Well, this chapter certainly went several places from my original starting point. It started serious and got progressively sillier with each draft. It feels a little misplaced but I felt cutting the silly bits would make the whole house of cards fall. Oh well, canon already negates some of the drama anyway.

Anyway, thanks for review number two, even though I have nothing specific to say... except I'm sure you'll be happy to watch them get a lot MORE acquainted. Otherwise, I'm happy to see that only two chapters in, this story has got more follows than Angels did its entire run (though it's also kind of sad.) Hopefully the follows will convert to favorites. It's never too late to represent and fav Angels either.

It was all over. The Eclipse Cannon, the Biolizard, and the entire Ark itself had been stopped. For a change, even Dr. Robotnik was content to peacefully coexist in the same room as his mortal enemies. After the initial celebration of averted global destruction, everyone simply stood and waited for the heroes to return to the room. Eventually, Sonic reappeared. Alone. Wearing an uncharacteristically serious face, he took only a few steps into the room before stopping. Nobody spoke for several seconds. Rouge was the one to finally step forward and ask the obvious question, "Where is Shadow?" In answer, the hedgehog simply held out what appeared to be a ring to the bat, who slowly took it. The implications were obvious.

Everyone remained silent. Amy was the first to move, walking away from the group to stand by one of the walls. Tails' ears could hear her faintly sobbing. Rouge was holding up better as she simply stared at the ring- evidently a memento of the black hedgehog. Sonic remained by the bat's side. Knuckles looked solemn. Robotnik, who had kept distance from the group, was unreadable. As for himself... he didn't know. Judging by their faces, he was probably the unhappiest male in the room, but otherwise felt seemingly... nothing. Was that weird? Maybe grief would hit later? If Sonic and Knuckles were keeping strong, he should too, right?

One by one everyone else scattered: first Knuckles, then Rouge, and Sonic last, sharing an understanding look with Tails before leaving him alone by default to go straight to Amy's side. One by one they drifted back together in pairs. Sonic and Amy were expected. Less expectedly, Rouge eventually made her way over to Knuckles- maybe because they just happened to be on the same side of the room? Completely unexpectedly, Tails found himself in the company of Robotnik. Why it happened would forever remain a mystery. Could Robotnik have actually felt... lonely? Despite the uncomfortable nature of their personal histories, their conversation was surprisingly sincere.

During a lull, he looked around the room and took stock of everyone else. They had all fallen into silence as well and appeared to now be simply staring out one of the giant windows lining either side of the circular room. Robotnik was still near him of course. Sonic and Amy were on his other side, further away- it was hard to imagine THAT would have ever been the case in any situation. Knuckles was even further away, the loner standing at the window on the opposite side of the room all by himself now. Rouge was nowhere to be seen, having snuck out in a manner befitting a master thief. He had noticed her putting some distance on Knuckles to be by herself at some point- though self-conscious about it, curiosity led him to listen in on their conversation. It had sounded friendly enough. How long ago did she leave? Where had she gone? Should he even be concerned or was he just being intrusive?

Robotnik had drifted away since their conversation ended. That implied he was free to drift away as well- blowing off even a madman otherwise would still be considered rude. Stepping away from the window, he softly but casually walked across the room so as not to draw attention to himself. If anyone noticed him leaving they didn't react. Space WAS a hell of a captivating view. Once in the hall, he took a sniff and picked up the freshest scent of her perfume.

She hadn't gone far. The trail led to a room just down the hall. Inside, Rouge stood at yet another window, though she didn't seem to be very interested in the view. She was holding the ring in her hand, slowly turning it over and over. Shadow's death had clearly been a bigger blow than her brave face suggested. He simply stood back, not knowing if he should just respect her wish right now and leave her alone to cope. Or was that the wrong thing to do? Did she want company but couldn't ask? Could he actually even provide what she wanted anyway?

Her voice startled him. "Are you sneaking up on me again?" She didn't turn to look back. Had she noticed him come in?

Unsure how to respond, he chose to match flippancy. "Not if you already know I'm here."

There was a long pause before she said, "Well, I do, so just come over here already."

The decision made for him, he approached and stood beside her at the window. She still didn't look his way. He avoided more than sidelong glances himself, joining her gaze out into the galaxy beyond. SAY SOMETHING. But what? He began talking before thinking of anything. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm managing," she said simply. It was a vague but fitting enough answer. It didn't look like she had cried. "How about you?"

"Me too." He obviously wasn't as affected as her but there was no point saying it aloud, or at least not directly. "I... didn't know Shadow... I never actually met him..." I didn't even SEE him outside of that battle from a distance...

"I knew him less than two days. He was trying to destroy the world, but then he ended up saving it. He saved me back at the GUN base too. I'd gotten trapped and he rescued me before it all blew up. So actually, he saved me twice."

He took it all in; she had experienced a lot. Silence passed between them for at least a minute. He felt like he should say something but couldn't think of anything. He felt like he should do something. Having no other ideas, he reached out with his left hand and put it on her right shoulder. She didn't react to the contact... until she reached out with her right arm and pulled him by the respective shoulder against her side. She didn't say anything. He didn't say anything. Words didn't seem needed now. He was just going to stand here as long as she wanted him to. With his hand now awkwardly angled, he moved the entire arm to mirror her embrace.

They held firm for several minutes before his ears faintly picked up a burst of voices, one of them asking, "Tails?" The voice- Sonic's- called again, considerably louder and more concerned than before. "Tails! You around here, bro?"

The entwinement broke off at the disturbance. "Yeah!" he called back while moving towards the door.

"Good!" A flash of blue streaked past the doorway. There was a squeak of sneakers, then Sonic slid back into view, not quite the lightspeed blur he claimed to be capable of, but impressively fast nonetheless. "There you are!" The hedgehog looked far too relieved to have been just simply wondering where Tails had wandered off.

"What?" the fox asked with concern. "Did something happen?"

"No... not yet... You aren't the only one who snuck off. Eggman's gone, too. He could be up to anything."

Knuckles' voice was heard approaching. "And don't forget about that slippery batgirl too!"

"Uh..." Tails nervously began, "no, Rouge is right here with me now."

A look passed between the two older boys. "Why?" the echidna asked suspiciously. "What is she doing with you?"

He was racking his brain for a response that wasn't so personal when Rouge suddenly came up behind to thwart him. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Her usual sly manner had returned, with no trace of her previous mood.

The fox blushed at the quip's suggestion of far much more than the mere hug he already tried to avoid. "Rouge!" The hedgehog let out a nervous laugh. The echidna pointed at the bat. "Beware of her, young fox! She is a deceiver and a thief!" Apparently the two were not on as good terms as it seemed earlier.

The fox put up his hands. "Knuckles, wait!" The echidna paused- if it was to oblige, he was going to be waiting a while. Tails' instinct was to defend her, but he kept quiet because he was in the awkward position of not knowing exactly what had happened.

Nobody had to wait long before Sonic stepped between the aggrieved parties. "We can do all this later! Let's go find Eggman first! Okay?" Without waiting for anyone to answer he said, "Good! Let's split up and search!" He then physically guided the echidna into a suggested direction that was not coincidentally also the opposite direction.

"Alright, fine! But don't push me ever again, you..." Knuckles lost steam upon seeing that Sonic was already halfway down the hall and clearly not listening.

The fox turned to the bat as they began walking in their own 'suggested' direction. "So... I know it's a little late to ask now, but how exactly did you get caught up in all this? Did GUN send you in?"

"You're a smart boy, so I assume that you're not actually thinking I chose to work with Robotnik willingly."

"I know that much," he said slightly defensively. "But I was wondering..." It was time to ask a question that he didn't expect to like the answer to. "How exactly do you know Knuckles?"

"Oh, he's just a friend," she answered easily without even looking his way, appearing nonchalant... or evasive.

"Come on, Rouge. It didn't sound like you two were 'just friends' back there. I saw you both together earlier in the other room too."

"We were just talking."

"Come on, I KNOW that something else happened between you two."

"Tails, nothing happened, I promise."

He bristled. That was the wrong word to say right now. "How long have you known him?"

"I just met him today, or yesterday by now?" she answered uncertainly, as if she had lost track of time during the whole event.

It was a nice try, but he knew what the right answer was. Time to stop being subtle. "Don't lie to me, Rouge. You know I'm not stupid. Or are you hoping I'm naïve?" Her ears flattened in a clear sign of guilt. "I know you met longer ago than that. I already heard directly from him what happened. He didn't mention specific details, but it's not hard to figure out the rest of the story. I WANTED to believe you wouldn't..." She stopped walking and hung her head in defeat at this point. "You did it. And the fact that he's one of my best friends just makes it even worse."

"Believe me, I would never have done it if I'd known that."

"That's not really the point. What hurts is that you did it. You promised me you'd never do it again... Were there any other times behind my back?"

"No," she said firmly, looking him straight in the eyes before hers fell again. "Tails, that was the only time, honestly. I admit I've thought way too much about it, but that was the only time I went through with it."

"Stealing the Master Emerald wasn't part of this mission, was it?" He didn't know why he even asked at this point.

She grimaced. "No. That was all my doing." While coming clean was to her credit, she would just be digging herself deeper to try otherwise. For all her skills as a spy, lying was shockingly NOT a strong trait. She could feign calmness when not looking his way but when face to face she oozed guilt. Even if she could craft a good lie, her body language would have ruined it. Or was it that she only couldn't lie to HIM? "I saw a nice gem that I thought I could get away with stealing... But I should have figured if there was one of our kind on this planet that you would have already known them... I'm sorry, Tails."

Maybe he WAS naïve, but he believed her now. "I forgive you, Rouge, but I'm not the person you really need to apologize to." After a pause, he thought to ask, "Have you apologized to him?"

"Not well enough, I'll admit." He had a feeling that response meant that she hadn't but didn't voice it. A distant bang shook the entire Ark. "What was that?" Rouge asked, more than a little worried.

"No idea, but we'd better go find out!" He took the lead in running for what was presumably the main control room earlier. Sonic was already there, naturally. But he beat the hedgehog to the question: "What happened?"

"I don't know!" Sonic answered. "I was hoping you would!"

"Hopefully I can find out." He went to the main terminal in the room to see if it would tell him anything. There were a couple of alerts displayed, one of which was for an incoming message. Considering the timing, checking it out seemed a good place to start.

A video feed opened: Robotnik, in a very good mood. "Ah, so all of you are there? Good."

"What have you done, Eggman?!" Sonic demanded.

"Well, if you could just shut up for five consecutive seconds and wait, I would have told you, you insufferable pincushion. Now anyway, you see, I snuck off and shut down the life support system some time ago. That's the device that provides oxygen to this space station, in case you're wondering. Then I planted a bomb on it. It HAS blown up by now, I trust?" He paused to survey their reactions. "It did? Good. Boy, would my face sure be red now if it hadn't. Needless to say, you're all going to be running out of oxygen sometime soon."

Knuckles jumped in now. "But by destroying the Ark's air supply, you will also not be able to survive!"

Everyone BESIDES Knuckles sighed. "I'm not on the Ark anymore, you imbecile."

"Oh... Your underhanded plan is sound then," the echidna warrior said in a defeated yet still oddly dignified tone.

"Yes it is. I have already left in my personal shuttle, and jettisoned the one that you arrived in as well- which was ALSO actually mine, I might add- so you cannot escape. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for my troubles to go away!" The mad doctor began to laugh maniacally.

As the laughter started to die down, Tails tried to appeal to some tiny piece of Robotnik that may or may not have existed. "After everything we just did, you're going to do this?"

The laughter stopped fully. "After everything I'VE done? Of course! Putting a hole in the moon, blowing up a military base, releasing a god of destruction, and conquering parts of the world? Were you really planning to just let me go scot-free after all that?"

Everyone in the room exchanged glances. It was admittedly a very good question. The international court of justice system existed for a reason. Sonic ultimately answered. "Well... we hadn't actually thought that far ahead..."

"Speak for yourself, hedgehog!" Knuckles interjected. "The punishment for Robotnik's crimes is clear in my society. He should have all his limbs broken and be left out to become an offering to-"

Sonic shushed the outburst. "Whoa there Knux. We don't even HAVE those things on Earth."

"We can easily transport him-"

"NO!"

"Uh, guys?" Tails chimed in. "Can we focus here?"

"Ah, Tails... the only smart one among you," Robotnik mused. "I do regret to snuff out a fellow great mind. I would be willing to take just you aboard my shuttle... if you bring the Chaos Emeralds as fare..."

His response was automatic and snarled with venom. "No way, Eggman."

The doctor shrugged. "Oh well. That's fine too. Goodbye." The video feed abruptly ended.

A hand landed on his right shoulder. "Nice answer bro. You didn't even hesitate," Sonic said proudly. Another hand clapped onto his upper back. "Indeed," Knuckles agreed from his other side. "Despite your young age, you would choose to die with honor alongside your friends rather than surrender." Rouge stepped around front and patted his head. "You're so brave..." Mercifully, Amy abstained from joining in.

"Hey, come on guys," Tails practically whined from the adulation he was drowning in. "We have to get out of here!"

"Way ahead of you, bro," Sonic proclaimed. "The joke's on Fat Boy... I got a way out of here." He held up the Chaos Emeralds.

"How?"

"I can teleport with these things just like with a ring. That's how I escaped from the pod, and how we stopped the Ark."

"Ah..." He hadn't bothered to think about how exactly the Ark had been stopped beyond 'Chaos power'. "You moved it so that it wouldn't hit Earth and just fall back into orbit."

"Right. This should be much simpler though." Sonic's face turned contemplative. "Okay everyone, I don't know exactly how this works, so..." He took a breath before raising his free hand. "...everyone should hold hands here." To nobody's surprise, Amy zoomed to take the offered hand, happily extending her other one out for the next person. Tails, Knuckles, and Rouge all exchanged uncertain looks, lacking Amy's level of enthusiasm.

Their faces gradually settled on different expressions. Rouge was the first, forming one of sly amusement, clearly receptive enough to the idea. Knuckles on the other hand obviously wanted nothing to do with this... nor her. For his part, Tails was just... anxious about how this was all going to work out.

The bat stepped between fox and echidna with hands out. "C'mon boys, there's no need for you two to fight over this. You can BOTH hold one of my hands." Knuckles crossed his arms and turned his head away. Despite the serious act, Tails swore he saw a twitch in the echidna's face. I can sympathize... She really knows how to get under your skin... Rouge looked to him instead, turning her hand over to offer it in a formal manner from lady to gentleman. The act made him blush slightly, but he nonetheless took her hand. "Well, well... It looks like he's got more guts than you, Knuckles. Maybe you can hold his other hand if you're too scared to hold mine."

"Don't be ridiculous! I do not fear ANYTHING!" Knuckles declared.

"Hey!" Sonic interrupted. "Before the oxygen's gone!" Amy was clearly impatient as well, though her glare was focused directly on Rouge. It was a safe bet that she didn't want the bat ANYWHERE near Sonic.

"Exactly," Rouge agreed, then simply reached out and grabbed one of Knuckles' arms by the wrist.

"Hey!" he protested in a less-than-assertive manner. His efforts to resist being pulled along were also surprisingly feeble. In fact, he seemed to be equally as flustered as the young fox could get at times when dealing with her. She must have indeed been a high caliber femme fatale to be able to punch through even the strong front of a mighty warrior like Knuckles. Taking the lead, she pulled the reluctant boys over to the waiting hedgehogs, where Tails took Amy's hand to complete a full link. Now Knuckles just had to sit still for ten more seconds.

There was a flash... then, just like that, they were at Tails' home/workshop, specifically right outside. Knuckles was the first to break from the chain, stomping away as if the whole thing had been an offensive ordeal to him. Tails gently released his hands. There was a tense moment as the remaining members of the circle looked at each other, Rouge the odd one out. Sonic looked uncertain, having only met her once before. Maybe he wasn't even sure she was the same person; the blue hedgehog was shooting the fox glances in what seemed to be a slapdash code for, "Isn't she that girl you worked with at GUN?" and/or, "What's the deal with her?" Tails could only give a subtle shrug in answer. Amy on the other hand, having never met the bat and seemingly not aware that she was a GUN agent, was understandably very suspicious, to say the least.

The mood was not lost on Rouge. "Well... It looks like I should probably be going." She acted aloof, but her tone betrayed that she was hurt by the cold vibe.

"Rouge, wait-" Tails stepped forward but Amy grabbed his arm to pull him back and even moved partially in front of him as if to be a protective barrier. There was no mistaking how she felt. He wanted to speak up and vouch for Rouge, but part of him thought now was NOT a time where cooler heads prevailed. He simply gave the bat an apologetic look. She said nothing back, simply turning around and taking flight. And like that, she was gone.

DVD commentary: Downer ending, huh?

I've got a theme going for the chapter titles... But don't think too hard about them- they don't necessarily have any meaning beyond being creative. Let's see if I stump myself.

I only used one piece of SA2's dialog because I didn't want to just retread.

And as promised, we're moving ahead in the timeline. However, the game timeline after Heroes becomes pretty unimportant so the passage of time is going to be ambiguous. Have fun speculating their ages from here on out! This is probably going to be my only in-game adaptation... though I did have some fun thinking of how I'd deal with Heroes' sequence. I'm going to assume Battle is largely NOT canon because it's so weird and kooky (Tails has a house shaped like his head? Rouge runs a club?) and their interactions don't jive with where I have Rouge and Tails anymore (the Heroes fight likewise.) I gotta admit I enjoyed that dynamic and am really gonna miss it, but that's character development. It's already a little awkward squaring Rouge's continued thievery with my twist friendship of Tails. But I can at least work with the canon that Tails was the one most willing to trust her, making him the logical bridge to the other's acceptance. There's nothing like a little forbidden friendship.

Personal timeline assumption (if it wasn't outright stated): The first Rouge and Knuckles event in SA2 takes place BEFORE everything else. Rouge and Robotnik certainly should be busy doing OTHER things. If I was adapting it, I'd probably just have Knuckles appear and do an expositional flashback since his search isn't really important to the story. It could very well be even a couple full days before Robotnik goes after Shadow. Paramount, give me a call when the time for a reboot comes.

If some of the Tails and Rouge dialog sounded like it was about something ELSE, that's some of the more 'adult-oriented' humor I mentioned. I'm going to have a LOT more fun with that sort of thing. I was originally thinking I'd do a stand-alone chapter where this conversation would unfold and gradually reveal it involved Knuckles... and the theft of the Master Emerald was the punchline. But I doubt I could stretch it out into a decent-sized chapter, so I figured no better place for it than here, but I may have miscalculated. I'll consider moving it to another chapter if it fits- I've also considered a variation that may have more mileage, but again, depends on how things work out. Slight plot hole: Knuckles almost certainly mentioned that the Master Emerald was stolen by a bat thief within earshot of Tails, so he really shouldn't even be asking for the story, but maybe he just wants to hear it from her.

I didn't plan for this chapter to be so humorous, but I couldn't resist trying my writing skills on the other characters, especially with the recent twists of movie Knuckles and Robotnik (who, while given the Jim Carrey treatment, I feel takes after Sonic X Robotnik, albeit with a consistent Adventure-era darker edge- the anime flip-flopped on that.) If I read any Robotnik dialog, it's already a coin toss whether I conjure up Mike's or Jim's voice.

I actually conceptualized some of these scenes way back when I was kicking around how I'd do a Sonic Adventure 3, namely the bit with Robotnik and the hand-holding scene (poor Tails didn't even have the benefit of knowing Rouge...) It would have been the prologue (albeit exactly what Robotnik did hadn't been determined yet, though it would have resulted in the Emeralds being scattered.) As awesome as my story would surely be, I never did get over one problem: my two big ideas for the plot are mutually exclusive to one another.