Disclaimer- I don't own anything. Sonic the Hedgehog and all characters belong to SEGA.
Shadow cautiously stuck his head out the door to glance down the corridor, all the doors were closed, either in use or unoccupied. After turning the light off in the room he was in and locking the door, the hedgehog made his way down the hall in the direction that Dr. Wilson said section Four-AB was.
The corridor joined a hall at the end. The left lead to other corridors and halls, but to the right, the hall was only about three feet long and had a sign hanging above a metal reinforce door that read "Section Four-AB". The door was locked and could only be opened by a personnel ID card, fortunately for Shadow, he could use chaos control.
With a snap of his fingers, the Ultimate Lifeform reappeared on the other side of the door in a bright light blue flash. Shadow found himself in another long corridor but this time there were large viewing windows beside each door. Cautiously making his way to the first viewing window, the ebony and crimson hedgie carefully looked inside to see a purple mobian fox, who appeared to be in her mid twenties, restrained to a hospital bed with glassy eyes. She was hooked up to a heart monitor and two IV lines, one in each arm. Beside the mobian stood a so-called nurse with a tray full of syringes that he was administering into the IV ports one at a time.
'Do no harm, hmph.' The angry hedgehog thought. 'That oath is a joke here.'
Looking through the windows across the hall was a green bear that had to be at least in his fifties on a ventilator, clearly close to death. And every window Shadow gazed in looked the same. A mobian, young or old, strapped down to a bed with glassy, glazed eyes or dying.
As the GUN agent continued to search for his partner, his fears grew as to what condition he would find her in. But Rouge wasn't in any of the rooms.
'Where have they taken Rouge?' Shadow asked himself as he gazed into the last room to see it didn't even have a bed. 'Dr. Wilson was too afraid to lie to me.'
"Yes, Jeremiah. The white bat was quite fascinating." The Ultimate Lifeform heard a woman's voice proclaim excitedly from down a conjoining hall.
"Was your experiment a success?" A male with a scottish accent inquired.
Shadow quickly ducked behind an empty nurse's station desk and crouched low as the two humans swiftly walked unknowingly by him.
"Yes, a complete success. The boss will be pleased to learn this." The female replied.
The black and red mobian carefully peered over the desk at the two humans in lab coats.
"That he will be. Wonder if he'll give you a salary raise?" Her tall blonde headed companion asked.
"I hope so." She excitedly cried. The woman was slim with long flowing jet black hair. "Hey, do you want to get pizza for supper? They have some in the cafeteria, and brownies for dessert." She asked as she pushed the elevator's down button, standing to wait only for the doors to open immediately.
"That sounds good." The scottishman answered as they entered the elevator. "Wonder if there's nuts in the brownies? I love nu..." The the elevator's doors closed, cutting off the rest of the man's sentence.
"So Rouge is in this section. But where?" Shadow whispered as he stood back up straight only to have to quickly crouch back down as he heard someone coming.
The dark hedgehog could hear slow steady taps of high heels and squealing rolling wheels coming closer than going by him. Piercing ruby eyes peeked over the desk again, the Ultimate Lifeform watched as a nurse unlocked the door to the empty room and pushed the bed in before closing the door. Unfortunately, Shadow wasn't able to see who was on the bed.
The hedgie decided the safest thing to do was to wait for the nurse to leave before even daring to approach the window. After ten minutes, the nurse finally exited the room and relocking the door. Then she entered the elevator, leaving the halls once again empty.
The agent came out oif his hiding place and quickly approached the viewing window. Inside was a white large eared mobian that was unconscious. They was hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV in the left arm.
His search was over. Laying on the bed was Rouge the Bat.
Shadow hastily chaos controlled, reappearing beside the bat's bed. Unnaturally still with no makeup and her fur tufts a bit of a mess, laid his fellow agent. Her combat clothes had also been replaced with a hospital gown.
Though the Ultimate Lifeform knew Rouge wouldn't like the fact that she had been relieved of her outfit for a plain light blue gown and all her makeup removed, his real concern was what these humans here did to her while they were separated, getting them both out of this place alive, and then report to Commander Tower ASAP. First, he needed to somehow wake the albino bat from her obvious drug induced slumber.
Slightly shaking her by the shoulders, Shadow quietly whispered her name in her ear but received no response. The midnight black hedgehog then began to shake his partner more firmly but still there was no sign of Rouge arousing.
Shadow removed his inhibitor ring on his right wrist, and then placed his hand to hover above Rouge chest, flooding her body with chaos energy. The Ultimate Lifeform could feel his chaos leaving his body through his hand as it entered the female mobian bat, slowly draining him of his life force.
The hedgehog knew he could not afford to lose too much of his energy because he would surely need it to escape, especially since he didn't have a chaos emerald with him. But Shadow also knew that he couldn't escape without Rouge. He could not and would not leave her here in the hands of such cruel humans. So he continued to push his chaos into her system.
A soft moan was made followed by movement, Rouge's eyes began to flutter then finally opened only a slit, staring ahead at nothing. She sluggishly turned her head toward the dark hedgehog beside her but stared straight through him before slowly closing them again. Shadow pushed one last burst of chaos energy into the bat's chest before removing his hand, afraid to drain his body anymore, but it appeared to be enough for Rouge opened her eyes again seeming to be a little more alert. At first when she saw him, her face was etched with confusion, then recognition quickly replaced it as she recognized her friend.
"Shad-" Rouge started to say only to erupt into a coughing fit. Thankfully, there was a pitcher of water and a foam cup sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. Shadow quickly filled up the cup then helped Rouge drink as he held up her head.
When she was finished, the agent laid the bat's head back down as he set the cup back on the nightstand. He waited patiently as Rouge fought to regain her breath.
"Thanks, hon." Rouge whispered breathlessly.
"Hmm. We need to escape. Can you walk?" Shadow inquired as he began to unstrap the white mobian's arms and legs, unbinding her from the bed.
"I...can try." The spy answered, but looked doubtfully into her partner's ruby eyes. "But first, I need this IV and heart monitor removed before I even attempt to stand." She looked down at the IV in the crook of her arm, and her sensitive hearing picking up the sounds of a steady heartbeat coming from the monitor hanging on the wall behind her.
"I'll remove them." The hedgehog offered as he walked over to the viewing window and pulled the curtains close so their activities could stay secret.
"Thank you, handsome." Rouge replied as the Ultimate Lifeform returned to her side to remove the heart monitor attachments.
As Shadow was removing the first attachment, he asked, "Have you woken up here before now?"
"Yes."
"Do you have any recollection of waking up and do you have any knowledge of what they did to you?"
The bat sat in silence for a moment, recalling when she had first woken up, then slowly began to tell Shadow what all happened.