was clear, but her motivations were not; though Rockwell was beginning to suspect all these creatures were in on some overarching, dastardly plot.
She fumed silently, still as a statue as she stared at the doors. She saw vague imprints where the hedgehog had forced his way through. A deep-seated rage festered in her chest at the sight. But before she could reflect any longer on the humiliating day's events, a flicker of movement caught her eye. At first, she thought it was a stray spark from the laser cutting through the door. But no – as she stepped forward for a closer look, she sneered in ferocious delight as she recognized the object lodged in the seam of the exit hatch.
A black quill.
A/N: Continuing the trend of the Chaos Emeralds inexplicably being super easy to steal (shoutout to Wade and his hockey stick lol)
I have the rough outline for this story sketched out, so I'll be working to update this weekly!